Head Over Heels in the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  Harold squeezed past Julie and entered the office. He smiled warmly, revealing a set of tombstone teeth, and shook my hand. ‘Yes, yes, I heard from Dr Gore this morning. Congratulations, Gervase. She’s a lovely young woman, Miss Bentley. You are a very lucky man.’

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘Dr Yeats,’ said Julie, ‘may I ask where you’ve been? I was expecting you a lot earlier.’

  ‘With Dr Gore, Julie,’ he replied. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘No, and if you’ve seen Dr Gore, did Brenda the barracuda find you?’

  ‘The what?’ asked Harold, his brow furrowing.

  ‘Mrs Savage. She wants the inspectors’ programmes for next week.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I did see her when I was leaving Dr Gore’s office and she mentioned something of the sort. But that can wait. Now, look everyone, would you all sit down for a moment, there’s something very important I have to say. I did think of waiting to tell you at a full team meeting but, as you know, Geraldine is on the Association of Science in Education Conference in York this week so won’t be able to join us.’

  ‘I was wondering where our pale Irish beauty was,’ remarked Sidney. ‘She’s not the most forthcoming of people. I had no idea she was on a course this week.’

  ‘Well, she is,’ said Harold. ‘Anyhow, if you would all give me your attention and you, too, Julie, if you would stay for a moment, please. If I delay telling you all, the news is sure to leak out and I do want you to be the first to know.’

  ‘Leak out!’ repeated Julie, sneering. ‘If Mrs Savage gets to hear of it, whatever it is, there’ll be a tidal wave, never mind a leak, going through County Hall.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Harold. ‘Well, I expect Mrs Savage will get to know sometime today.’

  ‘If it’s bad news, Harold,’ said Sidney, ‘I don’t want to know. It’s the start of the school holidays and I need a rest. I do not want depressing news, extra work, contentious issues, problems, difficulties or complaints.’

  Harold gave a weak smile. ‘Well, Sidney, I don’t know whether it’s good or bad news to be honest.’ He paused and touched his brow with his long fingers. ‘I’m going to retire.’

  ‘Retire?’ we all shouted in unison.

  ‘That’s right, I’ve decided to finish but not immediately. I’ll be around for some time yet. Dr Gore has asked me to see out the next academic year which is only fair. That gives him the chance of advertising my job, shortlisting and interviewing in good time for my replacement to start next September. That’s why I was with Dr Gore this morning.’

  ‘Whatever has brought this on?’ exclaimed David.’

  I’ve been thinking about it for some time,’ said Harold.

  ‘But why, Harold?’ I asked. ‘Are you all right, physically, I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong with me – apart from feeling things are getting a bit too much. All the travelling and the late evenings have taken their toll this past year. I’ve been reviewing things a little lately, my future, what I want to do with the rest of my life and, to be frank, I’m ready to finish.’

  Julie arched an eyebrow and gave me a knowing look.

  ‘You can’t finish, Harold!’ snapped Sidney. ‘It’s out of the question.’

  ‘Yes, I can, Sidney,’ said Harold softly. ‘I’ve had enough. Last term was particularly difficult. That school closure was such a time-consuming and wearisome business, then the increased number of inspections and the additional demands from the Ministry. I’m tired, Sidney, I’m very tired. All those conferences away from home, weekend courses, difficult meetings, lengthy reports, inspections and late nights attending this, that and the other. I don’t have to tell you what it’s like. I’m ready to pass the baton to a younger person with more stamina than I have at the moment. I suppose it came home to me a couple of weekends ago. Janet and I went for a day to Scarborough to blow away a few cobwebs. We were walking along the North Shore and we came upon a man in a sort of booth with a big sign in the front saying that if he was unable to guess your age within a year you would win a prize. Well, I won a prize. I’m fifty-nine next birthday and he guessed my age at sixty-four.’

  ‘’Oh, Harold, that’s nothing,’ said Sidney. ‘I mean, look at David. He looks considerably older than you and he’s still managing to carry on.’

  ‘Thank you, Sidney,’ sighed David.

  ‘When we were inspecting that little school at Barton Moor together last term one little boy, you must remember, David, asked if you were Dean’s great-granddad, there to talk about your experiences in the trenches. Do you recall?’

  ‘I had forgotten, but am most grateful to you for reminding me,’ David told him.

  ‘So you see Harold,’ continued Sidney, ‘you’re only as old as you feel.’

  ‘The problem is, Sidney,’ said Harold, giving another weak smile, ‘I sometimes feel about eighty.’

  ‘We all feel tired at the end of a busy term, Harold,’ I said. ‘You’ll feel a whole lot better after a holiday and a good rest.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Sidney. ‘Now, put further thoughts of retiring from your mind.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that, Sidney,’ said Harold, ‘I’m ready to finish and I have made up my mind. Which is exactly what I have told Dr Gore. As I said, I wanted to give him time to find the best replacement, so you won’t get rid of me just yet.’

  ‘But when do you intend to finish?’ asked Julie who, until now, had been stunned into silence.

  ‘As I said, I hope to see out the academic year. Probably July, perhaps a little earlier. I shall take things a bit easier and cut out some of the late meetings.’

  ‘Good God, Harold, you’re serious,’ whispered Sidney.

  ‘Well, I’m devastated, Harold,’ said David. ‘I don’t mind saying so. I’m completely lost for words.’

  ‘Hasn’t that proverbial old Welsh grandmother of yours got an apt little saying for the occasion?’ asked Sidney, shaking his head.

  ‘I suppose she’d say what she said about Lloyd George,’ said David sadly. ‘We will never see his like again.’

  ‘That’s most kind of you, David,’ said Harold, ‘but life does go on. None of us is indispensable.’

  ‘This is a shock, Harold,’ I said. ‘It really is.’

  ‘It’s quite dreadful news, Harold, dreadful,’ continued Sidney. ‘I feel physically sick. I just cannot take it in. I mean, I’ll probably hate your replacement.’

  ‘Beggar the thought,’ said David. ‘You not get on with people? The very idea.’

  ‘I suppose the person taking over could be an internal promotion, someone on the team already,’ said Sidney. ‘Please don’t think I am considering applying myself, I am far too long in the tooth. Geraldine has just started so she’s out of the running and David is definitely past it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ chipped in his colleague. ‘Remind me to check when my stair lift is being installed.’

  ‘You know what I mean, David,’ Sidney told him. ‘No, I was thinking of Gervase. What about Gervase taking over? He could do it.’

  ‘Now hold on, Sidney,’ I said hurriedly.

  ‘That is really not for me to say, Sidney,’ said Harold. ‘The post will be advertised and Gervase’s application, should he wish to apply, will be considered along with the rest.’

  ‘But you could put a good word in with the powers that be, Harold,’ persisted Sidney.

  ‘You over-estimate my influence, Sidney,’ replied Harold.

  ‘Now, the suggestion of Gervase having a go for the job,’ said David thoughtfully, ‘is not at all a bad idea, something on which we could certainly agree, Sidney. “Better the devil you know”, as my Welsh grandmother was wont to remark.’

  ‘Do I get a say in all this?’ I asked. Before anyone could answer, the telephone on my desk rang and I snatched it up. ‘Yes, Mrs Savage, Dr Yeats is here. I’ll pass you over to him.’

  *

  For the remainder of the day I a
ttempted to knuckle down to some serious work in the hope of clearing my desk of as much paper as possible, but my thoughts kept wandering. I had started the day thinking about the past year and now I could not get the year ahead out of my mind. There would be the wedding, of course, married life, buying a house and now there was something else – Harold’s shock announcement. ‘What about Gervase taking over?’ Sidney had said. I would have to think long and hard about that one.

  3

  Connie, the caretaker of the Staff Development Centre, was a good-hearted, down-to-earth Yorkshire woman with an acerbic wit and wonderful command of the most inventive malapropisms and non sequiturs. She had no conception of rank, status or position and treated everyone exactly the same – with a bluntness bordering on the rude. If the Pope himself were to pay a visit to the Staff Development Centre and make use of the washroom facilities, Connie would no doubt have detained His Holiness as he departed, with the words: ‘I hope you’ve left them Gents as you found them!’ Were the Queen to grace the portals of the SDC, Connie would have no compunction in telling Her Majesty to wipe her feet before entering and to return her cup to the serving hatch after use. Should the Prime Minister enter the building, Connie would have not the slightest hesitation in asking the right honourable gentleman, as she asked all visitors, if he had parked his car well away from the front doors because blocking her entrance was a health and safety hazard. It was unthinkable that she was at the end of any chain of command, that she could be directed to carry out instructions or, perish the thought, be given such a thing as an order. It was Connie who was at the controls when people were on her territory.

  Connie could be quite unnerving. Teachers attending courses at the Centre would be listening to a speaker and, glancing up, would see Connie’s round, florid face grimacing at the door. During the coffee-break they would find an ample woman with a bright copper-coloured perm and dressed in a brilliant pink nylon overall hovering in the background, usually surveying them with a malevolent expression. At lunchtime they would be eating their sandwiches nervously, making certain not a crumb fell on the spotless carpet, sensing that small sharp eyes, like those of a blackbird searching for a worm, were watching from behind the serving hatch. And when, at the end of the day, the equipment had been put neatly away, the chairs carefully stacked, the rooms left in an orderly fashion, litter placed in the appropriate receptacles and all crockery returned to the kitchen, Connie would stride around her empire, feather duster held like a field-marshal’s baton, her nylon overall crackling, to make sure that everything was left as it had been found earlier that day. And woe betide anyone who flouted these unwritten rules.

  The Staff Development Centre, where all the courses and conferences for teachers and most of the staff interviews took place, was a tribute to Connie’s hard work and dedication. She scrubbed and scoured, polished and dusted, mopped and wiped with a vengeance. The building, inside and out, was always immaculately clean and tidy, not a speck of dusk or a scuff mark was to be seen anywhere and it always smelt of lavender furniture polish and carbolic soap. The toilets were her pride and joy. The porcelain sparkled, the brass pipes shone, the tiles shimmered, the floors gleamed. The Staff Development Centre was Connie’s palace. If any one of us was ever inclined to suggest to her that she should show a little more deference and respect, that person would desist, knowing that deep down this woman had a heart of gold and that no one could do the job better than she. Everyone who knew her was prepared to tolerate her abrupt manner and sharp tongue for those very reasons. Everyone, that is, except Sidney. Sidney – noisy, unpredictable, untidy, madly creative – was someone guaranteed to ruffle the feathers of her duster and wind Connie up to distraction.

  I arrived at the SDC one dull Friday afternoon in the third week of the new term to prepare for an English course I was to direct the following Monday. In the entrance hall stood Connie, in fierce discussion with the man himself. She was dressed, as usual, in her pink nylon overall and was clutching her feather duster magisterially.

  ‘Look here, Connie,’ Sidney was trying to explain to her, ‘you have to accept a bit of a mess. For goodness sake, it was an art course. Art is not like mathematics, you know, it’s not orderly, it’s not methodical, it’s not tidy. We artists use messy materials like paints, charcoals, crayons, clay, cardboard, glue, pencils, paper.’ He waved his hands about theatrically as if conducting some invisible orchestra. ‘People have to express themselves in art, be creative, imaginative and they are therefore often untidy. It’s par for the course.’

  Connie pulled one of her many expressions of distaste, the face of someone suffering from acute indigestion. ‘Well, it’s not part of my course, Mr Clamp,’ she retorted, ‘and I don’t want these artists, as you call them, expressing themselves like that in my Centre. They can clear up after themselves. They do have hands, I take it, if they are doing all these creative carryings-on. Then they can use those hands to clear up and they don’t need to leave a trail of debris and destruction behind like what they have this afternoon.’

  ‘Hardly a trail of debris and destruction,’ sighed Sidney.

  ‘Oh, yes, they did, Mr Clamp, and I can’t be doing with it. Even my little grandson wouldn’t leave a mess like that.’

  Sidney continued to wave his hands elaborately before him. ‘Einstein said that genius is seldom tidy.’

  ‘I don’t care what Einstein or any of your other artificated friends have to say. I am not cleaning up that mess and that’s that. It’s all very well for you and this Einstein to leave the room as if a bomb has hit it, I’m the one left to pick up the pieces. I’m telling you, I don’t intend picking up those pieces that you’ve left today. I mean, it’s just not fair to expect me to do it, Mr Clamp.’

  ‘First of all, Connie,’ said Sidney, ‘Einstein is dead.’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry to hear it, I’m sure, but that’s no excuse for the mess that was left in that room. It was spotless when you went in this morning, you could have eaten your dinner off of that floor, and look at it now. Anyway,’ she said, flourishing her feather duster along a window ledge, ‘it’s my bingo night and I’m not missing the first house just because I have to stop here to clear up.’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ I said in a loud and cheerful voice, determined to get their attention since until then neither seemed to have noticed me.

  ‘Hello, Gervase,’ moaned Sidney.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Connie through tight little lips. ‘Anyhow, I’ve said what I had to say, Mr Clamp, and I insist that you will see to it that that room is left as you found it before you go. I could let this Centre go to rack and ruin but I keep it nice and tidy.’

  ‘I know you do, Connie,’ began Sidney.

  ‘It’s no skin off my feet if it was just left but you’d be soon complaining if you found the room like that at the start of your course.’

  ‘Very well, Connie,’ Sidney told her, bowing with a flourish. ‘I give in. I surrender. I yield, I shall remain behind and return the art room to its pristine splendour and perhaps my kind and obliging colleague here will lend a helpful hand.’

  ‘Oh, no!’ I spluttered. ‘I’m sorry, Sidney, but I have a course to prepare and then I’m meeting Christine at Mama’s Pizza Parlour. You’re on your own.’

  ‘What happened to friendship and camaraderie?’ asked Sidney to no one in particular. ‘Whither went The Good Samaritan?’

  ‘He probably didn’t have a date and it wasn’t his bingo night,’ I replied flippantly.

  ‘Very droll,’ said Sidney.

  ‘Well, just so long as it gets done,’ came Connie’s final riposte before she marched off down the corridor, flicking the feather duster at invisible dust and crackling as she went.

  ‘That woman,’ said Sidney through clamped teeth, ‘will drive me to drink.’

  ‘Speaking of drink,’ I said, ‘I’ll see if I can get Connie to rustle you up a cup of tea before you start the blitz of the art room. You might be there some tim
e.’

  ‘She’ll probably put toilet bleach in it if she knows it’s for me, and considering the mood I’m in at the moment, I would probably drink it. But, come on, Gervase,’ he pleaded, ‘lend a hand, there’s a good fellow.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sidney, but I can’t. I just don’t have the time.’

  ‘That dragon in pink will be watching my every move.’

  ‘Don’t judge her too harshly,’ I said. ‘Her heart’s in the right place.’

  ‘The right place for Connie’s heart, dear boy,’ replied Sidney, summoning up a faint smile, ‘is on the end of a stake.’ With that he departed for the art room to tidy up.

  Having checked the equipment in the English room, set out the chairs, displayed a range of books and materials and put a programme on each table, I headed for the kitchen. By this time Sidney, who had made a half-hearted attempt to clear up the mess in the art room, had crept away. Connie was vigorously wiping the Formica top of the serving hatch.

  ‘Right, that’s sorted,’ I told her.

  ‘I hope the art room is,’ she snapped. ‘That Mr Clamp will drive me to drink. I don’t know how you can share an office with him. I’ve never met anyone so untidy. And that Mr Pritchard is not a whole lot better, forever leaving his equipment all over the place. Anyway, have you got everything you need for Monday?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, all ready and prepared.’

  ‘I put another bulb in the overhead projector, just to be on the safe side.’

  ‘Thank you, Connie.’

  ‘And I put some extra paper on the flip chart.’

  ‘That’s very good of you.’

  ‘And I’ve put out some more felt tip markers. I know how you like to write.’

  ‘Thank you, Connie.’

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

  I glanced at my watch. I was not intending to go home before meeting Christine so had a bit of time to kill. ‘Yes, thanks.’

  As Connie clanked and clattered in the cupboard behind the hatch, I had visions of her and Sidney, having driven each other to drink, ending up in the same drying-out clinic. Not a happy thought, and I pushed it from my wicked mind.