The major moved on and came to a stocky little six-year-old with red cheeks and a runny nose. The boy, surrounded by painting materials and coloured crayons, was splashing poster paint on to a large piece of paper with the confidence and enthusiasm that only very young children and very experienced artists have. His work depicted a world of bright, bold, creatures that seemed to dance across the paper. He had painted with abandon, making great swirling curves and huge blobs with his brush, spattering and daubing, smudging and smearing to produce the most vivid effect.
‘Hello,’ said the major, ‘and what are you doing?’
‘Can’t tha see?’ asked the boy bluntly, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘I’m paintin’.’
‘And what’s your painting about?’
‘Can’t tha tell?’ came a similarly forthright reply. The boy observed the visitor for a moment. ‘Are thy a school infector?’ he asked.
‘No, no, just a visitor,’ replied the major, examining the painting.
‘It’s a jungle,’ the child told him.
The major thought he might see if the child knew the names of all the animals he had depicted, so, pointing to a large grey blob, he asked, ‘What’s that creature?’
‘Elephant.’
‘And that?’ he asked pointing to another.
‘Rhinoceros.’
‘And what’s this one?’
The boy shook his head. ‘Don’t tha know owt abaat animals?’ he asked. ‘It’s a cheetah. They’re t’fastest animal in t’world. They can run like billy-o. Did tha know that?’
‘Yes, I did.’
The boy pointed to a dark brown pool in which two long-jawed creatures with teeth like tank traps stared from the picture with bright yellow eyes. ‘This one ’ere’s a crocodile and over ’ere is han halligator,’ he said. ‘Lot of people don’t know t’difference, tha knaas. Do you?’
‘Well, I’m not all that certain,’ admitted the major.
‘Tha not alone,’ said the boy, ‘a lot of people don’t.’
‘Do you know the difference?’ he asked.
‘Crocodile’s jaws are different,’ the child told him. He tapped his painting. ‘See.’
‘Ah, yes.’ The major pointed to a round, fat, bright green creature with a wide grin and a curly tail. ‘Is this a lizard?’ he asked.
‘It’s a chameleon,’ the boy told him.
‘I’ve seen one of those. They can change colour, you know, so that they can’t be seen.’
The boy gave him a sort of patient, sympathetic, tolerant look, the look of the expert in the presence of an ignoramus. ‘It’s called camouflage,’ he said.
A girl with a feathery fringe and large eyes approached with a book, which she thrust in the major’s hand. ‘Will you hear me read?’ she asked.
‘Yes, of course, my dear,’ replied the major.
‘I’m a very good reader,’ she told him.
‘Good for you.’
‘I’m on green book 7a. My book is about the gingerbread man. He gets eaten up by a greedy fox.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Run, run as fast as you can,’ the child chanted, ‘you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.’
‘That’ll teach ’im not to be big-’eaded, t’daft bugger,’ remarked the artist with the red cheeks and runny nose, who had overheard the conversation.
It was inevitable that in Mrs Robertshaw’s classroom the major would meet Oscar.
‘I’m Oscar,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Major Neville-Gravitas,’ replied the Chairman of Governors.
‘We had a dog called Major,’ said the boy. ‘He was a Labradoodle. That’s a cross-bred Labrador and Poodle.’
‘Really, how interesting.’
‘It died of distemper. That’s a disease dogs can get, you know.’
‘Yes, I am aware of that.’
‘A major is a rank in the army, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
‘I know that,’ said Oscar. ‘It’s below a colonel and a general and a field-marshal.’
‘What a clever young man you are,’ remarked the major, rather taken aback by this precocious individual.
‘Next door to us is Major Pannett,’ Oscar told him. ‘He plays the tenor horn in the Salvation Army band. Do you play anything?’
‘I’m not that sort of major,’ he was told. ‘I was in the British Army.’
‘And did you see any action?’ quizzed the boy.
‘No, not really.’
‘Have you any medals?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do.’
‘Have you got the Victoria Cross?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘The George Cross?’
‘No.’
‘They are given for bravery.’
‘Yes, I am aware of that, young man.’
‘Have you any medals for bravery?’
‘Why don’t you get on with your work,’ said the major, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘I am sure you have a lot to do.’
‘No, actually I’ve finished what I was doing.’
‘Well, I am sure there is something else you could be getting on with.’ He found the questioning, particularly of one so young, disconcerting.
‘You’re not the major my mother was talking about who wants to close the school, are you?’
Thankfully, the Chairman of Governors was saved by the bell for morning break and made a hasty exit.
‘So how did you find things this morning?’ asked Elisabeth when the major joined her in her classroom.
‘Very impressive,’ he remarked.
‘That is what Mr Steel, the inspector said.’
‘Yes, I have read his report. It shows a great deal of improvement.’
‘So why should they wish to close such a successful school?’ she asked bluntly.
The major stroked his moustache and sighed. ‘Mrs Devine,’ he said, ‘as was explained at the Governors’ Meeting, there need to be some savage cuts and sadly some schools will have to close.’
‘I rather expected, major, that you, as the chairman of the governing body, would have given your wholehearted support in opposing such a move. I have to say I was very disappointed that you chose not to.’
‘I am in a very difficult position, Mrs Devine,’ he told her. ‘I feel like Janus, if you follow my drift.’
‘In what way?’ she asked.
‘He looks in both directions at the same time. I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea. I, along with Councillor Smout, who incidentally phoned me this morning to inform me that he wishes to resign from the governing body, am a nominee and a representative of the Education Authority and I have to act in its best interests. Then, as Chairman of Governors, I have to be supportive of the school. I’m in a sort of no-man’s-land, if you follow my drift. That is why I abstained from the vote, which, in retrospect, was the wrong decision.’
‘So what are you saying?’ asked Elisabeth.
‘I’m saying that, having thought over the matter, I should have supported the other governors and that now maybe I should, like Councillor Smout, resign as the chairman of the governing body. The Reverend Atticus, who is usually such a mild-mannered man, informed me angrily last night after the meeting that he is going to propose a vote of no confidence in me at the next governors’ meeting. As soon as he was off the phone it rang all evening with people complaining. I received some very upsetting comments and personal attacks. The whole situation has become very distressing for me. I called in at the village store for my paper this morning and Mrs Sloughthwaite, an amiable woman at the best of times, was very sharp with me. Then as I walked through the village Mrs Pocock crossed the road to avoid speaking to me and Mrs Bullock could barely pass the time of day.’
‘People in the village are very angry, major,’ Elisabeth told him.
‘Yes I know, and it was remiss of me not to support Dr Stirling’s motion. I very much regret that now.’
‘If
, from what you have said, major,’ Elisabeth told him, ‘you are now going to support the other governors in opposing the closure, I think you should stay on as the chairman. I know I can work with you and I hope that you can work with me.’
The major’s face brightened. ‘Well, if you really think so—’ he began.
‘And I will draft a letter to the parents, with a copy to the Education Department, informing them that the head teacher, staff and all the governors are now unanimous in wanting Barton-in-the-Dale village school to remain open.’
The day following the public meeting, at the very moment when Major Neville-Gravitas was being grilled by Oscar, one might have imagined that the sole topic of conversation in the village store would be the school closure, but it got barely a mention. There was another subject altogether more interesting to talk about, namely Fred Massey’s accident.
‘He’s well and truly put his foot in it this time,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite to Mrs O’Connor, her first customer of the day. The shopkeeper nodded knowingly and folded her dimpled arms under her bosom. ‘And in more ways than one,’ she added. ‘He wants his head examining doing such a daft thing.’
Mrs O’Connor was Dr Stirling’s housekeeper. She was a dumpy, round-faced little woman with the huge liquid brown eyes of a cow and a permanent smile on her small lips. Her hair was set in a tight perm. Mrs O’Connor, like many of her nation, embroidered the English language with the most colourful and original axioms and expressions, most of which were throwbacks to her grandmother Mullarkey, who had a caustic comment, a saying or a snippet of advice for every occasion. Mrs Sloughthwaite sometimes found it hard to understand the meaning of these words of wisdom, but nodded sympathetically as if she did.
‘You should never bar the door with a boiled carrot,’ was one such adage. ‘If life throws a clutch of lemons at you, then make lemonade,’ was another. ‘Never let your mother comb your hair after an argument,’ was a favourite saying. Such aphorisms rattled off her tongue as melted butter off a knife, as she herself might have remarked. That morning the doctor’s housekeeper was in her most figurative mood.
‘It was terrible tragic by all accounts,’ she told the shopkeeper, giving a small shudder. ‘There was blood everywhere and Dr Stirling was physically sick at the sight and came home with a face as white as milk without a word to throw at a dog. He came into the house as quiet as a speck of soot, so he did. Evidently his foot was ripped open like something on a butcher’s slab, the bone stuck out like the fin of a shark and blood spouted out of his leg like hot tea from a teapot.’
‘Dr Stirling was hurt?’ asked an amazed Mrs Sloughthwaite.
‘No, no, am I not talking of Mr Massey, eejit that he is.’
‘You would think a doctor would be used to the sight of blood,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite. ‘Mind you, I recall when my mother had that terrible nosebleed he looked queasy. She used to have terrible nosebleeds did my mother. I reckon she was one of those hermaphrodysiacs. I take a bit after her, you know. I’ve got very thin blood and if I cut myself it takes an age to stop the bleeding. She had her nose cauterised in the end.’
‘Who did?’ asked the customer.
‘My mother. I remember when I called Dr Stirling out after one of her do’s, he went as white as a slab of lard.’
‘He’s a very sensitive man is Dr Stirling,’ said the housekeeper, ‘and, of course, he’s not been the same since his poor wife died. She was a lovely woman Mrs Stirling so she was, God rest her soul, and it was such a tragic accident. The little boy can’t string two words together these days and he was such a little chatterbox when she was alive.’
‘It’ll be the shock of it all,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite.
‘Mind you, Dr Stirling’s not the same either,’ said Mrs O’Connor. ‘When I think—’
‘Mrs Pocock told me there were two fire engines and an ambulance called out,’ interrupted Mrs Sloughthwaite, not wishing the conversation to deviate to something far less interesting.
‘First I knew was when I heard them coming through the village,’ said Mrs O’Connor, patting her hair, ‘so I knew something was up. Then Dr Stirling asked me to come over and look after young James and he rushed off. They say Mr Massey was in a right old state after they’d cut him out.’
‘He’ll lose the leg, of course,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite in a matter-of-fact voice.
‘Do you think so?’ Mrs O’Connor pressed her hand hard against her bosom, so hard she could feel the beat of her heart.
‘Oh yes. It’ll have to come off.’
‘Jasus, Mary and Joseph,’ said Mrs O’Connor, shaking her head.
‘Course, he might very well get gangrene. I mean, that machine was as rusty as sin, from what I’ve heard.’
‘What an eejit to go and do such a stupid thing,’ said the customer.
‘Well, he’s learnt a lesson he’s not likely to forget.’
‘I can’t say that I’ve ever liked the man,’ confided Mrs O’Connor, lowering her voice as if she was being overheard. ‘I’ve heard him shouting the odds at that nephew of his—’
‘Clarence?’ interrupted Mrs Sloughthwaite. ‘Nice enough lad, but he’s limp under the cap as my mother would say.’
‘Mr Massey was cursing and swearing he was. Air was blue,’ said Mrs O’Connor. ‘As my owld Grandmother Mullarkey would say, a lick of carbolic soap would not do his tongue a bit of harm.’
‘No, I’ve never taken to him either,’ agreed Mrs Sloughthwaite. ‘As tight-fisted as they come is Fred Massey. I mean, look at the state of him – hand-me-down clothes, unwashed face, dirty hair and that unpleasant smell that travels with him. And his teeth – like the Ten Commandments themselves – most of them broken.’
‘Oh, he’s a stingy owld man,’ agreed Mrs O’Connor. ‘Wouldn’t give me a penny when I collected last Christmas for the children’s charity. “Charity begins at home,” he told me, and closed the door on me. He makes Scrooge sound generous. The man could peel an orange in his pocket,’ she added, sharing another of Grandmother Mullarkey’s words of wisdom.
‘And I’ll tell you this, Mrs O’Connor, from what I’ve heard he doesn’t treat them animals of his all that well.’
Her customer nodded in agreement.
‘You can tell everything you need to know about a farmer’s skill,’ continued the shopkeeper, ‘by the way he treats his animals and looks after his fences and his walls. And you’ve seen Fred Massey’s place. I say no more.’
But Mrs Sloughthwaite had a great deal more to say, and the two women continued to discuss the man in question.
‘Of course,’ continued Mrs O’Connor, ‘it was lucky Mr Stainthorpe heard him otherwise the man could have easily bled to death.’
‘It was,’ agreed Mrs Sloughthwaite, ‘ and after all the trouble he’s had with Fred Massey, nobody would have blamed him if he had left him where he was. Well, as I’ve said, it’ll teach him a lesson he’s not likely to forget.’ Yes, she thought to herself, and he won’t be driving his cows up Mrs Devine’s track in a hurry. ‘But you know Fred Massey, he could fall into a pile of manure and come out smelling of roses. You mark my words, Mrs O’Connor, he’ll be back on his feet – or his foot – in no time.’
‘Of course, if he hadn’t have gone to help,’ said the customer, ‘Mr Stainthorpe would still be at home now instead of being in the hospital.’
‘Shock of it all must have brought on a heart attack,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Did the doctor say what it was?’
‘Sure I wouldn’t be knowing the details,’ said Mrs O’Connor, ‘but he was rushed to hospital. It must have been terrible for him finding Mr Massey stuck in the machine and all that blood. Poor Dr Stirling, he was never off his feet. It was a good job he was on hand when Mr Stainthorpe was taken badly.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Mrs Sloughthwaite. This was interesting news.
‘Well, he was round at Mrs Devine’s at the time when young Danny came for help.’
‘Was he indeed
?’ remarked Mrs Sloughthwaite, raising an eyebrow.
It was arranged that Danny should stay with Dr Stirling. The social worker, having spoken to the boy’s grandfather and interviewed the doctor, agreed that the boy could remain where he was for the time being.
Elisabeth saw a great change in Danny over the next few days. The bright-eyed, chatty boy became a retiring, uncommunicative, sad little figure who sat staring out of the window in class and could often be found crying when out of sight of the other children.
Danny had been with Elisabeth to the hospital the afternoon after the boy’s grandfather had been admitted. The old man sat propped up in bed, trying to appear cheerful. He looked pale and drawn and his eyes had lost the brightness Elisabeth had been used to seeing. It was clear to her that he was a very ill man.
The boy buried his head in his grandfather’s arms and wept.
‘Hey, hey,’ Mr Stainthorpe said, patting his grandson’s head gently. ‘What’s all this? You’re supposed to be cheering me up, young Danny. Now come along and tell me what you’ve been up to.’
‘Will you be all right, granddad?’ the boy sobbed.
The old man had looked at Elisabeth knowingly. ‘We’ll see. I’ve got more doctors and nurses looking after me than rabbits in Mrs Devine’s paddock and moles under ’er lawn. Speakin’ of t’paddock, I reckon it’ll be a while now before Fred Massey can move ’is sheep.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that,’ Elisabeth said.
‘’Ow is ’e, by the way?’
‘He’s on the mend,’ she told him, ‘thanks to you. I spoke to the doctor when I arrived this afternoon and he said Mr Massey will be up and around in a week or two. The blades were pretty blunt, I gather, and the machine stopped before it could do a lot of damage. It must have been quite a shock for you finding him as you did.’
‘Aye, it was. I can’t say as ’ow I’ve ever liked t’man, but I ’ope ’e’ll be all right. It was a nasty accident for anyone to ’ave, but it was a daft thing to do.’
‘When will you be coming ’ome, granddad?’ the boy asked, rubbing his eyes.
Again the old man’s gaze met Elisabeth’s. His face looked furrowed and bleak. ‘Oh, it’s early days yet,’ he replied breathlessly. He had changed the subject. ‘I’ear you stayed with Mrs Devine last night?’
The Little Village School Page 27