(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green (2 page)

As Dimity was puffing her way uphill, Ella was kneeling in the front garden of their home planting out a row of pansies, a cigarette dangling from her lips. She looked up as the latch of the gate clicked.

'What a nice surprise!' she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet, and wiping her hands energetically down her skirt.

'I told you I'd bring the wool,' replied Dimity. 'On the phone.'

'Well, I didn't cotton on that you'd come this afternoon. To be honest. Dim, I believe I'm getting deaf. Don't hear half people say on the blower.'

'Probably only wax,' said Dimity, sitting down exhaustedly on a rustic seat under the eaves of the thatch. 'Get John Lovell to squish it out.'

'He'd perforate my ear drums, more like,' commented Ella. Her opinion of medical practitioners was low. Good health had kept her largely from their clutches, and she was suspicious of their professional activities.

'Want a cuppa?' she continued. 'You look whacked.'

'No, no. It's only walking up the hill. Don't let me stop you working. Can I help?'

'No, I've only a few more to bung in. You sit there and tell me all the news. How's Charles?'

'He's off to Oxford for a meeting.'

'Poor thing! Rather him than me. What on earth do clergymen do at these meetings? Do a bit of re-editing of
Hymns Ancient and Modem
? Make a list of their fellow priests who need censuring? Or defrocking?'

'Oh, nothing like that, I'm sure,' replied Dimity, somewhat shocked. 'I think it's more to do with money. Upkeep of the church property, allocation of funds, that sort of thing. Though I must admit that Charles never talks about church matters to me, and I'm very glad he doesn't. One can so easily let out something innocently that is supposed to be private.'

'Your Charles is a wise old bird. If you don't want a thing known, say nowt to anyone. I can't abide people who tell you some titbit and then add: "But don't say a word. You are the only person I've told!" You can bet your bottom dollar she's said the same to a dozen others before telling you.'

She rammed home the last pansy plant, and came to sit beside Dimity in the sun. Out from her skirt pocket came the battered tin which Dimity knew so well, and Ella began to roll one of her pungent and untidy cigarettes.

The two old friends sat in silence. They were both drowsy and pleasantly tired from their recent exercise. A chaffinch pottered busily in the garden bed, occasionally giving a satisfied chirrup, and a light breeze rustled the budding may bush by the gate.

In the distance, they could hear the school children at play across the green, and the rumble of traffic from the main road at the foot of the hill. It was all very soporific and the ladies could easily have dropped off. But suddenly the rattling of machinery close at hand made them alert.

'That dratted cement mixer,' said Ella. 'They're still mucking about with those new houses. Putting in steps, or a terrace, or some such, the foreman told me.'

Dimity stood up to see what was happening across the road, on the very site of her demolished old home.

Eight one-storey houses in the form of a south-facing L were being built for old people, designed by the local architect Edward Young, who lived close by in what was readily acknowledged as the handsomest house on Thrush Green.

'What a time they're taking!' commented Dimity. 'They were started ages ago.'

'Poor old Edward's having the deuce of a time with some of his suppliers, I gather. He's having handles fixed to the baths, and rails by the loos, and they had to be sent back because they weren't to his specification. Then he'd planned underfloor heating, and it was practically complete when another chap told him that some old people had complained of foot trouble after some time in a place in Northamptonshire. So off he went to investigate, and decided to rip it out and start again.'

'When does he hope to have them ready?'

'You tell me! One thing, there are plenty of people around with their names on the list. Is Charles mixed up with this?'

'He's on the committee, I know.'

'Well, he's got my sympathy when it comes to selecting eight deserving cases from the roll. The fur will fly for some time, is my guess. Why, even Percy Hodge has put his name down.'

'Percy Hodge?' echoed Dimity. 'But he's already got a house! And a wife to look after him!'

'Not now he hasn't. She's left him for good, has our Doris.'

'But he can only be sixty at the outside,' expostulated Dimity. 'That's not old by today's standards.'

'True enough, but he's not the only sixty-year-old to try it on. I hear Mrs Cooke at Nidden's applied too, and those mercenary old twins at Nod whose name I can never remember.'

'But Mrs Cooke has heaps of children to look after her, and those Bellamy twins have pots of money, and a bungalow of their own!'

'We all know that. All I'm saying is, Charles will have his work cut out when he's one of the panel trying to make a choice.'

Dimity looked troubled as she gazed across the hedge to the new buildings.

'Well, at this rate he won't be making any decisions yet a while,' she said at last. 'Maybe things will be easier when the time comes.'

To Ella's mind, this was a forlorn hope. But, for once, she forbore to say so.

'You don't have to hurry back, do you, Dim? Stop and have a cup of tea.'

'I'd love to. Charles won't be home before six, I imagine.'

'Good, then we'll go down to Dotty's to collect the milk. It will save Connie a trip. Incidentally, Dotty sent me some biscuits she'd made. Shall we try them at tea time?'

Dimity laughed.

'You can, I shan't! I had a fine bout of Dotty's Collywobbles when I went there last.'

Ella smiled behind her cigarette smoke.

'Don't worry. I was only teasing. They went out to the birds within half an hour, and I can't say they were too keen either.'

Later the two ladies crossed the green and entered the narrow lane that led across fields to Dotty Harmer's cottage, and then on to Lulling Woods.

The cement mixer by the new buildings was now at rest, and the site deserted. The low terrace of houses was going to be very attractive once the builders' mess was removed, lawns and shrubs planted, and the final lick of paint applied.

'Almost makes you think of putting your name on the list,' commented Ella as they walked on. 'Not that I'd stand a chance, and in any case I should hate to leave our little place.'

At Dotty's there was evidence of building too. Their eccentric old friend had lived there for many years with numerous animals and a large garden erratically tended. She had been the only daughter of the headmaster of the local grammar school. He had had a fearsome reputation for stern discipline, and grown men in Lulling still quailed at the mention of his name.

On his death, marked by a packed church at his memorial service ('Relief rather than respect!' as some wag remarked later), Dotty had moved to her present abode and enjoyed her freedom. As well as caring for her animals with passionate devotion, she experimented with the bounty of the fields and hedgerows, making chutneys and preserves of dubious plants and berries which she pressed upon her apprehensive friends. John Lovell, the Thrush Green doctor, was well aware of the local stomach trouble known as Dotty's Collywobbles, and it was the first question he asked of his suffering patients before turning to more orthodox complaints.

Dotty's own health was the concern of her friends for several years, but when her niece Connie came to take charge they breathed a sigh of relief. Now Connie had married Kit Armitage, a handsome widower, who once had attended Lulling's grammar school and known Dotty's ferocious father only too well for comfort. The enlargement of Dotty's thatched cottage was the result of their marriage.

It was Connie who opened the door to Ella and Dimity, and greeted them with affection.

'Do come in. Aunt Dotty's in the sitting room. Kit's shopping in Lulling. Have you had tea?'

They assured her on this point and went through the hall to see Dotty. They found her semi-prone on a sofa, a tapestry frame lodged on her stomach, and mounds of wool scattered around her.

'Don't get up!' exclaimed Ella, as Dotty began to thrash about. 'What are you making?'

She gazed with an expert eye at Dotty's efforts.

'A cushion cover, so the pattern says,' replied Dotty. 'It's called Florentine stitch, and supposed to be quite simple.'

'It is,' said Ella. 'Let's have a look.'

She removed the frame from Dotty's stomach, tightened some nuts, and then studied the work closely, back and front.

'You've missed a whole row of holes in some places,' she said at last. 'See these white lines? That's the canvas showing through.'

'Oh really?' said Dotty, yawning. 'Does it matter?'

'It does if you want the work to look well done,' said Ella with spirit. 'Tell you what, I'll take it home and put it right for you.'

Dotty lowered her skinny legs to the ground, and pulled up her wrinkled stockings.

'Oh, don't bother, Ella dear. I quite like the white lines. Rather a pretty effect. In any case, I'm rather busy sorting out a drawerful of old photos at the moment, and I think I'll put this work aside till the winter.'

She took possession of the frame and thrust it under the sofa. There was a yelp, and Flossie the spaniel emerged, looking hurt.

'Oh, my poor love!' cried Dotty. 'I had no idea you were there! Let me find you a biscuit as a peace offering.'

She scrabbled behind a cushion on the sofa head and produced a crumpled paper bag. From it she withdrew a piece of Rich Tea biscuit, and offered it to the dog. It was warmly received.

'Now,' said Dotty, rising to her feet and wiping her hands down her skirt. 'Come and see the new building.'

'Aunt Dotty,' protested Connie, now entering the room, 'there's nothing to see yet. Let Ella and Dimity have a rest after their walk.'

'No, let's see it,' said Ella, stumping along behind Dotty. 'How long have the men been here?'

The four women surveyed the piles of building material scattered about the garden. Dimity thought the sight depressing. Planks were propped against the fruit trees. Piles of bricks lurched drunkenly on what was once a lawn. Buckets, wheelbarrows, hods and spades all jostled together, and the inevitable cement mixer lurked behind the lilac bushes which were already covered in white dust.

'Full of hope, isn't it?' cried Dotty, eyes shining through her spectacles. 'Of course, there will be rather a mess when the thatcher comes. All that straw, you know, and his little hazel spars. I'm so looking forward to that. I shall have a chair out here and watch him at work. I think it must be rather a lonely job up on a roof. A little conversation should help him along.'

No one dared to comment on this appalling plan, but Connie hastily blew her nose, and looked towards the distant Lulling Woods.

'And when do you hope to see it complete?' asked Dimity.

'Edward says it should be ready by the winter,' replied Dotty. 'It's not a very big project, after all. The garage will be there.' She pointed to the powdered lilac bushes. 'And behind that will be a sitting room, or is it the larder, Connie dear?'

'The sitting room. And a bedroom above with a bathroom.'

'For Kit and Connie,' explained Dotty. 'A
large
bedroom, you understand. I think married people should have plenty
of air
at night. Two of them, in one room, you see. Now I only need that
small
room of mine. Plenty of cubic space for one sleeper. If ever I married, of course, I should have the wall knocked down between the two small rooms at the other end of the house.'

The hope of matrimony for dear old Dotty, now in her eighties, seemed so remote to all three ladies that they made no comment upon these wild conjectures, but contented themselves with picking their way among the muddle, and making polite noises.

'We really came to collect the milk,' said Ella at last, tired of stepping round piles of bricks, and circumventing wheelbarrows.

'It's all ready,' said Connie, turning towards the kitchen door.

Ella and Dotty followed the younger woman, but Dimity lingered in the garden.

The air was warm, and heavy with the scent of hay lying in the field beyond Dotty's hedge. Soon the baler would be thumping the crop into neat oblongs, grass and flowers and aromatic leaves compacted together, to carry the smell and comfort of summer into the winter byres where the store cattle stood, or to the snowy fields and the hungry sheep.

Of all the seasons, summer was the one that Dimity loved best. Thin and frail, she dreaded the cold Cotswold winter which dragged on, more often than not, into a chilling April. But a sunny June, with its many blessings of roses, hayfields, strawberries and long warm evenings, raised Dimity's spirits to near ecstasy.

She sighed with deep contentment, and made her way after the others. It was good to live in the country. It was good to have so many friends. It was good to feel warm and in splendid health.

She paused by the kitchen door to pick the bright bud of an Albertine rose to thread in her buttonhole.