05 Please Sir!

by Jack Sheffield

  ‘She’s in ’eaven,’ said little Mo.

  Petula looked at the little girl and cool fingers of sadness touched her heart.

  ‘That means she must have been good, doesn’t it, Mummy?’ said Victoria Alice.

  ‘Yes, darling, it does,’ said Petula quietly.

  Suddenly the giant figure of John Hartley arrived. He had collected Tracy and Louise and he smiled when he saw his youngest daughter. ‘’Ello, poppet,’ he said softly. ‘’Ave you ’ad a good time?’

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ said Mo, ‘and this is m’new friend, Victoria, an’ this is’er doll, Jesus.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said John in surprise.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ said Petula with a smile. ‘I’m Petula, by the way – Victoria Alice’s mother.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Petula. I’m John Hartley.’

  ‘Are these your daughters?’ asked Petula.

  ‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Well, three of ‘em, an’ there’s two more starting at t’big school after Christmas.’

  ‘You’ve got a busy time coming up with five daughters,’ said Petula.

  John grinned. ‘I certainly’ave,’ he said.

  ‘Mummy,’ said Victoria Alice, ‘please could Mo look after Jesus for Christmas because she likes her?’

  ‘I thought she was one of your favourite dolls, dear,’ said Petula.

  ‘She is, Mummy,’ said Victoria Alice.

  ‘Then you mus’ keep it, luv,’ said John.

  Victoria Alice gave her mother a searching look. ‘But, Mummy, Mr Evans said it’s more important to give than receive.’

  Petula looked at her daughter and her heart melted. Then she glanced up at John. ‘The vicar is right, of course, darling,’ she said. ‘So, if it’s all right with Mr Hartley …?’

  John nodded and Mo picked up the doll and gave it a kiss. ‘C’mon, Jesus,’ she said, ‘y’coming ‘ome wi’ me.’

  Petula took her girls to the cloakroom and made sure they were muffled up before they walked out to their Rolls-Royce. Snow was falling again.

  ‘I think it’s a tube of Smarties,’ said Elisabeth Amelia to her little sister as they both felt the wrapping round Ruby’s Christmas presents.

  ‘It’s very kind of Mrs Smith to give you all a gift,’ said Petula and it occurred to her that such a gesture must have been difficult for our school caretaker with her small income.

  ‘It’s like Mr Evans said,’ said Victoria Alice. It was clear that Joseph’s words, each one like a perfect snowflake, had settled on the shoulders of this little girl. Her eyes were bright with understanding. ‘Christmas is a time for giving as well, isn’t it, Mummy?’

  Petula Dudley-Palmer picked up her younger daughter and hugged her as only a mother can. ‘Yes, darling, it is – and I am so proud of you.’

  Elisabeth Amelia and Victoria Alice clambered into the back of the Rolls-Royce with their balloons and Petula started the engine. ‘Oh dear,’ she said as she tried to accelerate away. The wheels were spinning and sinking further into the fresh layer of snow.

  There was a tap on the window. It was John Hartley. ‘Would y’like a push?’ he shouted.

  ‘Oh, yes, please, if you would,’ said Petula.

  John was a man of great strength and he braced himself against the back of the car. Moments later the car moved forwards and spinning wheels began to grip.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ shouted Mrs Dudley-Palmer and her daughters waved out of the back window as they slowly accelerated away towards Morton Road.

  John and his girls trudged off towards the council estate. Above their heads the full moon lit up Ragley village with cold white light and, beneath the skeletal branches of the horse-chestnut trees, shadows of black lace patterned the frozen snow beneath their feet.

  ‘Well done, Daddy,’ shouted Mo. ‘Y’remembered … it’s better t’give than t’receive.’

  ‘’Ow d’you mean, luv?’ asked John.

  She looked up with a big smile and wrapped her scarf round a doll called Jesus. ‘Well, y’gave’er a push.’

  Chapter Nine

  A Present for Christmas

  Visited school to collect holiday mail.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Wednesday, 23 December 1981

  I looked in Dixon’s window and there it was, a wonder of modern technology, a VHS Home Video Recorder, and I knew I must have it. It was the perfect present for Christmas.

  The centre of York looked and felt like Siberia and the pavements were crusted with ice. It was just before closing time on Wednesday, 23 December, and I walked into the brightly lit store and was soon in conversation with an assistant whose tufty hair and prominent front teeth gave him an uncanny resemblance to Bugs Bunny.

  ‘Y’can record an’ play back in colour or black an’ white,’ he said; ‘in fac’, y’can even record when y’telly is switched off!’ This defied all logic but he clearly knew his stuff and was determined to milk every last drop out of his sales patter. Whoever had trained him had done a good job. ‘An’ best o’ t’lot,’ he said with his slightly scary Bugs Bunny grin, ‘y’get a free ‘older that’ll tek fourteen cassettes.’ The emphasis on the word fourteen was impressive and, in that moment, I realized my life would be incomplete without a VHS cassette holder.

  ‘I’ll take it,’ I said.

  For a moment he looked surprised, until he thought of his commission and then hopped triumphantly towards the till.

  ‘You will show me how to use it, won’t you?’ I asked a little desperately. ‘I’m not the most technologically-minded person.’

  He looked at me with forced compassion. ‘It’s all in t’book o’ rules,’ he said, waving the instruction manual. ‘A ten-year-old could do it.’ It flickered across my mind that he was probably right. If I got stuck I could always ask the children in my class, particularly those who were already more competent than I was on the school computer.

  With a heavy box under my arm, I negotiated the route back to my car and drove home to Kirkby Steepleton. I smiled as I neared Bilbo Cottage. A world of recording James Bond films every bank holiday for years to come stretched out before me.

  Snow was falling again as I parked my Morris Minor Traveller on the driveway and staggered to the front door with the cumbersome box. I rattled the brass knocker and Beth opened the door. ‘Hello, Santa,’ she said with a grin. ‘Whatever have you got there?’

  ‘You’ll love it,’ I said. ‘It’s a present for all of us.’

  I hung up my snow-covered duffel coat and old college scarf in the hallway and then took off my damp Kicker shoes.

  ‘Your mother and Aunt May have been cooking,’ said Beth with a wry smile. Every Christmas, my little Scottish mother, Margaret, and her sister, May, came to visit me for the Christmas holiday and then departed for Glasgow to spend Hogmanay with their friends. Cooking was not their forte. The Prestige pressure cooker I had bought for them four Christmases ago was still in pristine condition in its box. Meanwhile, the smell of burnt sprouts filled the air.

  Beth and I walked into the kitchen, where a pan of something that resembled sheep droppings was steaming on the draining board.

  ‘It’s nae like the recipe in the book, May,’ said Margaret doubtfully.

  The two sisters were like two identical bookends with their grey curly hair and matching Glasgow Rangers aprons as they stared at the smoking cannonade of blackened sprouts.

  ‘Well, I followed that wee girl, Dahlia Smith, to the letter, Margaret,’ said Aunt May, who used a distinctive but entirely understandable version of the English language.

  ‘I think it’s Delia, Aunt May,’ I said.

  ‘Y’nae wrang there, Jackie-boy,’ said Aunt May, who, like my mother, was also slightly deaf. ‘That’s what I said … She’s the queen’s knees at cookery, is Dahlia.’

  Christmas was going to be a little different this year. Beth had decided to stay at Bilbo Cottage over the holiday before our visit to Hampshire to spend New Year
with her parents. My mother and Beth had hit it off immediately, particularly when she saw the transformation to my kitchen. Now everything had a place and there was a sense of order. ‘It’s nae like Fred Karno’s any more in there, Jack. She’s a cannie wee lassie,’ she announced appreciatively.

  I hurried back into the hallway to collect the large box. ‘Well, I have a surprise present for all of us,’ I said magnanimously. ‘It’s a video recorder, so we can record all our favourite programmes and then watch them whenever we like over the holiday.’ It all sounded so simple. ‘So, Mother, why don’t you and Aunt May go in the lounge and make a selection?’

  This seemed to go down well and Beth was relieved to have the kitchen to herself. While she prepared a hotpot supper, I unpacked the video recorder and Margaret and May flicked through the pages of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times.

  ‘I’d like t’see that bonnie wee boy Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday,’ said Margaret, ‘and we nae canna miss the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day, Jack.’

  ‘OK, Mother,’ I said with a frown. The instructions for the video recorder had been written by someone who no doubt had a doctorate in rocket science but, sadly, was unable to communicate in coherent sentences.

  ‘And I dinna want t’blow my own crumpet, Jack,’ said Aunt May, pointing to the Boxing Day film Dr No, ‘but I once met that lovely Scottish boy Sean Connery in Glasgow.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good,’ I said without conviction as I wondered why the diagram bore no relation to the back of the video box.

  ‘There’s too much tae see and not enough time tae fit it all in,’ said Margaret.

  I decided to leave them to it and walked into the kitchen. The smell of cooking was delicious. I walked up behind Beth and slipped my arms around her waist. ‘Our first Christmas together,’ I said and kissed her cheek.

  ‘Jack, I’m concentrating,’ said Beth with a smile.

  ‘So am I,’ I said and kissed her again.

  She turned away from the bubbling pan and kissed me on the lips. ‘There … Now go and play with your new toy while I get some hot food for everyone.’ Her eyes were bright with light and love and, feeling content, I returned to do battle with my instruction booklet.

  It was shortly before eight o’clock when we finally finished a hearty meal at the pine kitchen table. Then we wandered into the lounge and I added a few dry logs to the roaring fire. Beth put a bowl of satsumas and a box of sticky dates on the coffee table and helped me serve drinks. Soon, Margaret and May had kicked off their tartan slippers and were sipping port and lemon like contented kittens, while Beth curled up on the sofa with a glass of white wine. I filled my tankard from the huge can of Watney’s Party Seven Draught Bitter in the kitchen and settled down next to her to watch the annual treat, The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show, with Susannah York and Alvin Stardust.

  ‘It’s nae Christmas without Morecambe and Wise, Margaret,’ shouted Aunt May.

  ‘Och aye,’ Margaret yelled back. Their deafness was clearly worse this year, so a noisy Christmas was in store.

  My mother seemed to be shuffling about. ‘Is everything all right, Margaret?’ said Beth. They had quickly established first-name terms.

  ‘Ah’m havin’ trouble wi ma seet,’ said Margaret.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Beth.

  ‘Would you like a cushion, Mother?’ I asked.

  ‘Nae, Jack. Use y’common sense: how’s that gonna help me see better?’ Margaret took off her spectacles and rubbed the lenses vigorously on the hem of her skirt, while Beth gave me a wide-eyed smile.

  On Christmas Eve morning the back road from Kirkby Steepleton had been cleared by Deke Ramsbottom in his snow-plough and Beth and I negotiated the three-mile journey carefully. Beth had some presents to wrap, so I dropped her off at her rented cottage on Morton Road and agreed to pick her up before lunchtime.

  A warm drink seemed a good idea so I pulled up on the High Street outside Nora’s Coffee Shop. When I walked in, the Christmas number one record, ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ by the Sheffield group The Human League was blasting out on the old red and chrome juke-box.

  ‘’Appy Chwistmas, Mr Sheffield,’ shouted Nora from behind the coffee machine. ‘Fwothy coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please, Nora,’ I replied.

  ‘An’ a cweam cake,’ added Nora, always keen for extra business, ‘fwesh in yesterday?’

  ‘Thanks, Nora.’ I glanced up at the large poster on the wall behind the counter advertising the Ragley Amateur Dramatic Society’s annual New Year’s Eve pantomime. This year it was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Nora, as usual, had the star part and she was pictured in a bright-yellow dress and a tightly fastened alpine corset. At her feet sat the Buttle twins wearing a pair of moth-eaten bear costumes and, incongruously, eight-year-old Harold Bustard wearing a sheep costume as, at the time of the photograph, a third bear costume had not been obtained.

  ‘Good luck with the pantomime, Nora,’ I said, thinking that Goldilocks and the Two Bears and a Sheep had the makings of an interesting adaptation. A tired-looking cake and a cup of steaming froth appeared on the counter.

  ‘Final dwess wehearsal nex’ week, Mr Sheffield,’ said Nora.

  This year the producer, Felicity Miles-Humphreys, had decided to feature Abba songs and Nora had been given two solos. On reflection, the choices could have been made with a little more sensitivity as Nora could regularly be overheard singing ‘I Have a Dweam’ and ‘Super Twooper’ in the room above the Coffee Shop. You could not fault Nora for enthusiasm. She always sang with gusto but, sadly, without the letter ‘R’.

  I sat at the furthest table from the juke-box and picked up an Easington Herald & Pioneer. Over a photograph of the frozen River Ouse, the headline read, ‘As bad as the mini-Ice Age of 1963’. I sipped my coffee and read the sports news. The England batsman, Geoffrey Boycott, had become the most prolific run scorer in test history when he overtook the 8,032 runs scored by Sir Garfield Sobers. The forty-one-year-old Yorkshireman had passed the record after scoring eighty-two runs on the opening day of the Third Test Match against India in Delhi. With Yorkshire modesty, he had then presented the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, with a copy of his book In the Fast Lane. I smiled: a knighthood couldn’t be far away.

  Meanwhile, Dorothy Humpleby was wiping the tables with a damp dishcloth and it was clear her mind was on other things. ‘’Morning, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. She was wearing a white polo-necked sweater, red hotpants, her favourite Wonder Woman boots and dangly Christmas-tree earrings.

  ‘Good morning, Dorothy. Merry Christmas,’ I said.

  Dorothy launched into what was on her mind. ‘My Malcolm’s buying me summat special f’Christmas, Mr Sheffield,’ she said. ‘Ah took’im into York and ah showed’im.’

  ‘And what’s that, Dorothy?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s a Toyah Willcox make-up set.’

  ‘Toyah Willcox?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Sheffield. She’s a sexy rock singer an’ real groovy wi’ wild ’air.’ She took a newspaper cutting from her hipster hotpants and put it on the counter. Under a photograph of Toyah Willcox the caption read: ‘A palette of powders and lipsticks and power-packed angular make-up for the canvas that is your face’.

  ‘Looks good, Dorothy,’ I said dubiously.

  ‘Ah love Toyah Willcox,’ said Dorothy, ‘an’ she wears this black bodysuit when she’s singing,’ she added, a dreamy look in her eyes. ‘It’s reight good.’

  Nora shuffled over and looked at the cutting. ‘That’ll be a weally nice Chwistmas pwesent, Dowothy,’ she said. ‘’E’s wight genewous, is Malcolm. What are y’getting’im?’

  ‘Dunno yet, Nora,’ said Dorothy. ‘Ah’m going to t’Christmas market this afternoon,’ and she wandered off to wipe the grubby counter.

  At a table on the other side of the Coffee Shop, Big Dave Robinson was deep in thought – and not about his new girlfriend, namely Fenella ‘Nellie’ Lovelace. An unexpected crisis had emerged in his life. He had ju
st paid sixteen pence to Prudence Golightly for his weekly copy of Roy of the Rovers and he stared in horror at the cartoon-strip spread out before him on the Formica-top table. Roy Race, the Melchester Rovers player-manager, had been shot and rushed to hospital in a critical state. ‘Bloody ’ell,’ muttered Big Dave.

  ‘What’s up, Dave?’ asked Little Malcolm as he arrived with two large mugs of sweet tea.

  ‘Roy Race ‘as been shot!’ exclaimed Big Dave.

  Little Malcolm recoiled in shock and spilled some tea down his donkey jacket. ‘But Roy’s t’greatest footballer that ever lived,’ he said in a strained voice. Then he put down the tea, took off his bobble cap and bowed his head. ‘They can’t let’im die.’

  ‘It sez ’ere,’ mumbled Big Dave, ‘that Sam Barlow, t’club chairman, ’as appointed Blackie Gray as t’caretaker-player-manager, so ah s’ppose it meks sense.’

  ‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ said Little Malcolm. The two cousins took the fortunes of their favourite fictional football team very seriously. They were not the only ones. On the next page of the comic, ‘get well’ messages had poured in from the world of football, including Alf Ramsay, Trevor Francis, Malcolm Macdonald and Paul Mariner. There was even a message from Morecambe and Wise.

  ‘Nellie’ll be upset,’ said Big Dave. ‘She reads Roy of t’Rovers ev’ry week. She’ll be ‘eartbroken.’

  Nora didn’t miss any of the gossip in her Coffee Shop. ‘What y’getting Nellie f’Chwistmas, Dave?’ she shouted from behind the counter.

  ‘Dunno yet, Nora,’ replied Dave. ‘Ah were thinking o’ some shin pads f’when she plays football or a box t’put’er darts in.’

  Nora shook her head. ‘No, Dave. It needs t’be summat womantic,’ she said, ever the matchmaker.

  Dorothy tottered over on her four-inch heels, gave the table a half-hearted wipe and put two huge bacon sandwiches in front of Ragley’s favourite binmen. ‘Y’reight there, Nora,’ said Dorothy. ‘Women like a bit o’ romance … don’t they, Malcolm?’