05 Please Sir!

by Jack Sheffield

Little Malcolm gave a nervous twitch and poured tomato sauce over his boiler-suit trousers instead of his sandwich. Dorothy immediately began to mop it off his lap with a damp cloth and Little Malcolm went a shade of puce. ‘Y-yes, Dorothy,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Dave, eager to get back to the crisis in his comic, ‘ah’ll prob’ly go to t’Christmas market.’

  At a table next to the doorway, two fifteen-year-olds who had been in my class when I first arrived in Ragley, Claire Bradshaw and Anita Cuthbertson, were deep in conversation. The debate concerned whether Pixie boots were better than suede stilettos. They decided to get a pair of each from Easington market with the money they had been given for Christmas and share them, as they both took a size five.

  ‘’Appy Christmas, Mr Sheffield,’ they chorused as I walked to the door.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Claire … Anita,’ I said, ‘and I hope Santa pays you a visit tonight,’ I added with a grin.

  ‘We were ‘oping f’Shakin’ Stevens, Mr Sheffield,’ said Claire. They both giggled and it occurred to me that teenagers grew up quickly these days.

  On the High Street, outside Piercy’s Butcher’s Shop, assorted members of the church choir and a few passers-by were singing Christmas carols. Joseph Evans stood alongside, rattling a bucket of loose change as busy shoppers hurried past.

  ‘Hark the herald angels sing,’ they sang, ‘glory to the new-born king.’

  I walked in to collect my Christmas turkey and looked at the usual collection of pork pies, joints of gammon and pig trotters. It was clear that Old Tommy didn’t exactly go overboard on Christmas decorations. There was nothing frivolous about the Ragley village butcher’s. As a token gesture, on the counter was an empty bottle of India Pale Ale with a red candle stuck in the neck. Around the base were a few desultory sprigs of holly.

  ‘’Appy Christmas, Mr Sheffield,’ said Old Tommy. ‘Y’turkey’s a reight big ‘un this year.’ He handed over the giant bird and I staggered out to my car, breathed on my key, unlocked the frozen double doors and put it in the boot.

  Then I went back to join the choir and I stood beside Vera. It was good timing for, after a lively rendition of ‘We Three Kings’, Old Tommy came out with his grandson, Young Tommy, who was carrying a huge pan of steaming mulled wine made to Old Tommy’s special recipe. ‘There y’are,’ he said. ‘This’ll mek y’toes curl.’ He wasn’t wrong. I sipped on a mug of the evil brew and gasped.

  Vera’s cheeks flushed as she drank the potent mixture. ‘It gets stronger every year,’ she said appreciatively.

  Soon the cold was forgotten and I wandered off to complete my food shopping in Prudence Golightly’s General Stores. When I walked in, Deirdre Coe was complaining bitterly. Deirdre was one of our least popular villagers for whom rudeness was a way of life.

  ‘Thirty pence a pound f’sprouts!’ she shouted. ‘A fortnight ago they were only eighteen pence.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Deirdre,’ said Prudence gently, ‘but it’s because of the frozen ground. The farmers can’t harvest the crops.’

  ‘Well, ah’ll tell y’summat f’nowt,’ added Deirdre in disgust, ‘ah’m not paying eighty pence for a small cauli’.’

  ‘That’s fine, Deirdre,’ said Prudence politely, ‘so is that all?’

  Deirdre slammed a few coins on the counter and stormed out, almost knocking me over in the doorway. ‘Move over, Mr ’eadteacher,’ she grumbled as she left the doorbell ringing madly.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Miss Golightly, and … merry Christmas, Jeremy,’ I said as I approached the counter. Jeremy, the teddy bear and Prudence’s lifelong friend, was sitting on his usual shelf next to a tin of loose leaf Lyon’s Tea and an old advertisement for Hudson’s Soap and Carter’s Little Liver Pills. Prudence made all his clothes and, on this festive day, he wore a bright-red ski suit, black boots and a white bobble hat.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Mr Sheffield,’ said the diminutive Miss Golightly, ‘and how is Miss Henderson?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ I said. ‘We’re spending our first Christmas together.’

  ‘Ah yes, that must be wonderful,’ she said quietly with a faraway look in her eyes.

  Five minutes later, with a large bag of fruit and vegetables, I walked back to my car. Jimmy Poole and his little sister, Jemima, were standing outside the village Pharmacy. Jimmy was gripping a straining dog lead on the end of which his Yorkshire terrier, Scargill, was eager to bite my ankles. Wisely, I kept my distance. ‘Hello, Jimmy, hello, Jemima, happy Christmas,’ I said, ‘and a happy Christmas to you too, Scargill,’ I added with a forced smile.

  ‘Happy Chrithmath, Mr Theffield,’ said Jimmy. He looked down knowingly at his little sister and gave me a wink. ‘Thanta’s coming tonight an’ we’re gonna leave’im a glath of therry an’ a minth pie.’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Sheffield,’ said Jemima. ‘I’ve asked him for a Sindy doll.’

  ‘And I’ve athked for an Acthon Man Tholdier,’ added Jimmy.

  ‘Well, I’m sure he’ll come to your house,’ I said. Then I loaded my shopping in my car and drove off up Morton Road to collect Beth.

  After a late lunch at Bilbo Cottage we all set off to the Christmas market in Easington. Dusk was falling as we drove up Ragley High Street towards Easington Road and we slowed up outside Pratt’s Hardware Emporium. Timothy’s Christmas lights were the best I had ever seen. There was even an inflatable Santa tied to the chimneypot.

  ‘It’s all lit up like Blackpool hallucinations,’ said Aunt May, wide-eyed with appreciation.

  When we arrived in Easington the Christmas market was brightly lit with stalls set up around the edge of the large cobbled square. A tall Christmas tree had been erected next to the war memorial and, on the stone steps, a choir was singing accompanied by the Ragley and Morton Brass Band. It was a festive scene and snow was falling again as I parked in one of the side streets.

  Ragley villagers were out in force and many parents waved a greeting as they searched for a late bargain in the market or in the shops that bordered the square. Outside the toy shop, Heathcliffe and Terry were staring wide-eyed at a Hornby high-speed train set and Mrs Earnshaw was staring equally wide-eyed at the price tag, which read £29.95. She had fifteen pounds in her pocket and presents for three children to buy. While the boys were engrossed watching the train go round the track she bought a Connect 4 for £3.99, a Kerplunk game for £3.99 and, as an afterthought for little Dallas Sue-Ellen, a £1.85 Snowman soft toy based on the delightful 1979 book by Raymond Briggs. This left her with enough to buy some chocolate coins to put in their stockings.

  ‘Come on,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Santa’ll bring yer a train set when yer older.’

  John Hartley was looking in the same shop window and with five daughters he had to make some careful choices. With little Mo in mind, he was looking at a Corgi Magic Roundabout Playground in a very large box. John knew that when you hadn’t a lot of money it helped to go for size. A large box was always more exciting for children to open on Christmas morning. Then he wandered over to a stall where a man with a long pony-tail and a very loud voice was telling a gathering crowd that he had the perfect gift for teenagers. ‘Gather round, ev’rybody. ‘Ere’s t’biggest bargain on t’market, all t’way from ‘Ong Kong … state-of-the-art transistor radios shaped like a bottle o’ Coca Cola an’ a cheeseburger. Kids’ll luv ‘em! Six quid each or ten quid for the two.’ John passed over a ten-pound note. ‘Two down, three t’go,’ he muttered to himself and walked back to the toy shop.

  Meanwhile the two fifteen-year-olds, Claire Bradshaw and Anita Cuthbertson, were staring longingly at a small green plastic radio that hung from your neck on a strap. ‘C’mon, girls,’ shouted Pony-tail Man. ‘This is the Strapper, t’latest in electronic innovation – an it’s gonna be all t’rage f’Christmas 1981.’

  Claire and Anita knew life wouldn’t be worth living without one and started counting how much money they had got left altogether. ‘We’ve only got four pound fifty between us,’
said Claire.

  ‘’Ow much are they?’ asked Anita.

  Pony-tail Man quickly peeled off the sticky label with £4.00 written on it, leant over the trestle table and whispered, ‘Your lucky day, girls: it’s a bargain at four pound fifty.’ After all, he thought, as his old granddad used to say, ‘Christmas begins at ‘ome.’

  Across the road in the record shop, Ruby’s son Duggie was staring lovingly at Abba’s latest LP ‘The Visitors’, which was already riding high in the Melody Maker album charts. His favourite track, ‘One of Us’, had been released as a single and had shot into the top ten. ‘It wouldn’t be Christmas without an Abba album,’ he said to the teenage girl behind the counter. She stared in admiration at his Boomtown Rats hairstyle that hid the half-smoked Castella cigar behind his ear and wondered if he had a girlfriend. Sadly, she was unaware that she would have to be Agnetha Fältskog’s twin sister to stand a chance. Duggie placed the record lovingly in his off-licence carrier bag next to the four cans of Watneys Pale Ale he had just purchased for £1.09 and the new apron for his mother at 99 pence. With change out of a fiver and in less than twenty minutes, ‘Deadly’ Duggie Smith, the undertaker’s assistant, had completed his Christmas shopping.

  Geoffrey Dudley-Palmer was working late at the Rowntree’s factory or, at least, he was sitting at his desk. Along with Easter, it was their busiest time of the year and, as a top executive, Geoffrey wanted to set an example. He was content in the knowledge that he had ordered his wife’s Christmas present. A brand-new state-of-the-art Jacussi whirlpool bath was being delivered from Leeds and installed next week. Geoffrey knew that Petula loved the latest in home gadgets and this was something very special. It also only took a single telephone call made by his secretary. Geoffrey was a firm believer in economy of effort.

  Meanwhile, back in his luxury home, Victoria Alice and Elisabeth Amelia were sitting under their twelve-feet-tall artificial Christmas tree with silver-foil branches and looking curiously at a collection of beautifully wrapped presents that had just appeared. One of them had a torn edge and Elisabeth Amelia picked it up. ‘You shouldn’t look,’ said Victoria Alice but Elisabeth Amelia’s curiosity had to be satisfied. She peeled away a little more of the paper. ‘It looks like dog food,’ she said forlornly.

  ‘Perhaps we’re getting a dog,’ said Victoria Alice. Their eyes shot wide with excitement. Elisabeth Amelia replaced the parcel carefully and they tiptoed away, crept back up the stairs and into their bedroom to hang up their stockings.

  A mile away, in his bedroom in the vicarage, Joseph Evans was admiring his gift for Vera. He had bought a beautifully illustrated hardback book entitled Advanced Cross-Stitch by Emily Blenkinsop, one of Vera’s heroines – in fact, probably a close third behind Margaret Thatcher and Mother Theresa. He had wrapped it in lavender tissue paper, Vera’s favourite colour, and purchased a pink bow from the General Stores to complete the ensemble. He was sure she would consider it the perfect gift and he was right.

  * * *

  Vera, sitting at her dressing table in her bedroom, had also bought a book. She thought Wine-making for Beginners would be perfect for her younger brother. It didn’t occur to her that Joseph considered himself to be at least in the Advanced class of this noble art. She only knew that he produced copious bottles of a brew that tasted like a subtle blend of Domestos and dandelion leaves and left a smell in her kitchen reminiscent of something the cat had dragged in. She would never know that on Christmas morning, when Joseph came to read the title of his gift, he would take a deep breath and pray for forgiveness for the unappreciative thoughts that flickered through his mind.

  Back in Bilbo Cottage I was in my tiny study, wrapping my presents. I had bought a beautiful necklace for Beth and an assortment of gifts for my mother and Aunt May, including a large tin of Farrah’s Original Harrogate Toffee, which, along with Kendal Mint Cake, was their favourite sweet.

  It turned out to be a memorable Christmas, mainly because Beth and I were together. Late on Christmas Eve, I finally managed to set the new video recorder for a feast of festive viewing over the holiday period. Then, while Margaret and May switched on BBC1 and settled down to watch The Good Old Days from the Leeds City Varieties Theatre, Beth and I drove through the snow to attend the Midnight Mass service.

  * * *

  Christmas Day flashed past in a whirl of presents and party hats. The giant turkey took longer than expected to cook so I had to record the Queen’s speech. Beth loved her necklace and her present to me was an electric drill with lots of attachments and the step-by-step promise by a beautifully coiffeured man in a checked shirt that anything from a bookcase to a set of cupboards could be fitted in minutes. Unfortunately it seemed that the instructions had been written by the same mad scientist who had composed those for the video recorder. So, all in all, despite the bursts of laughter, it was largely a frustrating day of indigestion and drill bits.

  It was Boxing Day when we all finally relaxed and settled down to watch my first at tempts at recording. Anticipation was high as Margaret, May and Beth stared hopefully at the flickering screen. The good news was I had got the times of the transmissions correct; the bad news was I had clearly not mastered how to select the right channels.

  So it was that on Christmas Eve, instead of Summer Holiday with Cliff Richard and the Shadows on BBC2, I had recorded Playschool on BBC1. It got worse. On Christmas Day, the Queen’s speech was replaced by the end of a 1925 black-and-white Harold Lloyd film. Finally, instead of the big Christmas Day Bond film, Dr No, I had recorded Charlie Brown’s Christmas.

  This was an inauspicious start to my technological revolution. My present for Christmas had not quite worked out as I had hoped. However, it did mean we could play charades instead.

  Chapter Ten

  The Secrets of Sisters

  Mrs Smith, caretaker, checked the school boiler to ensure frost protection over the rest of the holiday period.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Thursday, 31 December 1981

  The tall forests of Hampshire were bare of leaves and stood like frozen sentinels guarding the icy road.

  It was New Year’s Eve and the journey from Yorkshire had been slow. Finally the orange street lamps of Little Chawton pierced the evening mist as my car crunched past the Cricketer public house next to the snow-covered village green and an ancient cast-iron, icicle-hung water pump. The year 1982 beckoned but some things didn’t change. The flint-faced cottages of Hampshire were fixed in time, the heritage of a bygone age.

  I turned left in front of a church with a square Norman tower and slowed up as we passed a row of neat half-timbered thatched cottages with crooked window frames. Finally, I coaxed my Morris Minor Traveller on to the gravelled driveway of Austen Cottage as another flurry of snow sprinkled the brightly lit porch.

  ‘Here at last,’ said Beth with relief, ‘and Laura’s arrived already.’ Her sister’s brand-new, crimson-red Audi Quattro was parked by the side of the garage.

  Beth’s father, John Henderson, a weather-beaten fifty-eight-year-old with steel-grey hair, appeared from the porch. He looked relaxed in a blue denim shirt, knitted cardigan and thick cord trousers and when he hugged Beth the bond between father and daughter was obvious. ‘Welcome home,’ he said softly.

  ‘Hello, Dad. Good to be here,’ said Beth.

  I unlocked the rear doors and pulled out two overnight bags. John picked one up and shook my hand. His handshake was firm and, he being six feet tall, his eyes were on a level with mine. He gave me a warm smile. ‘Well done, Jack,’ he said. ‘Glad you’ve made it safely.’

  We walked into the spacious terracotta-tiled kitchen and it was just as I remembered it: neat, organized yet homely. A vase of holly with bright berries stood in the bay window and, on the old Welsh dresser, a collection of well-thumbed Jane Austen novels was stacked on the top shelf next to a set of Wind in the Willows decorative plates.

  Diane Henderson was busy adding a few herbs to her famou
s watercress soup, a local speciality. Like both her daughters she had a slim figure, high cheek-bones and green eyes. She pushed a strand of soft blonde hair behind her ear, untied her blue-striped apron and threw it over the back of a chair. ‘Beth,’ she said, ‘you must be tired. Come and sit down. You too, Jack.’

  I gave her a hesitant peck on the cheek and sat at the old pine kitchen table. There was something about Diane that made me feel uneasy and I guessed I knew why. While Beth had always been the woman for me, in the past I had enjoyed a brief ‘relationship’ with her younger sister, Laura. I felt that Diane, unlike her husband, still had to make her mind up about me.

  Laura was sitting at the kitchen table, blowing on the surface of a cup of coffee and sipping it gently. Even after all this time her beauty still surprised me. ‘Hello, Laura,’ I said, a little lamely, while pushing my Buddy Holly spectacles a bit further up the bridge of my nose.

  She stood up quickly and looked me up and down. As always she was dressed to perfection, in a Daks country classic suit in herringbone tweed with patch pockets and knee-high brown leather boots. Her long brown hair tumbled over her shoulders as she reached up and kissed me on the cheek. The perfume was familiar. ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said lightly, ‘and how’s the village teacher?’ I noticed that her cool fingertips gently stroked the back of my hand before she returned to her seat at the kitchen table.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Still at Liberty’s in London,’ she said. ‘I’m the assistant manager in the fashion department, so can’t complain.’

  ‘Oh, are you still working with Desmond?’ I said. Laura had been dating her wealthy manager, Desmond Dix, and I got the impression John Henderson didn’t approve.

  ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head defiantly. ‘He moved on … In fact we both did.’