A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09)
Read A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) Online
Authors: Rebecca Shaw
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‘Enjoying participating in village life.’
‘I’m not, though. I feel an absolute idiot.’
Harriet appraised his appearance, taking in the dishevelled wig she’d insisted he wore, the old leather sandals long abandoned by him at the back of his wardrobe and, most genuine-looking of all, the scratchy, brown, muddied shift affair she’d crafted out of a length of hessian she’d found at a sale. ‘Actually, you look very peasantlike. I’m quite proud of you. Especially your tights.’
Jimbo inspected the thick brown tights he wore. ‘Proud?’ He turned to look at her and, noting the twinkle in her eyes, couldn’t help himself laughing. ‘OK. OK. Point taken. Why I ever allowed myself to be dressed up I’ll never know.’
‘Because you’re a darling and a sucker for country ways.’
‘No, it’s because you can twist me round your little finger, that’s why.’
‘Never once have you joined in the parade, you always find an excuse for being busy, busy, busy behind the counter and not participating; well, this year you are, so
cheer up. Oh, look! There’s the twins. Suddenly they look so grown-up.’ Harriet waved to Beth and Alex. ‘Come and walk with us, or the girls are up at the front if you prefer.’
Alex spoke for both of them. ‘We’ll join the girls, thanks.’ Instead of leading Beth by the hand as he’d done since the day they could both walk, Alex gave her a push in the direction of the head of the procession, and she willingly accepted his decision and followed him.
Harriet watched the two of them press their way forwards. ‘Strange how Beth is really the more outgoing of the two and yet she accepts Alex’s lead without a murmur. Can’t believe the two of them will be leaving the village school next year. Doesn’t seem two minutes since they were born.’
‘The piper’s tuning up. Am I ready for this? No, I am not.’
‘Yes, you are.’ Harriet grinned at Jimbo’s discomfort. ‘Right! Here we go. I get all primeval and go like jelly inside when I’m doing this. Maintaining a six-hundred-year tradition really makes me feel as though I
belong
. Doesn’t it you?’
Jimbo considered how he felt. ‘I suppose. But I do feel a complete idiot.’
Movement began at the head of the procession, the piper, at the very front, began to play a melancholy tune on his ancient silver flute and they all started to move off towards the village green with Jimbo still feeling all kinds of an idiot.
Into view, as they reached the green, came the stocks covered to the very top with dead flowers. Standing beside it was the Rector dressed in his devil’s costume, the horns
on his headgear glinting in the bright June sun. There came an eager mumble as soon as the dozens of sightseers gathered in front of the houses surrounding the green caught sight of them. The press were there in force, as always, and Jimbo desperately hoped that they wouldn’t recognise the urbane, stylish, man-of-the-world Store owner, seeing as he wasn’t wearing his striped apron and his straw boater. The wig was beginning to itch his bald head. Surreptitiously he scratched as best he could without disturbing the damn thing. God! It irritated him. Why had he ever allowed himself … but now, having walked all the way round the green, it was his turn to beat the dead flowers off the stocks. He surprised himself by beating the living daylights out of them and suddenly he was a village peasant angered by the vagrant who had brought the plague to the village and thus killed all his children, or his wife, or his mother. He looked up at the Rector as he straightened himself and saw one of his bright-blue eyes close swiftly in a wink. Jimbo grinned back. So at least, maybe, Peter was participating with his tongue in his cheek, as indeed any sane member of a twenty-first-century village must. Although …
Harriet thrust his bunch of fresh flowers into his hand. He glanced at her and saw with surprise how distressed she was. ‘Darling!’
‘It all seems so real, Jimbo. So real. God! Just think how you would feel if you really had lost …’ Tears sprang into her eyes.
‘I know, I know …’ And he did. But his two girls were up at the front with the other village children, his two sons at Cambridge and beside him was his beloved Harriet, and his mother was somewhere in the procession, no doubt
beating the dead flowers from the stocks with her usual gusto as though her ancestors had been born and bred here for centuries. Thankful that he’d had the foresight to move his family from London and that blasted rat race, Jimbo stepped smartly round the green for the second time, his flowers clutched tightly in his hand. When he reached the stocks he saw Peter was divesting himself of his devil’s costume and was revealing the white cassock he wore only today, Stocks Day, and when conducting weddings. Jimbo placed his fresh flowers on the stocks to symbolise a new beginning, a laying aside of death and destruction. The plague had finally gone. Death had been beaten.
Peter’s prayer of thanksgiving for the survival of the village and his blessing of everyone taking part rang out across the green, the long, mournful dirge of the piper subtly changed to a lively, bouncing tune, signalling that the villagers could feel safe from disaster for yet another year.
Cameras flashed, voices called out, ‘Look this way.’
‘That’s right.’
‘One more! You two stand together. That’s it.’
‘One more! One more!’
Jimbo obliged, his wig askew, his hessian costume now also itching like fury, but a bright, relieved smile on his face brought on by doing his bit like everyone else.
‘Your name? Your name?’ Looking more closely when he didn’t get an immediate reply the photographer said, ‘Oh! It’s you, Mr Charter-Plackett, didn’t recognise you.’
Inwardly Jimbo groaned; his reputation had just bitten the dust well and truly. Grumpily he said to Harriet, ‘I’m not wearing this for the rest of the afternoon, you know. I’m going home to change.’
‘This wig is flea-ridden.’
‘It never is.’
‘It is. It itches.’
But Harriet’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Jimbo, look! I could swear that’s Bryn Fields over there.’
‘Where?’
‘Over there by the oak. His back’s to us, but I’m sure it’s him. Well, that’s a turn-up for the books. How many years is it since he did his moonlight flit?’
‘You’re imagining things. He’d never dare come back, not after what happened.’
Harriet stood on tiptoe. ‘I’m sure it is. He’s turned round. Look, there! There! Talking to Willie Biggs.’
‘Nonsense! That chap hasn’t a flying officer’s moustache like Bryn had.’
‘It’s very like him even so. He’s very tanned, which he would be, wouldn’t he, if what they say is true.’
‘Maybe he has a brother. I’m going home to change.’
‘I’m not. I never do. I’m going to the fair with our children and then having my tea on the green like all self-respecting villagers.’
‘I’ll check the Store, give a hand and come along for tea when I see the tables out.’
Harriet, still agog at the prospect she might be right about Bryn Fields, didn’t notice that Jimbo was looking at her. She ignored the jostling by the crowds too as they pushed past to get to the spare land where the annual joys of the fair awaited them, and tried to keep her eye on that tall, distant figure. She was certain it was him. It must be. She became aware of Jimbo and glanced at him to see why
he was still there. Raising her eyebrows she said, ‘What is it?’
‘This Stocks Day thing must be getting at me. I’m so grateful I still have you.’ Despite the hustle and bustle of the crowd he kissed her.
‘Oh! It has got to you, hasn’t it? It always does to me. Glad you joined in?’
Jimbo nodded, smiled and went home, feeling gratified deep down that he’d done his bit for the village. He shook his head. What was he thinking of? How could beating dead flowers from the churchyard off the stocks and then heralding a new beginning by laying fresh flowers there possibly have any effect on anything at all, especially when the plague had died out years ago? How could a rational, educated man, an entrepreneur, a man of means, a man getting ahead in the world believe in such a thing? No, not
getting
, he
was
ahead. His chest swelled at the thought. He pushed his key into the front door with pride. Nothing, but nothing would stop further successes this year. He’d just seen to that by doing what he’d done.
He took the precaution of standing in the bath while he undressed and left his clothes and his wig soaking in it in hot water and disinfectant, just in case. The Store was extremely busy when he got there and he had to stay to help. They were selling everything from rolls of film to fresh fruit, from sweets to sticking plasters. Mentally Jimbo rubbed his hands with glee; this was how it should be, the till whirring itself silly and his special bell jingling joyfully each time the door opened. He became lost in the clamour and forgot to look out on to the green for when the open-air tea was ready, but he wasn’t allowed to forget
for Flick and Fran came bursting through the door shouting, ‘Daddy! We’re saving you a seat! Come on!’
They were so alike, these two. Seven years between them and Fran looked like a miniature of Flick, but even so he had to admit in his heart that Fran was by far the most beautiful of the two. But Flick! So grown-up now. A woman, no less, at just fifteen.
‘Coming! OK, Bel? Back in half an hour. Right.’
Bel, at the till, smiled her beautiful relaxed smile, which lit up the whole of her face. ‘Fine. See you. Next! That’ll be two pounds twenty-nine. Thank you. Have a nice day. Next!’
Jimbo spared a thought for her as he crossed Stocks Row to take his place beside Harriet and the girls on the wooden benches borrowed from the church hall. Dear Bel. So willing but he always felt that at the heart of her she was very lonely. Some people got dealt rotten cards where life was concerned.
A large area of the green had been covered with trestle tables and benches, and every place was taken. The tables, half an hour ago laden with plates of food, were being rapidly cleared. One could almost have thought that the villagers had purposely not eaten anything all week. The simple old wooden benches they all sat on added to the illusion that it was the day six hundred years ago when the entire village had sat down to celebrate their victory over the plague, but then there would have been far fewer people for they had been decimated by the disease. Some families were entirely wiped out, in others only the most robust were left to tell the tale.
He sat between Flick and Fran, and ate a hearty tea. He sank his strong white teeth into a sausage roll, ate a slice of
quiche – the cheese and broccoli one which was the most popular on his delicatessen counter – he munched his way through a ham sandwich, the flavour of which he definitely recognised, and finished it all off with a hefty slice of Harriet’s special mail order fruit cake. Jimbo washed it down with a mug of cider, then sat back to survey the scene.
It never ceased to amaze him that this quiet backwater could galvanise itself into such incredible activity on special days. They might have television and mobile phones and e-mail but they were still a centuries-old village at heart. Even the ones the villagers disparagingly called the ‘weekenders’ made sure they were down for the weekend when anything special was on. He looked across at the old oak tree, still coming into full leaf each spring as though five hundred years of doing it were a mere nothing in the span of time. Jimbo had to admit to himself he loved the old place.
‘Daddy!’
Jimbo roused himself to answer Fran. ‘Mm?’
‘Daddy,’ she whispered. ‘Is Mummy my mummy?’
‘Of course she is. Why do you ask that?’
‘Beth asked me if she was. I said she was but I wanted to be sure.’
Realising he was on delicate ground, Jimbo answered cautiously but positively, ‘Well, you are, definitely.’
‘I’m not borrowed, then?’
‘No. You are not.’
‘She’s my real mummy, then. I grew in her tummy?’
‘Yes, darling, you did.’
‘Good.’ Fran picked up her drink, finished it right to
the bottom and said with a nod of her head towards the fair, ‘Right, then. Come on, Flick, you promised.’
Flick raised her eyes to the heavens. ‘All right, then. But this is the last time. I never get a chance to be with
my
friends, I’m always looking after you. One ride, that’s all, because we’ve spent almost all the money Mum gave us.’
Jimbo winked at her and gave her a five-pound note.
Fran’s bottom lip trembled. ‘You’ve got to look after me, haven’t you? You are my sister, aren’t you?’
‘And don’t I know it. Thanks, Dad.’ With a sigh Flick swung her legs over the bench and dashed to catch up with Fran already zigzagging her way through the crowds to the roundabout.
Harriet waited until they were out of hearing and then said quietly to Jimbo, ‘Whoops! That sounds like one ten-year-old girl we know is asking about her parentage and desperately wants to know. Must be those sex lessons they’ve been having at the school.’
‘Poor Beth.’
‘And poor Alex, too. One might be tempted to quote “Be sure your sins will find you out”.’
‘Harriet!’
‘Well, let’s hope Peter comes up with something to explain it all.’
‘Have they never been told, then?’
‘Not the whole truth. I understand they know Caroline couldn’t have children so she’s not their real mother, but as for the rest …’
‘Well, watch out, you may be getting some questions too.’
‘I can’t tell our girls the truth before Peter and Caroline have told the twins, can I?’