or something for me to put this hot mug on? I don't like standing it on the table. Even yours,' she added unnecessarily.
'Oh, don't be so fussy!' I retorted. 'Bung it down on the corner of the newspaper.'
'Well, it may mark the television programmes for this evening, but I don't suppose that's any great loss. I pine to have a play about ordinary normal people instead of all these programmes about unfortunates who can't see, or can't hear, or have other disabilities.'
'I know. I'm getting tired too of having my withers wrung every time I switch on. If it isn't flood or famine, it's more sophisticated ways of killing each other.'
Amy moved her mug to the edge of the newspaper and studied the evening's offerings.
'There's an hour of medical horrors, including a blow-by-blow, or perhaps cut-by-cut might be a better description, of a hip replacement operation. On another channel there's a jolly half-hour entitled "How to Succeed despite Degenerative Diseases", and there's a discussion on the radio about "The Horrors of our Geriatric Wards"!'
'Mrs Pringle should be all right tonight then,' I said. 'She told me she loves a good operation on the telly.'
'And how is the lady? Is her leg still in a state of spontaneous combustion?'
'It's fairly quiescent at the moment, although she did roll down her stocking yesterday, when the children were out in the playground, to show me her varicose veins.'
'I hope you studied them with due reverence.'
'One glance was more than enough,' I confessed. 'I think she thought me very callous not to spend longer poring over them. Her parting shot was to the effect that Veins Come To Us All, and that my time would soon come.'
'Ah well,' said Amy, 'she may be right at that. Now, are you going to let me label those tea tins before I go?'
'No, Amy dear. I'll just muddle along as usual.'
'You know,' she remarked, flicking a dead leaf from the window sill, 'having Mrs Pringle once a week might be a good thing in this place. Why don't you think about it?'
'I have. Nothing doing. You know yourself what a pain in the neck she is.'
'Yes, but sometimes this house..." She let her voice trail away into something like despair.
I put my arm comfortingly round her shoulders as we went out to the car. 'Don't worry about me. I'm managing perfectly well on my own,' I told her.
Later I was to remember this conversation.
As time passed I began to realise that Mrs Pringle was slightly more approachable during the summer months than the winter ones. I put this down to the fact that her cleaning duties were considerably lighter. For one thing, the treasured stoves were not in use, and so less mess was caused by the carrying of coke to and fro.
Naturally, a certain amount was scrunched into the school floor-boards by miscreants who had disobeyed rules
and had run up and down the coke pile in the playground. Mrs Pringle's eagle eye soon noticed any traces of the offending fuel and complained bitterly.
I sometimes thought too that she missed her cosseting of the stoves during the summer months. A flick with a duster night and morning was all that was needed, and it seemed to me that, in some perverse way, she regretted the ministrations with blacklead and brush which dominated the winter months.
Nevertheless, on the whole, she appeared marginally more cheerful in the summer. The light evenings gave her more scope in arranging her cleaning activities, and I frequently heard her singing some lugubrious hymn as she went about her work when I was in the garden after school hours.
It so happened that one particular April was unseasonably warm, and I decreed that the stoves could be allowed to go out.
'Well, I'm not arguing about that,' said Mrs Pringle. 'Dear knows I've got enough to do in this place, and it'll be a treat not to have coke all over the floor.'
She walked quite briskly about the classroom, dusting energetically without a trace of a limp, before the children came into morning prayers.
'I'll put
'Oh, don't be so fussy!' I retorted. 'Bung it down on the corner of the newspaper.'
'Well, it may mark the television programmes for this evening, but I don't suppose that's any great loss. I pine to have a play about ordinary normal people instead of all these programmes about unfortunates who can't see, or can't hear, or have other disabilities.'
'I know. I'm getting tired too of having my withers wrung every time I switch on. If it isn't flood or famine, it's more sophisticated ways of killing each other.'
Amy moved her mug to the edge of the newspaper and studied the evening's offerings.
'There's an hour of medical horrors, including a blow-by-blow, or perhaps cut-by-cut might be a better description, of a hip replacement operation. On another channel there's a jolly half-hour entitled "How to Succeed despite Degenerative Diseases", and there's a discussion on the radio about "The Horrors of our Geriatric Wards"!'
'Mrs Pringle should be all right tonight then,' I said. 'She told me she loves a good operation on the telly.'
'And how is the lady? Is her leg still in a state of spontaneous combustion?'
'It's fairly quiescent at the moment, although she did roll down her stocking yesterday, when the children were out in the playground, to show me her varicose veins.'
'I hope you studied them with due reverence.'
'One glance was more than enough,' I confessed. 'I think she thought me very callous not to spend longer poring over them. Her parting shot was to the effect that Veins Come To Us All, and that my time would soon come.'
'Ah well,' said Amy, 'she may be right at that. Now, are you going to let me label those tea tins before I go?'
'No, Amy dear. I'll just muddle along as usual.'
'You know,' she remarked, flicking a dead leaf from the window sill, 'having Mrs Pringle once a week might be a good thing in this place. Why don't you think about it?'
'I have. Nothing doing. You know yourself what a pain in the neck she is.'
'Yes, but sometimes this house..." She let her voice trail away into something like despair.
I put my arm comfortingly round her shoulders as we went out to the car. 'Don't worry about me. I'm managing perfectly well on my own,' I told her.
Later I was to remember this conversation.
As time passed I began to realise that Mrs Pringle was slightly more approachable during the summer months than the winter ones. I put this down to the fact that her cleaning duties were considerably lighter. For one thing, the treasured stoves were not in use, and so less mess was caused by the carrying of coke to and fro.
Naturally, a certain amount was scrunched into the school floor-boards by miscreants who had disobeyed rules
and had run up and down the coke pile in the playground. Mrs Pringle's eagle eye soon noticed any traces of the offending fuel and complained bitterly.
I sometimes thought too that she missed her cosseting of the stoves during the summer months. A flick with a duster night and morning was all that was needed, and it seemed to me that, in some perverse way, she regretted the ministrations with blacklead and brush which dominated the winter months.
Nevertheless, on the whole, she appeared marginally more cheerful in the summer. The light evenings gave her more scope in arranging her cleaning activities, and I frequently heard her singing some lugubrious hymn as she went about her work when I was in the garden after school hours.
It so happened that one particular April was unseasonably warm, and I decreed that the stoves could be allowed to go out.
'Well, I'm not arguing about that,' said Mrs Pringle. 'Dear knows I've got enough to do in this place, and it'll be a treat not to have coke all over the floor.'
She walked quite briskly about the classroom, dusting energetically without a trace of a limp, before the children came into morning prayers.
'I'll put
Similar Books
