Trouble at the Little Village School (41 page)

‘Really,’ said Mrs Scrimshaw looking down at the letters on her desk. ‘And how does this affect me?’

‘Mrs Pugh said that the school secretary down there at Urebank, a very competent woman by all accounts, she said, and who virtually runs the place, has no intention of going.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘And that should Mr Richardson get the job and move up here, she wants to come with him.’

‘Who, Mrs Pugh?’

‘No, the school secretary.’

Mrs Scrimshaw shot up like a puppet which has had its strings suddenly pulled. ‘Move up here!’ she exclaimed. ‘Become secretary at Barton? Over my dead body, she will.’

‘Well, it’s to be expected,’ said the caretaker, rubbing salt into the wound. ‘It stands to reason that if Mr Richardson takes over the juniors, which I gather will be on this site, he will want to bring his own secretary with him. That means that you’ll have to move down to Urebank, or at worst be redeployed or out of a job.’

‘Who will have to move down to Urebank?’ Elisabeth had come up behind the caretaker and could not help but overhear.

‘Oh, I was just speculating, Mrs Devine,’ he replied, feeling awkward and jumping up from the desk. He rubbed his jaw. ‘Of course none of us want that to happen. I mean for him to take over . . . well . . . to come up here . . . if you see what I mean. I’ll get on with buffing my floors.’ He scurried off.

‘I wouldn’t worry your head about that, Mrs Scrimshaw,’ said Elisabeth. ‘I can’t see that happening.’

‘I hope not,’ said the school secretary. She picked up an official-looking brown envelope. ‘I didn’t open this one, Mrs Devine,’ she said, ‘because it has “Personal and Confidential” on it and it’s from the Education Department.’ She was intrigued as to the contents. ‘Would you like to reply to the sender? I could type out the letter before I leave.’

‘No, I’ll open it later, thank you,’ said Elisabeth. She had a good idea what it would be about.

Later at home Elisabeth read the enclosed letter. As she had expected, it was from the Director of Education inviting her for interview at eleven o’clock in the Council Chamber at County Hall the following Friday.

Chapter 20

Miss Sowerbutts, her hair wild and wiry, sat up stiffly in her hospital bed. She looked as if she had survived ten rounds in the ring with the heavyweight boxing champion. Her pale face, moulded into a permanent expression of discontent, sported a gash across the forehead, a huge purple bruise circling her black eye, a cut lip and a swollen mouth. Her arm was in a plaster cast. On the bedside table were an uneaten, congealed plate of macaroni cheese and cup of cold, insipid-looking tea. A teabag floated in the milky liquid like a dead mouse.

‘And how are we today, Miss Sackbutts?’ asked the young doctor, putting on his cheerful bedside manner.

‘It’s Sowerbutts,’ she corrected him sharply, ‘and how do you imagine we feel this morning?’ She did not expect an answer.

The doctor smiled weakly. ‘We have had the results back from all the tests,’ he told her, ‘and I am very pleased to tell you that they show there is nothing to worry about, nothing untoward.’ The patient nodded slightly. ‘You have had a nasty shock, but in time things will heal and you’ll be back to your old self.’ The young doctor tried to imagine what the old self would look like. It was not a pleasant picture which came to mind. He had been told by the nurses what a cantankerous old woman she was and that they would be glad to see the back of her.

‘When can I be discharged?’ asked Miss Sowerbutts dourly.

‘Soon,’ the young doctor replied. ‘We would like to keep you in for a couple more days to be on the safe side, just to make sure that you are fit enough to go. Do you have someone to look after you when you get home?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘I see. Well, it might be a good idea to get someone in to help you. I could arrange for a carer if you wish.’

‘That won’t be necessary. I am quite capable of looking after myself.’

‘Well, just so long as you take things easy,’ said the young doctor.

‘There is something wrong with my teeth,’ said Miss Sowerbutts, moving her mouth from side to side.

‘Your teeth?’

‘My false teeth. They were taken away when I was admitted and now they’ve been returned to me they don’t seem to fit.’ She gave a twisted and rather alarming smile, displaying a set of large and ugly yellow teeth.

‘Probably because your mouth is still very swollen,’ explained the young doctor. ‘I am sure that when the swelling goes down they will be all right. Anyway, I will have a word with the sister.’ He glanced at his wristwatch, eager to be away.

‘I have already had a word with the sister and I can’t say she has been all that helpful.’

‘I shall speak to her after I have finished my rounds,’ said the young doctor. ‘And now, if there is nothing else . . .’

‘There is,’ said Miss Sowerbutts. ‘I should be in a private room. I did mention this to the sister but she has not seen fit to do anything about it. I have a private patients’ plan and should not be in a general ward.’

‘I believe that the private rooms are fully occupied,’ the doctor told her.

‘Well, it is just not good enough!’ snapped Miss Sowerbutts. ‘I pay through the nose for private medical care and should not be put in a general ward next to some destitute who clearly has mental problems. I had to endure the moaning and wheezing and coughing of the woman in the next bed all night.’

‘I will have a word with the sister about that too,’ the doctor assured her. ‘And now if you will excuse me—’

‘And the food is execrable.’ She gestured to the plate beside her.

‘I beg your pardon?’ The young doctor tried to hide his irritation.

‘Inedible. Not fit to be eaten.’ The young doctor sighed and scratched his forehead. He had thought when he was on Accident and Emergency that times were stressful, but at that moment wished he was back with the cuts and bruises and broken noses.

‘And am I to see a specialist?’ demanded Miss Sowerbutts.

‘There is really no need for that,’ he told her with an edge to his voice. ‘But I have no doubt that Mr Pennington will see you before you are discharged. You have suffered some bruising and a broken arm, which will heal given time. Now I really must get on. I do have other patients to see.’ She opened her mouth to respond but he hastened away.

Later that morning the ward sister approached the bed with a frosty expression. ‘Doctor tells me you have a series of complaints,’ she said coldly.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Sowerbutts. ‘I should be in a private room. I am not an NHS patient, which I explained to you. I am a private patient. I had a most disagreeable night having to listen to the woman in the next bed coughing and spluttering and shouting out.’

‘You won’t have to put up with that tonight,’ the ward sister assured her stiffly.

‘Good.’

‘The poor woman died this morning.’

‘Oh, well, I’m sorry to hear that, but nevertheless—’

‘You will be moved into a private room when one becomes available,’ said the ward sister. ‘Anything else?’

‘The food is inedible.’

‘It’s simple and nutritious and quite adequate,’ said the ward sister. ‘Should you wish, your relatives or friends can supplement it with something more.’ She made an effort to hide her irritation.

‘And then there’s the question of my teeth, which I have mentioned to you before.’

‘Your teeth?’

‘Yes, my teeth. They are most uncomfortable and have turned a most unpleasant colour.’ She showed a mouth full of yellow teeth.

The ward sister was quite taken aback by the ugly set of dentures she now looked upon and realised what had happened. The woman had the wrong teeth. She was sure that the set she was viewing were originally in the woman who had occupied the next bed and was now stretched out in the morgue, probably in possession of Miss Sowerbutts’s teeth. The two sets of dentures must have been mixed up when they were taken to be cleaned. The ward sister did not lose her composure but asked a nurse to bring a bowl. ‘If you would place your teeth in here,’ she said to Miss Sowerbutts, holding out the receptacle, ‘I shall ask the orthodontist to take a look.’

In the corridor the sister asked the nurse to retrieve Miss Sowerbutts’s teeth from the poor woman in the morgue and replace them with the ones in the bowl.

‘And give them a good scrub,’ she told her.

It was much later that day when Miss Sowerbutts finally got her own teeth back. It had been a difficult task extracting the false teeth from the corpse, for rigor mortis had set in and the mouth of the deceased had been firmly clamped shut.

At visiting time Miss Brakespeare appeared. She was dressed in a smart camel-hair coat, red scarf and matching beret.

‘I thought I would call in and see how you are,’ she told her former colleague.

‘“Bearing up”, as my mother would say,’ replied Miss Sowerbutts.

‘So how are you feeling?’

‘About as well as I look: sore, bruised, aching and desperate to get out of this place.’

‘I’ve brought you some biscuits and a bunch of grapes.’

‘Thank goodness for something edible. The food in here is unfit for human consumption. Put them in the bedside cabinet, will you.’

‘Well, we’ve had a right carry-on in the village,’ Miss Brakespeare told her.

‘Really.’ Miss Sowerbutts nodded and gave a thin smile that conveyed little more than feigned interest.

‘Someone tried to rob the village store and post office,’ she said. ‘He threatened Major Neville-Gravitas with a knife, so Mrs Sloughthwaite sprayed him in the face with oven cleaner.’

‘Who, the major?’

‘No, the robber. They trussed him up. Thankfully nobody was hurt – well, apart from the robber, who was nearly blinded. Fancy though, such a thing happening in Barton. We’ve never had anything like it before in the village. Everybody’s talking about it and we’ve had newspaper reporters and television cameras. It’s been really exciting.’

Miss Sowerbutts laughed in a mirthless way. ‘Well, that’s one more reason for me to go and live elsewhere,’ she remarked. ‘Fortunately De Courcey Apartments have a very sophisticated security system.’

‘Then, you know Mr Massey’s nephew, young Clarence? I taught him some years ago. He’s not the shiniest apple in the orchard but he’s a nice enough lad, well—’

‘Don’t mention that foolish young man to me,’ interrupted Miss Sowerbutts. ‘I have never met anyone so lacking in common sense, and that useless uncle of his is a most idle and unreliable individual. Only covered my lawn in bleach to kill those moles I had, and the only thing he succeeded in killing was the grass.’

‘Well, his nephew has up and gone with that Bianca, the young woman who had the baby. Evidently the child is his. They’ve got themselves a council flat in Clayton – actually it’s not too far from where you’re going to live – and Clarence is working at the bread factory—’

‘Miriam,’ said Miss Sowerbutts, with a faint twist of the thin lips, ‘might I stop you. I am not really interested in the carryings-on of an unmarried girl who has managed to secure a council flat by dint of having a child and who is no doubt receiving every state benefit she can get her hands on.’

‘I see,’ said Miss Brakespeare. ‘I just thought you might be interested.’ She breathed in and glanced at her watch. ‘Is there anything you want?’ she asked her former colleague eventually.

‘I want a private room, that’s what I want,’ said Miss Sowerbutts crossly, ‘but they’ve put me in this general ward with all manner of unsavoury people. There was a down-and-out in the bed next to me last night shouting out and making all manner of noises. I didn’t get a wink of sleep.’

‘So, there’s nothing I can get you?’ asked Miss Brakespeare, wishing to escape.

‘Well, you could stock up on a few provisions for me – milk, bread, butter, that sort of thing – for when I get out. I’ve made a list. It’s in the drawer on my bedside cabinet. Go to the supermarket, not the village store. I don’t patronise that establishment. I find the proprietor very sharp and offhand.’

‘She did very well tackling the robber as she did,’ said Miss Brakespeare.

Miss Sowerbutts made no comment. ‘And you could call into the chemist’s for my prescription and pop in at my cottage to make sure everything is all right. I’ll give you the keys before you go. If it’s cold turn up the heating. While you are there give the plants a water. If I think of anything else, I’ll give you a ring.’

‘Well, I’d like to be of help,’ said Miss Brakespeare, smiling awkwardly, ‘but I’m off to Scarborough for the weekend. I just popped in before we set off. We’re going straight on from the hospital.’

‘You’re going to Scarborough in this weather? Sooner you than me.’

‘We like it at this time of year. It’s very bracing, and we’ve booked to see a Gilbert and Sullivan at the Spa. Mother is quite excited.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Miss Sowerbutts with a hard stern expression on her face.

There was an embarrassed silence. ‘It must have been a terrible shock for you.’

‘What was?’

‘Falling down the stairs like that. One has to be very careful at your age.’