Head Over Heels in the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  Besides myself, in charge of English and drama, there was Sidney Clamp, the immensely creative but entirely unpredictable and sometimes outrageous inspector in charge of visual and creative arts; David Pritchard, the lively little Welshman responsible for mathematics, PE and games, who fired words at all and sundry like a machine gun, and Dr Geraldine Mullarkey, the newest and quietest member of our team and who was in charge of science and technology. Down the corridor was our team leader, Dr Harold Yeats, the Senior Inspector, one of the gentlest and kindest of people it had been my pleasure to know, and next to his room was the secretary’s small office which we all referred to as ‘the broom cupboard’.

  Julie now bustled in loaded down as usual with various bags. She was soaking wet and windswept. ‘So what happened to summer then?’ she asked as she dropped the dripping bags on the first empty desk. ‘It’s teeming it down out there. It’s supposed to be bright and sunny at this time of year. July? It’s more like the monsoon season.’ She shook herself like a dog emerging from the sea. ‘Why is it that the only time I forget my blessed umbrella, the heavens open? And why is it that you’re left standing for half an hour at the bus stop and then three buses come at once? And why is it there’s no bus shelter on Sandringham Road? And why is it that madmen in cars wait until you cross the road before they drive through the puddles? I must look like something the cat’s brought in.’ She stood staring at me, puffing and spluttering and dripping.

  ‘Good morning, Julie,’ I said, getting up to help her off with her saturated jacket. ‘Let’s get these wet things off.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, pulling off her jacket. ‘I feel as if I’ve been dragged backwards through a car wash. My hair must look a sight.’ She pulled a strand of wet hair in front of her face to inspect it. ‘What are you in so early for? It’s only just after nine. Schools have broken up, you know. You don’t need to get in here at the crack of dawn. Mr Clamp and Mr Pritchard won’t be in till ten.’

  ‘I intended to a make start on all this paperwork,’ I said, gesturing to the mountain before me, ‘but haven’t got very far. Look, you go and dry off and I’ll make some coffee.’ I took her wet jacket and draped it over a chair to dry.

  ‘Ta, I will.’ She picked up her jacket and headed for the door but stopped suddenly, turned and gave me a knowing smile. ‘Oh, what about you, then?’

  ‘Me?’ I asked. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Bit of a dark horse, aren’t you? I hear wedding bells are in the air.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yes, Christine and I are getting married.’

  I had first met Miss Christine Bentley, headteacher of Winnery Nook Nursery and Infant School, when, as a newly-appointed County Inspector, I had visited her school some two years before. As I had tried to comfort a very distressed little girl at the school entrance, this vision had appeared before me and had given me such a smile that my legs went weak. Christine had the deepest blue eyes, the softest mass of golden hair and the smoothest complexion I had ever seen. She was stunning. I had been completely bowled over, it had been love at first sight, but I had found it difficult to put my feelings into words. However, the more I had got to know her, the deeper that love became. I just could not get her out of my mind. I would be attending an important conference but sit thinking about her. I would be in a meeting and my thoughts would wander to a picture of her surrounded by a group of wide-eyed infants. I would be perched at the back of a classroom and would visualise her smiling that easy smile and gazing at me with those clear blue eyes. I would lie in bed at night with a longing so powerful it felt like an illness. I was like a love-sick schoolboy. Finally, I had had the courage to ask her out. We began to spend more time together. Now she was to be my wife and we had a lifetime together ahead of us.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Julie said, interrupting my thoughts. ‘It was about time you asked her.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘You really don’t imagine that news like that stays a secret for long at County Hall, do you? The jungle telegraph was going the day after you proposed.’

  ‘I don’t see how anybody possibly could have known,’ I said, puzzled.

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten about the Queen of the Jungle?’ Julie’s upper lip arched like a mad dog and there was a wild gleam in her eye. ‘That dreadful woman was on the tom-toms in no time. She spread it round County Hall like somebody fanning a forest fire. It’s a wonder she didn’t send out one of her mile-long memos letting everyone know, or announce it over a loudspeaker in the staff canteen.’

  ‘Ah,’ I sighed, ‘I’d forgotten about Mrs Savage.’

  ‘I wish I could,’ remarked Julie wistfully.

  Mrs Brenda Savage, Personal Assistant to Dr Gore, the Chief Education Officer, was not a well-liked woman. She was humourless, patronising and liked her red-nailed fingers in every pie around. She was also excessively nosy and very fond of her own voice and all of us had been on the receiving end of her sharp tongue at one time or another.

  ‘Anyway,’ asked Julie, gathering up the wet bags off the desk-top, ‘how did the Black Widow find out?’

  I explained to Julie that I had proposed to Christine on the last day of term in what I thought would be a secluded restaurant, Le Bon Appetit, in the little market town of Ribsdyke. By sheer coincidence, Dr Gore and Mrs Savage had been having dinner there as well that evening and had witnessed my hysterically happy outburst when Christine had said, ‘I will.’

  With a thud, Julie dropped the bags and her jacket back onto the desk, put her hands on her hips and said sharply, ‘Well, what was she doing having dinner with Dr Gore?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask her that,’ I teased,

  ‘Ask her? Ask her?’ Julie repeated, screwing up her face. ‘I’d as soon play “Postman’s Knock” with a sex-starved crocodile. I never speak to that woman unless I have to. She treats me as if I was something discovered on the sole of her shoe. She’s only a jumped-up office clerk. Anybody would think she was secretary of the United Nations the way she carries on. Lady High and Mighty. She forgets that some people remember her before she had that face job and when her voice didn’t sound like the Queen being garrotted and when that hair of hers was natural and wasn’t out of a bottle. As my mother says, “You can never escape your roots.”’

  ‘Well, who knows, she might very well be the future Mrs Gore,’ I said mischievously. ‘They certainly seemed to be getting on very well. Quite intimate, actually.’

  ‘No!’ gasped Julie. ‘You don’t think she’s getting her hooks into Dr Gore, do you? She’s been through three husbands. Do you think she’s trying to make him husband number four? That would be awful. She’s bad enough now but if she married the CEO she’d be unbearable. She’d be lording it –’

  Julie’s monologue was interrupted by the shrill ringing of the telephone on my desk. I picked it up.

  ‘Hello, Gervase Phinn here.’ It was the woman herself – the formidable Mrs Savage.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Phinn, Brenda Savage here,’ she said with slow deliberation. I waited but there was no polite, ‘How are you?’ or ‘Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage.’ She was her predictably coldly formal self. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Savage,’ I replied cheerfully, grinning in Julie’s direction. I resisted the temptation to say ‘Speak of the devil…’ but asked instead, ‘What can I do for you?’

  Julie took a blustering breath and left the office. ‘I’ll make the coffee,’ she said on the way out, ‘and I’ll put plenty of brandy in it.’

  ‘Mr Phinn,’ continued Mrs Savage slowly, ‘I don’t appear to have the inspectors’ programmes for next week.’

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘I have mentioned to you all, on numerous occasions, how very important it is to have details of the inspectors’ proposed timetables in case Dr Gore or one of the councillors needs to make urgent contact.’ I attempted a reply, intending to inform her that since schools were on holiday we would all be in the o
ffice and that filling in the forms would be a waste of time and effort, but she carried on regardless. ‘I have rung Dr Yeats’s number several times now but there is no response. Could you inform him, when he does arrive, that it is imperative that I have the programmes on my desk by the end of the day? I really do not have the time to be constantly reminding you inspectors about these and other matters. Now, I have work to attend to,’ she said, as if I were deliberately detaining her and without waiting for a reply she ended the call.

  ‘Insufferable woman,’ I muttered to myself.

  ‘What did Lady Macbeth want then?’ Julie asked when she returned with two mugs of coffee which she set down on the desk in front of me. She wore no shoes and her hair, which had dried out a little, looked wild and wiry.

  ‘The inspectors’ programmes.’

  ‘Well, she can wait,’ Julie said bluntly, straightening her crumpled skirt.

  ‘I’ll take them across later,’ I told her. I patted the pile of paper on my desk. ‘I need to start on this little lot first.’

  ‘Dr Yeats hasn’t given me the programmes yet, so you can’t. Anyway, why should you be at her beck and call? She’s got legs. Wouldn’t do her any harm to get off her fat backside and leave that fancy office of hers and come and get them. She’s got precious little else to do all day except sharpen her nails.’

  ‘I must say, I thought Harold would be in by now,’ I said.

  ‘He usually is,’ replied Julie, cupping her hands around the mug. ‘He spends most of the school holidays at his desk but he hasn’t been around for a couple of days. I hope he’s all right. I found him in his office one day last week, just staring into space. I had to cough to get his attention. I even found a couple of mistakes in his last report, not up to his usual meticulous standard.’

  ‘Do you think he’s ill?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, he said not,’ replied Julie, ‘when I asked him last week. But if you ask me, something’s bothering him.’

  ‘We have our inspectors’ meeting later today,’ I told her, ‘so I’ll find a minute to have a quiet word with him then.’

  ‘Might be an idea,’ agreed Julie, heading for the door. ‘I was thinking it could be the male menopause. I was reading about it in a magazine this weekend. Most men go through it. My dad did when he was about Dr Yeats’s age. It’s when men start to go bald, get a paunch, see time ticking away and try to prove that they aren’t “over the hill”. They start looking at bimbos, take up jogging, dress in clothes that are far too young for them and come out with the oddest things. Do you know, my Dad came into the kitchen one morning and said –’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Dr Yeats, Julie,’ I said, ‘but now I really must get on.’

  ‘Yeah, have a word with him,’ she said thoughtfully. Then her face changed and she snapped, ‘Oh, and if the Wicked Witch of the West phones again, tell her to go chew a brick.’

  As the clock on Fettlesham’s County Hall tower struck ten, Sidney and David arrived at the office. I could hear them squabbling like quarrelsome little schoolboys all the way up the stairs. The door burst open and Sidney made his usual dramatic entrance, followed closely by David, clutching a wet umbrella. I might have been invisible for all the notice they took of me.

  ‘You’re like a Welsh terrier, David,’ Sidney was saying, waving his large hands expansively in the air as if discouraging an irritating fly. ‘You will persist in your pedestrian views like a snappy little dog worrying a rabbit. You just won’t let it lie. You would argue with a signpost given half a chance.’

  David hooked his umbrella on a shelf, tucked his briefcase away, sat down, placed his hands on the high wooden arm rests and took a slow, deep breath. ‘The trouble is, Sidney,’ he said in a deliberately measured voice, ‘you never like anyone to disagree with you, to have an alternative version of things, another point of view. You are blinkered, entirely unable to accept that just for once you may indeed not be the fount of all knowledge.’

  ‘Everyone has a right to my opinion,’ said Sidney.

  ‘As my Welsh grandmother used to say –’

  ‘Oh, save me from the Celtic words of wisdom,’ interrupted Sidney. ‘This Welsh grandmother of yours sounds a pain in the neck, endlessly giving everyone the benefit of her homely advice. I would have consigned her to an old folks’ home years ago.’

  ‘As my dear and very much loved Welsh grandmother used to say,’ said David, undeterred by the interruption, ‘“Just because someone talks with conviction and enthusiasm doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. Fancy words butter no parsnips.”’

  ‘Good morning, David. Good morning, Sidney. Now, what’s all this about?’ I asked. ‘I could hear you arguing from the bottom of the stairs. As soon as one of you stops for a breath, the other begins again.’

  ‘We are not arguing, Gervase, we are having a professional disagreement,’ explained Sidney, acknowledging my presence for the first time. ‘David is saying that I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to art, which is, as you know, my specialist subject.’

  ‘I am merely saying,’ said David, ‘that I am entitled to have a view.’

  ‘Well, let’s ask Gervase,’ said Sidney, rattling the change in his pocket and staring out of the window.

  ‘Don’t bring me into it, Sidney,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I always seem to end up in the middle, pleasing neither of you.’

  ‘Listen, Gervase, would you accept that I know more about art than David?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so but –’ I began.

  ‘Which, of course, is not really unsurprising since I am the inspector responsible for creative and visual arts, with a degree in fine art and a master’s degree in art. So, David, do you at least recognise that I know more about art than you?’

  David lifted both his hands to his face, took off his spectacles and folded them on the desk in front of him and breathed loudly through his nose. ‘Yes, but the point is –’

  ‘Do stop making that infernal blowing noise, David,’ interrupted Sidney yet again, ‘you sound like an asthmatic whale. Now, as you agree that I know more about art than you do…’ at which point I switched off. I knew these two: once they got into an argument it was like a bone between two dogs.

  A few moments later, they paused in their verbal battle when Julie arrived at the door.

  ‘Morning,’ she said.

  ‘Good morning, Julie,’ said David.

  ‘Good God, Julie!’ exclaimed Sidney rising from his chair. ‘Whatever have you done to your hair? It looks as if you’ve had your head in a spin drier.’

  ‘What a flatterer you are, Sidney,’ I said.

  Julie ignored Sidney’s remark. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘That would be splendid,’ said David. ‘Then if Mr Clamp will leave me alone, I shall make a start on my in-tray.’

  ‘The thing is, David,’ Sidney interrupted, ‘I do not profess to possess a deep-seated knowledge about mathematics, therefore I keep my own counsel. I am somewhat tentative about making pronouncements about things of which I know little. You, on the other hand –’

  As he was about to hold forth yet again, Julie turned to me and said, ‘Aren’t you going to tell them the news?’

  ‘Well, I would have,’ I replied, ‘if I had been able to get a word in.’

  ‘Don’t give me any bad news,’ said Sidney, sitting back down. ‘It’s the school holidays and I don’t want bad news, extra work, contentious issues, problems or difficulties. I have had enough of those this year. I intend clearing my desk in the next few days and then spending two glorious weeks in Italy. Well, what is this news that is so important?’

  ‘I’m getting married,’ I said. ‘Christine has said she will marry me.’

  ‘Dear boy!’ exclaimed Sidney, jumping from his chair and thumping me vigorously on the back. ‘Why ever didn’t you say, letting us ramble on? What wonderful news! Well done! At last, you are to make delectable Miss Christine Bentley of Winnery Noo
k, the Aphrodite of the education world, the Venus of Fettlesham, an honest woman.’

  ‘You haven’t got to get married, have you?’ Julie enquired of me from the door. ‘I mean she’s not –’

  ‘No, of course she isn’t,’ I laughed.

  ‘Congratulations, Gervase,’ said David, reaching over to shake my hand. ‘You are made for each other.’

  ‘Thank you, David.’

  ‘And when is the big day?’

  ‘We’re thinking of next April,’ I replied.

  ‘Not hanging about, are you?’ observed Julie.

  ‘Of course, you’re quite right not to wait,’ Sidney remarked, leaning back expansively in his chair and placing his hands behind his head. ‘I mean, neither of you are getting any younger.’

  ‘We’re not quite in our dotage,’ I replied.

  ‘No and neither of you are spring chickens, either. I mean, if you’re thinking of starting a family you need to get cracking.’

  ‘Now he’s a self-styled marriage counsellor,’ snorted David. ‘An expert on marital affairs. If I were you, Gervase, I would take his comments, like the ones about modern art, with a great pinch of salt.’

  ‘You see,’ spluttered Sidney, ‘just like a snappy little Welsh terrier. He will not let it lie.’

  ‘Hush a moment,’ commanded David, raising a hand. ‘If I am not mistaken, those fairy footsteps on the stairs tell us our esteemed leader is on his way up.’

  Harold Yeats, Senior County Inspector, was a bear of a man, well over six feet tall and with a great jutting bulldog jaw. He looked the last person in the world to be a school inspector. With his broad shoulders, arched chest and hands like spades, he looked more like an underworld enforcer or a night club bouncer. But Harold was a gentle giant, warm-hearted, generous and courteous to all. He also had an encyclopaedic knowledge and an amazing memory.

  ‘Harold!’ boomed Sidney as he caught sight of him at the door. ‘Gervase is to tie the knot.’