I found myself a chair in the corner of the room.
‘Now,’ the teacher said, tapping a list on the blackboard with a ruler, ‘today I talk, present tense, tomorrow I shall talk, future tense, yesterday I talked, past tense.’ She stared in Justin’s direction, seemingly daring him to wink. ‘Today I look, tomorrow I shall look, yesterday I looked. Very often we add “ed” to the end of the verb in the present tense to change it into the past tense but sometimes this is not the case. For example: today I sing, tomorrow I shall sing, yesterday I sang. Today I run, tomorrow I shall run, yesterday I ran. Now, I want you all to think of a really good verb which, when it changes into the past tense, does not have an “ed” on the end. Thinking caps on, please.’
After a moment, while the children variously scribbled on pieces of paper, or just sucked the ends of their pencils and gazed up around the room, Mrs Smart said, ‘Yes, Alice. Have you got an interesting verb for us?’
‘Miss, catch,’ the girl shouted out,
‘Let’s say it in full shall we, Alice? Today I catch, tomorrow I shall catch, yesterday I caught. Good. Come on, then, Ross, I can see your hand waving in the air.’
A little fair-headed boy took a hearty breath before announcing: ‘Today I fly, tomorrow I shall fly, yesterday I flew.’
‘That was a very good one, Ross. Well done. Now, let me see. Who shall I pick? What about you, Joanna?’
‘Today I write, tomorrow I shall write, yesterday I wrote,’ chanted the girl confidently.
‘We are getting some lovely verbs,’ chortled the teacher. ‘Now who else has one?’ Mrs Smart looked round the room and I saw her eyes come to rest on Justin.
‘What about you, Justin? Have you an interesting verb for us?’
‘I can’t think of one, miss,’ he replied.
‘Well, try.’
The child thought for a moment before saying loudly, ‘Today I wink, tomorrow I shall wink, yesterday I wank.’
Mrs Smart gasped and spluttered like a fish out of water. She took a deep deep breath, like a swimmer preparing to plunge into the pool, and her eyes grew wide and wild. ‘Winked!’ she said slowly and with tight restraint. ‘Today I wink, tomorrow I shall wink, yesterday I W-I-N-K-E-D!’ and she spelled out the last word with heavy emphasis.
Little Justin stared at her mutely. The teacher then clapped her hands smartly and plucked up a stick of chalk. ‘Everyone! Put your pencils down for a moment and look this way.’ She turned to the blackboard and wrote a series of words in large letters, sounding them out loudly and distinctly at the same time. ‘Today I wink, tomorrow I shall wink, yesterday I winked. Let’s all say it.’ The class chanted the sentences in sing-song tones.
‘Today I blink,’ continued Mrs Smart, her face and neck suffused in crimson, ‘tomorrow I shall blink, yesterday I blinked.’ The children dutifully repeated the phrases.
At morning break, I sat with Mrs Smart in her room. She continued to wear a determined expression and her blotchy red neck still betrayed traces of the nervous rash. She fingered the rope of yellow beads without appearing to realise she was doing so.
‘I wish I had never ever started to teach them about tenses,’ she told me, clutching the beads. ‘Especially with you being here. I mean, I nearly died when he came out with that word.’
‘We all do it, Mrs Smart,’ I said, trying to put her at her ease.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Phinn?’ she gasped a second time.
‘What I mean,’ I replied, beginning to turn her shade of red, ‘is that we all apply our knowledge, if you see what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t see what you mean,’ said Mrs Smart, her eyes as wide as chapel hat pegs.
‘It’s a tricky and troublesome business —’
‘What is?’ she interrupted.
‘The English tense system,’ I attempted to explain. ‘Actually, all Justin was doing was making a reasonable guess. Sink, past tense sank, stink, past tense stank, shrink, past tense shrank, wink past tense –’
‘Winked!’ she interposed quickly.
‘You see, Mrs Smart,’ I explained, ‘the child is employing a rule which applies to a similar word. Actually, it was pretty astute of him. It’s called linguistic extrapolation, you know.’
‘I don’t care what it is called, Mr Phinn,’ asserted the teacher, huffing and puffing and fingering the beads, ‘he’s not doing any extrapolating in my classroom!’
As I was driving back to Fettlesham at the end of the morning, I was thinking of Justin and was reminded of other occasions when pupils had been in trouble with their teachers. There was the one bright spark, of about the same age, who had been sent to the headteacher by the crossing patrol warden for throwing a piece of hard mud at another child. The infant, far from being remorseful, had told the headteacher that he had not intended to hurt the other child, he had been merely trying to attract his attention. The headteacher, unconvinced, had told the child to sit in her room and, as a punishment, to write out several times the very convoluted sentence: ‘Rather than throwing a piece of hard mud at another child, which is a very dangerous thing to do, I could communicate with him by…’ She had asked the child to think about what he had done and complete the sentence. Several minutes later, the miscreant had presented her with a series of somewhat lop-sided lines which read: ‘Rather than throwing a piece of hard mud at another child, which is a very dangerous thing to do, I could communicate with him by letter, postcard, phone, carrier pigeon or smoke signals.’
There was another memorable occasion when a pupil’s response had compelled me to smile. In the corridor outside a classroom of a very prestigious secondary school had stood an extremely smartly turned-out young man, his school uniform immaculate.
‘Have you been sent out?’ I had asked him.
‘Yes, sir,’ the student had replied, with no trace of embarrassment or discomfiture.
‘And why is that?’
‘Gross insolence, sir,’ he had replied seriously.
‘Gross insolence?’ I had repeated, thinking that his crime must have indeed been heinous.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Whatever did you say?’
‘Well, it wasn’t so much what I said, sir,’ he had replied, ‘it was more what I wrote.’
‘And what did you write?’
‘We were asked to compose an essay entitled, “Imagine you are a new born baby, and describe your first week in the world”.’
What a ridiculous essay to set a class of fifteen-year-old boys, I had thought. ‘I see,’ I had remarked.
‘And I did as I was asked,’ the boy had continued, ‘and wrote three sides on the topic.’
‘And what did you write?’ I had asked again.
‘Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug,’ he had replied without a trace of a smile.
The afternoon following the winker episode, the full team of inspectors was in the Staff Development Centre, giving Harold feedback on one of the endless Ministry of Education initiatives which were sent to try our patience.
‘Colleagues,’ said Harold, ‘you have worked extremely hard and I am very grateful. I can put all this together in the next couple of days and get it off to the Ministry before Christmas.’
‘Since we have done such a sterling job of work, Harold,’ I said, ‘and as a small token of your gratitude, may we have the remainder of the afternoon off to complete our Christmas shopping?’
‘I’m afraid not, Gervase. There is a lot to get through. In addition, I have asked Mrs Savage to join our meeting later on. There are a number of items on the agenda which involve her.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ I groaned, ‘that’s the Christmas spirit out of the window.’
‘That has certainly taken the shine off proceedings and no mistake,’ said David. ‘It has completely and utterly spoilt the rest of my day. I have avoided that woman assiduously this term, dodged her memos, eluded her telephone calls, evaded her wretched forms and escaped having to meet her and now I am dragooned into spend
ing an afternoon with her. Any Christmas spirit I had has quite drained away.’
‘David,’ said Gerry, laughing, ‘this is a time of peace and goodwill to all.’
‘I am happy to dispense peace and goodwill to everyone with the exception of that woman,’ replied David, screwing up his face.
‘Hear, hear,’ I added.
‘I really do think you are being a little unkind to Mrs Savage,’ said Harold. ‘I know she can be rather difficult and sometimes somewhat short with people, but she is a colleague and I do hope you will all show her, at the very least, some common courtesy when she arrives.’
‘I’m surprised she can find the time to join us,’ remarked Sidney. ‘She must be missing the matinée performance in the pantomime in which she stars as the Wicked Stepmother or is it the Wicked Witch this year?’
‘You are all being very childish about this,’ said Harold crossly.
‘No, Harold,’ cried Sidney, ‘that woman is impossible. She’s so unpleasant, she would get threatening telephone calls from the Samaritans.’
‘She is definitely getting worse,’ I said. ‘Incidentally, Harold, how’s her romance with Dr Gore?’
Before he could answer, Sidney jumped in. ‘Can you imagine her as Mrs CEO? She would, no doubt, adopt a pretentious double-barrelled name, calling herself Mrs Savage-Gore and be even more insufferable, self-opinionated, patronising and all-round disagreeable.’
‘Don’t hold back, Sidney,’ said Gerry, shaking with laughter. ‘Why don’t you tell us all what you really think about Mrs Savage?’
‘There’s nothing afoot on that score from what I can tell,’ reported Harold. ‘I think when you saw Dr Gore and Mrs Savage at the end of the summer term, Gervase, it was merely a boss taking his assistant out for dinner to thank her for all her hard work.’
‘Thank her for all her hard work!’ exclaimed David. ‘And what hard work would this be then?’ He put on his spectacles and peered across the table. ‘As far as meaningless phrases and unpronounceable gobbets of jargon the Ministry is so fond of using, you need go no further than Mrs Savage’s memoranda. I mean –’
‘I thought you said you were very adept at dodging her memos,’ remarked Sidney.
‘Have you two ever thought of becoming a comedy double act?’ asked Harold. Before my colleagues could reply, he stood and headed for the door. ‘Let’s have lunch.’
‘This morning,’ said Sidney, ‘I received yet another frightful Christmas card from some unknown person.’ We were sitting in the staff lounge having a cup of tea and a break while Harold sorted out his papers and made some urgent telephone calls before the start of the final session. ‘Every year I receive these awful cards from people who apparently know me but I have no idea who they are. I might well dispense with the whole tiresome business of sending Christmas cards.’
‘You sound like Scrooge, Sidney,’ Gerry told him. ‘I like getting cards. It’s part of Christmas.’
‘So do I,’ I agreed. ‘I even got a card from the estate agent, signed by all the staff. I reckoned it was rather thoughtful.’
‘You got a card from the estate agents,’ Sidney told me, ‘because they’ll try every means to inveigle you into stumping up thousands of pounds for a mound of rubble they euphemistically call a “desirable residence”. Anyway, how is the house hunting going?’
‘Oh, we’ve looked at a few places. Christine and 1 have our heart set on an old country cottage with a view but they are so expensive.’
‘You live in an old cottage, don’t you, Gerry?’ said Sidney, availing himself of the opportunity to do a little probing.
‘Yes, I do,’ she replied without elaborating.
‘In Bartondale, isn’t it?’
‘Totterdale,’ she replied.
‘Oh, Totterdale. It’s very picturesque up there,’ said Sidney, ‘and not an arm and leg away from Fettlesham. Are there any cottages for sale in Totterdale, then?’ When no one answered, he persevered. ‘Geraldine?’
‘I’m sorry, Sidney,’ she said, ‘were you talking to me?’
‘I was asking if there were any cottages for sale in Totterdale? You could have the Phinns as neighbours.’
‘Oh, very few come on the market,’ she replied defensively. ‘It’s rather a pricey area. I rent mine.’ She changed the subject quickly. ‘On the question of whether or not to send Christmas cards, I shall certainly be sending them but it is just a question of finding the time to write them.’
‘Well I, for once, agree with Sidney,’ said David. ‘It’s become merely a wearisome ritual every Christmas to send cards to people you haven’t seen for years and are not likely to ever see again. And the majority of cards are expensive and hideous to boot.’
I had had just about enough of the carping duo and knew just how to shut the two of them up. I winked conspiratorially at Gerry.
‘Oh, I don’t know. The one from Dr Gore, I thought, was particularly tasteful this year,’ I said casually.
‘You got one from Dr Gore?’ demanded David in a startled voice.
‘Yes, exceptionally large and impressive.’
‘You received a card from our esteemed leader?’ asked Sidney. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘didn’t you?’ In time-honoured tradition, I crossed my fingers as I told my tiny white lie.
‘Well, no,’ said Sidney. ‘I did not.’ He was obviously rather affronted.
‘Neither did I,’ said David.
‘Perhaps he’s trying to tell you something,’ remarked Gerry, attempting to keep a straight face.
‘Did you get a card from Dr Gore, too, Geraldine?’ asked David.
‘I thought everyone got one,’ she replied, smiling sweetly. ‘Mine was very artistic – a superb view across a snow-covered dale and the thoughtful message inside was —’
‘Superb view, thoughtful message,’ repeated Sidney.
‘This is most upsetting,’ said David. ‘Why should he send a card to Gervase and Geraldine and not to us? After all, they’re relative newcomers in the department.’
‘I thought the two of you considered the whole idea of sending cards was a waste of time,’ I said smugly.
‘I bet it was that harridan, that ghastly Mrs Savage, who just crossed us off Dr Gore’s list,’ snorted Sidney.
‘Well, if you won’t fill in your weekly reports,’ I began but was interrupted by Connie making a sudden entrance.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said, scrutinising the room for any mess.
‘Good afternoon, Connie,’ we all chorused.
‘I thought I’d let you know, my step-ladders have materialised.’
‘Materialised?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know they were missing.’
‘Yes, they disappeared from the store-room. At first, I thought Mr Clamp had taken them to do his arty displays.’
‘Would I do such a thing, Connie?’ said Sidney, pretending to be affronted.
‘Yes,’ said Connie sharply. ‘Then I thought it might be Mr Pritchard using them for his PE classes.’
David raised his hand to his face in mock horror. ‘I would never do anything of the sort.’
‘Yes, you would, Mr Pritchard. You did last year. Anyway, the steps have materialised.’
‘Really!’ exclaimed Sidney. ‘Materialising step-ladders! Did they appear to you in some sort of miracle.’
Connie threw him a dark look.
‘Where were they?’ I asked.
‘The maintenance men used them when they were pruning the creeper on the fence at the back. Just took them out of the store without a by-your-leave and then left them out. Propped up on the wall at the back, they were. I do wish folks would put things back where they found them.’
‘I am sure you impressed this upon them, Connie,’ said Sidney, ‘in your usual indefatigable way.’
‘Do you know, Mr Clamp, I can never make head nor tail of what you are on about half the time. It’s all double Dutch to me.’
‘Where has plain English gone?�
� said David. ‘Where is the language of Chaucer and Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde?’
‘Anyway,’ continued Connie, ‘they’ll not be walking off with my step-ladders again. I’ve put a lock and chain around them.’
‘A little drastic, Connie,’ observed Sidney. ‘Isn’t there a law about chaining people up?’
‘The ladders!’ snapped Connie.
‘How’s your father?’ I asked, reckoning it wise to change the subject.
‘Not too good, I’m afraid. They’re keeping him in hospital for the time being. I went to see his doctor to talk about what we ought to do when he comes out. He was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. I don’t think we’ll see Dad at home for Christmas.’
‘If there’s anything we can do, Connie,’ said Gerry, ‘let us know. You might want running in to the hospital, some shopping, that sort of thing.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve got my Ted and my daughter, Tricia. Thank you for offering anyway. I really came in to tell Dr Yeats that that Mrs Savage has arrived from County Hall and she’s waiting in the meeting room. I had to tell her to park her car away from my entrance again. If looks could kill, I’d be six foot under. People just don’t read notices.’
‘Dr Yeats is making a few telephone calls,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘I’ll tell him she’s arrived.’
‘Colleagues!’ cried Sidney, jumping up as if he had sat on something sharp. ‘Let us face the enemy. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage. Cry God for Harold, Yorkshire and Dr Gore!’
‘Double Dutch,’ mumbled Connie shaking her head. ‘Double Dutch.’
Mrs Savage was standing stiffly by the window with an expression of icy imperturbability when we entered. She wore an expensive navy blue blazer with gold buttons over a tailored stone-coloured dress, silk scarf at her neck and the usual assortment of heavy jewellery. Her make-up was impeccable and not a hair was out of place. She turned slowly to face Harold, with a clash of bracelets and a false smile.
Head Over Heels in the Dales Page 12
