A Little Bit on the Side (6 page)

Here the vicar paused, and looking for a focus for what was to follow, unfortunately found it in the upturned face of Ada Sutton.

‘And don’t we all of us desire mercy, and tolerance, and understanding? And do we reflect often enough, as we should, on the great mercy the Lord has shown to us, and treat our neighbours with like mercy and kindness?’

They hardly needed to stay to hear the rest of his sermon, an extended meditation on the same theme, on the contradictions and uncertainties of life, and the need to look beyond the surface of things before rushing to judgment. As the sermon concluded the organ sounded again, and before the service had resumed all four of them slipped quietly out of the south door, and headed for the Shagger.

‘Well what on earth are we supposed to make of that?’ asked Jack. ‘Was it true Christian commitment on behalf of one lost and outcast lamb in his flock, or some strange private joke?’

‘Oh I don’t think it’s a joke,’ said Jimmy. ‘I realised from the talks we’ve had that Larry’s a bit of a one-off and very much his own man. In fact I sometimes wonder just how much he subscribes to some of the basic tenets of the Church, but he wouldn’t joke in the pulpit, and if you mean what I think you mean by Christian, then Larry’s a Christian…. No, I think he really wants to make a patently obvious point to a very conservative and innately suspicious community. He’s giving you a clean bill of health.’

‘All very puzzling. Though I must say I quite took to him when he called in the other evening. As far as this morning goes though, we’ll just have to wait and see, and as far as the locals are concerned, well I can take them or leave them alone without being troubled, but it would be nice if they weren’t so cool to Kate.’

Unusually for the Shagger on a Sunday morning the public bar was empty, apart from Albert standing disconsolate behind the counter.

‘All very quiet today Albert. Where’s your usual
News of the World
brigade?’

‘Very odd Mr Gillan. Word seemed to get round that a church visit might be interesting this morning. Haven’t had it this quiet on a Sunday for years.’

Picking up their pints, Kate and Celia included, they settled at a table by the door to await the arrival of Albert’s regulars.

They weren’t long in coming, and within minutes it seemed that most of the men and many of the women in the congregation were cramming in, eager to put Albert in the picture, and buy themselves a drink to stimulate the gossip. Jimmy, whose plumbing and electrical skills had taken him far and wide across the hill, got a few words of greeting from most of them, when he was always Jim or Jimmy, but more than a few now gave Jack a nod and a circumspect ‘Morning Mr Manning.’

Before the end of the month came the second event which finally led to their gradual and cautious acceptance by the community. Acceptance as incomers that is: even Jimmy and Celia were not seen by the locals as ‘one of us.’

Kate had given notice from her teaching post in Wolverton as soon as they started their search for a home in the country, and had been out of work for a couple of terms before they arrived on the hill. When an unexpected vacancy arose in the Barlow junior school that served the children of Barton Hill a supply teacher was needed, with the near certainty that the post would become permanent. Kate applied and was accepted, and for the first time this brought her into regular and close contact with the Barton mothers who carried favourable reports back to the Barton fathers, leading to the gradual acceptance that, despite the whiff of sulphur about Jack’s professional activities, he was not after all the Devil incarnate.

In the weeks following that most unusual of Sunday services, however, Ada Sutton found herself constantly tormented by those ex-cathedra precepts of her priest, and of all the village Ada was without doubt the most faithful and devoted of the Rev Breakwells’s parishioners. She realised well enough when she thought things over that his sermon had not really been directed specifically at her, but his words had wrought powerfully upon her Christian heart, and as a village elder and the oldest member of the vicar’s congregation she now felt it incumbent upon her to act upon those words. And if Ada was looking only for her reward in heaven, she was eventually to be very pleasantly surprised.

With no man about the house to help her with those occasional practical difficulties that require a young man’s strength, dexterity, or technical skill, Ada had increasingly availed herself of Jimmy’s jobbing services in preference to her sons, who were always going to pop round to fix it, whatever ‘it’ was but, constantly succumbing to the demands of their own families, never did.

Jimmy, in return for the chores that he performed, which were neither onerous nor frequent, was rewarded with home-brew, cakes, pies from the best pastry cook in the village, and his pick of the choicest items from the veg plot, which the sons still gardened, but principally for their own benefit.

And as Jim came to know Ada better he increasingly popped in from time to time to see how she was, and gradually came to realise that in some small way she was filling the gap in his life that should have been occupied by his mother.

It was during one of these visits, as Jimmy sat enjoying tea and one of Ada’s buttered scones, that she raised with him the matter of his immediate neighbours.

‘Jimmy. I’ve been thinking over what the vicar had to say in church a few weeks ago. You know a bit about that Mr and Mrs Manning don’t you?’

Jim confirmed that he knew them well, and added that he had found them to be a very pleasant and friendly couple.

‘And do you think they would mind calling in to see an old woman like me some time?’

‘I’m sure they’d love to Ada, especially as I’ve told them a little about you and Tom, and the way things were in the old days. They’re Jack and Kate, by the way.’

‘Well you ask Jack and Kate if they could call in with yourself and Celia next Sunday afternoon for a bit of cake and tea. About half-three would be lovely.’

The invitation proffered and accepted, the four of them set off the following Sunday to stroll the half-mile or so to Ada’s house which stood apart from the village at the end of Goosey Lane, a roughly surfaced track off the Barlow Road.

Despite the attractions of a fine Sunday mid-afternoon in early May, few were to be seen as they passed through the village. One or two men, engaged in some leisurely hoeing on their veg plots, took a few moments off for a word of greeting with Jimmy and a nod to Jack (in conformity with Barton hill convention the ladies were ignored) before returning to their undemanding labours. In the centre of the village all the shops were tightly closed, as was the Shagger, the Sunday lunchtime regulars having returned home for their dinner (nobody ‘lunched’ on the hill) before turning, some to the
News of the World,
others to international football or county cricket on the box, but the majority to sleeping their way through to a late tea, and then a return to the Shagger to forget for an hour or two the coming Monday and the following week of hard graft.

Putting the vicar’s precepts into practice with a zeal that would have delighted him, Ada had been waiting impatiently for her visitors, and was out of the house to greet them before the garden gate had clicked shut. Intimate already with Jim and Celia from many earlier meetings, she spared them a quick smile, but making straight for Kate surprised her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek before a word had been spoken.

‘Hello my dear. Lovely to meet you both after all this while, though I’ve seen you about quite a bit. Should have asked you up to see me earlier.’

Jack clasped Ada’s outstretched hand warmly, but ignorant of the Barton conventions in such matters, hesitated in the matter of a kiss on first meeting. His uncertainty was resolved when Ada quite clearly offered up her cheek.

Despite being occupied with the warmth of Ada’s welcome, none of them had been unaware of the two shadowy figures shuffling about awkwardly in the gloom of the passage who were now called out by Ada to meet her visitors.

‘This is Ted, my eldest, and this Charlie, my baby. When I told them you was coming up to tea they both said they just had to pop round to say hello while you were here.’

Her ‘baby’, all six-foot-three of him, still not inured to his mother’s loving mockery, grimaced as he shook their hands and muttered an embarrassed welcome. Ted went through the formalities with no more than a silent nod of his head. Neither showed any sign of the impatience to meet the Mannings that Ada’s introduction had suggested.

Indeed, if their mother had summoned them out and instructed them to ‘Say hello nicely,’ it couldn’t have been more obvious to the visitors that here were a couple of pressed men conscripted to the vicar’s cause by their mother’s missionary fervour.

Scrubbed, washed, shaved, and dressed in a ‘Sunday best’ that normally saw the light of day every couple of years, their polished weather-beaten faces struggled hard to express a welcome, but it was clear that their hearts were not in it, and when Ada led them all through to her living room they stood in the background for five minutes or so, silent unless spoken to. When a decent interval had expired they mumbled the best excuses they could devise, and then hurried away to throw off their coats and ties, and make the most of what little was left to them of their Sunday afternoon.

With the conversation proceeding easily amongst the others, Jack had allowed his attention to drift to the family photographs on the wall, and he scarcely looked at the thickly buttered slice of Ada’s teacake as he bit into it. But Jack was fond of his food, and he knew a good thing when he tasted it.

‘What gorgeous butter Ada,’ he said. ‘Where on earth do you buy it?’

‘There, that’s what you’ve been waiting for isn’t it Ada?’ said Jimmy, but gave her no time to reply.

‘There’s no “buy” about it Jack. She churns it all with her own fair hands, don’t you my love?’

‘Don’t you be cheeky, and not so much of the “my love.” But yes, that’s right. That’s how Tom told me he liked it when we got married, and I’ve made it that way ever since. I can’t bear that boughten tack. But with the screws in me hands it’s getting harder and harder, and I think this year might be the last.’

‘That’s Tom is it?’ asked Jack, nodding towards one of the photographs on the wall.

‘That’s right. Taken a couple of years after the war just before we got married.’
‘Childhood sweethearts was it Ada?’ asked Jimmy, who was now exploring new territory with Ada.

‘I spose it was for me, but not for Tom. He was almost ten years older than me, but I knew him when I was nothing but a little thing, and I think I must have been in love with him then. But there were older ones who had their eyes on Tom, and I’m sure he had his fling with a few of them before he noticed me. That would have been when I was about sixteen. But the lads didn’t marry young in them days, and I thought as I grew up that I might be in with a chance — but you don’t want to waste your time listening to all my tales.’

‘Oh but we do Ada,’ said Jimmy. ‘I can’t resist a rural romance, and I reckon we should sit and listen to the old folk talking a lot more than we do. What about you Jack?’

‘Absolutely. Wish I’d listened more when I was younger. Too late now for many of them.’

‘Well it was the time of the old Queen’s Jubilee. A crowd of us youngsters were being taken into Barlow the day before on farmer Watkins’ hay wagon, and Tom was sitting up front driving, along with Mr Addison from the school and Miss Bailey from the post. There was beef and mutton sandwiches and fizzy drink to keep us going in the back till we got there, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Tom. Oh he did look handsome in his fancy ganzie, top coat and hat, and every once in a while he’d give a flourish of the whip. Not that he’d dare to let it touch Mr Watkins’ two lovely Clydesdales.

For many of us youngsters from up on the hill that was our first trip to Barlow, and on that day it looked just like a fairy land. There was bunting, streamers, flags and coloured lights in all the streets, with flowers and pictures of the Queen in all the shop windows, and a big brass band playing under the market hall.

I looked around for Tom after we arrived, but didn’t see him again until we set off for home. I think he was more interested in the pubs, and the chance for a change from the Shepherd’s brew.

It wasn’t until we set off for home that Tom seemed to notice me for the first time. “Hello Ada,” he said, giving me a helping hand up into the back. “I didn’t notice you on the way out. You’re quite the lovely young lady now aren’t you?” And I spent all the way back to the village hoping it wasn’t just the beer talking.

Then when we got back home we all trooped off down the hill to Mr Watkins’ big wagon shed, where Mr Addison and some of the men had got up that old piece St George and the Dragon. I think it was when I saw Tom as St George that I really knew I was in love with him. His brother William played the Turkish knight. He was another lovely lad too, but he never came back from the war.

When it got dark and we saw the beacon fire lit up on Merton hill away in the distance, we lit ours up too, and then things got a bit larky with fun and games around the fire, and a bit of dancing. That was when Tom first got his arms around my waist, and then slipped us away into the shadows, and gave me a kiss. Bit of a cheek that, considering my age.’

‘When you talk about the war Ada, which one do you mean?’ asked Jack.

‘South Africa. The one that was still going on when the old Queen died. Both Tom and William had been in the reserves for years, and were soon called in to the local barracks. Then they were on their way out there within a couple of months. Tom kept a few bits and pieces about the war which I’ve still got upstairs if you’d like to see them.’

‘Well if that’s alright with you Ada, I’d be very interested,’ said Jimmy.

‘They’re all in the back room at the top of the stairs, but my legs are so bad I don’t go up there now unless I really have to. Pop up yourself. You too Jack if you’d be interested. There’s still a few bits of his uniform in the old wardrobe, and some papers and other pieces on the table.’