A Village Affair

by Julie Houston

  ‘Betty, back to the kitchen,’ Clementine ordered. ‘Go on, I’ll sort Mrs Beresford.’

  Betty sniffed, raised her eyebrows and made her way back from where she’d just come. Once the door had closed behind the woman, Clementine turned back to me.

  ‘Sorry about that: Betty’s been with me almost since I started and she does like to lord it a bit over us lesser mortals. Sorry I wasn’t around when you arrived: I don’t seem to be able to stop peeing at the moment – oops, sorry, too much information from the cook; it’ll put you off eating with us.’ She grinned. ‘Are you wanting to book a table?’

  ‘Well, I was, but I looked online, saw you had nothing available so thought I’d actually have a walk down here myself and double-check in person. It was silly really…’

  Clementine frowned. ‘Sorry, no, Betty was right when she said we’re fully booked up.’ She turned to a large leather-bound book behind the reception desk and spent a good minute turning pages. ‘Honestly, there’s nothing until January.’

  ‘January? Goodness, it’s only October.’

  ‘I know, but with Christmas just around the corner…’

  ‘Oh, don’t remind me.’ Any thoughts of Christmas had been resolutely squashed: how were we going to spend Christmas Day without Mark?

  ‘Oh well…’ I turned to go, pulling on my gloves, conscious that my wet trainers were making me feel even more miserable.

  ‘Was it a special occasion?’

  ‘Well, only that it was my big birthday six months ago and I’ve not yet really celebrated.’

  ‘I bet you’ve been too busy with your new job. I have to say, Mrs Beresford, Allegra absolutely loves you. She comes home after one of your assemblies and relates the whole thing back to us. She had us in stitches telling us the balloon story…’

  ‘Really? How lovely.’ I could feel myself go pink with pleasure.

  ‘Yes, and we sat through a retelling of “Pandora’s Box” last week and now know all about the International Space station. We have to go out every night and wait for it to go over. “Mrs Beresford says, and she knows all about it…”’ Clementine affected a child’s bossy voice, ‘“… that it’s more punctual than the number 457 bus into Midhope.”’

  I laughed. ‘Well at least someone’s listening to my ramblings.’

  Clementine smiled. ‘Seriously, I think you’re doing a great job. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked Mrs Theobold, but the kids were a bit frightened of her. They didn’t call her The Fearbold for nothing.’

  I smiled somewhat wryly. ‘Maybe that’s what a good head teacher should command.’

  ‘What? Fear? No, sorry not with you there.’ Clementine smiled again and rubbed her abdomen. ‘Ow, little footballer in here, I reckon… Anyway, I had meant to call in to school and just say how happy Allegra is with you. Sorry you’ve ended up coming to me rather than me to you.’ She glanced at my wet feet. ‘Have you walked? I didn’t realise you were local?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve always lived round here. My own kids were under The Fearbold’s rule.’

  ‘So, I assume you know what’s going on with the Bamforth Estate then?’ Clementine frowned. ‘We just can’t let them put three thousand houses onto these wonderful fields.’

  ‘Well, if they get their way, your kids will have a brand-new community school to go to.’

  ‘Sorry, not interested. I don’t want a through-school where children just go to one school from four to eighteen. I know it’s the new way of thinking, but I like small, village schools. Little Acorns – sorry, bloody daft name for a primary school – is perfect as it is.’

  ‘I doubt it. It’ll be Westenbury Community Trust School, or some such name. Right, I need to go. I’m sure you’re really busy.’

  ‘Very. Oh God, need to pee again. Look, lovely to meet you in the flesh as it were. Both Rafe, my husband, and I are totally against any new development so I’m sure our paths will be crossing if there’s a fight about the school and the land ahead.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m not going to take it lying down. I’m really not.’

  *

  Walking back home past All Hallows, Westenbury, I made the sudden decision to join the service. This was my church, my community, after all. Feeling slightly ashamed that, although the church was just a fifteen-minute walk away from Tower View Avenue, I’d only ever been one of the ‘Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday’-type brethren and could count on one hand the number of times I’d actually sat through a Sunday service.

  Ben Carey, the vicar, was in full flow as I opened the ancient wooden door and crept into a pew on the very back row. There were several of my pupils in the congregation and they’d turned to look as the door creaked and then gone a bit pink as they saw their head teacher, dressed in old Barbour and trainers, sitting self-consciously at the back.

  I smiled, but bent my head, hoping not to attract any more attention.

  ‘We all have our ups and downs,’ Ben was saying, ‘and some of these are much, much worse than others.’

  Tell me about it, Ben.

  ‘But when we go through bad times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through it. No matter how bad it may seem, there’s always something beautiful that you can find.’

  Really? I was feeling pretty bad, sitting in that church, but raised my head and looked around. Come on, God, help me out here: I’m forty; my husband’s left me; I’ve lost my best friend; my son is struggling with his sexuality; my village is about to be covered in concrete. Oh, and my wonderful idea of taking out my friends for dinner has been scuppered. I closed my eyes and tried to be positive.

  The next minute I felt a movement by my side and a little hand was put into mine. Surprised, I opened my eyes and looked to my left. Matilda Hogarth, one of my three-year-olds in nursery, sat there holding my hand and smiling up at me, her sturdy little legs, encased in their Sunday-best white tights and shiny red shoes, swinging from the pew.

  ‘I love my school,’ she whispered solemnly, gazing up at me. ‘And I love you too.’

  The sun chose that minute to shine through the stained-glass window to my left and the aisle and my pew were decorated with kaleidoscopic lozenges of light.

  ‘Thanks, God,’ I said, silently, smiling down at Matilda and squeezing her hand. ‘I owe you one.’

  19

  Thou Shalt Go to the Restaurant…

  God continued to be on my side. On the Monday morning, just before school started, the guardian angel of mid-week restaurant tables had appeared to me in a telephone call: ‘Lo, blessed of all women. Rejoice for thou art highly favoured. Thou shalt go to Clementine’s after all.’

  OK, in actuality, Clementine Ahern had rung me. ‘Mrs Beresford? We’ve had a cancellation for Thursday evening. Would you like the table?’

  ‘Gosh, yes. Yes, please.’ I did a little on-the-spot dance.

  ‘The only problem is that it’s a table for six and sort of around a corner by itself, and I think you wanted it just for three? It’s no great problem, we can bring in a smaller table…’

  ‘That’s really kind. I mean, you could have sold it to a party of six, I bet.’

  ‘Well, yes, we could. But I’d like you to have it. Seven o’clock? Is that OK?’

  ‘Super.’ I’d already checked with Clare and Fi, once I returned from church the day before, that they were free during the week and said I’d go ahead and book somewhere probably down in Midhope town centre. This was much, much better and I began to feel really excited about not only at eating at Clementine’s but being able to show Clare and Fi just how much I appreciated their loyalty and friendship. There hadn’t been a week gone by when one of them hadn’t rung to see how I was. Really how I was.

  ‘Good things come to those who wait,’ Jean smiled, when I popped into her office on the way to morning assembly and told her my good luck. ‘We had to wait seven months for a table there. I was nearer my next birthday by the time I celebrated my last.’

  I was on a
bit of a high and my planned assembly, which had involved nursery rhyme characters doing good deeds – think All the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men trying to put the Fat One back together again – necessarily went off at a bit of a tangent when I realised, on questioning them, that the vast majority of the kids had no real knowledge of any nursery rhyme characters apart from Little Miss Muffet and that spider.

  ‘Right, children,’ I said, ‘shall we see if the teachers can do any better?’ And they certainly could. The kids turned, open-mouthed as Kath Beaumont knew who rode to Banbury Cross, Debs Stringer recited ‘Ding Dong Dell’ and Sheila Wilson knew it was Doctor Foster on his way to Gloucester as well as who was running through the town in his nightgown. Harriet Westmoreland actually sang the whole of ‘The Big Ship Sails Through the Alley, Alley O’, the kids riotously joining in with ‘on the last day of September.’

  Karen Adams didn’t. ‘We’ll never settle them after this,’ she muttered to Kimberley Crawford as she marched her eight-year-olds out of the hall, fingers planted firmly on their lips.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Harriet whispered as she led her own class back to their room. ‘Must be the only time I’ve heard cocks, pussies and willies all put in an appearance in a Monday morning assembly.’

  ‘New connotations,’ I laughed. ‘“Ride a Cock Horse”, “Ding Dong Dell, Pussy’s in the Well”, and “Wee Willy Winky” were total innocents when I was a child. I’d like every kid to be as au fait with them as we were.’

  *

  ‘Right, Mrs Beresford.’ Stan the caretaker appeared at the door of my office just as the children had returned to their classes after the lunchbreak. He seemed uncharacteristically hesitant. Shy even. ‘Do you want to come and take a look at my goolies?’ When I just stared at him, he went on hurriedly. ‘It’s OK, love, I’ve not shown them to the kiddies yet.’

  Yet? Heaven forfend.

  ‘If you come with me down to the cellar, I’ll let you give ’em the once over before you decide if you want them or not. They might not be the size you had in mind.’

  Pushing seventy, Stan was sandy-haired, balding and not that much taller than I am. He’d been at Little Acorns for ever and should probably have been put out to grass years ago. He was a walking medical textbook, full of real and imaginary complaints – his most vocal complaints being about his wife, Vera – and his ‘rheumatics’ were the stuff of legend on which he would expound endlessly to anyone unlucky enough to be cornered by him.

  ‘Erm…Stan…’ I continued to stare at him, my face red.

  ‘Come on, I’ve not had me dinner yet and the missus won’t be too happy if she knows I’m showing you ’em at all. She’s a bit funny like that, doesn’t like me showing off my pride and joy, if you get my meaning…?’ He headed off down the corridor, glancing back occasionally to see that I was following him, until he stopped at the huge bolted wooden door that led down by way of a stone staircase to the cellars. In Victorian times, Mrs Theobold had informed me on my initial visit to the school, the boiler and great piles of coke to feed it had filled the cellar, but though now its cavernous space was now mainly used for storage, I’d never actually ventured down there.

  Stan drew back the bolts and we descended the flight of stairs. ‘Er, just keep that door open, Stan, will you?’ I muttered as I followed him down. ‘Where are the lights?’

  Stan tutted and shook his head. ‘You’ll get a much better feel of ’em if I don’t actually put the lights on,’ he said and then stood aside so that I went in front of him.

  ‘A feel…?’ I was about to turn and make a sharp exit back up the steps and then I saw Stan’s goolies. ‘Oh, my goodness, Stan. Look at these. What beauties! These are wonderful…’ I stood, speechless, as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom and feasted upon myriad ghouls and ghosts, wafting gracefully from the ceiling, iridescent with some sort of luminous paint. They weren’t a bit frightening, but were smiley, friendly, Hallowe’en characters that the kids would love. There must have been ten or more Casper the Friendly Ghosts and a whole family of Allan Ahlberg’s Funnybones characters – I knew the younger children had already been treated to a performance of Big Skeleton, Little Skeleton and Dog Skeleton by a travelling theatre last term and loved the books – and big orange and silver smiling pumpkin faces.

  ‘Do you like them?’ Stan asked shyly. ‘The missus said I should grow up and stop wasting my time.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve spent your spare time creating these for us!’ I said in delight. ‘The kids will love them for our Hallowe’en day. You’re very talented, Stan.’

  ‘Aye, well, I always wanted to go to art school, but well, you know how it is…’ He trailed off. ‘So, if you’re happy with them, if you think they’re not too big, I can get them hung up in the hall over the weekend. They won’t glow as well as down here, of course, but once we turn the lights out up there, they won’t be too bad.’

  ‘Stan,’ I smiled, ‘they’re the best goolies I’ve ever had the good fortune to come across.’

  *

  My euphoria at getting a table for the three of us lasted all the way to Thursday evening.

  ‘Whoah, you’re a bit done up,’ Freya whistled as she looked up from her laptop when I called in to her bedroom to say good night. ‘Are you sure you’re only meeting Auntie Clare and Auntie Fi?’ She smirked. ‘I bet you’re on your way to meet Wayne the Wasp Murderer, aren’t you? Having a night of passion with a bit of a sting in the tail?’ She guffawed, looking me up and down. ‘You could do worse, you know. At least we wouldn’t have to worry about another wasp invasion… and it would show Dad you’re still up for it.’

  ‘Up for it? What a revolting expression.’ I peered over Freya’s shoulder at her screen. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Paula and I are organising a demonstration against the Bamforth development, in Norman’s Meadow. I’m just trying to create some posters and flyers.’

  ‘Oh, right… Well done. Can’t I be part of it?’ I felt a bit left out that the pair of them were getting on with it without consulting me.

  Freya looked at me and frowned. ‘Do you think you should? As the local head teacher, wouldn’t it be politicising your position? Shouldn’t you be neutral?’

  It was my turn to look at Freya. Here she was, at just fourteen, so full of idealism and using fancy words; I was sure, at her age, I hadn’t a clue what politicising even meant. At fourteen, my thoughts would all have been on Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. As well as the knowledge, with Freddie Mercury dying, that I’d never be able to have sex because I’d be bound to catch Aids.

  ‘Of course I can get involved,’ I said. ‘I went to the meeting the other evening, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘But you weren’t putting forward any views, were you? It was just a public information meeting. What we’re planning, Paula and Me…’

  ‘Paula and I…’

  Freya tutted. ‘What Paula and I are planning, might be too controversial for someone in your position.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘Are you ready, Mum?’ Tom shouted from the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’ll walk down with you and then you won’t have to drive and you can have a drink.’

  I leaned over the banister. ‘In these shoes?’

  Tom waved my wellies at me. ‘Come on, put these on and put your heels in your bag. You can get a taxi back.’

  It was the first time since I’d broached the ‘g’ word with Tom the previous Sunday that he’d spoken more than a couple of muttered words at me.

  It was a beautiful evening, cold but clear, an incredible full, Hunter’s moon following us down the lane as we walked. Neither of us said a thing for the first few hundred yards.

  ‘Look, Tom,’ I eventually managed. ‘I’m really sorry about what I said to you last Sunday morning. It has nothing to do with me and it was crass and inappropriate for me to ask you.’

  Tom didn’t say anything for a while. ‘Mum, I don’t know
what I am. I don’t seem to be able to join in with all the lads at college when they keep going on about… about, you know… girls and things. I mean, I really like girls. I actually prefer their company to the lads. But… but I don’t fancy them. I’ve tried. I’ve tried to think about them in… you know, in that way…’

  I could feel Tom’s embarrassment and knew why he’d offered to walk me down the lane. He’d wanted to talk but without my seeing his face as he spoke.

  ‘Tom, darling, you’re very young. There’s loads of time to start fancying girls and things…’

  ‘Now you’re patronising me.’

  ‘If I am, I really don’t mean to. I just want to be here for you; to listen if and when you need to talk.’

  ‘The thing is… the thing is…’ Tom stopped, unable to go on. ‘OK, the thing is I do really like someone…’

  ‘And he’s male?’ I asked gently.

  Tom breathed deeply, and picked up his pace. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you were with him at The Blue Ball when Dad saw you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How old is he, Tom?’

  ‘My age; well a year older. He’s in his second year of A levels.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘So, do you see him often? Where do you meet up with him?’

  ‘He’s part of the crowd I hang around with. You know, Jenny’s friends?’ Jenny and Tom had been friends from being six at Little Acorns and, even though they’d gone to different schools at the age of eleven, had continued to be so. She was as much a part of Tom’s life as Freya’s netball gang were a part of hers.

  ‘Jenny got us together. She thought we’d have a lot in common…’

  ‘Right, OK. And so, you are, er, together then?’

  ‘The thing is—’ Tom stopped abruptly as Clare and Fi fell out of a taxi and shouted at us from across the road.

  ‘Cassie, yoo-hoo we’re here,’ Fi shouted. ‘Come on, we’ve already had a drink at Clare’s place. You’re one down…’