Intrigue in the Village (Turnham Malpas 10) (31 page)

‘In the circumstances you couldn’t have done more than you have.’

‘Exactly. They’re really special needs children but of course there isn’t a school for them within fifty miles. I’m very upset about it. We’ve all tried so hard to help. Frankly, the Education Committee has let them down all through their school lives. Just thought I ought to let you know in case someone mentions it to you. However, they are right in that they haven’t had the special teaching they need, but it can’t be laid at our door. We’ve done all we can. Anyway, change of subject. I can’t wait for the anniversary weekend.’

‘Neither can I. Sorry you’re having this difficulty. Keep me in the picture, won’t you? If there’s anything you need or anyone I can have a word with on your behalf, and indeed anything at all about the anniversary weekend, just let me know. Sorry about the Tranters.’

‘Thanks. That’s great. If I come up with someone who might be more amenable to a word from you rather than me I’ll let you know. Be seeing you.’

Peter put down the receiver sick at heart. Thank God it was Saturday. He leapt to his feet, intent on finding Caroline and suggesting they all went out somewhere. Anywhere to escape his anguish.

‘Who’s for an outing? Lunch in Culworth then a visit to the open-air pool? It’s hot enough.’

‘How about lunch at home as it’s almost ready, then a visit to the pool, followed by the new museum in Culworth and then an evening meal out?’

‘Excellent! Beth, Alex? Come down, we’re going out!’

But a day out of the village only served to push their problems to the back of their minds for a while. When they returned, all four of them realized they’d only had a temporary respite from the critical situation they faced on the anniversary weekend.

If you lived in Penny Fawcett or Little Derehams and were planning an important family picnic or some outdoor activity then you knew to choose the day Turnham Malpas was having a special event because they always had good weather. The weekend of the school anniversary was no exception. It had rained on and off every day that week but come Saturday morning they opened their curtains to a brilliant, cloudless sky and the hint of mist arising from the fields, which augured a beautiful day.

At first light, the cricket pitch was inspected, the pavilion’s shutters were opened and the windows flung wide to air it after all the damp, and the ladies of the cricket team were busy preparing the tables. Colin Turner’s idea of a cricket match, the Village against the Old Boys, was going to give a rousing start to the day. The scratch team of Old Boys he’d managed to cobble together had some cracking bowlers in it, to say nothing of Colin who was well known for his prowess at the crease. When he opened his shoulders and sent the ball flying to the boundary at the threat of fading light and thirty runs needed to win, he was a sight to behold.

In the village hall, Pat Jones was in charge. She never tired of facing the challenge of providing food and good
service for her customers. This time she was doing it on a voluntary basis, but the enthusiasm was present just the same. She’d gathered a good volunteer team to serve food from four o’clock onwards and soon had them folding paper napkins, stacking plates, polishing any lacklustre cutlery and checking that Jimbo had provided everything she needed in the way of rolls, meats, cakes and desserts. Her team might not be earning money today, but she was determined to make money for the school and provide a memorable feast.

‘Another table in that corner, Willie. Jimmy, bring in more chairs, we’ll have four chairs at each small table and six chairs at the bigger ones.’

‘We’ve got to leave room for people to get between.’

‘I know that. Willie, put a few tables in the small hall for the VIPs.’

‘How many?’

‘Three, I reckon. See what it looks like. That sounds like the food arriving.’

At the end of a busy morning arranging plates, cups, glasses, cutlery, napkins, tea urns and soft drinks, in came Jimbo with some of his staff, all laden with trays and shiny catering plates holding a wide variety of pastries, both savoury and sweet. Flick and Fran followed, each carrying a huge gateau carefully screened from the air by a clear plastic dome.

‘Where would you like these, Mrs Jones?’ asked Flick.

‘End table. Leave the domes on, please. Sweet stuff on the end table, savoury here at the start by the piles of plates.’ Everyone then disappeared outside to bring in the rest of the supplies. Pat cast a critical eye over the first consignment and decided Jimbo had lived up to his
reputation. The individual quiches looked so tempting she could have eaten one there and then. As for the desserts! They were breathtaking. There was still more to come and she had to get Willie to put tables up behind the main buffet table to hold replacement supplies.

For a moment Pat wondered if he’d over-provided, but she was to find out by six o’clock that some swift thawing in the microwaves of more pastries would only just save the day.

Mr Fitch had opened up Rector’s Meadow for car parking only to find that Home Park had to be opened up too as the cars were overflowing on to Church Lane and Stocks Row. He was beside himself with nerves. Kate had spent a very restless night worrying over just about everything to do with the smooth running of the day. She even had notepaper and pen by her bedside to jot down her last-minute thoughts. So come seven o’ clock in the morning, they were both feeling not only exhausted, but frantic with anxiety.

The selling of the souvenir programmes was in the hands of Ralph and Muriel. They’d recruited Sir Ronald and Lady Bissett, and Tom and Evie Nicholls to assist as Ralph was determined to sell every single one. To his consternation, Ralph found some of the photographs brought back memories he would rather have forgotten. There was one of his father presenting the end-of-year prizes at the school, and, judging by the date, it must have been his very last official engagement before he was killed in Malaysia. Ralph had already opened the church safe several times to store the money they’d taken and was altogether feeling very pleased with their efforts.

But Muriel couldn’t concentrate easily on her brochure-selling. She had the Maypole dancing to play for later on. She just knew her fingers would be all thumbs and her nerves would get the better of her. Chaos, she knew for certain, would reign and the ribbons would get all tangled up and her days of playing for the school would come to an abrupt end. Her head ached at the prospect and she knew she’d have to pull herself together.

Trundling the piano out from the school hall and round on to the Green was a marathon task and several members of the victorious Turnham Malpas cricket team, which despite Colin Turner’s gargantuan efforts had beaten the Old Boys by nineteen runs, were called in to help. A useful wooden trolley on four large rubber wheels had been constructed to help with this very problem and the piano arrived in Stocks Row to cheers from the crowd. Muriel placed her unsold brochures and her money bag in Ralph’s guardianship and marched over to it.

Half past four Mrs Fitch had said and it was. But the piano stool, with her music safely placed by her inside the lid the previous day, had not arrived. She signalled frantically to Jimmy Glover, who waved nonchalantly back to her and gave her a thumbs-up. She waved her arms even more frantically and sensing there was something afoot he walked over to her. Muriel hissed, ‘The piano stool. They’ve forgotten it!’ She grew even more desperate when out of the corner of her eye she saw the children marching out in pairs ready to begin dancing. Then she realized the Maypole wasn’t in place either. She called out, ‘The
Maypole
!’ But no one appeared to understand what she was saying. The children got closer and closer and it was Miss Booth shepherding them out
who saw the problem. She halted the children, grabbed Rhett Wright and Dean Jones by their arms and said firmly, ‘The
Maypole
. Now!’

The crowed began to laugh and mutter and Muriel could tell it was all going to be a fiasco. Poor Kate. She’d be devastated.

But Rhett and Dean had no need to run to the school because around the corner into Stocks Row came Mr Fitch, staggering along at one end of the pole with Sir Ronald at the other, both of them panting fit to burst. A cheer went up when they placed it at the right spot on the Green. The piano stool arrived and Muriel whipped her sheet music out from under the lid. She sat down hastily only to find that the stool was far too low for her to reach the keyboard comfortably. She said ‘giddy godfathers’ to herself, twiddled the appropriate knobs at each side of the stool, sat down again, played a wonderful, given the circumstances, peal of chords and notes from one end of the keyboard to the other, gave a nod to Miss Booth, and the dancing began.

Unfortunately, in her panic, she’d played the introduction of the second dance, ‘Barber’s Pole’, not the first. Some of the children realized what she’d done and began the movements of the second dance but others didn’t and they started to dance the first one. Mayhem reigned. Ribbons were knotted, children were tumbling about, and not a few hefty pushes were exchanged.

Miss Booth clapped her hands to bring everyone to a standstill while she unknotted the ribbons. She glanced across at Muriel who by now was redder than the geraniums below the dais. Muriel found the right music, gave another nod to Miss Booth, and the children began
again. But they hadn’t bargained on a sudden gust of wind, which made an errant sheet of music blow away. Hetty Hardaker had to burst into a run to retrieve it. Finally, with Hetty anchoring the music with one hand and turning the pages with the other, they began again, for all the world as though there hadn’t been a single hiccup.

Muriel played merrily throughout the performance, loving the dances, ‘Gypsy’s Tent’, ‘Barber’s Pole’ and ‘Three in Hand’. At the end, when she’d played ‘Chrysanthemum’ as the finale to the performance, they were clapped and clapped, and the children bowed and curtsied as instructed. Miss Booth waved a hand in Muriel’s direction and she got an extra clap. All told, the dancing went off well, but Muriel was left feeling shattered. She vowed that was it. Never again, not even for a practice. This was truly her swan song.

Beth and Alex had been in the crowd clapping the dancing. ‘They did it much better than we ever did,’ Beth said.

Alex agreed. ‘Just glad I’m too old to do it. Imagine dancing like that. Kids’ stuff.’

‘I liked it when I was there.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

‘You did. You were quite upset one year when you didn’t get chosen.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You were.’

Alex saw his dad but couldn’t see who he was talking to so earnestly because his father was shielding the person and the sun was in his eyes. There was something very tense about the way his dad stood and a dreadful suspicion came over Alex. He watched him move to let someone pass by
and Alex’s heart sank to his socks. He nudged Beth but she was tucking her T-shirt into her trousers and didn’t bother to look up.

‘What? What’s the matter?’

Alex turned his back to his father and said, ‘Look who’s speaking to Dad.’

The Scout band struck up to announce the beginning of their performance. Beth’s heart bounded in her chest. So it was to the sound of ‘March of the British Grenadiers’ that Beth saw her mother for the first time. The stirring music added drama to the event. After all, thought Beth, it’s not every day you meet your mother. She studied her body language, saw how tense she was, trying to laugh naturally but at the same time . . . she was wearing a dress Beth could admire, so that was a plus, but she was shorter than she’d imagined. She’d always thought that only tall women would be attracted to her very tall father. He looked uncomfortable . . . then someone stood in front of her and she couldn’t see any longer.

Alex surreptitiously put a hand on Beth’s shoulder, gripping her as though trying to ease the moment. ‘She’s like you, Beth.’

‘Same colour hair.’

‘Chubby cheeks.’

‘Mine are not chubby, just rounded.’

‘It is her though, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Look the other way. I don’t want her to see us.’

‘Neither do I.’ Alex turned away from the band performance and hastened Beth away towards the church hall and food. ‘They’ll have begun serving, let’s go in there.’

They carefully skirted the Green to avoid contact with
their father and Suzy. While they were choosing what they would like to eat from the laden buffet table, Beth spotted Caroline, sitting by herself at a table in the far corner, sipping a cup of tea, looking for all the world as though she were hiding herself away.

‘Let’s sit with Mummy. You pay this time.’

‘OK.’ Alex carried the tray across to Caroline’s table. ‘Hello, Mum.’

He saw Caroline visibly make the effort to speak naturally. ‘Hello, darlings. I really did begin to think the Maypole dancing had flopped, but they did very well in the circumstances, didn’t they?’

Hearing the tension in her voice, Beth encouraged her by saying, ‘Well, I just wished I were still at the school and then I might have been chosen to dance. I loved it.’

Her mummy placed a warm hand on hers. ‘I know you did.’

‘Would you like some of my pastry, Mum?’ Alex cut his Danish pastry in half.

‘Just a corner, darling, please. That’ll be enough, I have to think of my figure.’

Alex reassured her. ‘Daddy thinks your figure is lovely.’