Mrs Fytton's Country Life (27 page)

RUB FORBACKACHE

No more of that, she thought, pleased.

Tomorrow the cider apples would be collected and the last of the honey would go. And then the days would lie fallow until spring. Or so she hoped. To everything there is a season, she reminded herself. Winter is the dead, dark months. She was quite glad about that. Maybe her back would recover by spring.

And then, half walking, half crawling, and clutching her tube of Ibuleve, she betook herself up the creaking staircase to the avocado bathroom, the colour and style of which, she realized, she could not have cared less about. Nor the velvet curtaining. Nor later, the white pique bed cover. Because every muscle in her body hurt. Except, miraculously, her heart.

A tumbrel of well-rotted pig muck was delivered, very silently, after she had crawled off to her bed. It was there in the morning, refusing to go away, in full view of her bedroom window when she limped and gasped her way over to pull the curtains. The hens were eyeing her cheerily from the dug-over soil, as if to say that this was more like it. Pinching all the worms, little buggers. 'Shoo
’
she called from her window. 'Put them back.' Apart from anything else, she did not really like the idea that her beautiful brown shiny eggs would be entirely created out of horrible pink-grey wriggly worms. There were some matters of a country nature upon which she would prefer not to dwell. Sheep's and cows' bottoms, for example, when you had crawled behind them on your bicycle for a mile or two, were inclined to give you a rather jaundiced view of your own gynaecological mortality.

The Ibuleve practically winked at her: 'Hi, baby, see you later
...'
But as the misty morning gave up its vapour to the warmth of the autumn sun, she got into the rhythm of it. What had once been just a large, irregular patch of scrubby lawn and nettles and rotting newspapers and boxes of this and that, now began to look like a rich Christmas pudding of a mixture, just ready and raring for plant life. Sammy was right. You could see that it was now as well fed as any rosy infant, as fertile as any teeming womb. And like any well-fed, rosy infant, she thought, remembering her own two, a little frost would do it no harm. So Sammy said. The real planting would begin next spring. She looked upon it with great satisfaction. It looked fine. Beautifully dug over and neat. A perfect pair of circles, she had made. With the aid of string, wooden pegs and Sammy Lee's patience.

Sammy nodded in approval. 'Now let the rain come,' he said. 'Weather's been too hot and dry. It's turning for autumn now. You'll get your last sunny day tomorrow. Go in and have your tea.' He looked about him. 'I'd say you've earned it.'

She was sipping tea and looking through Maria Brydges's household recipes for a way to use up the excess beeswax. Although she offered it to Wanda, Wanda declined the gift. It was as if she thought that by accepting it, she would be required to give Angela something back. Like information. Angela screwed up her eyes, half amused, half irritated. The woman was certainly keeping her wisdoms, and her teapot, to herself
...

The best blacking for preserving boots and shoes, and which makes them perfectly watertight, is the following:

take of yellow wax one ounce and a half, of mutton suet, three ounces and a half horse turpentine, half an ounce ivory black, three ounces

Melt first the wax, to which add the suet, and afterwards the horse turpentine and ivory black. When the whole is melted remove from the fire. Use cold, rubbed on to a warmed brush.

It made her think, irresistibly, of gleaming black boots on a well-turned pair of calves. She thought again of Craig Elliott and the warmth of the pressure of his hand and, in a confused way, wondered what his calves might be like in well
-
polished boots. Before she could move from that to ringlets and ripped bodices, she shook her head free of the picture. Ian had been away far too long. She hastily turned the page. And there it was. The recipe for church ale, copied out in Maria Brydges's neatly perfect hand. With a postscript at the end:

This last was writ by Doll Caxton, whose brew was once known and which I set down in the hope it will not be misconstrued.

When hops are purchased, let them not be packed too loose in the sacks, for that does them no good. Gather what wild hops you have room to dry, for these will add a lightness of flavour, a freshness and bitterness that will do the ale well.

In the choosing of a malt it should be of a pale colour and broken into a coarse meal, not ground too fine. Good malt is known by a simple test, namely, by chewing it. If well made it will be nearly as sweet as sugar, delightful to the smell, mellow-tongued, of a round body and a thin skin. In short, it should have all the properties desirable to a woman.

Angela immediately rang the vicar and told him that she would be very happy to re-establish the old institution of church ale and that the profits would go to St Hilary's. He was suitably grateful and she felt full of love for the world.

Until she remembered that tomorrow was Ian and La Bin-bag's wedding anniversary. And despite herself she could not help wondering how they were marking
their
event. Marking hers with the herb beds had seemed so propitious; now it seemed like just another emptiness beside the idea of having him lying there in a real bed beside her. Well, she
wanted both. That was it. Both,
Herb bed and marriage bed. Why not?

She stared up at her ceiling with glittering eyes. The last time she talked to Claire on the phone, she heard Tristan cooing away in the background, banging something, and she could imagine the something clutched in a chubby little fist and being held out to delight his father as he walked through the door. Snapshots of other people's domestic lives hold too much poignancy, she said to the sloping ancient walls and her shadow that drooped there. 'Make it their last anniversary, please.' And the misery of it caused a pain that hurt considerably more than all her shrieking muscles put together. No amount of scruples could rub that one away. She telephoned Rosa.

'Domestic homily number
346
’
she said, across the crackling wires to Buenos Aires, still reading from the memorandum book. '"If you grate a nutmeg at the stalk end it will prove hollow throughout." According to Maria Brydges.'

'Who?' said Rosa. 'I can't hear you properly.'

'"Whereas the same nutmeg, had it been grated from the other end, would have proved sound and solid to the last.'"

'Wha
t?'

'"Therefore, always check your potential husband for his stalk and grasp him from the other end.'" 'It's a bad line,' Rosa said.

‘I
said, Next time I get hold of Ian, I won't hold on so tightly to the stalk.'

There was a pause. 'Angela, I think you should come out here for Christmas'

'Rosa, it's only just October.'

'Come.'

She agreed.

Dr Tichborne said, 'My love, I think our vicar is right, you know.'

Mrs Dorothea Tichborne said, 'If old Mr Lee can come three times a week and not mind the cold, then I think the youth of the parish can be asked to do the same. And if they want a club, what's wrong with Sunday school?'

The vicar said quickly, 'It was extremely kind of you to pay for the hinges and the fixing of the church gate. Here is the bill.'

Mrs Dorothea Tichborne picked it up and looked at it through her spectacles. The flesh around her lips puckered as she checked the calculation silently.

Dr Tichborne longed to leap across the table, take the paper, tear it up and throw it in her face and then turn to Crispin, eager-eyed, respectful, cursed with a patron of nun-like disposition and a purse of steel, and say, 'Have anything. Take it all. And take me too.' Instead he said, 'More tea, vicar?'

Oh, the perils of marrying for money. He should have known that the reason most people have money is because they keep it. He held the teapot, stared at Crispin's adorable curls and waited.

Dorothea said, 'Seventy-eight pounds seems a great deal.'

The vicar said, 'The hinges had to be made.'

Dorothea pursed her lips, said that it was, after all, to the Glory of God not to let the sheep into the churchyard and signed the cheque. 'And now,' she said, 'my father's memorial
...'
She rang the little bell.

The Dorkin girl arrived. She was wearing a raspberry-pink angora jumper.

The vicar's hand shook, rattling his cup in its saucer. Dr Tichborne reached over and patted the offending hand lightly (O soft, white skin) and gave him a look as if to say, 'Together we will win through.'

The leather case containing the mason's drawings was requested. The leather case containing the mason's drawings was brought.

'Do you feel the cold, Sandra?' asked Dorothea Tichborne.

Sandra ran her floury hands lightly over her pink-clad body. 'Oh no,' she said, and leaned over and rubbed the same hand of Dr Tichborne's that had so lately patted the vicar's. 'See?'

Dr Tichborne did. So did the vicar. They saw both the hand, and the way Mrs Tichborne's mind was working.

'Well, there you are,' said Dorothea, watching the Dorkin girl sashay from the room. 'No need for heating, now, is there?'

‘I
would not,' said Dr Tichborne with distaste, 'say that our servant girl is normal. She always seems to be overheated.'

The vicar bit quickly into his seed cake lest the words 'Hot stuff, hot stuff, hot stuff fell from his mouth.

'Vicar?'

He gave a little nervous bow. 'Mrs Fytton has suggested making and selling church ale. For our funds. Specifically to be used to heat the church.'

'Then let her,' said the last remaining Devereux dismissively.

'Ah, the widow's mite
’
said the doctor.

'Might what?' asked Dorothea, already poring over the drawing of the marble catafalque.

'Be lonely
’
said Dr Tichborne happily, yearningly and quick as a flash. 'Do you get lonely, Crispin?' And before he could stop himself he leaned forward, looked into those sweet, sweet eyes, and said, 'We could play chess.'

'I'm not very good.'

‘I
could initiate you.'

The word hung between them. Old Dr Tichborne nearly fainted at the thought.

'Which reminds me
’
said Dorothea, 'we must think about Sandra's baptism. A full immersion, I really do feel, would have covered the sins. But, alas, she is far too large to fit into the font.'

'Indeed she is
’
said the vicar.

'Which is a very great pity.'

The vicar did not look entirely in agreement with the sentiment. But Dr Tichborne nodded vigorously.

Mrs Tichborne looked over her spectacles at the vicar. 'Nevertheless, she should suffer.
Cold
water in the font, I think. To cool the blood
...
Unless you can think of a way of getting all of her in?'

The vicar hoped to God that God would forgive and that to all others his mind remained a private place. What was going on in there was terrible
...
terrible.