‘And how are you, Connie?’ asked the CEO. ‘No more thoughts of leaving us, I hope?’ Before she could answer, he said, to no one in particular, ‘Connie here used to clean my office down in the Annexe, when I was an education officer. Always left it spotless, did Connie.’
‘Well, it’s nice to be appreciated,’ she said, looking knowingly in Sidney’s direction.
‘And we were an untidy lot, were we not, Connie?’ continued Dr Gore.
‘Not as untidy as some I could mention,’ she said, looking at Sidney again.
‘Well, Connie, the Centre is looking splendid as usual,’ said the CEO, ‘and I much appreciate that you have been able to arrange the refreshments and have given up an evening to help out.’
‘It was my bingo tonight,’ Connie told him.
‘I am indeed most grateful.’
‘As I was saying to Mr Phinn, Brian, there’s nothing fancy.’ It was Mrs Savage’s turn now to receive the knowing look. ‘Nothing fancy at all. I can’t be doing with fancy things.’
‘I am sure that the repast you have provided, Connie, will be first class. Now shall we go in and have a pre-prandial drink with the others?’
‘Oh dear, I’ve none of that,’ said Connie quickly. ‘Just wine, orange juice or tea. Nobody said anything to me about prandials.’
The evening was a success. Dr Gore’s address to the foreign inspectors and the invited headteachers went down well, Connie’s plain English food was consumed with gusto, a good quantity of wine was drunk and the atmosphere was most convivial.
‘Splendid evening,’ enthused Dr Gore as he made ready to depart. ‘Many thanks, Gervase, for all your hard work and for your sterling efforts, too, Brenda. You make a formidable team.’ I kept a deliberately straight face. Mrs Savage raised an eyebrow. ‘Our visitors have been most complimentary and will return to their respective countries, I am sure, suitably impressed.’
At this point, Connie materialised. She had put on her pink overall when she had served the food – and it clashed horribly with her new copper hair-do.
‘Many thanks, Connie, for your help,’ said Dr Gore. ‘As efficient as ever.’
As Connie blushed prettily and preened a little, I could see out of the corner of my eye that Mrs Savage was looking thunderous.
‘Sorry to butt in,’ said Connie, ‘but I was just coming to tell Mr Phinn that my steps what’d gone missing last autumn have suddenly turned up. You were right, Mr Phinn, the vicar had them. He kept them to put up the Christmas decorations in the church, and someone else tidied them away into the back of the vestry.’
‘That’s good news, Connie,’ I said. ‘But a bit late for that creeper to be pruned now.’
‘No, it’s all right. The chap from the Parks Department came ages ago with his own set of steps, and he cut that clitoris right back.’
‘Well, the EIEI visit seemed to go very well,’ said Sidney. It was Saturday morning and we were sitting in the lounge at the Staff Development Centre having just said our farewells to the three inspectors.
‘Signor Toria was delightful,’ said David, who looked a whole lot happier than he had done for weeks. ‘He’s invited me over to Italy, you know, to see the schools there. Florence. Firenze!’ he said expansively, waving his arms in the air. ‘He said the standard of numeracy was higher in our county schools than in Italy. I must say I felt quite vindicated. Yes, he was absolutely delightful and spoke perfect English. After Welsh, I think that Italian is the most mellifluous of languages. They don’t have a problem with spelling in Italy because Italian, based on Latin, of course, is a very logical and phonetic language. Very much like Welsh, you know. Why can’t English be like that, Gervase?’
‘Oh, let’s not go down that road again, please,’ begged Sidney.
‘Actually, he felt very much at home, did Mario,’ said David. ‘I took him to Willingforth Primary and he thought he had arrived at an Italian school. There was a child shouting out at the gate: “Mama mia! Mama mia!” I had some difficulty in explaining to him that the boy was not, in fact, speaking Italian but trying to get his mother’s attention on the other side of the road where she had just arrived. “Mum, I’m ‘ere! Mum, I’m ‘ere!” We did laugh,’ chuckled David.
‘I am delighted that you are back to your cheerful old self, David,’ remarked Sidney. ‘You have been as miserable as a jockey with haemorrhoids, lately.’
‘Please, please don’t mention haemorrhoids,’ I said, thinking of my stay in hospital.
‘You haven’t got what my dear old Welsh grandmother called “problems in your parts of dishonour”, have you, Gervase?’ asked David.
‘No, I haven’t,’ I said quickly.
‘Terribly painful are haemorrhoids,’ said Sidney.
I changed the subject. ‘And how was Simone?’ I asked him. ‘She seemed very amiable.’
‘Amiable? Amiable?’ scoffed Sidney. ‘Hardly the most appropriate adjective to describe a woman of such outstanding beauty and composure. Simone was exquisite.’
‘And how did she cope with the Yorkshire dialect?’ I asked.
‘I had to translate a great deal of what the teachers said to her, let alone what the children said,’ Sidney told us, leaning back on his chair. ‘There were a number of little gems, like the child who informed her that the crayon she wanted for her drawing was not in the tin: “Tintintin.” At one point she was asked by a little lad if we were together: ‘Oo are tha wi’, are tha wi’ ‘im?’ She just stood and shrugged in that Gallic way they have. In another school, the teacher was describing the death of Admiral Nelson, how he was shot by a French sniper and lay dying in Captain Hardy’s arms. One child piped up with the question: “And ‘ow did ‘ardy die?” She hadn’t a chance, poor Mademoiselle de Marbot.’
‘Never mind how she got on with the language,’ said David. ‘How on earth did she put up with you?’
‘Actually,’ said Sidney, ‘we got on great guns, though I have to admit she did have a few difficulties appreciating my sense of humour.’
‘Does anyone appreciate your sense of humour, Sidney?’ asked David.
‘Well, I certainty hope that Gervase does,’ he replied.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Let me introduce you to someone, my dear friend and colleague,’ he said. Then, in a strong American drawl, he continued. ‘This is Brewster – John K. Brewster – and I’m with a delegation of Quakers from the States for the International Convention at York. I’d like to make you a proposition about the meeting house on your land.’
‘Sidney!’ I shouted, the truth dawning. ‘You’re a monster!’
24
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ I asked.
It was the first night of The Sound of Music. Christine was intending to come with me but had been feeling rather tired and the thought of two and a half hours in the same position on a small seat in a stuffy theatre, listening to nuns climbing mountains, was not that appealing to her. She had told me, patting her very large stomach, that she had her very own mountain, without climbing any others.
‘I’ll be fine. Really,’ she said. ‘But I will be happier staying at home.’
‘I don’t suppose anybody would notice if I don’t make an appearance,’ I said. ‘After all, I only have a couple of lines. I suppose Ray could fill in although he would rather swim in the uniform and, as I said before, I can’t quite see him as an SS officer. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?’
‘No!’ she said firmly. ‘From what you’ve told me of your producer, he would be in a real state if a member of the cast failed to turn up. I’m going to have a hot bath and go to bed with a cup of cocoa and a romantic novel.’
‘If you’re sure.’
‘Do you want me to throw something at you?’ she said. ‘Go! I’ll be fine.’
As it turned out, how wrong she was. The evening of the first performance of The Sound of Music would become a part of Phinn folklore.
Despite the fact tha
t all the cast had arrived on time, the orchestra had its full complement and the Civic Theatre was beginning to fill up, Ray was in a panic, buzzing around like a jam-crazed wasp. The motif on his T-shirt seemed particularly apt for his state of mind: ‘I used to have a handle on life – then it broke off.’ That evening, he seemed to have a handle on very little, and he transmitted his twitchy nerves to some members of the cast.
When he saw my SS uniform, with a chest full of medals, hanging up in the dressing room, the shiny black boots and the frighteningly large Luger pistol in a leather holster, next to his shabby black suit and crumpled trilby hat, Mr Furnival felt quite aggrieved.
‘I don’t see why I can’t have a uniform,’ he told the producer. ‘He’s got a uniform and he’s got a lot smaller part than I have.’ He sounded like a petulant child.
‘That’s because you’re a Gauleiter and Gervase is an SS officer,’ explained Ray. ‘I told you that at the dress rehearsal.’
‘I think I would look a lot more threatening and sinister if I was in a black uniform,’ persisted Mr Furnival.
‘I think you look quite threatening and sinister enough in the black suit and hat,’ said Ray.
‘This is what I wear for funerals,’ his vexed companion told him.
‘Enough said,’ remarked Ray.
‘I thought I’d be in uniform,’ complained Mr Furnival. ‘I wear this black suit every day of my working life. I really do think I deserve a change.’
‘You are not wearing a uniform,’ said Raymond angrily, ‘and that is that!’
‘Well, what about the gun? Can I have the gun?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘Can I at least have a Tyrolean hat instead of the trilby?’
‘Look, George!’ snapped Ray. ‘The directions say quite specifically that Herr Zeller wears a black suit with Nazi emblem on his lapel and not a uniform and he certainly wouldn’t be wearing a Tyrolean hat. How threatening do you think he would look in a Tyrolean bloody hat?’
‘Where’s my Nazi emblem for my lapel, then? I haven’t even got a Nazi emblem for my lapel,’ moaned Mr Furnival, in no way mollified. He pointed to my uniform. ‘He’s got more medals on his chest than General Montgomery.’
‘Well, improvise,’ sighed Ray. ‘Improvise. I’m sure in your line of work there’s a lot of improvisation.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ blustered Mr Furnival.
‘Use your Rotary Club pin,’ Ray told him.
Mr Furnival ballooned with anger. ‘Use my Rotary Club pin! Use my Rotary Club pin! You must be mad. I’ll have you know the Rotarians would have been the first to have been rounded up in this country if Hitler had won. We stand for Fellowship, Friendship and Service Above Self, not world domination. I’m not going on stage with my Rotary Club pin displayed for all to see. There’s the District Governor in the audience. He’d have a seizure.’
‘Stick a swastika over the top, then,’ said Ray.
Before Mr Furnival could respond, a girl playing the part of a young nun arrived at the door of the dressing room with her costume over her arm. She was obviously very distressed.
‘Come along, Bernice,’ chivvied Ray, ‘you should be in costume by now.’
‘Mi mam says I can’t be in it,’ replied the girl sadly.
‘Can’t be in it!’ exclaimed Ray. ‘What does she mean, you can’t be in it?’
‘She says I can’t be in it,’ repeated the girl.
‘She has left it a trifle late, hasn’t she,’ said Ray. ‘It’s opening night.’
‘It’s when I told her what I was playing,’ said the girl, clearly very embarrassed. ‘She said she didn’t know there was any of them in The Sound of Music and she doesn’t want me playing that sort of woman.’
‘What sort of woman?’ enquired the producer, mystified.
‘That sort,’ replied the girl, looking decidedly embarrassed.
‘Bernice, darling,’ said Raymond, trying to keep calm. ‘I am not a mind-reader. I cannot read your thoughts. What does she mean, “that sort of woman”? She doesn’t want you to play a nun? Has she some religious objection?’
‘You said I was to be’ – at this point the girl whispered theatrically – ‘a prostitute.’
‘A prostitute!’ gasped Ray. ‘Has the world gone completely mad? Where in The Sound of Music is there a prostitute?’
‘You said I was one.’
‘Read my lips, Bernice. I said you were a postulant, a candidate for the religious life, a trainee nun, not a prostitute.’
‘So I’m not a prostitute?’ asked the girl.
‘No, Bernice, you are not a prostitute,’ said Ray. ‘You are a postulant. Now, you ring your dear mother and tell her the good news and then get changed.’ Ray flopped onto the chair beside me. ‘Whatever next?’ he asked. He did not have long to wait.
The rather spotty young man playing Rolf entered the fray. He waddled into the changing room slowly and carefully as if he had a ferret down his trousers.
‘Ray, do I have to wear these leather shorts?’ he asked, sucking in his breath as if he had acute indigestion. ‘They’re cutting off my circulation.’
The producer looked heavenwards and sighed heavily. ‘Yes, you have to wear the shorts, Fraser.’
‘They are incredibly tight. I can hardly move.’
‘They’re lederhosen. They’re supposed to be tight.’
‘It’s like having two tourniquets around my legs. I have difficulty walking in these shorts, never mind dancing. They really are very constricting and as for going to the toilet –’
‘They’ll give,’ replied Ray. ‘They’re made of leather. Just move about a bit and –’ He stopped mid-sentence as Mrs Cleaver-Canning sailed past the door in her capacious black Mother Abbess costume, hung with a huge silver cross. She was like a galleon in full sail with the wind behind it. Ray smacked his hand to his forehead dramatically and looked as if he was about to swoon.
‘Margot, darling, could I have a small word?’ he shouted after her.
Mrs Cleaver-Canning retraced her steps and made a stately entrance. ‘Yes, Raymond?’ she asked. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh my!’ Ray exclaimed. ‘Whatever have you got on your face?’
‘My make-up,’ she replied simply. ‘What do you imagine I’ve got on my face?’
‘Don’t you feel you’ve gone just a teensy-weensy bit overboard with the greasepaint?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You cannot go on stage with that face, Margot,’ moaned Ray. ‘You look like a Liverpool tart.’
‘I beg your pardon, Raymond!’ she replied, giving him a lemon-sucking grimace.
‘Don’t you feel, just a smidgen, that scarlet cupid-bow lips, bright blue eye-shadow and crimson rouge are a touch out of character for a nun? You’re supposed to be the Mother Abbess, not a woman of ill-repute looking for sailors on the dockside.’
‘I deeply resent that analogy, Raymond,’ responded Mrs Cleaver-Canning. ‘This, for your information, is my normal make-up, slightly exaggerated for dramatic purposes, and I have not the slightest intention of removing it. And another thing, there is no possibility, no possibility at all, of Winco trimming his moustache. It may look somewhat out of character, I have to admit, for a German admiral, but he has had that handlebar since he was a pilot officer in the RAF and I don’t –’
‘Of course, you don’t! Why should you?’ snapped Ray petulantly. ‘Why should anyone listen to me? I’m just the producer after all. My opinion counts for nothing.’ He then pushed past her and strutted off, complaining to himself. ‘I’ve just about had enough.’
‘He’ll be fine, once the curtain rises,’ Mrs Cleaver-Canning told me calmly, adjusting her wimple in the mirror. ‘One has to make allowances. Opening night nerves, that’s all. He was the same last year when we did Carousel. Nearly fainted with the stress. It’s always the case with these creative people. They’re terribly temperamental. Charles, in my flower-arranging club, is just the s
ame. If his arrangement is not exactly right he nearly breaks a blood vessel. Now, come along, Mr Phinn. You must see Winco in his German admiral’s uniform. He looks quite dashing.’
Although I say it myself, the Fettlesham Literary Players put on the performance of their lives. Of course, it was Mrs Cleaver-Canning who stole the show, filling the hall with her deep, resonant contralto voice. Following the first rendering of ‘Climb Every Mountain’, the wholly enthusiastic audience demanded a reprise to which she graciously acceded. Everyone joined the von Trapps with ‘Edelweiss’, they applauded loudly when the children danced, cheered when the Nazis were foiled and, much to Mr Furnival’s delight, loudly hissed the Gauleiter each time he made an appearance.
When the curtain fell Ray danced onto the stage, ecstatic. ‘Wonderful! Marvellous! Magnificent! Superlative! Margot, you were a tour de force!’ he cried, embracing Mrs Cleaver-Canning – not that his little arms reached round more than half her considerable size. ‘Oh my dears, I think I’m going to cry. You were all so so good.’
All the players were milling around on the stage, re-living the performance, exchanging recollections, laughing, when the theatre manager, a tall man with a thick black moustache and dressed in a dinner jacket and bow tie, appeared from the wings, like the pantomime villain. ‘Is there a Mr Pin here?’ he called loudly.
‘Who?’ asked Ray.
‘A Mr Pin? I was told there was a Mr Pin in the cast.’
‘There’s a Mr Phinn.’ I said. ‘That’s me.’
‘Is your wife having a baby?’
‘Yes, she is,’ I replied, my heart beginning to pound.
‘There’s been a phone call.’
‘A phone call?’ I repeated faintly.
‘From your wife.’
‘Oh Lord, what did she say?’ I asked, my stomach churning.
‘She’s gone to the hospital.’
‘What? When?’ My stomach was doing kangaroo jumps.
Everyone on the stage was hushed, listening to the little drama.
Up and Down in the Dales Page 35