(16/20)Summer at Fairacre Page 7

  Should I wear my new patent leather court shoes that hurt, or my scuffed grey suede ones with the scratched left heel—a legacy from letting in the clutch—which were comfortable?

  The choice of dress was simpler, either my patterned navy-blue silk, or a white lace blouse with a black velvet skirt. I had spent several evenings studying the ladies' attire in television panel games but with little satisfaction. For one thing, I did not own an off-the-shoulder creation in satin trimmed with either sequins or marabou feathers. Neither did I have anything with a neckline which plunged to the nether regions. Nor did I favour the other extreme of fashion which made use of a crumpled blouse of grubby cheesecloth and a medallion swinging on a long chain.

  I had felt that perhaps I should rush into Caxley and buy an entirely new outfit for the occasion, but natural lethargy, combined with my usual shortage of funds, soon persuaded me that my present wardrobe would supply something suitable.

  In the end, I set off in the navy-blue silk, the painful shoes, and Aunt Clara's seed pearls. I could do no more. My best patent leather handbag contained my few pathetic notes on children's books, a subject about which I thought I knew a little, but now felt positive that I knew nothing at all.

  The meeting was held in a Caxley hall some distance from the market square. This meant that the car had to be parked at some way away from the building, and I limped through the streets to my doom.

  A kind middle-aged lady was fluttering about the entrance lobby, and came towards me.

  'Miss Crabbe?' she asked.

  'No!' I replied, rather more forcefully than the query needed. 'No, my name is Read. I'm from Fairacre. Are you Mrs Smith?'

  'Oh no!' she said, sounding shocked. 'Mrs Smith is terribly busy inside with the platform arrangements. I've just been told to greet the panel people and take them into the side room for sherry.'

  I followed her down the side of the hall, which was already alarmingly full of people, and into a little room which seemed even fuller.

  Mrs Partridge's friend, Hazel Smith, hurried towards me with outstretched hands.

  'Now let me introduce you,' she said, leading me around the room. 'You are the first to arrive. Dr Biddle has just telephoned to say he will be a trifle late, and Mr Ellis has only just left court, but I'm sure he won't be long. Miss Crabbe has some distance to come, of course.'

  I met some three dozen people whose names I did not catch, and whose faces I should not remember, and expressed my delight at meeting them, and accepted a sherry dry enough to wither the tongue. I should really have liked a long drink of water, but realised that this would have looked eccentric, so twiddled my glass and listened to the rising crescendo of noise about me.

  At long last my three companions arrived. Dr Biddle I knew slightly. He was a heavily-built man, with dark hair and a careworn expression which was hardly surprising, I thought, if he dealt daily with children in poor health. I was careworn enough, in all conscience, dealing daily with children in good health. He had my sympathy.

  James Ellis, a Caxley councillor and chairman of thejuvenile bench at the local court, was also known to me through his spate of letters to The Caxley Chronicle. The subject was usually child behaviour, and as he was a bachelor he naturally had very strong views about the way in which one should deal with the young, particularly those who appeared before him at court.

  Most of the readers of that eminent weekly, including myself, thought that Mr Ellis's attitude to young offenders was gentle to the point of being deferential. Whilst not actually congratulating young thugs on their success in robbing old ladies of their possessions, his sympathy with their reasons for doing so—broken homes, lack of love, low intelligence, uncaring parents and all the usual stuff—was so eloquently expressed and quoted at such length in the paper that some susceptible readers' withers were wrung.

  The majority, however, with their feet still firmly on the ground, found their spokesman in Mr Willet.

  'My old dad,' said he, 'would have dealt with 'em in half the time, and with no expense. I bet he'd have stopped their capers!'

  Mr Ellis greeted me kindly, and wore a beautiful dove-grey suit which I much admired.

  He was followed by Miss Crabbe who held my hand and said what a pleasure it was to find that I was still at my old post and doing such sterling work, she had no doubt, which made me feel lazy, unambitious and a failure, which I am sure was intended.

  She herself, I thought cattily, had not improved with the years. Her scanty hair was drawn back to a bun, and her face was much lined. She wore a tight frock of an unbecoming burgundy colour, and one of the buttons on the front of the bodice was missing. I felt smugly well-dressed after noticing this.

  She was passed into Mr Ellis's care, and I could see that their minds were as one from their earnest expressions and wise noddings of heads. I was happily embroiled with a young reporter from The Caxley Chronicle who made notes with an indelible pencil, which one rarely sees these days. Between jottings he sucked the pencil, and I was fascinated to watch his tongue turn from lilac to a rich purple. It would have done credit to a prize chow.

  All too soon we were summoned to the door by Mrs Smith. Dr Biddle was to speak first, then it was my turn, then Mr Ellis's, and finally Miss Crabbe would conclude the proceedings, rather on the lines of keeping the best wine until last, I supposed.

  The sea of faces was decidely disconcerting, but at least I would have time to compose myself, and have a quick glance at my poor notes, as Dr Biddle did his stint.

  He was greeted with warm applause. He is popular in the area, and the fact that he once appeared on our television screens has added greatly to the awed esteem in which he is held.

  He gave a brisk little talk about children's ailments, the importance of inculcating sensible dietary habits, and spoke reassuringly about infectious diseases, everyday accidents and the inestimable worth of our local casualty department. All in all, it was just what the audience needed, and the questions came thick and fast.

  The good doctor coped brilliantly, even fielding some awkward ones from a dedicated herbalist in the front row who asked his opinion of woundwort for open sores, and the advantages of sage leaves in cleaning teeth.

  All too soon he sat down, and I rose, trembling, to my feet. My feeble talk came to life when I gave a few suggestions for general reading, when there was a great scuffling in handbags for pencils and paper, and people scribbled busily. It was just like being in school again.

  'Do you think children should read anything they like?'

  'Aren't they better off watching telly?'

  'Is my five-year-old too young for a dictionary?'

  'How can I wean my son from horror comics?'

  These were a few of the questions hurled at me, which I did my best to answer truthfully, but with nothing like the dexterity of my predecessor.

  Luckily, I was saved by the chairman's bell, and settled back thankfully to listen to Mr Ellis. His discourse was, predictably, on the vulnerability and sensitivity of young things, and the absolute necessity of letting them find themselves in their own way and time.

  Think of a tender young plant,' he exhorted us. 'It grows by throwing out delicate tendrils to climb upward to the sky. If we try to bend those tendrils, if we handle them too harshly, the plant is damaged beyond repair. All we can do, as parents, as teachers or as any one with the care of young people, is to provide a warm and loving atmosphere, and to encourage the upward trend towards light and knowledge.'

  There was a good deal more in the same vein, and a certain amount of muttering when he sat down.

  A few questions, which might well have been formed by Mr Willet, were asked about discipline, learning right from wrong, parental responsibility, and plain old-fashioned respect for authority, and these drew forth some kindly generalisations from Mr Ellis which made nobody any the wiser. The applause was luke-warm.

  Miss Crabbe was much as I remembered her on the terrible weekend she had spent under my roof. She
ploughed along with her lecture, in a slightly nasal monotonous drone, complimenting Mr Ellis on his acute understanding of the Child Mind, and enlarging on the need to make use of the wonders of modern psychology when any difficulties in child behaviour became apparent.

  I had a pretty shrewd idea that this was one of the lectures she gave regularly to her students, watered down a little for the present audience.

  Everyone was amazingly polite, and the questions, though few, were to the point. Time had run on, and we were all conscious of the chinking of wine glasses and the welcome clatter of plates at the back of the hall, where the helpers were preparing to revive us.

  The applause when at last Miss Crabbe sat down was deafening. The lady flushed with pleasure, as we all clapped heartily. I felt that our enthusiasm was caused probably more by relief than rapture, but at least the evening had been successful, and the ordeal was now over.

  We raised our glasses and our cheese straws to each other, four disparate individuals, bound together for one brief hour by common suffering.

  7 More Worries for the Coggs Family

  MAY arrived in a flurry of blustery showers. In school the windows rattled, the doors thumped, and the replaced skylight let in almost as fierce a draught as the old one.

  The weather had turned chilly enough to warrant lighting the stoves, but now that officially it was summer time, and Mrs Pringle would be at her most militant if the idea were mooted, we did our best by donning winter cardigans again, and hoping for the best.

  Every now and again, black clouds brought hailstones to dance in the playground, and to dash the tender spring flowers to the ground. It was sad to see the first blooms of the cherry and plum trees scattered like confetti on the ground after these periodic onslaughts. The early bees, which had been active during the halcyon holiday spell, were nowhere to be seen. It seemed as if winter had struck again.

  Tibby, who had spent all his days, and nights too, as far as I could judge, curled up in a clump of catmint, was now content to find indoor haunts, preferably on my bed or on the sitting room sofa. One evening of particularly cold showers I lit my fire, and rejoiced. And so did Tibby. Luckily, Mrs Pringle was not about to chide us.

  It was on one of these cold mornings that I went across about eight o'clock to unlock the school in readiness for Mrs Pringle's ministrations.

  Squatting against the door, his arms wrapped round him for warmth, was Joseph Coggs.

  'You're early,' I said lightly.

  He nodded.

  I looked at him more closely. His bare legs were cold with goose flesh, his shabby sandals were soaking wet, and I suspected that he had been weeping.

  'What's happened?' I asked more gently.

  He shook his head without replying.

  I unlocked the door, and left things ready for the school cleaner.

  Bending down, I hauled the little boy to his feet.

  'Come and have some breakfast with me,' I offered. He put a cold hand in mine, and we went across to the school house.

  After a cup of milky coffee and some scrambled egg on toast, he looked more cheerful. I forbore to question him. It would all come out before long, I guessed. Probably he had broken something and Mrs Coggs had cuffed him. He was devoted to his poor slatternly mother, and could not bear to have her cross with him. Sudden flight from such a situation would be his natural reaction, and the fact that he was so ravenous meant that he had not had the doorstep of bread and margarine, which I knew was his usual first meal of the day.

  I went into the sitting room to collect a pile of exercise books and some new wall charts, and when I returned to the kitchen he was putting the breakfast china very carefully into the sink.

  'Shall us wash it?' he enquired. They were his first words. Already he looked better.

  'No, forget them, Joe. Let them soak.'

  He turned on the tap, and watched the crockery being submerged.

  'You'd better pop up to the bathroom and wash your hands and face,' I directed. He knew my home very well, as he often came to help in the garden, and had once or twice given me a hand in moving bits and pieces upstairs.

  He vanished for five minutes while I put away the food. When he reappeared, I looked at him without speaking.

  He took a deep breath.

  'My mum's bad,' he said at last.

  'In bed?'

  'In hospital. The amb'lance come.'

  'Were you alone all night?'

  'No. Auntie come and took the girls. I went next door with baby.'

  'To Mrs George?'

  He nodded. The tears looked very near again. I decided not to question him too closely. No doubt Mrs Pringle would give me all the details, with horrific embellishments, when we met in a few minutes. But I had to know one thing.

  'Does Mrs George know where you are?'

  'I shouted as what I was coming up here when I left. What's more, I ain't goin' back.'

  I had never seen him look so stubborn. The silence in the kitchen was suddenly broken by the sound of the school bell.

  'Come on, Joe. We're going to be late,' I said, making for the door. 'You carry the charts, then I can lock up.'

  We crossed the playground, dodging games of marbles, twirling skipping ropes, and flying children, and entered the lobby.

  Mrs Pringle, arms akimbo, was waiting, heavy with news.

  'You got 'im then,' were her first words, as she eyed Joseph with strong disapproval.

  'Run along, Joe, and give out the hymn books,' I said. It was plain that there was plenty to be said, and I did not intend the boy to hear.

  Mrs Pringle shuffled a little closer.

  'His ma was took bad sudden. Appendix or something. Fair screeching in pain she was, so Bella George told me, until the doctor give her a shot of something. No one knows what, of course, but it's to be hoped he knows his business.'

  'But what about the children? When did this happen?'

  'Sometime after midnight. She banged on the bedroom wall and yelled out of the window to Bella and Jack next door. Lucky they sleeps light. It was Jack called the doctor from the phone box. Bit of luck it hadn't been verminised this week.'

  'Vandalised,' I said automatically, ever the teacher. 'And has anyone heard when she will be back?'

  Mrs Pringle's mouth turned down lugubriously.

  'Who's to say? I mean, once you gets into a hospital there's no knowing, is there? Half the time you're thrown out as soon as you're sewn up, and the other half you lays there being observed for weeks.'

  'But the children?'

  'Well now,' began my cleaner, settling her bulk upon a wash basin much too frail, in my opinion, to carry such weight. She looked as though her story could continue for hours, and I began to feel anxious about my delayed school assembly. 'Ethel Tibbie, Arthur's sister as I was telling you about the other day, she and Charlie come out in the van and took the little girls back to Caxley with 'em. And Bella and Jack took in Joe and the baby for the night. But young Joe never slept a wink, so Bella said, and sheered off when her back was turned cutting Jack's sandwiches.'

  'I'd better go and see her at playtime,' I said. 'She may know more about Mrs Coggs by then. But now I must get on. We're all behind this morning.'

  'I wouldn't mind betting,' replied Mrs Pringle bridling, 'as Bella knows a lot less than I do.'

  I would not mind betting on it either, I thought, hastening to my duties.

  I left the school in Miss Briggs' charge at playtime, and drove swiftly to the other end of Fairacre where the council houses stand.

  I received some interested glances as I went through the village, and guessed that my dereliction of duty would soon be common knowledge in the community. What would be the conjectures, I wondered? A sudden brainstorm? An assignation with Henry Mawne—still, unfortunately, a grass widower? A dash to the station en route for a train to my distant home, where accident or sudden death had occurred? There was no end to the dramas which could be imagined.

  Bella George was a c
omfortable middle-aged body, whose husband was a long-distance lorry-driver.

  She ushered me into her sitting room, and came at once to the point.

  'You've got our Joe safe, I reckon?'

  'That's true. What's the position?'

  'Well, I said I'd take him and the baby, and Ethel Tibbie's got the little girls. As you know, they've got a corner shop in Caxley, mainly sweets and tobacco, and they don't have much room upstairs, so they could only manage to fit in the girls. But they'll be all right with Ethel. It's Joe's the trouble.'

  'Is it any help if I have him? He's used to me.'

  Her face lit up.

  'Would you, Miss Read? He don't seem to settle here, though dear knows why not. He sees enough of us. The baby's no trouble. Nice to have him in the house.'

  'Any news of Mrs Coggs?'

  'None yet.'

  'I'll ring the hospital during the day and let you know. And I'd better let Mrs Tibbie know what's happening too.'

  A thought struck me.

  'I suppose I'd better take Joseph's nightclothes if he's settling with me.'

  Bella's jolly laugh set the ornaments on the mantelpiece ringing.

  'Lord bless you, Miss Read, there's not a scrap of night clothing among the lot of 'em! Those kids sleep in their vests, if they've got 'em, and if not it's their birthday suits!'

  'I should have known,' I said. 'Well, I must get back to the school, and I'll call again when I know more.'

  I drove soberly back to school. Were we still the two nations that Disraeli spoke of? It looked very much like it.

  Later that evening, when Joseph had been bathed and was tucked up in the spare bed wearing an old singlet of mine, I rang the hospital.

  Mrs Coggs, I was told, was round from the operation, and doing nicely. It was too early to say when she would be fit to come home.

  Well, I thought, at least I had been spared that irritating word 'comfortable'. I recalled W. W. Jacob's account of one Bob Pretty who was 'what the doctor called comfortable', and what the narrator of the incident said: 'He would not soil his lips by repeating.'