(2/20) Village Diary (3 page)

'But can she?' I asked. 'Didn't you have a clause about sub-letting?'

'No. I didn't. When Mrs Fowler first come begging, all pitiful as a widder-woman, to have my cottage, I was that sorry for her I let her have the key that day. Now the boot's on the other foot. She earns six pounds a week up the engineering works in Caxley, gets three off her lodger, and greets me with a face like a vinegar bottle. "Proper hovel," she called my cottage, just now, "I sees you don't give me notice though, my dear," I says to her, "and, what's more, that's a real smart TV set you got on the dresser there." Ah! she didn't like that!'

The old man chuckled at the thought of his flash of wit, and blew out an impudent dart of smoke from under the twirling moustaches.

'I've just met Mrs Partridge,' he added. 'She asked me if I'd like to give something towards the Church Roof Fund. I give her a shilling, and then I couldn't help saying: "If I was you, Ma'am, I'd call along Tyler's Row for donations. There's something in the nature of forty or fifty pounds going in there each week. You should get a mite from that quarter."'

He leant forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper.

'And you know what she said to me? "Mr Bennett, I'm afraid their hearts don't match their pay packets!" Ah, she sees it all-she and the vicar! Times is topsy-turvy. There's new poor and new rich today, but one and all has got to face responsibility, as I see it. You can't take out of the kitty and not put in, can you, Miss?'

The bus to Beech Green and Caxley drew up with a horrible squeaking of brakes. The driver, a local boy, from whom no secrets are hid, shouted cheerfully to Mr Bennett above the din.

'Been to collect them rents again? Some people has it easy, my eye!'

The old soldier cast me a quizzical glance, compounded of despair and amusement, mounted the steep step, and vanished among the country passengers.

I have been inflicted with a sudden and maddening crop of chilblains and can scarcely hobble around the house. No shoes are big enough to hold my poor, swollen, tormented toes and I am shuffling about in a pair of disreputable slippers which had been put aside for the next jumble sale, but were gratefully resurrected. A very demoralizing state of affairs, and can only put it down to the unwelcome appearance of snow.

The pantomime was an enormous success. Both buses were full, and Cathy Wakes, looking very spruce in her new High School uniform, sat by me and told me all about the joys of hockey. 'I'm right-half,' she told me, eyes sparkling, 'and you have to have plenty of wind, because if you're right-half you have to mark the opposing left-wing, and she's usually the fastest runner on the field.' There was a great deal more to the same effect, and in answer to my query about her prowess in more academic subjects, she said: 'Oh, all right,' rather vaguely, and went on to tell me of the intricacies of bullying-off.

Jimmy, her little brother, who sat by his mother opposite, was eating a large apple as he entered the bus, and in the six miles to Caxley consumed, with the greatest relish, a banana, a slab of pink and white nougat, a liquorice pipe, a bar of chocolate cream, and a few assorted toffees. This performance was only typical of many of his companions.

Joseph Coggs sat by me when we settled in the Corn Exchange. The pantomime was 'Dick Whittington,' and he was over-awed by the cat, whose costume and make-up were remarkably realistic.

'How does he breeve?' he asked, in a penetrating whisper.

I whispered back. 'Through the holes in the mask.'

'But he don't have no nose,' objected Joseph.

'Yes he does. It's under the mask.'

'Well, if it's under the mask, how does he breeve?'

We were back where we started, and I tried a different approach.

'Do you think he's holding his breath all this time, Joseph?'

'Yes, he must be.'

'Then how can he talk to Dick?'

Still not persuaded of the cat's 'breeving,' or half-believing it to be a real cat all the time, Joseph subsided. He loved every minute of the show—which was an extraordinarily good amateur performance—and nearly rolled out of his seat with excitement, when I pointed out Linda Moffat to him on the stage. She was a dazzling fairy queen, in a creation of her clever mother's making, and her dancing was a pleasure to watch. I was glad that Mrs Moffat, with her friend Mrs Finch-Edwards, had been able to come with us this afternoon to witness Linda's success.

Several of the cast were known personally to the Fairacre children and storms of clapping greeted the appearance of anyone remotely known.

'Look,' said Eric, on my other side, clutching me painfully, 'there's the girl what drives the oil-van Tuesdays.' And he nearly burst his palms with rapturous greeting.

When we emerged, dazzled with glory, into the winter twilight, the snow was falling fast. Queen Victoria, on her lofty pedestal wore a white mantle and a snow-topped crown. The lane to Fairacre was unbelievably lovely, the banks smooth as linen sheets, the overhanging beech trees already bearing a weight of snow along their elephant-grey branches, while the prickly hawthorn hedges clutched white handfuls in their skinny fingers.

St Patrick's clock chimed half-past five when we stepped out at Fairacre, after our lovely afternoon. Our footsteps were muffled, but our voices rang out as clear as the bells above, in the cold air.

Mrs Pringle asked me as we got off the bus if I had ever tried Typhoon tea? I successfully curbed an insane desire to ask her if it brewed storms in tea-cups? I enjoyed this
ban mot
all through my own tea-time.

***

A most peculiar thing happened today. A very loud knocking came at the door of my classroom, while we were chanting the pence table to 100, in a delightful sing-song that would make an ultra-modem inspector's hair curl—and when I opened it, a strange young man tried to push in. I manoeuvred him back into the lobby, shut the classroom door behind me, and asked what he wanted. He was respectably dressed, but unshaven. He said could he come in as he liked children? Thinking he was an eccentric tramp on his way from the Caxley workhouse to the next, I told him that he'd better be getting along, and shooed him kindly into the playground.

An hour later Mrs Annett came in from P.T. lesson, somewhat perturbed, because the wretched creature had hung over the school wall throughout the lesson making inane remarks. At this, I went out to send him off less kindly. By now, he had entered my garden and was drawing patterns on the snowy lawn with a stick.

When I asked him what he was supposed to be doing, he flummoxed me by whipping out a red, penny note-book and saying he'd come to read the gas meter. As we have no gas in this area, this was so patently silly that I made up my mind at once to get the police to cope with the fellow.

As I opened my front door he tried to come in with me, whining: 'I'm so hungry—so hungry,' and grinning vacantly at the same time. By now I was positive I had a madman on my hands, and very devoutly wished that I had not seen a gripping film about Jack the Ripper in Caxley recently, the horrider parts of which returned to me with unpleasant clarity.

'Go to the back porch,' I ordered him, in a stern school-marmish voice, 'and I will give you some food.' Luckily he went, and I sped inside, locked front and back doors, and rang Caxley police station in record time. A reassuring country voice answered me, and I began to feel much better as I described the man, until the voice said, in a leisurely manner: 'That'd be the chap that ran ofF from Abbotsleigh yesterday'^ur local mental home.

'Heavens—!' I began, squeaking breathlessly.

'He wouldn't hurt a fly, miss,' went on the unhurried burr, 'he'll be scared stiff of you. Just keep him there if you can and we'll send a car out—it'll be with you in a quarter of an hour.'

I didn't know that I cared to be told that the man would be scared stiff of me, but I cared even less for the suggestion that I cherished him under my roof. Nor did I like the thought of the forty children, of tender years, for whom I was responsible, not to mention Mrs Annett, whose husband I should never dare to face, if aught befell her. All this I babbled over the telephone, adding: 'I'm just going to give him a drink and some bread and cheese, in the back porch, so please try and get here while he's still eating.'

'Car's gone out already. Never you fear, miss. Treat him like one of your kids,' said my calm friend, and rang off. I handed a pint of cider, half a loaf, and a craggy piece of hard cheese through the kitchen window, and with subtle cunning of which I was inordinately proud, supplied him with a small, very blunt tea-knife which should slow up his progress considerably. I couldn't make up my mind whether to dash back to the school and warn Mrs Annett, or whether to hang on in the house until the police car came. In the end I stayed in the kitchen, watching the meal vanish all too swiftly and edging my mind away from that pursuing film.

After the longest ten minutes of my life, the car drew up. Two enormous, cheerful policemen came to the back porch, and asked the man to come for a ride with them.

He went, without a backward glance, still clutching the plate and mug. Once inside the car he finished his cider, and I emerged from the front door and collected his utensils, wishing him a heartfelt good-bye into the bargain.

The policeman said: 'Thank you, miss, thank you!' and drove off, still beaming.

When I caught sight of myself in the mirror in the lobby I was not surprised. The most scared schoolmistress in the United Kingdom crawled thankfully back to her noisy class, and never breathed a word of reproach to the dear souls.

I really believe that my chilblains have finally gone, and wish I knew what had cured them—if anything particular, apart from Time-the-great-healer, I mean.

The various suggestions for their rout have ranged from (i) calcium tablets (Mr Annett); (2) painting with iodine (Mrs Annett) which I tried, but found tickly to do and so drying that the poor toes started to crack as well as itch; (3) treating with the liquid obtained from putting salt in a hollow dug in a turnip (Mr Willet, the caretaker); and (4) thrashing with a sprig of holly until the chilblains bleed freely (Mrs Pringle). Needless to say I did
not
attempt the last sadistic assault on my suffering extremities.

I am very worried about Joseph Coggs. His mother was taken to hospital last week with some internal trouble connected with the recent baby. Mrs Pringle, who usually describes any ills of the flesh in the most revolting detail, has seen fit on this occasion to observe an austere reserve about Mrs Coggs' symptoms, taking up the attitude that there are some things that the great army of married women must keep dark from their less fortunate spinster sisters. The twins, who usually adorn the front desk in Mrs Annett's room, and a toddler brother, have been sent to Mrs Coggs' sister in Caxley; but as she has no room for Joe he is living a hand-to-mouth existence with his father (who is completely useless) and with Mrs Waites, the next-door neighbour, 'Keeping an eye on him.'

It all sounds most unsatisfactory to me. The child is not clean, has not had his clothes changed since his mother's departure, and looks frightened. Mr Willet told me more this morning when he came to fill the two buckets for the school's daily drinking-water, from my kitchen pump.

'I don't say nothing about Arthur Coggs' drunkenness,' announced Mr Willet, with heavy self-righteousness. 'Nor don't I say nothing about his Jutting of his wife now and again—that's his affair. Nor don't I say nothing about an occasional lift round the ear for his kids—seeing as kids must be brought up respectful—but I
do
say this. That's not right to leave that child alone in that thatched cottage with the candle on, while he spends the evening at the "Beetle and Wedge." Why, my wife and I we hears him roaring along home nigh on eleven most nights.'

'But the candle would have burnt out by then,' I said, horror-struck. 'Joe would be alone in the dark.'

'Well, I don't know as that's not a deal safer,' said Mr Willet, stolidly. 'Better be frightened than frizzled. But don't you upset yourself—Joe's probably asleep by then.'

'I thought Mrs Waites was looking after him.'

'Mrs Waites,' said Mr Willet, with a return to his pontifical manner, 'is well-meaning, but nighty. Never room for more than one thought at a time in her head. Maybe she takes a peep at him, once in a while; maybe she don't.'

Discreet questioning of Joseph, later in the morning, revealed that the state of his home affairs was even worse than suspected. The candle
does
go out, Joseph is too terrified to get out of bed, so wets it, and Arthur Coggs on his return from the pub shows his fatherly disapproval by giving the child what Joe calls 'a good hiding with his belt.' (On seeing my appalled face, Joe added, reassuringly, that he didn't use the buckle end.') Joseph's stolid acceptance of this state of things was rather more than I could bear, and I went to Mrs Waites' house during the dinner hour to see what could be done.

She was sensible and helpful, offering to let Joe share her little Jimmy's bed downstairs. This sounded ideal, and I promised to see Arthur Coggs about the scheme after tea. He—great bully that he is—was all srmles and servility, and confessed himself deeply grateful to Mrs Waites, as well he might be.

Luckily, Mrs Waites, who is a confirmed novelette-reader, has just read in this week's number, she told me, a story about a friendless child who later becomes heir to a dukedom and landed estate (no taxes mentioned), and suitably rewards kindly woman who befriended him in his early years. This has sweetened her approach to young Joe considerably, and though I can't see a dukedom looming up for him, he will doubtless never forget his own neighbour's present kindness. Flighty, Mrs Waites may be, but thoroughly sweet-natured, and I can quite see how she has fluttered so many male hearts.

I seem to be more than usually financially embarrassed, and when I had paid the laundry man this morning, found I was left with exactly two shillings and sevenpence. Mrs Pringle brought me my weekly dozen eggs this afternoon, and I had to tip out my threepenny bits which I save in a Coronation mug, and make up the balance.