We
moved into the school house in early December with my high school
teaching job. It was basic low-rent accommodation and came with
problems. Only one top element on the electric stove worked. A week
later we found one room of the house was damp and smelled.
Investigating, we found an outside drain in the garden wasn’t working. I
complained in person to the staff member responsible for school
housing. A few weeks later, I complained in writing. Later still I
informed them I’d be seeing the health inspector if no action had been
taken within the next few days. An inspector came round the following
day; we were mistaken he said. Nothing is wrong.
As for the stove,
the lady overseeing repairs and maintenance for school houses suggested
I purchase an electric fry-pan as repairing the stove would be too
costly. She was single. Prim. Thick of skin and uncaring as to the needs
of a couple with four children. After several persistent complaints
regarding the blocked drain, my bold wife took a group of the board
governors, and with a spade showed them the blocked drain. The health
inspector from the local council then agreed that it was blocked and the
next day workmen from the council fixed it. A week later the stove was
fixed and from that time on the maintenance lady from the school office
seemed primer than before and colder. I was now a
persona no grata.
Still,
the days seemed brighter after that and we took stock of our
neighbours. Numbered among them was a newspaper editor, a science
teacher, a returned World War II soldier, an ex-schoolmaster and his
wife, several retired farmers and people either in business or retired
from business. All seemed free of the problems we had in settling into
the school house.
Appearances can be deceiving though. In time we
learned that a few doors down that way, the couple fought over trifles,
regularly, and they would have given a writer enough material for a
year’s worth of Coronation Street bust ups. Across the street that way,
the little dog was given more affection than the man’s wife or children.
Two men died of heart attacks within six months of each other and a
family with two young men grieved over the death of one in a car
accident.
We made friends with some and realised how fortunate we
were; our family was complete. Then at breakfast one morning I was
startled to hear the most poignant sound of someone wailing. It was a
woman. Then it stopped and I thought I’d been mistaken; but it started
again some five or ten minutes later and left me wondering what might
have cause such sadness and whether I ought to see if I could help. The
anguish in those cries echoed in my mind throughout that day and only
when I returned home did I discover the reason.
An elderly couple,
she with snow-white hair and he, neat in tie and suit strolled
regularly together in their afternoon walk. They lived a few houses
away. My wife told me the elderly lady on waking that morning, found her
eyesight had gone. It took a few weeks before the couple appeared in
our street again. They did, he holding his wife closely and she holding
her head high as they made the best of it together.
And we thought we had troubles. Since then, I’ve wondered how I’d react if I woke one morning to find I was blind.
Dennis Crompton © 2000
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)
