Trouble in the Village (Tales from Turnham Malpas) (15 page)
Read Trouble in the Village (Tales from Turnham Malpas) Online
Authors: Rebecca Shaw
‘But robbing a grave! How low can you sink?’
The conversation broke up after that, and Willie was allowed to go for his meal and eat it in peace.
When he and Sylvia had finished they returned to the bar to find Don Wright and Barry Jones seated at the table where they usually sat. ‘Evening, Don! Barry! Mind if we join you?’
Don moved along the settle to give Sylvia more space. ‘Here. Sit yourselves down.’
Barry looked embarrassed. ‘I’m dead sorry about your …’ He gestured towards Willie’s face. ‘I don’t know what got into him.’
Willie, beginning to find it painful to speak, said, ‘He might be your brother but you’re as different as cheese from chalk, so don’t worry yer ’ead about it. No’ your fault.’
‘At least let me get you a drink.’ Barry got up. ‘What will it be?’
Sylvia smiled up at him. ‘Gin and tonic for me and a glass of Dicky’s home brew for Willie, please.’
Barry strode away to get the drinks and Sylvia said, ‘Different, aren’t they, him and their Kenny and Terry? Barry has all the vigour and they … well …’
Don agreed. ‘He’s working that hard for me. Says he won’t take any payment for it but he will.’
‘Nearly done?’
‘Kitchen’s finished and the plumber’s tiling the bathroom. White it is, snow white from top to bottom. Even got a shower over the bath, and it’s not one where the water dribbles out, it comes out in a rush. I can’t wait to ’ave a go. Smashing. Wait till Vera sees it. Thrilled she’ll be.’
Privately sceptical that Don might ever get under that
shower with any enthusiasm Sylvia decided to speak up on another matter. ‘We’re all getting a bit fed up of looking at that mountain of rubbish outside your door. Time it was moved.’
Barry came back with the drinks. ‘Here we are then.’ He handed out the glasses then raised his to Willie. ‘Thanks for being so nice to me about our Kenny.’
‘That’s all right.’ Willie sipped his ale with relish. ‘Sylvia’s right about that rubbish, Don. What are you going to do about it? The pile gets bigger every day. Spoiling the village it is.’
Barry wiped the froth from his top lip. ‘I’ve an idea about that. Harvest Festival next week, before we know where we are it’ll be Bonfire Night. So … I think all your stuff would make a good basis for the fire. I’ll ask Mr Fitch if we can use the van to carry it up to the field. If we cover it with plastic sheeting anchored down, it’ud be all right.’
Willie laughed as best he could. ‘One time you’d have used it and not asked old Fitch. Things have changed.’
‘Been decent to me, has Mr Fitch just lately. In fact, he’s been decent to everyone just lately. Barry grinned.’ So I’ve decided to behave myself. Given us all a rise, and he’s much more nice now. As head gardener my father-in-law can’t put a foot wrong if he tries. Got a rise and an extra week’s holiday. When they meet it’s Greenwood this and Greenwood that. All very friendly. And as for Jeremy! Well! Buddies, they are. Buddies.’
Surprised at the prospect of Mr Fitch being buddies with anyone at all Sylvia asked, ‘How is Jeremy, then? We haven’t seen him since he was in hospital.’
‘If you did you wouldn’t know it was him. He’s lost four stones.’
‘Four stones!’ Sylvia couldn’t visualise Jeremy four stones lighter.
‘Still more to lose but he’s looking so much better. Started swimming now.’
‘Swimming!’ Sylvia couldn’t visualise that either. ‘Jeremy swimming? The mind boggles.’
Barry laughed. ‘Not a pretty sight, but he’s doing it every day. To get back to our Kenny, I’m blinking sorry about what he’s done. Heaven alone knows what he’s up to. Mother’s heartbroken. Losing her job over him, Dad without a job too and then what Kenny’s done today, it’s nearly finished her.’
‘Tell her it’s not her fault. Heaven alone knows she’s tried to bring the three of you up well.’
‘She has indeed.’ Barry shook his head.
Sylvia decided to ask Barry about the hedge while he was in such a reflective mood. ‘Barry, if ever you hear any news about the hedge could you let me know? You being up there every day I thought perhaps you might, you know …’ Sylvia cupped her hand around her ear and pretended to listen. ‘Dr Harris is determined to stop him pulling it up and I’d like to help.’
Barry winked. ‘I shall be on the blower as soon as I hear. The Rector’s had no effect on him at all. The news is old Fitch will have it done before the winter sets in.’
Sylvia’s eyes opened wide. ‘No! He’s definitely going ahead with it, then?’
Barry nodded. ‘Don’t know exactly when. When I do I’ll let you know.’
‘Thanks. They do say that Lady Templeton is all ready to throw herself in front of the digger.’
Barry laughed. ‘No-o-o-o! She’s always so ladylike I can’t quite believe it. She means business then.’
Sylvia nodded vigorously. ‘Oh, yes! we all do. It amazes me that he can be so much nicer to all of you and yet takes us all on yet again about the hedge. I know I go on about it but I can’t help feeling that there’s more to it than just the hedge. They say he’s after widening Pipe and Nook Lane at the same time, and there must be a reason behind that. Why else should he give away a long strip of land like that?’
‘I reckon he’th got the counthil in hith pocket.’ This from Willie who was finding speaking increasingly difficult.
‘For what, though?’ Barry asked.
‘Houtheth?’
‘What? Oh!
Houses
.’ Barry laughed. ‘On Rector’s Meadow! He’d never get planning consent.’
Willie pretended to tap the side of his nose. ‘Oh, no? He’d get blood out of a thtone he would. Money talkth. I’m off home.’
‘Good night, Willie. Hope you feel better tomorrow. Sylvia, soon as I hear a whisper I’ll be in touch.’
‘Thanks.’
By eleven thirty not a single human being was about, Jimmy’s geese were sleeping, the occasional owl swept across the village over towards the motorway embankments searching for mice, not a light shone, the only disturbance being that caused by the wind ruffling the leaves of the old oak and the roses and honeysuckle growing around the
cottage doors. The moon came out from behind the clouds and briefly illuminated the village, making the white walls of the cottages appear almost fluorescent, but then flirtatiously it disappeared behind the clouds again. Still waiting behind Jimmy’s chicken house, and in the shelter of Misses Senior’s garden and over the wall in Tom and Evie’s were the policemen, and in the early hours silently and swiftly, just like the owls, they struck, captured their quarry and stole them away.
‘Good morning, Jimmy! How’s things at ’ome?’
‘Still call it home, do yer? Well, now, there’s a chap called Don going to take a fortnight off to do some decorating,’ said Jimmy. ‘You won’t know your house when you see it.’
‘I don’t want to see it.’ Vera turned away, then turned back to ask, ‘The kitchen? Is it good?’
‘Good! What a question. Barry’s done a wonderful job, lovely new cooker, smashing cupboards like something out of a magazine, I tell yer. And the bathroom! Well!’
‘He’s done the bathroom as well?’
‘Vera! You didn’t have what could rightly be called a
bathroom before, did yer? But you have now. Snow white from floor to ceiling. All gleaming and a shower an’ all. Yer should go see it.’
Vera shook her head. ‘Not likely.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘He’ll expect me to go back there and I won’t. First chance we’ve had to make real money renting out that cottage while we live ’ere, and I’m not going to give in. In any case I don’t know if I want him back.’
Jimmy saw his fare coming tottering out of the front door of the home and made ready to depart. Before he opened the taxi door he said, ‘
He
wants
you
back. I understand he’s putting all the furniture on the bonfire. Complete clean sweep he’s ’aving.’
‘What?’
Jimmy grinned at her, and having stowed the old gentleman safely in the front seat he swept out of the gates still grinning.
On her first afternoon off after this conversation with Jimmy she caught the lunchtime bus into Turnham Malpas to see for herself. Confident that Don would be at work she marched round Stocks Row and slotted her key in the lock. There was an old car parked outside and she thought, What a cheek, someone parking their car right outside our house. But at least it was clean and polished even if it was old. It’ll be one of the weekenders, just like ’em.
The cottage was quiet. She ignored the living room still stacked high with the stuff out of the kitchen, and went through into the back and stood there amazed. Their Rhett would have said gobsmacked and she was. The sunlight was coming in through the window and illuminating, that was the only word for it, illuminating the kitchen, the cupboards
a kind of pale oak colour, she knew there was a fashionable word for it but she couldn’t think of it at the moment, the knobs so elegant, and there under the shiny draining board a brand new washer. The cooker! Well! It was way beyond anything she had ever dreamed of.
Vera opened a drawer and let it slide smoothly closed, she did it again then tried a cupboard door, and then the new blind over the window and the one on the back door. A kitchen for the future and not half. Give her her due, Grandmama Charter-Plackett had made a good job of the kitchen, for nothing was more certain than that it hadn’t been Don alone who’d organised this.
Back in the living room she opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and began climbing. The tiny bathroom had been transformed. Somehow they’d fitted in a basin as well as a toilet and bath. The whole effect was of a glimmering, shimmering paradise. Her mind was in such turmoil at the changes Don had wrought that she didn’t become aware of the swish-swish of his decorating brush as he painted their bedroom walls until she’d completely studied every last inch of the bathroom. Standing in the bedroom doorway she gasped. Without looking at her at all he said, ‘This is all for you.’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘Saw you looking at my car.’
‘Your car?’
‘My car.’
‘Since when?’
‘Saturday. They brought it today.’
‘But where did you get the money from to buy a car? There won’t be a penny left.’
Vera had to clutch the door frame to keep herself upright. She was speechless.
‘Polished it up and that, put a new clutch in and that, had the seats restored and that’s what I got so I could well afford the car. Will you have a ride in
that
?’
‘I might be tempted. I like the kitchen. So where
did
you get the money from, Don?’
Don climbed down from the ladder and stood his emulsion brush on the lid of the clover pink paint he was putting on and sat down on the old bedroom chair. ‘Remember the old allotment me dad had in the war?’
‘That one you always talked about resurrecting after he died, but never did? What happened then? Did they strike oil?’
Don grinned at her joke. ‘No, not oil, but the allotment association got an offer from a builder wanting it for posh houses. Grand spot, looking out over Havers Lake. I used to fish there when he took me up to the allotment when I was a boy.’
‘So …’
Don paused to reflect on the happy times he’d had fishing by the lake. ‘So they had a vote and I never thought they’d all agree, thought there’d be someone who’d put a spanner in the works preferring to escape her indoors and ’ave a quiet smoke and a game of cards in their huts, but they did and we got paid out. Twelve and a half thousand pounds I got, and I’ve spent five of it on the kitchen and the bathroom.’
‘Well, I never. So Dad turned up trumps at last.’
Don answered, ‘Yes, he did.’
‘Thanks again for putting it in a joint account. I haven’t taken anything out.’
‘I know.’
‘It was nice to be trusted.’
‘That’s all right. Only fair.’
Vera inspected the painting. ‘Nice colour. It’ll look good.’
‘Hope so. Time for a cup of tea?’
She was tempted to have a go at making tea in that wonderful kitchen but feared she might take a liking to it. ‘No. Thanks. I’ll be going.’
‘OK.’
‘Jimmy says all the rubbish outside is going on the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night. Make a great blaze. I shall be glad to be there to see it all go up in smoke.’
‘And the furniture too.’ Don gazed innocently about the room, half a smile on his face. ‘It’ll let better unfurnished.’
Vera took umbrage. ‘I don’t know where you think you’re going to live.’
Don felt the ground giving way beneath his feet. ‘I had thought …’
‘You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?’
Very quietly Don said, ‘There’s not much more I can do to make amends, Vera. I’ve missed you that much.’
Vera felt a small sliver of interest. ‘You’d have to let that dye grow out. I liked yer better with iron grey hair not that funny black. Anyway we’ll see. Bye.’
Her heart fit to burst with delight, Vera made her way to the bus stop calling in at the Store first to get something nice
for her and Rhett for their tea. She mustn’t appear too eager, well, just a bit perhaps, because he had worked hard. The decision did appear to be hers, though. Rent for the cottage, she’d ask Jimbo.
Linda was on duty in her post office as usual. ‘Hello, Linda. Bet you were glad it wasn’t your house got trashed. Them Hipkin Garden houses all look the same – they might have made a mistake.’
‘You should have seen it! What a mess. Nothing damaged really, just everything thrown about. You don’t miss much though, do you, even though you live out in the wilds?’
Vera scoffed at Linda’s remark. ‘Can’t call Penny Fawcett out in the wilds, now, can you?’
‘No regular bus service, no church, no school, no shop. Come on, Vera!’
She had to laugh. ‘You’re right! It is. But I love it.’
Slyly Linda enquired if she’d be coming back to Turnham Malpas now Don had got the cottage to rights.
‘Mind your own business, Linda Crimble. You’re worse than Jimbo for gossip and that’s saying something. Is he in?’
‘Find out for yourself.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
Rhett and Vera had finished their evening meal and were washing up when there was a knock at the door.
‘Not another crisis! Go answer it, Rhett.’
She half listened to the conversation and suddenly recognised Don’s voice. It couldn’t be! Not Don. Vera caught a quick reflection of herself in the mirror by the kitchen door and wished she’d had lipstick on and her hair fresh combed. Too late now.
Rhett came back. ‘It’s Grandad. I couldn’t say he weren’t to come in, could I?’
‘Of course not. I’ll just finish tidying away and then I’ll be in. See if he wants a cup of tea or something.’
Back came Rhett. ‘He doesn’t. He’s sitting by the window gawping at the garden.’
Vera snapped at him, ‘Don’t make him sound as if he’s in his dotage, ’cos he isn’t.’
‘I know that. I only told you what he was doing.’
‘You off out tonight?’
‘Why?’
‘Are you?’
‘I could be.’
‘Well, buzz off then. Sharp.’
Rhett smirked at her. ‘I see, courting are you?’
She aimed a hasty swing at him with the wet tea-towel and he ducked and laughed. Vera did wonder how near the mark he might be with his joking.
‘Hello, Don. Nice surprise.’
In his hand Don had a bunch, no, a bouquet of flowers. Beautifully wrapped in Cellophane like Jimbo always did the special flowers. Carnations and lilies and roses. They’d cost a packet.
‘’Ere, these are for you.’
Tears brimmed in Vera’s eyes. He hadn’t given her flowers since their Brenda was born. ‘Thank you, very much. I’ll put them in water and arrange them properly later.’ Vera got out her plastic bucket, filled it with water and put them in it. Lovely they were. Lovely. Things had changed.
Back in the sitting room she said, ‘Would you like to look round?’
‘I would.’ So she took him round, showing him the bathroom and separate toilet, the lovely bedroom with the huge window looking out over the garden, the bright kitchen with its view of the drive, Rhett’s bedroom and the big airy storage cupboards and wardrobes she had.
‘We get a good view from up here. These rooms were part of the servants’ quarters and the nurseries, you see. Lucky, aren’t we, Rhett and me?’
Don looked at her properly for the first time. ‘It’s done you good coming ’ere.’
Vera almost blushed at his close scrutiny. ‘Yes, it has. I love it. It’s the furniture and that, and the lovely big rooms, elegant like, and that lovely kitchen. Should really be for the matron but she’s got four kids and it wouldn’t do.’
‘I fancy going to the pub –’
Quickly Vera interrupted him, ‘Not the Royal Oak.’
Don was disappointed because he wanted to show her off, but he agreed and suggested trying the Jug and Bottle.
‘Not the same standard but it’ll do. I’ll get changed. Put the telly on if yer want.’
What was she doing getting changed to go to the Jug and Bottle for a drink? Anything would do in there so long as yer weren’t stark naked. She wished she hadn’t thought that. It made her remember a time long ago … Fifteen she was. In the hay barn at Nightingales’ Farm after helping with the harvest … her and Don. It hadn’t been the clumsy fumbling of two virgin adolescents, for the gift of glorious passion had been theirs that night and their Brenda had been the result of all that tenderness and joy. Her father had
threatened to kill Don, till her mother pointed out that if he did Don couldn’t never make an honest woman of their Vera. Sixteen with a baby. How did she cope? Those were the days.
She’d stand out like a sore thumb she would in this outfit in that dump, but stand out she would. That was how she wanted to be tonight, standing out from the crowd. Don looked good too. That new sports suit and that tie! She wondered who’d persuaded him to buy that tie, or was it that the spark he’d had years ago was returning?
When they got back, Don didn’t go up to the flat again, he said goodnight to her at the front door. ‘Give us a kiss to be going on with.’
‘A kiss. Huh!’
‘Go on, Vera. You know yer dying for one.’
Indignantly Vera denied she was. ‘There’s a long way to go before I want a kiss from you. You’ve ignored me for years and now all of a sudden you want a kiss. Come off it.’
‘Don’t I even get full marks for trying?’
‘No. You’re not having your way with me as easy as that. I’m not saying I’m not impressed, but …’
‘Yes?’
‘Good night, Don.’
‘With my cottage done up I might find there’s more fish in the sea than you. A well-modernised cottage could be tempting for a woman.’
Furious at the prospect Vera said, between clenched teeth, ‘Well! Who is there who’d be tempted by you?’
Don smiled one of his rare smiles. ‘Dottie Foskett?’