05 Please Sir!

by Jack Sheffield

  ‘So why is he like God?’ asked the bishop, with a hint of desperation.

  ‘’Cause ’e’s really old,’ said Ben and he trotted off happily.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to see the preparations in the hall,’ said Joseph, eager to move on.

  ‘Very well,’ said Bishop Neil with a beatific smile.

  Sally’s children were in the school hall, helping to display all the produce that had arrived during the day. However, as always, and mindful of the eminent visitor, she was making every effort to generate teaching and learning opportunities from the activity.

  ‘Here we have an orange, an apple and a pear, boys and girls,’ she said, ‘so what word do we use to describe all of these?’

  Nine-year-old Elisabeth Amelia Dudley-Palmer raised her hand and Sally smiled in her direction. ‘Fruit, Miss,’ said Elisabeth Amelia.

  Sally was on a roll. The discovery of collective nouns was suddenly in everyone’s grasp. ‘And what about these?’ she said, pointing to a potato, a cabbage and one of George Hardisty’s carrots. ‘What covers all of these?’

  ‘Gravy, Miss,’ shouted Heathcliffe quick as lightning.

  Sally went bright red and the bishop retreated strategically to Anne’s classroom.

  Bishop Neil sat down next to five-year-old Jemima Poole. ‘Now, what’s this?’ he said, pointing to a picture in her reading book of a farm with lots of animals.

  Jemima looked up at him as if he had just landed from another planet. ‘Farm,’ she said bluntly.

  The bishop nodded. ‘Well done,’ he said, quickly surmising this monosyllabic little girl was not very bright. ‘And what’s that?’ he asked, pointing to a picture of a hen.

  There was a lengthy silence and Jemima scratched her head. The bishop looked down sadly at the little girl. ‘Don’t you know what it is? Never mind, I’ll tell you: it’s a—’

  ‘No, don’t tell me,’ said Jemima forcibly. ‘I can’t decide whether it’s a Rhode Island Red or not. It’s jus’ that the picture isn’t very clear.’

  Bishop Neil chuckled and reminded himself not to jump to conclusions.

  * * *

  The Harvest Festival was memorable and Vera sighed in contentment. Parents and villagers had crowded into the school hall and no one could recall a finer display of produce, flanked by home-baked, plaited bread and sheaves of barley. The Revd Joseph Evans led the service of thanksgiving beautifully and he confirmed that God’s bounty would be taken to the village hall after school and distributed tomorrow to those in greatest need.

  Then the bishop, in a wonderfully clear voice, read from Deuteronomy, chapter twenty-four, verse nineteen: ‘When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings.’

  After that, he led us in a final prayer and blessed the school and the congregation with the sign of the cross. The school bell rang out to announce the end of a successful day and we all breathed a sigh of relief.

  In the school entrance hall, Bishop Neil was generous in his praise. ‘Thank you, everyone, for a delightful visit. You have a wonderful school and very well-behaved pupils.’

  Anne looked to the heavens and then caught my eye. I knew what she was thinking: we had survived.

  Meanwhile, Vera, looking greatly relieved that everything had gone to plan and without mishap, was anxious to get back to the vicarage. ‘Joseph, perhaps you could follow on with the bishop,’ she said, ‘and I’ll go on ahead to prepare tea.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Joseph and Vera hurried out to the car park, jumped in her Austin A40 and tore off up Morton Road.

  It had felt like a royal visit and we all solemnly shook hands until, finally, Joseph and the bishop walked out to the smart white estate car. As they drove down the drive the bishop glanced back at the school and for the briefest heart-stopping moment he thought he saw a naked blonde woman pressing her ample bosom against the windowpane. He blinked quickly and readjusted his spectacles. ‘I really must check my prescription,’ he said to himself.

  In the quiet nave of St Mary’s Church, Bishop Neil was full of enthusiasm. ‘Very well done, Joseph, on having such a thriving church community, and, Vera, what can I say? The flowers are exquisite – such style and understated artistry! Congratulations.’ Vera smiled shyly; everything was going well.

  Tea in the vicarage exceeded all of Vera’s expectations. The Victoria sponge was, according to the bishop, the finest he had ever tasted and, at last, it was time to leave. Vera glanced at the clock. ‘It’s my Women’s Institute meeting this evening, Bishop, so I need to go back to the village hall.’

  ‘Perhaps I could give you a lift,’ he said. ‘It’s on my way.’

  It occurred to Vera that she would look very grand pulling up outside the village hall in this smart car with the bishop. Also, she could get a lift home with Joyce Davenport and relate the events of her perfect day. ‘Thank you, Bishop. That would be so kind,’ she said. Then she picked up her sketch pad from the hall table and put two sharpened pencils in her handbag. ‘We’re doing a little sketching this evening.’

  ‘How delightful,’ said Bishop Neil. ‘Actually … I dabble as well.’

  Vera was delighted with the impression she created when they arrived on Ragley High Street. Darkness had fallen and the lights shone brightly at the windows of the village hall.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the door,’ said Bishop Neil.

  ‘Thank you, Bishop,’ said Vera.

  As they arrived at the entrance they could see a group of ladies busy sketching in the hall and another group standing in the back corner, deep in animated conversation with Jacqueline Laporte. All did not appear to be as it should be and Vera wondered why sketching fruit and vegetables should create such fierce debate.

  Vera and the bishop saw the reason at the same moment. There, at the front of the hall, was Miss Monique Laporte, reclining on a sofa in a languorous pose and naked as the day she was born apart from a strategically draped length of pink chiffon. Vera gasped and the bishop stepped back in alarm and dropped his spectacles.

  His exit was a swift one. As Vera watched the rear lights of his white estate car disappear down the High Street, she reflected on misheard telephone conversations about still-life drawing. Meanwhile, Bishop Neil decided he would visit the opticians at the earliest opportunity.

  * * *

  The following afternoon I was in the school office, Vera was typing furiously and Resusci Annie was back in her box with the lid firmly closed. When the telephone rang I answered it. It was Bishop Neil ringing to say thank you for the visit. When I replaced the receiver, I looked across to Vera’s desk.

  ‘That’s strange, Vera,’ I said. ‘The bishop sounded rather vague. It was almost as if he’d forgotten about the harvest.’

  Vera’s eyes never lifted from her typewriter. ‘Er, yes, Mr Sheffield … He’s probably got other things on his mind.’

  Chapter Five

  The World of Timothy Pratt

  County Hall sent the document ‘Rationalization – Small Schools in North Yorkshire’ to all schools in the Easington area explaining why the high costs of maintaining small schools had resulted in the closure of four schools last academic year.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Wednesday, 11 November 1981

  Timothy Pratt surveyed his Hardware Emporium and sighed. There was something missing, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

  He gazed with pride at his beautifully organized world of shelf brackets, boot scrapers and dome-headed screws. The floor had been swept, the shelves were dusted, the counter gleamed and the door bell had received its weekly burnishing with Brasso polish. Everything was as it should be and all the stock was, of course, in perfect alphabetical order. Timothy, or Tidy Tim as he was known in the village owing to his obsessively fastidious nature, liked order, particularly alphabetical orde
r. Without it, life would be chaos.

  Timothy reflected that he was now forty-one years old and had never had a special lady friend. He got on with women well enough and he was always happy to serve them when they came into his shop, especially Miss Evans, who was always very polite. However, when he showed them his Meccano set they tended to give him funny looks. He shook his head, sighed deeply and glanced up at the Roman numerals on the large clock behind the counter. Then he took out his shop door key from the pocket of his neatly ironed brown apron. It was shortly before nine o’clock on Wednesday, 11 November, and little did he know it but the world of Timothy Pratt was about to change.

  Across the High Street, in the warmth of the Ragley School staff-room, Vera could hardly contain herself. ‘I shall be missing tomorrow’s cross-stitch class of course in order to get a good vantage point,’ she said.

  I looked up in surprise. It would normally take a momentous event like declaration of war with Russia for Vera to miss her twice-weekly class. She was holding up a Yorkshire Post and Jo, Anne and Sally were looking over her shoulder.

  ‘Doesn’t she look lovely,’ said Anne.

  ‘A perfect English rose,’ said Vera.

  ‘She’s glowing,’ said Jo.

  ‘Probably because she’s pregnant,’ added Sally bluntly, ‘and Charlie-boy looks a bit grumpy.’

  ‘Yes, well, our future king has a lot on his mind,’ said Vera authoritatively and with a hint of annoyance. As a staunch royalist, Vera believed Prince Charles and Princess Diana could do no wrong. Sally wisely kept her private thoughts about Prince Charles to herself.

  The penny finally dropped. ‘Ah, you’re talking about tomorrow’s royal visit,’ I said.

  The four women gave me a familiar he’s only a man look and smiled condescendingly before returning to the small text under the headline ‘Big Day for York Railway Museum.’

  Three miles away in his brightly lit garage near Easington, Walter Clarence Crapper was polishing his propeller.

  With a deep sigh, he glanced at his watch, returned his chamois leather to its precise place in his neat box of cleaning materials, said farewell to his model Sopwith Pup biplane with its magnificent sixty-inch wing span and turned off the light. Pausing only in the hallway to fill his two fountain pens with red and black Quink ink respectively and put his accountant’s ledgers in his briefcase, he set off in his 1977 Toyota Corolla Estate, a tax-deductable bargain at £1,950, and headed at a sedate pace to Ragley village.

  Walter, in his early forties, was the younger brother of Ernest Crapper, Ragley village’s best and only encyclopaedia salesman. He had never married, mainly because he had yet to meet a woman who knew the difference between cyanoacrylate glue and wallpaper paste. In his neat, tidy garage he would spend his winter nights making model replicas of his favourite aircraft. This precise, exacting and uplifting hobby along with his detailed ledgers, columns of figures and slide-rule mathematics gave Walter an interesting and well-ordered life. While growing up with the name W. C. Crapper had been difficult, especially at school, he had found his niche and, apart from feeling a little lonely on those long, dark evenings when he lovingly recharged the nickel-cadmium battery on his model aircraft’s transmitter, his life, if not perfect, was at least satisfactory.

  ‘Well, almost,’ he muttered to himself as he slowed up in Ragley High Street, parked outside Pratt’s Hardware Emporium and picked up his briefcase.

  The doorbell jingled as Walter, a balding, bespectacled man with a neatly clipped moustache and wearing a thick tweed suit, walked into the shop and paused for a moment on the coconut matting. He summed up the neat shelves, tidy counter and the sharp creases in Timothy’s shirt sleeves. Then he nodded in approval. In the balance sheet of tidiness Timothy Pratt was already in credit. ‘Good morning. I’m Walter Crapper, the accountant, here for our nine-thirty appointment,’ he said in a clipped, precise voice. ‘I presume you are Mr Pratt.’

  ‘Oh, ’ello, Mr Crapper. Yes, I am and thanks for …’ he glanced at the clock, ‘being so punctual.’

  Walter smiled modestly. ‘We are here to serve, as they say.’

  ‘Well, Mr Crapper, ah jus’ need me books checking,’ continued Timothy in his monotone voice, ’an’ you came ’ighly recommended by y’sister-in-law, Elsie.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ said Walter, with a reserved nod of acceptance. Walter had never been a flamboyant man. He checked the neat Windsor knot in his aero club chairman’s tie, walked up to the counter and looked around him. ‘And may I say what a wonderful emporium you have.’

  Timothy glowed with pride. ‘Well, ah do m’best,’ he said with slightly false modesty.

  ‘And, of course, alphabetical order!’ exclaimed Walter.

  ‘I’d be lost without it,’ said Timothy.

  ‘So would I,’ said Walter with feeling. ‘Create order from chaos,’ he recited: ‘that’s my motto.’

  ‘It’s mine as well,’ said Timothy, warming to his like-thinking accountant. However, when he saw the perfect columns of figures in Walter’s leather-bound ledgers he could barely contain his excitement. Finally, at lunchtime, after he had invited Walter to join him next door for a quick sandwich in his sister’s Coffee Shop, and he heard what Walter’s plans were for the next day, he knew he was in the presence of greatness.

  It was a quiet school day and at 3.45 p.m. the children in my class said their end-of-school prayer, put their chairs on their desks and walked into the cloakroom to collect their coats and scarves. Theresa Ackroyd and Debbie Clack had become friends and they smiled at me as they said goodnight. ‘Thanks, Mr Sheffield. I enjoyed t’story,’ said Theresa.

  I had just read an extract from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, and you could have heard a pin drop. ‘Thanks, Theresa,’ I said, ‘and what are you doing tonight?’

  ‘Debbie’s coming back to my ’ouse f’tea,’ said Theresa.

  ‘An’ we’re gonna watch Grange ’Ill, Mr Sheffield,’ said Debbie.

  ‘An’ then Crossroads,’ added Theresa for good measure.

  ‘Grange ’Ill should be good t’night,’ said Debbie enthusiastically. ‘Some ’ooligans are gonna cause some bother at t’school dance.’

  They wandered off and I watched them skip happily across the playground. Their carefree world was something to be treasured and it seemed a shame that adolescence was just round the corner, waiting to spoil it.

  On my way down the High Street the bright lights of Nora’s Coffee Shop caught my eye and I pulled up outside. A relaxing cup of coffee was just what I needed. When I walked in, Dorothy Humpleby, the twenty-five-year-old, peroxide-blonde assistant and would-be model, was leaning on the counter and filing her nails while skimming through her latest Smash Hits magazine. She was dressed in a skin-tight pink polo-neck sweater, black leather hotpants and a pair of thigh-high white boots with four-inch heels. As Dorothy was five-feet-eleven-inches tall in her stockinged feet, conversations and neck strain were regular companions.

  ‘Hello, Dorothy, how are you?’ I asked politely but secretly hoped I would not be drawn into one of our usual alternative universe conversations.

  ‘Fair t’middlin’, Mr Sheffield,’ said Dorothy. She stopped filing her nails and nodded towards a plateful of tired-looking pastries in the display case. ‘What’s it t’be? We got some cream ’orns fresh in yesterday.’

  ‘Fine, Dorothy. I’ll have a coffee and a cream horn, please,’ I said quickly, seeking a speedy transaction.

  ‘E’s proper dreamy,’ said Dorothy with a far-away look.

  ‘Who’s dweamy?’ asked Nora Pratt, owner of the Coffee Shop and general know-all. Forty-four-year-old Nora was a short, stocky, self-opinionated lady who was very proud of her status in the village as president of the Ragley Amateur Dramatic Society. This helped her to secure the star part in the annual Ragley pantomime regardless of the fact that the pronunciation of the letter ‘R’ had always eluded her.

  ‘Prince Albert of Meccano,’ sai
d Dorothy, selecting a slightly stale cream horn and putting it on a plate.

  Nora looked up from the frothy coffee machine, caught my eye and shook her head. ‘It’s Monaco, Dowothy,’ she said. ‘He’s the only son of Pwince Wainier and that film star Pwincess Gwace.’

  Unmoved, Dorothy picked up my fifty-pence piece, gave me my change and wondered if her boyfriend, Malcolm Robinson, the local refuse collector, would ever surprise her with a trip to Monaco. As Malcolm had never been further than Bridlington, she guessed it was unlikely.

  ‘Here y’are, Mr Sheffield,’ said Nora: ‘a fwothy coffee an’ a cweam ’orn.’

  I went to sit at a table and picked up a discarded copy of the Easington Herald & Pioneer and scanned the front page article headed ‘Local Accountant to Meet the Royals’.

  Meanwhile, Big Dave and Little Malcolm had called in for their end-of-work mug of tea. Dorothy’s boyfriend, the five-feet-four-inch binman, Little Malcolm, was at the counter, staring at the love of his life, while his six-feet-four-inch cousin, Big Dave, went to sit with Deke Ramsbottom at the table next to the old chrome and red juke-box. Deke had just inserted five pence for one of his favourite records.

  ‘’E allus picks that Grindstone Cowboy,’ said Dorothy to Little Malcolm.

  ‘Y’reight there, Dorothy,’ said Little Malcolm. ‘’E loves ’is cowboy songs, does Deke.’

  ‘No, it’s not Gwinestone, it’s Whinestone Cowboy,’ said Nora. She was a big fan of Glenn Campbell.

  Dorothy ignored this correction and carried on regardless. ‘Charles an’ Di are coming t’York t’morrow, Malcolm. Ah wish ah could see ’er.’

  ‘It’ll be on t’telly,’ said Little Malcolm.

  ‘Ah know that, Malcolm,’ insisted Dorothy, ‘but ah think she uses that Max Factor eye-liner what ah like an’ ah’d need t’be close up.’