Twelve Drummers Drumming

Inhabitants of Thornford Regis

Visitors to Thornford Regis

Thornford Regis TC9 6QX

26 M
AY

Dear Mum
,

When I sat down to write this morning’s letter, I couldn’t help but think about that May Fayre 30 years ago when I moved back to Thornford R from London, you all dressed up as always in that red shawl Dad found that time at Newton Abbot market and your pink brocade turban with Grannie’s ruby broach stuck in. I remembered when I was little I thought you looked like the Queen of Persia. Everyone who’s old enough in Thornford says the May Fayre never had a more beautiful fortune-teller than you. I still have our old golf goldfish bowl you would turn upside down to make a crystal ball. It’s sitting on my window ledge right now picking up the sun which has now climbed well over the hills. I put heliotrope and white roses from the vicarage garden inside it. The blooms look to be glowing. So pretty, I think. No sense putting goldfish in the bowl as Powell and Gloria, being cats, would make a meal of them in a minute! Funny that bowl surviving what happened that terrible day
.
Perhaps, now I write this, I shouldn’t stir memories of the last time you told fortunes at the May Fayre. The sudden storm that year was like nothing on earth and of course, Mum, I know you’ve always thought you and Venice Daintrey’s husband were being punished, but really it was only chance Walter pulled the Death card from your tarot pack and then got struck dead by the same lightenin lightning that made you deaf. If only he had listened to you and stayed inside! Well, I really mustn’t go on about that now, must I. It’s so long ago. The weather report says we’re to have sun all day today and as it is the new vicar’s first May Fayre we wouldn’t want anything to spoil it. I don’t think there’s anywhere lovelier than Thornford in May! When I pushed my head out my bedroom window earlier to take in the smell aroma of the late blooming lilacs, I looked down on the garden and the dew was shimmering on the grass near the border of pinks and making all these perfectly wonderful miniature rainbows. There were two larks singing a duet in the sky over the copper beeches near the millpond and the sparrows were splashing away merrily in the birdbath—that is, until they spied Powell slinking towards them. He’s such a clever cat, although I do wish he wouldn’t pick on the birds so. I fear Mr. Christmas may wake again to a nasty surprise in his bed as Powell and Gloria are much taken with him and like to offer him little treats. I’m not sure the feeling is recep shared, but Mr. Christmas does try to accommodate himself to our little country ways. So good to have a
proper
vicar back in the vicarage after all these months. And someone who likes my cooking! It’s been very dull me preparing meals just for me. But with little Miranda we are now three! I wonder if we shall be four ever? I read somewhere once that everybody knows it’s acknowledged everywhere universally that a widower in possession of a very nice cottage—or a decent stipend (sorry, I can’t recall what exactly)—must be in want of a wife. We shall see with Mr. Christmas. When he was appointed and his picture went into
the parish magazine, it caused a bit of a stir among certain folk in the village. But the last vicar caused a stir, too, for the same reason and look what happened to HIM! Anyway, Mum, I mustn’t rattle on. Today promises to be very busy and eventful at Purton Farm. They’ll start putting up the tents before very long and getting everything ready. There’s one new thing this year. Japanese drummers instead of the pipe band! The drummers aren’t Japanese, though. They’re a dozen students of Mrs. Hennis’s. It’s the drums that are Japanese and a couple of them are enormous! Anyway, must go and start getting breakfast ready. Cats are well. Love to Aunt Gwen. Glorious day!

Much love
,

Madrun

“T
hinking of stealing that book, Father?”

The voice at his shoulder startled Tom Christmas. He looked down to see Fred Pike, the village’s elfin handyman, smiling at him with a kind of manic glee.

“What?”

“Stealing that book?”

Tom blinked at Fred, then snatched his hand from the book.
Steal This Book
was the title. Someone named Abbie Hoffman was apparently the writer. The cover said as much.

“Despite the title’s invitation, I don’t think so,” Tom said, running his finger between his neck and his dog collar. He put the book down next to a copy of
The Anarchist Cookbook
, which was being offered for thirty pence. In the middle distance, between two rows of stalls, a hefty lad he recognised as Colm Parry’s son Declan, all got up like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, was struggling to push a large drum on a trolley across the lawn towards the stage. Another lad, similarly dressed, was pulling at the other end.

“Thou shalt not steal,” warned Fred.

“Yes.” Tom nodded agreeably. “I’ve heard that.”

Grinning, Fred passed on towards the display of cider-making machinery, near the stage where the two boys were still struggling with the drum. Tom scratched his head, then turned to look at the other titles, all of them political in nature. He picked up a small volume with a red plastic slipcover.
Quotations from Mao Tse-tung
. Well-thumbed, it opened at a page that proclaimed, “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” Gently, Tom replaced the book. The other bookstalls were a sea of used Jeffrey Archer and Barbara Cartland, but this was a stall of another colour. He thought he knew whose books these once were. But who in a village nestled in the South Devon hills could be enticed to buy them? Even at prices many pence shy of a pound?