Village Affairs (14 page)

She was rocking herself back and forth, occasionally throwing her skirt over her mop-head of red hair, and displaying deplorable underwear including a pair of tights more ladders than fabric.

I was reminded suddenly of those Irish plays where the stage is almost too murky to see what is happening, the only light being focused dimly on a coffin with four candles, one at each corner, and a gaggle of keening women, while a harp is being plucked, in lugubrious harmony, by some unseen hand.

'What on earth's the matter, Minnie? Don't cry about a broken bottle. We can clear that up.'

'It ain't the
bottle
!' wailed Minnie, pitching herself forward with renewed energy.

'What is it then?'

She flung herself backward, hitting her head on the fourth stair up. I hoped it might knock some sense into her.

'Ah-ah-ah-ah!' yelled Minnie, and flung her skirt over her head once more.

I took hold of her skinny shoulders and shook her. The screaming stopped abruptly, and the skirt was thrown back over the dreadful tights.

'Now stop all this hanky-panky,' I said severely, 'and tell me what's wrong.'

Snivelling, Minnie took up the hem of her skirt once more, but this time applied it to her weeping eyes and wet nose. I averted my gaze hastily.

'Come on, Minnie,' I said, more gently. 'Come and have a cup of tea with me. You'll feel better.'

She sniffed, and shook her head.

'Gotter clear up this bottle as broke,' she said dimly.

'Well, let's find the dustpan and you do that while I make the tea.'

She accompanied me to the kitchen, still weeping, but in a less hysterical fashion. I found the dustpan—for some reason, best known to Minnie, among the saucepans—and handed it over with a generous length of paper towel to mop up her streaming face. I then propelled her into the hall, and returned to prepare the tea tray.

'At this rate,' I muttered to myself, 'I shall need brandy rather than tea.'

Five minutes later, sitting at the kitchen table, the tale unfolded in spasmodic fashion.

'It's Era,' said Minnie. 'He's comin' back.'

Ern, I knew, was the husband who had so recently deserted her.

'And you don't want him?'

'Would you?'

'No!' I said, without hesitation. 'But can't you tell him so?'

'What, Ern? He'll hit me if I says that.'

'Well, get the police.'

'He'll hit me worse if I tells them.'

I changed my tactics.

'Are you sure he's going to come back?'

'He wrote to Auntie—she can read, you see—and said his place was at my side.'

'What a nerve!' I exclaimed. 'It hasn't been for the last few months has it?'

'Well, it's different now. That Mrs Fowler don't want 'im. She's turned 'im out.'

So Amy was right after all, I thought.

'And when's he supposed to be coming?'

Minnie let out another ear-splitting yell, and I feared that we were in for another period of hysteria.

'Tonight, 'e says. And I'm too afeared to go home. And what will Bert say?'

'Bert?' I echoed, in perplexity.

'My boy friend what works up Springbourne Manor.' Minnie looked coy.

I remembered the rumour about the under-gardener who had been consoling Minnie in her loneliness.

'What about Bert?'

'He'll hit him too,' said Minnie.

'Your husband will?'

'Yes. Bound to. And Bert'll 'it 'im back, and there'll be a proper set-to.'

Minnie's fears seemed to be mingled with a certain pleasurable anticipation at the prospect, it seemed to me.

'Well, you'd better let Bert know what's happening,' I said, 'and he can keep away. That is, if Ern comes at all. Perhaps he's only making threats.'

Minnie's eyes began to fill again.

'He'll come all right. He ain't got nowhere to sleep, see. And I dursn't face him. He'll knock me about terrible, and the kids. What am I to do?'

'You say Mrs Pringle had the letter?'

'Yes. She read it out to me.'

'She'll be over at the school now,' I said, putting down my cup. 'I'll go and see her while you have some more tea.'

I left her, still sniffing, and sought out her aunt, who was balanced on a desk top dusting the partition between the two classrooms.

'My, what a start you gave me!' she gasped, one hand on her heart.

'Can you come down for a minute?' I said, holding out my hand for support. 'It's about Minnie.'

Mrs Pringle, twisting my hand painfully, descended in a crab-wise fashion, and sat herself on the front desk. I faced her, propped on my table.

'She's in tears about that husband of hers, and seems afraid to go home.'

'I knows that. She's been no better than she should be while he's been away. He's promised her a thundering good 'iding.'

'But he's threatening her just because he wants somewhere to sleep. It all seems most unfair to me. After all, he left her.'

'Maybe. But his place is in his own home, with Minnie.'

'But, he's intimidating her!'

'Natural, ain't it? How else did she get her last baby?'

I felt unequal to explaining the intricacies of the English language to Mrs Pringle, and let it pass.

'The point is, Mrs Pringle, that it really wouldn't be safe to let her go home if he intends to come and knock her about. Should we tell the police?'

Mrs Pringle bridled.

'What, and let the neighbours have a free show? Not likely.'

'But the children—'

Mrs Pringle's face became crimson with wrath. She thrust her head forward until our noses were almost touching.

'Are you trying to tell me what to do with Minnie's children? I'll tell you straight, I'm not having that tribe settling on me with all I've got to do. I'm sick and tired of Minnie and her lot, and the sooner she pushes off and faces up to the trouble she's made the better.'

'So you won't help?'

'I've done nothing but help that silly girl, and I'm wore out with it.'

'I can understand that, and I think you've been remarkably patient. But now what's to be done? I really think the police should be warned that there might be trouble.'

Mrs Pringle's breathing became heavy and menacing.

'You just try it! You dare! I've been thinking about the best way to tackle this ever since I got that Ern's letter. He can talk—going off with that old trollop who's old enough to be his mother!'

I began to feel dizzy. Whose side was Mrs Pringle on?

'What I'm going to do,' said my cleaner, 'is to go back with Minnie and the kids tonight, and to sleep the night at her place, with the rolling pin on one side of me and the poker on the other. I'll soon settle that Ern's hash if he dares put a foot inside the place. We don't need no police, Miss Read, that I can tell you!'

'Splendid!' I cried. 'Can I go and tell Minnie?'

'Yes. And I'll be ready to set off in half an hour sharp, tell her, just as soon as I've got the cobwebs off of this partition.'

She heaved herself up on to the desk again, duster in hand, and I returned home, thinking what a wonderfully militant band we were in Fairacre, from the Vicar to Mrs Pringle.

THE extra-ordinary managers' meeting was called during the last week of term, and great difficulty the Vicar had encountered before gathering them all together.

The long hot spell had advanced harvest, and Mr Roberts was already in that annual fever which afflicts farmers at this time of year, when the Vicar rang. However, he nobly put aside his panic and agreed to spend an hour away from his combine harvester, as the matter seemed urgent.

Mrs Lamb was supposed to be at a flower arranging meeting at Caxley where someone, of whom Mrs Lamb spoke with awe in her voice, was going to show her respectful audience how to make Large Displays for Public Places from no more than five bought flowers and the bounty culled from the hedgerows. Mrs Lamb, whose purse was limited but who enjoyed constructing enormous decorations of bullrushes, reeds, branches, honesty and even beetroot and rhubarb leaves, was looking forward to learning more, but gave up the pleasure to do her duty.

Mrs Mawne had a bridge party arranged at her house, but was obliged to do a great deal of telephoning to get it transferred to another player's. As all the ladies vied with each other in preparing exotic snippets of food to have with their tea, this meant even further domestic complications. However, it was done.

Mrs Moffat was busy putting the final touches to a magnificent ball dress which was destined to go to a Masonic Ladies' Night, but set aside her needle to be present, while Peter Hale, recently retired from the local grammar-now comprehensive—school, cursed roundly at ever being fool enough to agree to being a manager when the grass wanted cutting so urgently.

Resigned to their lot, therefore, they assembled in the Vicar's dining-room one blazing afternoon and accepted a cup of tea from Mrs Partridge before she departed to her deck-chair under the cedar tree, there to read, or rather to skip through, the final chapters of a very nasty book, strongly recommended by the book critics of the Sunday papers, and dealing with the incestuous relations of a sadistic father and his equally repulsive teenage daughter. The fact, much advertised by the publishers, that it had already sold thirty thousand copies and was now reprinting, gave Mrs Partridge more cause for regret than rejoicing, but she was determined to turn over the pages until the end, so that she could give her trenchant comments on the work, and truthfully say she 'had been through it,' in more ways than one.

No one appeared from the office on this occasion, but I was invited, and enjoyed my cup of tea, and the comments of the managers.

'We've got to be firm about this,' said Mr Roberts. 'Say "No" from the outset. I mean, what's village life coming to?'

'How do you mean?' asked Mrs Moffat.

'Well, we used to have a village bobby. Remember Trumper, padre?'

The Vicar said he did, and what a splendid fellow he was.

'Exactly. Used to hear old Trumper puffing round the
village every night about two o'clock making sure everything was in order.'

'So sensible,' agreed Mrs Mawne. 'We need more police. That's half the trouble these days.'

'And what's more,' went on Mr Roberts, 'he gave any young scallywag a good clip round the ear-'ole, on the spot, and stopped a peck of wrong-doing. What happens now? Some ruddy Juvenile Court six months later when the kid's forgotten all about it.'

The Vicar coughed politely.

'Quite. We take your point, but it is the school closure we are considering.'

'It's the same pinciple,' said Peter Hale, coming to Mr Roberts' support. 'You need direct contact—that's the unique quality of village life. If we lose the village bobby it's a link broken. Far worse to lose our village school.'

'Too little spread too thin,' said Mrs Lamb. 'Same as having to share you, Mr Partridge, with Beech Green and Springbourne. Why, I remember the time, before your day, of course, when the Vicar was just for Fairacre, and you could reckon to see him any time you wanted, if you were in trouble. He'd be in his study or the garden, or in the church or visiting in the parish. Now he can be anywhere.'

The Vicar nodded and looked unhappy.

'Not that it can be altered,' added Mrs Lamb hastily, 'and a marvellous job you do, but nevertheless, it's not the same.'

'I suppose there's no hope of this school staying open for infants only?' asked Mrs Mawne. 'The biggest objection is hauling the babies to Beech Green, I think.'

'It's too small as it is,' I said. 'Even if the Beech Green
infants were brought here, both schools would still be too small according to the authority.'

The arguments went on. I was touched to see how concerned they all were, not only for the children's sake and mine, but for the destruction of a tradition which went back for over a hundred years.

'If we give in,' said Mr Roberts, 'we're betraying the village, as I see it. Our Fairacre children get a jolly sound grounding. You've only got to look at the percentage we used to get through the eleven-plus exam to go on to the grammar school, before it turned into this blighted whatever it's called. I propose we send a reply to the office saying we're firmly against the idea of closure.'

This proposal was carried unanimously, and the Vicar promised to write the letter that evening.

The clock stood at four-thirty. Mr Roberts rushed back to his combine, Mrs Moffat to her ball gown, Mrs Lamb to the telephone to hear all about the flower-arranging from a friend, Mrs Mawne to studying the bridge column in last Sunday's paper in lieu of her game, and Peter Hale to his lawn mower.

I stood in the vicarage garden and looked across at our modest weatherbeaten school across the way.

'Never fear,' said the Vicar, clapping me on the shoulder. 'It will be there for another hundred years, believe me.'

'I hope so,' I said soberly.

Amy called unexpectedly that evening while my head was still humming with the memory of the managers' meeting.

I told her a little about it. To my surprise, she seemed to
think that Fairacre School was doomed to close, and that it would be a good thing.

'Well, I'm blowed!' I exclaimed. 'A fine friend you are! I suppose you want to see me queuing up for my dole before long?'

'Well, no,' replied Amy, with what I thought quite unnecessary hesitation. 'Not exactly, but I do think this place is an anachronism.'

'How can it be if it serves a useful purpose in the village?'

'I sometimes wonder if it does. Oh, I know all about fathers and grandfathers doing their pot-hooks and hangers under these very windows, but it's time things changed.'

'My children don't do pot-hooks and hangers.'

'Don't snap, dear. What I'm trying to point out is that things have altered considerably. For one thing, those grandfathers came to Fairacre School when it boasted a hundred children or more, as the log books show. It was a real
school-sized
school then, and enough boys present to play a decent game of football or cricket among themselves if they wanted to.'

'Team games aren't everything.'