Part 2 (1/2)
”That's because miss took my pencil away, so I'm having to make do with this.” He scrutinised the writing implement before observing, ”And this pen's got a life of its own.”
After morning playtime I joined the infant cla.s.s in a s.p.a.cious room which was neat and orderly with colourful displays depicting various fairy story characters covering the walls. There were six large, low tables with small, orange melamine chairs at each, a selection of bright picture books on a trolley, a carpeted area, a big plastic tray for sand and another for water and at the front a square, old-fas.h.i.+oned teacher's desk and hard wooden chair. The windows looked out on a magnificent view up the dale: a vast expanse of pale golden-green rolling to the grey-purple fells and clear sky beyond.
The five- and six-year-olds were in the charge of a serious-looking teacher in a grey jumper and dark brown skirt, called appropriately Mrs. Dunn. She had iron-grey hair pulled back severely across her scalp and wore a pained expression throughout the hour-long lesson. She had the rather unsettling habit of twitching nervously before glancing in my direction. The children read competently and their writing, though slightly below the standard I would have expected from children of this age, was sound enough. There was a great deal of copied writing, a few simple stories and no poetry.
At the end of the morning I returned to Mrs. Peterson's cla.s.s to make my farewells. The teacher beamed effusively as I entered her room.
”Now, children, look who's back it's Mr. Phinn.” The children looked up indifferently.
”I've just popped in to say goodbye, Mrs. Peterson.”
”It's been a pleasure, Mr. Phinn. We do like to have special visitors, don't we, children?” One or two children nodded unenthusiastically. ”It's been a real treat for us and I hope it is not too long before you come back and see us again. That would be nice, children, wouldn't it? My goodness, Mr. Phinn, we do have such a lot of fun in this cla.s.sroom, don't we, children?” The cla.s.s stared impa.s.sively. ”We really do have so much fun, don't we?” There were a few nods. I caught sight of Oliver in the Reading Corner. He looked up from his book, Creepy-Crawlies and Minibeasts and shook his head. Mrs. Peterson had spotted him too.
”Yes, we do, Oliver! We're always having fun.” She fixed him with a rattlesnake look and gave a little laugh. It was not a pleasant little laugh. ”Too much to say for himself, that young man, Mr. Phinn,” Mrs. Peterson confided in me in an undertone. ”We do have a lot of fun.”
As I pa.s.sed Oliver on my way out, I heard him mutter, ”I must have been away that day.” I suppressed a smile.
”Oliver,” continued Mrs. Peterson, her face now rather more leering than smiling and her voice with quite a sharpness of tone to it, 'would you go and ask the school secretary to ring the bell for dinnertime, please, there's a good boy.” The last phrase was said with some emphasis. ”And shall we all now say a nice, warm ”Goodbye” to Mr. Phinn?”
”Goodbye, Mr. Phinn,” the cla.s.s intoned.
”Goodbye,” I said.
Oliver and I walked down the corridor together. ”Can I ask you something, Mr. Phinn?” he said.
”Of course.”
”How do you become one of these suspecters, then?”
”Inspectors, Oliver.”
”How do you become one?”
”Well, you have to work hard at school, read a lot of books and when you go up to the big school you have to pa.s.s your exams and go on to college. You then take more exams and that takes a long, long time.”
”How old do you have to be?” he asked.
”You have to be twenty-one to be a teacher and even older to be a school inspector, so you have a long way to go-'
”And then you can sit at the back of cla.s.srooms and watch people?”
”That's right.”
”And hear children read?”
”That's right.”
”And look at their writing?”
”And look at their writing,” I repeated.
The little boy looked up and then scratched at the shock of red hair. ”And you get paid for it?”
”And get paid for it,” I intoned. He still looked very thoughtful, so I said, ”Would you like to ask me anything else?”
”No, not really, but.. .” He paused. ”Go on, Oliver. Have you got something to tell me?” ”Well, Mr. Phinn, I was just thinking, that when I'm twenty-one, you'll probably be dead!”
”You've had a telephone call,” announced David, when I arrived at the office one damp, depressing, early October afternoon. He gave a wry smile before adding, ”You have been summoned to an audience with the Ice Queen herself.”
”Who?”
”Mrs. Savage.”
”Oh, no,” I moaned. ”Whatever does she want now?”
Sidney looked up from his papers, shook his head, adopted a pitiful expression and sighed dramatically. ”She left a message that you are to go up and see her,” continued David. ”She was quite insistent.”
”Sounds like Mae West,” said Sidney suddenly. He mimicked the slow American drawl of the star of the silver screen. ”Come up and see me sometime, honey.”
”Anyone less like Mae West, I could not imagine,” I told him caustically.
”My goodness,” said David, taking off his reading gla.s.ses and folding them on the desk in front of him, 'someone is in a rather fraught condition this afternoon.” ”I can't seem to escape from the woman,” I said, banging my briefcase down on a chair. ”She was on the phone to me the very first day of term and since then I keep on getting messages and memos every other day.”
”She's perhaps taken a s.h.i.+ne to you,” said David, finding the whole situation highly amusing. ”You want to watch out.”
”Huh!” I grunted.
”Or a certain young, attractive head teacher might start getting a trifle jealous.”
”David, I've already had the third degree from Julie about my love life. Could we leave Christine out of it, do you think? I wonder what Mrs. Savage is after now?”
”Did you know,” said Sidney, pus.h.i.+ng aside his papers and leaning back expansively in his chair, 'that she once tried to lure a bishop up to her room?”
”Who? Mrs. Savage?” exclaimed David.
”No, no! Mae West. She met this bishop at some fancy function or other and said to him, ”Come up and see me sometime,” and this bishop replied, with a very serious face, ”I'm sorry, Miss West, but that is quite impossible. It's Lent.” Mae West was reputed to have quipped back, ”Well, bishop, when you get it back from the person you lent it to, come up and see me.”
”I'm sure you make all these stories up, Sidney,” said David sn.i.g.g.e.ring, and returning to his work.
”Did she say what she wanted?” I asked.
”Who? Mae West?” asked Sidney.
”Sidney, will you be serious! Mrs. Savage. Did she say what she wanted to see me about?”
”No, no,” said David. ”Just for you to go up and see her in the Annexe and that it was a matter of some urgency.”
”When is it not?” I asked in an exasperated voice.
”Now don't start getting comfortable, Gervase,” continued David, as I began taking a bundle of papers from my briefcase, 'putting off until tomorrow what you can do today. She won't just disappear, much as we would like her to, you know. My old Welsh grandmother used to say that it is always best to meet adversity head on. ”Grasp the nettle, David,” she used to say. ”Take the bull by the horns and face the music. Doing nothing, solves nothing.” She's working late tonight and wants you to go up and see her at about six o'clock. She will be waiting.”