The Village Green Affair (21 page)

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Authors: Rebecca Shaw

BOOK: The Village Green Affair
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‘Gentlemen!’ His voice was soft and controlled. ‘Would you be so kind as to leave the village?’
 
A roar of amusement went up. But then something of his quietness got through. He had their attention.
 
‘We’re not accustomed to this turmoil,’ Titus went on, and we’d be grateful if you could leave and allow us to clear up. In fact, you could help to clear up, couldn’t you?’
 
They found that idea even more amusing.
 
‘You’re not children or even teenagers,’ Titus continued calmly. ‘Come on, chaps, do us a favour and go if you don’t feel inclined to help. The police will be here soon. You don’t want to get arrested, now do you?’ He cocked his ear as though he heard them coming.
 
First one got to his feet and then another, and eventually all of them mounted their bikes, revved up and, making rude gestures and shouting even ruder remarks to him, they turned into Stocks Row and then left down the Culworth Road.
 
But they soon wished they’d gone the long way round down Royal Oak Road, for, just round the first big bend, they came upon two police cars parked across the road. Before they could turn round and escape, another appeared out of a side turning and blocked their retreat. They were rapidly arrested, each and every one. Three of them were known to the police - they were the raggle-taggle of a group of bikers living in and around Culworth on travellers’ sites - and the other two were from outside the area but whose acquaintance the police were glad to make.
 
Back in the village Titus was the hero of the hour. He tried to shake off his new status but couldn’t. Georgie and Dicky were so grateful, and restored peace by giving everyone free wine with their meals in the dining room or a free drink in the bar. The stallholders’ nerves were calmed by Titus’s offer of half-price rent for their stalls next week. It wouldn’t do his finances much good but it would perhaps ensure they’d all be there next Thursday.
 
 
It took much longer than usual to clear up from the market, and it was quarter past two before Titus sank gratefully into a chair in Liz’s kitchen and began his lunch.
 
They ate in companionable silence until they were halfway through, when Titus asked, ‘Was everything OK when you got back on Tuesday night?’
 
‘He guessed.’
 
‘Ah!’
 
‘We had a terrible time, and Neville slept in the guest room.’
 
‘It’s time he and I had a talk.’
 
Liz almost leaped from her chair. ‘No! No! It isn’t, not yet. I need time.’
 
‘For what, Liz?’
 
‘What do you mean?’
 
‘We both know our getting together is inevitable. It’s written in the stars that the two of us should be together. You know that. I know that. So why can’t I speak to him? I’m not going to attack him nor am I ...’ He stopped, listened carefully, then put his finger to his lips and sat quite still.
 
Liz frowned at him. She drew a large question mark with her finger. Titus put his forefinger to his lips again. Then he pointed to the ceiling.
 
Liz listened, and then heard a floorboard creak above her head. Oh! God. Who was it? She hadn’t heard anything when she’d first come in. She was tempted to go to the foot of the stairs and call up, but Titus shook his head. Liz knew, just knew, it was Neville. The stealthy steps were all him. One stair creaked as he came down, just one, but it was enough. Titus gripped her hand. They both sat there completely still, waiting.
 
Chapter 11
 
Then they heard more footsteps crossing the parquet flooring in the hall, and suddenly there was Neville, standing in the kitchen doorway.
 
Titus turned his head and asked quietly, without any sign of surprise, ‘Have you had lunch, Neville?’
 
‘No.’
 
‘Do come and join us, there’s plenty here. Where do you keep the plates, Liz?’
 
He knew but felt it wouldn’t be right for Neville to imagine he, Titus, the stealer of wives, was familiar with Neville’s own house.
 
Neville stood quite still looking at Liz. She got up and found a plate, cutlery, cup and saucer, a napkin, too, then laid them out and sat down again. It wasn’t real, she knew it wasn’t real. This wasn’t actually happening, of course it wasn’t. She hadn’t instantly fallen in love with the most attractive man in the world, of course she hadn’t. She was married to Neville.
 
Titus pushed the basket of rolls towards Neville, and the cold salmon, the dressing, the salad and the tureen of new potatoes. ‘A feast fit for a king, isn’t it?’ he said.
 
Neville’s hands were stiff, paralysed almost, and his actions clumsy, but he did take good portions of each, though he didn’t begin to eat.
 
The whole situation was more than Liz could cope with. Here they were sitting together in Neville’s kitchen eating food Neville had paid for, with Neville creeping about his own house making sure she and Titus weren’t in bed together before eventually confronting them downstairs. Not a word was spoken between husband and wife. Only Titus, the hopeful lover, was able to find his tongue.
 
Titus laid down his knife and fork and began to speak. The kitchen was big, and its tiled walls and floor didn’t cushion his voice at all. It sounded harsh, so unlike his normal voice. ‘Do you normally come home for lunch?’
 
Neville’s body jerked at his question because it put him on the spot. He didn’t answer.
 
‘Were you spying on Liz and me?’
 
‘No, not really.’
 
In a voice as soft and gentle as he could make it, Titus suggested, ‘I think so.’
 
‘No, I came back for some papers from my study.’
 
‘You were upstairs, and your study is downstairs.’
 
‘I did
not
come home to spy on you.’ Neville clenched his fist and banged it on the table.
 
‘No good searching for us upstairs. I am a man of honour. I would not dream of sleeping with another man’s wife in his own house. That would not be honourable. Believe me.’
 
‘But you
can
meet my wife in secret. Make her deceive me by saying she’s going to an evening class. You can bring her flowers
again
- I’ve seen them on the hall table just out there - bring them into my house . . .’
 
‘
Our
house, Neville.’ As soon as she said it Liz knew it was a petty remark, but it annoyed her so when he called it his house, as she’d put in all the money for the deposit, and more, given to them by her father. This was how a parting of the ways became vicious, and she regretted what she’d said.
 
Neville took a deep breath. ‘Have lunch with my wife in
my
house,
twice
, take my wife out for dinner, make my wife lie to me. Is that honourable? Mmm?’
 
‘In our defence, all I can say is we met, and knew instantly, without any doubt, that we should have met twenty and more years ago. But we didn’t. We’ve met now, and we can’t help ourselves. We’ve quite simply fallen in love, it’s as though we’ve been in love twenty five years but we’ve only just met, and there seems to be nothing we can do about it.’
 
Neville appeared carved of stone. Titus poured him coffee and pushed the cream and the sugar his way. For an instant, Liz felt sorry for him. He couldn’t and never had been able to cope with emotions at this level. He’d no vocabulary for it.
 
‘What do you propose I do about it?’ Neville said eventually. ‘Give you my blessing, shake your hand and watch you walk away with
my wife
?’
 
‘To be honest, yes. Eventually.’
 
‘Would you like me to play the guilty party in the divorce to make life even easier for you?’ There was a snarl in Neville’s voice as he said this, and it cut Liz to the quick. She broke down in tears.
 
Titus immediately went to hug her and share his handkerchief with her.
 
Neville almost burst with rage. He leaped to his feet and threatened to punch Titus. The fury within him was more than he could bear. But he knew the situation was beyond him to control, and finally he raised his hands and crumpled back down onto his chair, broken by this situation he’d engineered. Liz and Titus could just about catch what he said. ‘You . . . ask . . . too much . . . of . . . me. I want my wife.’
 
‘
Do
you?’ The question was loaded with meaning plus a hint of mockery. Titus left a pause then continued, ‘Or simply a house-keeper? Or a decorative, socially adept person to take with you to parties?’
 
Liz looked at him as he sat back in his chair, and thought: He will be so lovely to come home to. So lovely. But should he have said that?
 
Startled, Neville realized that Titus knew too much about his private life. He
knew
they weren’t making love any more. He
knew
. As if that overrated past-time mattered, well, apparently it did. He felt the explosion in his brain must be visible to the other two. He stood up again and his chair crashed backwards onto the shiny tiles, his heart bursting with pain. She’d told him. Who else had she told?
 
Liz was appalled by the unaccustomed emotion in Neville’s eyes as he looked at her, his eyes clouded by despair.
 
He strode out of the house without a backward glance. He’d parked his car behind the Rectory in Pipe and Nook Lane, so he walked all the way past Sir Ralph’s and round the corner into the Lane with his legs in severe cramp, his heart thumping, his gait stilted and awkward. The humiliation he bore was too much. Finally he bent his body sufficiently to get into his car, put the key in the ignition . . . and couldn’t turn it. Tears, which in his adult life had never done more than trickle down his cheeks once or twice - the last time only two days ago - now ran in floods down his face, as his shoulders shook and his legs trembled.
 
The sun, shining in through the car windows, went unnoticed. The birds, chirruping around the hedgerows and busy about their nesting activities, were ignored. He sat there, howling, heeding nothing until he heard the back door of the Rectory open and Peter come striding down the garden path. Not him! Not him! Not that great lover of a husband. The car engine finally fired just as Peter tapped on the side window. Neville drove off, narrowly missing running over Peter’s feet.
 
 
All the talk that night at the weekly Anti-Market Action Committee in the Royal Oak was about the horror of the motorbike invasion.
 
Their small group had swollen in size, as many more people saw the wisdom of stopping the market.
 
‘It was terrible. Absolutely frightening. I’ve never seen anything like it. We don’t want that happening in Turnham Malpas no more. Police got ’em, though, thank goodness.’ Sheila Bissett looked grimly round the circle waiting for a response.
 
‘Well, I agree, but if in them ancient papers it says a market can be held, how can we stop him?’ This from Sylvia, who was torn between the market being stopped and, on the other hand, wanting to wander round and have a look at everything, because those who’d been had told her how good it was. Loyalty to Jimbo had stopped her going.
 
Greta Jones had to say something. ‘Seeing as my employer has decided to break ranks and have a stall—’
 
Sylvia’s eyes almost popped out of her head. ‘Did I hear you aright?’
 
Vera, having been a participant in the event, piped up, ‘You did. That’s why Mrs Charter-Plackett ain’t here; she hit him and almost split his head open.’
 
‘Split his head open?’ Curiosity got the better of her. ‘What was he selling, Vera?’
 
‘Gateaux like he sells in the Store. I know ’cos I had to put his boater and apron on when he went back to the Store for ten minutes to get a plaster for his head.’
 
Uproar ensued at the image this created in everyone’s minds. A further round of drinks was called for. Decisions needed to be taken!
 
‘I reckon,’ said Willie, ‘that we need to make a protest. Why don’t we barricade the Culworth Road at six o’clock to stop the vans? Then there’s no point, is there? No one in a month of Sundays will manage to go the other way down Royal Oak Road. You can barely get bikes down it, never mind vans and lorries. Same goes for Church Lane and Shepherds Hill. Too narrow and twisting. They’d never make it that way, and it’s too far round anyway. This is serious. No burglaries this time, but there might be more bikers racing round once word gets about. We need a discussion with the police about more officers being on duty on Thursdays.’

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