by MARY HOCKING
Mary Hocking
THE CLIMBING
FRAME
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
To Aunt Vi
Chapter One
Where to start? At the education office perhaps.
‘Bloody Monday!’ the typist said, banging down the internal telephone.
‘You can say that again!’ The office junior flicked over the pages of the Assistant Education Officer’s diary. ‘Bloody Tuesday, bloody Wednesday, bloody Thursday, and bloody Friday, too! It’s a wonder he can still find his way to the office.’
The typist jumped up. ‘I’m going to try again, Angela.’
‘It’s no use. She’s still got the Pepsicola with her, and there’s a woman in the waiting room.’
But the typist was already in the corridor. On her way she encountered the committee clerk, an elderly gnome with two bright spots of colour on his waxy cheeks and a correspondingly feverish look in his eyes. He stopped her immediately and edged towards the wall, spitting at her:
‘I’ve got to have that information on the capitation allowances. I had to have it an hour ago.’
‘I know, Mr. Crocker. I’m going to see if I can interrupt her . . .’
‘I can’t wait for that. The extended agenda has got to be typed now!’
‘I’m doing something about it, Mr. Crocker.’
‘Why isn’t Mr. Punter in?’
‘He’s at a school.’
‘He’s always at a school.’
‘I know, Mr. Crocker . . .’
‘He ought to be in the office sometimes. Mr. Percival always made a point of being in his office all day before the Sub-Committee meeting.’
‘Mr. Punter is visiting a school, Mr. Crocker.’
‘Visiting schools has nothing to do with educational administration.’
‘Mr. Punter thinks it has.’
‘Mr. Punter doesn’t think anything of the sort. He went there for lunch, didn’t he?’
‘And to talk to the Head about his Domesday project.’
‘Domesday project! While I’m waiting for information on capitation allowances!’
‘I am trying to do something about it, Mr. Crocker.’
During this time they had been excuting a crabwise tango down the corridor. The typist felt the handle of a door against her back, gulped with relief and turned into the room. The room was long and narrow as a horse box; the sun streamed through the south- facing window and this had disastrous effect on the enormous woman who was sitting with swollen legs spread wide. She looked like a lump of lard which is gradually melting and as she talked she kept dabbing at her streaming face. The sour smell of sweat almost overpowered the typist. Behind the Pepsicola’s back she grimaced at the young woman seated at the desk, ‘capitation allowances!’
The young woman kept her eyes on the woman in front of her, but she slightly raised one hand and lowered it again; what the gesture was meant to convey—hopelessness, condolence, long- suffering—it was impossible to conjecture. The typist withdrew. Out on the grammar school playing field there was the thwack of cricket ball on bat followed by a muted round of applause. Inside the room, the melting woman went on talking, regardless of the typist’s brief intrusion.
‘ ’E won’t drink nuffink else, dear. So ’e’s gotter ’ave it, ’asn’t ’e? An’ if Mrs. Pinkham can’t see that, she’s gotter be made to. I’m not letting it stop ’ere. You’ve listened to me very nice, dear, but if there’s nuffink you can do about it, I’ve gotter go ’igher. An’ if there’s any more trouble at the school, I won’t ’old meself responsible. If she lays ’ands on ’im again, I’ll tear ’er apart and it’s no use your shaking your ’ead, dear, ’cos once I get roused there’s nuffink can stop me. There’s somefink insider me that just boils up and I’m not responsible. Not that I mind ’im being punished. If ’e’s done wrong, ’e’s gotter be punished. ’E knows that. ’E gets a good belting from ’is dad if ’e steps outer line. But ’e ’adn’t done nuffink wrong. If they’d taken the top off the bottle for ’im like ’e asked, it wouldn’t ’ave gorn orf like that.’
‘The flying glass was dangerous, Mrs. Mellish,’ Maggie Hester intervened gently.
‘Yes, dear, it was.’ Mrs. Mellish nodded and the movement brought on a fresh outbreak of perspiration. ‘That’s what I’m saying. It was dangerous. If they’d done it for ’im . . .
‘Not in the middle of a lesson, Mrs. Mellish. You did agree that wasn’t reasonable, didn’t you?’ Maggie went on quickly while Mrs. Mellish was trying to remember whether she had agreed. ‘But suppose they allow him to have it in the break?’
‘If ’e can ’ave it in the break . . .’
Maggie pursued her advantage, ‘And you tell him that he must hand it over to his class teacher as soon as he gets to school . . .’
‘But if she don’t let ‘im ‘ave it in the break, dear,’ Mrs. Mellish, driven back, prepared to defend her new position, ‘if she don’t let ’im ’ave it, there’s going ter be trouble. ’Cos I’m really roused over this. It’s upset me, I can tell you. An’ it’s not good for me with all the weight I ’ave to carry.’
‘We’ll give it a week and see how things go, shall we?’
‘Yes, dear, we’ll do that.’ Mrs. Mellish mopped face and neck. ‘An’ it’s been lovely talking to you. Not like Mrs. Pinkham. She treats me and my ’usband like we was dirt. An’ you know what I say? That reveals somefink about ’er. “It reveals you’re no lady, Mrs. Pinkham,” I told ’er. “An’ you’re not fit ter be in charge of young children. An’ what do you do all day, I’d like ter know?” I asked ’er. “ ‘Cos you don’t take a class, I ’appen to know.” She didn’t like that, dear.’
‘I don’t suppose she did, Mrs. Mellish. A Head Mistress is a very busy person.’
‘You’ve gotter say that, ’aven’t you, love?’ Mrs. Mellish said kindly. She put out a greasy hand and, gripping the edge of the desk, hauled herself to her feet. When she had regained her breath, she said, ‘Well, you’ve been very nice ter me and I’ve no complaint against you.’
Maggie came round the side of the desk to shake hands and incidentally to manoeuvre Mrs. Mellish nearer the door.
Mrs. Mellish went out, breathless but contented; her wrath, once released, fizzed away as harmlessly as her son’s Pepsicola. Maggie hurried to open the window wider. Soon the smell of summer wafted into the room, warm grass and dusty tarmac, mingled faintly with the brackish tang of marshland. The girl hesitated a moment, sitting on the window sill. She knew that Mr. Crocker was waiting urgently for information about the proposed changes in the capitation allowance, but she was tired after the interview with Mrs. Mellish who had been very aggressive until she had been allowed to blow off a little steam. The office made considerable demands on Maggie who was reliable and conscientious and would never think of saying, ‘that must wait for Mr. Punter’, or ‘Mr. Crocker ought to deal with that’, or simply, ‘I’m too busy.’ The result was that she never had time to organize her own work and sometimes she got very tired. She was also something of a dreamer which militated against concentration and sometimes led her superiors to question whether she would make an ideal local government officer.
Maggie watched a fat boy plunging hopelessly towards the c
rease; the stumps fell when he was only half-way through his ill-judged run. She knew just how he felt as his team mates jeered and lectured him when he rejoined them; she had not been good at games herself, she had no competitive instinct and her mind always wandered at a crucial moment. She was a spectator rather than a player. It was nice that the education office building overlooked the grammar school playing field; she would be sorry when they had to move to the new site which was to be the pride of Eastgate but which would offer no such pleasant distractions. The new batsman had come out; she watched him sauntering to the wicket, surveying the field with what he no doubt hoped was cool professional judgement. He took his stance; the bowler began his run. Reluctantly, Maggie turned away from the window and dialled a number on the internal telephone.
‘Can you come back now, Beryl? I dare not venture out because that woman in the waiting room will see me and she’s been there for ages.’
The typist came running.
‘Mr. Crocker’s in a terrible state. He says that the working party agreed that the allowance for library books should be increased and Mr Punter hasn’t mentioned it in the report.’
‘I don’t know about that. Mr. Punter never writes very full notes of the meetings he attends.’
‘Oh, come off it, Maggie!’ The typist was middle-aged and found Punter’s youthful inadequacy hard to tolerate. ‘He never writes a thing!’
‘Well, he ticks items, or crosses out . . . I can usually follow what went on.’
‘But what are we to do this time?’
‘Can’t you ring the school?’
‘We have, and he isn’t there.’
‘Don’t they know where he went?’
‘They said he was coming back to the office.’
They both looked at the clock. It was five to four.
Maggie said, ‘Oh dear. He won’t be back now.’
‘And he won’t answer the ’phone at home, in case it looks as if he was there.’
Maggie glanced at the report. ‘I think you’d better ring Mr. Castle at the Dale School. He was a member of the working party and he’s very helpful. He’ll understand. Ask him what was agreed.’
‘Can’t you ring?’
‘I must see that woman in the waiting room. She’s been there for an hour, and she started off by insisting on seeing the Chief Education Officer and no one else. She’ll be pretty mad now that she’s had to come down to my level. I dare not keep her any longer.’
The typist went out looking unhappy. At the door she paused to say, ‘Shall I send the woman along to you?’
‘No. Give me a minute to freshen up.’
The door shut and Maggie sat for a moment with her face in her hands, her long hair straggling on the desk. She enjoyed dealing with parents, even the angry ones; but she became too involved in people’s troubles and this made her encounters emotionally exhausting. The woman who was waiting had gone through a long list of people before she had agreed to be seen by Maggie. The Chief Education Officer and the Deputy were at meetings, but Malcolm Punter should have been in this afternoon; this was made clear in the diary which was kept at the instigation of the new Deputy who felt that the office was ‘badly run and often under¬officered; members think we all go out and play golf in the afternoon.’ Even if Punter was unavailable, there was normally Mr. Crocker to take his place. But on committee days this was unthinkable: Mr. Crocker would not have been deflected from his committee routine by the Second Coming.
Maggie straightened up and used the internal telephone again. ‘Angela, be a dear and show my lady in, will you? She’ll be a bit more impressed if I don’t do it myself.’
She made a grab at her handbag, took out a comb and raked it through her light brown hair; then she pulled her jumper down and straightened her diminutive plaid skirt. She was standing by the door completing this operation when the woman came in. Maggie looked up and saw a tall woman dressed from head to foot in dark brown; the clothes were neat and well-kept, but the effect was of a deliberate anonymity. The face had an air of failure which has been carefully nurtured. Somewhere behind the almond eyes there lurked an intelligence, but it was cowed by anger and bitterness; the sensual mouth, too, had been disciplined, dragged down at the corners until the full lips expressed only a bleak distrust of life. It was a face formidably defended, against the assault of reason.
Maggie said, ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long.’
‘I want to know why I couldn’t see the Chief Education Officer.’ The woman’s face was white as flour. The ignominy of the refusal had been eating into her while she waited until now it was beyond bearing. Life had been full of such slights.
Maggie explained, ‘He’s at a meeting.’
‘And the Deputy is out, too? And the man in charge of this . . .’
The angry eyes roamed the room. ‘What do you call it? A department?’
‘A section . . . the Schools Section.’
‘And the man in charge of the Schools Section—he’s out, too?’
‘It’s a very busy time for us. Committee days always are.’
‘My dear young woman, I’m busy, too. I had to take time off from my office. And I waited an hour out there. An hour! To see you!’
There was something so relentlessly antagonistic about the woman that Maggie found she was having difficulty in keeping her composure.
‘I really am very sorry,’ she said. ‘Won’t you sit down and tell me about it?’
‘I don’t know to whom I’m speaking, do I?’ She was ticking off a list of grievances and was not to be deflected from this pursuit. ‘I’ve been here an hour, but no one has even had the courtesy to tell me that.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I’m Miss Hester.’
‘I know that!’ The eyes flashed as another insult was added to those already inflicted. ‘But what are you? Your name means nothing to me. What is your position? I’ve come here to make the most serious complaint. I can’t talk to a clerk.’
‘I’m an administrative assistant.’
Maggie wondered whether she should have someone else in the room with her; perhaps something really serious had happened, like that frightful case last year with the supply teacher and the junior girls. There was a long pause. The woman sat down; it was another defeat and she savoured it with bowed head and drooping shoulders, a submission to a cruel fate rather than to Maggie Hester. She said in a flat, hopeless voice, ‘I suppose I shall have to talk to you.’
‘Yes. Tell me about it.’
The head jerked up. ‘It’s no use saying “tell me about it” in that soft voice! This isn’t going to be smoothed over, I can assure you.’
Maggie favoured her with a long, level glance; and just for a moment the woman wavered and said, just as Mrs. Mellish had said, ‘It’s not your fault, I suppose.’
Maggie picked up a pencil and pulled a piece of paper towards her. Facts usually helped to get over the awkward first moments.
‘What is your child’s name, Mrs . . .?’
‘Miss Cathcart.’
Maggie wrote Miss Cathcart without the slightest hesitation and repeated quietly, ‘and your child’s name?’
‘Peter.’ The woman was uneasy, not having obtained the desired reaction. She watched the paper on which Maggie was writing with suspicion, as though convinced that her words were being distorted.
‘And the school he is attending?’
‘Crossgate.’
For a moment the pencil hovered; then Maggie wrote the name firmly, but sat looking at it in slight surprise.
‘No doubt you have a lot of complaints,’ the woman commented.
‘No.’ Maggie put down the pencil. ‘We have very few complaints about Crossgate School.’
‘People are afraid.’
‘Let’s talk about Peter, shall we? It’s him we are really concerned about, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “we”. My experience is that no one is concerned about my child. That is w
hy I am here.’
‘I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what has happened, Miss Cathcart.’ Maggie picked up her pencil and tried to get back to facts. ‘When did the incident take place?’
‘Friday afternoon. The children were sent out to play.’ Miss Cathcart made this sound criminal in itself. ‘They had to play games that Peter doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know what he has to do and it upsets him. I’ve complained about it before.’ She paused again, waiting for her statement to be challenged. Maggie bent her head and scribbled a note. The woman went on bitterly, ‘No one takes any notice of my complaints. Of course, I know why. My position doesn’t entitle me to respect.’ It was necessary for her to draw attention to her position.
Maggie said, ‘You’re entitled to the same treatment as anyone else.’ Miss Cathcart gave an acid smile. Maggie prompted, ‘What happened in the playground?’
‘He went off on his own. Because the teacher left him out of the game they were playing. And he had to do something. So he climbed on that thing they have there with bars . . .’
‘The climbing frame?’
‘Ah! A climbing frame. You call it that!’ Miss Cathcart smiled triumphantly as though Maggie had unwittingly betrayed herself. ‘Even you call it that! And yet my child was abused by this woman for climbing it!’
‘Had she told him not to?’
‘What does that matter? Don’t imagine that you can twist things to put him in the wrong. He’s only seven; with a child of that age you have to keep your eyes on him all the time.’
‘When there are forty children in a class it can be difficult.’
‘In any case, she hadn’t given him any instructions; she had ignored him as usual. But when he was right at the top of this thing she screamed at him to get down. He was terrified. He just clung there. And because he didn’t immediately do what this . . . this . . . Gestapo . . .’ The voice stuttered, tears threatened; she pressed the back of her hand against her brow and closed her eyes. Emotion engulfed her.
Maggie felt cold in the pit of her stomach. He fell and broke his neck, or his back, or both legs; she could suddenly see it vividly. And Mylor? Where had Mylor been while this terrible thing was happening? At a distance, she heard the woman talking again.