(11/20) Farther Afield Page 12

  'Quite, quite,' I said briskly, thanking my stars for the postponement. It seemed a good opportunity to ask when she might be back in Fairacre.

  'They don't tell you nothing here,' she grumbled. 'But I heard one of the nurses say something about next week, if all goes well. It don't look as though I'll be fit for school work for a bit. I've been thinking about it, and you know our Minnie's expecting again?'

  I said I had heard.

  'How she does it, I don't know,' sighed Mrs Pringle. I assumed that this was a rhetorical question, and forbore to respond.

  'To tell you the truth, Miss Read, I've lost count now, what with his first family, and hers out of wedlock, and then these others. Then of course his eldest two are married and having families of their own. When I visit there – which isn't often I'm glad to say – there are babies all over the place, and I'm hard put to it to say whose are whose. Sometimes I wonder if Minnie knows herself.'

  'No other ideas, I suppose?'

  'There's Pringle's young brother, if you're really driven to it. He's quite handy at housework, but of course he'd have to come out from Caxley on the bus, and he's a bit simple. Nothing violent, I don't mean, but you'd have to watch your handbag and the dinner money.'

  'It would be better to get someone in the village,' I said hastily, 'if we can find one.'

  'There's no one,' said Mrs Pringle flatly, 'and we both knows it. How many wants housework these days? And specially school cleaning! Thankless job, that is, everlasting cleaning up after dozens of muddy boots. I sometimes think I must be soft in the head to keep the job on.'

  Mrs Pringle's face was assuming its usual look of disgruntled self-pity, and I felt it was time to go.

  'You're a marvel,' I told her, 'and keep the school beautifully. You deserve a good rest. We'll find someone, you'll see, and if the worst comes to the worst we shall have to do as the vicar suggested.'

  'What's that?' asked Mrs Pringle suspiciously, on guard at once.

  'Do it ourselves.'

  'God help us!' cried Mrs Pringle, rolling her eyes heavenwards.

  I made my farewells rapidly, before she had a total relapse.

  Mr Willet turned up in the evening to cut the grass.

  'I meant to have it all ship-shape for you when you got back,' he apologised, 'but what with the rain, and choir practice, and giving the Hales a hand with their outside painting when the rain let up – well, I never got round to it.'

  I assured him that all was forgiven.

  'That chap Hale,' he went on, 'got degrees and that, and a real nice bloke for a schoolmaster, but to see him with a paint brush is enough to make your hair curl! Paint all down the handle, paint all down his arm, drippin' off of his elbow – I tell you, he gets more on hisself than the woodwork! You could do out the Village Hall with what he wastes.'

  He paused for breath.

  'And how's the old girl?' he enquired, when he had recovered it. 'Still laughing fit to split?'

  I said she seemed pretty bobbish, and told him about the dearth of supplementary school cleaners.

  Mr Willet grew thoughtful.

  'One thing, she did the place all through before she was took bad. I reckons we can keep it up together till she's fit again. After all, we shouldn't need to light them ruddy stoves she sets such store by. They're the main trouble. Won't hurt some of the bigger kids to lend a hand.'

  'That's what the vicar said.'

  'Ah!' nodded Mr Willet, setting off to fetch the lawn mower, 'and he said right too! Our Mr Partridge ain't such a fool as he looks.'

  A minute later he wheeled out the mower. Above the clatter I heard him in full voice.

  He was singing:

  God moves in a mysterious way,

  His wonders to perform.

  15 Term Begins

  AS always, the last week of the school holidays flew by with disconcerting speed. I had time to put the garden to rights, and to do a little shopping, but a great many other things, mainly school affairs, were shelved.

  Nevertheless, I found time to call on Mrs Pringle, now at home and convalescent, and discovered, as we had all thought, that it would be two or three weeks before the doctor would allow her to resume work.

  There was simply no one to be found who could take on her job, even temporarily. A fine look-out, I told myself, for the future, when Mrs Pringle finally retired. She obviously greeted my do-it-yourself plans with mixed feelings.

  'It's a relief not to have our Minnie messing about with things,' she announced. 'Or anyone else, for that matter. I likes to know where to lay my hands on a piece of soap or a new dish-clorth, and where to hide the matches out of Bob Willet's way. I don't say he thieves. I'm not one to speak ill of anybody, but he sort of borrers them to light that filthy pipe of his, and pockets 'em absentminded. It's better there's no stranger trying to run the place.'

  'I'm glad you like the idea,' I said. I was soon put straight.

  'I don't like the idea!' boomed Mrs Pringle fortissimo. She spoke with such vehemence that I trembled for the safety of her operation scar.

  'But what can I do?' she continued. 'Helpless, that's what I am, and I must just stand aside and watch them stoves rust, and the floor turn black, and the windows fur over with dust, while you and Bob Willet and the children turns a blind eye to it all.'

  I said, humbly, that we would do our best, and that Mrs Willet had offered to oversee the washing-up at midday.

  Mrs Pringle looked slightly mollified.

  'Yes, well, that's something, I suppose. A drop in the ocean really, but at least Alice Willet knows what's what, and rinses out the tea clorths proper. Tell her I always hangs 'em on that little line by the elder bush to give 'em a bit of a blow, and then they finishes off draped over the copper.'

  I promised to do so, and made a hasty departure.

  'And tell Bob Willet not to lay a finger on them stoves,' she called after me. 'There's no need to light them for weeks yet.'

  I let her have the last word.

  Certainly, there was no need for the stoves on the first day of term. As so often happens, it dawned soft and warm, the morning sky as pearly as a pigeon's wing, and the children appeared in their summer clothes.

  They all seemed to be in excellent spirits as I passed through the throng from my house to the school, and as far as I could see, attendance would not be appreciably lower, despite the measles epidemic.

  A few were disporting themselves on the pile of coke, as usual, and came down reluctantly when so ordered. Unseasonably, a number of the girls were skipping together in the remains of someone's clothes line.

  They were chanting:

  'Salt, mustard, vinegar',

  And then, with an excited squeal: 'Pepper?

  At which, the line twirled frenziedly, and some of the skippers were vanquished.

  Three mothers waited with new children by the door, and I ushered them all in to enter the children for school.

  Two I knew well, for both had sisters at the school, but the third was a stranger, a well-dressed dark-eyed boy of about nine.

  'We're living at the cottage opposite Miss Waters,' his mother told me. 'My husband is at the atomic energy station.'

  I remembered Mrs Johnson, who had lived there before, and prayed that the present tenant would not be such a confounded nuisance. She certainly seemed a pleasant person, and it looked as though Derek would be an intelligent addition to my class.

  'Show Derek where to put his things, and look after him,' I said to Ernest, who was hovering near the door, anxious not to miss anything.

  His mother made her farewells to the child briskly, smiled at us all and departed – truly an exemplary mother, I thought, and the boy went willingly enough with Ernest.

  The other two would be entering the infants' class, and their mothers were rather more explicit in their farewells.

  'Now, don't forget to eat up all your dinner, and ask the teacher if you wants the lavatory, and play with Susie at play time, and keep off of that co
ke, and use your hanky for lord's sake, child, and I'll see you at home time.'

  Thus adjured, the children were taken into the infants' room, and I went out to call in the rest of my flock.

  By age-old custom, the children are allowed to choose the hymn on the first morning of term. Weaning Patrick from 'Now the day is over', at nine in the morning, and Linda Moffat from 'We plough the fields and scatter', as being a trifle premature, we settled for 'Eternal Father, strong to save', for although we are about as far inland at Fairacre, as one can get in this island, we have a keen admiration for all sea-farers, and in any case, this majestic hymn is one of our favourites.

  The new child, Derek, was standing near the piano and sang well, having a pure treble which might perhaps earn him a place at a choir school one day, I thought.

  After prayers, we settled to the business of the day. Only five children were absent from my class, three with measles, one with ear-ache, and Eileen Burton for a variety of reasons supplied by her vociferous class-mates.

  'Gone up her gran's,' said Patrick.

  'No, she never then,' protested John. 'She's gone to Caxley with her mum about something on her foot.'

  'A shoe perhaps,' commented some wag, reducing the class to giggles and much explaining of the joke to those who had been too busy chattering themselves to hear.

  When order was restored, a more seemly set of reasons was offered for her absence. Someone said she was shopping, John stuck to the foot story with growing vehemence, someone else was equally positive that her mum was bad, while Joseph Coggs' contribution was that she was all right last night because she'd gone scrumping apples with him up Mr Roberts' orchard.

  At this innocent disclosure, silence fell. I took advantage of it to point out, yet again, the evils of stealing, and, finally, requested Ernest and Patrick to give out the school books in preparation for a term of solid work.

  Temporarily chastened, they settled down to some arithmetic in their rough books, with only minor interruptions such as:

  'I've busted the nib off of my pencil.'

  'Patrick never give me no book,' and other ungrammatical complaints which I, and thousands of other teachers, deal with automatically, with no disturbance to the main train of thought.

  Before half an hour had gone by, however, the infants' teacher appeared at the partition door, holding one of the newcomers by the hand.

  The little girl's face was pink with weeping. Tears coursed downward, and it was quite clear that the hanky, thoughtfully pinned by her mother to her frock, had not been used recently.

  'Don't worry,' I said. 'Let her stay here with Margaret.' Margaret, motherly in her solicitude, did some much-needed mopping, some kissing and scolding, and took her to sit beside her in the desk. The tears stopped as if by magic.

  'Perhaps she would like a sweet,' I said, nodding towards the cupboard where a large tin of boiled sweets is kept for just such emergencies.

  Margaret went to get it. There was an expectant hush in the classroom as the children watched the little one select a pear drop. Would I? Wouldn't I?

  'You'd better take the tin round,' I said.

  One needs something to help the first day along.

  The golden day crawled by, and at the end of afternoon school I sauntered through the village to the Post Office to buy National Savings' stamps before Mr Lamb put up his shutters.

  This was one of the jobs I should have done during the past week, but somehow the lovely holiday with Amy had unsettled me, and getting back to the usual routine had been extremely difficult.

  I found my mind roving back to that delectable island, thinking of the white goats tossing their heads up and down as they nibbled carob branches, of the bearded priests, dignified in their black Greek Orthodox robes, of the smiling peasant we had met up in the hills, carrying a curly white lamb under each arm and the old woman sitting on her doorstep to catch the last of the light, intent upon her handspinning.

  That dazzling light, which encompassed all out there, was unforgettable. It served, too, to make me more aware of the subtleties of gentler colour now that I was at home.

  As I walked to the Post Office I saw anew how the terra cotta of the old earthenware flower pot in a cottage garden matched the colour of the robin's breast nearby. The faded green paint of Margaret Waters' door was echoed in the soft green of her cabbages. The sweet chestnut tree near the Post Office was thick with fruit, as softly-bristled as young hedgehogs, and matching the lime-green tobacco flowers which are Mr Lamb's great pride.

  Mrs Coggs was busy fining in a form, assisted by the postmaster. She wrote painfully and slowly, far too engrossed in the job to notice me, and I waited while Mr Lamb did his instructing.

  'Now just your name, Mrs Coggs. Here, on this line.'

  The pen squeaked, and I thought how patient he was, bending so kindly over his pupil. He moved, and a shaft of sunlight fell across Mrs Coggs' arms. I was disturbed to see that they were badly bruised, and so was the hand that held the pen so shakily.

  'And here?' she asked, looking up.

  'No, no need for you to fill that in. I can do that for you. That's all now, Mrs Coggs. I'll see to it.'

  She gave a sigh of relief, and turned. I saw that one eye was black.

  'Lovely day, miss. Had a nice holiday?'

  'Yes, thank you. Are you all well?'

  'Baby's teething, but the rest of us is doin' nicely.'

  She nodded and smiled, and went out to the baby who was gnawing its fists in the pram.

  'Doing nicely,' echoed Mr Lamb, when she had pushed the pram out of earshot. He put Mrs Coggs' form tidily, with others, in a folder.

  'Beats me why she stays with that brute,' he went on. 'Did you see her arms? And that black eye?'

  I nodded.

  'I bet she copped that lot last Saturday. Arthur had had a skinful down at "The Beetle and Wedge", I heard. That chap drinks three parts of his wage packet – when he earns any, that is – and she's hard put to it to get the rent out of him.'

  'I thought things seemed better now they were in a council house.'

  Mr Lamb snorted, and began to open the folder holding savings' stamps without even asking my needs.

  'Better? You'll never alter Arthur Coggs even if you was to put him in Buckingham Palace! Usual, I suppose?' he said, looking up.

  'Yes, please.'

  'Pity she never left him before all those children came. Now she's shackled, and he knows it. Gets her in the family way every two years or so, and there she is tied with another baby and another mouth to feed, poor devil.'

  'I wonder how we can help,' I said, thinking aloud. 'It might be an idea to have a word with the district nurse.'

  'If you're thinking she can help with the pill and that,' said Mr Lamb, 'you'll have to think again. If Arthur got wind of anything like that, he'd knock the living daylights out of the poor woman.

  He folded the stamps and I put them in my bag. To my surprise, he looked rather embarrassed as he scrabbled in the drawer for my change.

  'Shouldn't be talking of such things to a single lady like you, I suppose.'

  I said that I had been conversant with the facts of life for some time now.

  'Yes, well, no doubt. But you can take it from me,' miss, you've a lot to be thankful for, being single. "When I see poor souls like Mrs Coggs coming in here, I wonder women get married at all.'

  'Mrs Lamb seems happy enough,' I observed. 'Not all husbands are like Arthur Coggs, you know.'

  'That's true,' conceded Mr Lamb. 'But nevertheless, you count your blessings!'

  I pondered on Mr Lamb's advice as I walked back to the school house through the sunshine. It reminded me again of Amy's plight, of Mrs Clark's at the hotel, and of all the complications which, it seemed, married life could bring. Somehow, in the last few months, the advantages and disadvantages of the single and the married states had been thrust before me with disconcerting sharpness.

  After tea, still musing, I took a walk through the littl
e copse at the foot of the downs. Honeysuckle was in flower in the hedges, and the wood itself was heavy with the rich smells of summer. Yes, I supposed that I should count my blessings, as Mr Lamb had said. I was free to come and go as I pleased. Free to wander in a summer wood, when scores of other villagers were standing over stoves cooking their husbands' meals, or were struggling with children unwilling to go to bed whilst the sun still shone.

  And yet, and yet.... Was I missing something as vital as Amy insisted? I remembered the sad monk at Toplou, the garrulous schoolteacher, the victim of loneliness, on the flight home, and a dozen more single people who perhaps were slightly odd when one came to think about them. But any odder than the married ones?

  I began to climb the path up the downs beside a wire fence. A poor dead rook had been hung there, as a warning, I supposed, to others. I looked at the glossy corpse with pity as it hung upside down, its beautiful wings askew, like some wind-crippled umbrella. How quickly life passed, and how easily it was extinguished!

  I looked up at the downs and decided I should turn back. Moods of melancholy are rare with me, and this one had quite worn me out. What, I wondered, besides the encounter with Mrs Coggs, had brought it on? Could I, at my advanced age, be love-lorn, regretting my lost youth, pining for a state I had never known? A bit late in the day for that sort of thinking, I told myself briskly, and not the true cause of my wistfulness anyway.

  It appeared much more likely to be caused by the first day of term combined with an unusually nasty school dinner.

  I returned home at a rattling pace, ate two poached eggs on toast, and was myself again.

  16 Gerard and Vanessa

  ONE afternoon, a week later, I stood at my window and watched large hailstones bouncing on the lawn like mothballs. With any luck, the children should have got home before this sudden summer storm had broken, and any loiterers had only themselves to blame.