by David Nobbs
‘Now, shall I tell you what I think we should do?’
Lucy didn’t reply. She realized that no reply was expected.
‘I’m going to ask you to make me another promise in a minute, Lucy,’ said the headmistress, ‘and you’ve told me that you try to keep your promises. I am going to suggest that we – that’s not just me but all your other teachers, and not just us but you as well – we’ll work on this together. I am going to suggest that we make a big effort to find things for you to do, within the rules, that can bring you that same feeling of excitement, that same buzz, danger too, but danger of a different kind, danger as much of or more of the mind than the body, perhaps. I think with your athleticism and circus training you could and should do well at sports, and I’d welcome that, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. I love the arts, Lucy. I do what I can to interest you all in them, and I would do more if our leaders of all persuasions had the sense and the character to support us more. I believe, Lucy, that ours is not much of a civilization if our education cannot provide for receptive young minds excitements from the arts to rival those of the circus. The promise I’m asking from you is not difficult. It’s simply this. Will you do your best to try to find the excitement you crave and need from the activities that we take the trouble to put in your way?’
Lucy looked at her with an expression that wasn’t at all promising. For a moment the headmistress was horrified and disappointed. Then she realized the explanation of the expression. Lucy was trying not to cry.
‘I promise,’ whispered Lucy, but it was a resounding whisper.
‘Have you any questions, Lucy?’ asked the headmistress.
Lucy remained silent.
‘Ask something, Lucy. Please don’t disappoint me.’
‘If you knew everything, Miss Spreckley, why didn’t you tell on me?’
‘I wanted you to admit it of your own accord. I was confident you would. Run along now. I’ve work to do.’
Lucy went to the door of the study, opened it, turned briefly.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘No. Thank you,’ said Margaret Spreckley.
TWENTY-EIGHT
A glorious weekend
A glorious weekend burst upon the Pother Valley. Potherthwaite awoke to cloudless skies. There was barely a breath of wind. The weather forecast spoke of the possibility of the temperature touching twenty degrees. Twenty degrees, in Potherthwaite, in late October.
The sun shone brightly on the Quays, on what had until recently been the Canal Bookshop, on the rusting frontage of the Terminus Bist o, on the rusty tables outside the Quays Café, where a few brave souls were eating congealing breakfasts off cold plates. It was self-service. If you sat waiting to be served you would sit for ever. The waitress hadn’t even the energy to come out to tell you that she wasn’t coming out to serve you.
Sally strolled up on to the sharply curved footbridge that led to the other side of the canal, to the cracked and uneven towpath and the mean houses beyond. She looked down on the three trapped narrowboats. This morning, with courage sent from the sun, she filled the scene with happy people, lively dogs, lines of cafés with bright awnings, smooth waters, boats that moved.
She wandered back to the quayside. A thin, frail, elderly man with bowed legs was precariously carrying a large tray laden with a huge fry-up, toast, butter, marmalade, condiments, brown sauce, tomato ketchup and a mug of tea. Behind him, his huge wife waddled with an even more piled tray. Sally watched, gripped by the drama. He just managed to plonk his tray on a table before he lost control of it. She lowered herself very slowly towards a chair, still clutching her tray. She lost control of the descent, and the tray crashed on to the table, slopping tea everywhere. Sally stood there until they had taken their first great mouthfuls of food that would already be almost cold. Between them on the iron top of the table was a dollop of bird shit. Neither of them took any notice of it. Over their heads was the natural canopy of a horse chestnut. One glorious orange leaf floated down on to their table. They didn’t take any notice of that either.
Sally drifted past the sunken narrowboat, came to the trapped home of the Porchesters. Terence and Felicity were having breakfast in the cockpit – orange juice, strong coffee, toast and two boiled eggs each.
‘This is the life,’ called out Terence plummily.
‘On a morning like this,’ said Felicity.
‘Come and join us,’ said Terence.
‘No, no,’ said Sally. ‘Enjoy your eggs.’
‘From the deli,’ said Terence proudly.
‘Good man.’
Felicity, small and delicate as a bird, bashed the top of her egg violently. Terence, that bearded mountain of a man, picked the shell off the top of his egg with careful, delicate, scalded fingers. Sally would miss the Porchesters if – when – their boat was freed, and they chugged happily back to Oxford.
‘We’ll be there,’ said Terence.
‘Lending our muscle power,’ said Felicity, who had no muscle power to lend.
Sally had arranged for a big clearing-up operation at the waste ground in High Street West from ten o’clock. This was a bit premature, as no decision had yet been made over the use of the site, but it was right in the centre of town and something had to be seen to be done if the excitement of the vote against the supermarket wasn’t to die.
‘Well, that’s very good of you,’ she said. ‘It isn’t even your town.’
‘We wouldn’t dream of not helping,’ boomed Terence. ‘You’re our saviour, Sally. You’re going to clear the canal and let us chug our way home.’
‘We’d do anything for you,’ said Felicity.
‘Within reason,’ said Terence, and he roared with laughter.
‘Terence!’ rebuked Felicity. ‘You’ll deafen the poor girl.’
‘Always laugh at my own jokes,’ said Terence. ‘Somebody has to.’
Sally left them to their second eggs and meandered on towards the third narrowboat. Eric Sheepshank was lying full length on the roof, dressed only in his underpants. He clambered awkwardly to his feet. Twice in recent weeks he had lost his balance and tumbled into the foetid waters.
‘I’m sorry I’m not decent,’ he said. He lowered his voice, as if he was about to impart a really important secret. ‘I’ve let myself go.’
‘It’s that I want to talk to you about, Eric,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve seen some of your early stuff.’
‘Oh?’
He was a thin man with a huge paunch. He adjusted his pants nervously, as if he feared that he might show Sally a glimpse of something that would excite her.
‘I’m not sure that I entirely believe this sculptor’s block stuff,’ said Sally.
‘You and the world,’ said Eric with a spurt of anger. ‘Bloody writers. Prima donnas to a man. And woman. Got stuck with their precious stories? It’s not because they’ve got no imagination. Oh no, it’s because of writer’s block, that fungus of the imagination that sits there, waiting to strike the poor darlings. Cos writing a book’s so difficult. Whereas all we ordinary folk do is shape a bit of stuff, so why should we have sculptor’s block? Or painter’s block. Or potter’s block. Or butcher’s block.’
She had made him angry. She had woken him up. Good.
‘Eric, I fully accept the existence of sculptor’s block, but you haven’t tried the remedy for at least twenty years.’
She looked up at him, absurd and haggard and unshaven in his sadly inadequate grey overwashed underpants on the roof of his tilting boat in the late-autumn sunshine.
‘Oh,’ he said angrily. ‘You know what the remedy is, do you, Mrs Bloody Couldn’t Satisfy her Husband Clever Clogs?’
Sally went white. She shook with anger. She glared at him. There was a long silence. She suspected that he had gone pale behind his beard.
‘I’m most terribly sorry, Sally,’ he said. ‘That was awful. That was inexcusable.’
‘It’s the drink, Eric,’ said Sally. ‘Cut it down, Eric, be
fore you find you have to cut it out.’
Eric opened his mouth but said nothing. Sally could almost see the words appearing and being forced back. This was a matter too serious to discuss. He changed the subject back on to the safer ground of sculpture.
‘So you think you have a remedy for sculptor’s block, do you?’
‘Yes, Eric.’
‘And it is?’
‘Sculpt.’
‘What?’
‘Work. Make things. Even if they don’t come out very well at first.’
He shook his head, but not very firmly.
‘You were good, really good. You can be again.’
This time he didn’t even shake his head. He just stared. He looked as if he hadn’t a thought in his head, but she knew that he had.
‘You’ll have heard of my plans, Eric,’ she said. ‘Well, I plan a Sculpture Trail and I want you to be in it. You can do it.’
‘What would I make?’
‘I wouldn’t insult an artist of your potential by limiting his freedom. Eric, look at your life. Your boat is rotting. You are rotting. Your underpants are rotting. If you had a foreskin, that would be rotting too.’
She turned away. She didn’t want him to see the astonishment on her face at what she had just found herself capable of saying. And she didn’t need to look back at the astonishment on his face – she could imagine it.
She found herself accompanying the Porchesters up to the waste ground. As she went she looked at the scene with a mixture of dismay and hope – dismay at what it was, hope at what it might become. How the Market Place needed a few open-air cafés. In Potherthwaite the words ‘Al Fresco’ sounded like the name of a bandit.
The Revd Dominic Otley had volunteered to lead the clearing operation. Anything was better than worrying about tomorrow’s sermon. Today, in his khaki shorts, he was all smiles; even his knobbly knees seemed to be smiling. Several of his declining band of faithful parishioners had come to support him. They were elderly and not capable of lifting heavy weights, but their spirit was admirable.
Marigold’s knees were not knobbly, her shorts were very short and weren’t khaki, and she wasn’t capable of lifting heavy weights either. She went straight to a small broken square of York stone. Sally realized to her immense amusement that Marigold was only going to carry objects that did not detract from her elegance. She lived her life in the style of a woman who expected that she might be photographed at any moment. Sally’s mocking thoughts about her dear friend were deeply affectionate, but she didn’t want to talk to Marigold today; she didn’t want any more conversations about Conrad until after her dinner with him. Yes, she had accepted his invitation made on her answerphone. She didn’t know why, and she didn’t know how she would play it, but there was nothing more to be said to Marigold about it until there were further developments. That did much to explain why she ended up lunching with …
But we anticipate. Shortly after ten o’clock, along came Ben, that strange – but was he really so strange? – boy. He carried a large canvas, attached to a pole like an estate agent’s board. He wasn’t tall, and he was decidedly thin, and he could only just manage to carry it.
He tried to stick the pole into the ground, which was still slightly wet after yesterday’s rain, but it was also stony and he found it difficult.
‘Let me, maestro,’ said Terence Porchester. He pulled a large hammer from his rucksack, took the pole from Ben, found a suitable piece of ground, and hammered the canvas into it. Then he went round to the front of the canvas, which faced the High Street, and examined it.
‘Brilliant,’ he pronounced. ‘The artist is embarrassed because he is not good at hammering things in, yet he has created a masterpiece. I am quite brilliant at hammering things in, but will never create a masterpiece. You’ve done it again, maestro. Congratulations.’
They all went round to the front to examine Ben’s painting. It was of an extremely exhausted vicar, on his knees, holding a large stone up to the heavens rather feebly. From his mouth came a speech balloon: ‘Oh Lord, help me.’ Underneath the painting were the words: ‘WE NEED YOUR HELP TOO. SATURDAY. 10–5.’ The painting of the vicar was brilliantly funny. Everyone laughed, particularly the vicar, though a few of his small flock looked a little uneasy at the mockery.
Sally put down her spade – with some relief – and led Ben away from the crowd.
‘What are your plans, Ben?’ she asked.
‘Dunno. Might hang around the allotments with Tricksy. Don’t know.’
‘I actually meant, not what are you going to do today, but when you leave school.’
‘Hang around the allotments with Tricksy, probably. No, sorry, Sally. I’ll be serious. Go to art college.’
‘Great. That’s fantastic.’
‘Dad’s furious. He wants me to be an accountant.’
‘I might have to have a word with your dad.’
‘Oh Christ, no, Mrs Mottram. My dad’s not a person you can have a word with.’
‘Ben, do you think you could call me Sally?’
‘Yeah, if you want me to … Sally. Cool!’
‘Do you like your dad, Ben?’
‘I dunno … Sally. I thought I did.’ He thought for quite a moment. ‘No. I never liked him. I loved him once, but … not now.’
‘Oh. OK. Anyway, Ben, you’re still going to art school?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I’ve been looking at the High Street, Ben, and it’s—’
‘Crap.’
‘Yes. I was searching for the right word, but, well yes, crap, almost, but not quite, because it doesn’t need to be. It’s the shopfronts. They’re—’
‘Crap.’
He grinned. Sally had to laugh.
‘Could you elaborate, Ben?’
‘Certainly. They’re ugly, garish, crude, aggressive and boastful. They compete with each other instead of complementing each other. The worse their products, the greater their conceit. Apart from that they’re not too bad.’
‘If I asked you – I only say “if”, I’m not decided – if I asked you to … um … well, design matching shopfronts, matching but not identical shopfronts that would help to make this street beautiful, do you think you could do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘I just might ask you to, Ben.’
‘Wow! Now that would be cool. Yeah, I think I …’
He stopped. He wasn’t looking at her any more. Lucy Basridge was walking up the street. Sally could see him forcing his concentration back to the shopfronts.
‘Yeah, that would be great,’ he said.
‘Terrific. Marvellous. Off you go now before she disappears.’
He looked at her in astonishment.
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘Sally Mottram, you are one cool dude.’
‘Go.’
He rushed off after Lucy, caught up with her just before she reached her house.
‘Hello, Lucy,’ he said.
‘Well, hello you,’ said Lucy.
‘Hello.’
‘Was that your painting?’
‘Yep.’
‘It’s great.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re clever.’
‘Thanks. Fancy a …’
He couldn’t think of anything to suggest.
‘A what?’
‘Dunno. Walk? Drink?’
‘Neither if you can’t decide which. I like my men to be masterful.’
This is a challenge, Ben. Rise to it.
She was going. Any second now she would be gone.
‘Drink, then.’
‘OK.’
It was as simple as that.
A drink was a good idea. The temperature had reached nineteen. The workers on the waste ground needed a drink too.
‘It’s a lovely day. We’ve done well. Break for lunch when you feel like it. It’ll be hot this afternoon. Only come back if you want to. I will. You needn’t,’ intoned the vicar. He turned to Sally and in a much lower voice
said, ‘Come to lunch, Sally.’ She, eager to escape Marigold until she’d had her dinner with Conrad on Tuesday, agreed immediately, failing to notice a dangerous urgency in the vicar’s voice. They set off so fast that there was clear water between them and the waste ground before anyone noticed that they had gone.
‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘Well done. Um … I thought … um … I think I feel a bit too sweaty for the Weavers’ if you know what I mean, Sally.’
‘Yes, I do, Dominic.’
‘You do? Are you feeling a bit too sweaty for the Weavers’?’
‘Dominic, that is not at all the sort of thing you say to a lady.’
‘I know. Small talk is my Achilles heel. Mother, a clever woman, once gave me some advice about the ministry that I never forgot. “Forget the Gospels, Dominic. Brush up your small talk, that’s the way.”’
‘Um … yes.’
‘What do you say to the Potherthwaite Arms?’
‘I say, “Hello, Potherthwaite Arms.”’
‘What?’
‘It was a joke – almost.’
‘Ah. That’s the Achilles heel on my other foot.’
They entered the pub. It was quiet at this early hour, on this lovely sunny day, apart from four men, two of them Muslims, playing dominoes together.
‘Good morrow, ostler,’ said the vicar, rendered somewhat fanciful by the morning’s exertions and the sunshine and the fact that he had persuaded a lovely lady to visit the pub with him.
‘You what?’ said the barman.
‘A large noggin for me,’ said the vicar.
‘A what?’
Some of the wind was knocked out of the vicar’s sails.
‘A pint of your best bitter,’ he said rather more quietly. Sally plumped for a gin and tonic. ‘Large, need I say?’ said the vicar.
The barman gave the impression that he had needed to say it.
They ordered two ploughmans. ‘Or should I call them ploughmen?’ commented the vicar. The barman ignored the question totally. The vicar led Sally towards a corner. On their way he stopped to speak briefly to the dominoes players.
‘Ah. Fives and twos. A great game.’
All four dominoes players stared at him.
‘I sometimes think I don’t have the common touch,’ said the vicar to Sally as they moved on towards their table.