(9/20) Tyler's Row (2 page)

The Waites moved and their cottage remained empty for some time, and then, soon afterwards the old couple grew too frail to manage for themselves, and went to live with a married daughter.

Now the two middle cottages of the row were empty, and Jim Bennett decided that it was as good a time as any to sell the property as a whole. Mrs Fowler at one end, and Sergeant Burnaby at the other, were not ideal tenants, and the fact that they were there at all must detract from the value of Tyler's Row, he knew well. But frankly, he had had enough of it, and he told his sister so.

They lived together at Beech Green in a cottage quite as inconvenient and dilapidated as any at Tyler's Row.

They sat on a wooden bench at the back of the house, in the hot July sunshine. The privet hedge was in flower, scenting the air with its cloying sweetness. Blackbirds fluted from the old plum tree, and gazed with bright, dark eyes at the black-currant bushes. Old white lace curtains had been prudently draped over them by Alice Bennett to protect the fruit from these marauders. From the plum tree they watched for an opportunity to overcome this challenge.

'We'll have to face it, Alice,' said Jim. 'The time's coming when we'll have to find a little place in Caxley—one of these old people's homes, something like that. If we sell up Tyler's Row we should have enough to see us pretty comfortable, with our pensions, until we snuff it.'

'You'll miss the rent,' said Alice. Her brother laughed scornfully.

'A good miss, too! Traipsing out to Fairacre every week, to be growled at by Mrs Fowler, isn't my idea of pleasure. I'll be glad to see the back of Tyler's Row, and let someone else take it on.'

'Who'd want it?' asked Alice reasonably. 'With those two still there?'

'We'll see. I'm going into Caxley tomorrow to get Masters and Jones to put it on their books. Some young couple might be glad to knock a door between those middle cottages to make a real nice little house.'

'They won't fancy old Burnaby rapping on the wall one side, and Mrs Vinegar Fowler on the other, if I know anything about it.'

'That's as may be. I'm getting too old to trouble about Tyler's Row. I'm content to take what the agents can get for it, and be shot of the responsibility.'

He knocked out his cherrywood pipe with finality. Alice, knowing when she was beaten, rose without a word, and went indoors to cut bread and butter for tea. Jim might be getting on for eighty, but there was no doubt he could still make up his mind.

And what was more, thought Alice, his decisions were usually right.

In no time at all it was common knowledge in Fairacre, Beech Green, and as far afield as the market town of Caxley, that Tyler's Row was up for sale. No advertisement had appeared, no sales board had been erected, but nevertheless everyone knew it for a fact.

The reasons given varied considerably. Some said that Mrs Fowler was buying it, having won several thousands from

a. the football pools
b. a tea competition
c. an appearance on a T.V. commercial advertisement.

('What for?' asked one wit. '"Use our face cream, or else?"')

Others held the view that the Sanitary People had condemned the property and it was going to be pulled down anyway.

Nearer the mark were those who guessed that Jim Bennett had had enough, and he was selling whilst there was a chance of making a few hundred.

The wildest theory of all was put forward by no less a person than the vicar, who was positive that he had heard that a society for the revival of Victorian poetry was buying the property, and proposed to open it to the public as a shrine to Aloysius's memory.

Certainly, within a week of the conversation between Jim and his sister in the privacy of their garden, everyone knew of the intended sale. He had told his tenants, of course, as soon as he had made up his mind, but they had said little. It was yet another case of air-borne gossip, so usual in a village as to be completely unremarkable.

Mrs Pringle, a glumly formidable dragon who keeps Fairacre School clean, and who polishes the tortoise stoves with a ferocity which has to be seen to be believed, told me the news with her usual pessimism.

'So poor old Jim Bennett's having to sell Tyler's Row.'

'Is he?' I said, rising to the bait.

'Some say he's hard put to it to manage on his bit of pension, but I reckons there's more to it than that.'

There was a smugness about the way Mrs Pringle pulled in her three chins, and the purse of her downward-curving mouth which told me that I should hear more.

She put a pudgy hand on my desk and leant forward to address me conspiratorially.

'It's my belief he's Got Something. Something the doctors can't do anything about.'

'Oh,
really
...' I began impatiently, but was swept aside.

'Mark my words, Jim Bennett knows his Time Has Come, and he's putting his affairs in order. By the time that sales board goes up, we'll know the worst, no doubt.'

An expression of the utmost satisfaction spread over her face, and she made for the lobby with never a trace of a limp—a sure sign that, for once in her martyred existence, Mrs Pringle was enjoying life.

2. Prospective Buyers

BUT, amazingly, the board did not go up. While Fairacre speculated upon this, the firm of estate agents in Caxley had informed several clients already seeking country houses that Tyler's Row was now for sale, and they enclosed glowing reports on the desirability of the property.

Among those who received a letter from Masters and Jones was Peter Hale, a schoolmaster in his fifties. He sat at his breakfast table, toast in one hand, the letter in the other and read hastily through the half-glasses on the end of his nose.

Every now and again he glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. At half-past eight every morning of term time, for just over thirty years, Peter Hale had set off down the hill to Caxley Grammar School where he taught mathematics and history to the lower forms.

He walked the half-mile or so regularly, for the good of his health. As a young man he had been a sprinter and a hurdler, and the thought of losing his athletic figure, as so many of his fellow colleagues had done, was anathema to him. To tell the truth, exercise was something of a fetish with Peter Hale, and his family and friends were sometimes amused, sometimes irritated, by his earnest recommendations of a 'good five-mile walk', or 'a run before breakfast' for any minor illnesses, ranging from a cold in the head to a wasp sting. His wife declared that he had once advised one of these sovereign remedies for her sprained ankle. It might just have been possible.

She was a small, plump, pretty woman with a complexion like a peach. Once fair, her hair was now silvery-grey and softly curled. She was very little changed from the girl Peter had met and married within a year. There was a gentle vagueness about her which won most people's affection. The less charitable dismissed Diana Hale as rather bird-brained', which she most certainly was not. Beneath the feminine softness and the endearing good manners was a quick intelligence. Her anxiety not to hurt people kept her sharpness sheathed like a sword in its scabbard; but it was there, nevertheless, and this awareness of the ridiculous and the incongruous gave her much secret amusement.

The clock said twenty-five past eight and Diana waited for the last quick gulp of coffee and the rolling of her husband's table napkin.

He tossed the letter across to her, and lifted his cup.

'What do you think of it? Shall we go and have a look?'

'Fairacre,' said Diana slowly. 'Wouldn't it be rather far?'

'Six miles or so. Not much more. And lovely country-good downland walks. High too. Wonderful air.'

Peter Hale tucked his spectacles into their case, checked that he had his red marking pen safely in his inner pocket, his handkerchief in another and his wallet in the back pocket or his trousers. 'So much more convenient for the pickpockets', as Diana had told him once.

'Must be off. I'll be late back. Staff meeting after school.'

He gave her forehead a quick peck, and was gone.

Diana poured a second cup of coffee and thought about this proposed move.

She wasn't at all sure that she wanted to move anyway. They had lived in the present house for almost twenty years and she had grown very attached to it.

It had been built early in the century, in common with many others, on the hill south of Caxley. Mostly they had been taken by professional and business people in the town, who wanted to move away from their working premises, yet did not want to be too far off.

They were well-built, with ample gardens whose trees were now mature and formed a screen against the increased traffic in the road. Diana had worked hard in the garden, scrapping the enormous herbaceous border which had been the pride of a full-time gardener in earlier and more affluent times, and the dozen or so geometrically-shaped garden beds which had been so beautifully set out with wall-flowers, and then geraniums, in days gone by.

The two long rose-beds were her own creation, and a new shrubbery, well planted with bulbs, gave her much satisfaction and less backbreaking work. She would hate to leave her handiwork to others.

The house too, though originally built with accommodation for at least one resident maid, was easily managed. Here she and Peter had brought up their two sons, both now in the Navy, and the place was full of memories.

And Caxley itself was dear to her. She enjoyed shopping in the town, meeting her friends for coffee, hearing the news of their sons and daughters, taking part in such innocent and agreeable activities as the Operatic Society and the Floral Club. Her nature made her averse to committee work. She lacked the drive and concentration needed, and had never been able to whip up the moral indignation she witnessed in some of her friends who were engaged in public works. She admired their zeal sincerely, but she knew she was incapable of emulating them.

She knew so many people in the town. After all, Peter was now teaching the sons of his former pupils, and every family, it seemed, had some tie with the Grammar School. The young men in the banks, the shops and the offices of Caxley were almost all Old Boys, and knew her well. Wouldn't she feel lost at Fair acre?

She told herself reasonably that she would still run into Caxley to shop and meet friends, but it would mean a second car. She knew that any buses from Fairacre would be few and far between. Had Peter considered this, she wondered, in his desire to get into the country?

He had wanted to do this for years now. Circumstances had kept them in the town, the boys' schooling, the convenience of being within walking distance of his work, and Diana's obvious contentment with her way of life. But the boys were now out in the world. The house was really too large for them, and the garden, with no help available, was soon going to prove too much for them.

'Now's the time to pull up our roots,' Peter had said, at least a year earlier. 'We're still young and active enough to settle into another place and to make friends. I'd like to get well dug in before I retire.'

He looked at his wife's doubtful face.

'If we don't go soon, we never will,' he said flatly. 'It's time we had a change of scene. Let's go and look at a few places anyway.'

During the past few months they had visited a dozen or so properties, and each time they had returned thankfully to their own home.

At this time, estate agents could laud their wares to the skies and many a 'desirable residence in charming surroundings' could have been more truthfully described as 'Four walls and a roof in a wilderness'. Sometimes, it was enough to read the agent's description, and the Hales did not bother to visit the establisment. Other factors weeded out the possibles from the impossibles. For instance, Peter Hale refused to have anything to do with a property advertised ''twixt' this and that, or as 'prestige'.

'Listen to this,' he would snap crossly. '"'Twixt downs and salubrious golf course". And here's another, even worse. "A gem set 'twixt wood and weir." Well, they're out for a start! I'm not living 'twixt anything.'

There would be further snorts of disgust.