A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) (23 page)

No good facing her until break. Or was it still called playtime? Such a happy word, ‘playtime’. Tag, and chain tig, and hopscotch. Marbles! Remember marbles? Then on dry days in the summer the headmaster teaching cricket. He must be turning in his grave now at the thought of rigged cricket matches. Pity that. Pity. We had such fun. He fancied coffee so he went into the Store to see if they’d got their coffee pot on the go. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in there, either. As he opened the door Jimbo’s bell dinged a cheerful ping and the aroma of baking assailed his nostrils. Jimbo must have studied psychology: he’d created such an ambience it became compulsive to shop, one must, one couldn’t help it, one needed to have a share of … what? Happiness? Comfort? A slice of childhood?

Mr Fitch felt out of place. He was at least twenty-five, maybe thirty, years older than the other customers. Well, he needn’t let that worry him, he still had a contribution to make. He still made things tick, if not tock!

‘Coffee, Jimbo!’

Heads turned. Turned back when they saw who it was. What the hell did he want?

‘Good morning.’ Jimbo raised his boater. ‘Coffee in the jug freshly made. Help yourself!’

The rush subsided and Jimbo took a moment to speak to him. ‘Are you needing a word?’

‘Not really. You’ve a little gold mine here, Jimbo. Such style.’

Jimbo raised his boater for a second time. ‘We have.’

‘Ambience, that’s what you’ve created. I do believe your customers feel better for having been in here. You’ve made them feel up-to-the-minute, in-the-swim, with it, as they say.’

‘That’s our aim.’

‘This meeting. About the council and their crackpot ideas for modernising us. What do you think?’

‘Something needs doing, but quite what I don’t know. It is chaotic.’

‘Yes, but only for about ten minutes, then we’re back to the peace and quiet. Is it worth spoiling the village for the sake of ten minutes twice a day, for three-quarters of the year?’

Jimbo took off his boater and smoothed his bald head. ‘You have a point. But you haven’t a small child going to school. We have and we worry.’

‘Easy to take her across Shepherds Hill and pop her into school. Better than traffic signs everywhere. How about a voluntary code?’

‘That would work for about a week and then …’

‘You’re right. This coffee’s good. Could we get by with the bare minimum?’

‘Even Nightingale Farm’s tractor and trailer.’

‘Exactly. Well, there you go, the Nightingale children were picked up, you see, by one of the minibuses, so that made life a lot easier all round. Two vehicles but twenty or more children, now it’s perhaps the same number of children but it takes at least ten or twelve cars to get them here. However, I’ll be at the meeting tonight.’

‘So will I, Jimbo. I’m not having this village ruined by any damn council. They claim they can’t afford the minibuses, yet they’ve money for all this traffic control nonsense. It doesn’t add up.’

‘Must press on. See you tonight.’

Mr Fitch placed his empty cup in the waste bin by the coffee machine, wandered around the Store looking in the freezers, assessing the quality of the goods on display, fingering the ripe plums, the glowing peaches, the bright, super-fresh vegetables and eventually left when he heard the children out playing in the schoolyard.

Miss Pascoe’s class were out in the yard and Miss Pascoe herself was in her room opening her post. She heard the light knock at her door and called out, ‘Come!’

So he did.

‘Why, Mr Fitch! How nice of you to call. Please take a chair.’

‘Good morning, Miss Pascoe.’

‘And a very good morning to you. How can I help?’

‘About this traffic business.’

Miss Pascoe’s hackles rose. ‘Yes.’

‘I’ve been watching.’

‘I saw.’

‘Exactly.’

‘But it’s only for three-quarters of the year and only for about ten minutes twice a day.’

She sat in her chair, braced herself against the back, put her fingertips together and said, ‘It only takes a split second for a child to be killed. A split second. A nano-second.’

There’d been an alteration in the tone of her voice. A stiffening of her attitude. A summoning of her resources. Mr Fitch realised she was one of these new women who were the bane of his life in business. They got things done but did they need to be so aggressive? Why couldn’t they acquiesce as women used to do? ‘I agree, but …’

‘No, Mr Fitch, I’m having the one-way signs and the yellow lines and the lights.’

‘Who says?’

‘I do.’

‘What if we oppose you?’

‘Then the death of a child might well be laid at your door and if you want that kind of burden on your conscience then …’

‘Eh?’

‘Then I certainly don’t. Something has to be done and quickly. The council have done the preliminary work and are all set for agreement.’

‘Who says?’

‘The county chairman of traffic planning.’

‘It’s county level, is it, already?’

Miss Pascoe nodded.

‘At what cost? A child’s life? I have only the interests of my children at heart, Mr Fitch, and I can hardly be blamed for that when I’m the head teacher of the school. Can I?’

She fixed him with a stare which almost, but not quite, intimidated him. Standing up, she said, ‘Excuse me, that’s the bell and I have a class to teach. The children, you see, always come first with me.’

And she left him standing there! Alone, in her poky little office. She’d humiliated him. Yes, she had. Humiliated him. As he’d said to Bryn, women in authority. They didn’t know how to use it. Well, she’d met her match.

He had to make an uncomfortable passage through the hall with the children springing about doing their Physical Education, climbing wall bars, balancing along an upturned bench, jumping over a horse. In his day they’d had half a dozen beanbags and some hoops, and been thankful. Indulged, that’s what, indulged. He stormed across the playground, narrowly averting a disastrous stumble over a nursery child pedalling like fury on a little trike. They damn well weren’t going to have their own way about this, not if he had anything to do with it.

He was one of the first to take a seat at the meeting that night, on the front row, determined to have his say. Unfortunately, unless he turned round frequently, he couldn’t see who’d showed up, but judging from the babble of conversation there were plenty there, and most of the voices he didn’t recognise so they must be parents from the school.

But the entire evening went disastrously awry. The parents were vociferous in their declaration that something must be done. Some even went the whole hog and demanded signs shoulder to shoulder along the roads, the green fenced off, yellow lines outside all the houses and around the green. By the time they’d finished the whole centre of the village was to be a no-go area for cars. No longer would you be able to pull up outside the Store while you shopped and any question of parking outside the school was completely ruled out, and you certainly couldn’t park outside your own house, not even while you unloaded your shopping. As for lighting, Mr Fitch was convinced that Stocks Row would be akin to Piccadilly Circus if they had their way. He waited until they’d run out of further restrictions to impose, then he stood up, beating Miss Pascoe by a whisker.

Someone at the back stood up and shouted, ‘Haven! It won’t be a haven if a kid gets killed. Never mind your poetic humbug, we’re living in today’s society, not blinking hundred years ago. Shut up and sit down, you old faggot.’

Bryn recognised the woman who’d tried to stuff his leaflets down his shirt neck. ‘I think it would be better if …’ But his voice didn’t carry over the hubbub Mr Fitch’s speech had caused.

While Peter had a word with Bryn, Miss Pascoe made up her mind to speak but Peter got to his feet while she was still thinking about it. His powerful voice carried right across the babble and he got the silence Bryn had tried for.

‘Reverend! Please, not a committee. They cover a lot of ground but get nowhere, as you well know. We want action. Action! Action!’

A steady drumming of feet on the wooden floorboards and the shouting of ‘Action! Action!’ began, and there was nothing to be done about it. It was like some kind of primeval chant: a hate thing compounded by a wish for instant capitulation. Peter was appalled. Bryn was beginning to panic. Mr Fitch was on the verge of washing his hands of the whole matter.

Grandmama Charter-Plackett stood up at the back and stepped firmly to the front to take her stand beside Bryn. She banged on the table with the gavel Bryn had brought but never used. ‘Silence!’ If she’d been on board ship in a violent thunderstorm the very waves would have ceased their pounding. The noisy opposition, surprised by her reckless intervention, fell silent. You could have heard a pin drop. They expected that she would shout but she didn’t. She spoke so softly they had to strain to hear.