Trouble at the Little Village School

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘You might get to like it.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘There’ve been times when I thought I wouldn’t like something,’ said the young woman, ‘and when it came to it I got to quite enjoy it. Perhaps you should give it a chance.’

  ‘I don’t ’ave no choice in t’matter,’ sighed Danny.

  ‘You’re only young, Danny,’ said the woman, ‘but in a few more years you’ll be able to decide what you want to do and where you want to live.’

  ‘Aye, I reckon so,’ he murmured.

  ‘And if you don’t like it in the town maybe your grandmother might let you come back and stay here.’

  ‘Naw, she won’t.’

  ‘You can always come out here and visit.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose I could. Anyroad I’ve got to “like it and lump it”, as mi granddad used to say,’ replied the boy. His voice was apprehensive. He gazed, frowning, into the middle distance for a moment, his face wet with rain. ‘Are ya goin’ to be a teacher at t’school?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ replied the young woman, ‘although I do hope I’ll be able to visit.’

  ‘’Ave you got kids?’

  ‘No,’ she replied smiling. ‘There’s just me.’

  ‘Mrs Devine – she’s the ’ead teacher – is great. She likes people comin’ into school. You’ll really like ’er.’

  ‘I’m sure I will if she’s as friendly as you.’

  ‘I’ve got to move schools when I go to live in Clayton,’ he said sadly. ‘I don’t want to leave.’ A sudden lump of misery rose in his throat, as hard and tight as a nut. He tried to control his emotions but his voice betrayed the extent of his sadness. ‘I’m frightened,’ he said quietly.

  The woman rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘I think your granddad would have told you things might not be as bad as they seem at the moment and that they have a way of turning out for the best.’

  Danny rubbed his eyes. ‘I reckon he would have said that,’ he sniffed. ‘Anyroad miss, I’d berrer be mekkin’ tracks. They’ll be wonderin’ where I’ve got to.’

  ‘It’s been nice talking to you, Danny,’ said the woman. ‘I hope we will meet again.’ She held out her hand and he slipped his cold hand into hers.

  ‘I’ll mebbe see you around,’ he said, walking slowly to the small gate. He looked back and gave a small wave. ‘’Bye,’ he shouted.

  What a pleasant young man, thought the woman. She recalled the time when she had been the boy’s age and had gone to live with her mother. This was following her parents’ acrimonious divorce. She had had to leave the attic bedroom she so loved, her friends and her school. She had felt so lonely and been so unhappy and knew how young Danny must be feeling. She walked up the path to the rectory and rang the bell.

  The door opened. ‘Good afternoon,’ said Mrs Atticus. ‘May I help you?’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said the woman. ‘I have an appointment to see the archdeacon.’

  ‘Do come in out of the rain,’ Mrs Atticus told her. The woman came into the hall. ‘Let me take your umbrella. It’s dreadful weather isn’t it, so cold and wet and depressing. I really do dislike this time of year.’

  ‘But spring is just around the corner,’ said the woman brightly.

  ‘Sounds like a song,’ said Mrs Atticus smiling. ‘Spring is just around the corner. And it’s a lovely time for a wedding, is spring. We have just had a wedding and the poor bride looked frozen stiff as she walked up the aisle. Now, my husband usually likes to see both of you. He gives a little homily about the sanctity of marriage and the responsibilities and goes through the order of service. He feels it important that both the prospective bride and groom hear what he has to say. Has your fiancé not been able to make it?’

  ‘Fiancé?’

  ‘To discuss the wedding.’

  ‘I think we have a few crossed wires here,’ the young woman told her. ‘I’m not about to get married. I have an appointment with your husband.’

  ‘Really? When?’

  ‘Ten o’clock. I’m rather early, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He must have double booked,’ said Mrs Atticus. ‘My husband is to meet the new curate at ten o’clock.’

  The woman smiled. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘That’s me.’

  ‘You?’ exclaimed Mrs Atticus. ‘You are the new curate?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘We were told it was a Reverend Dr Ashley Underwood.’

  ‘I’m the Reverend Dr Ashley Underwood.’

  ‘You!’ exclaimed Mrs Atticus.

  ‘Me,’ replied the new curate.

  The archdeacon’s wife stared for a moment. ‘I see,’ she said, clearly nonplussed. ‘Well, let me take your coat, Reverend Underwood, and I will make a cup of tea and get my husband.’

  ‘Ashley, please,’ replied the woman, taking off her coat to reveal a pale blue surplice and white clerical collar.

  ‘Ashley,’ replied Mrs Atticus. ‘You must call me Marcia. Do come through into the drawing-room. It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid. I am preparing my lessons for next week.’

  ‘You teach at the school?’

  ‘I’m in training at the moment,’ Mrs Atticus told her. ‘I have a visit from my college tutor on Monday, so I am a little anxious.’ She stared at the visitor for a moment. ‘I have to say, you have come as a bit of a surprise.’

  ‘A pleasant one, I hope?’

  ‘We were expecting someone rather older, and a man. Do come through and I will let my husband know that you are here.’

  Mrs Atticus scurried down the hall and threw open the door to her husband’s study.

  ‘Charles! Charles!’ she hissed. ‘It’s a woman!’

  The archdeacon looked up from his desk. ‘I beg your pardon, my dear?’

  ‘The new curate,’ his wife told him. ‘It’s a woman.’

  ‘Reverend Underwood is a woman?’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s a woman!’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Charles, will you stop repeating everything I say. Yes, it is a woman.’

  ‘Good gracious me.’

  ‘She’s in the drawing-room,’ continued his wife.

  ‘What is she like?’ asked the archdeacon.

  ‘She’s very young and extremely attractive,’ his wife told him.

  ‘Is she indeed,’ said the archdeacon, rising from his chair and rubbing his long hands together. ‘Well, I’d better go and introduce myself to the Reverend Dr Ashley Underwood,’ he said, smiling widely.

  Major Neville-Gravitas poked his head around the shop door.

  ‘It’s all right, major,’ Mrs Sloughthwaite told him, ‘Mrs Pocock’s not in.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for that,’ said the major, entering the village store. ‘The last thing I wanted this morning was another skirmish with Mrs Pocock. She has an extremely sharp tongue. I am heartily sick and tired of being barracked by her every time she sees me. I just wish people would get it into their heads that I was not in favour of the village school closing, indeed I was very supportive of it remaining open.’

  Yes, thought Mrs Sloughthwaite, though only when you saw the strength of feeling in the village, but she said nothing. ‘And now we’ve got this amalgamation,’ she remarked, leaning over the counter, as was her wont.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ replied the major.

  ‘I don’t know why they don’t leave the school alone,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Chopping and changing.’

  ‘The Education Department has to make savings,’ the major told her.

  ‘Well, they want to make savings in other places, not here. Anyway, that’s what Mrs Pocock was saying.’

  ‘Yes, well, Mrs Pocock has a great deal to say for herself,’ observed the major, bristling at the mention of his nemesis. ‘She was very vocal at the public meeting.’

  ‘Just giving her point of view as a school governor,’ observed the shopkeeper. ‘You were very quiet. I should have thought you would have had something to say.’

  ‘Nothing I could h
ave said would have changed anything,’ replied the major. ‘As far as I can see it’s all done and dusted, if you follow my drift.’

  At the meeting Mr Preston, with his usual practised aplomb, had outlined the procedures of the proposed amalgamation of the two schools. When the Director of Education assured those present that Barton-in-the-Dale school was not under any threat of closure, that the head teacher and her staff would be retained and extra resources would be allocated, there was little dissent apart from Mrs Pocock’s outburst. She was of the opinion that Urebank School should be closed and the children transferred to Barton, but this was seen to be impractical. When the meeting closed it was generally accepted that the amalgamation was not an altogether bad thing.

  ‘And when will this happen?’ asked Mrs Sloughthwaite now.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ asked the major.

  ‘When will this amalgamation take place?’

  ‘Oh, not for some time,’ replied the major. ‘I should imagine it will be at the beginning of the autumn term, next September. There has to be a period of consultation. Sundry meetings with interested parties need to take place, then there will be the convening of a new governing body and the appointment of the teaching staff to the various posts, and of course, the head teacher to oversee the two premises.’

  ‘Well, I hope Mrs Devine gets the head teacher’s job,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘That man at Urebank, from what I’ve heard, is about as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.’

  ‘Well, I am not in any position to comment upon that,’ replied the major. ‘I have never met Mr Richardson.’

  ‘Mrs Stubbins sent her lad Malcolm to Urebank. She took him away from Barton after a difference of opinion with Mrs Devine, but she soon wished she hadn’t and it wasn’t long before he was back.’

  ‘I was aware of that, Mrs Sloughthwaite,’ said the major. ‘It was raised at the governors’ meeting at the time.’

  The shopkeeper continued undeterred. ‘As I said, she soon sent him back to Barton. Of course, as my mother would say, the grass is always greener, isn’t it? He had a dreadful time, had young Malcolm, with that Mr Richardson – picked on him he did. I mean I know Malcolm Stubbins isn’t the best behaved lad in the world but he spent all day outside the head teacher’s room, from what his mother told me. Then he was suspended, excluded and expelled all in the space of a few weeks. Since he’s been back at Barton he’s been doing really well, from what I can gather.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said the major.

  ‘From what Mrs Stubbins told me, that head teacher at Urebank is a very nasty piece of work and we don’t want him throwing his weight about in our village school, so if you’re on the governing body in this new set-up I hope that you are after supporting Mrs Devine.’

  ‘Ah, well, the appointment of the new head teacher is not in my bailiwick, if you follow my drift,’ the major told her.

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘It does not depend upon me,’ replied the major. ‘The governors, as a body, will decide.’

  ‘But you have a vote.’

  ‘If I am asked to serve as a governor,’ said the major, feeling somewhat under pressure, ‘I will indeed have a vote.’

  ‘Well, you know where to stick it, don’t you?’ said the shopkeeper bluntly.

  The major sighed. He could see that the next episode in the saga of Barton-in-the-Dale village school was likely to be as contentious as the last one. Councillor Smout would expect him to vote for his candidate and Mrs Sloughthwaite and the villagers would expect him to vote for Mrs Devine. He was between a rock and a hard place. ‘May I have a packet of panatellas, please, Mrs Sloughthwaite?’ he said.

  ‘Because I’ll tell you this, Major Neville-Gravitas,’ said the shopkeeper, ignoring his request, ‘if Mrs Devine doesn’t get the job there will be all hell to pay.’

  ‘I will bear that in mind,’ said the major, sighing.

  ‘Miss, I sang in the chapel again on Sunday,’ said Chardonnay, approaching the teacher’s desk on Monday morning as the children in Elisabeth’s class were filing into the classroom.

  ‘Yes, I heard from Miss Brakespeare,’ replied Elisabeth. ‘I believe she was at the service yesterday and she said you sang beautifully.’

  ‘She turns the pages for Mr Tomlinson when he’s playing the organ,’ the girl told her. ‘Then after the service they go and have a coffee at the Rumbling Tum café. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Have you really,’ said Elisabeth.

  The girl giggled. ‘Miss, they were holding hands.’

  ‘Really.’ Elisabeth quickly changed the subject. ‘And how are your sister and the baby?’

  ‘They’re OK, miss. It’s a bit crowded in the house and there are nappies everywhere, but he doesn’t cry much and he sleeps a lot.’

  ‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that they are doing well,’ said Elisabeth.

  ‘Miss, I have to practise this new hymn for Easter,’ said the girl.

  ‘Yes,’ said Elisabeth, smiling to herself. ‘Miss Brakespeare told me.’

  The deputy head teacher had entertained the staff earlier that day with her account of Chardonnay’s attempt at singing the hymn chosen by the minister at the chapel.

  ‘She started to sing about this old ragged cloth,’ Miss Brakespeare told her colleagues.

  ‘A what?’ asked Miss Wilson, intrigued.

  ‘An old ragged cloth,’ repeated the deputy head teacher. ‘“On a hill far away,” sang the girl, “there’s an old ragged cloth”.’

  ‘Oh, “The Old Rugged Cross”,’ said Elisabeth, smiling.

  ‘I remember one Easter at my last school,’ said Mrs Robertshaw, ‘I was told by a child that she was to sing in assembly about a cross-eyed bear. I couldn’t think for the life of me of a hymn of that title. ‘It’s called “Gladly This Bear”,’ said the girl. ‘“Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear”.’

  ‘“Gladly, the Cross I Bear”,’ laughed Miss Brakespeare.

  It was during the marking of the afternoon register that Chardonnay asked about Danny.

  ‘Miss, do you know why Danny is away?’

  ‘Just put your pens and pencils down,’ said Elisabeth to her class. ‘There is something I need to tell you all.’

  The children did as they were told and sat up smartly at their tables.

  ‘Danny has left,’ she said.

  ‘He’s left, miss?’ exclaimed Chardonnay.

  ‘That’s right. Danny has gone to live with his grandmother in Clayton.’ Elisabeth glanced in the direction of James as she spoke and saw the look of despondency on the boy’s face.

  ‘I didn’t know he had a grandmother,’ muttered Chardonnay.

  ‘Well, he has,’ Elisabeth told her, ‘and he is going to live with her.’

  ‘But miss, I thought—’ began the girl.

  ‘That’s quite enough about Danny, Chardonnay,’ said Elisabeth. ‘I am sure we will all miss him but he will soon be at another school. Now let’s get on with our work.’

  ‘Well, he could have said goodbye, miss,’ grumbled Chardonnay, pouting.

  At morning break James stayed behind.

  ‘Mrs Devine,’ he said. ‘Is there nothing you can do to get Danny to come back and stay with us?’

  ‘I’m afraid not, James,’ she replied. ‘Your father has tried his very best but, as you know, he’s not had any success. Perhaps your friend will be happy with his grandmother.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘He won’t. I know he won’t. He loves the country, going down by the beck, fishing in the millpond, running across the fields, building dens, spotting birds, setting traps. He won’t like it in the town, I know he won’t.’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ said Elisabeth. ‘I only wish I could.’

  She had tried. When she had learned that it had been decided that Danny was to live in Clayton, she had telephoned the Social Services department and spoken to Miss Parsons. Elisabeth had explained she was Danny’s head teacher and how happy and settled the
boy was. ‘I have the utmost respect for social workers,’ she had continued. ‘You do an almost impossible job out of the very best possible motives, receive little recognition and are paid a pittance for doing so. I know how difficult this must be for you but I do urge you to do everything possible so that Danny can stay where he is. Dr Stirling is a hero. He took Danny in after the boy’s grandfather had died so he would not have to go into care, and he gave him permanence, security and love. I know you listen to what the child says and always have to put him first so he can have a happy and successful life, so I do hope on this occasion—’

  ‘I hear what you say, Mrs Devine,’ Miss Parsons had interrupted, ‘and I do sympathise, but in this situation I am trying to do the best for Danny, to make sure he goes to the very best home. I admire Dr Stirling and all he has done for the boy and I have listened to what Danny says, but I feel we need at least to give this a chance.’

  ‘Miss Parsons,’ Elisabeth had replied, ‘surely Danny’s wishes should carry the greatest weight. Shouldn’t he decide where he wants to live?’

  ‘Were it as simple as that,’ the senior social worker had replied. It would be unprofessional, she had thought, to raise the matter of Dr Stirling’s son running away and the fact that his work as a doctor meant he was frequently away from home. These were factors which she had to take into consideration. ‘If it doesn’t work out,’ she had told Elisabeth, ‘we can review the case. Let’s see how Danny gets on at his grandmother’s, and let me assure you that I shall monitor the situation.’

  The day he was to leave Clumber Lodge to go and live with his grandmother, Danny sat on the end of his bed, staring at the carpet.