(20/20)A Peaceful Retirement (6 page)

The weather now changed. It grew chilly in the evenings and Tibby and I enjoyed a log fire.

It was sad to see summer fading. The trees had turned to varying shades of gold, and the flowers in the border were looking jaded. Soon we should get frosts which would dull their bright colours, and start the fall of leaves.

But there were compensations. My cottage was particularly snug under its thatch in cold weather. The walls were thick, the windows small by comparison with modern houses, but those men who had built it so long ago knew what downland weather could be in these exposed parts, and designed their habitations accordingly.

One October afternoon Bob Willet decided to have a bonfire of all the dead weeds, hedge clippings and some rotten wood from an ailing plum tree which he had pruned, I thought, with an unnecessarily heavy hand.

'Do that ol' tree a world of good,' he told me as I watched the smoke rising. He had a great pile of debris standing at the side of the incinerator, and forked loads into it with great vigour.

What's the news?' I asked him. 'And where's Joe today?'

Joseph Coggs, one of my erstwhile pupils, often accompanies Bob when he comes gardening. I had made a round of gingerbread that morning with Joe in mind, but I had no doubt that Bob Willet would make inroads into my confection with the same energy that he was showing with the tending of the bonfire.

'Maud Pringle's leg's bad again on account of Miss Summers' telling her the stoves might have to be lit early.'

'Oh, that's old hat!' I said. 'Nothing new to report?'

He gave me a swift look.

'Nothing about Mrs Mawne so far. Mr Mawne goes about lookin' a bit hang-dog, but Mr Lamb said he'd squared up the account at the shop, so he's relieved, I can tell you.'

'She's bound to come back,' I said, with as much conviction as I could muster.

Bob threw a fresh forkful on to the crackling blaze. There was a pungent smell of burning ivy leaves and dried grass.

'It's a real whiff of autumn,' I said, trying to change the subject. But Bob was not to be deflected.

'They say she's sweet on some chap in Ireland. A cousin or something. I must say, there seem to be a rare lot of cousins in Ireland. I wonder why that is?'

'Well, the population's fairly small,' I said weakly, 'and they seem to have large families, so I suppose there would be a good many cousins.'

I was more shocked than I wanted Bob Willet to know about the possibility of Deidre settling for good in Ireland. Surely Henry would have enough spunk to go and fetch his wife back?

'And young Joe's been to a practice match in Caxley this afternoon. Some junior football league he was rabbiting on about. I can't see him being picked, but I give him the bus fare and wished him luck.'

'Good for you,' I said, glad to get away from the Mawnes' troubles. 'You'll have to eat his share of the gingerbread.'

'You bet I'll do that,' said Bob heartily, and threw on another forkload.

As with all village rumours, once you have heard it from one source you can be sure of hearing it from a dozen more.

It was Gerald Partridge, vicar of Fairacre, who was my next informant. He had called to give me the parish magazine and seemed content to sit and chat.

'Henry is not himself, you know,' he said sadly. 'Seems to take no interest in the church accounts or anything else at the moment. There's some talk of Deidre having an attachment at her old home. I sincerely hope it is only rumour. It would break Henry's heart to lose a second wife.'

'What's gone wrong do you think?'

The vicar looked troubled.

'Something the lawyers call "incompatability of temperament", I suspect. She's very vague in her outlook to everything, and it upsets Henry who is really a very downright sort of person.'

Tibby chose this moment to leap upon the vicar's knees. Gerald Partridge began to stroke the animal in an absent-minded manner.

'Primarily, I think it's money,' he went on. 'Henry is not a rich man, and I suspect that Deidre thought that he was when she married him.'

'I must admit that I always thought that he was comfortably off.'

'He has a pension, and he has that large house Miss Parr left him. He gets a certain amount from renting out part of it, as you know, but the place really needs refurbishing, and Henry showed me some estimates for repairing the roof and rewiring the whole place, and I must say that I was appalled. I forget how much it was - I have no head for figures - but there were a great many noughts. It was quite as frightening as some of the estimates we get in for work on the church.'

'I shouldn't have thought Deidre was extravagant,' I said, remembering her somewhat dowdy clothes and the complete lack of entertaining which had been a source of complaint from other ladies in the parish.

'She bets,' said the vicar. 'On horses.'

'I'd no idea she went to the races.'

'She doesn't. She sits by the telephone and watches the races on TV, or reads the racing news in the paper. I believe a lot of people do it.'

'Well, I must say it sounds more comfortable,' I replied. The vicar looked unhappy, and rose to his feet, tipping the outraged cat on to the hearthrug.

At the door he paused.

'Poor Henry! Do be particularly nice to him, my dear, he is under great stress.'

Mrs Pringle also told me about Henry Mawne's afflictions, but with less Christian forbearance.

'They're man and wife and should keep them only unto each other like the Prayer Book says. I know she's no right to carry on in Ireland with this cousin of hers, but what's Mr Mawne been up to letting her go like that? He should be looking after her, for better or worse, like he vowed to do.'

There was no point in arguing with Mrs Pringle when she was in this militant mood, and I cravenly retreated to the garden on this occasion.

George and Isobel Annett both enquired about Henry's predicament and asked if it were true that his wife had left him.

When John Jenkins rang up that evening I was quite prepared to cut short any discussion of Henry's affairs, of which I was heartily sick.

To my surprise he made no mention of Henry, but simply told me that Uncle Sam had died suddenly, and the funeral was next week.

It was a shock. Although he was obviously frail, and I remembered vividly helping john to support the old man against the downland wind, he had seemed so alert, so energetic, and game for years to come.

'I am truly sorry, John. He was a dear, and I'm glad I met him. We had a lovely day together, didn't we?'

'You made that day for him.'

He hesitated and then said:

'I don't know how you feel about funerals. This will be a very muted affair as he had no close relatives, but -'

'I should like to come if you would like me to,' I broke in, and I heard him sigh.

'I should like it very much.'

"When is it?'

'Next Thursday at eleven. I'll pick you up soon after nine, if you really mean it.'

'Of course I do. I'll be ready.'

I put the telephone down. How nice not to hear about Henry Mawne. But how sad to think that I should not see that indomitable old man again.

As I undressed that night I thought of all the advice I had been given about my retirement.

All my friends had pointed out that I was bound to be lonely. I should wonder what to do with the empty hours before me. I should miss the hubbub of school life, the children, the companionship and so on.

In the diary, before coming upstairs, I had made a note of Uncle Sam's funeral and had observed that every day in that week, and the next, had some event to which I was committed.

Fat chance of being lonely, I thought a trifle bitterly. I had imagined myself drowsing on my new garden seat, and studying the birds and flowers around me in a blissful solitude. So far, that had been a forlorn hope. Far from being lonely I seem to have had a procession of visitors beating a path to my door like someone or other (Thoreau, was it?), who had the same trouble, and for some reason I connected with a mousetrap. I reminded myself to look up
mousetrap
in the
Oxford Book of Quotations
in the morning.

The telephone too was a mixed blessing. While it was a pleasure to hear one's friends, it always seemed to ring when one was getting down to the crossword. I recalled Amy's concern about my loneliness when I retired.

'Do
join
things,' she urged me. 'Go on nice outings with the National Trust. Caxley branch gets up some super trips, and you'd meet lots of like-minded people. And there are very good concerts and lectures at the Corn Exchange, and no end of coach parties going up to the Royal Academy exhibitions or the Barbican or the South Bank. There's no need to
vegetate.'

Amy, and all the other well-intentioned friends, took it for granted that I should long for a plethora of people and excitements. As I climbed into bed I was reminded of a remark of Toddy's in
Helen's Babies.

Does anyone these days read that remarkable book published at the turn of the century, decribing the traumas of a bachelor uncle left in charge of his two young nephews?

The conversation has turned to presents. Budge, the elder boy, wants everything from a goat-carriage to a catapult. Toddy, aged three, says he only wants a chocolate cigar.

'Nothing else?' asks his indulgent uncle. 'Why only a chocolate cigar?'

'Can't be bothered with lots of things,' is the sagacious reply.

I decide that I have a lot in common with Toddy, as I turn my face into the pillow.

The weather was as sad as the occasion when we set out on Thursday morning for the funeral. Rain lashed the car, the roads were awash, and every vehicle seemed to throw up a few yards of heavy spray. We spoke little on the journey. John was concentrating on his driving, and I was feeling tired and sad.

We drove straight to the church which was some half a mile from the nursing home. A verger in a black cassock showed us into a front pew. There were very few people in the other pews, but I noticed the matron of the nursing home and one or two elderly people with her, whom I guessed were friends and fellow-residents of Uncle Sam's.

His coffin lay in the aisle in the middle of the sparse congregation. It bore a simple cross of white lilies, no doubt, I thought, a tribute from the little gathering across the aisle.

It was bitterly cold, with that marrow-chilling dampness which is peculiar to old churches. I felt anxious for the old people nearby, and glad that I had put on a full-length winter coat.

The organ began to play, and the officiating priest entered with one attendant, and as we rose I noticed for the first time two magnificent flower arrangements flanking the altar. They were composed of yellow carnations shading from cream to deep bronze and formed a glowing background to the black robe of the clergyman.

The service was simple but moving. After the blessing we moved slowly outside, and talked in the shelter of the porch to the other mourners.

The rain still lashed across the countryside. The yew trees dripped, the grass in the churchyard was flattened in a cruel wind, and a vase of dahlias on one of the graves blew over, scattering vivid petals to the wind.

The undertakers had driven Uncle Sam's remains to the crematorium. Cars arrived to collect his old friends and return them to their luncheons, and John and I sought the shelter of his car.

'We need something to keep out the cold,' said John. 'Would you have any objection to eating at the place we did before, with Uncle Sam? It's nearby and we liked it, didn't we?'

I said it would be perfect, and we set off.

'Nice service,' I said. 'Cheerful, but dignified. And the flowers were lovely.'

'The nursing home did the lilies,' said John, 'so I plumped for the carnations for each side of the altar. They looked pretty good I thought.'

'Splendid,' I told him.

Well, the old boy was a great carnation grower in his heyday, and always had some beauties in his greenhouse. "Must have one for my buttonhole each day," he used to say, "and some for a bouquet for any lady that takes my fancy."'

We had to run from the car into the shelter of the bar, where a log fire, a real one with flames, welcomed us.

'What's yours?' asked John, helping me off with my wet coat. 'And don't say orange juice! It's too dam' cold. Have something stronger today.'

And so I did.