Changing Times

by Jack Sheffield

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mr Tonks’s cow found its way into church. I saw it there when I went to collect your cardigan.’

  ‘Goodness me – a cow in church! Is it still there?’

  ‘No, I managed to get it back in the field and I’ve closed the gate. It’s back where it belongs.’

  ‘This is dreadful! How could it have happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mrs Feather was very clear when she told the children to make sure the gate to the field was closed and the church door was shut.’

  ‘Oh … I see …’

  Realization was dawning on Vera.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not all,’ continued Sally.

  ‘There’s more?’

  ‘Yes. When I walked in the cow was urinating against the side of the font. It will need a thorough clean.’

  Vera sat down on a chair. ‘Oh no!’

  ‘If you would like me to come back after school, I should be happy to help.’

  Vera put her head in her hands. ‘Miss Nobbs, I have a confession. It was I who left the church open when I went to tell Mrs Feather’s group about the refreshments. I also left open the field gate and only closed it on my return. So it’s my fault.’

  ‘There’s no harm done if we clean up … and no one will know.’

  There was a moment’s pause as Vera recognized the gesture. ‘Thank you, my dear. I’ll start cleaning up immediately and I shall always remember your kindness.’

  ‘I must hurry now, Miss Evans. I need to get back to the children.’

  As she ran out of the vicarage, Vera stared after her and whispered the words she recalled from Joshua, chapter one, verse nine: ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’

  On the way back to school Sally walked beside Muriel Tonks.

  ‘I heard from Henry that you lost a bracelet.’

  Muriel was surprised. ‘Yes, ah did, m’little leprechaun lucky charm.’

  ‘Well, I think Douglas Smith and Chris Wojciechowski may have come across it in the woods. If you go with them I’m sure they will show you.’

  ‘Well, ah’ll go to t’foot of our stairs! That is a turn-up. Thank you.’

  At the end of school Lily sat down with Sally and confirmed the projects they would be tackling later in the term. Then Sally called into the office to thank John Pruett and left school. However, she didn’t wait to catch the bus into York; instead she walked back up the Morton road.

  Vera was in church with a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.

  ‘Miss Evans, let me have a turn.’

  Vera smiled with relief and stood up. The energy of youth, she thought as Sally scrubbed the font with renewed vigour.

  In the woods, Muriel Tonks had retrieved her bracelet.

  ‘Miss were talking ’bout us being detectives,’ said Duggie.

  ‘An’ archie-ologists,’ added Chris for good measure.

  Duggie nodded in agreement. ‘That’s right – they find things that were lost.’

  ‘Like your leprechaun bracelet,’ said Chris with a triumphant smile.

  ‘An’ buried treasure is allus at t’end of a rainbow.’

  ‘Well, thank you, boys.’

  Muriel was puzzled about why it had been buried in the first place, but assumed that little boys lived in a world of their own. At least they were honest.

  ‘Here’s sixpence each for being good boys an’ say thank you t’that student-lady when y’see ’er.’

  The boys ran off to buy some aniseed balls, then after a hasty tea of fish fingers and chips they intended to settle down to watch television. Colonel Steve Zodiac was due to travel to a distant planet with Robert, his robot friend.

  Muriel smiled as she walked home. The bracelet was in her pocket. It had brought her good fortune in more ways than one.

  That evening Joseph was in the hallway of the vicarage and about to leave for a prayer meeting, while Vera was in the kitchen reading her Be-Ro recipe book.

  ‘I have a baptism tomorrow morning,’ announced Joseph.

  Vera thought back to what had happened to the font that day. ‘I gave it a bit of a clean-up this afternoon.’

  Joseph popped his head round the kitchen door and gave her a beatific smile. ‘What a wonderful sister I have. You think of everything.’

  Well almost, thought Vera.

  It was Thursday morning and a cloud of mist lay over the village green as Lily drove into school.

  Both Vera and John were in the school office when she walked in.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Sally about the May Day preparations,’ Lily told them, ‘and we should be fine for the maypole dancing. Miss Nobbs offered to come and help.’

  John looked up, concerned. ‘I wasn’t too sure about her.’

  Before Lily could say anything, Vera interjected. ‘An outstanding young woman, Mr Pruett. Definitely one for the future. I was really impressed.’

  Both Lily and John looked at Vera in surprise and wondered why her cheeks were flushed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  New Beginnings

  It was Friday, 22 May, a time of renewal and new beginnings. There was excitement and trepidation in Laurel Cottage. Tom’s big day had arrived. Earlier in the month an official letter had arrived with a Durham postmark. He had been shortlisted for interview for the post of chief inspector.

  He was wearing his best dress uniform and Lily picked up the clothes brush from the hall table and brushed his shoulders. ‘You look perfect,’ she said with a smile.

  The usually calm Tom looked tense. ‘Thanks. I’ll try hard but, whatever the outcome, we’ll decide the next step together.’

  ‘Just do your best.’

  He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘I shall.’

  Freddie appeared from the kitchen. ‘Good luck, Tom.’

  They shook hands. ‘You too,’ said Tom. ‘You’ve worked hard enough, so you should be fine.’

  It was the day of his English A-level examination.

  Freddie pursed his lips. ‘Just hoping for the right questions.’

  Tom grinned. ‘Likewise.’

  Lily watched him drive away and realized that by the end of the day she would know if her life was about to change.

  As she drove Freddie to school, she recalled why she loved this corner of England that she called home. The flower candles on the horse chestnut trees gave promise of summer days. A flock of starlings wheeled overhead and in Twenty Acre Field the unripe barley shivered in the gentle breeze. Carpets of bluebells covered the woodland floor and the bleating of lambs could be heard in the meadows. The warmer days had broadened the leaves of a copse of sycamore trees and, beyond the hawthorn hedgerows, cattle were grazing contentedly in the open pasture land. She wound down the window and breathed in the scent of a new day.

  In the vicarage, Vera had prepared an appetizing breakfast for Joseph and herself. She had cut a grapefruit in half and then, with great precision, she sectioned the fruit with her curved, serrated grapefruit knife. A glacé cherry on top was the final touch, along with a sprinkling of sugar. Vera always found this a satisfying task and enjoyed the perfect symmetry.

  Neatness and harmony, she thought. It reflected the pattern of her life.

  She sipped Earl Grey tea from a china cup, opened her Woman’s Own and admired the charming photograph in her magazine of Princess Margaret with her baby daughter, born at the beginning of the month. Then she stared out of the window at a flock of black-headed gulls speeding purposefully across a pastel blue sky.

  Finally, she cleared away, ensured the worktop was spotless and collected her coat from the hallway. Then she crunched across the gravel courtyard where the wild raspberry canes on the Victorian brick walls stretched up to catch the morning sun. As she stepped out on to the Morton road it was good to feel contentment in her world. Above her head the delicate pink petals on the cherry trees swirled in the gentle breeze. �
��Romans, chapter fourteen, verse nineteen,’ she whispered to herself with a smile. ‘Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace.’

  Peace was in short supply at Easington School. Freddie and Rose were feeling anything but calm. They held hands as they walked through the school gates for the start of their A-level examinations. It was their first English paper.

  ‘Please make it all the stuff we’ve revised,’ said Rose.

  Freddie offered an encouraging smile. ‘We couldn’t have done any more.’

  Rose stared up at the school building. ‘I wish it was all over, rather than just beginning.’

  They paused in the entrance to the school hall and took in the scene. The day of judgement had arrived. Sixty desks were arranged in long rows and labelled in alphabetical order. The space between each desk had been carefully measured so there was no opportunity for one student to see another’s work.

  Freddie squeezed Rose’s hand. ‘Good luck.’

  She returned a nervous glance and made her way to her desk.

  From the far side of the hall, Sam Grundy gave an anxious wave. Freddie knew that Sam had written a few Shakespeare quotes on the inside of his shirt cuff. These were desperate times for some of the students, particularly those like Sam who had done little revision, and Freddie hoped he would not be found out and expelled for cheating.

  Mr Morris stood at the front of the hall. ‘At nine o’clock you will turn over your question papers. There will, of course, be no talking. If there is a problem, raise your hand.’

  He glanced up at the clock.

  It was time.

  The silence was absolute.

  He gave a wry smile. ‘You may begin.’

  In John Pruett’s classroom there wasn’t a sound. He scanned all the eager young faces before him and wondered what would become of them when they moved on to secondary education in September.

  The eleven-plus tests were over and John hoped all his work had paid off. The tests had included maths, writing an essay and both verbal and non-verbal reasoning papers. The verbal reasoning examination tested the child’s command of English and the non-verbal reasoning paper, with its puzzles and problem-solving, was intended to give an indication of the child’s IQ.

  The children were sitting up straight, arms folded, lips tight shut and glancing through the window at the cloudless sky. They hoped that this morning might be different in some way. Perhaps they might be permitted to use coloured crayons or write a story from their imagination. It was not to be.

  ‘We shall begin with the eleven times table,’ announced John. ‘All together …’

  In Easington School the examination room was silent apart from the occasional suppressed cough or the scraping of a chair. Sixty students were deep in concentration. Pens flowed across pages. There were occasional nervous glances up at the clock as time raced by. Allocate time well, they had been told. Feel free to write a few brief sub-headings to map out the content of each essay, particularly for the final one. Then, if you run out of time, the examiner will know what you planned to write.

  Freddie had been advised by Mr Morris to show his knowledge of Shakespeare by including a few relevant quotes. It was when he wrote ‘The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together’, from All’s Well That Ends Well, that he reflected on his own life. He hoped for a happy ending with Rose, but couldn’t foresee a resolution with Lily. The hurt of a lie ran too deep.

  He looked across the room at Rose. Her head was bowed and her free hand was twirling her hair, a mannerism he knew so well. With a final burst of energy he raced through his concluding essay on King Lear’s descent into madness.

  It was twelve o’clock and Mr Morris called time. Papers were shuffled together and collected in.

  At 7 School View Agnes had arrived home from her early-morning shift. Ruby had prepared jam sandwiches and a pot of tea. Agnes put two chocolate Aero bars on the table for their weekly treat.

  ‘Oooh, thanks, Mam.’

  Agnes studied her daughter’s florid face. ‘What’s t’matter?’

  ‘Jus’ thinkin’. Ah’m in m’thirties now. Time’s marchin’ on.’

  ‘Ruby, ah’ll tell y’summat now … best age is the age you are.’

  Ruby nodded and smiled.

  They were drinking their tea and enjoying their sandwiches when a thought struck Agnes. ‘Guess what? Ah saw that Violet Fawnswater when ah got off t’bus. She’d parked ’er new car on the ’igh Street.’

  Violet was the proud owner of a gleaming white Rover 2000.

  ‘Oh yes?’ mumbled Ruby through a mouthful of jam and bread.

  ‘Ah’ve allus said, money doesn’t bring you ’appiness.’

  It occurred to Ruby that it might help, but she decided to agree. ‘Yes, Mam.’

  ‘The sun shines on the righteous,’ quoted Agnes.

  Ruby looked up, puzzled. ‘What does that mean, Mam?’

  ‘Well, a lot o’ things.’

  ‘What sort o’ things?’

  Agnes supped her sweet, milky tea and considered this for a moment. ‘It means y’grandad is smilin’ down at us from ’eaven.’

  ‘Why is ’e smilin’, Mam?’

  ‘’Cause ’e knows you’ll allus look after ’is great-grandkids ’til t’day y’die.’

  ‘Ah will,’ said Ruby.

  Agnes smiled at her daughter. ‘You’re a wonderful mother, Ruby, so be proud.’

  ‘Thanks, Mam.’

  ‘You’re allus workin’, y’never stop. Y’know what they say?’

  ‘What do they say, Mam?’

  ‘A rollin’ stone gathers no moths.’

  At lunchtime in the staff-room John Pruett was complaining to Vera and Lily about the state of the British Empire and the modern generation.

  ‘Back in nineteen twenty-one our empire covered a third of the world’s surface,’ he declared.

  ‘Yes, so I recall,’ replied a polite but slightly indifferent Vera. ‘We had a population of five hundred million.’

  ‘But now we’ve transferred power.’

  ‘Really?’ said Vera, glancing up from pouring tea.

  John was on a roll. ‘Yes, Jamaica, then Trinidad and Tobago, and last year Nigeria and Kenya. It’s slipping through our fingers.’

  Vera sighed. ‘I imagine the heavy cost of the Second World War made it hard for Britain to maintain such a vast empire.’

  ‘Perhaps so, Vera, but just look at this.’ He pointed to his morning newspaper. There was a photograph of violent clashes over the Whitsun weekend on Clacton beach under the headline ‘MODS v ROCKERS’.

  ‘I tell you, Vera, it’s the beginning of the end.’

  ‘More tea, anyone?’ asked Vera.

  Lily gave a wan smile and got up to leave. ‘No thank you, Vera, things to do. I said I would help Sally prepare her art lesson.’ In truth, she was bored with the monologue and began to think it might not be a bad thing to seek a new beginning.

  On the High Street the cycle of life continued for the villagers of Ragley. Muriel Tonks had called into the General Stores to buy a Sunblest loaf.

  ‘An’ a jar o’ Gale’s Lemon Curd, please, Prudence,’ she said.

  ‘It’s fourpence off,’ said Prudence, ‘a special offer.’

  ‘Ah’ll ’ave two,’ said Muriel, who always loved a bargain.

  In the Coffee Shop the number-one record, ‘Juliet’ by the Four Pennies, was on the jukebox. It was a gentle ballad and Nora, behind the counter, was swaying to the music and dreaming of stardom.

  Diane Wigglesworth, in the hairdresser’s, was cutting out a colour photograph of the glamorous pin-up Diana Dors. She stood back to admire the blonde bombshell. If the fifties had been in black and white, the sixties were in Technicolor. She sellotaped it to the collection that bordered the large mirror in the salon and wondered if there might one day be an honest man out there for her.

  In The Royal Oak, Pete the Poacher had called in with some rabbits and held them up in triumph as
he passed Ronnie Smith, who was propping up the bar. Ronnie was also in a celebratory mood. His favourite team, Leeds United, had been promoted a week ago to the First Division after they had beaten Swansea 3–0 with a promising debut by Terry Cooper and a goal from Irishman Johnny Giles.

  Big Dave Robinson was in the taproom with his cousin, Little Malcolm. He was praising the cricketing exploits of the young Geoffrey Boycott, who had given up his job in the Ministry of Pensions to concentrate on cricket.

  ‘’E could be good, this lad, Malc’.’

  In the recent Roses match with Lancashire, the Yorkshire opening batsman had scored 131 runs in dramatic fashion against the old enemy.

  Little Malcolm supped deeply on his pint and gave his usual reply. ‘Y’reight there, Dave.’

  Meanwhile, in the village Pharmacy, Violet Fawnswater had been persuaded by Herbert Grinchley to purchase a so-called safe and reliable remedy for women’s ailments and irregularities. The label on the jar read ‘Wise Women take BLANCHARD’S PILLS – as dispensed during the Great War’, and Violet had no doubt they would dispel the feelings of anxiety about her husband’s lack of attention.

  Back in Ragley School, Lily and Sally were busy in the library. Over the years Lily had built up a wonderful collection of books and she was pleased to see Sally updating her card index system.

  ‘Thanks, Sally,’ she said with a grateful smile.

  ‘Thought I would get the new stock catalogued,’ said Sally.

  The latest PTA jumble sale had raised enough to buy a box of twenty new books. Lily believed libraries were the cornerstone of a cultured society. She wanted to immerse the children in stories that excited their imagination and information that answered their many questions. Over the years the Ragley School library had developed thanks to her efforts.

  Sally was adding a sticky label with the Dewey Decimal number 821 to the spine of a poetry book. It was at that moment that they heard a shout from the playground and they looked out of the window. The new dinner lady, Mrs Doreen Critchley, a fierce, muscular Yorkshire woman with huge biceps and a loud voice, was telling Shane Ramsbottom to stop demonstrating how far he could spit.

  Sylvia Icklethwaite, a farmer’s wife and a close friend of Doreen, waved from the other side of the school wall.