(10/13) Friends at Thrush Green (10 page)

Betty Bell remarked on it when she was at the Shoosmiths one morning, giving them what she termed 'a good turn out'.

'I'll bet my bottom dollar them poor Lesters won't be in that place before next Christmas. I thought the old people's place was taking its time, but this lot haven't even got started.'

'Well, I believe the Lesters are on holiday for a week or so,' said Isobel. 'I expect they'll chivvy things up when they return.'

'Gone to the seaside, have they?' asked Betty, turning a dining-room chair upside down and tackling the legs with a generous dab of polish.

'No. The Peak District, I think. They're touring, and Mr Lester hoped to go to the opera at Buxton.'

Betty's ministrations were arrested. 'I went to the opera once,' she said. The tone was of one recollecting a nasty session at the dentist's.

'Didn't you enjoy it, Betty?'

'No, I didn't! The
noise!
What with all that screeching, and the band on top of that, I had a splitting headache. I really prefer the telly—you can switch it off.'

She resumed her polishing with renewed vigour.

'So when's he hoping to move in?' she enquired somewhat breathlessly.

'I believe he hoped to move in during August,' said Harold, who was looking out of the window to the house next door.

'He'll be lucky,' commented Betty.

And Harold was inclined to agree.

But a week later, Alan Lester's car drew up outside the property and out tumbled two little girls followed, more decorously, by their parents.

Interested inhabitants of Thrush Green watched the schoolmaster unlock the front door to allow his family, some folding-chairs, several large baskets and assorted packages into the empty house.

'That looks more hopeful,' commented Harold to Isobel. He watched Alan Lester return to the car to retrieve an unwieldy bundle of brooms, a bucket, and a vacuum-cleaner.

'Don't be such a busybody,' said Isobel. 'You are as bad as the Lovelocks, peeking behind curtains.'

Harold laughed, and went into his study to write some letters. They could hear the children playing next door, exploring the playground and peering in the hedge for abandoned nests.

When it became time for mid-morning coffee, Isobel suggested that Harold might call next door to invite them over. The Lesters seemed delighted to down tools, and the four of them joined the Shoosmiths in the garden.

'I must say,' said Harold, 'that we didn't dare hope to see you quite so soon. You really have bought it, then?'

'It was a case of moving quickly,' said Alan. 'The fellow who bought my house had the ready money, and his son was anxious to move in quickly as his wife is expecting their first baby shortly. It suited us too.'

'It's good news for us,' Isobel said. 'We've hated seeing the place standing empty. Is there much to do?'

'Basically no. The extension will simply have to be done while we are in residence, but in some ways that will be a good thing. We can keep an eye on affairs.'

'What we
would
like,' said Alan's wife, 'is somebody to give the place a good scrub out. Can you suggest anyone?'

'Domestic help is pretty thin on the ground at Thrush Green,' replied Isobel. She told her about Betty Bell, but Margaret Lester was adamant that she would not employ someone who was already heavily engaged.

'It's the quickest way to make enemies,' she said smiling, 'but perhaps she might know of someone? We want to move in in about ten days' time, and it would only be this one occasion. I don't think I shall need regular help.'

Isobel promised to make enquiries, and the conversation turned to such matters as milk deliveries, reliable grocers and butchers, the rarity of jobbing gardeners and the everlasting boon of The Two Pheasants.

The two men, followed by the little girls, then went on a tour of the Shoosmiths' garden, while Isobel and Margaret sat talking.

'I do so hope it will all work out,' said the latter. 'It's all been done in such a hurry, but Alan was worried about me, I know.'

'Do you have health problems?'

Margaret sighed. 'I've really not been quite as fit since Kate was born. There's nothing that the doctors can do, so they say, but I get the most appalling headaches, and they leave me terribly low and depressed.'

Isobel made sympathetic noises. Privately, she wondered if Margaret Lester was something of a hypochondriac; she seemed almost pleased to be discussing her symptoms.

'In that case,' said Isobel, 'I'm sure Alan is doing the right thing by moving here where you can be together so much more. And you will find Thrush Green people are very friendly. As for the air here, it's absolutely a tonic in itself. I'm sure you will all feel the benefit.'

'Well, I certainly hope so,' said Margaret wanly. 'I really can't face feeling like this for the rest of my life!'

'You won't have to,' replied Isobel sturdily. 'Come round here if you need anything while you are working next door; the telephone is here, and a couch if you feel like a rest.'

'You are so kind. We are having lunch at The Two Pheasants and Mr Jones has said exactly the same. I think we arc going to settle in nicely.'

'I'm sure of it,' said Isobel, and watched the woman making her way towards the family, and then next door to resume her labours.

Later that day, Isobel voiced her fears about Margaret Lester's possible hypochondria, but Harold was dismissive of such conjectures.

'I thought she was a very nice little woman. And after all, they are obviously having quite a lot of worry at the moment, with all the upheaval of moving, and getting the little girls used to the idea of going to the same school as their father. It's not surprising that she seems a little low at the moment.'

Isobel said no more, but reserved her judgement.

True to her word, Isobel spoke to Betty Bell about the cleaning of the school house.

'Well, now,' said Betty, 'I'd dearly like to take it on myself, but I've got my old auntie coming for a bit, and I shall be tied up with her.'

'Don't worry, Betty. Mrs Lester didn't really expect you to do it, just to suggest someone, if possible.'

Betty Bell ruminated, picking automatically at what appeared to be congealed marmalade on the edge of the kitchen table.

'Tell you what,' she said at last, 'have a word with Nelly Piggott. She might do it, and if not she'd know of someone, I don't doubt.'

That evening Nelly Piggott was busy frying what she termed 'a nice bit of rump' when Isobel called to make her request.

'Come in, come in,' cried Nelly, shifting the sizzling pan to one side of the stove, but Isobel made her request from the doorstep, not wishing to disturb Nelly's labours.

'I'd do it myself if I'd the time,' Nelly told her. 'Nothing I like more than a bit of steady scrubbing, but we're a bit short-handed at the shop, what with holidays and that. I'll have a word with a friend of mine, Mrs Lilly. I know she might be glad to earn something.'

This was good news, and Isobel explained that Nelly's friend should get in touch with the Lesters, if she were interested, and gave Nelly their telephone number. She returned home feeling that she had done her duty.

The evening was hot and humid. Tiny black thunder-flies were everywhere, speckling the white paint and crawling over bare skin in the most irritating manner.

Isobel sank thankfully into a chair and brushed her tickly arms. 'Heavens, I'm tired!'

'What have you been up to?' queried Harold.

Isobel told him.

'Now for pity's sake don't go rushing about on the Lesters' behalf,' he said crossly. 'They are quite capable of coping with their own affairs, and there's no need to wear yourself out.'

'I haven't done much,' protested Isobel. 'Only tried to find someone to clean the house for them before they move in.'

'Well, don't let them impose on you,' said Harold, who could not bear to see Isobel worried in any way.

'You sound like my mother,' laughed Isobel, 'who used to say: "Start as you mean to go on!"'

'And quite right too,' agreed Harold. 'Now stay there, and I'll get you a drink.'

Meanwhile, replete with rump steak, fried potatoes, onions and baked beans, Nelly took herself down the hill to the road where Gladys Lilly lived.

It was one of the smaller, older terraced houses in the street, 'a two-up-two-down' cottage where Gladys had lived alone since the death of her husband.

A year or so earlier, in the last few months of Miss Watson and Miss Fogerty's reign at Thrush Green school, a daughter Doreen had kept her mother company. The girl had a young son, and had worked for a time at the Lovelocks, leaving the child with his grandmother. It was not a happy arrangement. Doreen had hated her job, and to give the girl her due it was hardly surprising, for the Lovelocks' house was large, over-furnished and difficult to keep clean. The three sisters were demanding and paid a poor wage. Gladys got used to listening to a string of complaints about life in Lulling when Doreen came home from work each day.

But it was a considerable shock to Gladys when the girl sneaked away with the child one day, leaving no message and no address. It was soon apparent that she had run away with the young man who was her little boy's father. Apart from a sparsely-worded postcard, on which the postmark was so blurred that it was indecipherable, Gladys had heard no more, and had resumed her solitary existence with both resentment and relief.

She was delighted now to see Nelly, and the kettle was put on at once for a cup of coffee. While it boiled, Nelly broached the purpose of her visit, and handed over the slip of paper bearing the Lesters' telephone number.

'What are they like?' asked Gladys.

'To tell the truth, I've never clapped eyes on
her
,' replied Nelly. 'But
he's
a nice enough chap. Good with the kids. I haven't heard anyone criticizing him yet, and that's saying something after all those years Miss Watson and Miss Fogerty were there.'

Gladys nodded ruminatively. 'Well, I'm game,' she said at last. 'I keep the chapel clean these days, but I don't do much else. The money would come in handy too. I'll give them a ring later on.'

The two ladies then turned their attention to other matters.

'What's all this I hear about the Lovelocks pinching things?' enquired Gladys.

Nelly, for all her love of a good gossip, had no intention of discussing this matter which so intimately concerned The Fuchsia Bush.

'Don't know much about that,' she asserted, 'but is there any news of Doreen?'

Thus diverted, Gladys imparted exciting news. Doreen, it seemed, had rung the next door neighbour and left a message.

'And what was it?' asked Nelly, equally agog.

'Just to say she was all right. Might be coming down sometime.'

'But where is she? And who with? And is the little boy all right? Is she still with that fellow of hers?'

Gladys responded to this spate of questions, with a sad shaking of the head.

'She never said no more. Makes me wish I'd got the telephone myself. I could have found out more. The money run out evidently, and she just rang off.'

'Well, that was bad luck,' said Nelly, with genuine sympathy. 'Still, you do know she's all right. Be nice to see her again, won't it?'

'A mixed blessing, I expect,' replied Gladys. 'She's not turned out as I'd have hoped, brought up chapel too, and kept respectable. Makes you think, don't it?'

The ladies sighed in unison.

'Must be off,' said Nelly, getting up.

'I'll come as far as the phone box with you,' said Gladys, picking up the slip of paper.

'Can't you ring from next door?'

'I
could,'
replied Gladys, 'but I don't want everyone knowing my business.'

Nelly nodded her approval, and the two friends walked to the foot of the hill to Thrush Green and parted there by the telephone box.

'Well,' murmured Nelly, as she puffed homeward, 'I suppose I've done my good deed for the day. And now for the washing-up.'

It so happened that Charles Henstock saw the two women in the distance as he returned from a stroll by the river Pleshey. It was one of his favourite walks, and one which he always found himself undertaking when particularly perplexed in mind.

There was something about running water which healed the spirit as surely as sleep did. For Charles Henstock, the company of the river was indeed: 'Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,' and he usually returned from it calmed and comforted.

He sat by its side on a grassy bank, watching the secret life of the water creatures: a dragonfly alternately darted and hovered above the surface; while a water vole emerged from a hole on the opposite bank, fearless of the still figure so close, and paddled across, its hairy muzzle and bright eyes just clear of the water, leaving a wake behind it as neat as an arrow.

Flies studded the glistening mud at the edge of the bank, and a trio of butterflies played among a patch of nettles. An ancient willow tree stretched a gnarled arm over the water, and a flycatcher sat, still and erect in between its rapid darts, to secure an unwary insect.

Purple loosestrife and wild mint stirred in the light breeze, setting free the river smell, 'unforgettable, unforgotten' which brought back to the watcher on the bank a hundred memories of other loved rivers. Charles sat there for almost half an hour, letting the magic work its spell, and then he rose to return home.