(18/20) Changes at Fairacre

by Miss Read

  'And what's the village like?' enquired Horace when I had poured the tea. 'I suppose we should be looked upon as newcomers, and not really accepted.'

  'That would depend on you,' I said. 'If you really want to join in, I've no doubt you would soon find yourselves president of this, and secretary to that, sidesman at the church, umpire at cricket matches, and a dozen other offices.'

  'Well, we would like to join in,' said Eve roundly. 'I was brought up in a village, and it's one of the reasons we should like to make our home in one.'

  'The only snag is,' added Horace, 'we should obviously have to be away most of the day, just like the rest of the village commuters. I suppose you have such bodies in Fairacre?'

  'We do indeed. It's one of the more obvious changes in the village, and I really don't see what can be done about it. When I look back to my early days at the school, I can remember how close-knit the families were. I suppose Mr Roberts and his neighbouring farmer were the two main employers in the village, and I know there were the old familiar names on my school register which were in the log book almost a century ago.'

  'And aren't there now?'

  'A few. Nothing to speak of. So many have moved away, and when the cottages have become empty they have been sold for far more than the original village people could afford. It's happening everywhere. On the other hand, you can understand people wanting to bring up their children in the country, and if they have the money to pay for a suitable piece of property, and are game to have miles of travelling each day to work, who can blame them for buying village houses?'

  'Like us,' commented Horace.

  'The only objection I have,' I added, 'is that the children don't come to my school!'

  'Take heart,' said Eve. 'They may come yet. After all, it's not going to close, is it? You told us that the other day.'

  'It will be a miracle if it survives for another few years,' I replied soberly. 'I sometimes wonder if the authorities are waiting to see how low the numbers will fall, and if perhaps the whole property - school, school house and the ground - will then be put on the market. It would be a valuable property if that happened.'

  'I noticed a shop in the village,' said Eve. 'Do you use it?'

  'Indeed I do. It's the Post Office as well, and I suppose I do almost all my weekly shopping at Mr Lamb's, and get stamps and post things at the same time. Now and again I have to trundle into Caxley, mainly for clothes and the like, but I go as little as possible, parking gets worse and worse.'

  'And is that the only shop?'

  'Afraid so. Years ago things were different. Bob Willet was telling me the other day that when he was a boy there was a thriving blacksmith at the forge, a baker, a carpenter, a cobbler, a man called Quick - who was extremely slow - who was the carrier between local villages and Caxley. Fairacre must have been a busy place, and quite noisy too with plenty of horses about and the forge clanging away.'

  'Sad, really.'

  'The saddest part for Bob Willet was the demise of the old lady who used to keep the Post Office when he was young. She sold a few sweets, and home-made toffee was twopence a quarter. Guaranteed to pull out any loose teeth, too, in a far more enjoyable way than a trip to the dentist.'

  'My favourites were gob-stoppers,' said Horace reminiscently. 'The sort that changed colour as you sucked them.'

  'And mine were licorice strips,' continued Eve. 'My mother wouldn't let us have gob-stoppers. She said they were common!'

  'Not common enough for my liking,' said Horace, 'on threepence a week pocket-money, I never got enough of them.'

  And with such sweet-talk, the question of house-buying was shelved for the rest of the afternoon.

  14 A Mighty Rushing Wind

  AS we entered October the weather became very unsettled. There were squally showers, the wind shifted its direction day by day, and Mrs Pringle began to complain about the leaves which were making her lobby floor untidy.

  Her complaints became even more strident when I proposed that the two tortoise stoves would have to be lighted.

  'What? In this 'ere mild spell? I'd say the Office'll have a thing or two to say, if we starts using coke this early. It's tax-payer's money - yours and mine, Miss Read - as pays for the coke.'

  'Children can't work in chilly conditions,' I retorted.

  'Chilly?' shrieked Mrs Pringle. 'They'll be passing out with heat stroke, more like.'

  Nevertheless, the stoves were roaring away the next day, and we were all the better for it. Except, of course, Mrs Pringle, whose bad leg definitely took a turn for the worse.

  Bob Willet, who much enjoys our little fights at a safe distance, approved of the stoves being lit.

  'We're in for a funny old spell,' he forecast. 'You noticed how early the swallows went this year? They knows a thing or two. And them dratted starlings is ganging-up already. Flocks of 'em in them woods down Springbourne way, messing all over they are, doin' a bit of no good to the trees.'

  'Well, what does that mean?'

  'Something nasty in the weather to come. That's what all that means. Birds know what to expect before we do. I'll lay fifty to one - that is if I was a betting man, which I'm not, as you well knows - as we'll have a rough day or two before long.'

  I always take note of Bob Willet's prognostications. He is often right. But apart from the veering weathercock on St Patrick's church, all seemed reasonably normal on the weather front.

  Or it seemed to be until midday on a fateful Wednesday. The dinner lady appeared, bearing a stack of steaming tins, and looking wind-blown.

  'Coming over the downs was pretty rough,' she said. 'The wind's getting up. I heard a gale warning on the van radio.'

  'I shouldn't take a lot of notice of that,' I said. 'Ever since that really dreadful gale two or three years ago, the weathermen have been only too anxious to give us gale warnings, and half the time they never materialize.'

  'Well, we'll have to see. I know I'm going to be glad to get home today,' she replied, bustling away to her next port of call.

  As the children tucked into macaroni cheese and sliced tomatoes, followed by apple tart and custard, the wind began to drum against the windows. Half an hour later, the gusts increased in intensity, and when I went across to the school house to see if all the doors were secure, I was blown bodily against my gate, and could barely get my breath.

  It was at this stage that I saw the door of the boys' lavatory wrenched from its hinges and hurled towards the vicarage garden wall. I had a brief inspection of the school house exterior, decided that it was as safe as it could be in the circumstances, and struggled back to the school. Somehow the children must be evacuated to their homes before flying tiles and torn branches endangered us all.

  Mrs Richards and I held a council of war as the windows rattled, and leaves and twigs spattered the panes.

  Those who had a parent at home were dispatched at once, with strict instructions to run to safety and then to stay indoors. One or two others had telephones in their homes, and these we could forewarn about their children's early return. Several of them offered to pass on the message and mind neighbours' children with their own, until they returned from work.

  It was lucky that the telephone lines were still intact, and I rang Mr Lamb at the Post Office to tell him that I was closing the school, and would he pass on the news.

  'You're doing the right thing,' he assured me. 'I've just seen Roberts's tarpaulin blow off a straw stack across the road. Might have been a handkerchief the way it floated up!'

  I also rang the vicar who said he would come at once with his car, and house any odd children (I had plenty of those, I thought) until their parents could collect them. Looking at the school clock, I said that I hoped I had not brought him from his lunch.

  'Only from banana blancmange,' he said, 'and I don't like that anyway.'

  Poor Mr Partridge, I thought replacing the receiver. I should have liked to have offered him a slice of our own excellent apple tart, but as usual it had all been pol
ished off.

  By a quarter to two, almost all our little flock had departed, and I said that I would run Joseph Coggs and his two younger sisters to their house before I made my way home to Beech Green. It had not been possible to get in touch with the Coggs' parents, but Joe assured me that Dad was off work (no surprise, this) and Mum got back from helping out at Mrs Mawne's at two o'clock.

  Before I locked up, I put things to rights at the school, windows and doors secured, and tortoise stoves battened down, and saw Mrs Richards off towards her home.

  The car was quite difficult to handle when the gusts hit it on my way through the village, but I deposited my passengers as Arthur Coggs opened the door himself.

  He thanked me civilly, and although there was a strong smell of beer, past and present, he seemed comparatively sober, and I left my charges with a clear conscience. I then battled my way to Mrs Pringle's and told that lady not to attempt to go up to the school.

  'It can all wait,' I shouted to her outraged face at the kitchen window.

  'But what about them stoves? We should never have lit >_„ > 'em.

  'I've damped them down.'

  'And the washing-up?'

  'Stacked on the draining board. That'll keep. Just don't go out!'

  At this stage the window was all but wrenched from her grip. She gave a gasp, slammed it to, and I returned to the car to make my way home.

  It was a frightening journey. The road was strewn with leaves and quite large branches from the trees, which were bowing and bending in an alarming way. There was an ominous drumming in the air which I had never heard before, and it was as much as I could do to drive a steady course along a road lashed with this hurricane-force wind.

  About halfway home, I rounded a bend to encounter a damaged car, two others and an ambulance whose lights were flashing in warning. Two men were just sliding a stretcher into the shelter of the ambulance, and when it moved off towards Caxley, I saw how badly damaged the small car was.

  The branch of a beech tree, thicker than a man's leg, had obviously been torn from the trunk and landed on the unfortunate driver's Fiesta. The two men had manhandled the branch to the side of the road, but although cars could just about pass, it was going to cause a hazard, especially when darkness came.

  I wound down my window to shout any offer of help, but the two men assured me that the garage men were on their way.

  I had hardly driven another quarter of a mile when I found a fully grown tree straddling the road, blocking it completely. Panic began to seize me. What now?

  It was beginning to get eerily dark which added to my uneasiness. Could I get down the little road to Springbourne, I wondered, and make a detour to my cottage?

  It was a narrow lane, little used except by walkers, but I knew it well from my ambles with Miss Clare in earlier days. I turned the car, and made for the lane. It came out near the village of Springbourne, and from here I could take a similar narrow lane up the side of the downs beside a spinney which I hoped would shelter me from the worst of the wind.

  I was in luck, but the screaming of the wind in the little wood was unnerving, and I was horrified to see that already quite large trees had been uprooted and were lying at all angles among the others. How the damage could ever be sorted out was going to be a sore problem, and how many small animals had already lost their homes, one could only guess.

  I emerged into Beech Green half a mile from my home, and was thankful to see it again. After putting the car away, I stood in the shelter of the house to see what damage had occurred in the garden.

  A lilac bush was already upended, and roofing felt on the garden shed was flapping dangerously. No doubt it would be ripped off completely before long, but I was too exhausted to bother much about it.

  Miss Clare's ancient fruit trees, which Bob Willet proposed to take down, were swaying so violently that I doubted if they would survive another hour of this onslaught.

  I struggled indoors, and looked for Tibby. There was no sign of him, and I was beginning to fear that he was outside somewhere in the maelstrom, when he emerged from under an armchair, attempting to look at ease. It was plain to see that Tibby was just as scared as I was, and it was good to have a fellow coward to keep me company.

  I rang Mrs John, one of my nearest neighbours, to see if she and the children were safe, and although she sounded as frightened as I was she assured me that all was well.

  'Mr Annett's closed his school as well,' she told me. 'The school buses came early, and let's hope everyone's got home.'

  It was amazing to me that the telephone was still in order, but how long, I wondered, before the power cables came down and we should be without electricity?

  I switched on the kettle while the going was good, and prudently looked out my old Primus stove, a torch and some candles. I checked that I had stocks of kindling wood, coal and logs in my house, and felt that I could do no more.

  It seemed worse when darkness fell, and during the night I feared that the thatch might be ripped from its rafters, and the rattling windows might be torn out.

  It was the incessant noise that was hardest to bear. The wind screamed and howled. It drummed and throbbed. Every now and again there would be a strange thump as something heavy, such as the wooden bird table hit the side of the house. Or there would be a metallic clanging as some unknown object, such as a dustbin or part of a corrugated iron roof collided with another.

  I cowered beneath the bed clothes, glad to have Tibby at the end of the bed. What on earth would daylight show?

  It showed chaos on a scale I could never have envisaged. Five of the condemned fruit trees were completely uprooted displaying great circles of chalky roots. The sixth leant at a dangerous angle. Only the old Bramley apple tree remained, and a sycamore and two lime trees. The border which Bob and Joseph had so carefully prepared was strewn with twigs and leaves, not to mention an upturned bucket and part of the shed roof.

  It was hardly surprising to find that the electricity had gone, so I soon had my Primus going.

  'Cornflakes for me,' I told Tibby, 'and Pussi-luv for you.'

  Thus fortified, I rang the highways department to see if there was any chance of getting to school. A harassed individual told me that all roads within six or seven miles of Caxley were impassable, and 'to stay where you are, my duck'.

  I rang Mr Partridge who sounded distraught and begged me not to venture out, and then Mr Lamb.

  Although the wind had somewhat abated, it was still difficult to hear clearly as the line crackled. But Mr Lamb gave me more news of Fairacre damage.

  'Tiles everywhere. Dozens off the church roof and the school, and your house, Miss Read, has had the chimney through the roof. You be thankful you weren't there. One of the big trees fell clean on it. Bob Willet's been up to have a look, and he's fair shaken, I can tell you. He's rigged up a tarpaulin to keep the worst of the weather out.'

  He promised to let as many people as possible know that school would be closed until further notice, and Bob Willet had offered to put a notice on the school door if anyone should have managed to fight their way there. We could do no more, but I was desperately worried.

  I spent the rest of the day trying to get some order out of the chaos outside, as the wind gradually died down.

  Luckily the thatch had weathered the storm, and the house had stood up sturdily to the battering. The garden was such a shambles that I could do little there but rescue buckets, flower pots and even a water-butt which had all been shifted from their rightful homes.

  It was not cold, but I lit a fire for comfort. Tibby and I both needed it.

  As soon as possible, I intended to get over to Fairacre to see my school and the school house. I was very much worried by Mr Lamb's message. But at least the children should be safe. I dreaded to think what could have befallen them if the hurricane had arrived earlier.

  Meanwhile, I rang friends and neighbours who all had hair-raising tales to tell, and then finally, Amy, at Bent.

 
; To my surprise it was James who answered, and he sounded breathless.

  'I thought it was the hospital,' he said.

  'The hospital?'

  'Amy's there. I thought there might be news of her.'

  My heart sank. The sight of that battered car and the stretcher being put into the ambulance came back to me with devastating clarity.

  'Tell me what's happened?' I quavered. I sat down. Somehow my legs had suddenly ceased to support me.

  'She went into Caxley just before things really got too fierce, to take a load of clothes to the Red Cross shop. She packed the car in that side road, and struggled round with her parcel, but by that time things were getting pretty hairy.'

  'So she wasn't in the car when whatever it is happened?'

  The memory of yesterday's smashed car began to fade slightly, but what horrors would take its place?

  'Tiles were sliding off roofs, and poor dear Amy caught one on the side of the head. Laid her out, of course, but the Red Cross ladies saw it happen and carried her into the shop, and did some much needed first-aid. They managed to get her to hospital, still unconscious, and bleeding like a stuck pig.'

  'And how serious is it?'

  'Not sure yet. They've stitched her ear on again.'

  My inside, never really up to this sort of thing as a squeamish woman, gave a disconcerting somersault.

  'But you haven't seen her yet?'

  'I'm just off now, as a matter of fact. She came round last night, but our lane's blocked and we've a couple of trees down in front of the garage. I'm going to walk across the fields to the main road, and a friend there says he'll take me into Caxley. They've managed to clear the main road evidently, which is a stout effort, but I can't see how we're going to get Amy home until things are easier for travelling.'

  'Well, I won't hold you up,' I said. 'My love as always to poor Amy, and I'll see her as soon as possible.'

  'I'll keep you posted,' promised James. 'Now I must get into my Wellingtons.'