02 Mister Teacher (4 page)

The curtains opened and Troy Phoenix, the local entertainer from Easington, strutted out onto the stage like a turkey cock into an avian harem. Troy, whose real name was Norman Barraclough, was on good form. Deep down in his heart he knew he was destined to star at the London Palladium, and that these village audiences worshipped the ground he walked on. As he strode to the middle of the stage, microphone in hand, he knew he looked a million dollars in his imitation gold lamé suit. However, as Troy’s day job was delivering fresh fish
in
his little white van, sadly his suit smelled strongly of Whitby haddock.

‘Ah can smell fish,’ said Ronnie Smith, on the front row.

‘Shurrup an’ be’ave y’self!’ whispered Ruby, who could also smell fish, but didn’t want to cause a scene. Next to her, Natasha and Sharon stared in admiration at Troy’s Boomtown Rats hairstyle, John Travolta shirt and four-inch, Cuban-heeled, white boots. The Christmas tinsel Troy’s grandmother had sewn around the turn-ups of his thirty-two-inch flares sparkled in the single spotlight, fixed to the roof beam by Timothy Pratt.

That afternoon Timothy, or Tidy Tim as he was known in the village, had been busy in the back room of Pratt’s Hardware Emporium, and he was intensely proud of his plywood ‘clapometer’. It was mounted on a table at the back of the stage, flanked by two primitive microphones. A maze of wires wound their way to a flickering metal dial, fixed to a semicircle of timber painted bright red and graduated around its circumference. A small ripple of applause caused the small arrow to move to number 1 on the scale. A few extra cheers moved the arrow further to number 2. Timothy Pratt guessed that nothing short of a Russian atomic bomb would persuade the arrow to reach number 100 at the top of the scale.

Troy stood, feet astride, and shook his shoulder-length hair.

Sharon almost swooned.

‘Good evenin’, pop fans, an’ welcome t’Talent Night.
Ah’m
’ere in person t’entertain you, the one an’ only, sex-on-legs, Troy Phoenix!’

A small smattering of applause, led by Ruby’s daughters, rippled round the hall.

Troy swelled out his puny chest and felt proud that his Cuban heels enhanced his height to five feet six inches. Then he gyrated his pelvis. This was clearly his Elvis impersonation but, sadly, he looked more like a vertically challenged fishmonger with haemorrhoids.

Sharon, Ruby and Ronnie all went red in the face with passion, embarrassment and hilarity respectively.

‘Ah can still smell fish,’ said Ronnie.

‘Shurrup, Dad,’ chorused Sharon and Natasha in unison.

Troy was now in full flow. ‘We’re gonna see some crème de la crème of t’local talent tonight, an’ then y’can clap ’em an’ see who wins on this ’ere clapometer.’ He stroked the softwood frame of the clapometer suggestively and flashed a leering smile at Sharon Smith in the front row.

‘First act t’night, guys ’n’ gals, is Malcolm Robinson, Ragley’s very own bin man. ’E’s gonna play “Mull of Kintyre” on ’is ’armonica. So let’s ’ear it f’Little Malcolm!’

Malcolm scowled at Troy as he walked onto the stage and polished his Dad’s harmonica on the back pocket of his cleanest pair of jeans. At five feet four inches tall, he didn’t mind his cousin and fellow refuse collector, Big Dave, calling him Little Malcolm, but he did object to being called ‘little’ by a fishmonger who, without his Cuban heels, was two inches shorter than he was.

Malcolm’s hidden talent on the harmonica had been a surprise to the rest of the Ragley Rovers Football Club, who were seated in the back row. Soon they were in full voice.

‘Give it some welly, Malcolm,’ shouted Shane Ramsbottom.

‘Y’easy best so far,’ yelled Stevie ‘Supersub’ Coleclough.

‘’E’s a proper little Larry Adler is our Malcolm,’ said Big Dave proudly. Big Dave and Little Malcolm shared a council house in Ragley and, during the past week, Dave had grown used to his little cousin practising each morning in the toilet.

At the end of his performance, and to thunderous applause from the back row, Little Malcolm, looking very relieved, bowed and shook the spit from his harmonica in the direction of Troy as he walked off.

Troy pointed dramatically at the clapometer. ‘Little Malcolm scores a thirty-three,’ yelled Troy triumphantly. ‘That’ll tek some beating, folks.’ He consulted a list that he pulled from a pocket in his skin-tight hipster trousers. ‘Next one up is t’bird man of Alka Seltzer,’ he then shouted, laughing at his own joke. Sadly, no one else did. ‘So let’s ’ear it for t’one and only Ernie Crapper from Morton, who will whistle some bird songs of Yorkshire.’

Ernie Crapper walked on purposefully, reversed his flat cap so that the neb did not get in the way of his flying fingers, and launched into a dawn chorus of strange whistles. The sympathetic applause he received was probably down to the fact that he had forgotten to remove his cycle clips, there being little of artistic merit in
his
performance. His wife, Elsie, hiding behind the piano at the back of the hall owing to her nervous disposition, was glad she had taken her Valium.

The clapometer barely flickered.

After that, the range of talent was thin on the ground.

Elvis lookalike Lionel Higgingbottom, the Prudential insurance man, was suffering from a sore throat and a bad back during his rendition of ‘Jailhouse Rock’. At the end, only his deaf mother clapped and Troy added insult to injury by flicking the dial on the clapometer to see if it had stuck on nought.

Would-be ventriloquist Gary Greaves, clearly in pain, with his teeth apparently super-glued together, could say his own name perfectly well, but struggled to introduce his dummy, Bobby Button.

Sixty-six-year-old Tommy Piercy, an excellent piano player, misguidedly chose to play the Warsaw Concerto on a pair of spoons. A sympathy vote put him briefly into second place, only to be immediately surpassed by Rocky the Talking Dog. Rocky had remained stubbornly silent but, after urinating on the back table leg of the clapometer, he received the second-best cheer of the night.

Deke Ramsbottom, seated near the back of the hall, turned up the sleeves of his John Wayne cowboy shirt, leaned over to his sons, Wayne, Shane and Clint, and mumbled, ‘Bloody amateurs!’

Deke, the local cowboy singer and occasional snowplough driver, had won this competition so often in the past he had now retired. His rendition of ‘Rawhide’,
complete
with cracking whip and jingling spurs, had yet to be surpassed.

Troy eventually swaggered on to introduce the final act.

‘Ah can still smell fish,’ said Ronnie, blowing his nose very loudly.

‘Ronnie, f’last time, shurrup,’ whispered Ruby.

Troy frowned at Ronnie and then, undeterred, read the notes supplied to him by Nora Pratt. ‘An’ now, last but not least, we ’ave Ragley’s very own star of stage and screen.’ Troy paused for effect and those in the audience with long memories could vaguely recall the day Nora played a non-speaking extra in
Crossroads
. ‘So, let’s ’ear it for the Julie Andrews of Ragley, the beautiful Nora Pratt, singing a song from
The Sound of Music
.’

Nora walked on as if she was top of the bill. Once again, she was clad in the alpine leather corset she had worn for the last Ragley pantomime, when she was Snow White. It was laced up so tight she could barely breathe. But, with her Farrah Fawcett hairdo, Nora oozed confidence. As the introductory bars played on her ghetto blaster at the side of the stage, she invited the audience to join in.

Ruby was delighted and right on cue began to sing in a perfectly pitched voice. ‘Raindrops on roses …’

‘Waindwops on woses,’ sang Nora.

Laughter began in the back row and gradually spread throughout the audience. Diane Wigglesworth quietly smiled to herself. Beth looked at me with wide eyes. Vera turned round and frowned at the footballers but it was too late.

Troy tried the gallant approach of a true Yorkshireman. He rushed on, leaned over to Nora’s microphone and yelled, ‘C’mon, lads, give t’poor cow a chance!’

Nora looked at him in horror, stopped singing and rushed off in tears.

Meanwhile, Ruby, eyes closed in contentment, continued to sing one of her favourite songs, completely oblivious of the uproar.

Soon the laughter died down, the backing music continued to blare out and Ruby, in a world of her own, carried on singing. As she sang the last few bars, spontaneous applause broke out and grew into a tumultuous roar. Everyone loved this cheerful village girl whose moment of recognition had unexpectedly arrived. Ruby’s daughters and Duggie stood up and clapped. Ronnie leaned over and gave her a big kiss. Vera and her brother Joseph shouted, ‘Bravo!’ Everyone rose from their seats and joined in. The football team in the back row, led by Big Dave and Little Malcolm, stood on their chairs and began chanting, ‘Ruby for England!’

Troy took one look at the clapometer, declared Ruby the winner and stepped down from the stage to give her a small shield engraved with the words ‘Ragley Talent Show – WINNER’. Ruby having given him a hug that nearly broke his ribs, Troy was relieved when Natasha and Sharon took the opportunity to hug him a little more gently.

‘C’mon, our lass,’ shouted Ronnie, above the cheering, ‘let’s go t’pub t’celebrate.’

The tap room of The Royal Oak heaved. Big Dave ushered Ronnie and Ruby into the bench seat near the dartboard and Don, the barman, pulled pints as if there was no tomorrow. His wife, the buxom Sheila, put a double gin and tonic in front of Ruby and Little Malcolm staggered under the weight of a tray full of frothing pints of Tetley’s bitter. Beth and I were crushed together near the bar and I wasn’t complaining.

‘I’m so pleased for Ruby,’ said Beth, pushing a few strands of hair from her face. ‘She deserves a night like this.’

‘So do we,’ I said, and looked steadily into her green eyes. I put my arm around her waist and held her even closer.

She raised her glass of white wine and tapped it gently against my half pint of Chestnut mild. ‘To the future,’ she said softly.

‘The future,’ I replied, hoping her thoughts were the same as mine.

With the thumping of a pint pot on a table, Big Dave broke the spell. ‘Horder, let’s ’ave horder!’ he shouted.

‘Horder, a bit of horder,’ agreed Little Malcolm.

‘Our Ronnie wants to say a few words,’ shouted Big Dave. ‘So shurrup!’

Ronnie stood up in front of the dartboard, pushed back his Leeds United bobble hat, shook the birdseed from his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. ‘Ah’d just like t’say a proper well done t’our lass f’winnin’ Talent Contest,’ said Ronnie. ‘Ah’ve allus said our Ruby ’as a reight good voice an’ t’night she’s proved it. So let’s ’ear it f’our Ruby.’

Everyone, including a few sympathetic souls in the lounge bar, clapped and cheered. Ruby wiped tears from her eyes and Sharon and Natasha kissed her on the cheek. This was Ruby’s day.

Soon the crowds tumbled out of The Royal Oak and, with shouted farewells, everyone made their weary way home.

As Beth and I walked back to our cars in the High Street, I put my arm round her shoulder. ‘Do you know, Beth,’ I said, ‘I really love this village.’

On the other side of the road Ruby’s family passed by. Ruby was singing again.

‘So do I,’ said Beth. ‘At times like this.’ She looked thoughtful.

‘Are you going straight home, or would you like to come back with me for a coffee?’ I asked.

She was silent.

‘What is it, Beth?’ I asked.

She took a deep breath. ‘I wanted to tell you and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity.’

‘Tell me what?’

She appeared to search for the right words. ‘Well, you know that I’ve started to apply for headships of small village schools …’

I nodded slowly.

‘I’ve got an interview,’ she said suddenly. ‘It’s next month, on the sixth of October.’

‘That’s great news, Beth; you would make a wonderful headteacher,’ I said. ‘So which one is it? Tell me about it.’

‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she said, and let go of my hand.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘It’s the one down in Hampshire, near my parents’ home,’ Beth replied hesitantly.

The walls of my world seemed to tumble down around me.

‘Oh,’ I mumbled. ‘Well, I wish you luck.’

‘It’s a great opportunity for me, Jack,’ said Beth evasively.

‘I know it is, Beth.’

‘I’m very fond of you, Jack, but at the moment I don’t want any permanent commitment.’

I didn’t know how to respond.

There was silence between us.

A breeze sprang up and a flurry of fallen leaves whirled round our feet.

‘I don’t want to stand in your way,’ I said quietly.

Beth looked up into my eyes. ‘You’re a lovely man, Jack, but …’ She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead she stood on tiptoe and kissed me softly on the cheek. ‘I’ll ring you soon,’ she said.

Then she walked quickly away into the darkness towards her car and I stood looking after her.

‘Look back, Beth. Look back,’ I whispered.

But she didn’t.

On the other side of the village green, Ruby, arm in arm with her daughters and flanked by Duggie and Ronnie, walked home laughing and singing. I stood there staring at the tail lights of Beth’s Volkswagen Beetle as it turned onto the Morton Road.