Passing On (3 page)

The failure of the Glovers to fit properly into a category troubled the village, which liked to know where it was with people. The inhabitants of the Barratt Executive Homes did not know whether to defer or to be kindly patronising and ended up doing both, disconcerting themselves. The Hadleys were so set apart by wealth that, like old-fashioned aristocrats, they saw everyone else as a featureless proletariat and were uniformly bland to everyone; they would never have noticed the Glovers.

The older inhabitants of the council houses had had a barbed relationship with Dorothy Glover for many a long year. Their children and grandchildren, less conditioned and more broadminded, thought her a bad-tempered old bag but rather liked Edward and Helen, who were in no way stuck-up and not given to complaining about noisy motor bikes.

There were only two industrial enterprises in Long Sydenham.

At one end of the village the Old Forge made wrought iron garden gates, firescreens, lampstands and candlesticks. It wouldn’t have known what to do with a horse if it saw one. At the other, divided from Greystones by the cordon sanitaire of the Britches, was Ron Paget’s builders’ yard, a place of noise, mud, lorries, churning cement-mixers and stacks of bricks.

The Britches was a piece of mixed scrub and woodland about two acres in extent. It was known as the Britches to everyone in the village for reasons now lost; that was its name, simply. It belonged to the Glovers; their garden, indeed, melted into it at an indeterminate point where the back of a shrubbery gave way to docks, elder bushes, and a few diseased apple trees long past Producing anything but a sparse rash of blossom in spring.

Beyond that was an expanse of grass that was waist high by August, and huge billowing clumps of nettles, and beyond that again a thickly tangled place of beech, birch, elder and an undergrowth of brambles and low bushes above a blanket of leafmould. There was a vague belief at Greystones that the Britches had once been a quarry; certainly the ground was very uneven. Long ago Edward had constructed a rockery in the garden with large stones hauled from there. It was divided from Ron Paget’s yard by a high but battered fence through which came marauders by way of dogs, cats and children. From time to time unpleasant things turned up: animal corpses, hanks of lavatory paper and used condoms.

The village had long marvelled over the Britches. Throughout the rapacious seventies, when every other morsel of waste ground within miles, every barn, shed, pigsty, dilapidated cottage, every orchard and a good many back lawns had been turned to financial advantage by their owners, Dorothy Glover had disregarded the blandishments of speculative builders. Foremost among them, naturally, was Ron Paget. He had tried everything, varying his approach from brisk outright proposals to more subtle manoeuvres, moving from periods of relentless pressure to times of tactful neighbourly solicitude. Dorothy ignored him.

From time to time people raised the matter, driven by curiosity and perplexity. If you sold the Britches, they said (circuitously, delicately, wrapping it up in euphemisms …) you could buy a new car, put in central heating, have a holiday in the Bahamas, go and live in Have. Helen and Edward could have cars, holidays, new clothes, consumer goods. You would all inspire respect and envy. You would look nicer. You would be asked out more. Helen and Edward would have sexual clout. Money is power.

The years went by and the Britches remained unsold and untouched. It became apparent to the village that you were dealing with people who were beyond reason and impervious to common sense. Those who had attributed to Dorothy Glover financial acumen and patience greater than their own — the old bat was waiting till land prices rocketed even higher — came to realise that they were mistaken. Land prices peaked, and peaked again; planning permissions poured forth from the offices of the county council, and still she did not sell. She wasn’t ever going to sell: she meant what she said.

Dorothy herself never went into the Britches, Helen only rarely. The only person who visited it regularly was Edward, to monitor the ecology. There was a surprising amount of it if you knew what you were looking for. A pair of tawny owls nested, as did green and spotted woodpeckers. Warblers abounded.

There were treecreepers and occasionally a nuthatch, goldfinches and every kind of tit. There was a good assortment of butterflies and moths. Flora did rather less well; the surviving patch of bluebells was imperilled by ranker growths, the few wood anemones had vanished along with the purple spotted orchids that were now almost legendary. But there were some ramsoms and plenty of celandine and self-heal and ground ivy and more ordinary stuff. Edward fought a halfhearted battle with grey squirrels and magpies, considered to be a threat to the choicer forms of bird life. Helen, from time to time, pointed out the irrationality of this: ‘You’re interfering, in fact. Tampering with the system. And why is one bird more desirable than another?’

Edward, while admitting the ambiguity, said that one couldn’t help feeling that way. As it was, all he was able to bring himself to do was to make shooing noises and, on occasion, destroy a magpie nest. When, years ago, Ron Paget had spotted what he was at and offered to come over with a shotgun, Edward had been appalled. Helen pointed out the irrationality of this, also.

It was starting to rain again. Helen continued to stand at the window and after a few minutes Edward appeared, breaking out of the gap in the shrubbery that was the normal route to the Britches. He had not changed out of the suit, his only one, which would now have bits of twig and leafmould on it when next it was required. He looked exactly what he was: an absent-minded well-intentioned school teacher approaching fifty.

TWO

During the ensuing days Helen felt as though her mother were continuously present in the house as a large black hole. There was a hole in Dorothy’s bedroom, in the bed where she was not, on which, now, the blankets were neatly folded and the cover spread. There were various other holes, where she stood at the kitchen table preparing one of those unappetising stews, or shouting instructions from the landing or inspecting a caller at the front door. There were perambulant holes in which she creaked down the stairs or came in through the front door.

Almost, Helen stood aside to let her pass or manoeuvred around her large black airy bulk as she occupied the scullery or the narrow passage by the back stairs. It was weeks before Helen could walk straight through her, or open her bedroom door without bracing herself for the confrontation.

Louise telephoned, almost daily. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I’m all right.’

‘And Edward?’

‘Edward’s all right too,’ said Helen, rather crossly. ‘Why shouldn’t we be?’

‘After all this time. You’re so used to her. I mean, I can’t quite take it in myself yet. It’s a shock.’

No it isn’t,’ said Helen. ‘We all knew she was going to die.’

‘Yes, but we didn’t properly believe it. One doesn’t. She didn’t, certainly, which I suppose was just as well. ‘Oh gosh . . — Louise’s voice trailed away — ‘I still can’t . .

Dorothy, who had seldom had a day’s illness in her eighty years, had disputed the diagnosis. She had contradicted it flatly.

‘The stupid man says I’ve got something foul,’ she announced. ‘I told him not to be so silly.’ As the disease progressed she blamed

the consultant for ineffective or faulty treatment, baying at him across his desk in the hospital or railing over the telephone. When eventually it reduced her to bed, and at last to a glaring silence, the specialist came into his own, able to commend her fighting spirit. ‘Your mother never gave in,’ he told Helen and Edward, portentously. ‘One can tell the truth to someone like that and know that it will inspire strength rather than despair.’ Helen hadn’t had the heart to say that her mother had never for one moment believed him. Her dead face had worn, it seemed, an expression of outrage and incredulity.

‘You should have a holiday,’ said Louise. ‘Go off somewhere.

Look, we’ve this friend who’s got a cottage in the Lake District . .

‘No thanks. I’m too busy. I’m getting back to the library as soon as I’ve got the house sorted out.’

During the long weeks of her mother’s illness Helen had had to take leave from the library. She looked forward, now, to a return to those brisk impersonal days. First, though, there were chores. The paraphernalia of nursing had to be disposed of, bills attended to, those things done which had not been done. She saw that the drooping gutter at the front of the house was now quite unsupported, and that there was yet another slate off the roof. Ron Paget had been asked to come and had not. Foolish to have imagined that one request would suffice. With the back of the Morris Minor piled up with the things for the Red Cross — the commode, the back supports — she stopped off at the yard, Spotting Paget loading one of his lorries.

‘Mr Paget!’

He came across. They were old sparring partners. He was almost pleased to see her, she saw — gingered up at the thought of a little contest. Over the years there had been plenty: questions of noise and dirt from the yard, the dominant continuous issue of the Britches, Ron’s need to keep in with Greystones offset against Greystones’ frequent need for minor repairs and services.

We have grown middle-aged together, thought Helen. Except that Ron has also grown richer and richer, and shed his dull old Wife and got a glossier younger one, and progressed from a beat up van to a flashy new car every year. The times have been good to Ron. More so than to me. She thought of him as Ron, but always addressed him with formality, for good strategic reasons.

‘Mr Paget, you said you’d see to that gutter for us. And the slates.’

‘So I did, Miss Glover, so I did. Will do. Tell you what — I’ll send a couple of the men over tomorrow morning. How’s that?’

‘Thanks. I’ll expect them, then.’

‘A sad time for you,’ said Ron piously. ‘We’ve been thinking about you, Pauline and me. You’re keeping well, and your brother, I hope.’

‘We’re fine, thank you,’ said Helen briskly. She started up the Morris again.

Ron Paget laid a hand on the bonnet. ‘It’s done you well, hasn’t it, your old jalopy. How old would it be now?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Helen. ‘I’m not very interested in cars.’

The Morris Minor, in fact, was fifteen years old but had seldom been more than fifty miles from Long Sydenham. The mileage was barely forty thousand and it was in pristine condition, exquisitely maintained by a fond mechanic at Willoughby’s Garage in Spaxton.

Ron, eyeing the Morris, said, ‘I’ll tell you what, Miss Glover, I’ve had an idea. I’ll do you a favour. My sister’s wanting something to potter around in. She doesn’t need anything fancy. I’ll buy your old rattle-trap off you and do it up for her.’ Amazing what a good Morris would fetch now, collector’s items, they were. This particular one was hot stuff, in the right market. Old Miss G. wouldn’t know that, of course, not in a month of Sundays she wouldn’t. ‘Get yourself something more up to date,’

he went on. ‘Nice little Escort, that sort of thing. You deserve it.’

‘Do I?’ said Helen. ‘Well, you may be right.’ She got out and contemplated the Morris. ‘What do you think it’s worth, Mr Paget?’

‘Well …’ Ron considered. “Course, they don’t make them any more. Gone right out of fashion. You can’t get the spares.

And that’s long in the tooth, that one.’

‘Mmm,’ said Helen.

‘Hartwell’s wouldn’t look at it. Not as a trade-in for a newish Escort.’

‘I daresay not,’ said Helen.

‘I’d like to do you a good turn, though, Miss Glover. I can tinker about with it myself and see if I can put it to rights. Tell you what, I’ll give you five hundred for it.’ He slapped the Morris’s rump, scraped at a small scratch mark and frowned.

‘I’m a fool, but I’m feeling generous. Five hundred.’

‘It goes very well still, as it happens,’ said Helen. ‘I doubt if you’d need to do much tinkering. I’ll think it over. Or I could put an advertisement in the Morris Minor Owners’ Club magazine.

Did you see that article in the Observer?’ She got into the car and started up the nicely tuned engine. ‘Thanks for the offer, anyway. And that’s a promise, is it, about the gutter?’

Ron watched her go. Crafty bugger. Not so daft as she looks.

Like the old woman. But where does it get them?

Helen, experiencing the first little glow of pleasure for quite a while, turned out of Ron’s yard into the road. In fact, Edward was more in need of a new car than she was. The Morris had many miles in it yet, but Edward’s old Beetle (also, one understood, of rarity value nowadays but in this case, alas, too far gone) had packed up again that morning and he had had to go to school on the bus, a tedious process involving a change with a long wait.

Edward taught at Croxford House, a private girls’ school catering for the daughters of the more prosperous local farmers, the less prosperous gentry and upwardly mobile business people from Spaxton. It had few educational pretensions. Hardly anyone went on to university. A few of the more aspiring girls took vocational courses and became physiotherapists or nurses.

Most settled for clerical work, jobs as receptionists or, if the worst came to the worst, shop assistants. Marriage was very much on the cards, too. There might no longer be any stigma on spinsterhood in Hampstead or Fulham, but down here things were a little different. The girls still married at twenty; marriage remained their objective and the means whereby they acquired status. Mrs Hadley of the Old Rectory gave a great many parties, the purpose of which was to infiltrate her two daughters into the

local aristocracy. No nonsense about universities or interesting jobs for them. Here was a tacit agreement on what life for a girl was all about. And Croxford House, while paying lip-service to more up-to-date ways of thinking, would not have entirely disagreed.

Edward taught English, History and Biology to the juniors, and Current Events to the seniors. He was the only male teacher except someone who came on Wednesdays to coach tennis in the summer, and he was regarded with kindly patronage by everyone save the headmistress, who thought him distinguished (in a social rather than an intellectual sense) and had hired him for that reason, fifteen years ago.