08 Silent Night Page 6

  ‘That’s a good bench, Terry,’ commented Heathcliffe.

  ‘It’s f’Mr Smith,’ said Terry. ‘Mam said he’d gone to ’eaven.’

  They both stared up at the sky.

  ‘Thing is,’ said Heathcliffe, ever the leader of this dynamic duo, ‘if we stood on it we could reach that branch.’

  The boys stared at the weeping willow arching gracefully over the bench and the duck pond.

  ‘Y’reight, ’Eath, we could – at least you could ’cause y’taller.’

  ‘’Old on, Terry, copper’s coming,’ said Heathcliffe with urgency as PC Pike, the local bobby, drove past in his little grey van. A dog was barking in the back, banging its muzzle on the rear window.

  ‘Terry, did y’see that dog in t’back o’ t’police van?’ asked Heathcliffe.

  Terry looked perplexed. ‘Yeah – ah wonder what ’e did wrong?’

  Heathcliffe looked at his brother in dismay. ‘Sometimes, y’daft as a brush.’ Terry smiled innocently at his hero of a brother, Batman to his Robin. Heathcliffe ruffled his brother’s spiky blond hair and grinned. ‘C’mon, our kid, let’s climb a tree.’

  It was late afternoon when Hazel Smith was sitting on Ronnie’s bench with her mother.

  ‘Hiya, Freckles,’ said Ben Roberts as he sped past on his BMX Raleigh Burner. Ben was wearing his new National Health spectacles.

  ‘Shurrup, Four Eyes,’ shouted Hazel at his back as he headed for the butcher’s, shopping bag swinging madly from the handlebars. ‘Ah don’t like boys, Mam,’ said Hazel. ‘They’re all rude an’ rotten.’

  Ruby repressed a smile. ‘Now then, our Azel,’ she said sternly. ‘If y’can’t say owt nice, then don’t say nowt at all.’

  Hazel pondered this response. ‘Mam – that’s ’xactly what Grandma said t’you when y’said Deirdre Coe were as crooked as a corkscrew.’

  Ruby looked at her daughter and realized she was growing up faster than she had thought. She gave her a hug, rummaged in her purse and handed her a five-pence piece. ‘Go get y’self some sherbet lemons from Miss Golightly,’ she said and added as an afterthought, ‘. . . an’ give one t’Ben Roberts f’good luck.’

  Ruby looked around her at the village that had been her home for over fifty years. Down the High Street the villagers were lighting their first fires and trailing gossamer spirals of woodsmoke drifted from a hundred tall chimney pots into a steel-blue sky. Ruby sighed and her thoughts drifted up into the heavens to join those of Ronnie.

  It was a time of silent tears and broken dreams, and thoughts of the few happy times in her life. She recalled a Christmas card signed by all six of her children; a long-ago summer when she had been crowned May Queen; the day Vera had recommended her to be the school caretaker; winning the village Pancake Race; and an old cracked vase with six precious roses.

  She looked down at her work-red hands, tugged at her wedding ring and gave a sad smile . . . it was a band of memories. She twisted it a little further up her finger away from the swollen knuckle to ease the pain. It was a little habit that was becoming more frequent, almost a nervous need.

  A few minutes later Hazel reappeared with a bag of sweets. She waved cheerily to Ben as he cycled by. ‘Ah’m off ’ome now, Mam,’ she said.

  ‘OK, luv,’ said Ruby, ‘ah’ll jus’ sit ’ere for a little while longer.’

  Hazel looked thoughtfully at her mother. ‘An’ don’t worry, Mam, ’bout our Dad, ’cause ah know where ’e is now. Ben Roberts told me.’

  Ruby looked up at her youngest daughter silhouetted against the setting sun and saw herself as a young girl again . . . so long ago. ‘And where’s that, luv?’ she asked quietly.

  Hazel moved closer to her mother, held her hand and looked up with bright eyes at the darkening sky. ‘Mam, ’e’s sleeping with the angels.’

  Then she stretched down, gave Ruby a kiss and wandered off home.

  It was late evening when Ruby put on her warmest coat, closed her front door quietly and walked back to the village green. Above her head, sycamore keys were falling like a spiral of wishes, each one on an unknown journey. When she reached Ronnie’s bench she sat down and reflected on the day. She stared up at the vast stardust sky. ‘’Usband,’ she murmured to herself, ‘ah miss you.’

  The glowing orange lights of The Royal Oak shone brightly and George Dainty walked out with a group of local farmers. He saw Ruby and sat down beside her. ‘’Ello, Ruby,’ he said gently.

  The temperature was dropping quickly and George shivered. ‘Ruby, ah don’t like leavin’ you on yer own like this.’

  ‘Ah’ll be fine,’ said Ruby. ‘Ah jus’ needed a bit o’peace. Wi’ six kids ah’ve never ’ad much o’that.’

  George took a slip of paper from his pocket and wrote something down. ‘This is m’phone number, Ruby. Just give me three rings when y’get ’ome an’ ah’ll know you’re safe ’n sound.’

  Ruby stared at the paper. ‘Ah will, George.’

  Later Ruby looked up. Above her the crescent of a cornflower moon hung in an indigo sky, and a shooting star briefly split the firmament with a spear of white light, only to fade suddenly and disappear . . . life and death in ethereal juxtaposition.

  Ruby simply smiled, recalling her life with Ronnie, and rose from the bench, the glitter of starlight in her eyes. ‘Well, ah s’ppose it wasn’t bad while it lasted,’ she said to herself. The house was dark when she returned. Ronnie’s bobble hat no longer hung on the hook on the back of the bedroom door. It had been placed on the lid of his coffin and Ruby smiled as she recalled that Hazel had said he could wear it in heaven on cold nights.

  Ronnie’s bench was empty now and, as the temperature continued to drop sharply, it became covered in a white frost that sparkled in the moonlight. Above it a barn owl swooped like a pale ghost of the night and flew up the Morton Road towards the vicarage. The church clock chimed the midnight hour as Ruby clambered into her empty bed. ‘Ah well, that’s life,’ she said.

  But of course she meant quite the opposite.

  Chapter Four

  The Binmen of Benidorm

  School closed for a one-week half-term holiday and will reopen on Monday, 7 November.

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Friday, 26 October 1984

  The spacious cobbled square in Easington was a perfect place for a market and a meeting place for the folk of the local villages. Lively stallholders announced their wares, occasionally drowned out by the town crier in his three-cornered hat and ceremonial frock-coat. He resembled an old-fashioned Mayor of London as he rang his bell and chanted, ‘O Yea, O Yea, O Yea!’

  It was Friday morning, 26 October, and Big Dave Robinson and Little Malcolm Robinson, the two cousins and lifelong friends, had parked their refuse wagon outside Grimsby Gerry’s mobile refreshment caravan. They were sitting on plastic garden chairs while enjoying mugs of sweet tea and doorstep-sized bacon butties. ‘This is jus’ what we needed,’ said Big Dave . . . and he didn’t mean the sandwiches.

  ‘Y’reight there, Dave,’ said Little Malcolm. ‘Let’s ’ave a look.’

  They had purchased a half-price Polaroid OneStep 600 camera for £10 from Shady Stevo’s market stall. Stevo had been persuasive. ‘It teks cheapest instant pictures . . . twenty poun’ in York, so it’s a reight bargain.’

  ‘Nothing’s too good f’my Nellie,’ Big Dave had announced.

  ‘An’ my Dorothy an’ all, Dave,’ added Little Malcolm.

  So the deal was struck. They had each chipped in with five pounds, Stevo put it in a plastic bag and handshakes had been exchanged. While they supped the last of their tea they decided to ask Clint Ramsbottom to be the official wedding photographer as he was clearly the most artistic member of the Ragley Rovers football team.

  It was all coming together nicely and tomorrow’s joint wedding day beckoned. Big Dave was to marry Fenella Lovelace, known as Nellie, the football-wise Barnsley fan, and Little Malcolm was to marry Dorothy Humpleby, the Coffee Shop assistant.

>   They returned their mugs to the counter. ‘Where y’goin’ for yer ’oneymoon?’ asked Grimsby Gerry.

  ‘Benidorm,’ said Big Dave.

  ‘Bloody ’ell, lads,’ exclaimed Grimsby Gerry, ‘y’mus’ be in love.’

  ‘No, we gorrit cheap,’ said Big Dave.

  However, Little Malcolm didn’t immediately agree with his giant cousin as he usually did. He really was in love.

  In Ragley School it was morning break and a few of the children in Tom’s class were standing by the wall and staring out through the railings at the passing traffic.

  ‘Binmen are gettin’ married tomorrow,’ said seven-year-old Ted Coggins as Big Dave and Little Malcolm roared past in their refuse wagon from the Easington Road and on to the High Street.

  ‘Ah know,’ said six-year-old Patience Crapper, sounding bored.

  ‘What’s special ’bout gettin’ married?’ asked Ted.

  ‘Don’t y’know?’ said Patience, whose opinion of boys was already very low.

  ‘No ah don’t,’ said Ted.

  ‘It’s t’dress, silly.’

  ‘’Ow d’you mean?’ said Ted.

  ‘You ’ave t’look like a princess,’ explained Patience. ‘Ev’rybody knows that.’

  Ted thought about this incomprehensible response for a while. Eventually he spoke up. ‘Would y’like to ’ear me whistle?’ . . . but Patience had already gone to show Katie Icklethwaite her new pink pixie boots. Ted stared after her, looking puzzled; a lifetime of not understanding the opposite sex had begun.

  In Nora’s Coffee Shop on the High Street Dorothy Humpleby, the twenty-seven-year-old, five-feet-eleven-inch assistant and would-be model was standing behind the counter. Little Malcolm approached her while Big Dave waited at his favourite table.

  ‘We can’t stop,’ said Little Malcolm as he craned his neck to look up at the woman of his dreams. ‘We’ve already ’ad us mornin’ break but ah wanted t’check y’were all right.’

  Dorothy stopped filing her nails and sat on the stool behind the counter so she was on the same level as Little Malcolm. She had been having second thoughts about her going-away dress. It was a bold creation with black and white horizontal stripes that resembled a liquorice allsort. ‘Malcolm, do ah look fat in stripes?’

  Little Malcolm thought for a millisecond too long.

  ‘So ah do then?’ retorted Dorothy sharply.

  ‘No, y’don’t,’ insisted Little Malcolm. ‘It’ll show off yer assets.’

  Dorothy was intrigued, completely unaware this was a line taken from a recent episode of Bergerac. ‘Do y’think so, Malcolm?’

  ‘Ah do,’ said a very relieved Little Malcolm.

  Meanwhile, ten miles away in York, above the local newspaper office, Nellie was saying goodbye to her flat and had packed her case for Benidorm. She had included a pair of new Chris Evert trainers plus two Barnsley football shirts, a long-sleeved one for during the day and a short-sleeved one for sleeping in. It had been agreed that Nellie would live with Big Dave in Dave and Malcolm’s council house while Little Malcolm would move in above the Coffee Shop with Dorothy.

  Nellie glanced up at her bedroom wall and the huge poster of Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw in Love Story and thought she might have to change it to something more cheerful, maybe a calendar of the beauty spots of Barnsley. That would fit in more appropriately with the decor of her new home.

  She stretched out on her double bed and wondered what life would be like when she moved in with her great hulk of a Yorkshireman. Big Dave didn’t actually do finesse and she thought about her collection of pottery zoo animals lined up on the mantelpiece. She couldn’t imagine the long-necked giraffe lasting very long.

  At lunchtime in the staff-room Vera was reading her Daily Telegraph and frowning at the news. Investigations were still continuing into the recent Brighton bombing which was a direct attack on the British government by the IRA. A long-delay time bomb had been planted and people had died. However, much to Vera’s relief, her political heroine Margaret Thatcher had escaped unscathed and declared a day of defiance and sorrow.

  She moved on to the article about the Ethiopian famine, which earlier in the week had captured the hearts and minds of the country when television journalist Michael Buerk had presented a harrowing report of a starving people. In particular, the photographs of the children had tugged at Vera’s heartstrings and she wondered what she could do to help. Meanwhile, a pop singer she had never heard of was thinking along the same lines. Bob Geldof had turned to his friend, the Ultravox singer Midge Ure, and composed a song to be released on 29 November with sales destined to exceed one million in the first week. However, on that October morning in our quiet corner of North Yorkshire it was merely a ripple, a gentle flap of butterfly wings in a far-off place, but destined to have an effect on the lives of many.

  Meanwhile, in her state-of-the-art conservatory in their luxury bungalow on the Morton Road, Petula Dudley-Palmer, the wealthiest woman in the village, was reading her Woman’s Realm and had come across an advertisement for a twenty-one-piece Danish kitchenware set. Her husband, Geoffrey, a high-ranking executive at the local chocolate factory, had one of the new popular Mastercard credit cards and Petula was fingering it thoughtfully.

  After the usual lunchtime trade, Nora Pratt, a short, portly lady in her mid-forties, turned the sign on the door of her Coffee Shop from OPEN to CLOSED.

  ‘Well, Dowothy,’ said Nora, for whom the letter R had always proved elusive, ‘y’mus’ be weally excited.’

  Dorothy was staring at her reflection in the chrome jukebox while Madonna sang ‘Like A Virgin’. ‘Actu’lly, Nora . . . ah’m worried.’

  ‘Wowwied?’ said Nora. ‘What about?’

  ‘Protection, Nora,’ said Dorothy. ‘Y’know . . . when ah’m on ’oneymoon wi’ my Malcolm.’

  Nora smiled knowingly. ‘No, Dowothy, it’ll be no twouble. In a twopical climate y’jus’ ’ave to avoid them ultwa-violet ways.’

  ‘’Ow d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, y’need a weally good pwotective sun cweam from t’chemist shop . . . Eugene’ll put y’wight.’

  Dorothy wasn’t sure Nora was on the same wavelength. However, there was still last-minute work to be done on her wedding dress, not least the chunky plastic signs of the zodiac that needed to be sewn on the waistband.

  Big Dave had borrowed Little Malcolm’s 1250cc bright green, two-door 1973 Hillman Avenger Deluxe to collect Nellie and her cases from her flat in York. Nellie was staying overnight at the Coffee Shop.

  ‘Let’s ’ave some tea, Dave,’ suggested Nellie. She switched on the kettle and took the milk out of the fridge.

  Big Dave looked puzzled and picked up the milk. ‘Nellie – what’s this when it’s at ’ome?’ The label read ‘SKIMMED MILK’.

  ‘It’s skimmed milk,’ said Nellie.

  ‘Skimmed milk . . . skimmed!’ exclaimed Big Dave. ‘Y’mean they’ve tekken all t’goodness out?’

  ‘It’s to ’elp wi’ slimming,’ explained Nellie.

  ‘It looks diff’rent,’ said Big Dave dubiously, ‘sort o’ more grey than white.’

  ‘Jus’ try it, Dave,’ said Nellie patiently. ‘We’re gettin’ married soon so we’ve got t’get used to each other’s little foibles.’

  Big Dave didn’t know what foibles were. He decided not to mention it, even though it occurred to him that whatever they were he would have had big ones. ‘All reight, luv,’ he agreed cautiously.

  ‘An’ we’ll ’ave t’share ’ouse’old jobs,’ continued Nellie, ‘like washing-up.’

  Big Dave looked surprised. ‘No, ah allus did ’eavy jobs an’ Malcolm did little ’uns like washin’-up an’ suchlike.’

  ‘What ’eavy jobs?’ asked Nellie.

  Big Dave thought for a moment. ‘Ah put t’bins out on Thursdays.’

  Little Malcolm had called into the chemist’s shop on the High Street. As usual, the pharmacist, Eugene Scrimshaw, was wearing his Captain Kirk uniform under
his white coat. Eugene had never missed an episode of Star Trek and had converted his attic into the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise.

  ‘Ah got one o’ them stomach aches, Eugene,’ said Little Malcolm. ‘Y’know t’type; it flared up this morning.’

  ‘It’s probably nerves,’ said Eugene sympathetically. Little Malcolm had the constitution of an ox and hadn’t missed a day’s work in his life.

  Eugene selected a packet from the shelf behind him. ‘These’ll ’elp you relax, Malcolm,’ he said kindly.

  Little Malcolm looked dubious. ‘Thing is, Eugene, ah don’t want summat t’mek me sleepy tomorrow night . . . if y’tek m’meanin’.’

  Eugene nodded knowingly and replaced the tablets. ‘Try these instead, Malcolm,’ he said, ‘an’ go forth an’ prosper.’ As Little Malcolm walked out of the shop and the bell rang madly, Eugene raised his hand and gave his version of Mr Spock’s Vulcan salute while his wife, Peggy, glanced up from stacking Johnson’s Baby Cream and shook her head sadly. It was tough being married to a dedicated Trekkie.

  Towards the end of the lunchbreak I was at my desk in the office completing a Yorkshire Purchasing Organization order form for A4 paper and rubber glue. Vera had made me a mug of black tea with a slice of lemon and Shirley the cook had handed round a plate of homemade ginger biscuits. The sound of the children playing drifted through the window. Some were skipping and chanting a rhyme:

  One man went to mow,

  Went to mow a meadow,

  One man and his dog,

  Spot, bottle o’ pop, fish an’ chips,

  Ol’ Mother Riley an’ ’er cow,

  Went to mow a meadow.

  Tom tapped on the door and walked in. ‘Sorry to disturb you, Jack, but can I have a word?’

  I glanced at the clock and drank the last of my tea. ‘Come on, let’s get some fresh air,’ I said.

  Outside on the playground we leaned against the school wall. It took a while for Tom to break the silence. ‘I’m thinking of my future at Ragley,’ he said.

  I was surprised. ‘Why, Tom? I don’t want to lose you. You’re a good teacher . . . respected by children and parents alike.’