(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green (3 page)

'Perfect!' said Dimity, entering the house.

2 Problems at Thrush Green

THE hawthorn blossom along the hedges gave way to the showy cream plates of elder flowers, and sprays of wild roses, pink and frail as sea shells.

The gardens of Thrush Green were bright with irises and peonies, and the air was murmurous with the sound of lawn mowers.

But not all was idyllic.

Albert Piggott, caretaker, sexton, and erstwhile gravedigger at St Andrew's, found the June heat a sore trial, his nature being inclined to melancholy and excessive self-pity. But it was the mowing which gave him his present reason for complaint.

Some years earlier, Charles Henstock had decided that the tombstones of the Thrush Green forefathers should be moved, with due reverence, to the edge of the graveyard, and the turf flattened, so that a mower could keep the area tidy with the minimum of effort.

For too long it had been an eyesore. Albert, whose job it had been to scythe the grass over and around the mounds, was clearly beyond the work, and it seemed impossible to get a replacement.

There was some opposition to the good rector's proposal, but eventually it was accepted, and now, years later, it was generally agreed that the churchyard of St Andrew's was an exceptionally pleasant place, and the change had been quite successful.

Albert did not agree, as he told his long-suffering neighbour, Mr Jones of The Two Pheasants, one bright morning as soon as the pub was open.

'Them dratted tombstones was put too close to the outside wall when they done the job.'

He took a noisy slurp of his beer.

'Young Cooke,' he went on, replacing the dripping glass on Mr Jones' carefully polished bar counter, 'can't get the mower between them and the wall.'

'Oh-ah!' replied Mr Jones without much interest. Albert and his young assistant had been at loggerheads for years now. The publican had heard both sides of the many arguments between the two, and for far too long.

'Means as I has to get down on me hands and knees with the bill-hook, round the back, like. Not that easy at my age. Not after me Operation.'

A shadow fell across the sunlit floor. Percy Hodge, a farmer from the Nidden road hard by, was seeking refreshment.

'You ain't still on about your innards, are you?' he queried. 'I reckon all Thrush Green knows about them tubes of yours. And fair sick of 'em too. Haifa pint, please.'

Albert's face grew even more morose.

'All right for you. Never had a day's illness in your life!'

'Ah! But I got my troubles.'

He pulled some coins across the counter and settled on the next stool to Albert.

'Oh? Your Doris come back?'

Percy drew in his breath noisily.

'Now, Albert,' began Mr Jones. 'We don't want no trouble between old friends.'

'Who's talking about old friends?' enquired Albert nastily. Percy's breathing became heavier.

'You keep Doris's name out of this,' he said. 'I don't keep on about your Nelly, though we all know what she is!'

'Gentlemen!'
cried Mr Jones in alarm.

Percy and Albert fell silent, and turned their attention to their glasses. A distant clanking sound, followed by a steady chugging, proclaimed that the cement mixer was at work.

'By the time them places is finished,' said Albert, 'our lot'll all be in the graveyard. Be about ready for young Cooke, I reckon.'

'Wonder who they'll choose?' asked Percy, secretly glad to pick up this olive branch. 'You put your name down?'

'What, with my Nelly to look after me? And my girl Molly across the green at the Youngs? No point in me havin' a try. They'll be looking for old folk on their own.'

'Well, I've put my name forward,' said Percy. 'I'm old, and on my own.'

His listeners seemed taken aback. Albert was trying to work out how much younger Percy was than he himself. Mr Jones was shocked at the cheek of a man who was only middle-aged, and had a house and a living, in applying for one of the new homes. But he forbore to comment. He did not want any trouble in his respectable hostelry, and both customers were touchy.

'You'll be lucky!' commented Albert at last, putting his empty glass down. 'Must get back to my bill-hook. I'd like to meet the chap as set them tombstones round the wall. I'd give him a piece of me mind.'

'He got hurt in a car crash, other side of Oxford,' volunteered Percy. 'My cousin told me. Broke his arm, he said.'

'No more'n he deserved,' said Albert heartlessly, and hobbled back to his duties.

Later that morning, as the church clock struck twelve, the noise of the cement mixer growled into silence.

Two of the workmen appeared, hot and dusty, and ordered pints of bitter across the counter.

'And how's it going?' asked Mr Jones.

'Not bad,' said the one in a blue shirt.

'Just doin' the steps,' said the other, who sported a black singlet.

'Steps?'
echoed Mr Jones. 'I should've thought there'd be no steps at all in a place for old people. Bit of a hazard, surely?'

'That's what the orders are,' said Blue Shirt.

'Only three of them,' said the second man. 'Shaller ones too.'

'And a rail to hang on to,' chimed in Blue Shirt. 'You'll be safe enough, Dad, when you move over there!' He winked at his companion.

Mr Jones smiled a shade frostily. If he had spoken to his elders in such a way, when he was young, his father would have boxed his ears for him.

'Well, I'm sure Mr Young knows best,' he said diplomatically. 'He's reckoned to be a top-notch architect.'

But privately, the good publican found the thought of steps, no matter how shallow, and even when accompanied by a rail, a somewhat disconcerting feature of an old people's home.

'Could lead to trouble,' he confided to his wife that afternoon when the pub door was closed.

He was to recall his misgivings later.

Almost facing The Two Pheasants across Thrush Green stood the house where Winnie Bailey and her maid Jenny lived.

Adjoining it was John Lovell's surgery. Old Doctor Bailey had died a year or two earlier, and sorely did his younger partner miss the wisdom and local knowledge of his senior.

The practice was a busy one. John had two junior partners, both keen young men well up in modern medicine. The older folk in Thrush Green still viewed them with some suspicion, and tended to hark back to 'good old Doctor Bailey' and his methods. But gradually the newcomers were beginning to be recognised, much to John Lovell's relief.

He himself was glad to have Winnie Bailey at hand. Her memory was prodigious, and she could frequently give him a brief history of a family which he found enormously helpful.

He was now very much a part of Thrush Green. As a junior partner to Donald Bailey, he had met and married Ruth Bassett, sister to Joan Young, the architect's wife. They lived some half a mile or so from the green itself, and as well as their own two young children they cared for old Mrs Bassett who had made her home with them since the death of her husband.

John was a serious and conscientious man, deeply appreciative of his good fortune in having such a settled marriage and a rewarding job. He enjoyed his trips to outlying villages, for he had a great love of country life and was knowledgeable about flowers and birds. These interests were of particular value to him for they helped him to relax.

His wife Ruth knew that if his nature had a flaw at all – which she would have denied hotly, if challenged – it was in the very seriousness which his patients found so reassuring. She did her best to lighten his load, but books, music and theatre, in which she had always delighted, could not engage his attention for any length of time.

'You are always telling your patients,' she said, 'that they must have a few hobbies to relieve any tension, but you don't take your own advice.'

'Doctors never do,' he told her.

It was with Winnie Bailey, as much as anyone, that John Lovell really found some relief from the pressures of his practice.

As soon as surgery was over, on this sunny June morning, he saw Winnie in her garden picking the dead heads from the roses.

'I was coming to get some directions from you, Winnie,' he called, putting his case in the back of the car.

'Come in and have a cup of coffee. I know Jenny's just getting some ready.'

'I dare not stop, many thanks. '

He walked across the lawn.

'I've had a call from a Leys Farm. Do you know it? Somewhere off the road to Oxford, I gather. '

'Who lives there?'

'That's what all my patients asked,' said John smiling. 'Why is it in the country that we know the names of the people and never the names of their houses?'

Winnie laughed.

'I don't think I ever heard of Leys Farm, and I'm sure Donald never mentioned it. Could the owners have renamed it?'

'Quite likely. One of my patients said it was once known as Trotters. Does that mean anything?'

'Yes, indeed. A large family used to live at Trotters. They were Bells. Some vague relation of Betty Bell who cleans the school, you know?'

'And where is it?'

'Now you're asking! If you go about two miles out of Lulling on the Oxford road you will come to a narrow lane on the left. There used to be a fir tree there.'

'No gate? No sign?'

'Nothing. It's just a rough track. Heaven help you if you meet a tractor, John. But it's about another two miles to the house. I went there once with Donald.'

'Well, many thanks, Winnie dear. I'll go and blaze a trail to Leys-Farm-once-Trotters, and what's more I'll tell you the name of the people who live there now, when I get back.'

'
If
you get back,' replied Winnie. 'It's that sort of place if I remember it aright.'

He waved, and departed on his mission.

Winnie had her coffee with Jenny in the kitchen. The room was warm and peaceful, and filled with the mixed scents of Jenny's cooking preparations.

At one end of the scrubbed table was the chopping board with mint awaiting the attention of Jenny's knife. Beside it stood a punnet of strawberries.

'Percy Hodge brought 'em,' said Jenny. 'His first picking, so he said.'

'He's not courting you again, Jenny? I thought you had nipped that little affair in the bud.'

'He knows my feelings right enough,' replied Jenny. 'But I didn't see any harm in turning down some good strawberries, even if his Doris has left him. Anyway, he knows there's no chance here for him.'

'So we can eat his strawberries with an easy conscience, can we, Jenny?'

'Why not?'

'I had a letter this morning from Richard,' said Winnie, changing the subject.

'Coming to stay, is he?'

'He doesn't say so. He'll be in the area next week and invites himself to lunch or tea. I have a phone number. Tea, I think, it's simpler for us.'

'Good. I'll make him some of my cheese scones. Men always like 'em.'

'I'm sure Richard will too, but don't expect extravagant thanks from him,' warned Winnie. 'He's inclined to take everything for granted, I'm sorry to say.'

She rinsed her cup and went upstairs to dust the bedrooms, her mind busy with thoughts of this, her least favourite, nephew.

Donald had always said: 'The boy's head's all right, but he has no heart.' Certainly, he had done brilliantly in his career as a physicist, and was acknowledged as supreme in his particular field. He spent much of his time lecturing abroad on subjects with such abstruse titles as: 'Molecular structures in relation to nuclear principles'. In fact, thought Winnie, that would probably be one of his elementary lectures, for she remembered seeing one listed which had a title four lines long. Richard's world was a vast unknown to his aunt.

She had not seen him since Donald's death, which had occurred while the young man was in America. To give him his due, he had written a very kind letter, expressing sympathy, which had touched Winnie.

For Richard, she had to admit, was quite the most self-centred individual she had ever come across. Perhaps that was why, she surmised, dusting the windowsill, he had never married, although he was now in his forties.

She ceased her work for a moment and gazed across the sunlit garden. It was true that years before he had expressed a fondness for Winnie's neighbour Phyllida, then a young widow, but she had turned him down, as gently as could be managed, and within a few weeks she was married to Frank Hurst.

'I shouldn't think that dented Richard's armour very much,' commented Winnie to a surprised chaffinch on a nearby twig.

No, Richard would not have changed much, if she knew anything about him. Probably the same old hypochondriac too, everlastingly fussing with his diet and his bodily functions. Well, she would see him before long, and it would be interesting to see if he appreciated Jenny's cheese scones as richly as they deserved.

Time alone would tell.

John Lovell, driving along the busy road to Oxford, was too engrossed in dodging lorries, queuing up behind tractors laden with bales of hay, and trying to look out for the turning to his new patient's, to turn his mind to any Thrush Green problems.