A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) (23 page)

BOOK: A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09)
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Chapter 16

On the day of the meeting Mr Fitch went to school. He was there by eight forty-five. Propped against the school wall, he watched the children arriving. He saw the chaos of drivers trying to pull up to let the children out, the haphazard parking, the difficulty of pulling away without bumping into another vehicle and the risk the children ran if their parents couldn’t find space close to the entrance. He was given the occasional ‘Good morning’ by parents taking their children on foot through the school gate and certainly got some odd looks when all he did was acknowledge their greeting with the briefest of nods. All in all, though, there was no hurried screech of brakes or even the slightest chance of one of the children being mown down.

He stood there, still propped against the school wall looking at the village, listening to the joyous sound of the children’s hymn singing coming through the open windows. Back to school. Those were the days, he thought, those were the days. He thought about his own two boys and realised he’d been so remote from them that he’d never even once taken them to school or gone to a school occasion to support them. Sad, that. He’d been a fool. Too busy concentrating on his career. He’d missed out there.
Missed out on everything of any real value. Precious lives passing by him till they’d gone for ever. The singing stopped and he could hear the tramp of feet, the closing of classroom doors, the rustle of paper, the squeak of chalk. Those were the days.

No good facing her until break. Or was it still called playtime? Such a happy word, ‘playtime’. Tag, and chain tig, and hopscotch. Marbles! Remember marbles? Then on dry days in the summer the headmaster teaching cricket. He must be turning in his grave now at the thought of rigged cricket matches. Pity that. Pity. We had such fun. He fancied coffee so he went into the Store to see if they’d got their coffee pot on the go. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in there, either. As he opened the door Jimbo’s bell dinged a cheerful ping and the aroma of baking assailed his nostrils. Jimbo must have studied psychology: he’d created such an ambience it became compulsive to shop, one must, one couldn’t help it, one needed to have a share of … what? Happiness? Comfort? A slice of childhood?

Mr Fitch felt out of place. He was at least twenty-five, maybe thirty, years older than the other customers. Well, he needn’t let that worry him, he still had a contribution to make. He still made things tick, if not tock!

‘Coffee, Jimbo!’

Heads turned. Turned back when they saw who it was. What the hell did he want?

‘Good morning.’ Jimbo raised his boater. ‘Coffee in the jug freshly made. Help yourself!’

So he did. Added half a teaspoonful of multicoloured coffee sugar – such a nice touch, he thought – and seated
himself on the chair by the side window to watch the world go by.

The rush subsided and Jimbo took a moment to speak to him. ‘Are you needing a word?’

‘Not really. You’ve a little gold mine here, Jimbo. Such style.’

Jimbo raised his boater for a second time. ‘We have.’

‘Ambience, that’s what you’ve created. I do believe your customers feel better for having been in here. You’ve made them feel up-to-the-minute, in-the-swim, with it, as they say.’

‘That’s our aim.’

‘This meeting. About the council and their crackpot ideas for modernising us. What do you think?’

‘Something needs doing, but quite what I don’t know. It is chaotic.’

‘Yes, but only for about ten minutes, then we’re back to the peace and quiet. Is it worth spoiling the village for the sake of ten minutes twice a day, for three-quarters of the year?’

Jimbo took off his boater and smoothed his bald head. ‘You have a point. But you haven’t a small child going to school. We have and we worry.’

‘Easy to take her across Shepherds Hill and pop her into school. Better than traffic signs everywhere. How about a voluntary code?’

‘That would work for about a week and then …’

‘You’re right. This coffee’s good. Could we get by with the bare minimum?’

‘Who defines the bare minimum? Wasn’t too bad when we had two minibuses picking up the children from
outside the village. The council claim they can’t afford it any longer, so now we’ve more cars than ever.’

‘Even Nightingale Farm’s tractor and trailer.’

‘Exactly. Well, there you go, the Nightingale children were picked up, you see, by one of the minibuses, so that made life a lot easier all round. Two vehicles but twenty or more children, now it’s perhaps the same number of children but it takes at least ten or twelve cars to get them here. However, I’ll be at the meeting tonight.’

‘So will I, Jimbo. I’m not having this village ruined by any damn council. They claim they can’t afford the minibuses, yet they’ve money for all this traffic control nonsense. It doesn’t add up.’

‘Must press on. See you tonight.’

Mr Fitch placed his empty cup in the waste bin by the coffee machine, wandered around the Store looking in the freezers, assessing the quality of the goods on display, fingering the ripe plums, the glowing peaches, the bright, super-fresh vegetables and eventually left when he heard the children out playing in the schoolyard.

Miss Pascoe’s class were out in the yard and Miss Pascoe herself was in her room opening her post. She heard the light knock at her door and called out, ‘Come!’

So he did.

‘Why, Mr Fitch! How nice of you to call. Please take a chair.’

‘Good morning, Miss Pascoe.’

‘And a very good morning to you. How can I help?’

‘About this traffic business.’

Miss Pascoe’s hackles rose. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve been watching.’

‘I saw.’

‘It’s the number of vehicles that is the problem.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But it’s only for three-quarters of the year and only for about ten minutes twice a day.’

She sat in her chair, braced herself against the back, put her fingertips together and said, ‘It only takes a split second for a child to be killed. A split second. A nano-second.’

There’d been an alteration in the tone of her voice. A stiffening of her attitude. A summoning of her resources. Mr Fitch realised she was one of these new women who were the bane of his life in business. They got things done but did they need to be so aggressive? Why couldn’t they acquiesce as women used to do? ‘I agree, but …’

‘No, Mr Fitch, I’m having the one-way signs and the yellow lines and the lights.’

‘Who says?’

‘I do.’

‘What if we oppose you?’

‘Then the death of a child might well be laid at your door and if you want that kind of burden on your conscience then …’

‘Eh?’

‘Then I certainly don’t. Something has to be done and quickly. The council have done the preliminary work and are all set for agreement.’

‘Who says?’

‘The county chairman of traffic planning.’

‘It’s county level, is it, already?’

Miss Pascoe nodded.

‘I see. Well, I too have friends in high places. I shall see what can be done.’ He stood up to leave. ‘Don’t think
you’ve got the better of me. There’s dozens in this village who don’t want it ruined.’

‘At what cost? A child’s life? I have only the interests of my children at heart, Mr Fitch, and I can hardly be blamed for that when I’m the head teacher of the school. Can I?’

She fixed him with a stare which almost, but not quite, intimidated him. Standing up, she said, ‘Excuse me, that’s the bell and I have a class to teach. The children, you see, always come first with me.’

And she left him standing there! Alone, in her poky little office. She’d humiliated him. Yes, she had. Humiliated him. As he’d said to Bryn, women in authority. They didn’t know how to use it. Well, she’d met her match.

He had to make an uncomfortable passage through the hall with the children springing about doing their Physical Education, climbing wall bars, balancing along an upturned bench, jumping over a horse. In his day they’d had half a dozen beanbags and some hoops, and been thankful. Indulged, that’s what, indulged. He stormed across the playground, narrowly averting a disastrous stumble over a nursery child pedalling like fury on a little trike. They damn well weren’t going to have their own way about this, not if he had anything to do with it.

He was one of the first to take a seat at the meeting that night, on the front row, determined to have his say. Unfortunately, unless he turned round frequently, he couldn’t see who’d showed up, but judging from the babble of conversation there were plenty there, and most of the voices he didn’t recognise so they must be parents from the school.

Bryn took his place, feeling exceptionally confident that
his arguments would sway general opinion. However, ten minutes before kick-off, when he saw the size of the crowd already gathered, he did wonder if it would be as easy as he’d first thought. It felt close tonight, the windows needed opening. But he had to succeed. His tourists wouldn’t be half so enamoured of Turnham Malpas if all they could see were one-way signs and huge street lights. Three-quarters of the romance of the place would be gone. And Miss Pascoe confidently picking up a chair and placing it beside his own didn’t help matters either. Honestly, you brought money to the village and what thanks did you get? None. Bryn loosened his tie a little, mopped his top lip and sipped some water, hoping to allay a touch of indigestion. That was better. He’d put a bright, confident face on the matter and he’d win through. Peter was there too, so he’d see nothing went wrong.

But the entire evening went disastrously awry. The parents were vociferous in their declaration that something must be done. Some even went the whole hog and demanded signs shoulder to shoulder along the roads, the green fenced off, yellow lines outside all the houses and around the green. By the time they’d finished the whole centre of the village was to be a no-go area for cars. No longer would you be able to pull up outside the Store while you shopped and any question of parking outside the school was completely ruled out, and you certainly couldn’t park outside your own house, not even while you unloaded your shopping. As for lighting, Mr Fitch was convinced that Stocks Row would be akin to Piccadilly Circus if they had their way. He waited until they’d run out of further restrictions to impose, then he stood up, beating Miss Pascoe by a whisker.

‘Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I wish Sir Ralph and Lady Templeton were here, but they’re not. If they were, Sir Ralph would be appalled by your road safety ideas. But in that wonderfully gentlemanly way of his he would explain to you why they couldn’t be allowed. He would talk about his village, a village with a Templeton at the head of it for more years than I know of. Certainly five or even six hundred years. Oh, yes, he has history and tradition at his very fingertips. Would that I had it too. We cannot, we must not, defile the village with such twenty-first-century trumpery as traffic lights and yellow lines. It would be sacrilege. We are here on this earth for only our allotted span, no more, and we must hand on to our children and our children’s children a village fit for human beings to live in. Leave the trappings of modern society to the big cities. Here we have a haven …’

Someone at the back stood up and shouted, ‘Haven! It won’t be a haven if a kid gets killed. Never mind your poetic humbug, we’re living in today’s society, not blinking hundred years ago. Shut up and sit down, you old faggot.’

Bryn recognised the woman who’d tried to stuff his leaflets down his shirt neck. ‘I think it would be better if …’ But his voice didn’t carry over the hubbub Mr Fitch’s speech had caused.

While Peter had a word with Bryn, Miss Pascoe made up her mind to speak but Peter got to his feet while she was still thinking about it. His powerful voice carried right across the babble and he got the silence Bryn had tried for.

In reasonable tones he argued his case. ‘Losing our tempers will achieve nothing. Mr Fitch is quite right. I would hate to lose our wonderful backwater; it would be
criminal to allow anyone to destroy it. There are all kinds of reasons for preserving our heritage and I’m quite sure that with a bit of common sense we can overcome this problem. A little give and take on both sides, a modification of plans, a certain subtlety, a large amount of good will and we would arrive at an amicable solution. I propose we form a committee …’

‘Reverend! Please, not a committee. They cover a lot of ground but get nowhere, as you well know. We want action. Action! Action!’

A steady drumming of feet on the wooden floorboards and the shouting of ‘Action! Action!’ began, and there was nothing to be done about it. It was like some kind of primeval chant: a hate thing compounded by a wish for instant capitulation. Peter was appalled. Bryn was beginning to panic. Mr Fitch was on the verge of washing his hands of the whole matter.

Grandmama Charter-Plackett stood up at the back and stepped firmly to the front to take her stand beside Bryn. She banged on the table with the gavel Bryn had brought but never used. ‘Silence!’ If she’d been on board ship in a violent thunderstorm the very waves would have ceased their pounding. The noisy opposition, surprised by her reckless intervention, fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. They expected that she would shout but she didn’t. She spoke so softly they had to strain to hear.

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