(16/20)Summer at Fairacre

by Miss Read

  The grass was still dewy, and the Albertine rose growing over the garden shed was breaking into flower. What a marvellous old rose it is! I love the dark tight buds, the glossy foliage, and the pale pink open flowers. But best of all is its sharp-sweet scent. What matter if it only flowers once in the season, and drops its petals with profligacy? It is a true herald of summer, and I think I am fonder of it than any other rose in my cottage garden.

  Later I went to church. The altar had roses on it, and some madonna lilies had been arranged on a pedestal by the lectern. Their heady scent perfumed the ancient building. Outside, the sun blazed and the distant thumping of the baler could be heard. All the farmers in the neighbourhood were literally making hay while the sun shone.

  Inside, the church was cool and shadowy. I closed my eyes the better to attend to Gerald Partridge's sermon, and hoped he would not think that I had dropped off.

  It was a good theme, a celebration of summer and all its blessings. He spoke of the beauty of natural things, noticed so much more sharply when one could loiter out of doors. He touched on the renewal of friendships which winter weather had discouraged, and I thought how true this was. I recalled the joys of our nature walks and my own garden, and the trips to see Miss Clare and Amy and other good friends.

  He went on to point out that beauty begets beauty, quoting an incident in the woods near Beech Green where he came across members of the Caxley art group busy transferring the woodland scene before them on to their canvases. He added another instance, dear to his heart, of the happy sound of the bees collecting nectar to transform into honey. The vicar has only recently taken to bee keeping, and his charges are very dear to him.

  It was a good sermon, I thought, as we scrambled to our feet at the end of it. It encouraged us to look about us, to be grateful for all we could see, and for the bounty of the earth, and to ponder on many hidden meanings in an apparently simple message as we truly celebrated summer.

  I remembered to ask Miss Briggs for her wedding present list, and pored over it anxiously one evening. The children and I would get together when Miss Briggs was absent to decide on the school's offering. Judging from the list of things needed it would probably turn out to be: 'Soup Ladle, not plastic' or one of 'Trays, various sizes'.

  I was pleased to see that she also wanted 'Vases, various sizes', and I decided to plump for something which I liked as my personal present to her. It is always a pleasure to buy china and good to have an excuse to indulge one's desires.

  One hot afternoon, I prevailed upon Miss Briggs to take her charges into the shade of the trees for story time. This gave me the chance to consult my fellow conspirators about the present.

  Patrick was all for giving her a pair of guinea pigs, as his pets had recently had a fine litter. It seemed to me that Patrick's guinea pigs produced litters far too often, and supply outstripped demand heavily in Fairacre.

  Eileen Burton suggested a silk eiderdown and bedspread, preferably pink 'because it's always pretty', and Ernest thought a wheelbarrow would be useful.

  When I could get a word in edgeways, I pointed out that all Miss Briggs' needs were listed, and I put forward the ideas possible on our modest budget. No one was to contribute more than twenty-five pence, and ten would probably be the average.

  After much heart-searching, I was delegated to buy a tray.

  'As big as the money goes to,' Patrick said firmly, and I meekly agreed to do my best.

  Ernest, who had been allotted the job of Miss-Briggs-observer, and had been keeping an eye on the infants' movements from the lobby door, now called out:

  'She's acoming, miss! She's acoming!'

  At this, the children hastily took out their readers at my suggestion, and were engrossed in their pages, with unnatural fervour.

  But when Miss Briggs came in to speak to me as she went to her own room, the nudges and knowing winks would have alerted anyone more observant than my assistant to the fact that Something Was Up.

  Fairacre children are not very accomplished dissemblers.

  As I was taking some letters to the post a day or two later, I met Peter Hale who lives at Tyler's Row. He bought the property a few years ago, and he and his wife have turned the row of four dilapidated cottages into one fine house.

  He taught for many years at Caxley Grammar School, but has now retired and takes an active part in village affairs. I asked him if there were any developments in the proposed television programme about Aloysius, an earlier dweller at Tyler's Row.

  'Well, two chaps were supposed to be coming down one day last week to see if the interior of the end part where Aloysius used to live was worth filming. It's so altered that I think it's a waste of time myself.'

  'What did they say?'

  'They never arrived. Diana and I stayed in, putting off an old school friend of hers who was coming to tea, incidentally, but not a word and no TV chaps.'

  'Too bad. Do you think there's enough material for a programme?'

  'All I can discover is a pathetic collection of dreadful doggerel in the public library, and Mr Willet's recollection of our poet's personal dirt. I can't see it making a national appeal somehow, but no doubt a skilful producer could turn it into something on the lines of "The neglected poet in a hostile world".'

  'Well, I hope you don't have to hang about for the telly people anyway.'

  'I don't intend to. They can fit in with my plans next time. That is, if there is a next time!'

  Spoken like a true schoolmaster, I thought, as I went on my way. That was the tone of voice which had sent many to detention in times past. The telly men had met their match there.

  I heard a little more about the proposed programme when Gerard Baker rang up. He seemed somewhat agitated, and wanted to know if the television team could film the school.

  'You see, Aloysius attended it as a boy,' he explained.

  'I suppose it would be all right,' I said doubtfully. 'What do they want exactly?'

  'You may well ask! I'm beginning to wish I had no hand in it at all, there's so much to-ing and fro-ing. If I were you, I would refuse to let them inside.'

  'Why? They don't take all that long, do they?'

  He gave what novelists call a hollow laugh.

  'They took two hours flat arranging some of Aloysius's manuscripts and a candle on a suitably scruffy table. You see, they have to play about with the lighting and sound, and heaven knows what. I should advise you to limit them to taking outside shots only. If that!'

  'Well, thanks for the warning.'

  'I said I'd sound you out, as I knew you. Don't let yourself in for too much. I know you are not too patient at the best of times, and this could drive you barmy.'

  'Thanks,' I said. I was not exactly thrilled to hear that I was obviously an impatient harridan. Still, it was good of Gerard to give me advice.

  'Tell them they can have a brief spell taking one or two shots outside the school,' I said. 'But inside is out.'

  'I know what you mean,' said Gerard, and rang off.

  'The wonders of modern science,' I told Tibby, 'can prove very exhausting.'

  13 Mr Willet to the Rescue

  I MUST say I was rather pleased with my new spectacles. I expected a few whispers among my class when I donned them first for marking the register, but an awed silence engulfed the schoolroom as I was made the object of concentrated scrutiny.

  It was not until the morning was halfway through, and the sun was beginning to get to its full power on yet another cloudless day, that the first comments came.

  'Do them glasses hurt you?' Patrick asked.

  'Why, no!' I responded. 'I've got them to top my eyes hurting.'

  Somewhat emboldened, other children now joined in.

  'But why ain't 'em big enough to go over your eyes?' is it cheaper, miss, to have them funny little 'uns?'

  'I feels frightened when you've got them on.'

  I did my best to explain the difference between long and short sight, and the difficulty in focusing
as one grew older, which drew a spate of comment about the spectacles used by their elderly relatives. Ernest, who is sometimes a lot brighter than he appears, began to ask quite difficult questions about lenses which were beyond my power to answer, and when he actually used the words 'concave' and 'convex', to my astonishment, I had to admit my ignorance, and direct his attention to the mobile library van whose kind librarian might be able to find a book to answer Ernest's questions.

  By the time we had exhausted the topic of my new half-glasses, and I had firmly refused to let anyone touch them, let alone look through them, as Eileen suggested, it was almost playtime. It was so blissfully sunny outside, and the birds were chirping so merrily, that it seemed like cruelty to children to keep them indoors.

  We all had an early playtime.

  Amy was rather less respectful about my newly-acquired aids when she called one evening.

  'They tend to age you, my dear,' she announced, after studying me keenly for a full minute. 'Why did you pick that particular design? Terribly academic they look, I must say!'

  'Well, what's wrong with that? I am academic after all.'

  'Yes, dear, in a rather juvenile sort of way, I suppose you are. But those glasses make you look like someone engaged on the third volume of somebody's biography. Tacitus, say, or Cicero.'

  'That's all to the good. It's nice to look learned.'

  'Yes, I suppose it's quite pleasant to look learned, but one doesn't want to appear eccentric.'

  I began to get alarmed.

  'You are not trying to tell me, Amy, that these spectacles make me look like a nut-case?'

  'Well, not exactly like a nut-case,' said Amy, but with a certain doubt in her tone which increased my dismay. 'No, I wouldn't say that—quite! It's just that somehow they make you look odd. If you know what I mean,' she added.

  'I can't see this conversation getting us anywhere but into deep waters,' I said. 'Tell me why you've really come.'

  'Gerard Baker is getting ready to help with this television nonsense, and I offered him a bed if need be while the flap's on. I just wondered if you would like to see him while he's here?'

  'That's nice of you, Amy. I always enjoy seeing Gerard.'

  'Oh good!' exclaimed Amy, with unnecessary elation.

  'Not in the way you mean,' I said firmly. 'Just that he's good company, and I'll be interested to hear how the programme's going. I gather from Peter Hale that they want to do a few shots in his house, Tyler's Row.'

  'Well, I hope he'll be firm about it. A friend of mine spent five hours solid being badgered from pillar to post for exactly five minutes on the box itself. She said her carpets have never been the same since, and she had to have a weekend in an exceptionally quiet hotel in Sidmouth to recover from the ordeal.'

  We wandered into the garden. The sun was still quite high in the sky despite the fact that it was early evening.

  'Come round to the front door,' I urged, 'and have a look at the swallow babies. I think there are five, but Mr Willet swears there are only four.'

  The parent birds were still swooping across the neighbouring fields catching insects for their young. Tiny blue-black heads projected over the rim of the nest, and a mad twittering broke out whenever one of the parents returned with a beak full of provender.

  Amy surveyed my front doorstep which was heavily covered in bird droppings.

  'Can't you fix something to catch all this?' she asked, looking rather disgusted.

  'Mr Willet has tried, but they don't like it,' I replied.

  'What with that tyrant Tibby and this family of intruders,' said Amy, 'I can see you are hopelessly out-classed. What you need is a man about the place to look after things. Now Gerard, I know for a fact, is very practical underneath that rather dilettante exterior. When can you come to meet him?'

  'Oh, Amy!' I wailed. 'Won't you ever realise that I like being single?'

  She began to laugh, as we left the shameful doorstep and went to smell the early roses instead.

  'I think I know how you feel,' she said at last. 'My few days of solitary life were wonderfully refreshing, I found. And wasn't it Katherine Mansfield who said that one of the pleasures of living alone meant that if you found a hair in your honey at least you knew it was your own?'

  To my dismay there had been no answer to the advertisement for a school cleaner. I guessed that Mrs Pringle would be delighted to hear such news, and I had no intention of telling her, although I had no doubt that she would soon be in possession of the knowledge, by means of village bush telegraph.

  Although I was careful to say nothing to Mr Willet, he guessed, I think, that there was no particular stampede for the job. I must say, that when one read in the newspapers about the thousands of unemployed people crying out for work, it seemed strange that no one wanted to come to Fairacre school as cleaner.

  'You keepin' that dratted Minnie on then?' asked Mr Willet one afternoon. We were in the playground, and the children were fast disappearing round the bend in the lane. The sound of clashing pail and broom came from the recently-vacated classroom.

  'Just until we can get a permanent person,' I said guardedly.

  'You want to watch her,' warned Mr Willet. 'She was letting that little 'un of hers suck the floor cloth yesterday. Saw it myself.'

  'No!' I said horrified. 'Surely not! He might get some awful disease!'

  Mr Willet waved his hand airily.

  'It wasn't the kid I was worrying about. But it can't do the floor cloth no good to have it chewed up like that. They costs a fortune these days, Alice says. She cuts up my old pants into nice squares for jobs like that, and that saves a pretty penny I can tell you.'

  'I suppose,' I said doubtfully, 'that Mrs Pringle is really under doctor's orders still? I mean, we know she has her drawbacks—'

  'You can say that again,' interjected Mr Willet.

  'But she is a marvellous cleaner, and I don't think Minnie is capable of carrying on much longer.'

  'You could go and see the old tartar again, I suppose,' said Mr Willet, smacking his thigh and killing a fly which the swallow babies would have relished. 'But I reckon she just wants to see how long you can stick it out with Minnie. Enjoying it, I don't doubt. There's a spiteful side to Mrs P., as well you knows.'

  I did indeed, but I dare not say so to Mr Willet.

  I sipped my tea in the garden, pondering on this problem. It would be a waste of time to go and see my old cleaner again. She had told me, squarely enough, that she intended to return, but in her own good time. There was no point in begging the lady to return. I must simply set about finding a stand-in for her, and get rid of the deplorable Minnie before she wrecked the school premises.

  At this moment there was a sudden shindy from the school. I put my cup on the garden seat, and hurried across the playground. What horrors would appear, I wondered, as I ran? Broken windows, smashed wash basins, shattered desks, all swam before my eyes. Minnie was capable of anything.

  I noticed a battered van standing in the lane by the school gate, but did not recognise it in the heat of the moment.

  I burst into the building to be confronted with a ferocious-looking man, Minnie screaming behind my desk, and the floor-cloth-chewing infant yelling its head off.

  'What's all this?' I shouted above the uproar.

  Minnie pointed an accusing finger at the intruder.

  'It's Ern,' she shrieked. 'He's upset.'

  This, I thought, was stating the obvious. The fellow was grinding his teeth, and breathing heavily. His face was flushed and his fists clenched. I had never met Minnie's husband, but it hardly seemed the time to say: 'How do you do?'

  'I must ask you to leave,' I began, with as much authority as I could muster. What if he started on me? I began to wish I had taken karate lessons at Caxley Technical College.

  'This is school property, and Minnie is at her duties,' I went on.

  He turned on me menacingly. 'You shut your mouth! She's been at her duties all right, and with that flamin' B
ert of hers. She's coming home with me. I'll sort her out without your help.'

  Surprisingly, I was not frightened. I suppose it was because I was so furious with this intrusion.

  'Minnie will stay here until half past five,' I told him, standing my ground. 'I advise you to go home, or I shall send for the police at once. I won't have brawling in my school.'

  He let out a string of interesting expletives, many of them new to me, but to my relief he made for the door.

  'I'll be waiting for you,' he said ominously to the cowering Minnie, and then strode off.

  The toddler was still emitting head-splitting yells, and I made for the sweet tin before coping with Minnie. A large pear drop successfully gagged the child, although it seemed a dangerous object to put into any child's mouth in the circumstances. However, better asphyxiation than pandemonium, I thought, setting an upturned bucket to rights.

  'Now Minnie,' I said, 'sit down and tell me all about it.'

  It appeared, from the disjointed account that the tearful Minnie embarked upon, that Bert, her old admirer, had been visiting her in Ern's absence.

  'I don't get no fun,' wailed Minnie, wiping her moist nose on the back of her hand. I went again to the cupboard and supplied a handful of tissues.

  Minnie looked at them wonderingly.

  'Wipe your nose with them,' I directed. She obeyed in a sketchy fashion before continuing with her narration.

  'Ern don't never take me out, nor give me enough to buy the kids food and that. He'd have the bit I earns here if he could find it.'

  Here she gave a damp giggle, tugged at her neckline and bent down to display a couple of pound notes pinned inside a grubby vest with an enormous safety pin. It looked mightily uncomfortable, I thought, but at least it showed that Minnie had a certain resourceful cunning.

  'Auntie told me to do it,' she went on, scratching her mop of red hair. I might have known it. Trust Mrs Pringle to be one jump ahead in any conflict, as I knew from experience.