(9/20) Tyler's Row (9 page)

Despite his meticulous work with pencil and paper in the preceding weeks, there were other things besides the blanket chest which Peter found to be too large or too wide for the places appointed. The kitchen door opened on to the cooker. The saucepan shelf proved to be just die right height for the handles to jut out into passers' eyes. The hall floor was so uneven that the grandfather clock leant drunkenly this way and that and they were obliged to put it into die drawing room, displacing a bookcase which eventually joined the blanket chest in the limbo of the garden shed.

But the final straw came when an underfelt was discovered in the van and proved to be the one which should have been put down under the main bedroom carpet, upon which all the heavy furniture was now in position.

The day had been punctuated by visits from Sergeant Burnaby, loving every minute, who offered cups of tea, coffee and general advice non-stop. At four o'clock, exhausted by his tribulations, Peter reeled next door and partook of a cup of well-stewed tea sweetened with condensed milk, which he drank standing, saying, truly, that if he sat down he felt he would never rise again.

At five o'clock the men departed, cheerful to the last, and Peter set off to fetch Diana and Tom.

'I feel about a hundred,' he thought as he drove through Beech Green, dodging a pheasant bent on suicide. 'Talk about preparing for retirement! I doubt if I'll live to see it at this rate.'

And then his spirits rose. They were actually at Tyler's Row! After all the vicissitudes, it was theirs at last! In a few minutes, he and Diana would be driving away from their old home for the last time.

He stepped on the accelerator and sped towards Caxley.

But he had reckoned without Tom. Diana greeted him in some agitation.

'I went to get Tom a few minutes ago, and I swear the door wasn't open wider than three inches! He shot out through the back door, and he must be about six gardens away. I've called till I'm hoarse. What shall we do?'

'Tell Kitty next door. He's bound to turn up tonight for his food, or for Charlie's. We'll come over last thing to collect him, or tomorrow morning.'

Diana departed, and Peter took a look at the empty house. He could understand Diana being upset about the move, he realised suddenly. Such a lot had happened here. Almost all their married life had been spent under this roof. The house had served them well. He hoped the newcomers would be as happy in it.

Diana returned much relieved.

'Kitty will look out for him. It's a pity we're not on the phone yet at Tyler's Row, but she says we're not to dream of turning out again tonight after such a day. She'll keep him in her house overnight.'

They drove slowly down the familiar gravel path.

'Trust Tom,' said Peter, smiling. 'I thought this would be our final exit, but what's the betting we are back and forth like yoyos fetching that dam' cat?'

'How's the house?' said Diana.

'A shambles,' replied her husband happily, 'but I've found the drink and the glasses to celebrate getting in at last. We've made it, my dear!'

Later, when the celebratory drinks were over, Diana became unusually business-like.

'Now, the first thing to do is to hang the curtains. Then we must make up the beds and put in hot bottles.'

'What, in this weather?'

'The sheets have been packed in a suitcase for the last two days. They may be damp.'

'Which suitcase?'

'The red one,' said Diana briskly. 'I put everything we should need for the beds in it. Including the bottles.'

'Well, where is it?'

Diana's confidence wavered.

'Here, somewhere. Upstairs, I should think.'

There was no sign of it upstairs. Downstairs, a pile of boxes, holdalls, cases and bundles yielded no red suitcase. Diana, by now, was reduced to her more normal state of vagueness.

'Did you see it go into the van?'

'No. We brought it over ourselves one day this week.'

'Are you sure?'

'I'm not sure of anything now,' cried Diana hopelessly. 'I swear I'll never move again. It's all too exhausting.'

'Have another drink,' said Peter, watching his wife sink on to the settee between a pile of curtains and a mound of
The National Geographical Magazine.

'No, I'm tiddly enough as it is.'

She pushed her fingers through her hair distractedly.

'I
know
it's here,' she said firmly. 'Think, Peter. You must have seen it during the day.'

She fixed him with a glittering stare.

'You frighten the life out of me,' said her husband, 'looking like the Ancient Mariner.'

He stared back, then put down his glass and left the room. In a moment, he returned carrying the case.

'Under the stairs,' he said triumphantly. 'Come to think of it, I put it there myself. I thought it had dusters and brushes and things in it.'

He looked at it more closely.

'But you said "a red case". This is brown.'

'It's maroon or burgundy,' said Diana, snapping it open with relief. 'That means red.'

'The only red I recognise is the colour of a pillar box,' said Peter, following his wife with an armful of bed-linen.

By the time the beds were made and the curtains hung in their bedroom and the sitting room they were too tired to do much more.

'I should like a mixed grill,' said Peter. 'A large one—with plenty of kidney.'

'Well, you won't get it, my love,' replied Diana cheerfully. 'I propose to give you a tin of soup prepared by Messrs Crosse and Blackwell's fair hands. That is, if we can find the tin opener. And we might rise to bread and cheese after that. And if you really want high life, you can top up with a banana, rather squashed.'

'It sounds delightful,' said Peter resignedly. 'Do we get breakfast?'

'With luck,' said Diana. 'We'll have to be up early, by the way, to let in the workmen.'

'Well, let's have this rave-up of a meal now,' suggested Peter. 'I'll go out and lock up the shed, and see everything's to rights.'

Outside, a full moon was rising, glowing orange through the light mist that veiled the downs. The air was as fresh as spring water, and the scent of narcissi came from Mrs Fowler's trim garden next door.

Peter breathed in deeply, savouring the beauty of the night, and relishing the thought of happy years to be spent in Fairacre. He turned to look at Tyler's Row.

Through the curtainless kitchen window he could see Diana at the stove. He hoped she would be as happy as he was about the house. She had been so content in Caxley. It would be terrible if she found Fairacre lonely or uncongenial. He must make sure that she settled here easily. It was a good thing, he told himself, that term did not begin for another week or so. They could get the place straight together, and ease the change-over.

Dimmer lights than their own kitchen one shone from the two cottages at each end. A greenish one at Mrs Fowler's suggested that she was watching television. Sergeant Burnaby's glowed as orange as the moon, behind his buff curtains.

'If only all four were empty!' thought Peter. 'If only we could start stage two!'

If, if...

His grandmother used to have some tart remark about 'ifs and buts getting you nowhere', he remembered. Maybe she was right. It was enough, for the moment, to be in Tyler's Row, to sleep under its thatch and to have his first meal-austere though that promised to be—in its kitchen.

With a last look at the exterior of his domain, Peter turned to go indoors.

8. An Exhausting Evening

'THEY'RE in then,' said Mr Willet as I crossed the playground to go into school. He was perched on a stepladder tying back the American pillar rose which scrambles over the side of the school, clashing hideously with the brickwork, but delighting us all with its bountiful growth.

'Who are?'

'Them new people. Hales. Schoolmaster up Caxley. Took Tyler's Row.'

Mr Willet's staccato delivery was caused more by rhythmic lunges at a high shoot than by impatience with my stupidity.

'Oh yes! I forgot they were moving in. Yesterday, wasn't it?'

'And a nice day they had for it too,' said Mr Willet, coming down the ladder. 'Very lucky, they was. Not all plain sailing though, from what I hear. Them removable men was a bit slap-handed, and they found the underfelt after they'd put everything in the bedroom.'

'Good lord!'

'You might well say say so. Then their blessed cat run off in Caxley and they're having to fetch it today.'

I began to wonder how Mr Willet knew all this. As if he guessed my thoughts, he spoke deprecatingly.

'Not that I know much about it, of course. I'm not one to meddle in other folk's affairs, but you can't help over-hearing things in a village.'

'So I've noticed,' I said, one hand on the school's door-handle.

Mr Willet pointed roofwards.

'Couple of sparrows making a nest up the end there. I suppose I dursen't pull it out?'

'No indeed,' I said firmly. 'I like sparrows.'

'Not many does,' commented Mr Willet.

'I know. I can't think why. I once knew a kind, goodhearted man, very much respected everywhere, who used to catch sparrows and pull off their heads. Quite unlike him really.'

'Very sensible he sounds,' said Mr Willet approvingly. 'They're pestses, is sparrows. Worse'n rats, I reckon.'

'That's as maybe,' I replied, using one of Mrs Pringle's favourite phrases, 'but you can leave that nest alone.'

My caretaker beamed indulgently, and I left the bright sunshine to enter Fairacre School, knowing that the sparrows would be spared.

Later that morning, I decided it was too splendidly sunny to stay indoors, and bade the children dress and accompany me on a saunter round the village. The invitation was received with rapture.

These occasional sorties are officially known as 'nature walks', and to make these outings seem more legitimate we collect such things as twigs, flowers, mosses, feathers, snail-shells and other natural objects to take back to the classroom for study. Naturally, other objects, far more attractive to the children have to be discarded.

Cigarette cartons, bottle tops, nuts and bolts, crisp bags, lengths of wire, tubing, binder twine, broken plastic cups, pieces of glass from smashed windscreens and rear-lights and a hundred other manifestations of civilisation are collected, only to be thrown into the school dustbin, amidst general regret.

This morning the April sunshine was really warm, a preview, as it were, of summer days to come. Enormous clouds towered into the blue sky above the downs, moving slowly and majestically in the light breeze. A bevy of larks mounted invisible stairs to heaven, letting fall a cascade of song as they climbed. Cats and dogs sunned themselves on cottage doorsteps, and here and there a budgerigar had been hung outside in its cage to enjoy the early warmth and fresh air.

A red tractor, bright as a ladybird, crawled slowly up and down Mr Roberts' large field behind the school, and the children waved energetically to the driver.

'My dad,' said Patrick proudly.

'My uncle,' said Ernest, at the same moment. They were both right. And that, I thought, sniffing at an early white violet, is the best of a village school. It remains, even now, a family affair.

We took the rough lane that leads uphill to the bare downs. For the first hundred yards or so, a few trees and bushes line the path. The thorny sloes were already pricked with white blossom, and the black ash buds were beginning to break into leaf along the pewter-grey stems.

Joseph Coggs knelt suddenly down in a patch of dry grass by the side of the lane.

'Got a nail in me shoe,' he explained.

'Us all've,' retorted Patrick, convulsed by his own wit. Eileen gave a sudden shriek.

'There's a snake, miss! Look, by Jo!'

Sure enough, the last few inches of a small grass snake could be seen slithering for cover among the bushes. Obviously, it had been sunning itself in the grass and was disturbed by Joseph.

'Kill 'un!' shouted some of the boys, advancing with sticks upraised.

'No, it's cruel!' shrieked the girls.

'Leave it alone,' I said firmly. 'It doesn't do any harm. In fact, it does quite a lot of good.'

'That's right,' agreed Ernest, siding with me. 'Grass snakes eats beetles, and frogs, and tadpoles, and earwigs, and worms, and spiders, and slugs, and maggots, and snails and...'

He paused for breath.

'Brembutter?' asked someone sarcastically. 'Old knowall!'

This shaft of wit caused more general hilarity. The boys smote each other with juvenile joy. The girls tittered behind their hands, and the snake made good his escape in the general furore.

'See who can get to the top first,' I said suddenly, and watched them stampede uphill, screaming with excitement. I followed at a more sedate pace, relishing my temporary solitude and mentally congratulating the sparrows and the grass snake on their escape from their male predators.

The children's spirits were still high when we returned to the school room, but mine had suddenly plummeted. This very evening the first meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association of Fairacre School was to be held.

My struggles against the formation of this association had been prolonged but necessarily half-hearted. If popular demand clamoured for such a thing, then a headmistress must bend, particularly if she wished to live in amity with her neighbours.

It had been decided by half the committee to make the first meeting a purely social occasion, but the other half had felt that something more earnest and meaty should mark the event. Mrs Johnson and Mrs Mawne were both of this faction.

'I happen to know the president of the Caxley P.T.A. group,' Mrs Johnson said, with some pride. 'I'm sure I could persuade her to come and give a talk about the aims of the movement.'

After some discussion, a compromise was arranged. Mrs Jollifant would be invited to give a
short
talk, 'a
really brief
talk,' emphasised the vicar, our chairman, 'say, of about fifteen to twenty minutes in length.' This, we all felt, need not take too much time from the main activities of the evening, which would be eating, drinking, listening to a duet played on the school piano by Ernest's mother and aunt, 'Three Little Maids from School' sung by three of the younger mothers, and looking at slides of Mrs Mawne's holiday in Venice, that is if we could find the right plug for the projector. Mrs Johnson had offered to prepare a quiz ('Make it
simple',
begged the vicar), and would supply pencils and paper for this excitement.