(9/20) Tyler's Row (13 page)

There had been neighbours there, but at four times the distance, and they had been people who behaved in an adult and civilised way. To be in the cross-fire of two such opponents as Mrs Fowler and Sergeant Burnaby, barely twenty or thirty yards apart, was as frightening as it was exhausting. Life at Tyler's Row was going to be impossibly difficult if this sort of conduct continued. Diana had never quarrelled with anyone in her life. This ever-increasing hostility made her acutely unhappy.

She stamped her letters abstractedly. In them she had dwelt on the pleasasant side of life at Tyler's Row, the flowers now blooming, the friends who had called, village activities and news of the family. There was no point in burdening the boys with her growing doubts about the wisdom of the move. It would be disloyal to Peter, and in any case, the neighbours were really the only fly in the ointment.

There was one other matter which Diana kept to herself, but one which she knew she must tell Peter before long. For the past few days this fear had haunted her so terribly that she had tried to evade making a decision.

A mole on her neck which had been there for several years was beginning to grow at an alarming rate. She noticed it first as she was drying herself after a bath. It seemed slightly painful and definitely larger than usual.

She watched it anxiously for the next three or four days, and was now positive that it was growing steadily. Could it be malignant? Could it be cancerous? She knew so little about these things, but remembered reading somewhere that moles sometimes became a menace.

She knew quite well that she must go and see the doctor. He would probably allay her fears, and if he could not, then the sooner the wretched thing was removed the better.

It was telling Peter which worried her so much. As a family they had all been so wonderfully healthy that any kind of illness seemed doubly horrifying to them. No doubt, thought Diana, with a wry smile, Peter would prescribe a good walk to scotch her trouble.

He had enough to think about, in all conscience. Tyler's Row had cost more than at first estimated, as is usual. The problem of their irascible tenants was going to grow, and he was anxious, Diana knew, that she should settle happily.

Well, one could not arrange these things, thought Diana, taking up her letters. Illness struck without warning. She had lived with this fear now for a week. She must not delay further. This evening she would share the problem with Peter and make an appointment with their doctor first thing in the morning.

She stood up and looked into the sunlit garden. The single roses were wide open in the heat, showing their golden stamens. A yellow and orange butterfly fluttered over a lavender bush, and a blackbird scratched busily under the lilacs.

It was so beautiful. How could she bear to be taken from it? And how would Peter manage if she died?

Her vision was suddenly blurred by tears, and she pulled herself together. No more morbid thoughts, she told herself. Indulging in self-pity helped no one. She would take her letters and walk in the sunshine to Mr Lamb's Post Office to calm herself.

But a line of poetry throbbed in her head as she walked beneath the trees up to the village:

'Look thy last on all things lovely
Every hour...'

and, despite the sunshine, Diana was shaken with the chill of fear.

11. A Village Quiz

'I WARN you,' said Mr Willet, one June morning. 'Mrs Pringle's comin' up the village street draggin' her leg.'

'Oh no!' I cried, my heart sinking. 'What's wrong then?'

'Didn't you ask her to pull out that cupboard to see if there was a mouse there?'

'I asked her to have a look when she swept—yes!'

'Well, she did, and there was, and she says she's strained herself.'

This was dispiriting news. If Mrs Pringle feels that too much has been asked of her, which is a frequent occurrence, then it has dire consequences upon her bad leg. This limb reflects the state of Mrs Pringle's temper and martyrdom as surely as a weather-cock shows the prevailing wind. It 'flares up', as Mrs Pringle puts it, at the slightest provocation. Any little extra effort, such as moving a cupboard, aggravates this combustible quality of her leg, and we all behave with circumspection when Mrs Pringle appears with a limp.

'Let her get on with it,' advised Mr Willet sturdily. 'Pretend you don't notice it, silly old faggot.'

At that moment the door-scraper clanged, and Mrs Pringle appeared over the threshold.

'Lovely morning,' I ventured, with forced cheerfulness.

Mrs Pringle advanced, limping heavily, her head out-thrust like a bull whose patience is fast running out.

'Not if you're In Pain,' boomed Mrs Pringle.

'I'm sorry to hear that,' I replied mendaciously. Mr Willet looked out of the window, smirking quite unnecessarily.

'I've tore my back muscles and my bad leg, pushing that great cupboard to one side last night. Not that it wasn't needed. That mouse must've been there for weeks. He'd got a fair collection of nuts and berries and rubbish off of the nature table. You know what I'm always saying. That nature table's an open invitation to pests. Stands to reason mice is going to come in for that stuff, spread out for them to help themselves.'

I know quite well, and Mrs Pringle knows that I know, that it is not the mice she dislikes, but the extra debris which the nature table sheds occasionally on to the floor, and which makes more work for her. Mrs Pringle's leg was badly affected on the day some branches of blackthorn capsized, sprinkling the floor heavily with petal confetti.

'What's more,' went on Mrs Pringle remorselessly, 'he's had the corner off of one of them map things. That one with the gentleman made of india-rubber.'

This I rightly construed as the wall chart showing 'The Muscles of The Human Body', an alarming diagram which has not been in use very much since my arrival at Fairacre school. As far as I was concerned, the mouse was welcome to it, but I forbore to say so.

'He's been and chewed it up to shreds so it's no good hopin' to fix it back on, or cryin' over spilt milk.'

'I'm not,' I assured her.

'I shall have to take things easy today,' announced Mrs Pringle, putting a large mauve hand on the small of her back—if so extensive an area of anatomy can be thus called—and limping towards the door.

Mr Willet watched her go solemnly, turned to give me a sympathetic wink, and followed her into the lobby.

A minute later, presumably in the lady's absence, I heard one boy call out: 'You wants to watch it! Ma Pringle's leg's 'urting 'er. You'll get the back of 'er 'and if she sees you doing that!'

The retort was in terms more suited to the public bar of 'The Beetle and Wedge' than the playground of a Church of England primary school.

I decided that I had not heard it.

The days that followed were still darkened by Mrs Pringle's gloomy mood, but the limping seemed to ease a little as the days went by, and we became cautiously hopeful.

The high spot of the week was a visit from Amy. She brought with her a niece of James's, called Vanessa, an eighteen-year-old dressed fashionably in a motley collection of shapeless woollen garments in shades of mauve, grey and black. Three sleeves overlapped, the first layer appearing to be some sort of garment which my mother would have called a spencer, then another three-quarter length one, topped by a cardigan which reached the knees but, surprisingly, had short sleeves.

A dull brown stone on an inordinately long silver chain swung over her attire and hit her teacup, every now and again, when she tossed back a mane of long black hair. The stone reminded me of one shown me once by Mrs Pringle. She had told me, with much relish, that it came from her mother's gall bladder and was much treasured in the family. I am a squeamish woman, and have never quite got over this shattering experience. To have Vanessa's stone swinging about the tea-table was very unnerving.

She was a silent girl, ate very little, and appeared thoroughly bored with our company. As soon as tea was over, Amy dispatched her to the village stores to buy some cigarettes.

'Sorry about this,' said Amy, 'but she's in love. Eileen, James's sister, is at the end of her tether, and I said I'd have her for a few days.'

'What's he like?'

'Unsuitable.'

'How unsuitable?'

'Well, do you remember dear Joyce Grenfell's sketch where the bewildered mother says: "Daddy and I are delighted that you are going to marry a middle-aged Portuguese conjurer, darling. But are you sure he will make you happy?" It's rather like that.'

'Married?'

'Four times already. Has six children, one eye and a cork leg.'

'You're making it up!'

'Cubs' honour!' said Amy, drawing a finger across her throat for added measure. 'May I slit my throat, if I tell a lie, and all that. He was wounded in a war in Bolivia.'

'This gets more unbelievable every minute.'

'It's gospel truth, darling. He recently came as a rep. to the firm where she fiddles with the typewriter all day—one can't call it proper typing. She offered to do some letters for me yesterday, and every one began: "Dear Mr Who-ever-it-was Halfpenny".'

'She has my sympathy,' I said.

'Maybe. You taught yourself, but Vanessa had over a year at some ruinously expensive place in town where she met dozens of perfectly normal cheerful young men of her own generation. But no—she must fall for Roderick.'

'I suppose Eileen's talked to her?'

'Till she's blue in the face. So have I. It makes no difference. She eats next to nothing, dissolves into tears, has constant headaches, and threatens to do away with herself.'

'Can't she change her job?'

'She doesn't want to. She can see the wretched fellow this way. I've offered to take her abroad for a few weeks — James is willing — but Eileen's doubtful, and to tell the truth, I don't know if I could stand it, after having her at close quarters these last few days.'

'What is she interested in?'

'Roderick.'

'I know, silly. But besides Roderick?'

'More Roderick,' said Amy emphatically. 'I tell you, my dear, that child has absolutely no other thought in her head at the moment. Her parents, at their wits' end, have offered her a car, hoping she would find some other interest, but she's even refused that! Have you ever heard of an eighteen-year-old turning down a car?'

'Never!'

'That shows you. Incidentally, James pranged ours last week. He rang up to tell me, and of course I said "Are you all right?" and I couldn't think why he laughed so much. Evidently, a man in his office always maintains that wives always say this on these occasions. If the
wife
rings up, of course, after an accident, the husband always says: "Is the
car
all right?" So we ran true to form.'

Vanessa appeared in the doorway, holding the cigarettes. She handed them to Amy without a word, and sank, exhausted, into an armchair.

Amy and I stacked the tray and I carried it into the kitchen.

'Come and see the pinks,' I said. 'Would Vanessa like to come in the garden?'

'I should leave her,' said Amy, and so we wandered together down the path, enjoying the June sunlight and the heady scent from the cottage pinks.

'I really can't see why love is cracked up so much,' I said thoughtfully. 'As the Provincial Lady once said, good teeth and a satisfactory bank balance are really much more rewarding.'

'You always were cold-blooded,' said Amy. 'I can remember how you treated that poor young fellow at Corpus Christi when we were at college.'

'If you mean that sanctimonious individual with a name like Snodgrass or Culpepper who was going to be a missionary, he deserved all he got. He was simply looking for someone to accompany him to the poor unsuspecting head-hunters in Africa. Anyone strong and female would have done. Of course I turned him down! So did about a dozen more.'

'Not as flatly as you did. I think you are the most unromantic woman I've ever met.'

'Maybe,' I said, threading a pink in her button-hole, 'but when I meet the Vanessas of this world—and many of them years older, and with less excuse for such follies—then I am sincerely thankful that I am a maiden lady, and likely to remain so.'

Amy laughed indulgently, and we went back to the house to collect her comatose niece. She drifted to the car behind her aunt, but, once inside, remembered her manners sufficiently to thank me in a listless voice.

As Amy searched for her car key, Vanessa made her first voluntary contribution to the conversation. There was even a faint hint of animation in her tone.

'What a pretty village this is!'

Amy's mouth dropped open in astonishment. It was good to see her smitten dumb for once. It so rarely happens.

A few days after the visit of Amy and the lovelorn Vanessa, the next meeting of Fairacre Parent-Teacher Association took place.

As I had feared, these monthly meetings seemed to occur much too frequently, and I had reason to dread the present one, rather more than usual, for I had agreed, in an off-guard moment, to be on the panel of a quiz game.