(19/20) Farewell to Fairacre Page 9

This took the wind out of my sails, of course. Come to think of it, reason told me, Ern might well be right. Minnie's relationships with the opposite sex were always remarkably haphazard.

  'But he must know, surely,' I said. 'And Minnie must know.'

  'She don't rightly remember,' said Mrs Pringle, taking a swipe with her duster at my desk and thereby removing the hymn list for the month.

  I stooped to pick it up, trying to come to terms with Minnie and Ern's attitude to parenthood. The trouble with me is that I constantly try to rationalize matters. When one is dealing with the Minnies and Erns of this world reason does not come into it, but I never learn.

  'So what's happening?'

  'Well, Ern give her a good hiding for a start, but he's letting her stay, and says the baby'd better look like him, and not that Bert, or there'll be real trouble.'

  At the mention of Bert, one of Minnie's more persistent admirers, my heart sank. I had once had to face him in my own schoolroom, and very unnerving the encounter was.

  'But surely,' I protested, 'she isn't still seeing Bert? I thought he'd moved to Caxley and broken with her.'

  'There's always the bus,' said Mrs Pringle. She began to move towards the door.

  'Mind you,' she said, 'I don't hold with all our Minnie does, but when it comes to love there's nothing to be done. Minnie's always had a loving nature, and Bert always came first. Ern don't seem to understand that.'

  She disappeared, leaving me exhausted with other people's problems.

  My own particular problem that day was a visit to the doctor's surgery for a routine check-up.

  The waiting-room was full, as always, and I had my usual difficulty in choosing reading matter from the pile provided. Should it be a ten-year-old copy of Autocar, The Woodworker, or last Easter's copy of Woman and Home?

  I settled down with this last offering and soon became absorbed in the cooking pages. Why didn't my steak and kidney pies turn out like the one in the picture? Mine always collapsed round the pie funnel, leaving a white china steeple arising from the ruined pastry roof around it.

  Two women were busy discussing the reasons for their presence. One had a straightforward boil on her neck which was covered with a large sticking plaster.

  I felt truly sorry for her, particularly as she was getting scant sympathy from her friend who had far more interesting symptoms to describe.

  There are times when I curse the fact that my hearing is so good. Give the woman her due, she spoke in low tones as befitted the intimate nature of her disclosures, but I could hear every word.

  'It's a blockage, you see, dear, in the tubes. They lead to the womb and all that part. In the privates. I never remember the name of the tubes.'

  Mrs Pringle, I recalled, named them 'Salopian tubes', which had a nice healthy, if erroneous, air of Shropshire about them.

  'So what will they do?' enquired the friend, now resigned to the fact that her boil was of very little consequence in the face of such competition.

  Her companion's voice dropped even lower. 'Dilation, I expect. And then blowing out.'

  'I don't like being messed about with down there,' said her friend primly.

  'Well, I can't say I relish it,' agreed the other, 'but needs must when the devil drives, as my old mamma used to say.'

  She began to rummage in an enormous handbag.

  'I cut out a bit from the woman's page of the Mirror. It was all about this business. I brought it along for the doctor to see. It might give him a lead, I thought. He's only young.'

  I wished I could be an invisible witness at this confrontation, but at that moment my name was called, and I had to leave this gynaecological saga behind me.

  Dr Ferguson was as welcoming as ever, but looked decidedly careworn. He was going to look a jolly sight more so, I thought, when the tubes-lady took my place.

  'And how do you feel?'

  'Splendid. No problems.'

  'Good. I'll just take your blood pressure.'

  He got out the paraphernalia from a drawer and began to wind the soft stuff round my arm. Why such a simple action should be so unpleasant I have no idea, but as the band tightens I am always convinced that I am about to be asphyxiated.

  Reason tells me that I am being absurd. The contraption is nowhere near my throat and lungs. Nevertheless, panic rises in me, and I feel that I should tell the doctor to knock off the top five or six degrees of whatever the thing is registering, on account of my acute cowardice.

  'Fine,' he said, releasing me from my bonds. 'Down quite a bit. Tablets are working well.'

  There were a few routine questions. Tongue, eyes, neck glands were examined, and I was about to escape when he said, 'I hear you're retiring. Will you have plenty to do?'

  'More than enough,' I assured him.

  He sighed. 'You see, I always think that you single women need a job. To make up for the lack of motherhood, you understand. Women need motherhood.'

  I thought of Minnie. She ought to be the picture of health and serenity at this rate.

  'They need children to fulfil themselves biologically. It's not just "the patter of tiny feet", I don't mean that.'

  'I get plenty of the patter of not-so-tiny feet,' I said. 'Thirty-odd children, from five to eleven years of age, make a pretty deafening patter on bare boards.'

  'I'm sure of that.' He began to look less worried, to my relief. I did not want to add to his professional cares on my behalf.

  'Honestly, I'm looking forward to retirement now. And if I find that I miss the children, I can always pop into school for a visit. Not that I shall do that very often. I'm planning to be too busy to look back.'

  He smiled, and looked his usual cheerful self. I felt virtuously that I had done him good, as I made for the door.

  The tubes-lady was rising from her chair, the Mirror cutting in hand.

  Poor chap, I thought, as I departed. That will give him a relapse, after all my rallying efforts on his behalf.

  As I lay in bed that night waiting for sleep, I pondered on my doctor's attitude to single women.

  It was obvious that he felt that we were to be pitied. We had missed one of the most wonderful experiences in life. We were, in that ghastly phrase, 'unfulfilled'.

  What made him think in this way? Was it a dislike of waste? Here I was, for example, a perfectly healthy - well, nearly - specimen of normal womanhood, with all the right interior equipment, I imagined, for reproduction, the tubes, orifices and appropriate spaces, but they had not been called upon to function.

  This did not worry me, so why should it worry him? When I thought about it, I felt I had got off lightly in the reproduction stakes. So many of my married friends told me, in nauseating detail, of their experiences of childbirth, that I was glad I was spared the experience.

  I could truthfully say that I had never missed having children. When I watched my friends coping with the problems of babyhood, sleepless nights, changing nappies, enduring the screams of teething, and then the later traumas of childhood illnesses, and the still later, and still more anxious, perils of their children's teens, I felt that I was lucky indeed.

  Of course, I realised that I had a full-time job with children which might unconsciously have compensated for my spinsterhood. I was glad that I had reminded my kindhearted doctor of this.

  But why, if it were not the waste of my organs which upset him, was he still unhappy?

  Could it be that he was romantic? So many men are. We are brought up to believe that it is the female of the species that has the hearts-and-flowers attitude to love, who craves attention and decks herself to catch a mate. In fact, it is the other way round. It is the male who brings flowers and chocolates, and dresses himself in fine array.

  Take pigeons, for instance, or any other bird. The female is happily pottering about pecking up her breakfast, and the male bird is in a state of wild excitement, his ruff bristling, head down as he circles, making amorous rumblings from the throat. The female takes no notice. She has quite enough to do
at the moment, and her wooer's attentions are rather a nuisance. She is definitely not the romantic one.

  My thoughts drifted to Minnie Pringle. What would happen to her and that large family? Ern had been warned some time earlier by the police when he had attacked one of his wife's admirers. Poor Minnie was a fool, but more sinned against than sinning, and I was sorry for the children of that stormy household.

  Well, I thought, snuggling down into my comfortable bed, maybe it would all blow over and I should hear no more of Minnie's troubles.

  But there I was wrong.

  Bob Willet was putting a new washer on the tap when I arrived at school the next morning. He broke off to greet me.

  'Never had this bother when I was at school here. Just had buckets of water.'

  'There were buckets when I came,' I told him. 'And a fine old nuisance they were. Trying to keep the flies out was enough for me.'

  'Arthur Coggs put a frog in one once,' he reminisced.

  'He would.'

  'Did you know there's a toad as lives up Mr Mawne's?'

  'Have you seen it?'

  'Dozens of times. Mr Mawne's put two pieces of slate lodged by his front door to make a little home for him. But he's not there now.'

  'What, the toad? Is he hibernating?'

  'No, no. Mr Mawne. He's in Ireland for a week or two, seeing his relations. I'm doing the greenhouse while he's gone.'

  'I hadn't heard.'

  'You will,' said Bob, as he departed.

  'Henry Mawne is away at the moment,' said the vicar when he came to take prayers. 'He asked me to keep it quiet, as it doesn't do to advertise the fact that the house is empty these days.'

  'Isn't his housekeeper there?'

  'No. She's having a break too.'

  Mrs Pringle arrived later to wash up.

  'So Mr Mawne's away in Ireland. I wouldn't want to have that crossing in this weather.'

  Mr Lamb at the Post Office was more forthcoming still.

  'Mr Mawne flew from Bristol. Don't take more than a few minutes to get to Cork. We'll miss him around for the next fortnight.'

  Alice Willet, Jane Winter and Mrs Richards all wanted to know if I had heard that Mr Mawne had gone to Ireland.

  So much for keeping things quiet in a village.

  That same evening John Jenkins rang.

  'Have you ever been to Rousham?' he enquired.

  'Never. Where is it?'

  'It's between Bicester and Chipping Norton. North of Oxford. A lovely place, and not far to go. I rang to see if you would care to go to a concert there.'

  'How lovely! When?'

  'It's rather short notice. Next Wednesday? I'd pick you up about six. The concert begins at seven thirty. It's in aid of the RSPB.'

  'Oh! I suppose Henry might be there.'

  'He's away in Ireland.'

  'Of course. I had forgotten.'

  We gossiped for a little about this and that, and he rang off.

  Now what, I wondered, would one wear on a February night to a charity concert in an old house?

  Something warm, I decided, and went to bed.

  Mrs Pringle was just finishing her Wednesday chores when I got home that afternoon.

  'I've done out under your stairs,' she announced, 'and not before time. There was a spider in there as big as a crab.'

  'Good heavens!'

  'And that ironing board of yours fell down again and hit my leg something cruel. You want to put that thing somewhere else.'

  'But where? I have thought about it.'

  'If it was my contraption I'd put it in the garage.'

  Actually, I thought, that's not a bad idea.

  'I'll put on the kettle,' I said, 'and I'll run you home a mite early. I'm out this evening.'

  'Ah yes!' she said smugly. 'Out with Mr Jenkins, I hear. You'll have to see Mr Mawne don't get jealous.'

  I pretended that I had not heard above the noise of the water running into the kettle, but my heart sank. I supposed it was all over the neighbourhood that I was pursuing a lone widower, if not two.

  We drank our tea, and kept the subjects to such harmless topics as the ever-present influenza, the exorbitant price of seed potatoes, how much a Caxley decorator had asked for doing out the village hall, and so on.

  John Jenkins was only mentioned again, as I drove her back to Fairacre.

  'He's a nice-looking man,' said Mrs Pringle. 'He reminds me of the rent-collector as used to come regular to my auntie's in Caxley. Very civil he always was, and my auntie never failed to say what a pleasure it was to hand over the rent money every week.'

  I made an appreciative noise.

  'We was all surprised when he was took away for murdering his poor wife. Done it with a common meat cleaver too.'

  Mrs Pringle sounded aggrieved, as though such a good-looking civil man could at least have picked a worthier weapon, such as a cavalry sword, for the job.

  Driving back I hoped that John Jenkins, who looked so like the rent-collector, did not have the same murderous urgings.

  Too late now to worry about it anyway, I decided, as I looked out suitable raiment for the outing.

  It was a lovely evening. It was still light enough to see the countryside as we drove north, and the air was balmy.

  John was an easy companion, and we had plenty to talk about. He obviously enjoyed music, played the flute, and was wondering if the Caxley orchestra would welcome him next season.

  It was dusk when we arrived at Rousham, but the bulk of the house against the sunset glow looked interesting, and I said so.

  'It is. We'll come again in the summer. It's the garden here that is the main attraction. It was laid out by William Kent early in the eighteenth century, and is pretty well unchanged. He had a lot to do with the house too. It's one of my favourite places. We'll make a definite date, as soon as it opens.'

  The concert took place in the hall, and was just the sort of music I like, a quartet playing melodious pieces of Schubert, Mozart and Haydn, a delight to the ear and enabling one to let the mind drift happily.

  At the interval we ate delicious snippets of this and that with plenty of smoked salmon and prawns and luscious pâtés around, and red and white wine flowing copiously.

  Some of us went outside and stood on the steps, for the night was pleasantly warm. The stars were out, and a light breeze rustled William Kent's ancient trees.

  As we returned we met two Caxley friends, Gerard Baker and his wife Miriam. As Miss Quinn, she had lived for a time in Fairacre, and was a good friend of mine. Introductions were made, and Miriam and I caught up with local gossip, leaving the men behind.

  'I hear you are retiring.'

  I told her why. She was sympathetic and sensible.

  'You won't regret it. As you know I go back occasionally to help out if Barney wants me, but as time passes, I really don't want to leave all my little domestic ploys.'

  I said I could well understand that. I did not imagine that my life would suddenly become empty.

  She laughed and agreed. 'It won't be, I assure you,' she said, as we made our way back to our chairs. '"Nature abhors a vacuum", as my old science teacher taught us.'

  A tag to remember, I thought, as the music began again.

  March, which is reputed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb, was doing the thing in reverse.

  Not that anyone complained. The gentle weather, which had been so much appreciated on the Rousham evening, continued to bless us, and the influenza and other patients returned in a straggle to their duties at Fairacre school.

  I took them for a shorter nature walk than usual one afternoon, in deference to their debilitated condition. We found catkins, of course, which had been fluttering in the hazel hedges for several weeks, but also some real harbingers of spring in the shape of coltsfoot, violets and one or two early primroses.

  Joseph Coggs found a blackbird's nest, and we all had a quick peep, but hurried off as the male bird kept up an outraged squawking from a nearby holly tree, an
d we did not want his bright-eyed mate to desert the eggs.

  'Soon be Easter,' said Ernest. 'My mum said Mr Mawne's going to have an egg hunt.'

  This sounded odd to me. After all, Henry is a keen ornithologist, and an egg hunt sounded wrong. I must have looked puzzled.

  "Chocolate eggs,' explained Ernest. 'All over the garden, and then a lantern show in the village hall.'

  'That's very kind of Mr Mawne,' I said. This was the first I had heard that he was back in Fairacre. 'You will be going to both, I suppose?'

  Ernest sighed. 'Well, my mum said you can't just collect the chocolate eggs and not go on to the lecture, so I suppose I'll have to go.'

  Well done, mum, I thought!

  As we passed the churchyard there was the sound of a spade at work. We looked over the wall to see Bob Willet digging at the bottom of a grave. He looked pink and cheerful.

  'You lot playing truant again?' he asked, straightening up from his labours.

  'Look! Two primroses!' shouted Patrick.

  'And six violets!' called one of the Bennett boys.

  'And we know where there's a blackbird sitting,' said Joseph.

  'I can do better'n that,' replied Bob Willet. 'There was a grass snake sunning itself on my compost heap midday.'

  'Can we go and see it?'

  'He scarpered when he saw me. But it shows the spring's come. You'll have to look out for frogs' spawn before long.'

  We waved him goodbye and returned with our treasures to the school.

  This, I thought with a pang, would be the last time I should see the nature table decked with the bounty of spring. Where should I be when it came again?

  I shook myself out of this melancholy mood.

  Busy as ever, no doubt, for didn't Nature abhor a vacuum?

  Amy rang me that evening to tell me about the plans for our Easter break in Shropshire.

  'James has found a very nice country hotel, not far from Bridgnorth. The only snag is that we shall have to be there over the Easter weekend. It's the only time he can see the business man, evidently. He's abroad most of the time, but is nipping over to see his mother in Shrewsbury for the holiday weekend.'