‘And how are we, today, Mr Siddall?’ he asked the hernia.
‘We’re not too bad, thank you, Mr Todd,’ replied the hernia.
‘Excellent.’ The surgeon turned to the students who were watching his every move. ‘Hernia,’ he remarked dismissively, ‘very straightforward case, no complications,’ and he swiftly moved on. ‘And how are you, Mr Prout?’ he asked the haemorrhoids.
‘Mustn’t grumble,’ replied the rosy-cheeked chatterer.
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ commented the hernia, not quite under his breath.
‘But now you ask, Mr Todd –’ began the haemorrhoids, sitting upright quickly and becoming very animated.
‘Haemorrhoids,’ interrupted the surgeon, turning to his young colleagues. ‘I will save you the ordeal of an examination. Again straightforward. Simple case, no complications. Have you back on your bicycle in no time, Mr Prout.’
‘I was about to say –’ started the haemorrhoids.
Mr Todd was now at the bottom of the anal ulcer’s bed. The patient was sleeping peacefully. ‘Little point in disturbing Mr Quayle. Anal ulcer.’ He then turned on his heel, looked me full in the face and smiled rather disconcertingly. ‘And that brings us to Mr Phinn.’ All eyes settled on me. ‘Mr Phinn, who has a most interesting, not to say intriguing, condition, the result of a rugby accident when he was a youth. Do you play rugby, gentlemen?’ he asked two young male students. Before they could respond he continued. ‘If you do, be aware that the injuries come back to haunt you when you get older.’ He made me feel ancient. ‘Screens please, sister,’ he said. ‘I would like these would-be medics to give me their considered opinions of Mr Phinn’s condition.’ The screens were hastily pulled around my bed and all the white coats gathered round like dogs with a bone. ‘It is the ankle, isn’t it, Mr Phinn?’ observed the surgeon mischievously.
‘No, no,’ I spluttered, ‘the knee.’
‘Ah yes. The right knee, isn’t it?’
‘The left, it’s the left knee,’ I emphasised.
‘Quite so. Just wanted to be sure of the facts. It’s always important to be aware of the facts. Now, what is all this I have been hearing from Nurse Leach about you being a hospital inspector?’
‘I’m a school inspector,’ I told him, smiling pathetically like a naughty child caught out by a teacher. ‘Your wife will vouch for me. I believe I inspected her earlier this year.’
‘Did you, by God?’ he exclaimed, laughing loudly.
‘Professionally speaking,’ I said. Then I added deferentially, ‘I know nothing about hospitals, but I must say that I’m getting five-star treatment.’
‘I am so glad to hear it,’ said Mr Todd, smiling like Dracula about to sink his teeth into a victim. ‘We aim to please. Now, let us look at this troublesome knee of yours.’
‘I don’t know what’s so special about a knee,’ said the haemorrhoids after the specialist and his entourage had left. I could tell by his tone of voice and his demeanour that he was none too pleased about the attention I had received earlier. ‘We’ve all got knees. There’s nothing unusual about knees, but only a chosen few have haemorrhoids and I’ve got piles of them. Didn’t even exchange the time of day with me, that Mr Todd. Just sailed past me as if –’
‘Will you put a bleeding sock in it!’ exclaimed the hernia. ‘I’m sick and tired of hearing about your bleeding haemorrhoids.’
‘Well, Inspector Clouseau over there had half the medical staff at the hospital around his bed: Sweeney Todd, the demon surgeon of Fleet Street, Sister Enema and all the trainee sawbones. That screen was pulled round for a good ten minutes. Laughing away they were. Preferential treatment, that’s what he got. I bet they all knew he was a hospital inspector.’
‘And how would they know that?’ I asked. ‘I never mentioned it, did I? And you didn’t, did you?’
‘No, no,’ said the haemorrhoids hastily. ‘Never breathed a word.’
At visiting time, Christine arrived with an immense bunch of purple grapes which she placed in a bowl on the bedside cabinet. The haemorrhoids’ visitor, a small wizened woman with a world-weary expression, sat glumly in silence, listening. I could hear the key words of his monologue: ‘pain’, ‘excruciating’, ‘toilet’, ‘suffering’, ‘ache’, ‘discomfort’, ‘agony’, ‘misery’, ‘torment’. Poor woman, I thought.
‘Sidney phoned earlier this evening to wish you well for tomorrow,’ said Christine. ‘He said word is out that the Education Committee is at last going to announce the appointment of the person to replace Harold.’
‘It’s about time,’ I said. ‘It’s dragged on for months.’
‘Do you think it might be Geraldine?’
‘Well, if it is,’ I replied, ‘she wants her head examining, that’s all I can say. How can she bring up Jamie as a single parent and hold that job down?’
‘Some women hold down very demanding jobs,’ said Christine, ‘and bring up a family and manage very well. You underestimate us.’
‘Well, let’s not talk about it,’ I said, ‘but I have to say at once that I hope this is not your way of telling me that you want to go back to work once little Lizzie is born. I hope we are still agreed that you’ll give up your job in February. You are not now wanting to take maternity leave and go back to work afterwards, are you?’
‘No,’ said Christine. ‘I want to watch our child grow up and be there for him… or her.’
‘Phew! That’s a relief! So what else did Sidney say?’
‘He said it was a great pity you didn’t put in for Harold’s job.’ She waited for a response before continuing. ‘You’re not regretting it now, are you?’
‘Not at all. It’s a poisoned chalice,’ I said. ‘I’m much better off as I am.’
She smiled. ‘I’m glad.’
‘And how are you feeling?’ I asked.
‘Mother and baby doing fine. No swollen ankles, no mad cravings. It was quiet without you last night. I’ll be glad when you’re home.’
‘You’ve got the clock to keep you company,’ I said.
Christine had been over the moon when she saw the long-case clock on Christmas Day in pride of place in the sitting room. I had had the devil’s own job keeping it a surprise – collecting it from Mr Frobisher at Just Clocks, hiding it in Harry Cotton’s outbuilding, creeping out late on Christmas Eve after Christine had gone to bed to collect it, then trying to put it together and set the pendulum going without waking her. Of course, I had forgotten about the chiming. Christine saw her Christmas present fifteen seconds after midnight when the clock had struck the hour. There was nothing I could do to stop its chiming. Instead, I had intense pleasure watching Christine, tousled from sleep, come down the stairs to find out whether the noise had been in her dreams. She loved the clock on the spot.
At breakfast on Christmas morning, when I was telling her the story about my buying the clock from Mr Frobisher and how he would be coming out in the New Year to make final adjustments to it, Christine had gazed across at the clock. ‘It is simply perfect there,’ she had said. ‘It looks absolutely at home in that corner.’
This turned out to be not very surprising. On Boxing Day, Harry Cotton had come in for a glass of sherry with us and, seeing the clock in its corner, had suddenly realised that it had belonged to old Mrs Olleranshaw, the previous owner of Peewit Cottage. He recognised the maker’s name, Percy Farrington of Fettlesham, on the clock’s face. It had been sold at Roper’s Salesroom by Mrs Olleranshaw’s nephew, along with the old woman’s other possessions when she had died. At that point, I had remembered the provenance which Mr Frobisher had given me in an envelope. I fetched it from my desk and it indeed confirmed that the clock had returned home to where it had previously stood for over a hundred years.
‘Oh, the clock’s lovely,’ Christine said now, ‘but I think we are going to have to ask Mr Frobisher to come back because just after you left for the hospital it stopped. It was really strange. I asked Harry Cotton to have a look but he couldn’t get it going
. I had to laugh. He said the last time it had stopped without any reason was the night before old Mrs Olleranshaw died.’
‘Thanks a bundle,’ I said. ‘Let’s change the subject. Any other news?’
‘Indeed there is!’ replied Christine, beaming. ‘I heard just before coming out to see you that they’re definitely deferring the closure of the school. It doesn’t mean that the school won’t close, of course, but it’s really positive news. We’ll go on campaigning and maybe we’ll overturn the decision officially.’
‘You’ve done a magnificent job,’ I told her. ‘It wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t got involved.’
‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I must be off, darling. I’ve got so much to do before I leave Winnery Nook. Good luck tomorrow. I’ll be saying a prayer and I’ll be thinking of you.’ She gave me a great big hug and a kiss and left.
‘Nice-looking young woman, your daughter,’ observed the haemorrhoids as he watched Christine leave the ward. ‘Is she expecting?’
‘She’s my wife actually and, yes, she is.’
‘It’s a known fact that women suffer from piles during pregnancy, you know, when the baby puts pressure on the circulatory system. Has she had problems in that direction?’
‘They’ll be a bleeding problem in your direction in a minute,’ said the hernia, stabbing the air with a finger. ‘I’ll come over there and sort out them bleeding haemorrhoids for you and save the surgeon a job.’
It was five minutes after visiting time had finished when Harold breezed in, carrying a large bunch of purple grapes. He was looking very distinguished in a charcoal-grey suit and gleaming white shirt with his old college tie. He was also looking particularly pleased with himself.
‘However did you manage to get past the ward sister?’ I asked, when he reached my bed. ‘I’m told she’s a stickler for people keeping to the visiting hours.’
‘Charm, dear boy, charm,’ said Harold, ‘and a little help from this.’ He tapped the badge on his chest which said in bold black lettering: ‘Dr Harold J. Yeats’. ‘I think the good sister assumed I was one of the medical fraternity and I didn’t disabuse her. You know, having a PhD sometimes comes in very useful.’ He put down the fruit. ‘You seem to have a surfeit of grapes.’
The haemorrhoids, who must have had telescopic vision, had caught sight of the badge and made the same assumption as the ward sister. He shouted across the room, ‘Evening, doctor.’
‘Oh, good evening,’ replied Harold, smiling and showing his set of tombstone teeth.
‘Doing your rounds, are you?’ asked the haemorrhoids.
Harold clearly misunderstood, for he nodded. ‘Yes, indeed.’ Then he turned his attention back to me. ‘I’ve spent the day with Dr Gore and the person who will take over from me in April, and I now have the go-ahead to release the name of the new Senior Inspector. I’ve just come from telling your colleagues but I wanted you to know as soon as possible who we’ve appointed.’
‘Yes, I heard the news was imminent, and am on tenterhooks to know,’ I said.
‘Well, I think you will be somewhat surprised but, I hope, extremely pleased when you hear whom we’ve appointed.’
‘When you’ve got a moment, doctor,’ shouted the haemorrhoids, ‘could you pop over? I’d like to have a word.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Harold. ‘Now, Gervase –’
‘It’s just that I’d like to discuss one or two things with you,’ continued the haemorrhoids.
‘Ignore him, Harold,’ I said. ‘He’s a pain in the… the backside. So who is he?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘The new Senior Inspector, who is he? What’s he like?’
‘She,’ replied Harold. ‘It’s a she.’
‘A she?’ I repeated.
‘That’s right,’ said Harold, smiling widely and showing his set of great tombstone teeth.
‘It’s not Geraldine, is it?’
‘No, no, not Geraldine,’ replied Harold. ‘She hasn’t quite got the experience. Geraldine might make a Senior Inspector in the not too distant future, but she told me back in the autumn that she wasn’t planning to apply because she puts young Jamie before her job – and quite right too.’
‘Who is it, then, Harold?’ I urged.
‘Miss de la Mare.’
‘What?!’ I cried.
‘Winifred de la Mare.’
‘But she’s an HMI,’ I spluttered.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Why on earth would she want the job?’
‘She’s become wearied with the hectic life in London,’ Harold told me. ‘All the paper pushing, bureaucracy, constant new initiatives, travelling on the Tube every morning and evening has taken its toll. She’s ready for a different sort of challenge. Of course, Dr Gore was very keen to appoint her. None of the other candidates could hold a candle to a senior HMI. However, as you know, she’s a forceful character and, before accepting the position, there were certain conditions she wanted the Education Committee to agree to, including that it would support certain innovations she would wish to put in place.’
‘But why has it taken so long, Harold?’ I asked.
‘Ah well, as soon as the mandarins at the Ministry of Education got wind of her possible move, they exerted considerable pressure for her to stay. It was agreed that she could have Christmas to think things over. So, she gets to live in Yorkshire, which can’t be bad, and has the opportunity of leading a team of colleagues whom she genuinely likes and respects. I think she’ll be excellent.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ I said. I shook Harold’s hand enthusiastically. ‘Wonderful!’
‘Good news, is it?’ came the voice of the haemorrhoids. ‘He doesn’t have to have the leg off then?’
‘No,’ said Harold over his shoulder. ‘So,’ he said to me, ‘things have worked out pretty well. David and Geraldine are, of course, delighted and Sidney made some typical comment about “well, the devil you know”. I feel I shall be leaving the department in very good hands. She’s just right for the job and has masses of experience.’
‘And Christine tells me the Education Sub-Committee is holding fire with the Hawksrill School closure.’
‘That’s right,’ said Harold, ‘and I have a feeling nothing will happen in that direction for quite some time now. Councillor Peterson has just about thrown in the towel, by all accounts. He was unusually quiet at the last meeting and, thank goodness for small mercies, wasn’t at the appointment for my replacement. Pressure of work, I was told. Now, I must let you get some rest. I promised the ward sister five minutes and no more. She’ll be having my guts for garters if I stay any longer. Oh, did you manage to finish reading through the reports?’
‘Yes, they’re here,’ I said, reaching into my bedside cabinet.
‘Splendid. I’ll take them with me. Well, Gervase, good luck for tomorrow. And don’t think of coming back to work until you are fully fit again.’
‘Thanks for calling in, Harold. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the appointment. Oh, and thanks for the grapes.’
As Harold made for the door he was verbally waylaid by the haemorrhoids. ‘If I could have a word, doctor,’ he said.
‘Well, I am in a bit of a hurry,’ Harold told him pleasantly.
‘I thought you might want a quick look at my haemorrhoids.’
‘Pardon?’ gasped Harold.
‘To have a look at my haemorrhoids.’
‘No, no!’ spluttered Harold. ‘Thank you kindly for the offer but I really must decline.’ With that he shot out of the door.
‘Well, what about that!’ cried the haemorrhoids, addressing no one in particular. ‘Not so much as a glance at my condition. He shot out of that door like a rat up a drainpipe.’ He looked across at me angrily. ‘They’ll be laying a red carpet down to the operating theatre for you. You mark my words, you’ll be in your own personal private room tomorrow with coloured telly and Jacuzzi. Well, I’m complaining. It’s not righ
t, hospital inspectors getting preferential treatment.’
I held up the big bunch of purple grapes and smiled sweetly. ‘Would you care for a grape?’ I asked.
*
The following morning, the anaesthetist arrived at seven-thirty prompt to give me an injection. As I was wheeled out of the ward, feeling pleasantly drowsy, the haemorrhoids got his own back, breaking into a loud and cheerful rendering of ‘You May Never Walk This Way Again’.
21
‘I’m looking for a man!’
I recognised immediately the aristocratic tones of the Honourable Mrs Cleaver-Canning at the end of the line. The previous year I had received a telephone call from the said ‘honourable’ lady inviting me, on the strength of a friend’s recommendation, to speak at the Totterdale and Clearwell Golf Club Christmas Ladies’ Night Dinner. First, however, she had wanted to meet me – to look me over.
So I had duly presented myself at the imposing Georgian residence in Prince Regent Row, Fettlesham, to be Vetted’. The elderly stooped figure with wisps of sandy hair and an extravagant handlebar moustache who answered the door, I had taken to be an old family retainer. It turned out that the man in question was Mrs Cleaver-Canning’s long-suffering husband. Everyone called him Winco.
Much to my relief, my talk about my experiences as a school inspector was well received. The audience, no doubt buoyed up by good food and wine, had been extremely warm and receptive and I had left with a generous cheque to swell Sister Brendan’s charity appeal. Now, here was Mrs Cleaver-Canning on the telephone again, no doubt wanting me to do a repeat performance somewhere or other.
‘Good morning, Mrs Cleaver-Canning,’ I said brightly. ‘And how are you?’
‘I’m extremely well, thank you, Mr Phinn,’ she replied, ‘but I am desperate for a man.’ ‘Really?’
‘And you fit the bill. You are exactly what I am looking for.’
‘I am certainly flattered,’ I told her, ‘but what about Winco?’
‘Oh, you are a one,’ she chortled down the line. ‘No, no, I want a man for our musical drama. You may be aware that I am a leading light in the Fettlesham Literary Players and next month we will be staging The Sound of Music at the Civic Theatre in town. Unfortunately, one of the cast, Mr Dutton of “Dutton’s Carpets of Distinction” – you probably know his emporium in the High Street – has dropped out. Literally, as a matter of fact. The poor man fell off the stage at Castlesnelling High School where we hold our rehearsals, and is in traction at the Royal Infirmary. He tripped over a sign which warned of projecting stage sets and just dropped off the stage like a sack of potatoes. You may have heard the theatrical expression “break a leg”. Well, Mr Dutton actually did. So, how about it?’
Up and Down in the Dales Page 30