04 Village Teacher

by Jack Sheffield

  Beth still had her nose in the guidebook. ‘This is interesting,’ she said. ‘“The North Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate will always be remembered for the strange occurrence of the third of December nineteen twenty-six”,’ she recited.

  ‘Ah, you mean the strange story of Agatha Christie,’ said Vera, putting down her teacup.

  ‘What’s that?’ chorused Beth and Laura.

  ‘Well,’ said Vera, dabbing her mouth with a crisp linen napkin and replacing it on her lap, ‘it all began after her husband revealed he was in love with another woman, Nancy Neele, and wanted a divorce.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ we all murmured. This had the makings of a good story and two blue-rinse ladies on the next table stopped speaking and listened in.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vera, ‘Agatha Christie left a message for her secretary saying she was going to Yorkshire and then she carefully staged an accident. She drove her car to Sunningdale, left it hanging over the edge of a chalk pit and disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared!’ exclaimed Beth.

  ‘Where to?’ said Laura.

  ‘Over a thousand police and civilians searched for her to no avail,’ said Vera, ‘but eleven days later she reappeared as a guest at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate and no one could explain where she had been.’

  ‘How strange,’ I said.

  ‘Some thought it was just a publicity stunt,’ added Vera, ‘while others believed she had suffered from amnesia after the breakdown of her marriage and the death of her mother. She never revealed the true reason and the townspeople of Harrogate have discussed it ever since.’

  The two ladies at the next table nodded knowingly.

  ‘What a wonderful story, Vera,’ I said.

  ‘Almost better than one of her novels,’ said Beth.

  Laura just looked at me and said nothing.

  We finished the last of the tea and Laura picked up her handbag. ‘My treat,’ she said. ‘Please, no arguments. I’ll pay on my card.’

  ‘Card?’ I looked puzzled.

  ‘Yes, Jack, don’t you remember? I’ve got a Barclay Visa card. It’s great. If I keep fifty pounds in my personal cheque account I don’t have to pay for cheques, standing orders or statements.’

  ‘Even so, it’s not really for me, Laura,’ I said lamely.

  She smiled. ‘You really do need to knock him into shape, Beth.’

  ‘Perhaps it could be worth considering, Jack,’ said Beth. ‘I’ve heard you can borrow up to five thousand pounds with no security as long as you are in a steady job.’

  I was horrified at the thought of so much debt.

  ‘And they’re fitting cash-dispenser machines in the wall outside Barclay’s bank,’ added Laura, ‘so you could draw out up to a hundred pounds per day and even order a statement.’

  ‘Heavens,’ said Vera.

  ‘Well, I suppose it sounds impressive,’ I said, but without conviction.

  ‘Oh dear, Jack,’ said Laura, ‘I know that look so well.’

  Beth gave her a glance but said nothing.

  Laura began to rummage frantically in her handbag. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘it’s not here. My bank card’s gone!’

  We looked on helplessly as Laura continued to search to no avail.

  While Vera and Beth were consoling her I paid the bill and we walked outside. I looked at my watch. ‘Let’s find Joseph on our way back to the coach,’ I said.

  ‘Where can he be?’ asked Beth.

  ‘We could split up, I suppose, and meet back here,’ suggested Laura.

  Vera didn’t answer.

  ‘What is it, Vera?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m just thinking back to the events of the day,’ she said, staring thoughtfully, ‘and it’s just possible …’

  ‘What’s possible?’ I asked.

  ‘There has to be a simple solution to all this,’ said Vera calmly. Her sharp brain missed nothing. In her cocoon of concentration, she was trying to unravel the mystery as if it were a game of three-dimensional chess. Ragley’s very own Miss Marple was on the case!

  She set off at a brisk pace back towards the coach, where we found Joseph sitting all alone, his head buried deep in his novel.

  ‘I thought so!’ said Vera.

  Joseph looked up guiltily and hurriedly put the book in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Sorry, Vera. I simply forgot the time.’

  She leant over and tugged the paperback from Joseph’s pocket and held it up. It was Agatha Christie’s Murder at the Vicarage.

  ‘Oh,’ said Joseph, ‘I was just, well, you know … intrigued by the title.’

  ‘And this, I presume, is what you’ve been using as a bookmark,’ said Vera, holding up a plastic card, ‘and you’ve obviously no idea what it is, have you, Joseph?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ mumbled Joseph, looking puzzled.

  Vera turned the card over and showed him Laura’s name printed across it.

  ‘My bank card!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘Oh, thank you, Joseph, you’ve found it!’

  ‘Have I?’ said Joseph. ‘It was under my seat and I thought it would be a useful bookmark.’

  ‘What a relief,’ said Laura.

  ‘It’s as we thought all along, I’m afraid,’ said Vera. ‘It was just a matter of a process of elimination.’

  ‘Well done, Vera. What a detective you are,’ said Laura.

  ‘Just like Miss Marple,’ said Beth.

  Vera smiled modestly and held up Murder at the Vicarage. ‘It was obvious from the beginning that it could only be one person,’ said Vera.

  ‘Oh, who’s that?’ asked Joseph.

  She gave him an affectionate hug. ‘The soppy vicar, of course!’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Grace, Hope and Chastity

  The PTA agreed to lend their crockery to Mrs Pringle for the Christening party on Sunday, 26 April, at St Mary’s Church Hall.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

  Friday, 24 April 1981

  THE CHILL OF winter was forgotten and as I drove past the village hall on Ragley High Street the almond trees were in blossom and the closed buds on the cherry trees were waiting for the trigger of life as the season shifted on its axis with its message of the warm days to come.

  However, when I slowed up at the school gate, the wonders of nature on this beautiful April morning were not being appreciated by everyone. A group of mothers was cheering something out of my eyeline. Suddenly Police Constable Dan Hunter came into sight, pedalling for all he was worth on a bright-red Raleigh bicycle. Even with the saddle extended as high as it would go, Dan’s knees stuck out like Charlie Chaplin’s. He gave the group of mothers a shy grin and, when he spotted me, he pulled up under the avenue of horse-chestnut trees and parked his bicycle against the school wall.

  ‘ ’Morning, Dan,’ I called out. ‘New transport?’

  He was red in the face and clearly not very happy. ‘The sergeant’s borrowed my van because his has packed in,’ said Dan breathlessly, ‘so I’m stuck with the bike until Monday and it’s not really … dignified.’

  I suppressed a smile. ‘I agree, Dan, but at least the weather looks fair for the next few days.’

  The big policeman looked up at the sky and grinned. ‘I suppose so, Jack.’ He clambered back on the bicycle. ‘By the way, I’m on duty on Sunday but I may be able to call in later at the christening, so I’m just praying for a peaceful weekend.’

  ‘I’m sure it will be, Dan,’ I called after him as he wobbled towards the village green. On reflection, I should have known better.

  ‘Grace Eleanor Pringle,’ said Sally proudly. Her cheeks were flushed as she put down the Moses basket on the staff-room coffee-table. Baby Grace was clearly putting on weight. At twelve pounds ten ounces, her days of floating down the Nile in this tiny basket were numbered.

  It was the end of the first week of the summer term and Sally had called in to discuss Sunday’s christening arrangements. ‘So Colin and I settled on Grace, which was my maiden name, and then El
eanor after Colin’s mother,’ explained Sally.

  ‘Grace is a beautiful name,’ said Vera, ‘and Eleanor is so distinguished, but, of course, being born on a Tuesday, Grace is most appropriate.’

  ‘Appropriate?’ queried Jo.

  Anne was quick on the uptake. ‘Vera means the old rhyme, Jo,’ she said: ‘you know … Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Jo.

  Joseph looked up from his assembly notices. ‘And what’s Wednesday?’

  ‘My dear brother was born on a Wednesday,’ announced Vera with a smile. ‘Sorry, Joseph, but Wednesday’s child is full of woe and Thursday’s child has far to go.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Joseph. ‘Not ideal for a vicar.’

  Ruby was standing in the doorway, absent-mindedly polishing the cleanest door handle in Yorkshire. ‘My Ronnie was born on a Thursday an’ ’e never goes far enough – apart from t’bookie’s in York.’

  ‘What about you, Ruby?’ I asked. ‘On what day were you born?’

  ‘Sat’day, Mr Sheffield.’

  ‘And how about you, Vera?’ asked Jo.

  ‘I’m Friday,’ said Vera. ‘Friday’s child is loving and giving,’ she added with not quite sufficient modesty, ‘and Saturday’s child works hard for a living.’

  ‘That’s sounds reight t’me,’ said Ruby. She looked at Vera and smiled. ‘On both counts, ah reckon, Miss Evans.’

  ‘But the child that is born on the sabbath day is bonny and blithe, good and gay,’ recited Anne, completing the rhyme. ‘That’s me, I’m afraid, though I’ve never been too sure about blithe.’

  Sally took a large flat cardboard box from her open-weave shopping bag. ‘So what do you think of this, Vera? It’s Grace’s christening robe, the one my mother made for me when I was a baby.’

  Vera took the lid off the box with great care. The material was wrapped in black paper. ‘Ah, to keep the moths out of course,’ she said. ‘What a good idea.’

  ‘My Ronnie uses mothballs, Miss Evans,’ said Ruby suddenly.

  Everyone looked surprised. ‘What for?’ asked Jo.

  ‘ ’E digs up mole ’ills an’ shoves a ’andful down the ’ole. It’s a smashing mole killer is mothballs. Put ’em down an’ they never come back.’ With that conversation-stopper, Ruby shut the door and there followed the muffled sound of a galvanized bucket being dragged across the entrance hall to the accompaniment of the first bars of ‘Edelweiss’.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ said Vera softly and held up the delicate robe.

  ‘It’s made out of parachute silk,’ said Sally, ‘with eyelets for a coloured ribbon – blue for a boy, pink for a girl – and fringed with this beautiful lace.’ She traced her finger along the delicate edges.

  ‘Parachute silk?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘My mother was in the air force during the war,’ explained Sally. ‘She worked as a radio operator in the Battle of Britain.’

  Soon all the ladies were in animated conversation, so I slipped out for some fresh air before the morning bell for the start of school. In the playground children were bouncing tennis balls against the school wall, playing hopscotch and acting out the latest Star Wars adventure. Many of them were wearing the new light-blue polo shirts with a small, dark-blue Ragley-on-the-Forest logo in the shape of a tree on the left side of the chest. The PTA had bought these as a school ‘uniform’ to offset the growing trend for young girls to wear the new range of fashionable and expensive designer clothes that had begun to appear in the shops in York.

  I walked back into school and stopped to look at our new library area. It was developing slowly but we urgently needed new books. Simon Nelson, one of our library monitors, was browsing through an old atlas with dog-eared pages.

  ‘Mr Sheffield,’ he said, ‘why is most of the world coloured pink?’

  I made a mental note to buy a new set of atlases that weren’t a constant reminder of the demise of the British Empire.

  On Saturday morning I drove to Ragley to do some shopping and called into Victor Pratt’s garage for petrol.

  ‘Ah ’ave t’tek tablets now, Mr Sheffield,’ said Victor mournfully as he unscrewed my petrol cap.

  ‘What for?’ I asked.

  ‘ ’Cause Dr Davenport said I ’ad,’ replied Victor with a shake of his head.

  ‘Yes, but what’s the matter, Victor?’

  ‘Every time ah stand up quick, like, ah go proper dizzy.’

  ‘Oh, I see … Well, maybe you should get up more slowly, Victor.’

  He shambled back into his untidy garage to get my change and shouted over his shoulder, ‘That’s what Dr Davenport said,’ and not for the first time I wondered if I might have made a good doctor.

  In the villages of Ragley and Morton life was going on as normal. It was the time for spring cleaning. Vera was cutting out lavender-scented paper to line the drawers of her wardrobe; Ruby had slung the hearthrug over the washing line and was beating it with a ferocity that would have made Ronnie tremble; and Mrs Earnshaw was hanging out her bedroom curtains to dry alongside Dallas Sue-Ellen’s nappies. Meanwhile, in the vicarage kitchen Joseph was preparing a new and subtle variation to his home-made greengage wine, happily oblivious to the fact it tasted like Domestos, while Maurice Tupham was walking across the High Street to Piercy’s Butcher’s Shop to collect his weekly order of two pig’s trotters.

  Kenny Kershaw and Anita Cuthbertson, who had been in my class when I first arrived at Ragley, were standing outside the General Stores.

  ‘Kenny’s gorra ’nother new bike, Mr Sheffield,’ shouted Anita. Kenny smiled shyly. Anita always did most of the talking. ‘It’s a new Raleigh Grifter wi’ three gears an’ a twist-hand grip,’ she said.

  ‘It looks fantastic,’ I said.

  ‘Only thing is, Mr Sheffield,’ said Kenny, ‘it weighs a ton.’

  I stared at this new addition to the Chopper family of bicycles.

  ‘But it’s the cool bike of the Eighties, Mr Sheffield,’ said Anita with authority.

  I stared at the chunky, cumbersome frame. With all that steel it must feel like a motorcycle. Also, sadly, the most innovative gear shift in bicycle technology, incorporated into the grips and controlled with a twisting motion, clearly had its drawbacks.

  ‘An’ ah’ve gorra blister on m’thumb ’cause of this rubber flange on t’handle grip,’ said Kenny mournfully. He held up his thumb like a badge of honour and looked to Anita for some sympathy.

  Anita, though, was made of harder stuff. ‘C’mon, y’big softie,’ she said, let’s go t’Nora’s. Ah’ve ’eard some big jammy doughnuts came in yesterday.’

  Dorothy was standing in the open doorway of Nora’s Coffee Shop with Little Malcolm, while the strains of ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ by the Police thundered out into the street. His 1250 cc bright-green, two-door Deluxe, 1973 Hillman Avenger was parked outside.

  ‘There’s a smashing new shop opened up called Next,’ called out an excited Dorothy to Margery Ackroyd, who was passing by, ‘an’ Malcolm’s gonna buy me a pastel top and a pair o’ trendy pixie boots.’

  Meanwhile, in Pratt’s Hardware Emporium, Tidy Tim was using an anti-static cloth to clean the vinyl surface of his favourite record. He had heard that shopping to music was more relaxing and so it was that Albert Jenkins was about to purchase a bag of clout nails while humming along to a 1976 LP record of ‘100 Greatest Hits’ by Max Bygraves.

  After completing my shopping at Prudence Golightly’s General Stores I reflected how fortunate I was to work in this wonderful Yorkshire village.

  Unfortunately, life wasn’t proving quite so placid for PC Dan Hunter. Red-faced and panting, he had parked his bicycle outside the local police station and was reporting a surprising discovery.

  ‘I’ve just found a donkey, sergeant,’ said Dan somewhat lamely.

  ‘A what?’ yelled Sergeant Neil Grayson.

  ‘A donkey with a red collar. It says it’s called Hope.’


  ‘You’ve found a donkey called Hope?’ Sergeant Grayson had been brought up in Hull and was a fanatical Hull City supporter so he didn’t suffer fools gladly. Watching his favourite team had given him enough grief to last a lifetime. He gave Dan a withering look. ‘Ah don’t care if it’s called Bing bloody Crosby. Find out who owns it and get shut of it!’

  These were tough times for Dan. After two years of probationary training, he had begun a year of study in York using Moriarty’s Police Law, the police bible with its distinctive blue cover and gold-blocked lettering. It involved one evening per week in York, after which he would still be a police constable but officially ‘qualified for promotion’. If, during the following year, a sergeant was absent from duty, then the ‘most qualified PC’ would be awarded two temporary stripes, not three, and become an acting sergeant.

  He also had three promotion handbooks, Road Traffic, Crime and General Police Duties. The latter included important local information on the movement of livestock, which, he had just discovered to his cost, included fugitive donkeys.

  On Sunday morning the breath of roses blessed the eastern sky with soft pink light. A new day had dawned and, in the vicarage garden, the rooks were building their nests high, the sign of a good summer.

  Beth and I were outside the church, waiting for the others to arrive. Elsie Crapper, the church organist, always worked hard as a Friend of St Mary’s and she had taken responsibility for the church noticeboard. Two large notices were displayed, each written in Elsie’s recognizable script. The first read, in large capital letters, WHAT IS HELL? Next to it was COME EARLY TO HEAR THE CHOIR PRACTISE.

  Beth and I were sharing the joke when, suddenly, a familiar figure appeared on his bicycle.

  ‘Hello, Dan,’ I shouted.

  ‘I’ve lost bloody Hope,’ gasped Dan as he pedalled past.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Beth.

  ‘And I had it this morning!’ he yelled frantically as he disappeared up Morton Road, head down and feet pumping on the pedals.

  Soon everyone gathered, with baby Grace the centre of attention, and we walked into church. Elsie was also in charge of the monthly church magazine, although ‘magazine’ was rather a grand title for the single sheet of paper that comprised a list of births, marriages, deaths and church events. Beth and I read one as we sat quietly in one of the pews. In the April 1981 issue, Elsie had typed ‘When the choir sang “I Will Not Pass This Way Again” it brought great pleasure to the congregation.’ The advertisement at the bottom of the front page also raised a smile. It read: ‘The ladies in the choir have cast off clothing. Please see them in the basement. Charge 10p.’