Christmas At Thrush Green Read online

  Nelly explained her thinking behind the name. ‘Mustn’t have anything too twee,’ she said firmly. ‘Nothing like Little Pressies.’

  ‘Well, if not the last owner of The Fuchsia Bush,’ said Clare, ‘what about the present owner?’

  Nelly looked at her in surprise. ‘What? Piggott’s Sandwich Parlour?’

  Clare laughed. ‘No, I don’t think that sounds right. But what about Nelly’s Sandwich Shop? That has a really good ring to it.’

  ‘Well!’ exclaimed Nelly, going rather pink in the face. ‘Nelly’s Sandwich Shop, indeed! Yes, I have to agree. It does sound good, doesn’t it?’ She repeated the words slowly. ‘Nelly’s Sandwich Shop. Yes, I think that will do just dandy.’

  One of the last jobs that the solicitor, Justin Venables, had done before he retired for good was to look after the acquisition of the lease, having ascertained from the proper authorities that it would be in order for the nature of the business to change from gift shop to catering. There seemed to be no problem over this at the county council offices: Mrs Peters had ensured that The Fuchsia Bush had built up a very good reputation, and Nelly had proved herself a worthy successor. The planning department had, however, baulked at the request for two kitchens to be made into one, and Nelly had to accept that the best she could have was the large hatch and a connecting door.

  Before Nelly had had time to think about who was going to be in charge of the new sandwich bar, Gloria Williams, the senior waitress, had presented herself one morning in the little office and asked if she could be considered for the job.

  ‘You see, you’ve always admired my sandwiches, and liked some of the fillings that I’ve suggested. You’ll need a manageress next door and I just don’t see why it can’t be me!’ Then she shut her mouth firmly and gazed at Nelly in an almost challenging way.

  Nelly was taken by surprise. Now, there’s a thought!

  She leaned forward across the desk. ‘Well, Gloria, that’s certainly an idea. I will, of course, need a supervisor for next door. I hadn’t given it any great thought yet because we shan’t need anyone till the building works are done and the kitchen installed. But, yes, when the time comes, I’ll certainly consider your application.’

  Over the next few months, Gloria blossomed. When Nelly had first started working at The Fuchsia Bush, the girl had been uninterested and would rather file her nails than see to the customers. But Nelly had encouraged both her and Rosa, the other waitress, to be more a part of the establishment, and it now seemed that they actually enjoyed working there rather than enduring it. Gloria certainly worked hard, and the sandwiches in particular were very popular. The office workers seemed to come in earlier and earlier to buy their lunches before the sandwiches ran out. It was when one of the most regular customers - her bank manager - complimented her on ‘the superb sandwiches you provide for us’ that Nelly decided to put Gloria out of her suspense and appoint her manageress of the new shop.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Piggott, oh dearie me!’ Gloria looked as if she were about to burst into tears.

  ‘Now, now, Gloria!’ Nelly soothed. ‘Am I to take it that you accept?’

  Gloria looked at her employer with shining eyes, and nodded vigorously, quite unable to speak.

  ‘Good, that’s good. Now, could you ask Rosa to come in and see me?’

  Rosa had joined the staff of The Fuchsia Bush a few years after Gloria and the pair of them had set up a good partnership. They needed to be watched, of course, in order that they weren’t so busy chatting about what they had seen on the television the evening before that customers were kept waiting, but they were efficient enough.

  Nelly now told Rosa that as she was promoting Gloria to be in charge of the sandwich bar, she wanted Rosa to take over as No. 1 in the tea-room - after herself, of course. Although Nelly spent much of her time in the kitchen making the scones and cakes, and preparing the lunches, she would often pop out front to see that everything was going smoothly and perhaps to have a few words with any regular customers who might have come in. Rosa was as thrilled as Gloria had been, and tentatively said that she had a younger sister just about to leave school, and might she be considered as the second waitress?

  ‘Poppy’s a good girl, Mrs Piggott. And she’s good at sums so won’t have no trouble with the bills.’

  Nelly admired anyone good at sums, and promised she would consider Poppy in due course. Rosa and Poppy - it sounded as though they were made for The Fuchsia Bush!

  A head now appeared in the hatchway between the two kitchens. ‘Is that burning I can smell, Nelly?’ called Gloria.

  ‘Great Scot!’ cried Nelly, leaping up. ‘My scones! I’ve been dreaming and quite forgot the time. Oh dear, oh dear, I’m going to have to start all over again. Thank goodness it was the second batch, and there’s enough to be going on with for the moment.’

  Gloria came through from the sandwich shop’s kitchen. She was very neat and tidy, and wearing a clean white apron with the word ‘Nelly’s’ printed across the bib section. That had been her idea, but she had quite properly asked her employer’s permission first. And Nelly was more than happy to give her approval.

  She would never be ‘best friends’ with Gloria - they were many years apart in age - but they worked well together. When she had invited Gloria to stop calling her ‘Mrs Piggott’ and to call her Nelly, it had taken a bit of time for Gloria to get used to the familiarity but that was in the past.

  ‘Since it was King Alfred wot burnt the cakes, we shall have to call you Queen Nelly now!’ Gloria laughed, but sensibly returned quickly to her kitchen before Nelly could think of a riposte.

  Nelly opened a window to let out the smell of burning, and tipped the scorched offering into the huge waste bin that stood near the back door.

  A moment later, the swing door from the tea-room opened. ‘We’ll be needin’ more scones soon, please,’ called Rosa.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait about twenty minutes. I regret to say that Management has slipped up,’ said Nelly, pulling the huge container of flour towards her, ‘but I’m back on the case.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  A Wash Behind the Ears

  ‘We’ve had a lovely invitation to drinks with Phil and Frank after the Nativity play,’ said Joan Young a few days later. She and her husband Edward were having breakfast, and Willie Bond the postman had just delivered the morning post.

  ‘Are we going to the Nativity play?’ Edward muttered from behind his newspaper.

  ‘Of course we are!’ Joan replied, adding marmalade to her toast.

  ‘If you think we must,’ said the voice behind the newspaper.

  Joan was not to be put off. She was used to her husband being a little unforthcoming early in the morning. ‘We usually go and, anyway, we must go this year because the Curdles are so involved and we should support them.’ She looked across the table at Edward who was still intent on his newspaper. ‘Don’t you agree?’ she said, raising her voice just a little.

  Edward sighed, and laid down the paper. He knew when he was beaten. He would have to finish the article when he had some peace and quiet in his office later that morning.

  ‘Did I know about the Curdles being involved?’ he asked patiently.

  ‘Of course you did! Ben came round a month ago to make sure that Paul would be home in time.’

  Paul was their son and away at boarding school.

  ‘Isn’t fourteen a bit old to be in a Nativity play?’ Edward asked. ‘I thought they were for little children? I’m not sure he’ll be best pleased. Have you broken the news to him?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ laughed Joan. ‘I wouldn’t let him be landed with being a shepherd, with a silly headdress and a toy sheep tucked under his arm. Phil and Frank are organizing this year’s Nativity and Phil is particularly keen that Paul should be one of the narrators. I understand Jeremy is going to be the other one.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Edward, re-filling his cup with coffee. ‘That should be all right, then. Actually, Paul has turne
d into a good out-loud reader. I heard him reading something to Jeremy when he was here over half-term - something incomprehensible to do with currents in the Antarctic Ocean.’

  Paul and Jeremy Prior had been good friends from the day that Jeremy had arrived with his mother Phyllida to live at Tullivers. Because the garden there was quite small, Jeremy tended to cross the corner of the green to the Youngs’ house. This had a fine garden with plenty of trees for the boys to climb, and their own complicated version of ‘hide and seek’, which appeared to consist of one or other of them spending hours crawling through the undergrowth.

  Their pride and joy, however, was old Mrs Curdle’s gypsy caravan which, after much pleading, Paul had been allowed to turn into a den. When Mrs Curdle had died a number of years earlier, the beautiful traditional caravan had been given a final resting place in the Youngs’ orchard. It proved to be an ideal lair, and Paul was more than happy to let Jeremy share it with him. There had been the odd spat between the two boys, of course, but nothing that hadn’t been quickly patched up. Phil Hurst marvelled at how tidy they kept the caravan, since she wore herself out asking Jeremy to clear up his bedroom. She assumed it must be Paul’s good influence.

  The Youngs’ house was the finest on the green and, with its garden, it occupied a prominent position looking south towards St Andrew’s church at the other end of the green. The handsome building was of the honey-coloured stone that is so much admired throughout the Cotswolds.

  Next to the church had been a hideous Victorian rectory that had vexed Edward, who was a fine architect, every time he looked at it - which had been several times a day. The ugly building, heavy with porticos and window surrounds, upset him deeply. He was therefore the first to rejoice when, one May night, the house burned nearly to the ground. The good vicar and his wife, Charles and Dimity Henstock, were fortunately away on holiday at the time. The villagers had turned out to form a human chain to try to rescue as many of the Henstocks’ belongings as possible.

  There was no question of the rectory being rebuilt. In fact, the diocese took advantage of the situation to make some big changes. Anthony Bull, the much loved vicar at Lulling, went to London to take on a fashionable parish there. Charles Henstock moved to Lulling to be in charge of the town’s lovely St John’s church, and three other parishes - Thrush Green and the nearby hamlets of Lulling Woods and Nidden. He and Dimity relished living in the elegant, comfortable and warm Queen Anne vicarage that overlooked Lulling’s extensive green.

  In place of the Thrush Green rectory, a row of apartments for elderly people was built. Since the architect chosen for this new development, called Rectory Cottages, was none other than Edward Young, he ensured that what he now looked at across the green was pleasing to the eye.

  As Edward sat at the kitchen table reflecting on Rectory Cottages with some pride, the back door burst open, and Molly Curdle came in, shaking her hair and sending a few drops of rain into the air.

  ‘Morning,’ she called across to the Youngs at the breakfast table. ‘It’s still pretty wild out there.’

  Joan Young looked out of the window. The trees and shrubs in the garden were blowing about, but nothing as bad as it had been a few days ago when a branch of their magnolia tree had broken off.

  ‘There!’ Edward had cried in some distress. ‘I told you that those boys would weaken the branches and damage that lovely tree.’

  Joan had laughed. ‘Go on with you! The boys haven’t been climbing trees for years now.’

  Edward had harrumphed. He liked to have someone to blame.

  ‘Now, is there anything what needs doing special this morning?’ asked Molly, putting on her gingham-patterned overall.

  Joan considered the matter, looking round the big kitchen as though for inspiration. ‘No, I don’t think so, thank you, Molly. But there’s rather a lot of ironing in the basket. Just do what you can.’

  ‘I’ll take any I can’t manage back across, and do it with my lot this afternoon.’

  ‘Back across’ referred to where Molly lived with her husband Ben and their three children. Ten or more years earlier, Edward Young had converted some old out-buildings - a range of stone-built stables, a coach house and tack-room - into a cottage for Joan’s elderly parents when they moved down from London.

  Molly Piggott, as she was then, had been employed to look after Paul Young and the boy had always adored her. In fact, she was still the first person he rushed to greet when he returned home for the holidays. Ben Curdle, the dark-haired, handsome grandson of old Mrs Curdle, had married Molly who was thankful to get away from her curmudgeonly father, Albert.

  After old Mrs Curdle had died, Ben took charge of the travelling fair that she had founded and, it has to be said, controlled with a rod of iron. The fair on Thrush Green every May Day was a red-letter day for the village. Two days before the first of May, the fair was set up. There were swingboats, switchbacks, dodgem cars and a big tall helter-skelter. Then there were the stalls - the coconut shy, the shooting range and the wheel of fortune. Over each stall dangled prizes on hooks, prizes that made the children’s eyes wide with excitement and longing. There were stalls selling jewellery and stalls that sold hot dogs and candy-floss.

  But times changed, and Ben had found it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. New health and safety regulations were introduced, requiring a great deal of money being spent, money Ben didn’t have. When he was made a good offer for the fair, it was with a heavy heart that he finally decided to sell.

  The Curdle family was popular with the Thrush Green residents but especially with the Youngs. After Ben had sold the fair, not only did the Youngs offer the Curdles the flat at the top of their house, but Edward was responsible for finding Ben a job. The young man, who had always been good with engines, secured a decent job as a mechanic with a family firm of agricultural engineers in Lulling.

  When Joan Young’s father died of the old people’s disease, pneumonia, one February, his widow went to live with her other daughter, Ruth Lovell. Stable Cottage had therefore become vacant. Initially, the Youngs had discussed renting it out but neither was very keen on having what they called ‘strangers’ living on top of them. It was Joan who had the bright idea of offering Ben and Molly the cottage, which was a good deal more spacious than the flat at the top of the house. The two Curdle children, George and Anne, were growing fast and Stable Cottage gave them all much more room.

  Although the rent they paid the Youngs was low because Molly worked in the house three mornings a week, while Ben did odd jobs round the house at the weekend, they were finding it difficult to save money to put down for a house. However, Ben was promoted to chief mechanic and the considerable increase in salary was very welcome. At last, they thought, they would be able to start saving for a house of their own.

  Ben and Molly had reckoned that two children were enough for their circumstances. Therefore, it came as a great shock to both of them when Dr Lovell pronounced that the reason that Molly wasn’t feeling well was not a stomach bug but because she was pregnant.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Molly wailed when Ben got home that evening and she told him the news.

  Ben loved children and, once he had got over the initial surprise, he was delighted. As for George and Anne, they were thrilled. George wanted a brother to play football with on the green, and Anne wanted a sister she could play nurses with.

  ‘Yes, but . . .’ continued Molly, ‘where is everyone going to sleep? The cottage is fine for the four of us - but five . . .’ and her voice trailed away in despair.

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when it comes,’ replied the ever pragmatic Ben.

  Seven and a half months later, a healthy boy was born. He had a mass of dark hair, as dark as Ben’s, and gurgled prettily in his carry-cot on the day they brought him home from the hospital.

  They had both been so certain that the baby was going to be a girl that they had only discussed girls’ names, and had decided on Josie.

  ‘Pah!’
Albert had spat out when his daughter told him. ‘What sort of name do you call that?’

  He didn’t have to worry when a boy arrived, but Ben and Molly had to start thinking of names all over again. George was named after Ben’s father who had been killed in the Second World War, just three weeks before the end of the conflict. How cruel can life - and death - be. Anne was named after her redoubtable great-grandmother, Mrs Curdle.

  ‘Since George is called after your father,’ said Molly, ‘I would like the baby to be called Albert after mine.’

  Ben stared at her in horror. Molly tolerated her old dad - who, she had to admit, had improved since her step-mother Nelly had taken control - but there was little love between the two of them.

  Then Molly burst out laughing. ‘I was only joking! You should have seen your face.’ She ducked the cushion that Ben playfully threw at her.

  ‘Seriously, though, I would like a name from my side of the family. After all, you’ve had both George and Anne from your side.’

  ‘You’ve got an Aunt Anne, too,’ Ben pointed out.

  ‘That’s as maybe, but we all know that our Annie was named after your beloved grandma.’

  ‘All right, then. What names are there on your side?’ Ben asked.

  Molly wrinkled up her nose, and concentrated. ‘Well, Dad has his sister Anne and a brother - that was Uncle Percy.’

  ‘No thanks!’ said Ben, then added, ‘Without wishing to hurt Farmer Hodge’s feelings, of course.’

  ‘Grandpa on my mum’s side was called Herbert, and I can’t remember what Dad’s father was called. I’ll ask him when I go over tomorrow.’

  ‘Cedric, probably,’ said Ben. ‘The problem with all these family names is that they are so old-fashioned. We want something more modern.’

  In the end, they settled on William - which was what Albert’s father turned out to have been called - but they soon began calling their new son Billy, and Billy he remained.