A Surrey State of Affairs (23 page)

  
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7

I suspected that we had not passed the health and safety inspection at bell ringing with flying colors when I opened the door to the belfry and found it strewn with crash helmets and what looked like sky-diving harnesses. Reginald was there, wandering about, kicking at them with the toe of his scuffed tan loafer, scratching his head so that his hair flopped over his eyes. This was not a good sign. “Reginald, whatever happened?” I asked.

“That man, that dreadful man,” he replied, picking up a harness and despondently letting it fall to the floor. After some
comforting and cajoling, I managed to extract the truth from him: the health and safety inspector had issued a harsh warning. St. Mary’s bell ringers have one more strike and we’re out. If we do not wear the requisite safety gear and comply thoroughly with all aspects of the 2003 Health and Safety Act, we will be disbanded, dispersed, muffled. I breathed in sharply in horror. Then I picked up a helmet, gave it a tentative sniff, and breathed out in horror. It had been requisitioned from the Boy Scouts.

By this point, the other ringers had assembled and were also eyeing the new equipment with distrust. I looked at them, I looked at the knots of stupidly colored canvas on the ancient gray flagstones, and I saw two worlds colliding. We had to adapt or die. I felt an almost Churchillian impulse rising in my chest. I cleared my throat and called out to my “friends and ringers,” telling them not to fuss, to put on their gear and carry on, declaring that the noble spirit of bell ringing would not be snuffed out, even if we did look like adventure tourists from New Zealand. There were a few murmurs of assent; Reginald thanked me, Gerald had a tear of emotion in his eye, and everyone began donning their equipment. Everyone, that is, except Miss Hughes. She was wearing a dress—a light gray cotton dress with purple embroidery—for the first time in living memory—and her hair was coiffed into two immaculate shining wings of steely gray. She refused to ruin her hairstyle with “that stinking thing,” patting the side of her head coquettishly. I tried to persuade her otherwise, as did Reginald, but to no avail. Thinking on my feet, I elbowed Gerald and whispered to him to have a go. “I’d do anything you ask, Constance,” he whispered back, still clearly awed by my oratory. Then he told Miss Hughes to put the hat on and stop being a silly old bat. She complied, and we began.

What with the unwieldy harnesses and the strange sensation
of being hooked up to one of the overhead beams, our ringing was not quite of its usual high standard, but we did manage to muddle our way through a quick Bob. I felt quite triumphant. At the end of the evening, Miss Hughes took off her helmet, ran a comb with a mother-of-pearl handle through her hair, and asked Gerald if he would be so kind as to pay her a visit at her cottage to help her with some Cats in Need paperwork. As he hesitated, I elbowed him in the ribs and told him what a lovely opportunity it would be to do some good work. The man is incapable of running his own affairs. In any case, it did the trick, and he will be seeing Miss Hughes on Friday afternoon. Inspired by their example, I decided to push forward my plans to bring Ruth and David together, and asked Reginald if he would call in on Church Flowers this week to give the ladies a morale boost. He happily agreed. All is set.

  
THURSDAY, MAY 8

All the ladies were aflutter when I told them that Reginald would be visiting us today. Our dear vicar, with his portly physique, babylike cheeks, and thinning hair, can hardly be described as a pinup, and yet his entrance always causes something of a stir. Flower displays were turned to show off their best angles, two ladies simultaneously rushed to make him a cup of tea, and plump Doris, who keeps eating even though she has had two knee replacements and walks with a stick, offered him all the best shortbread biscuits. Reginald looked slightly ill at ease at this flurry of attention—I could tell by the way he kept running his finger around the inside of his dog collar—so it was easy to draw him off to one side with a query about one of the stained-glass windows. I beckoned Pru over too, and once they were both together, I wasted no time.

“Reginald, Pru, it seems that you both have something in common,” I began.

“A shared interest in the history of stained glass?” hazarded Pru, while Reginald nodded thoughtfully.

“Not quite,” I replied. “Pru, you have a daughter. She’s a lovely girl, but her religious—or shall we say spiritual—tastes are a little, well, eccentric.”

Pru glared at me defensively for a moment, and then, seeing Reginald’s sympathetic smile, conceded that Ruth had thrown out her collection of porcelain owls because they were “bad feng shui.”

I turned to Reginald. “And you have a wonderful son whose only vice is a weakness for Scientology.”

He nodded. “I have to do something before he starts jumping on sofas,” he said. “I heard about what happened on
Oprah Winfrey.
And I had them reupholstered only last year.”

“Well, for the sake of your sanity and your soft furnishings, may I make a suggestion,” I continued. “We get Ruth and David together. What they need is a little distraction, which they may well find in each other. And then there’s a decent chance that their odd views will cancel each other’s out.”

It took a little more work to persuade them—Pru was cautious after the
affaire Rupert,
Reginald after the
affaire Sophie
—but eventually they both saw that the potential rewards outweighed the risks. Now all we had to do was engineer an occasion to bring them together. In the end, we decided that a showing of
Top Gun
on Jeffrey’s new high-definition television combined with entertainment from the Psychic of Surrey, whom I found in the church’s Yellow Pages, would do the trick. I will make the arrangements for a week from Friday. Pru and Reginald both left with a spring in their step, and I with a smile on my face.

  
FRIDAY, MAY 9

Today I tried on my bathing costume. In just over a week, Jeffrey and I leave for our annual two-week break in the Bahamas. Personally, I am not convinced that idyllic silver beaches, azure seas, and swaying palms can compensate for the ordeal of shoehorning my wobbly bits into a sculpted John Lewis swimsuit. What’s wrong with visiting the ruins of Tuscany, or the relics of the Knights of Malta, or anywhere where a lightweight cotton shirtdress is appropriate attire? Unfortunately for me, Jeffrey insists that if he is going to sleep in a hammock with a Panama hat over his head, nothing but the most perfect tropical views will do.

As I was turning myself cautiously in front of the long mirror in the bathroom, rather like a turkey on a revolving spit, Tanya burst in. She was totally unperturbed by my seminude appearance, and merely complimented me (rather too kindly) on my figure, suggesting that I try “one of them bathers with the bits missing” along with her Johnson’s Holiday Skin self-tanning moisturizer. I looked at my white, mottled flesh. I looked at Tanya’s new honeylike glow. For a moment I was tempted, but then I thought of orange palms, streaky calves, footballers’ wives, and the indignation of Mother, and I declined.

  
SATURDAY, MAY 10

As if to put us in the mood for a holiday, the weather was glorious today, so we decided to have a barbecue. Jeffrey isn’t exactly the ruddy, outdoorsy type, nor is he interested in cooking, but as soon as the temperature nudges above 19 degrees, something primal rises in his blood and he strides off to find last year’s charcoal briquettes. I invited Harriet and Edward, while Rupert agreed to drive down from Milton Keynes.

Conversation was a little strained at first—I could tell that Harriet was looking askance at Tanya, whose substantial bump protruded between a vest top and low-slung pink jogging bottoms, while Jeffrey and Edward took pains not to mention the City in front of poor Mark, who kept fetching plates and glasses and napkins. However, once the G&Ts were flowing and the steaks sizzling, everyone relaxed. Rupert arrived late with a nice bottle of Italian red, and spent a long time chatting with Tanya. Will I ever see him talking to a pregnant woman of his own?

Natalia, meanwhile, sulked inside. She is under no obligation to mingle, but she would nonetheless have been welcome to join us. Her behavior is so odd whenever Jeffrey is at home that it borders on the insolent. Perhaps she just dislikes men. If it were not for the tarty underwear, I would take her for a feminist.

  
MONDAY, MAY 12

Why is it that I can hardly turn on the television or venture forth on the Internet without being bombarded with news of the wedding of a footballer whose name I cannot even be bothered to type, which is taking place in some grandiose Italian villa today? From the level of coverage it is receiving, one would have thought he’s third in line to the throne, and not some pasty-faced game player with perpendicular ears and the air of a convict about him. I resent being bombarded with news bulletins about his nuptials, especially when the prospect of a wedding within my own family remains as faint and far away as ever. His new wife, at least, I have some respect for. She could almost be upper class in the way that, though unexceptional-looking, she has managed to make herself look really very attractive through the power of grooming. I wish Sophie would take note. She has much better raw materials to work with: in fact, she would be quite beautiful
if only she would apply a dab of pink blush and blow-dry her hair with a round brush.