Jeffrey Archer - Only Time Will Tell

Maisie often wished she could do more to help Harry with his efforts to win a scholarship to Bristol Grammar School. Although Miss Tilly had taught her how to read a menu, add and subtract, and even write a few simple words, just the thought of what Harry must be putting himself through filled her with trepidation.

Miss Monday boosted Maisie’s confidence by continually reminding her that Harry would never have got this far if she hadn’t been willing to make so many sacrifices. ‘And in any case,’ she added, ‘you’re every bit as clever as Harry, you just haven’t been given the same opportunities.’

Mr Holcombe kept her informed on what he described as ‘the timing’, and, as the date of the examination drew nearer, Maisie became just as nervous as the candidate. She realized the truth of one of Old Jack’s remarks, that often the onlooker suffers even more than the participant.

The Palm Court room was now packed every day, but it didn’t stop Maisie from initiating even more changes in a decade the press were describing as the ‘frivolous thirties’.

In the morning, she had started offering her customers a variety of biscuits to go with their coffee, and in the afternoon, her tea menu was proving just as popular, especially after Harry told her that Mrs Barrington had given him the choice of Indian or China tea. However, Mr Frampton vetoed the suggestion that smoked salmon sandwiches should appear on the menu.

Every Sunday, Maisie would kneel on her little cushion; her one prayer was to the point. ‘Please God make sure Harry wins a scholarship. If he does, I’ll never ask you for anything again.’

With a week to go to the exams, Maisie found she couldn’t sleep, and lay awake wondering how Harry was coping. So many customers wanted to pass on their best wishes to him, some because they had heard him singing in the church choir, others because he’d delivered their morning papers, or simply because their own children had been, were, or would at some time in the future be going though the same experience. It seemed to Maisie that half of Bristol was taking the exam.

On the morning of the examination, Maisie placed several regulars at the wrong table, gave Mr Craddick coffee instead of his usual hot chocolate, and even presented two customers with someone else’s bill. No one complained.

Harry told her he thought he’d done quite well, but he couldn’t be certain if he’d done well enough. He mentioned someone called Thomas Hardy, but Maisie wasn’t sure if he was a friend or one of the masters.

When the long-case clock in the Palm Court room struck ten on that Thursday morning, Maisie knew the headmaster would be posting the exam results on the school notice board. But it was another twenty-two minutes before Mr Holcombe walked into the room and headed straight for his usual table behind the pillar. Maisie could not tell how Harry had done from the expression on the schoolmaster’s face. She quickly crossed the room to join him and, for the first time in four years, sat down in the seat opposite a customer, although ‘collapsed’ might be a more accurate description.

‘Harry has passed with distinction,’ said Mr Holcombe, ‘but I’m afraid he just missed out on a scholarship.’

‘What does that mean?’ Maisie asked, trying to stop her hands from trembling.

‘The top twelve candidates had marks of 80 per cent or above, and were all awarded open scholarships. In fact, Harry’s friend Deakins came top, with 92 per cent. Harry achieved a very commendable 78 per cent, and came seventeenth out of three hundred. Mr Frobisher told me his English paper let him down.’

‘He should have read Hardy instead of Dickens,’ said a woman who’d never read a book.

‘Harry will still be offered a place at BGS,’ said Mr Holcombe, ‘but he won’t receive the annual hundred pounds a year scholar’s grant.’

Maisie rose from her place. ‘Then I’ll just have to work three shifts instead of two, won’t I? Because he’s not going back to Merrywood Elementary, Mr Holcombe, I can tell you that.’

Over the next few days, Maisie was surprised by how many regulars offered their congratulations on Harry’s magnificent achievement. She also discovered that one or two of her customers had children who had failed to pass the exam, in one case by a single percentage point. They would have to settle for their second choice. It made Maisie all the more determined that nothing would stop Harry reporting to Bristol Grammar School on the first day of term.

One strange thing she noticed during the next week was that her tips doubled. Dear old Mr Craddick slipped her a five-pound note, saying, ‘For Harry. May he prove worthy of his mother.’

When the thin white envelope dropped through the letterbox in Still House Lane, an event in itself, Harry opened the letter and read it to his mother. ‘Clifton, H.’ had been offered a place in the A stream for the Michaelmas term starting on September 15th. When he came to the last paragraph, which asked Mrs Clifton to write and confirm whether the candidate wished to accept or reject the offer, he looked nervously at her.

‘You must write back straight away, accepting the offer!’ she said.

Harry threw his arms around her and whispered, ‘I only wish my father was alive.’

Perhaps he is, thought Maisie.

A few days later, a second letter landed on the doormat. This one detailed a long list of items that had to be purchased before the first day of term. Maisie noticed that Harry seemed to require two of everything, in some cases three or more, and in one case, six: socks, grey calf length, plus garters.

‘Pity you can’t borrow a pair of my suspenders,’ she said. Harry blushed.

A third letter invited new pupils to select three extracurricular activities from a list ranging from the car club to the Combined Cadet Force – some of which involved an added charge of five pounds per activity. Harry chose the choir, for which there was no extra charge, as well as the theatre club and the Arts Appreciation Society. The latter included a proviso that any visits to galleries outside Bristol would incur an extra cost.

Maisie wished there were a few more Mr Craddicks around, but she never allowed Harry to suspect there was any reason for concern, even though Mr Holcombe reminded her that her boy would be at Bristol Grammar School for the next five years. The first member of the family not to leave school before the age of fourteen, she told him.

Maisie braced herself for another visit to T.C. Marsh, Tailors of Distinction.

By the time Harry was fully kitted out and ready for the first day of term, Maisie had once again begun to walk to and from work, saving five pence a week on tram fares, or as she told her mother, ‘A pound a year, enough to pay for a new suit for Harry.’

Parents, Maisie had learnt over the years, may be considered an unfortunate necessity by their offspring, but more often than not they are also an embarrassment.

On her first speech day at St Bede’s, Maisie had been the only mother not wearing a hat. After that, she had bought one from a second-hand shop and, however out of fashion it would become, it was going to have to last until Harry left Bristol Grammar School.

Harry had agreed that she should accompany him to school on the first day of term, but Maisie had already decided that he was old enough to catch a tram home in the evening. Her main anxiety was not about how Harry would get to and from school, but what to do with him in the evenings, now he was a day boy and would no longer be sleeping at school during term. She had no doubt that if he went back to sharing a room with his uncle Stan, it could only end in tears. She tried to put the problem out of her mind as she prepared for Harry’s first day in his new school.