With a clash of bracelets, she pointed in the opposite direction. ‘Well, I suggest you look elsewhere. I am certainly not Gypsy Rose Lee.’
‘Sorry, I’m sure,’ said the man as Mrs Savage disappeared into the marquee.
The art exhibition was magnificent. Sidney had worked hard the afternoon before and produced a dazzling display of work. There were delicate watercolours, bold oil paintings, detailed line drawings, portraits in chalk and charcoals, rural scenes in inks, sculptures, embroideries, tapestries and collages. It was a mass of colour. On large boards a range of poetry and tidy handwritten accounts of historical events had been displayed. Behind the Education marquee, teachers were preparing for the drama production, going over final details with their young charges, while a troop of junior gymnasts was practising on large blue mats. In the Orangery members of the Youth Orchestra were rehearsing for their performance which would take place later that morning.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Savage, smiling uncharacteristically, as we headed back towards the hall, ‘I think everything is in order.’
I had to hand it to the woman. Things had been organised extremely well. She had contacted schools and arranged for the children’s work to be collected for my exhibition. I had done very little, apart from suggesting the various activities and inviting teachers to take part.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’ve worked very hard.’
She stared at me for a moment. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I think we both deserve a cup of coffee.’ She gestured in the direction of the Refreshment Tent. ‘Shall we?’
The Feoffees Pageant went like clockwork. At eleven o’clock on the dot, Lord Marrick, as Greave and Chief Lord of the Feoffees, dressed in a long scarlet gown and heavy gold chain, followed the Mace Bearer and led a line of largely elderly men in dark suits and bowler hats. They processed up the steps of Manston Hall where Lord Marrick made a speech and officially opened the pageant to celebrate the Feoffees’ five hundredth anniversary.
The police band struck up a rousing tune and the park was soon full of people, pushing and jostling through the exhibitions, watching the performances, listening to the music or just sitting relaxing in the warm sunshine.
‘Splendid! Splendid!’ said Dr Gore later that morning as he entered the marquee where the children’s work was displayed. He was dressed in a charcoal grey suit with his bowler hat perched rakishly on the side of his head. I suppressed a smile. ‘It really does look impressive in here. Wonderful work. Quite delightful. The Youth Orchestra are going great guns in the Orangery and the gymnastics are about to begin so I must pop back and see those. I just wanted to call in to say how well everyone has done. I think we can say that the Education Department has held its own, eh?’ Before I could respond, he strode off, rubbing his hands and repeating enthusiastically, ‘Splendid! Splendid!’
‘I think the old man’s pleased,’ remarked Sidney phlegmatically.
Mrs Savage stood at the door to the office, dressed in a wildly striped multi-coloured smock, long cream silk scarf, pale grey boots and the usual assortment of heavy clanking jewellery. Her hair was curled up in long tendrils on her head and held in place by a great silver clasp in the shape of a spider. It was well before nine o’clock on the first morning of the following week. Mrs Savage rarely ventured into the Inspectors’ Office at the best of times and to see her at the crack of dawn was entirely unexpected, not to say disconcerting.
‘I could hear the noise from the bottom of the stairs,’ she said to no one in particular, in that sharp, disapproving voice of hers.
‘We were laughing,’ said Sidney, smiling in such an exaggerated fashion that he looked quite manic. ‘We were sharing an amusing story, a funny little anecdote, a whimsical moment, an engaging little account.’ He was rather labouring the point. ‘Schools are funny places, you know, my dear Mrs Savage.’
‘Really?’ replied our visitor, retaining her sour expression and clearly irritated by Sidney’s exaggerated good humour.
‘Mr Pritchard was telling us about his recent visit to an infant school,’ Harold told her. ‘Weren’t you, David?’ His colleague nodded slightly and it was clear he was not going to relate the story for the benefit of Mrs Savage, of whom he had an abiding dislike. ‘Yes,’ continued Harold amiably, ‘it was a most entertaining little tale. Mr Pritchard had asked this small boy if he had been anywhere interesting over the Easter holiday and the little chap told him he had been to Scarborough for the day. “And did you go on a donkey?” Mr Pritchard asked him. “Oh no,” the child replied, “I went in my dad’s car.” ’ Harold chuckled. ‘The things children say nowadays.’
‘Yes, well I’m sure that’s all very amusing, Dr Yeats,’ said Mrs Savage, without the trace of a smile.
‘And how may we help you?’ enquired Harold.
‘I have called over for two reasons. Firstly, Dr Gore, to whom I spoke on Sunday, was very pleased with everyone’s efforts with regard to the Feoffees Pageant and asked me to convey his appreciation. He will be writing to you formally to express his thanks. Things went extremely well and Lord Marrick was particularly grateful for all the hard work that had been expended.’
‘That is very good to hear, Mrs Savage,’ Harold told her.
Mrs Savage turned in my direction. ‘I would appreciate it, Mr Phinn, if you could come across and see me some time.’ I heard Sidney stifle a laugh. She gave him a quick glance. ‘We need to put our heads together to compile a report on the Feoffees Pageant for Dr Gore’s annual report to the Education Committee.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you a ring.’
‘It would be more convenient for me if we could do it now. Have you a window in your diary?’
‘I’ll have a look,’ I said.
While I was flicking through the pages in my diary, she turned her attention to Harold. ‘The second and more important reason for my visit, Dr Yeats, concerns a much less pleasant matter.’ David rolled his eyes and Sidney adopted his usual pose, placing his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair and fixing his gaze on the ceiling. Mrs Savage continued undeterred. ‘I’ve come up especially early before you all disappear off on school visits. I need to talk to you all together.’
David drew in a long weary breath, sighed dramatically and shook his head. Sidney continued to look heavenwards. Mrs Savage fixed them with a venomous stare.
‘That sounds ominous,’ said Harold in the most pleasant of voices and no doubt hoping to defuse a potentially explosive situation. ‘Do enlighten us, Mrs Savage.’
David looked abstractedly out of the window, Sidney didn’t move a muscle and I feigned interest in a diary entry, so she had no one except Harold on whom to focus her icy stare.
‘As you will be aware, Dr Yeats, part of my remit is to record all the weekly forecasts that the inspectors complete when they are sent to me each Friday afternoon. This procedure is so Dr Gore knows where all the inspectors are during the following week. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that.’
‘No, Mrs Savage, you do not have to tell us that,’ echoed David in a weary voice. ‘I have been filling in those engagement sheets for time immemorial.’
‘Well,’ she continued, unperturbed by the interruption, ‘I have to say that some of the weekly programmes from this office, sent to me last term, were of times incomplete, sometimes inaccurate, frequently illegible and, on a growing number of occasions’ – she paused and tried to gain Sidney’s attention by glaring pointedly in his direction – ‘I have received no programmes at all. Now, it is essential that Dr Gore knows exactly where all the inspectors are during the week.’
‘Why?’ asked David, suddenly turning from the window.
‘I beg your pardon, Mr Pritchard?’
‘Why exactly does Dr Gore need to know where we all are every minute of the day?’
‘Because he may wish to contact you in an emergency.’
Sidney suppressed a snort rather ineffectually. ‘We are school inspectors, Mrs Savage, not the ai
r-sea rescue.’
‘Nevertheless, he needs to know where you are.’
‘In all my twenty-odd years as a school inspector,’ David said, ‘there has been not one, single occasion when any sort of emergency has arisen which demanded my immediate and undivided attention and there has been nothing so very important that it could not wait until the next day.’
‘Suppose a member of the Education Committee requires an urgent answer to a query?’ She was certainly persistent.
‘He or she should be able to wait until the following morning, surely,’ stated Harold with amused detachment.
‘It is our business to respond promptly and effectively,’ continued Mrs Savage with lofty disdain, ‘and to make the system more efficient, I have, with Dr Gore’s full approval, decided on a new procedure.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ groaned David, ‘not another mass of paperwork and more wretched forms to fill in?’
‘What about next Thursday?’ I suggested, hoping to curtail the lively and increasingly belligerent exchange.
‘Pardon?’ asked Mrs Savage.
‘For me to come across to see you. At about five o’clock?’
‘Yes, yes, that sounds fine. Now about these new procedures. Dr Gore has asked me to get you up to speed,’ announced Mrs Savage, adjusting the silk scarf as she caught sight of her reflection in the glass of the door.
‘Get us up to what?’ demanded Sidney.
‘Up to speed,’ repeated Mrs Savage, slowly and deliberately. ‘Fully conversant with the changes.’
Over the past few months Mrs Savage had been attending a course for education officers. Returning from her weekly lectures and seminars and filled with new ideas and concepts, she had initiated a number of changes in the administration of the Education Department. The module she had undertaken on selection procedures, for example, had resulted in new and complicated procedures for appointing staff. Gerry Mullarkey had been the first on the receiving end of that. Another transformation was in Mrs Savage’s vocabulary. She had adopted a completely new language, a language full of jargon, psychobabble and gobbledygook. A foreigner with a good grasp of English, on meeting Mrs Savage, would assume that she was from another planet, such was the incomprehensible nature of her language. David had entertained us one afternoon with an account of the recent meeting of the standing committee concerned with pupils who had been expelled from school, which he chaired. Mrs Savage had been ‘deputed’, as she informed him, ‘to act as rapporteur’.
‘She managed to translate perfectly clear, readable and succinct comments into the most meaningless twaddle that I have ever heard. There was one lad, who had been expelled from school for answering back and shouting at the teachers. He was a damn nuisance, that’s what he was, and needed a few days off school to cool off – or more likely, “a good, tidy slap”, as my old Welsh grandmother used to say. In the minutes, Mrs Savage, who is now, after her DIY education course, something of an expert on difficult children, as well as every other blessed thing, had it recorded in a sort of gibberish.’ He had reached across his desk and plucked a piece of paper from his out-tray. ‘Here, listen to this for complete and utter nonsense: “One behaviourally challenged student with ADHD (attention-deficit-hyperactive-disorder) and ODS (oppositional-defiance-syndrome) came from a multi-delinquent family with siblings high on the incarceration index.” In simple English it means he was loud-mouthed and troublesome and his brothers were behind bars. When I enquired of our “rapporteur” if she were now our resident psychologist, she gave me that look which would turn you to stone. The woman’s going off the rails or, as she might term it, she has “manic episode stress-inducing disorder” or, as I might describe it, “pain in the neck syndrome”.’
‘As I was saying,’ continued Mrs Savage now, ‘I am here at the behest of Dr Gore to explain the new procedures and to get you all up to speed. We do not want anyone off-message, do we? I would like, starting now, for all the inspectors to complete a blue Form IMF.’
‘A what?’ snapped David.
‘International Monetary Fund,’ explained Sidney.
‘The Inspectors’ Monthly Forecast form!’ exclaimed Mrs Savage. ‘This will replace the green Form I W F, the Inspectors’ Weekly Forecast form, which you send to me at present. I will now know well in advance where you are during the days and evenings and then –’
‘Evenings?’ interrupted David. ‘What’s this about evenings? You want to know what we are doing in the evenings? Good gracious me, this gets worse and worse.’
Mrs Savage gave a twisted little smile. ‘Only if it’s official County business, Mr Pritchard. I am not the slightest bit interested in what you get up to in your own time.’
‘Just as well,’ said Sidney, looking in my direction. ‘I am sure Gervase would not wish to record the many assignations he has with a certain young headteacher.’
‘Now, should there be any changes you wish to make,’ continued Mrs Savage, ignoring him, ‘you will need to complete a yellow Form AIMF, an Amendment to the Inspectors’ Monthly Forecast form. All visits to schools need to be recorded accurately and clearly and, should there be any changes, the amendments noted. Both the IMF and the AIM F should be sent to me directly so I can make the necessary alterations and adjustments to your programmes.’
‘In triplicate?’ asked Sidney sarcastically.
‘I have brought over a batch of the new forms,’ she continued undeterred, ‘which I have left in your secretary’s office and I would like them returned to me completed, ASAP.’ She stared pointedly again in Sidney’s direction. ‘Now, it is important that we all come aboard on this.’
‘Mrs Savage –’ began David rising to his feet.
‘Well, we will see how it goes, Mrs Savage,’ interrupted Harold with the unruffled gentleness of the peacemaker. Then, without conviction, he added, ‘It sounds very reason-able to me.’
‘No, Harold!’ cried David. ‘It does not sound at all reasonable. I have better things to do than complete a lot of silly forms. I do not wish to “get up to speed”, to be frank, nor to “come aboard”. I am quite content working at my own steady pace. I am not on a running track nor in a racing car. I well recall some of Mrs Savage’s other hare-brained ideas and wonderful initiatives, such as wearing those idiotic luminous identity badges, putting ridiculously complicated codes on the photocopier or making us park in remote areas of the County Hall miles away from this office. All abandoned, as I recall. I have no intention whatsoever of spending my time on forecasts or filling in amendment sheets whether they be blue, green, red or psychedelic pink! I have more bumf on my desk than a Belgian bureaucrat. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a school to visit because that is what I do for a job – inspect schools and not sit around pushing coloured paper backwards and forwards!’ With that David snatched up his briefcase and departed.
‘And much as I would like to debate the efficacy of your forms, Mrs Savage,’ Sidney told her, maintaining his carefully blank expression, and heading for the door at the same time, ‘I too have an appointment at nine o’clock in the far distant Dales.’
Mrs Savage looked like a startled ostrich. ‘Well…’ was all she could muster to say in a strangled sort of voice.
‘I will have a word with them, Mrs Savage,’ Harold told her gently, ‘and, as I said, we will see how it goes. I feel certain –’
‘I have to say I find your two colleagues very offhand, Dr Yeats,’ said Mrs Savage, regaining some composure and readjusting the chiffon. ‘I am only endeavouring to make the system more efficient, that’s all. I do have a job to do and it makes it exceedingly difficult if the people who –’
‘I’m sure you are only doing what you feel is for the best,’ reassured Harold, showing his set of tombstone teeth.
‘And I shall be mentioning their opposition to Dr Gore.’ She looked in my direction. ‘Have you anything to say, Mr Phinn?’ she asked curtly.
‘Well, now you ask, Mrs Savage, I really do think that we have quite eno
ugh paper arriving on our desks. The present system seems to me to work well and –’
‘I am sure there will be no problems,’ interposed Harold, rubbing his large hands together. ‘It shouldn’t take all that long to complete your forecasts. Julie can check through my colleagues’ desk diaries, fill in the details and bring the forms over later today or tomorrow.’
‘Where is your secretary, by the way, Dr Yeats?’ asked Mrs Savage suddenly.
‘I asked her to take our new colleague over to the main building and show her where everything is – post room, resources area, library, that sort of thing.’
‘I see.’
There was a clattering of shoes on the stairs and a few moments later Julie arrived accompanied by the new science inspector who had arrived that morning.
‘Ah, I see you have arrived,’ said Mrs Savage, ignoring Julie and addressing herself directly to Gerry Mullarkey. She did not wait for any response. ‘I was expecting you this afternoon, but since you are here, I’ll explain a few things if you would like to accompany me over to my office.’
Gerry smiled an easy smile. ‘And who are you?’ she enquired.
‘I am Mrs Savage, Dr Gore’s personal assistant,’ she responded tartly.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs Savage,’ said Gerry in a quite charming voice.
‘What is your shorthand like?’ asked Mrs Savage.
‘Non-existent.’
‘Your typing speed?’
‘About a word a minute, I should think.’
‘Well, this does not sound at all encouraging. Can you use a dictaphone?’
‘No.’
‘Have you any qualifications at all?’
‘Well, I have a degree in physics, a masters degree in microbiology, a Ph.D., and I’m a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemists.’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Mrs Savage. ‘I thought you were the temporary clerical assistant, from the agency in Fettlesham.’
‘No, no,’ interposed Harold, ‘this is Dr Mullarkey, the new science inspector, who has just started. I believe you were on one of your courses at the time of the interviews.’
Over Hill and Dale Page 24
