‘OK then. I’ll type an amendment, photocopy it and slip it in each programme. Won’t bother the printer – he’ll only charge the earth.’
Michael stood up. ‘May I offer a word of thanks to Louise for all this unpaid work she is doing for us? We all go away with a few jobs to complete but she has to keep her hands on everything that’s going on. We’re really most grateful to you for your wonderful organisation. All your lists and meticulous attention to detail, we’re very lucky to have your services. You’re doing an excellent job. Thank you.’ He looked round the circle and putting his hands together, waited for the others to do the same. They all began clapping. Louise looked embarrassed.
Pat muttered, ‘If only she’d stick to her lists we’d all do better.’
‘What did you say, Pat?’ Sheila broke off from clapping. She’d heard what had been said, and still smarting from Pat’s victory over the cake classes was determined to show Pat up for what she was.
‘I said it’s good she sticks to her lists, that way nothing gets missed, does it?’
‘That’s not what you said.’
‘If you knew what I said, why did you ask me to repeat it?’
‘It was a nasty remark you made. It’s not fair, she’s working really hard.’
‘All depends what she’s working at, doesn’t it?’
Caroline stood up and said, ‘We’ve arranged the date for the next meeting, so shall we all go? Willie will be wanting to lock up.’
Ignoring Caroline’s calming remark, Sheila stood up and said with a threatening look on her face, ‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘She knows what I mean only too well.’
Caroline said, ‘Pat, please,’ in a pleading tone.
‘It has to be said, Dr Harris.’ Pat looked directly at Louise. ‘We each of us know what you’ve been up to – well, you’d better put a stop to it right now, ’cos we won’t stand for it.’
Louise stood up and looking directly at Pat said, ‘I have done nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.’
Pat stood up and hands on hips said belligerently: ‘You’re not suggesting the rector encouraged you?’
Barry took her arm. ‘Now Pat, be careful.’
‘Careful? It needs saying. She’s doing an excellent job with the Show, but heaven help us! She’s causing trouble and it’s got to stop.’
While Pat had been speaking, Sheila had been saying, ‘What does she mean? I don’t understand.’
Linda, seeing an opportunity to get back at Sheila, and indirectly at Louise for her condescending treatment of her at the post office counter, jumped in with support. ‘No good trying to kid us that you’ve had encouragement at the rectory. That’s enough to make a cat laugh.’
‘Encouragement? What are you women talking about?’ Jeremy had now finally run out of patience. ‘If there are no more committee matters to discuss, then I for one am going home. I want my supper. Good night.’ He marched for the door. Michael and Bryn wanted to do the same but both felt they should stay, just in case.
Caroline, normally so in control of herself and of events, tonight found herself quite unable to take command of the situation.
Barry said quietly to Pat, ‘Leave it, leave it, there’s going to be too much said that should be left unsaid.’
Pat ignored him and drove home her attack. ‘Dressing like Dr Harris indeed! We all noticed. Think we’re blind or something? Stick to what yer know best, lists and computers and things.’
‘I don’t have to put up with this kind of attack. All this malicious gossip, it’s so unfair and quite unwarranted. Here,’ she handed Pat her file and when Pat didn’t take hold of it she dropped it on the floor, ‘take that and you can be secretary seeing as you know so much. We’ll see what kind of a good job you can make of it.’ Louise picked up her bag and left, very close to tears because of Pat’s attack. Wherever she went, whatever she did it always came back to the same theme. All she was fit for in other people’s eyes was administration and organisation. Nothing else. Surely to God there was more to her than that … wasn’t there?
Sir Ronald was at home watching the football in the sitting room. When the front door banged open he leapt guilty out of his chair. He called out, ‘Kettle’s boiled, the tea won’t be a minute.’ As he crossed the hall to the kitchen he realised Sheila was crying.
‘Now then, old girl, what’s the matter?’
‘I don’t know. Ask her.’ She jerked her thumb at Louise and then burst into fresh storms of weeping.
‘What have you been saying to her, eh?’
‘Nothing, Dad, nothing. It’s me who’s been hurt, not Mother. There’s nothing to blame me for.’ Louise flung down her bag and made to go up the stairs.
‘Just a minute, madam. You may be an adult but while you’re under our roof you owe me an explanation of why yer mother’s so upset.’
Sheila stopped crying long enough to blurt out, ‘She’s resigned from the Show committee.’
‘Well, you nearly did too,’ Louise sniffed.
‘But that was because of the classes. I don’t know why you nearly resigned. What was it Pat was meaning? And Linda? She said about the “rectory” and “encouragement”. What did she mean?’
Louise pressed her lips tightly together. Her father saw the child in her and remembered the fierce arguments they’d had when she was young. Give him their Brendan any day. He barked at her, ‘I’m still waiting for an explanation and I don’t care if it takes all night. What have you been doing?’
‘I’ve been doing nothing. It’s other people who’ve been “doing”, not me.’
Sheila remembered. ‘Is it something to do with Caroline? She was very white-faced. Was it her? Have you been arguing with her?’
‘We don’t like each other, but it’s not her.’
Sheila wiped her nose again and then asked, ‘Sylvia then?’
‘It’s not Sylvia.’
Sir Ronald groaned inwardly. ‘That only leaves the rector.’
Louise, with eyes downcast said, ‘Don’t blame me, I’ve done nothing.’
Sir Ronald persisted with his quest for the truth. ‘Then if you’ve done nothing, what’s all the fuss about?’
Louise took a deep breath to control her tears. The truth. She couldn’t tell them the truth no matter what. She couldn’t admit to rejection once again, not again. ‘They all … well, Pat Duckett seems to think I’ve been making overtures to the rector. I haven’t, of course not, for heaven’s sake, but that’s what they think.’
His eyes widened. ‘You don’t mean the rector’s been … Lovely chap though he is, and I wouldn’t have a wrong word said against him, he does have a certain reputation which probably you don’t know about. I can understand he’s very attractive to women. Oh yes.’
‘I refuse to say anything which might damage his reputation. Now can I go to bed? I’ll have my tea in bed, Mother, and I’ll have one of those plain biscuits as well … please.’ Her parents watched her walk up the stairs and when they heard her bedroom door close they looked at each other.
‘Ron, I ought to believe her, I am her mother after all, but I don’t.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No. I think she’s been making all the running and he’s been backing off as fast as he can, but she won’t let go. There’s something strange happened at the bank which she won’t tell me about.’
‘But she got made redundant, she said so.’
‘I know she did, but there’s more to it than that.’
‘She doesn’t usually lie. What do you think happened, then?’
‘I don’t honestly know anything, it’s just a feeling I have.’
‘Woman’s intuition, eh?’ He put an arm around her shoulders and gave her an understanding hug.
Sheila wiped her eyes, dropped the tissue in the metal waste-basket she’d decorated with flowered fabric and trimmed with gold fringe, and whispered, ‘Oh Ron, whatever are we going to do? What she really needs is to meet a nice man.
’ Sheila’s eyes glowed. ‘That’s it! I bet that was it! There was a man involved at the bank.’
‘The sooner she gets a job and moves away the better.’
‘Amen to that!’
Chapter 13
‘Craddock Fitch here, I need to speak to Miss Bissett.’
Sheila’s hand trembled as she held the phone. After the upset last night she’d hardly slept a wink and wasn’t really braced sufficiently at this early hour of the morning to conduct a conversation with someone so prestigious as Mr Fitch.
‘Er, oh yes, er, it’s Lady Bissett speaking, yes, I’ll get her for you, can you hold the line?’
She raced up to Louise’s bedroom, and knocked agitatedly on the door. ‘Louise, Louise, it’s Mr Fitch on the phone, hurry up! Don’t keep him waiting.’
Louise appeared in a second, still in her nightdress, sleep heavily obvious around her eyes, her hair uncombed. Sheila watched her run downstairs to the phone. No, she thought, the rector wasn’t at fault. It was all Louise’s overcharged imagination, that’s what it was. Well, Ron had said she had to deal with it; he’d said after all it was women’s talk. Her heart quaked at the thought, and there came a mysterious throbbing in her ears. Oh dear, had she got high blood pressure? If she hadn’t now she would have by the time this was all over. She could hear, couldn’t avoid it really, Louise saying, ‘Yes, of course, Mr Fitch. Certainly. Twelve noon. Of course. Certainly. Oh, how lovely. Thank you. Looking forward to it. Bye bye.’
The receiver went down and Louise came charging up the stairs. ‘That was Mr Fitch, he wants to see me at twelve about the Show. He’s driving down from London this morning. Twelve o’clock, he said, and then stay for lunch. I’m having a bath and washing my hair. Mind out of the way.’
‘But you’ve resigned!’
‘Oh God – so I have! The file! I’ll need the file! Damn and blast it!’
What she’d hoped would be a relaxing soak in perfumed water planning how she would impress Mr Fitch, changed into a frantic charge through several rehearsals of how she would extract the file from Pat, without admitting she wanted to be back as Secretary to the committee. Why did he have to ring at such an inopportune moment? A few more days and she could have resolved it, got the file back, been reinstated and carried on as before. Without being on the committee and without the rectory visits she had nothing left and would definitely have to find a job. There was no further excuse. She could make a start on sorting out Gilbert’s music, but that would really bring little reward. Though she had promised she would do it. Yes, she’d do it and then that would be that. Louise put a stop to her meanderings. This wasn’t working out how to get the file back from Pat without too much loss of face.
A decision to leap out of the bath and get round to the school before Pat left meant Louise was out in Jacks Lane by twenty minutes past nine. She found Pat in the school kitchen hanging up some tea towels to dry on a little rack above the sink. Louise could hear the babble of children’s voices, but didn’t smile like others did when they heard it; she was too preoccupied searching for the right words.
Pat turned to see who had called her name.
‘Oh, it’s you! Well, what now?’
‘Could I possibly have my file back? I think I must have left some private correspondence in there and I need it, this morning, right now. Please.’
‘Not got it, I’m afraid.’ She finished hanging up the cloths, then began drying her hands on the kitchen roller-towel.
Startled, Louise asked sharply, ‘Not got it? Where is it then?’
‘Dr Harris took it. I certainly wasn’t going to take over, not on your Nellie! So if you want it you’ll have to go to the rectory for it.’
‘I see.’ Louise swallowed hard. ‘I’ll have to go there then.’
‘You will. Though how you’ve the cheek to knock on their door after the rector’s turned you out, I don’t really know. Glad I’m not in your shoes.’
‘Mmmmm. Right, well, I’ll get round there.’
‘See yer then.’
Louise didn’t notice the glee on Pat’s face, nor did she see Pat dance a little jig right there on the red tiled floor.
She walked slowly out of the school and across the playground, then stood for a few moments in the gateway watching the builders working on the houses in Hipkin Gardens. They were glazing the windows already. How many months had she been at home? Too many. What on earth was she going to do? It was such a feather in her cap for Mr Fitch to want her to go for lunch and discuss the arrangements for the Show, that she couldn’t, honestly couldn’t, miss out. She’d promised him anyhow, and at least he wouldn’t know what the gossips in the village were saying about her. They just didn’t understand how she felt. She could make darling Peter so happy, so very happy. There were no two ways about it; she’d have to face up to going to the rectory. It might not be a bad thing, after all; she might even get a chance to have a word with Peter on his own. She’d go home first, have a coffee and a think and then walk across and request the file.
At the rectory the file was on Peter’s desk, where he’d left it the night before, after he and Caroline had gone through it when she’d got back from the committee meeting.
‘Give credit where it’s due, she’s an amazing organiser, isn’t she, Peter? I can’t see how I could possibly be as detailed as this. All these notes, cross references, all this detail. All these coloured stickers, red for this, yellow for that. Brilliant! If she went under a bus tomorrow we’d be able to carry on as if nothing had happened.’
‘Caroline! What a thing to say!’
‘Well, we would – it’s true. But whichever way you look at it, I’ve got to get her back as secretary again. I simply haven’t the time to take all this on, nor am I the kind of person who could keep such immaculate records.’ She waved her hand over the file, closed it up and said, ‘What a pity her private life is in such a mess. All she needs is a good—’
‘Caroline!’
‘Man I was going to say – a man who loves her for what she really is. After all, there must be more to her than all this.’ She waved her hand over the file again. ‘Who could we find for her?’
‘Michael Palmer springs to mind.’
‘Yes, that’s a good idea – we could give them those opera tickets you were sent. We’re not opera people, but Michael is and she would be, if it meant going out with a man. Yes, we’ll give them the opera tickets and follow it up with a post-Show dinner party. That would make a good start for them, don’t you think?’
‘Caroline! I don’t want her anywhere near the rectory, thank you, unChristian though that might sound.’
When the doorbell rang Peter was impatient at the interruption. Caroline had taken the twins into Culworth to buy new shoes and meet a friend for lunch, and Sylvia was using up some holiday which was due to her. He was in the rectory all on his own and taking the opportunity to finalise an article he’d been asked to write for the local paper. As he crossed the hall, he put a welcoming smile on his face and opened the door.
‘Ahh! It’s you, Louise. Good morning. What can I do for you?’
‘Good morning. May I come in?’
Peter had a rule that anyone and everyone was welcome at the rectory whatever the time of day or night. Reluctantly he held open the door and asked her in. However, instead of inviting her into his study as he would normally have done, he stood waiting in the hall to hear what she had to say.
‘Actually it’s the file, the file for the Show. In a moment of … extreme stress I gave it to Pat last night. I don’t know if Caroline …’
‘Yes, she did.’
‘Is she in? Could I have a word?’
Peter said she was out, sorry.
‘Oh, I see. Do you happen to know where she put it? I need it to get some things out, personal papers I left in by mistake.’
Peter gave her one of his deep searching looks. Louise lowered her eyes and stared at the carpet. Why must he look at her like that right now?
She couldn’t tell lies when he looked at her like that. ‘Well, the truth is, the truth is, I want it back … because I want to be … oh God! The truth is …’ Suddenly out of nowhere, abruptly and thoughtlessly she blurted out, ‘It’s you. Oh, Peter! I can’t bear not seeing you, can’t bear it.’ She took her handkerchief from her pocket and wiped away the tears welling in her eyes.
‘Now see here, Louise, you know it’s not possible. Simply not possible. We agreed on that.’
‘No, you agreed to it with Caroline and Sylvia, you told me.’
‘Quite right I did. What I said still stands though.’
‘Why can’t I see you? Whyever not? Just you and me, we work together so well. I wouldn’t ask to look after the children. Think how well-organised your parish work would be with me helping you. Oh Peter!’
‘I … I … There’s no way this conversation can proceed. I’ll get the file and you can take it away. Caroline really rather wished you’d be secretary again. She didn’t feel up to the job herself, not when she saw how complicated everything was.’
‘No, you see, that’s it. That’s all everyone ever sees me as – a highly efficient administrator. But I’m not like that underneath. Underneath I’m …’
‘I’m sorry.’ Peter backed away. ‘Please, whatever it is, leave it unsaid. There’s nothing to be done about it.’
‘But there is. You could solve it all for me, for us. You and me. I’m brimming with ideas for helping the parish, to increase the congregation, to reorganise the giving, even ideas for different services. I’ve given it such a lot of thought. It would be brilliant. I’d see to it that it was, believe me.’ Eyes brimming with tears, she looked longingly at him, her soul stripped bare for him.
Peter glanced away. ‘I ’ll get the file.’ He made to go to the study, intending she should stay in the hall, but she followed him in and shut the door.
‘Why not? I don’t understand why not? We work together so well, you and I. We’ve grown so close, and I’ve … I’ve … Oh, Peter, Peter, please!’
Peter stepped back to avoid her clutching him. God, what a mess! ‘I desperately don’t want to hurt you. I have the greatest respect for you, you see, but frankly I have no intention ever … again … of doing anything that would hurt Caroline. Me seeing you and working with you, would endanger my relationship with her. The first day I met her I knew how it was to be. I love her very deeply. We are married for life. There is nothing that I would do to jeopardise that. I made my promise before God and that promise I shall keep till the day I die.’
The Village Show (Tales from Turnham Malpas) Page 13