by Ann Purser
Six
Lois turned up early for her interview at the police station. She had negotiated the heavy entrance doors, the dark lobby, the queue for attention from briskly efficient women behind the glassed-in reception. Bulletproof, no doubt, thought Lois. They dealt smoothly with an anxious social worker and a girl who bit her fingernails feverishly whilst trying unsuccessfully to quieten her crying baby. The baby was well wrapped against the cold wind outside, but it was tiny, and the girl looked too young, too much of an amateur. Lois tried smiling at the girl but received a cold stare in return. She imagined a grim scenario, single mother, no money, damp lonely flat, no luxuries and scarcely enough food. Lois remembered her own loving mother who stepped in and helped at any time, and resolved that Josie would never find herself here like that poor kid.
Finally a side door opened, and a dark-haired man in uniform – casual jersey over shirt and tie, but clearly uniform – approached her. “Sorry you’ve had to wait,” he said, smiling. “In here, please.” He strode off down a corridor and unlocked a door, leading her into a room with no windows, furnished sparsely with a table and two chairs.
“Where’s the spotlight?” said Lois. A nervous attempt at a joke, ignored by the policeman who pointed to a chair and said politely that he was Police Constable Keith Simpson. He said he was deputed to give her some first-hand information about being a Special, because he’d started as one himself, before deciding to make the police his career. Now he was a community policeman. “The bobby on the beat,” he said, smiling, adding that his ‘patch’ included Long Farnden, where he’d noticed from her application she had several cleaning jobs.
“I’ll have to watch it, then,” said Lois lightly, but he didn’t find that funny. She thought he looked a bit of prat.
“So you want to be a Special?” he said. He reminded her of her old geography teacher, who’d had a knack of making even the most straightforward question sound portentous. However, Lois hadn’t lost her skills with geography teachers, and said, “Yep. That’s why I’m here. I’ve read the stuff, and I’d like to do something worthwhile for the community.”
Keith Simpson was no fool and he recognised the quote from the brochure. Nettled, he glanced down at the details she had sent in, personal and family details, and said, “Well, Mrs Meade, I should have thought looking after three kids, a husband and doing cleaning jobs five mornings a week was a worthwhile enough life! And – ” he added, peering at her application – “a parent governor, too. We know that’s quite time consuming. Where are you going to find the extra time?”
Lois had thought of this one. “I’ve worked it out carefully,” she said firmly, “and my mum is willing to fill in at any time.”
“Lucky you! But how old is your mum? Still active enough, is she?” he said, smiling again.
Lois was not sure whether the smile was friendly, or one of pity. “She’s sixty-four,” she said, “and young with it.”
Now PC Simpson laughed. “I believe you,” he said. He looked down again at her papers. “But have you really thought it through? At least a hundred hours a year, and while you’re training, another hundred on top of that?”
After a fractional hesitation, Lois nodded again. Why was he making such a thing of it? She’d always been able to do anything she’d set her mind to. Now he was rising to his feet. He was tall and loomed over her in his dark jersey.
“I’ll just get my colleague,” he said. “I’d like to bring her in on this.”
A plump, middle-aged policewoman came in and, after hearing Lois’s circumstances, said that her first reaction was to advise Lois to wait for a few years until the children were more independent, pointing out that young kids must come first in a family’s priorities. Lois thought of protesting that her kids were fine, thanks very much, but the policewoman spoke with a finality that was not to be challenged.
Lois frowned and stood up, pushing her chair back with a rasping sound. She ignored their mutterings about talking some more about it, and interrupted harshly. “I’ll be off, then,” she said. “Seems I’ve wasted your time…and mine,” she added.
PC Simpson opened the door for her and escorted her back to reception, walking fast to keep up with her. “See you again one day, I hope,” he said kindly. Lois choked back an inappropriate reply and pushed her way out through the heavy station doors. The world continued to go by; cars in both directions on the dual-carriageway, children with swimming things on their way to the municipal baths next door to the police station, a drunk shouting at passers-by on the pavement opposite. She walked back to the multi-storey car park and was furious to find hot tears of disappointment and frustration running down her cheeks as she climbed into her car.
∗
By the time she reached home, the family were all gathered, waiting for her. Her mother, who sat at the kitchen table with Lois’s largest teapot at the ready, took one quick glance at Lois’s face, and said, “Don’t say anything, dear. Josie, get some fresh milk,” she added, and began to pour.
“Where’s Derek?” said Lois, suddenly needing his comforting hug.
“Upstairs,” said her mother. “He’ll be down in a minute.” As she spoke, Lois could hear Derek’s footsteps on the stairs.
He came straight over and put his arms tight around her. “Don’t say nuthin’,” he said. “It was the way you opened the door. Here, Douglas,” he added, “get the you-know-what.”
“But – ” said Douglas.
“But nuthin’ – just get it.” Douglas disappeared and came back holding a large bottle. Lois saw that it was champagne, and began to laugh. Derek said, “That’s more like it,” and opened the bottle with a satisfactory crack. He poured out the fizzing liquid into glasses Josie had set out on a tray, and handed one to Lois. “My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen!” he began, and Josie giggled. “A toast! A toast to our Mum. We don’t want no cops in this house, do we, kids?” Even Jamie had a taste, and then Derek refilled Lois’s glass and her Mum’s, saying it was the best day’s work Lois had ever done. “God, the relief,” he said, pretending to mop his brow. He looked at the champagne speculatively. “Not bad,” he pronounced, “but give us a pint of Best any time. Now,” he said. “What’s for tea?”
“I’ll see to it,” said Lois, “else I’ll not be wanted here, either.”
∗
Later that evening, when Derek was ready for the pub, she helped him on with his jacket – not a Barbour, of course, but a cheaper imitation. It reminded her of Long Farnden, the Vicar and the Prof, and Gloria Hathaway. She remembered that the Prof was usually very careful about his clothes. Probably wasn’t him, then. “Here!” she said, peering closer. “You’ve got some, too!”
“Some what?” said Derek. He hoped his stomach could take a pint or two on top of all that champagne. Lois certainly wasn’t making sense.
“This mark, look…” She rubbed at it with her hand.
“Oh, that,” he said. “It’s a working jacket, that, so what d’you expect? Bye, love.”
“Don’t be late,” said Lois, kissing his cheek. “Not likely,” said Derek, and disappeared into the night.
Seven
The long, narrow street that gave Long Farnden its name had become a muddy track as the Reverend Peter White stepped like a miserably-hunched stork, standing first on one leg and then the other, trying to avoid the heaps of dung and straw which had fallen off a muck trailer travelling at speed through the village that morning. The heavy, incessant rain had leached greenish streams from the mounds, and it was difficult to avoid squelching into it in his old, leaky black shoes.
Vocation? he said to himself. Is this what I was called to endure? A dreary, self-absorbed village in the Midlands, populated with a few real rural oafs who have been here for generations and think they own the church and the right to dictate its progress, and a growing intake of urban idiots who have convinced themselves that they are living the rural idyll they read about in the Sunday supplements: “Arabella’s all-white g
arden!”
“Timothy weaves an arbour from the living willow!”
“Charles’s wild-flower meadow!”
Weedy field, more like, with thistles and nettles taking over, strong and persistent, resisting even the predations of ‘Jemima’s darling rescue donkey, George’. Vicious brute. It had nearly taken his fingers off last time he offered it a Polo mint.
No, theirs wasn’t country life. Real country life was that of the few small farmers who remained to fight their corner in a world of huge, landowning conglomerates, arable technocrats, and contract farmers who hired out themselves and their giant, foundation-shaking, verge-destroying machines, to disturb the village at all hours of night and day.
So thought Peter White as he gave up all hope of dry feet, and splashed dismally through wet and weather towards Gloria Hathaway’s cottage. He tapped lightly on her door and, seeing a light behind her leaded diamond panes, knew that she was at home. The door opened fractionally, and her small, frowning face appeared. Without make-up and her metal-rimmed glasses, she was a soft, watercolour version of her usual self. Pale eyes, pale lashes, pale skin revealed at the open neck of a pale pink dressing gown.
“Ah, vicar…” she said, in a cool voice.
“How are you, Gloria?” Peter began, shaking dripping hair from his eyes. She opened the door a little wider, and he could see a bright fire of logs in the grate. Small lamps gave a rosy glow to the room, and he longed to burst in and settle himself in all that warmth and comfort.
Gloria Hathaway looked him up and down and said with a touch of humour, “I’m all right, but how are you? You look like a drowned rat…better come on in. You won’t catch anything. That is if you don’t mind my state of undress…” she added in a neutral voice. She indicated the dressing gown and fluffy slippers, which he shrugged away with a grand, worldly gesture, and entered Rose Cottage with grateful alacrity.
“You’d better take off your, filthy shoes.” Gloria indicated his sodden, mud-caked feet, and he quickly removed the offending shoes, trying unsuccessfully to conceal the large holes in his socks.
“Enough potatoes there to boil for dinner!” said Gloria, eyeing the socks speculatively. She fetched her work-basket. “Sit down and take them off. I’ll mend them, and then we can dry them by the fire.” She sounded unusually motherly, and he sighed deeply. He thought of his own mother and remembered a warm bed, hot drinks, a night-light, and a bosomy pillow for his head.
“Oh, please, no, no…they’ll only be just as wet again by the time I get home. No, no…don’t worry about me. You’re the invalid, Gloria. I should be waiting on you.”
Gloria allowed herself a wry smile, and sat down opposite him in a low armchair. Her dressing gown fell apart at the knees, revealing sturdy, shapely legs, and he had trouble dragging his eyes away. She was aware of this, and was slow in hiding away temptation.
Peter White gathered his wits with some difficulty and chatted in his light voice about village matters, which he hoped might interest her. The project to make new kneeler covers for the church was not progressing as quickly as he had hoped. She said some critical things about certain members of the congregation, and promised to speed up her sewing so that she might manage two kneelers by the spring, when they were due to be unveiled and blessed with a special service. He told her of the disgusting state of the street, and the dawn chorus of starlings under his roof which woke him every morning. He did not tell of his desperate efforts to go back to sleep before he should weaken and open the laundry basket.
She finished one sock, and then disappeared to make coffee. He looked happily around the room. Small paintings of children, charming children dressed in Kate Greenaway bonnets and boots, were arranged neatly either side of the window. A watercolour of Farnden church and its surrounding yews hung over the fireplace, and as Gloria returned with the coffee he asked who had painted it. “An old friend,” she said briskly. “It was a present…did him a favour once…”
“Let me help,” said Peter White, his pale face colouring and his manner suddenly rather agitated. He leapt up to take the tray from her, lavish in his appreciation of the steaming coffee, the jug of cream and slices of shortbread in triangular segments on a rose-splashed plate.
Gloria smiled, abandoned the old friend, and obligingly changed the subject to the difficulty of turning-out shortbread without cracking it into small shards. She settled him again by the fire, and he toasted his bare feet whilst she sewed quickly and efficiently, finally hanging his slightly smelly socks by the fire to dry.
“I have some you can borrow,” she said, and added with a catch in her voice, “they were my father’s, and nearly new. I couldn’t bear to throw them away, though they are much too big for me.” She smiled bravely then, through a hint of tears, and Peter thought how vulnerable she looked, her expression softened and her cheeks warmed by the cheerful fire. Here was one of his parishioners who merited his continuing protection and care.
When he could no longer ignore her glances at her watch and heavy hints of things she must be getting on with, he stepped out again into the persistent rain and lightly touched her hand with his lips. “Thank you so much for the coffee and socks! And do take care, my dear. You are much needed in this parish,” he said with emphasis, as she slowly took away her hand and shut the door without a sound. Halfway down the path, a loud, deep cough, seeming to come from an open bedroom window, caused him to turn his head. So she wasn’t completely better, he worried, and made a mental note to mention it to Dr Rix.
Eight
Dr Rix, present chairman of Farnden Parish Council, sat in his study sorting papers for tomorrow’s meeting. He had occupied the chair for fifteen years, and when his wife accused him of wasting his time on trivial, parochial matters, he consoled himself by thinking of things that had been achieved or resolved since he was first elected: a waste bin in the recreation ground, a seat on the green in memory of an old inhabitant, young trees now well established on the small hill that ran up to the village. No matter that he had thought they were poplars, and they’d turned out to be hawthorn. They were extremely pretty in the spring and reminded him of his childhood in the Sussex countryside.
After a more or less idyllic childhood, he had completed his medical training at Barts in London, and there he had met his wife, a smart young secretary working in hospital administration. Her parents had lived in Finchley and he’d been dazzled by their obvious wealth and comfortable way of living. Not that his own parents were poor. There had been no struggle to put him through college, nothing like that, but their Sussex village house was modest, and their everyday lives were humdrum and pleasant. One family car, a cleaning woman once a week, no help with the garden, which, anyway, was his father’s passion. It had been expected of him to follow his father’s profession and he had been glad to agree. He had always admired his father, and thought that nothing could be as useful as the work he did.
Mary had belonged to a different world altogether. Money was of primary importance, and everything measured by it. Her parents talked of little else, Andrew Rix quickly discovered. They gloated over bargains they had won, prided themselves on getting value for money, watched with anxiety the rise and fall of stocks and shares. They knew where they could find the cheapest petrol, track down cut-price food on Saturday afternoons, find for Mary and Andrew the best quality furniture marked down because of ‘invisible’ blemishes.
It had soon occurred to Andrew Rix that his own parents were well aware of these things, too, but would have thought it bad form to bring the subject of money into social discourse. Although he tired of this endless preoccupation with money, he had fallen deeply in love with Mary, with her liveliness, her ready good humour, and her sparkle and enthusiasm for life. She, in her turn, loved Andrew for his steady judgement and reliability, and his lack of interest in money. He and she were delighted with each other, and a quick courtship and glamorous wedding followed. Their early days of marriage were heavily subsidised by Mary’s par
ents, and Andrew was not so happy about that. Gradually, though, the handouts tailed off, and they managed well on his income as a family doctor in a country practice. Their only abiding sadness was that they had no children.
When they had arrived in Long Farnden, they endured the usual year or so of suspicion and unfriendliness from the village. After that it was generally accepted that Dr Rix and his wife were a good thing, and he was elected to the parish council, giving him contact with the local people in a different way from in his consulting room. He was good at making friends and, with very few enemies, had in due course been elected chairman. Now he had promised Mary he would resign from the chairmanship at the next annual meeting. He realized he would miss the pleasant feeling of being held responsible for the well-being, in however insignificant a way, of his small community.
There were plenty of contenders for the job, of course. Evangeline Baer from the gallery fancied herself a good organizer, and let it be known that she considered running the small parish of Farnden as a doddle to someone of her experience. Maybe she was right, the doctor thought. There were certainly more cars parked outside her house these days. Another thing to be brought up at tomorrow’s meeting. Some thought the corner too dangerous for parking, and they might review the placing of double yellow lines.