Farewell to Fairacre (3 page)

Armed with this knowledge I decided to go ahead with my invitations that evening, and returned to my duties.

One of Fairacre's major interests at this time was the completion of the second new home which was to house five more children under the Trust's guardianship.

The first home was now flourishing, and the couple who ran it had settled happily among their neighbours. Their charges who had swelled my school's numbers were good-tempered easy children, and gave me no trouble.

The couple for the second home had been appointed, and were frequently seen watching last-minute alterations to their new house. The plumbing problem which had held up proceedings seemed to have been overcome, and it was generally expected that the family would arrive some time in October.

After school one day I walked over to make myself known to the man and woman who were working in the garden.

'We were going to call on you,' the man said. 'You'll be having our children I believe.'

'And very welcome they will be,' I told him.

We introduced ourselves. They were Molly and Alfred Cotton, and they already knew their neighbours and co-hosts the Bennetts from next door. They also knew Mr Lamb, Bob Willet and Jane and Tom Winter who lived close by.

The Winters' home was one of the three new houses to be built recently in the village, and Jane and Tom had moved in some time earlier. They were a friendly pair, and their young son Jeremy had made friends with the four newcomers as soon as they had settled in. The Cottons were delighted with their appointment as joint wardens to their five children, and it seemed pretty obvious to me that they would be a great asset to the village.

'You won't be having all our children,' Molly told me. 'The youngest is not walking yet, and the next up is only four. The two brothers, seven and nine, will come to you, and the girl who is ten.'

I said that I should welcome them, and asked a little more about their family.

'The two brothers and the baby are all from one family,' said Alfred. 'They were saved by neighbours from a fire at their home. The parents perished.'

'That's a terrible thing!'

'They're young enough to have half-forgotten it,' said Molly, 'but I think the older boy, Bobby, still gets nightmares about fire. It's one reason why they have been moved right away, to give them a fresh start.'

'Well, you are doing a fine job,' I told them.

'Not very well paid though,' added Alfred, in a semi jocular way.

Much later I was to recall that rather odd remark.

My old home at Fairacre, the school house which stood only a stone's throw across the playground from Fairacre school, had been badly damaged by a storm a few years earlier.

Luckily, no one was hurt, and I had already removed to Dolly Clare's cottage at Beech Green.

The repairs took some time, but eventually it was restored and put on the market. To my delight two friends of mine had bought it, and now lived there with their baby.

Horace and Eve Umbleditch had met at the preparatory school where he taught and she had been the school secretary. They had adopted village life with enthusiasm, and were generally liked. Horace had been roped in by the vicar as a general help to Henry Mawne, who made himself responsible for the finances and general welfare of St Patrick's. Now that Henry was so much engaged with his wife's illness, Horace was being called upon to do more, which he undertook very cheerfully.

I called to see Eve and the baby one afternoon after school. Young Andrew was sitting in his pram, bouncing about with enormous energy and making a bleating noise which his fond mother told me was singing.

Eve was ironing, but seemed happy enough to stop and put on the kettle.

'Horace won't be in for some time. Rugger practice,' she told me.

'Do they start as young as that?'

'Well, they all rush about wherever the ball happens to be. You don't see much
passing
of any elegance and skill, but they have a rattling good puff about, and get fearfully dirty and hungry, and everyone's happy, so I suppose it does them good.'

She looked through the window at the pram. The bleating had stopped.

'He's dropped asleep,' she said. 'I always suspect sudden silence. It usually means he's found something to eat. He made quite a meal of his pram strap last week.'

We sipped our tea, and I looked about my old sitting-room with affection.

'Tell me,' said Eve, sounding worried. 'Do you
mind?'

'Mind?'

'About us living here. In your house.'

'Good heavens, no! Why should I? It looks lovely to me. And it isn't my house now. It was only
lent
to me, so to speak, while I taught at Fairacre school, just as it was lent to my predecessors.'

She looked relieved.

'I still can't believe it is our house. Well,
will
be when the mortgage is paid,' she added with a smile. 'I still feel that it belongs to you.'

'I promise not to haunt you,' I said, 'but I know how you feel. The ghosts of the Hopes, who taught here years ago, always seemed to be about, largely I think through Mrs Pringle's constant reminders of how
clean
Mrs Hope had kept the place, in contrast to my own sketchy housekeeping. I gather from Mrs P. that Mrs Hope dusted the tops of her doors daily, and any visitors had to brush their clothes and take off their shoes before entering.'

'I don't believe it.'

'Frankly, neither do I, but you know Mrs Pringle! She has a way of telling you the most outrageous things, with such concentrated venom that one begins to think they are true.'

'Well, we're happy as sand-boys here, and I hope that all these other newcomers will settle in as contentedly as we have.'

She went on to tell me that she had made friends with Jane and Tom Winter and the Bennetts who were the foster-parents near by, but had not yet met the Cottons.

She asked after Mrs Mawne whom she knew, and with all this exchange of news about old and new friends it was six o'clock before I realised it.

'Tibby will be pretty off-hand with me,' I told Eve, as I hurried to my car.

'And Horace will with me,' she replied, 'if I don't get our dinner in the oven.'

We departed to cope with our respective tyrants.

Plans for my modest dinner party went ahead.

The Reverend Gerald Partridge and his wife would be away for a week visiting friends in Norfolk, but Isobel and George Annett, who lived near me at the school house in Beech Green, said that they would love to come.

They and Henry Mawne were invited for the next Wednesday evening when the house would be at its cleanest after Mrs Pringle's ministrations in the afternoon.

Now what should I give them? was the next problem. Cold salmon and salad would be elegant, and easily prepared, but already the evenings were getting an autumnal feel about them, and hot food is somehow more welcoming.

I put my load of school forms, records, files and general correspondence to one side - yet again - and let my thoughts dwell much more pleasurably on my entertaining.

Something that would look after itself in a casserole, I decided. Who wants their hostess in the kitchen at the last minute stirring sauce?

I thought of lamb cutlets, pork chops, steak and kidney. Perhaps rather heavy as an evening meal for four middle-aged people, I decided.

A brace of pheasants, a present from the farmer Mr Roberts after his final shoot of the season, still lay in the freezer. But pheasant can be surprisingly tough, and not everyone likes it. What about fish? A halibut steak apiece, in a good white sauce, would suit me well, but did my guests like fish?

In the end, I took the safe and rather mundane way out by settling for chicken, jointed neatly by the butcher for my proposed casserole, and served with seasonal vegetables supplied by Mr Willet from his garden.

I would make an apple and blackberry pie, and a raspberry mousse for dessert, and nice easy accommodating melon for starters. I had some fresh coffee beans, and if I could remember to buy some chocolate mints I should be well set up.

Having settled this in my own mind, I picked up the armful of school papers, thought better of it, put them all back, and watched a television programme until it was time for bed.

I found that I was ready for bed much earlier these days, and when I had time to think about it I felt vaguely worried by my increasing tiredness.

It was still a pleasure to see friends, to write to those at a distance, or to talk to them by telephone. I had real joy in planning such simple entertaining as my little dinner party. Even a jaunt to Caxley at the weekends held a certain excitement.

But, I had to admit that school these days was increasingly demanding. The actual teaching, and the company of the children, I still enjoyed. The fact that the fear of closure, because of dwindling numbers, had now receded, thanks to the advent of the two new homes provided by the Trust, was an enormous relief, and by rights I should be feeling on top of the world.

But I was not. There was nothing physically wrong with me, no sinister pains or lumps in evidence. It was just that somehow the sparkle seemed to have gone out of life.

From school life anyway, I told myself. I remembered Eve Umbleditch's anxiety about my relinquishment of the school house which had been my home for so many years. Could I, subconsciously, be missing it? I did not think so. I was blissfully content with Dolly Clare's cottage at Beech Green.

Certainly, my routine had been slightly altered. I needed to get up earlier and to make sure that the car was ready for its daily short drive.

But I had always woken early, and was at my liveliest in the morning hours, so that nothing could account for my present malaise. Of course, I was getting older, and expected to be slower, but I was beginning to feel worried by the mound of paperwork which seemed to accompany me everywhere.

Like most people, I had never taken kindly to form-filling, but when I looked back to my early years at Fairacre, it seemed to me that I used to dash them off, send them back to the education office, and forget the whole affair. Now each morning brought a pile of work, usually marked 'Urgent', and I was beginning to feel submerged and desperate.

I told myself sternly that most people had the same problems and one must just soldier on. With any luck, I should adjust to my load, just like a tired old cart-horse.

It was on one of these evenings when I was being firm with myself, and trying to whip up enough energy to tackle at least some of my papers, that my old friend Amy rang.

We first met at college many years ago. She was, and still is, pretty, vivacious and intelligent. She gave up work when she married James after only two years' teaching, but occasionally took on a short spell as a supply teacher in local schools, 'to keep my hand in', as she puts it. Occasionally, she has helped me at Fairacre school, and she has certainly not lost her touch.

Our friendship has stood the test of time remarkably well, despite our different circumstances. Amy is much more sophisticated than I am, is a wonderful wife to James, and a wonderful hostess to the important business friends they entertain. She dresses exquisitely, keeps up-to-date with the world of music, theatre, films and painting, and generally puts me in the shade, where I am very content to stay.

The one really trying trait in Amy's character is her desire to see me married, and I have lost count of the various men she has paraded before me in her quest to find me a suitable partner. I am loud and vehement in my protestations to dear Amy, but it does no good. She cannot believe that any woman can be happy without a man in the house.

I constantly point out that I should find a husband a nuisance. I do not want to wash socks, thread new pyjama cords through hems with a safety-pin, listen to news of rugby teams, the stock market, golf averages and, in the case of older men, their war-time reminiscences. Besides, even the nicest men snore, and I like a peaceful bedroom.

Luckily, on this occasion, husbands were not on Amy's mind.

'It's about the opera,' said Amy, after our usual enquiries after health. 'There's a good company coming to Oxford. Care to join me one evening? James will be in China on some trade lark.'

'What's on offer?' I am no opera fan. The idiocy of the plots I find infuriating, and I don't know enough about music to appreciate the finer points. In any case, I have exceptionally acute hearing, and find the noise excessive. Before now I have sat through an entire opera with cotton wool in my ears, to the disgust of the opera-lovers around me. Even so, I have returned home with a splitting headache.

'They're only doing two,' replied Amy. '
Madame Butterfly and Die Fledermaus.'

'Which do you favour?'

'Well, I like Puccini's music, but I like
Fledermaus
because it's such a romp. I want you to choose.'

'I do draw the line at
Madame Butterfly
because the plot's even more silly than most, and I can't stick Lieutenant Pinkerton, nor that ghastly inevitable toddler who turns up, and Butterfly is such a
wimp—'

'Say no more,' said Amy, 'I gather you don't like it. So
Fledermaus
it is.'

I felt suddenly guilty.

'But Amy, if you prefer—'

'I'd rather see the Strauss one, actually. I love Frosch, the jailer, and all his bits of business.'

'You're sure?'

'Positive. I'll send off for the tickets today. It's not until early December. Make a note of the day now, my dear, as I expect you'll be up to your ears in end-of-term jollities by then.'

I told her about my dinner-party plans, and about poor disconsolate Henry Mawne.

'Well,' said Amy briskly, 'your company should cheer him up. He was always so fond of you.'

She hung up before I could protest.

There was a nip in the air as I drove to school the next morning. Already the swallows were gathering on the telephone lines ready for departure to sunnier places. The rose hips glowed like scarlet beads in the hedges, and the first few puffs of wild clematis seed-heads were a foretaste of the grey clouds which would soon obscure the bushes over which they clambered.