The Great Village Show (2 page)

Dunking a digestive biscuit into my coffee, I allow myself a small moment of satisfaction on thinking how well Jack has turned out; even pride, perhaps, as I remember how tough it was too at times – everyone knows that being a single parent is certainly no sauntering stroll in the park. There were many occasions where another adult, someone else to rant to when Jack had ripped his new school trousers after only a day’s wear, would have been very welcome indeed. And someone to share the highs with, like when he was Joseph in the school nativity play and delivered his lines so promptly and perfectly as I watched on with happy tears in my eyes. And then more tears when his place at Leeds University was confirmed, studying architectural engineering, which is no surprise, as Jack has always loved building things. I blame Lego! But no, everything isn’t AWESOME! Well, I guess it is for Jack – a whole new life, an exciting adventure; but why does he have to do it so far away from home? Our lovely little village. Tindledale, the place where he was born, right here in our cosy, tile-hung, two-bedroom cottage, to be exact, on the Laura Ashley rug in front of the log burner in the lounge.

I had called an ambulance, but by the time it had hacked along all the country lanes from Market Briar, the nearest big town, Jack’s scrunched-up bloody face was peering up at me, and my dear friend, Lawrence, who runs the local B&B and is a retired thespian (strolling home on that balmy summer night after a Tindledale Players rehearsal) heard my sweary screams through the open window (and I really am not a swearer, but the pain was excruciating, to be fair) and dashed in the back door to placate my mother, who was hollering out of the hands-free home phone, perched up on the mantelpiece, for me to ‘Pant hard, Megan. PANT HARD!’ And adding, ‘I knew I should have booked an earlier flight’, in between chain-smoking her way through a packet of Lucky Strike, followed by lots of sympathy sighs and intermittent ear-splitting shrieks from her duplex apartment in Tenerife. And Mum has never forgiven me for making her miss the birth of her only grandchild, allegedly … although I have no recollection of actually telling her the wrong due date, but for years she was adamant that I had. ‘Why else would I have written it on my wall calendar, a total of nineteen days after the actual event?’ she had said in an extra-exasperated voice.

Anyway, having Jack is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I adore children, which is very handy given that I’m a teacher – acting head teacher, to be precise – at the Tindledale village school, the same school that I went to, and Jack also. And Mum and I can laugh about it all now, even if it is long distance. Jack and I have had some glorious holidays over the years, staying with her, just a few kilometres from a lovely, secluded sandy beach, and of course she comes to see us whenever she can, but it’s not the same as having family here all the time. Thank God for friends! Talking of which, Sybs, short for Sybil, cycles past the window before popping her head through the open half of the stable door.

‘Hi Meg, not intruding am I?’ She grins, carefully leaning her bicycle next to mine against the honeysuckle-clad fence. Sybs used to be a housing officer in London before giving it all up and settling in Tindledale last year.

‘Of course not, come on in and have a coffee with me,’ I say, thrilled to see her. I go to scoop up Blue so he doesn’t escape when I open the bottom half of the stable door – he’s my super-soft, caramel-coloured, palomino house rabbit, who used to live outside in a hutch until Jack found his poor female friend, Belle, dead one morning, having been savaged by a fox in the night. So Blue lives inside now to keep him safe, and can usually be found basking in the heat from the log burner in winter, or, like today, when it’s so warm and sunny, he likes sprawling prone across the cool, quarry-tiled kitchen floor. I plop him back down, and after a quick twitch of his tail, he scampers off to his bowl to munch on some carrot sticks that I sliced up earlier for him.

‘Ahh, better not,’ Sybs says. ‘I don’t want to ruin your lovely home. Another time, perhaps, I’m just on my way up to the High Street to see if Taylor can squeeze this filthy mutt in for a much-needed appointment at the pet parlour.’ She glances at the basket on the front of the bike where Basil, her black Scottie dog, is sitting inside, caked in mud, before shaking her head. Her red curls bounce around abundantly.

‘Oops, what happened to him?’ I ask, laughing when Basil lets out a disgruntled growl and then hunkers down as if in disgrace. ‘And what is that horrendous pong?’ I quickly place my hand over my nose before leaning in closer to the honeysuckle, hoping to catch a whiff of its glorious scent to take away Basil’s noxious one.

‘Err, this little rascal decided to leg it across Pete’s newly ploughed field after spotting a brace of pheasants on the horizon, and then found a pile of fresh fox poo in the hedgerow and thought it would be a brilliant idea to roll around in it. And he’s ruined my new Converse – I bought them especially to wear in this warm dry weather – but then I had to chase after him.’ She waggles her left foot up in the air to show me the once lovely lilac trainers with polka-dot ribbons that are now a mottled mud colour. ‘His recall skills certainly need working on!’

‘Hmm, no wonder he’s skulking.’

‘Indeed. And so he should. Next time I won’t bother going after him; he can fend for himself in the Tindledale woods for all I care. I’d like to see how he’d cope having to forage around for wild mushrooms, berries and the odd dead mouse to live on.’ Sybs lets out a long huff of air, pretending to be cross, but all of us villagers know just how much she adores Basil, even if he is the cheekiest dog in Tindledale, and probably all of the surrounding villages too.

‘Awww, but he still looks so cute,’ I say, giving Basil a tickle under the chin, deftly avoiding the tarry mess on the side of his neck.

‘Oh, don’t be fooled by those “butter-wouldn’t-melt” eyes; he’s a little devil dog sometimes, and so greedy too – you know, he snaffled a whole pizza from the kitchen counter last week. I turned my back for a moment and it was gone. Still frozen. I had only just taken it out of the freezer.’

‘Wow! That’s impressive, but tell me – how did he reach a paw up to the kitchen counter to swipe the pizza?’ I ask, intrigued.

‘Oh, you won’t believe the stunts he can perform,’ Sybs says, exasperated. ‘He only hopped up on the footstool that I use to reach into the back of my cupboards – Ben spotted him performing the same trick only the day before.’ Sybs shakes her head again. ‘The footstool has since been removed, I hasten to add.’

I smile. ‘I bet he regretted it soon after. I imagine his stomach was arctic.’ Basil does another feeble groan by way of agreement.

‘Yes, and he slept for hours afterwards, comatose from the cheese and carb overload, no doubt.’

‘So, talking of injuries and ailments, how is Dr Ben, that gorgeous boyfriend of yours?’

‘Ahh, Ben is as lovely as ever. And as busy as ever! It’s funny, though – since we started living together, we seem to see less of each other than ever before,’ she sighs. ‘There’s no time off for a village GP – you know how it is. He can’t even go into the Duck & Puddle for a pint after surgery hours without being fawned over by his patients, all wanting to buy him a thank-you drink for sorting out their illness, or ask his advice on a whole range of medical issues.’ Sybs laughs and shrugs. ‘But I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ she beams.

‘Well, it’s lovely seeing you so happy.’

‘Thanks Meg. And I truly am very happy – it’s wonderful how things work out in life sometimes,’ she says in a dreamy, faraway voice.

‘Sure is. And you know what, it’s always been that way, with the village GP being mobbed whenever he sets foot outside the surgery,’ I grin, resting my elbows on the top of the stable door. ‘As a child, I remember Dr Ben’s uncle, Dr Donnelly, getting the exact same treatment from the villagers, pardon the pun.’ We both laugh.

‘Sooo, how’s Hettie getting on after her fall last week?’ I ask, pulling off my cardy and pushing up the sleeves of my navy striped Breton top – the sun is really warm today. Not that I’m complaining, I love this weather, but jeans with long wellies and too many layers really isn’t suitable, but then there was a definite nip in the air this morning when I took my tea and toasted crumpets down to the end of the garden, to sit on the old tree stump beside the magnolia bush and draw in the breathtaking, lemony-vanilla-scented view across the stream that runs down the side of my cottage.

‘You heard about it then?’ Sybs sighs. Hettie used to run the House of Haberdashery down the lane on the outskirts of the village, before it became too much for her, so Sybil manages it now, while Hettie takes a back seat in her oast house next door. But Hettie is eighty-something, so I reckon she’s earned a bit of a rest.

‘Of course,’ I wink, and then quickly add, ‘you know how it is around
these here parts
,’ in a silly voice, exaggerating my country burr. Sybs giggles.

‘Hmm, I certainly do! News sure does travel fast, and everyone knows your business … before you even do yourself, sometimes.’

‘Yep. Good or bad, that’s the Tindledale way I’m afraid.’ I shake my head.

‘And I rather like it,’ she nods firmly.

‘You do?’ I lift my eyebrows in surprise. ‘It used to drive me nuts when I was growing up, as a teenager especially; it was really stifling at times. And even now, I sometimes hear stuff about my pupils’ parents that I really wished I hadn’t.’ I pull a face, thinking about the time when I overheard Amelia Fisher’s mother in the playground, gossiping to her mate about the new family, the Cavendishes, who bought the big farmhouse over on the outskirts of the Blackwood Farm Estate – how Mr Cavendish is a ‘right dish’ and sooooo charming, but how much of a shame it is that he’s hardly ever around – maybe that’s why his wife seems so sad, because they sure as hell wouldn’t be if they were married to him. Good looks, lots of money – clearly every woman’s dream, apparently! And Mrs Cavendish has little to complain about when she clearly has it all – perfect, tall, slim body; shiny hair with expensive highlights, and a recently refurbished home ‘like something out of
Hello!
magazine it is, with its acre of land’, and ‘what does she do all day?’ It had taken all my willpower to walk away and not to threaten to put them in detention or something, as I imagine Mrs Cavendish is probably a bit lonely in that big house all on her own while her husband works away – I do wonder sometimes if detention wouldn’t be more effective for the parents instead of the children in my school.

‘But better that than nobody caring, or looking out for each other,’ Sybs says.

‘That’s true,’ I agree, thinking of my next-door neighbours, Gabe and Vicky, in the middle, and then Pam, Dr Ben’s receptionist, on the other end of our little row of three Pear Tree Cottages. They are more like friends than just people I live next to, as are so many of the people in the village.

‘And if Hettie had lived alone in a bigger community, she could well have gone unnoticed for days after her fall.’

‘I imagine so,’ I nod. ‘So what happened then? Is Hettie OK?’

‘Yes, she’s fine. It turns out the fall wasn’t anywhere near as bad as we all feared, but Ben did have to give her a telling off …’ Sybs’ forehead creases.

‘Oh?’ I frown too.

‘You know how fiercely independent Hettie is,’ Sybs continues, and I nod in agreement, remembering all the times I’ve tried to help her and she’s politely refused. ‘Yes, apparently she was standing on a chair, in her slippers, trying to reach her favourite blanket from the top shelf of the airing cupboard, when she toppled over and fell down on to her left hip. Luckily, her hall carpet cushioned the fall and she suffered some minor bruising and not a fractured pelvis.’ Sybs shakes her head.

‘Oh dear, but thankfully it wasn’t far worse. I can’t imagine her coping at all if she had to lie around in a hospital bed for any length of time.’ We both smile and shake our heads.

‘Absolutely not, Hettie would hate that. Anyway, I’ll let her know that you were asking after her.’

‘Thanks, Sybs. I’ll pop down and see her soon. I take it she won’t be running her cross-stitch class this week?’ I glance over at my first attempt hanging on the wall by the window – a simple ‘Home Sweet Home’ sampler in a gorgeous cherry-red thread with a dainty, creamy-coloured blossom flower detailing. Soon after Jack went, I realised that all my evenings were my own again – there was no more need for the Mum-taxi service, taking him to hockey practice, rugby, swimming and such-like in Market Briar. I really fancied trying something new and different, so I signed up to Hettie’s ‘Cross-stitch for Beginners’ course. It’s totally informal; about eight of us meet up every Wednesday evening. After a good thirty minutes or so of catching up (gossiping) and devouring packets of custard creams and Jammie Dodger biscuits, and whatever delicious cake Kitty has brought with her (she runs the Spotted Pig café and tearoom on the corner of the High Street), Hettie shows us how to cross-stitch as beautifully as she does.

‘Don’t be daft!’ Sybs nudges me gently. ‘Why on earth would you think a bruised hip would stop Hettie from soldiering on?’ We both laugh.

‘Hmmm, I’ve actually no idea why I thought such a thing,’ I say, enjoying our banter. ‘I should have known Hettie wouldn’t let us down.’

‘Absolutely not. And you should have seen the look she gave me when I suggested that of course you would all understand if she wanted to give this week’s class a miss.’

‘Ha! I can imagine. You are one brave woman, Sybil Bloom,’ I chuckle.

‘A foolish one more like,’ she pulls a face. ‘Anyway, I’d better get going and sort out this stinking dog before the whole of Tindledale whiffs of fox poo.’

‘Sure,’ I laugh. ‘Well, thanks for popping by.’ I give Sybs a hug.

‘Oh, I almost forgot – can I give you these?’ She opens the top of her beautiful fuchsia hand-knitted bag – it has rose-print fabric lining – and pulls out a wad of leaflets. ‘It might not be your thing, but I wondered if you wouldn’t mind putting one inside each of your children’s book bags? For the parents. Well, children and dogs too – or ferret in Molly’s case,’ she sighs, and an image of Molly, the butcher’s wife, walking her pet ferret around the village on a lead, pops into my head. ‘Yes, the more the merrier. Ben reckons we really need everyone to get involved if we’re to stand a chance of winning.’ Sybs grins and I grin back, feeling brighter than I have all week. I like Sybil; she’s always cheerful and eager to help out if she can.