03 Dear Teacher (31 page)

‘ ’Morning, Anne,’ I said, but she had already gone.

There was clearly something going on in the school office, so I walked in. Sally was sitting at Vera’s desk, staring at the telephone receiver. ‘What’s Colin going to say?’ she murmured to herself.

‘Life’s a mystery,’ said Vera with a smile. ‘You never know how it will turn out.’

‘Well … you’ve all guessed, I suppose,’ said Sally.

‘The pineapple chunks certainly got me thinking,’ said Anne with a smile and she squeezed Sally’s hand.

‘Pineapple chunks?’ I said.

‘Oh, Sally!’ exclaimed Jo and almost jumped over the desk to throw her arms round her.

‘Pineapple chunks?’ I repeated.

Vera gave Sally a hug. ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she said.

‘What’s all the fuss about pineapple chunks?’ I said. ‘Oh, I remember now, Sally: you’d lost them.’

‘Yes, I had, Jack, but it’s not important now.’

‘Personally, I prefer tinned pears, especially with vanilla and chocolate ice cream,’ I said.

The three women stared at me as if I was from another planet.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Jack, I think Sally might have some news for you,’ said Vera.

Sally nodded and looked at me in the way women look at men when they genuinely feel sorry that their intuition and sensitivity were surgically removed at birth. ‘Jack … I’m pregnant.’

‘Pregnant!’

‘Yes, Jack,’ said Sally.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Er, well … er, well done,’ I spluttered.

‘Thanks, Jack,’ said Sally with a straight face. Then all four women burst into hoots of laughter.

It was a strange Friday. Colin left work as soon as he heard the news and rushed into school. After an emotional, tearful conversation with Sally he sped off back to work to take all his colleagues for a liquid lunch. Ruby professed to have known for the past month, owing to her vast experience in all things maternal, and Shirley the cook brought in a tray of home-made biscuits, still hot from the oven, at afternoon playtime. I volunteered to do playground duty and Vera, Anne, Jo, Ruby, Shirley and even Shirley’s assistant, the fiercesome Mrs Critchley, could be heard laughing as Sally recounted the recent events in her life.

She told them she had read in an early edition of
Cosmopolitan
that Michael Parkinson had said that the most beautiful thing a man can do for a woman is have a
vasectomy
. Even the prim Vera laughed and was secretly pleased that Colin hadn’t read that particular article in Sally’s magazine.

That evening, driving home, I felt happy for Sally. She had found contentment and the gift of a child. As I walked into the hallway of Bilbo Cottage it occurred to me that life doesn’t have to be a mystery. Perhaps you just have to ask the right questions.

Fortunately I knew Beth’s telephone number off by heart.

Chapter Nineteen

Brass Bands and Butterflies

The Parent–Teacher Association has organized a day trip to Robin Hood’s Bay on Saturday, 28 June, to support the Ragley and Morton Brass Band
.

Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:
Friday, 27 June 1980

THE BUTTERFLY HOVERED
in the single shaft of sunlight and one pair of eyes followed its every movement. Amelia Duff gripped her programme tightly and stared at the flying insect. But there was no peace in the eyes that followed the beating of its multicoloured wings.

The village hall was full and, sitting in the row in front of me, the Revd Joseph Evans was nodding his head in time to the music. Next to him, Vera peered at the side of the stage and stared intently at Amelia. Then she followed Amelia’s gaze until she saw the tiny butterfly,
hovering
with flickering wings by the open window. Finally, a gentle smile of understanding crossed Vera’s face. Then she turned back to the brass band and tapped her beautifully manicured nails on the side of her Marks & Spencer’s handbag in time to ‘We All Live in a Yellow Submarine’.

It was Thursday evening, 26 June, and the Ragley and Morton Brass Band were having their final practice before Saturday’s annual Brass Band Festival at Robin Hood’s Bay on the beautiful east coast of Yorkshire. This was a big event in the village calendar and the Parent– Teacher Association had organized a coach party to go and support them.

The band comprised a disparate group of villagers and a motley collection of cornets, tenor horns and trombones, as well as Ernie Morgetroyd’s battered euphonium and the ancient flugelhorn played by his brother Wally. The youngest member of the band, thirteen-year-old Wayne Ramsbottom, who had been in my class two years ago, comprised the entire percussion section.

Sadly, their closing rendition of ‘Abide With Me’ lost some of its inherent beauty each time Wally sneezed and sprayed enough germs to infect the conductor and the entire front row. Peter Duddleston, the eloquent band leader and local bank manager, put down his baton on his elaborately decorated music stand with its brightly embroidered cover and turned to address the audience. ‘Thank you for your support and let’s hope for a sunny day on Saturday.’

* * *

It wasn’t until Friday lunchtime that Saturday’s trip to the seaside cropped up. Predictably, Joseph was looking downcast when he walked into the staff-room after his weekly Religious Education lesson. He put his pile of Class 1 notebooks on the coffee table, picked up Jodie Cuthbertson’s book, opened it and read out loud, ‘God must have big hands because Jesus sits on his right one.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘Where am I going wrong?’ he said.

‘Don’t worry, Joseph,’ said Vera reassuringly, ‘tomorrow we have a trip to your favourite seaside resort.’ With that, she cleared her desk and gathered together the huge collection of letters and packages that had to be posted to County Hall in Northallerton. The official paperwork seemed to increase week by week but today the pile was larger than usual and Vera stacked the letters and packages in a large cardboard box.

‘Come on, Vera,’ I said, picking up the box, ‘let me help. The fresh air will do me good.’

We walked out of the school gate, turned left under the avenue of horse-chestnut trees, skirted the corner of the village green and crossed the High Street. Next door to Diane’s Hair Salon was the Post Office with a red telephone box outside. Blocking the Post Office doorway like a flying buttress was the huge frame of a very disgruntled Mrs Winifred Brown.

‘Five pence f’telephone calls! It were only two pence
las
’ year,’ shouted Mrs Brown, rummaging in her purse for loose change.

‘It’s inflation, Mrs Brown,’ came a tiny voice from inside the shop.

‘Inflashun! Inflashun! More like daylight robbery!’

Mrs Brown glowered at me. However, I noticed she carefully avoided eye contact with Vera as she squeezed into the telephone box to ring her husband, Eddie, at his new place of work. Eddie Brown had just got a job at Portaloo in York, making mobile toilets. Alton Towers, Britain’s first theme park in Staffordshire, built in the Disneyland tradition, had taken the executive decision to install a Portaloo Classic 480 Unit with a brown leatherette finish to the cubicle doors. Eddie Brown’s task was to attach the doors and he was proud of his work.

‘Fit for t’Queen,’ he said, as he screwed the final door in place. Then he visibly paled when he heard he was wanted on the telephone by Winifred. To Eddie, spending a working day in a portable toilet was sheer heaven when compared with spending ten minutes with his formidable wife.

‘Get ’ome now, Eddie,’ screamed Winifred down the phone.

‘Y’what?’ said Eddie.

‘Ah sed, get ’ome.’

‘OK, OK.’

‘Frankenstein’s gone missin’.’

‘Y’what?’

‘Jus’ get ’ome.’

‘OK, OK.’

Frankenstein was Eddie’s emotionally disturbed ferret, who regularly sought out dark corners. Secretly, Eddie thought that Frankenstein had more sense than he was given credit for.

When Vera and I walked into the Post Office, the alarmed expression on Amelia Duff’s face disappeared. ‘Oh, hello, Vera. Lovely to see you,’ she said, pushing a few strands of greying hair out of her eyes, ‘and you too, Mr Sheffield.’

Amelia was a diminutive fifty-seven-year-old spinster and had been post mistress for the past fifteen years. She lived in the small rooms above the shop and, up to a few months ago, she had looked after her ailing father. When he died, Amelia had become introverted and forgetful. Her face was thin and pale and she gave us a strained smile from behind the counter. She took a quick sip of tea from her 1935 King George V Silver Jubilee mug.

‘The school seems to have got more mail than usual, Vera,’ said Amelia.

‘It increases every week,’ said Vera and she put the box on the counter and took out her purse. ‘While I’m here, Amelia, I need a 25p television licence stamp, please, five 12p stamps and five 10p stamps.’ Then she looked more closely at Amelia. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked gently. Vera had taken a great interest in Amelia’s welfare and, recently, had encouraged her to become more involved in the Women’s Institute. She stretched
across
the counter and put her hand on the post mistress’s bony arm.

Amelia glanced down, responding to the touch. Then there was a hint of a warmer smile. ‘They’ve asked me to play in the band on Saturday,’ she said.

‘But that’s wonderful news,’ said Vera encouragingly. ‘You play beautifully.’

‘Wally Morgetroyd’s got a bad cold,’ explained Amelia, ‘so they need a flugelhorn.’

‘And there’s no one better than you, Amelia,’ said Vera.

Amelia opened her big book of stamps. ‘Well, there
was
one,’ she said sadly. Her long fingers reached for the collar of her thick knitted cardigan and absent-mindedly rested on her delicate brooch, a beautiful enamel butterfly. Then she stared out of the shop window.

‘Yes, and he would be so proud if he knew you were playing again,’ said Vera.

‘I don’t think I’m ready yet, Vera,’ said Amelia. ‘Every time the shop door rings, I imagine him coming in.’

Vera glanced up at me and began to empty the box of school mail and put it on the counter. ‘I’ll see you back at school, Mr Sheffield,’ she said.

I took the hint, walked out of the shop and left Vera and Amelia deep in conversation.

Shortly before five o’clock I was alone in the office, completing the school logbook, when Vera suddenly reappeared. ‘Tea, Mr Sheffield?’ she asked.

I put down my fountain pen. ‘Yes, please, Vera.’

Minutes later Vera pulled up her chair next to my desk and we sat there sipping tea. Eventually, Vera put down her cup, took a deep breath and settled back. I knew there was something on her mind. ‘I should like to tell you a story,’ said Vera, ‘because we all need to support my dear friend Amelia.’

‘Of course,’ I said, putting the top back on my fountain pen.

‘First of all, you need to know a little about Amelia’s father.’ Vera paused. In the distance, the bells of St Mary’s Church chimed and we both privately counted up to five. ‘He was a Yorkshireman from Bradford called Athol Duff,’ continued Vera. ‘Amelia’s mother died in childbirth, so it had always been just the two of them. They were inseparable and she has been inconsolable since her father’s death in the summer.’

I nodded in understanding and repositioned my chair closer to the window to take advantage of the afternoon sunshine. It sounded as if this was going to be a long story and Vera poured the tea.

Vera told me that Athol Duff was a mill worker and had played the flugelhorn in the famous Black Dyke Mills Band. Helped by Athol’s wonderful skill, they had won the prestigious
Daily Herald
National Championship Trophy three times in the 1940s. The tone of Athol’s flugelhorn was mellow and haunting in contrast to the brightness of a trumpet or cornet and this had given the band its distinctive sound.

Then the mill hit difficult times with the decline of the textile industry. In the 1960s the United States imposed import tariffs and Black Dyke Mills had turned to Japan. Athol could see this was the beginning of the end of the life he loved and decided it was time for him to leave. So, with quiet finality, he packed his gleaming brass flugelhorn in its purple, velvet-lined case and took down his sepia photograph of Queensbury Mills, a Victorian colossus set against the smoky chimneys of Bradford and the bleak moors beyond.

He said goodbye to the factory ghosts, the chatter of mill girls and the silent echo of a million shuttles. On a freezing December morning, he climbed into his rusty Wolseley 14 and drove over the moors to his smoke-blackened, end-of-terrace cottage. By then, his paper-thin lungs convinced Amelia that they needed a new home in the fresh air of North Yorkshire and so she became the Ragley post mistress.

On the other side of the High Street, someone else was also drinking tea. Amelia was sipping a refreshing cup of Typhoo while staring thoughtfully at a pair of her father’s old clogs in the corner of the back room. Next to them was a smaller pair that had been made for her by her father. She remembered them so well. A horseshoe of iron protected the beech-wood sole and the stiff leather upper ensured both father and daughter would be protected from the huge machinery in the mill. She recalled sitting next to her father and tapping her feet to
the
rhythm of the giant looms – heel and toe, heel and toe – and her father would take pride in her ability to find music in the most unlikely places and the distant echoes still filled her mind.

But most of all she remembered the long winter nights of her childhood when she had practised on the flugelhorn until she was almost as proficient as her father. Eventually, one Christmas, she stood on the old rag rug in front of a roaring coal fire in the front room and played ‘Silent Night’.

Athol Duff put his arm round his daughter’s shoulders and said gently, ‘Amelia, you ’ave a gift.’

Amelia had looked round the room for a gaily wrapped parcel.

Her father had laughed out loud. ‘No, my love, ah mean you ’ave the gift of music.’ Then he had wiped away a tear and hugged his precious daughter. ‘I’ve taught you all ah know, Amelia,’ he said proudly.