05 Please Sir! (18 page)

Geoffrey Dudley-Palmer was working late at the Rowntree’s factory or, at least, he was sitting at his desk. Along with Easter, it was their busiest time of the year and, as a top executive, Geoffrey wanted to set an example. He was content in the knowledge that he had ordered his wife’s Christmas present. A brand-new state-of-the-art Jacussi whirlpool bath was being delivered from Leeds and installed next week. Geoffrey knew that Petula loved the latest in home gadgets and this was something very special. It also only took a single telephone call made by his secretary. Geoffrey was a firm believer in economy of effort.

Meanwhile, back in his luxury home, Victoria Alice and Elisabeth Amelia were sitting under their twelve-feet-tall artificial Christmas tree with silver-foil branches and looking curiously at a collection of beautifully wrapped presents that had just appeared. One of them had a torn edge and Elisabeth Amelia picked it up. ‘You shouldn’t look,’ said Victoria Alice but Elisabeth Amelia’s curiosity had to be satisfied. She peeled away a little more of the paper. ‘It looks like dog food,’ she said forlornly.

‘Perhaps we’re getting a dog,’ said Victoria Alice. Their eyes shot wide with excitement. Elisabeth Amelia replaced the parcel carefully and they tiptoed away, crept back up the stairs and into their bedroom to hang up their stockings.

A mile away, in his bedroom in the vicarage, Joseph Evans was admiring his gift for Vera. He had bought a beautifully illustrated hardback book entitled
Advanced Cross-Stitch
by Emily Blenkinsop, one of Vera’s heroines – in fact, probably a close third behind Margaret Thatcher and Mother Theresa. He had wrapped it in lavender tissue paper, Vera’s favourite colour, and purchased a pink bow from the General Stores to complete the ensemble. He was sure she would consider it the perfect gift and he was right.

* * *

Vera, sitting at her dressing table in her bedroom, had also bought a book. She thought
Wine-making for Beginners
would be perfect for her younger brother. It didn’t occur to her that Joseph considered himself to be at least in the
Advanced
class of this noble art. She only knew that he produced copious bottles of a brew that tasted like a subtle blend of Domestos and dandelion leaves and left a smell in her kitchen reminiscent of something the cat had dragged in. She would never know that on Christmas morning, when Joseph came to read the title of his gift, he would take a deep breath and pray for forgiveness for the unappreciative thoughts that flickered through his mind.

Back in Bilbo Cottage I was in my tiny study, wrapping my presents. I had bought a beautiful necklace for Beth and an assortment of gifts for my mother and Aunt May, including a large tin of Farrah’s Original Harrogate Toffee, which, along with Kendal Mint Cake, was their favourite sweet.

It turned out to be a memorable Christmas, mainly because Beth and I were together. Late on Christmas Eve, I finally managed to set the new video recorder for a feast of festive viewing over the holiday period. Then, while Margaret and May switched on BBC1 and settled down to watch
The Good Old Days
from the Leeds City Varieties Theatre, Beth and I drove through the snow to attend the Midnight Mass service.

* * *

Christmas Day flashed past in a whirl of presents and party hats. The giant turkey took longer than expected to cook so I had to record the Queen’s speech. Beth loved her necklace and her present to me was an electric drill with lots of attachments and the step-by-step promise by a beautifully coiffeured man in a checked shirt that anything from a bookcase to a set of cupboards could be fitted in minutes. Unfortunately it seemed that the instructions had been written by the same mad scientist who had composed those for the video recorder. So, all in all, despite the bursts of laughter, it was largely a frustrating day of indigestion and drill bits.

It was Boxing Day when we all finally relaxed and settled down to watch my first at tempts at recording. Anticipation was high as Margaret, May and Beth stared hopefully at the flickering screen. The good news was I had got the
times
of the transmissions correct; the bad news was I had clearly not mastered how to select the right
channels
.

So it was that on Christmas Eve, instead of
Summer Holiday
with Cliff Richard and the Shadows on BBC2, I had recorded
Playschool
on BBC1. It got worse. On Christmas Day, the Queen’s speech was replaced by the end of a 1925 black-and-white Harold Lloyd film. Finally, instead of the big Christmas Day Bond film,
Dr No
, I had recorded
Charlie Brown’s Christmas
.

This was an inauspicious start to my technological revolution. My present for Christmas had not quite worked out as I had hoped. However, it did mean we could play charades instead.

Mrs Smith, caretaker, checked the school boiler to ensure frost protection over the rest of the holiday period
.

Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

Thursday, 31 December 1981

The tall forests of Hampshire were bare of leaves and stood like frozen sentinels guarding the icy road.

It was New Year’s Eve and the journey from Yorkshire had been slow. Finally the orange street lamps of Little Chawton pierced the evening mist as my car crunched past the Cricketer public house next to the snow-covered village green and an ancient cast-iron, icicle-hung water pump. The year 1982 beckoned but some things didn’t change. The flint-faced cottages of Hampshire were fixed in time, the heritage of a bygone age.

I turned left in front of a church with a square Norman tower and slowed up as we passed a row of neat half-timbered thatched cottages with crooked window frames. Finally, I coaxed my Morris Minor Traveller on to the gravelled driveway of Austen Cottage as another flurry of snow sprinkled the brightly lit porch.

‘Here at last,’ said Beth with relief, ‘and Laura’s arrived already.’ Her sister’s brand-new, crimson-red Audi Quattro was parked by the side of the garage.

Beth’s father, John Henderson, a weather-beaten fifty-eight-year-old with steel-grey hair, appeared from the porch. He looked relaxed in a blue denim shirt, knitted cardigan and thick cord trousers and when he hugged Beth the bond between father and daughter was obvious. ‘Welcome home,’ he said softly.

‘Hello, Dad. Good to be here,’ said Beth.

I unlocked the rear doors and pulled out two overnight bags. John picked one up and shook my hand. His handshake was firm and, he being six feet tall, his eyes were on a level with mine. He gave me a warm smile. ‘Well done, Jack,’ he said. ‘Glad you’ve made it safely.’

We walked into the spacious terracotta-tiled kitchen and it was just as I remembered it: neat, organized yet homely. A vase of holly with bright berries stood in the bay window and, on the old Welsh dresser, a collection of well-thumbed Jane Austen novels was stacked on the top shelf next to a set of
Wind in the Willows
decorative plates.

Diane Henderson was busy adding a few herbs to her famous watercress soup, a local speciality. Like both her daughters she had a slim figure, high cheek-bones and green eyes. She pushed a strand of soft blonde hair behind her ear, untied her blue-striped apron and threw it over the back of a chair. ‘Beth,’ she said, ‘you must be tired. Come and sit down. You too, Jack.’

I gave her a hesitant peck on the cheek and sat at the old pine kitchen table. There was something about Diane that made me feel uneasy and I guessed I knew why. While Beth had always been the woman for me, in the past I had enjoyed a brief ‘relationship’ with her younger sister, Laura. I felt that Diane, unlike her husband, still had to make her mind up about me.

Laura was sitting at the kitchen table, blowing on the surface of a cup of coffee and sipping it gently. Even after all this time her beauty still surprised me. ‘Hello, Laura,’ I said, a little lamely, while pushing my Buddy Holly spectacles a bit further up the bridge of my nose.

She stood up quickly and looked me up and down. As always she was dressed to perfection, in a Daks country classic suit in herringbone tweed with patch pockets and knee-high brown leather boots. Her long brown hair tumbled over her shoulders as she reached up and kissed me on the cheek. The perfume was familiar. ‘Hello, Jack,’ she said lightly, ‘and how’s the village teacher?’ I noticed that her cool fingertips gently stroked the back of my hand before she returned to her seat at the kitchen table.

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said. ‘How about you?’

‘Still at Liberty’s in London,’ she said. ‘I’m the assistant manager in the fashion department, so can’t complain.’

‘Oh, are you still working with Desmond?’ I said. Laura had been dating her wealthy manager, Desmond Dix, and I got the impression John Henderson didn’t approve.

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head defiantly. ‘He moved on … In fact we both did.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Laura.’

‘Don’t be, Jack,’ she said flippantly and tossed her hair back from her shoulders. ‘He’s history now.’ There was a hard edge to her voice but her green eyes were soft and vulnerable. ‘He didn’t come up to expectations.’

John Henderson glanced across the kitchen at his younger daughter but wisely kept his thoughts to himself, while Diane gave me a searching look and then returned to her cooking. I took a deep breath. The silence that followed felt like a raging storm.

Beth and I went upstairs to unpack. Significantly, we were in separate rooms and I found myself in the familiar small single bedroom that I had occupied the last time I visited. It was quiet and cosy with rough-plastered, whitewashed walls, ancient beams and framed pictures of steam engines and pretty watercolour views of Hampshire villages. I wondered where Beth and I might sleep in this house
after
we were married.

Soon we all gathered in the kitchen round a table covered with a snowy-white cloth and tucked into Diane’s delicious watercress soup. This was followed by a wonderful supper of cold turkey, large slices of roast pork with apple sauce, new potatoes, pickled beetroot, ripe tomatoes, fresh bread and local butter, all washed down with a bottle of John’s sharp, dry, home-made cherry wine. Diane’s sherry trifle completed the feast and, finally, as we relaxed over coffee and mince pies dusted with icing sugar, Beth broke the growing silence. ‘Come on, everybody, I’ll tell you our wedding plans.’

Laura stared into her coffee, Diane gave her a searching look, while John smiled. ‘We want to help as much as we can,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ said Beth.

‘Beth … we thought we could pay for your dress,’ said Diane, ‘and the flowers.’

Beth stretched across the table and squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘That’s very kind, Mother,’ she said. She stood up and gave her parents a hug. ‘And are you still happy about the wedding taking place in Yorkshire?’ she asked.

‘Yes. It makes sense,’ said John.

‘Most of your friends are up there,’ said Diane, ‘and, of course, the church is beautiful – and much bigger than our little church.’

‘So roll on the twenty-ninth of May,’ said John. He stood up and poured five glasses of his home-made wine. ‘To the happy couple,’ he said, raising his glass.

‘To Beth and Jack,’ said Diane.

‘Beth … and Jack,’ added Laura softly.

After the meal Beth and Diane did the washing-up and John went out to the woodshed to collect some logs for the fire. I walked out to the porch to get some fresh air. Around me the world was quiet under its mantle of snow. Now 1981 was almost over and I wondered what 1982 had in store. My life was about to change and I guessed the fields and forests of Hampshire and this thatched cottage would become a second home for me. I stepped outside and shivered in the cold night air.

‘So, are you ready for married life, Jack?’ It was Laura, a warm scarf thrown casually round her neck.

‘Yes, I am.’

‘And do you think you can live up to her expectations?’ Laura’s gaze was steady and hard but her words were soft.

‘I’ll try,’ I said, wondering where this was going.

‘Jack, are you
really
happy?’

‘Yes … Why?’

‘I was just thinking that
we
had some good times together.’

‘We did.’

‘But not good enough.’

I thought it best to say nothing.

‘She’ll want to change you, Jack.’

‘In what way?’

‘You’ll see.’

There was silence between us until John appeared with an armful of logs. ‘Open the door, please, Laura,’ he said and hurried inside.

I looked back at Laura. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said.

She turned to walk back into the house. ‘You will,’ she said.

After she had gone her perfume lingered and I stood there until the cold began to seep into my bones. Above my head skeletal branches swayed in the breeze and whispered their ancient secrets beneath the eternal sky. Suddenly a falling star rent the heavens. It flickered briefly, a bright flame in the black velvet darkness, and burnt out, its life spent. It occurred to me that perhaps life really is an apocalypse: there is an end to everything.

Back in the low-beamed lounge, John was kneeling by the stone fireplace and putting logs on the fire. Beth and Laura were chatting in the kitchen and Diane had gone upstairs to find a set of old but serviceable curtains that Beth thought would be perfect for our bedroom at Bilbo Cottage. John picked up the poker and levered some of the logs so that they crackled into life. ‘Beth tells me she’s given six months’ notice on her cottage in Morton, Jack,’ he said.