The Little Village School

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘Well, there’s no magic cure for a start, but lots of love and support and patience from family and friends can have a real impact on any success in treating this condition. Providing James with emotional encouragement can be very beneficial. He should never be prompted to speak, but attention should be taken to making him feel comfortable and relaxed and confident in social settings. From what I saw in the school this morning, I think your son is in very good hands here and is well placed to make real progress. Mrs Devine strikes me as a very competent and capable head teacher.’

  And she’s much more than that, thought Dr Stirling.

  Mrs Atticus’s Tuesday lunchtime art class proved very popular and successful and the school corridors and classrooms soon became richly colourful, with vibrant paintings and sketches, delicate watercolours and line drawings. The vicar’s wife turned out to be a natural teacher. Elisabeth called in at the art class and found Mrs Atticus well organised, enthusiastic and with a firm, no-nonsense approach with the children.

  ‘I can see you have really taken to this,’ Elisabeth told her one lunchtime.

  ‘Do you know,’ replied Mrs Atticus, ‘I have to say I had some misgivings about coming in to teach the children, but I am really enjoying working with them and I have discovered some real talent. I shall be entering some of their work for the County Art Competition.’

  ‘You know, perhaps you ought to think of training as a teacher,’ suggested Elisabeth. ‘I’ve mentioned it to you before. You should think about it. I’ve checked – there is a course at St John’s College and you could do your teaching practice here. We should be delighted to have you.’

  ‘Thank you, Elisabeth,’ replied Mrs Atticus. ‘I might just do that. I shall speak to my husband on the matter. Do you know, I have to admit that I’ve felt quite liberated since coming here. I’ve been stuck in that dark and depressing vicarage for so long with very little to do, it really got me down.’ Her eyes glinted with pleasure. ‘It’s been like a breath of fresh air coming here.’

  Dr Stirling arrived at the school the following Tuesday to take the lesson on sex education as he had promised. He entered the classroom with Elisabeth, who introduced him and explained to the children what the lesson that day would be about. She imagined that James would be embarrassed by seeing his father at the front of the classroom talking about such a delicate subject, but he seemed unconcerned. Elisabeth appreciated that the subject of sex required very sensitive and careful handling, and seeing several of the boys smirking and nudging one another she felt it appropriate that she should stand eagle-eyed at the front of the classroom. She noticed that a cheeky smile had appeared on the face of Ernest Pocock. She would watch that particular young man, she thought to herself.

  The children listened attentively as Dr Stirling explained, simply and clearly, the human reproductive system and the changes that would be taking place in the children’s bodies as they grew older. Elisabeth took over to talk about the moral implications of sexual relationships. At the end she asked if there were any questions.

  She was met with silence.

  ‘There must be some questions you would like to ask Dr Stirling,’ she prompted.

  Ernest Pocock raised a hand. He had a cheeky smile right across his face.

  I might have guessed it would be him, thought Elisabeth. What deeply embarrassing question had he thought up?

  ‘Yes, Ernest, what would you like to ask?’ she said, bracing herself.

  ‘Will there be the art class this lunchtime, miss?’ he asked.

  13

  Mrs Scrimshaw was putting on her coat ready to go home when Mr Gribbon appeared at the door of the office with a gloomy expression in his long face.

  ‘You’re off, then,’ he said.

  ‘I am,’ replied the secretary. ‘I’ve got a WI meeting tonight. Mr Smith, from the undertakers in Clayton, is talking on “The Lighter Side of Funerals”.’

  ‘Sounds a barrel of laughs,’ observed the caretaker. ‘I’m glad the weekend’s here, I can tell you. It’s been a week and a half.’

  ‘Really?’

  He jangled the heavy bunch of keys in his pocket. ‘You know, I miss our little chats at the end of the day. I used to like coming in here after school.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ replied Mrs Scrimshaw, ‘I’m just pleased I can get off home at a reasonable hour instead of hanging about here as I used to do, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for some non-existent phone call from the Education Office or a parent, while Miss Sowerbutts shot out of the school at the sound of the bell.’

  ‘Mrs Devine’s on at me to put that plaque back on the wall,’ the caretaker complained. ‘I thought if I left it for a bit she’d forget about it, but she hasn’t, so I suppose I shall have to stick it back up. I could tell her where I’d like to stick it, if it was up to me—’

  ‘Yes, I know about the plaque,’ interrupted Mrs Scrimshaw. ‘Lady Helen brought it in herself before half-term. Mrs Devine was wondering when you’d get around to putting it back up.’

  ‘It’s bloody heavy, I can tell you. Pardon my French. It took a right job getting it off the wall and now it’s to go back up. I wish they’d make up their minds.’

  ‘It should never have been removed in the first place,’ said the secretary. ‘I said at the time that Lady Helen would not be best pleased.’

  ‘There’s been some changes since Mrs Devine’s took over,’ sighed the caretaker. ‘Every day there’s something new. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. Now all these people coming in and out, it’s like King’s Cross station at rush hour.’

  ‘The changes have been all for the better as far as I am concerned, Mr Gribbon,’ replied the secretary curtly. ‘The children are better behaved, the staff are happier, my office has more space, I can have my lunch in the staff-room instead of at my desk and I can get off home at a reasonable time. I think it’s a very good idea to have all these things going on. And it can’t have escaped your notice either that parents aren’t taking their children away as they used to do. In fact I’ve had enquiries from some who are thinking of sending their children here, and from what I’ve heard from Mrs Sloughthwaite, some of those parents who took their children away and sent them to Urebank are now having second thoughts.’

  ‘I know that things have changed for the better,’ said the caretaker. ‘I’m not denying that, Mrs Scrimshaw, it’s just that it’s meant a lot more work for me and what with my bad back—’

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, Mr Gribbon!’ she snapped. ‘Do stop complaining. Give the woman some credit for what she’s done.’ Of course, thought the school secretary, the caretaker would find some of the changes not entirely to his liking. He had had to work a whole lot harder since the new head teacher had taken over. Mrs Devine was in the habit of patrolling the building before and after school to make certain everything was clean and orderly. It certainly kept Mr Gribbon on his toes.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ said the caretaker.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked the secretary.

  ‘As I recall, you were not all that happy when she was appointed.’

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Gribbon,’ Mrs Scrimshaw said sharply, ‘I don’t remember saying anything adverse when Mrs Devine was appointed. If my memory serves me right, I said she was very pleasant and chatty. I merely made a comment about her appearance when she came for the interview. And as to that, I think she looks very smart and eye-catching. As far as I am concerned, I think Mrs Devine is doing an excellent job and I agree with all the changes she’s made.’

  ‘I’m not saying things haven’t improved,’ said the caretaker quickly, ‘it’s just that—’

  ‘Just what?’ snapped the secretary.

  ‘Well, just that there’s been so many changes.’

  ‘Change can be a good thing,’ said Mrs Scrimshaw.

  ‘Well, I don’t know why she wants to go inviting all these people into school,’ moaned the caretaker, jangling the bunch of keys in his pocket.

&n
bsp; ‘It’s to give the children the opportunity of hearing from different people,’ the secretary told him. She was wearying of the caretaker’s continual carping.

  ‘I thought it was teachers what taught kids, not every Tom, Dick and Harry.’

  ‘It’s all about extending the children’s education, Mr Gribbon,’ she told him. ‘I’m all for it.’

  ‘Yes, well, you don’t have to clear up after the vicar’s wife’s been in. It’s the devil’s own job getting that paint off of the desks after she’s been in there with that art class of hers, and I’m sick to death of telling old man Tomlinson not to keep wheeling that piano backwards and forwards on my parquet floor when he’s been in the hall with the choir. There’s been scuffs. Then there’s the clearing up after the rounders team and looking after the football pitch. I never had all this to do when we had Miss Sowerbutts in charge.’

  ‘You do get paid overtime,’ observed the secretary.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ grumbled the caretaker.

  ‘I’ll mention your complaints to Mrs Devine,’ replied the school secretary, knowing full well what reaction this observation would receive.

  ‘No, no, don’t do that,’ said Mr Gribbon quickly. ‘I’m just saying.’

  Mrs Scrimshaw stopped what she was doing and looked at the caretaker. ‘So you think it was better when Miss Sowerbutts was in charge, do you, Mr Gribbon?’ asked the secretary.

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ he replied defensively.

  ‘Because if you are, then you’re the only person who does.’

  ‘I’m just saying—’ he began.

  ‘Well, I think it’s an excellent idea having these visitors in school. And I’ll say this, that if the rumours about the school closing are true, you won’t have all this extra work you’re complaining about, will you?’ The caretaker was silent and grimaced. ‘Now I shall leave you to stick the plaque back on the wall,’ said Mrs Scrimshaw, edging past him.

  ‘So how are you liking it at your new school then, Malcolm?’ asked Mrs Sloughthwaite. She kept a wary eye on the items displayed on the counter as she asked the question. The boy might not be very good at much but at sleight of hand he was the master.

  ‘It’s all right,’ mumbled the boy.

  It was the following afternoon, and Mrs Stubbins had called in at the village store to do her weekly shopping. She smoothed an eyebrow with a little finger. ‘Oh, he’s settled in really well,’ she told the shopkeeper. ‘Best thing I ever did was move him. He was never happy at Barton, were you, Malcolm?’

  ‘No,’ the boy muttered. He glanced surreptitiously at the counter where the sweets were displayed.

  ‘Teachers were always picking on him,’ continued Mrs Stubbins. ‘That Miss Brakespeare did nothing but find fault, and Miss Sowerbutts hadn’t a good word to say about him. He spent more time standing outside her door than in the classroom. I thought I’d give this new head teacher a chance, but she’s like the rest and she had it in for him as soon as he started. Didn’t she, Malcolm?’

  The boy nodded.

  ‘I went in to see her, you know,’ Mrs Stubbins told the shopkeeper.

  ‘Really?’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite.

  ‘She was all hoity-toity with me and looked down her nose as if I was something she’d found on the soles of those fancy red shoes of hers.’

  ‘You don’t say.’

  ‘Only got savaged by a ferret!’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Mrs Stubbins, prodding her son. ‘Him. That’s why I went into school. That Stainthorpe lad brought in this ferret, smelly, vicious thing it was, and he let it loose and when it attacked my Malcolm and nearly took half his finger off and he tried to pull it off, he hit him. He come home with a lump on his forehead the size of a pullet’s egg, didn’t you, Malcolm?’

  ‘Yeah, I did,’ the boy muttered.

  ‘That Mrs Devine tried to blame it on my Malcolm. I told her in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t having it.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘I did. So I’ve took him away and sent him to Urebank. He’s better off there, aren’t you, Malcolm?’

  The boy didn’t reply.

  If truth be told, Malcolm had not settled in at Urebank and he felt he was not better off at all. The first week at his new school he had kept his head down and behaved himself, watching and listening, but he found the work hard and tedious and he didn’t like his teacher, a tall thin man with lank hair and a dull reddish face, a man devoid of humour who spoke through his nose in a monotonous drawl. The new boy was made to sit at the front by himself; he soon found that the teacher was less than impressed with the work he produced and covered his exercise book with red ink as if he had bled over it.

  Then there was reading around the class. On Friday morning, each child in turn was required to read a page of the class reader, a very boring and difficult book. Most of Malcolm’s fellow pupils were very good readers and read quickly and accurately. When it came to his turn the boy’s stomach did kangaroo jumps and he mumbled and stumbled over the words, much to the amusement of the other children and the displeasure of the teacher. He hated it.

  Any attempts on Malcolm’s part to make friends with some of the other boys in his year proved unsuccessful. Whenever he approached a group in the playground at breaktime the boys observed him like some alien creature and wandered off laughing. They were in their last year at primary school and these boys had grown up together, forming close friendship groups, and were not inclined to let this outsider who lived in the next village into their midst. One thing he knew he was good at was football, but the team was well established and successful and his offer to play in a match fell on deaf ears. When, after a week of miserable silence in class, Malcolm started to make his presence felt in a misguided attempt to impress his peers, by shouting out and making clever comments, he was sent to stand outside the head teacher’s room. He stood there wretchedly unhappy and lonely and wished he had never moved from Barton.

  ‘You might have got away with such behaviour at Barton,’ Mr Richardson had told him, the veins in his temple standing out and throbbing angrily, ‘but you will not get away with it here!’

  Malcolm had pouted and looked at the floor, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot and wishing he was back at Barton.

  ‘Yes,’ his mother told the shopkeeper now, ‘he’s much better off there, aren’t you, Malcolm?’

  Her son didn’t answer.

  Mrs Sloughthwaite was adept at gleaning information and gossip from those who patronised her shop. She was also very skilled at teasing those customers she did not like, and she did so in such an apparently innocent way, with a sympathetic expression on her round and friendly face, that they failed to see that she was deliberately provoking them. She disliked this loud woman with the sullen, light-fingered son but, being a shrewd shopkeeper, did not wish to lose her custom.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he is better off where he is,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite. ‘It’s surprising, though, that Malcolm didn’t get on at the village school. All the parents who come into the shop since Mrs Devine took over seem very content with the way things are and very happy with the changes that the new head teacher is making. And from what I hear, some of those parents who sent their kiddies to Urebank are regretting it now they’ve heard about the improvements. I reckon some of them will be sending them back here before too long.’ She chuckled inwardly at the evident consternation her comments were creating.

  ‘What, some children are coming back here?’ piped up Malcolm. ‘Can I—’

  His mother ignored him. ‘Be quiet!’ she snapped.

  ‘Yes, the village school is getting quite a reputation,’ said the shopkeeper.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t know about that,’ said Mrs Stubbins. ‘Anyway, not everybody’s that happy. Dr Stirling has taken his son away.’

  ‘That was just a silly rumour,’ the shopkeeper told her. ‘Mrs O’Connor, the doctor’s housekeeper, was telling me that only yest
erday and she should know. The boy’s still at Barton, so she said.’

  ‘Oh,’ was all her customer could say.

  ‘They’ve got a choir there now,’ Mrs Sloughthwaite continued. ‘The children sang in the Bethesda chapel on Sunday and Mrs Widowson said they sounded lovely, and she’s not one to give out compliments easily.’

  ‘I’ve never been one for hymns and such myself,’ disclosed Mrs Stubbins, rather scornfully.

  ‘And I hear they’ve got a rounders team,’ continued the shopkeeper, amused by the woman’s sour-looking expression.

  ‘You don’t say,’ said Mrs Stubbins, trying to sound indifferent.

  ‘And a football team,’ announced the shopkeeper.

  ‘A football team!’ cried Malcolm, his body becoming suddenly animated like a puppet with its strings pulled.

  ‘So I hear,’ said the shopkeeper.

  ‘They never had a football team when I was there,’ he said petulantly.

  ‘Well, they have now,’ Mrs Sloughthwaite informed him. ‘And they’ve started a chess club and an art group. Mrs Pocock was telling me her Ernest is quite a dab hand with a paintbrush and has taken to painting like a duck to water. Had a picture entered for a competition. She says he’s coming along a treat at school these days.’

  ‘I didn’t know they had a football team,’ said Malcolm sourly. ‘It’s probably rubbish.’

  Mrs Sloughthwaite leaned over and rested her Amazonian bosom and her dimpled arms on the counter. She looked down at the sulky boy. ‘And are you in the football team at Urebank, then, Malcolm?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he muttered, scowling.

  ‘The thing is,’ said Mr Richardson over the telephone, ‘it’s not quite working out.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Elisabeth, trying not to sound too pleased.

  She had received the call on the day when the governors’ meeting was to be held, and was busy preparing the papers in the office with Mrs Scrimshaw.

  ‘Yes,’ said the head teacher of Urebank school. ‘I wasn’t aware when I agreed to accept this boy of his track record.’