by Miss Read
'Under the stairs,' he said triumphantly. 'Come to think of it, I put it there myself. I thought it had dusters and brushes and things in it.'
He looked at it more closely.
'But you said "a red case". This is brown.'
'It's maroon or burgundy,' said Diana, snapping it open with relief. 'That means red.'
'The only red I recognise is the colour of a pillar box,' said Peter, following his wife with an armful of bed-linen.
By the time the beds were made and the curtains hung in their bedroom and the sitting room they were too tired to do much more.
'I should like a mixed grill,' said Peter. 'A large one—with plenty of kidney.'
'Well, you won't get it, my love,' replied Diana cheerfully. 'I propose to give you a tin of soup prepared by Messrs Crosse and Blackwell's fair hands. That is, if we can find the tin opener. And we might rise to bread and cheese after that. And if you really want high life, you can top up with a banana, rather squashed.'
'It sounds delightful,' said Peter resignedly. 'Do we get breakfast?'
'With luck,' said Diana. 'We'll have to be up early, by the way, to let in the workmen.'
'Well, let's have this rave-up of a meal now,' suggested Peter. 'I'll go out and lock up the shed, and see everything's to rights.'
Outside, a full moon was rising, glowing orange through the light mist that veiled the downs. The air was as fresh as spring water, and the scent of narcissi came from Mrs Fowler's trim garden next door.
Peter breathed in deeply, savouring the beauty of the night, and relishing the thought of happy years to be spent in Fairacre. He turned to look at Tyler's Row.
Through the curtainless kitchen window he could see Diana at the stove. He hoped she would be as happy as he was about the house. She had been so content in Caxley. It would be terrible if she found Fairacre lonely or uncongenial. He must make sure that she settled here easily. It was a good thing, he told himself, that term did not begin for another week or so. They could get the place straight together, and ease the change-over.
Dimmer lights than their own kitchen one shone from the two cottages at each end. A greenish one at Mrs Fowler's suggested that she was watching television. Sergeant Burnaby's glowed as orange as the moon, behind his buff curtains.
'If only all four were empty!' thought Peter. 'If only we could start stage two!'
If, if...
His grandmother used to have some tart remark about 'ifs and buts getting you nowhere', he remembered. Maybe she was right. It was enough, for the moment, to be in Tyler's Row, to sleep under its thatch and to have his first meal-austere though that promised to be—in its kitchen.
With a last look at the exterior of his domain, Peter turned to go indoors.
8. An Exhausting Evening
'THEY'RE in then,' said Mr Willet as I crossed the playground to go into school. He was perched on a stepladder tying back the American pillar rose which scrambles over the side of the school, clashing hideously with the brickwork, but delighting us all with its bountiful growth.
'Who are?'
'Them new people. Hales. Schoolmaster up Caxley. Took Tyler's Row.'
Mr Willet's staccato delivery was caused more by rhythmic lunges at a high shoot than by impatience with my stupidity.
'Oh yes! I forgot they were moving in. Yesterday, wasn't it?'
'And a nice day they had for it too,' said Mr Willet, coming down the ladder. 'Very lucky, they was. Not all plain sailing though, from what I hear. Them removable men was a bit slap-handed, and they found the underfelt after they'd put everything in the bedroom.'
'Good lord!'
'You might well say say so. Then their blessed cat run off in Caxley and they're having to fetch it today.'
I began to wonder how Mr Willet knew all this. As if he guessed my thoughts, he spoke deprecatingly.
'Not that I know much about it, of course. I'm not one to meddle in other folk's affairs, but you can't help over-hearing things in a village.'
'So I've noticed,' I said, one hand on the school's door-handle.
Mr Willet pointed roofwards.
'Couple of sparrows making a nest up the end there. I suppose I dursen't pull it out?'
'No indeed,' I said firmly. 'I like sparrows.'
'Not many does,' commented Mr Willet.
'I know. I can't think why. I once knew a kind, goodhearted man, very much respected everywhere, who used to catch sparrows and pull off their heads. Quite unlike him really.'
'Very sensible he sounds,' said Mr Willet approvingly. 'They're pestses, is sparrows. Worse'n rats, I reckon.'
'That's as maybe,' I replied, using one of Mrs Pringle's favourite phrases, 'but you can leave that nest alone.'
My caretaker beamed indulgently, and I left the bright sunshine to enter Fairacre School, knowing that the sparrows would be spared.
Later that morning, I decided it was too splendidly sunny to stay indoors, and bade the children dress and accompany me on a saunter round the village. The invitation was received with rapture.
These occasional sorties are officially known as 'nature walks', and to make these outings seem more legitimate we collect such things as twigs, flowers, mosses, feathers, snail-shells and other natural objects to take back to the classroom for study. Naturally, other objects, far more attractive to the children have to be discarded.
Cigarette cartons, bottle tops, nuts and bolts, crisp bags, lengths of wire, tubing, binder twine, broken plastic cups, pieces of glass from smashed windscreens and rear-lights and a hundred other manifestations of civilisation are collected, only to be thrown into the school dustbin, amidst general regret.
This morning the April sunshine was really warm, a preview, as it were, of summer days to come. Enormous clouds towered into the blue sky above the downs, moving slowly and majestically in the light breeze. A bevy of larks mounted invisible stairs to heaven, letting fall a cascade of song as they climbed. Cats and dogs sunned themselves on cottage doorsteps, and here and there a budgerigar had been hung outside in its cage to enjoy the early warmth and fresh air.
A red tractor, bright as a ladybird, crawled slowly up and down Mr Roberts' large field behind the school, and the children waved energetically to the driver.
'My dad,' said Patrick proudly.
'My uncle,' said Ernest, at the same moment. They were both right. And that, I thought, sniffing at an early white violet, is the best of a village school. It remains, even now, a family affair.
We took the rough lane that leads uphill to the bare downs. For the first hundred yards or so, a few trees and bushes line the path. The thorny sloes were already pricked with white blossom, and the black ash buds were beginning to break into leaf along the pewter-grey stems.
Joseph Coggs knelt suddenly down in a patch of dry grass by the side of the lane.
'Got a nail in me shoe,' he explained.
'Us all've,' retorted Patrick, convulsed by his own wit. Eileen gave a sudden shriek.
'There's a snake, miss! Look, by Jo!'
Sure enough, the last few inches of a small grass snake could be seen slithering for cover among the bushes. Obviously, it had been sunning itself in the grass and was disturbed by Joseph.
'Kill 'un!' shouted some of the boys, advancing with sticks upraised.
'No, it's cruel!' shrieked the girls.
'Leave it alone,' I said firmly. 'It doesn't do any harm. In fact, it does quite a lot of good.'
'That's right,' agreed Ernest, siding with me. 'Grass snakes eats beetles, and frogs, and tadpoles, and earwigs, and worms, and spiders, and slugs, and maggots, and snails and...'
He paused for breath.
'Brembutter?' asked someone sarcastically. 'Old knowall!'
This shaft of wit caused more general hilarity. The boys smote each other with juvenile joy. The girls tittered behind their hands, and the snake made good his escape in the general furore.
'See who can get to the top first,' I said suddenly, and watched them stam
pede uphill, screaming with excitement. I followed at a more sedate pace, relishing my temporary solitude and mentally congratulating the sparrows and the grass snake on their escape from their male predators.
The children's spirits were still high when we returned to the school room, but mine had suddenly plummeted. This very evening the first meeting of the Parent-Teacher Association of Fairacre School was to be held.
My struggles against the formation of this association had been prolonged but necessarily half-hearted. If popular demand clamoured for such a thing, then a headmistress must bend, particularly if she wished to live in amity with her neighbours.
It had been decided by half the committee to make the first meeting a purely social occasion, but the other half had felt that something more earnest and meaty should mark the event. Mrs Johnson and Mrs Mawne were both of this faction.
'I happen to know the president of the Caxley P.T.A. group,' Mrs Johnson said, with some pride. 'I'm sure I could persuade her to come and give a talk about the aims of the movement.'
After some discussion, a compromise was arranged. Mrs Jollifant would be invited to give a short talk, 'a really brief talk,' emphasised the vicar, our chairman, 'say, of about fifteen to twenty minutes in length.' This, we all felt, need not take too much time from the main activities of the evening, which would be eating, drinking, listening to a duet played on the school piano by Ernest's mother and aunt, 'Three Little Maids from School' sung by three of the younger mothers, and looking at slides of Mrs Mawne's holiday in Venice, that is if we could find the right plug for the projector. Mrs Johnson had offered to prepare a quiz ('Make it simple', begged the vicar), and would supply pencils and paper for this excitement.
'Now leave your desks tidy,' I exhorted my flock at the end of their school day. 'Your parents may want to look at your books, and they don't want to see half-sucked sweets and lumps of putty, any more than I do.'
There was a feverish scrabbling among their possessions, and the waste-paper basket overflowed in record time. I saw them out thankfully, did my own tidying, and went across to the school house to have an hour or two's breather before facing the rigours of a social evening.
At seven-fifteen, clad in my best black frock which Fairacre knows only too well, I went back to the school-room bearing a handsome bowl of King Alfred daffodils which I was lending for the occasion.
It looked rather splendid, I thought, on top of the ancient piano. Mrs Johnson, rushing in two minutes' later, stopped short in her tracks and threw up her hands.
'Well, that thing can't stay there,' she said, advancing upon my beauties. 'The window sill, I think.'
'It's not wide enough,' I said mildly. 'Anyway, what's wrong with the top of the piano? They show up rather well there.'
'The piano,' explained Mrs Johnson, with ill-concealed impatience, 'is to be in use. It will have to be open for the duets and the accompaniments.'
'You'll be lucky,' I told her. 'It's never been opened since the skylight dripped on it and the wood swelled.'
Mrs Johnson breathed heavily and turned a little pink, but banged the bowl back on the piano top, and turned away.
Parents began to arrive thick and fast, and I kept a 'sharp look-out for my old friend Amy, whilst welcoming them at the door. Amy is not a parent at all, but she was at college with me and sometimes does a little 'supply' teaching to keep her hand in. At this time she was helping at the same Caxley school at which our speaker, Mrs Jollifant, was a member of staff. Consequently, Amy had double entry, as it were, into tonight's festivities.
I saw her soon enough, in an exquisitely cut burgundy-red wool frock. One large cabuchon garnet swung on a long gold chain about her neck, and her dark red shoes I mentally priced at twelve pounds. We kissed each other with real affection. Amy, though she tries to boss me, is very dear to me, and the memory of horrors shared at college binds us very close.
'Put me somewhere at the back,' she said, with unusual modesty.
'Not in that frock,' I said. 'You'll sit in the front and delight all eyes.'
The vicar settled matters by taking her arm and leading her to a seat next to his own, and very soon afterwards he opened the proceedings with an admirably clear explanation of the reasons for our being gathered together.
'We are particularly fortunate in having Mrs Jollifant for our speaker,' he said. 'She will be with us in a few minutes, but has to attend another meeting in Caxley first. Meanwhile, we will have a short session of community singing, if someone will give out the booklets.'
I rose to oblige. These dog-eared pamphlets date back to the days of war—the last war, I hasten to add—though you might not think so on reading the contents.
'Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit-bag' and 'Tipperary' are there, relics of World War One, and 'Goodbye, Dolly, I Must Leave You' carries us right back to the Boer War seventy-odd years ago. However, 'Roll Out The Barrel' redresses the balance a little, and 'She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain' seems positively up-to-date.
At any rate, all Fairacre knows them well, and we sang lustily, to Mrs Moffat's somewhat erratic accompaniment on the piano. The daffodils nodded vigorously on the tightly-closed lid, much to my satisfaction.
When we were exhausted, the vicar introduced Mr Johnson as our next contributor to the general gaiety.
'He is going to sing to us,' said the vicar, with a hint of resignation in his tone which I thought misplaced.
Mr Johnson, clutching a sheet of music, made signals to Mrs Moffat. What would it be? I half-hoped for a spirited rendering of 'The Red Flag'. His three ebullient children had taught the rest of the school a lively ditty in the playground which had become very popular.
It went:
Let him go or let him tarry,
Let him sink or let him swim,
He doesn't care for me
And I don't care for him:
For I'm the worker, he's the boss
And the boss's day is done,
But the worker's day is coming
Like the rising of the sun.
But Mr Johnson did no more than sing 'Bless This House' in a pleasant baritone, and with the mildest of expression. I felt cheated, but the general applause was warm.
Mrs Jollifant arrived at this juncture, a dazzling figure in a trouser-suit of shimmering metallic thread. There were some looks of disapproval from the older ladies in the audience, but the young mothers gazed in open admiration.
Her hair was piled high in a tea-cosy style, and was of that intense uniform blackness which only a hairdresser can achieve. She carried a beaded and fringed handbag and an ominously large bundle of notes.
After polite clapping, Mrs Jollifant began her little talk. The time was eight o'clock.
At twenty past, she had covered what she described as 'The preliminary steps to forming a Parent-Teacher Associaton.' By eight-thirty we had heard of the Necessity For Cooperation, Keeping Abreast of Modern Methods, and the Need for Constant Discussion Between Parent and Teacher.
The two tea-ladies here tip-toed out across the creaking floorboards to turndown the boiler which was bubbling in readiness for the tea and coffee. I noticed that they did not return.
By ten to nine, a certain amount of fidgeting began, and one or two young mothers whispered agitatedly to each other. Mrs Jollifant's address flowed on remorselessly. Amy, sitting between the vicar and me, sighed noisily, and crossed one elegant leg over the other. I admired the beautiful shoes without envy, and hoped that the rumbling of my stomach was not heard by anyone but myself. A cup of coffee would have been welcome half-an-hour ago. Now it was needed as a desperate restorative.
St Patrick's church clock struck nine, but this did not perturb our speaker. We had now reached The Benefits To Our Children stage, with a lot of stuff about Flowering Minds, Spiritual Needs and the Sharing of Love and Experience. Every profession, I thought wearily, has its own appalling jargon, but surely Education takes the biscuit.
At nine-fifteen Mrs Mawne rose, with con
siderable clattering, and said she really must go, as it was getting so late. Mrs Mawne does not lack moral courage, and though the general feeling was, no doubt, of disapproval at such behaviour, there was a certain amount of envy as we watched her depart into the night.
The two tea-ladies, emboldened by Mrs Mawne's gesture, now put their heads round the door and asked if they should make the tea.
Mrs Jollifant, not a whit abashed, said she would be exactly five minutes, was exactly fifteen, and at length sat down to thunderous applause activated by relief rather than rapture.
Stiffly, with creaking joints, rumbling stomachs and slight headaches, we made an ugly rush upon the tea, coffee and sandwiches, before embarking on a shortened second half of our social evening.
Later, by my fireside, Amy and I caught up with our own affairs. James, her husband, now had to go to London regularly twice a week, and stay overnight, she told me.
'An awful bore for him,' said Amy, fingering her gold chain. 'He brought me back this garnet last week.'
Amy has a collection of beautiful jewellery which James brings home after his business trips. Sometimes I wonder if Amy has suspicions, but she is a loyal wife, and says nothing.
'It's simply lovely,' I said honestly.
'You should wear red,' said Amy, studying me, and looking as though she found the result slightly repellent. 'I've told you before not to wear black. It positively kills you.'
'But I've got it! I must wear it. It's hardly been worn at all.'
'Now, that's a flat lie. To my knowledge you've had it four years. You wore it first to my cocktail party.'
'I may have had it four years—that's nothing in Fairacre. I don't get much opportunity to wear this sort of frock. It'll do for another four easily.'
'Put it in the next jumble sale, and buy yourself a red one. Give Fairacre a treat. Or what about a sparkling trouser-suit like Mrs J's?'
'No thanks.'
Amy lit a cigarette.
'Detestable woman! I try and avoid her at school. She wears emeralds with sapphires.'