A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) (6 page)

His geese clustered round him, honking for food. He had ten fully grown ones and nine goslings, and they were a picture. Jimmy knew that there was some opposition to him keeping them, but there’d been geese belonging to the Glover family on the green for one hundred and fifty years and more. It said so in some old parish records and, though there were no more Glovers left to keep them after he’d gone, he’d every intention of finding someone who would take them on. Made a mess indeed. Threatened visitors indeed. Fouled the road. Huh! Grazed on the blooms in the tubs outside the cottages. Wandered into Neville Neal’s garden and ate his ornamental flowers. So what if they did?

‘Mr Glover! Mr Glover! Wait!’

Across the green came Beth Harris. A bonnier sight he couldn’t hope to see. Her lovely ash-blonde hair in plaits today, her bright-blue eyes, so like the Rector’s, sparkled with anticipation, and those lovely rounded cheeks of hers, rosy with the heat of the day, reminded him so much of … She was wearing her white shorts with the cornflower-blue shirt that matched her eyes. What a treasure! ‘All right, Beth, there’s plenty left for you.’

‘I thought I was too late. Isn’t it a lovely day? Mummy’s taking us into Culworth today, and we’re going boating on the lake and taking a picnic. Do you like boating on the lake?’

‘Not much. Can’t swim.’

‘I can. Daddy taught us both years ago. Alex is better than me, he swims like a fish, Mummy says, and he can dive. I can’t.’

‘You will one day. Here’s another piece.’

Beth concentrated on feeding the geese. She liked the goslings best, their parents were so huge and got so angry if something didn’t suit. When she was little she used to stand on the seat to feed them she was so afraid. ‘Don’t you think geese on the green is a lovely idea?’

Jimmy nodded.

‘I do too. It’s like an old-fashioned picture of a village, isn’t it?’

‘It is an old-fashioned village, that’s why.’

‘You’re right. I hope the geese will always be here, for ever and ever, don’t you?’

‘I do that.’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t think you had. I could look after them for you. That is, if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘That would be a grand idea.’

‘You’ve no wife either, have you, Mr Glover?’

‘Well, I don’t talk about it much, but I did have a wife and I did have a baby but they both died when the baby was newborn.’

‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.’

Jimmy looked at her contrite face. ‘That’s all right. It happened a long time ago.’ And somehow, talking to her, it didn’t matter as much as it used to do. In fact, no one had mentioned it to him for donkey’s years; perhaps no one except him remembered. He stared across the green thinking about the old pain and how time healed.

Beth sat on the seat beside him admiring her new trainers. She stuck up a foot and asked, ‘Do you like these? As soon as I saw them I loved them. They were expensive but Daddy said I should have them.’

‘He’s a good chap, is your dad. We’re all glad he came here.’

‘He can get cross sometimes, you know, specially if we’re mean. I hate it when he’s cross, he makes me feel so bad.’

‘Quite right. You shouldn’t be mean.’

‘No.’ Beth sat silent for a moment, then she said, ‘Mummy’s lovely too.’

Jimmy nodded his approval. ‘She is that. Always got time to listen, she has, even though she’s busy with church and the practice and your dad and you two.’

‘I know.’

‘She couldn’t have babies so she adopted us.’

‘That was a lucky day for you. You couldn’t have a better mother, not anywhere in the whole wide world.’

Beth, still admiring her trainers with half her mind, banged her feet together to hear again the delicious clumping sound they made, and startled the geese. The goslings fled to the pond for safety, while the older geese stood their ground. ‘We did have a mother, but she couldn’t keep us.’

‘I see.’

‘Did you know our proper mummy?’

Jimmy unexpectedly found himself at the sharp end and terribly exposed. He’d walked right into that one and not seen it coming. He shooed away a goose trying to sneak off with his plastic bag, then made a pretence of fastening a bootlace to give himself time to think. ‘I never lie, but I’m giving you fair warning that I am about to. No, I didn’t know her.’

Beth studied Jimmy’s statement. So he must mean he did know her but he wouldn’t tell. Was she some dreadful person, then, whom no one wanted her to know about? Pictures of witches took form in her mind, dreadful people with chins that almost met their noses and wicked, cold grey eyes and blackened teeth. She shuddered. ‘I’m going home; it’s cold.’

‘That’s right. You go home and give that mummy of yours a kiss and hug her tight. She’s worth it, she is. I wish she was mine.’

With eyes wide open with surprise Beth looked at Jimmy saying, ‘You do?’

‘You could?’

‘Oh, yes. Mine, you see, didn’t want me, so I was always a nuisance. Always telling me I was no good, and look where that got me? Long-time poacher and now part-time taxi driver. But I’d always fancied sailing the world, exploring and that, and writing books about it when I got back.’

‘Really!’

‘Oh, yes. The thing I would have liked to do most was to find an island no one else had ever seen and tell everyone about it, and they’d have to alter their maps to make room for it. Paradise Island I’d have called it.’

‘Would you have lived there?’

‘Possibly.’ Jimmy stood up. ‘Remember, with a mother like yours you can do anything in the world. She’s a treasure, think on. And don’t forget what I said about giving that mum of yours a hug as soon as you get in. It’s time I took Sykes for a walk. Now I’m going to stand out here in the lane and watch you to your door. See you safe home.’

Beth said, ‘I can take myself home now I’m ten.’

‘I know that, but there’s always cars come unexpected and I’d never look your mum in the face again if anything happened to you, you being so precious.’

‘’Bye, then, Mr Glover. Why do you never bring Sykes with you when you feed the geese?’

‘’Cos he’s a bad lad and chases them, and they hate him for it and try to peck his tail.’

‘Why does he chase them?’

‘But you don’t, do you?’

Jimmy rubbed his chin and thought for a moment. ‘All in all, I think Sykes might just have the edge.’ He grinned down at her. ‘I can talk to him and he understands, but these geese don’t understand a blasted word I say.’

When Beth got to the Rectory door she turned to wave to him. He touched his cap to her as if she were a proper lady and shouted, ‘Have a good day on the lake.’

‘I will. The geese must be silly, Sykes hasn’t got a tail.’

Jimmy had to smile. He went indoors hoping his mother would forgive him his outrageous fib about her. Still, it was in a good cause. Though the part about exploring and writing a book had been true; he’d just been too idle to get round to it.

He was about to set off with Sykes when there came a knock at the door. He heard it open and it was Bryn Fields, bright and breezy, dressed to kill. ‘Come to see you about this scheme of mine. Have you a minute?’

Sykes ran at him, not knowing who he was and fancying he was a burglar at the very least. ‘Sykes! That will do. He’s a friend. I think.’

Sykes stopped barking and went to sniff Bryn’s trouser leg.

‘Five minutes, that’s all, I’m just off out with Sykes.’ He drew up a chair at the table for Bryn and sat himself down on the other one. ‘Sit here, seeing as it’s business.’

Jimmy listened open-mouthed to Bryn’s plans, not letting on that he’d already overheard the drift of them in the Store one morning.

Bryn nodded. ‘That’s right, but not only that. I want you to tell them about your geese having been there for centuries and that yours are the descendants of geese the village had at the time of the plague … well, your family had, unbroken for fifteen generations, that kind of thing. I’m going to make a thing about it on the way here on the coach microphone you know, tell them how devastated the village was and about Stocks Day. “Same as that tree,” you say and point to the old oak, and tell them that if the tree dies so will the village and how old it is.’

‘Sounds a bit dodgy to me.’

‘Not at all, they’ll lap it up. Willie’s going to mug up on the church history, and put on his old verger outfit and take them on a guided tour of the church.’

‘Willie is?’

‘He is. No doubt there’ll be something in it for him.’

Jimmy thought over what he meant. ‘Tips, yer mean?’ He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as though handling money.

‘Exactly.’

‘I see. Dress up, you said, you mean in my funeral suit?’

‘Certainly not. No, I mean in some kind of old smock thing like old farmers used to wear.’

‘I haven’t got one of those. I’m sorry.’

‘Pity. I’ll have to apply my brains to that, then.’

‘In a basket yer say.’

‘Well, you can’t have it in a plastic bag or something, can you. It wouldn’t be in character.’

‘You’re not making me out to be the village idiot, are you? I’m not having that.’

Jimmy stroked his chin, a habit he had when he was going to come out with some remark which would set the cat among the pigeons, as his old mother used to say. ‘How about if I don’t get any tips? I’m not doing it for nothing, not for no one.’

‘I tell you what. You tell me what tips you get and if they don’t add up to enough I’ll add some to make it right.’

‘And what if they add up to more than we expect? I’m not having you ripping me off.’

‘Jimmy! I wouldn’t do a thing like that. You know I’m as straight as a die.’ Bryn looked affronted.

But Jimmy ignored that. ‘Straight as a die. Oh, yes! That’s why you took all Georgie’s money, is it, when you flitted with that tart. That was very straight as a die. Don’t take me for a fool.’ Jimmy tapped the table sharply with his knuckles to emphasise his point.

‘That was a big mistake on my part and has nothing to do with what we’re talking about now. I’ll think about it and come up with a sum of money I think will be fair.’

Jimmy frowned. ‘It’s all off if you don’t play fair and square with me. I’m not having it. Come back when you’ve had another think.’ He stood up, tucked his chair under the table, and indicated his intention by taking his old poaching coat from the peg on the back of the door and putting it on ready for walking Sykes.

‘That’s it! Poaching! You could tell some of your poaching tales. I never thought about that.’

‘Ah! Two hours and they’ve to eat lunch, go in the Store for souvenirs, look around the church, listen to you.’

‘Heck! They’ll have it all to do at a run.’

‘Leave it to me. I might squeeze in another half-hour. I’ll look into that. But I take it I have your co-operation, then? You’d like to do it?’

‘I think so. Twice this summer you say?’

Bryn nodded. ‘That’s right, more next year when I really get the ball rolling. It’s going to be a money spinner I can tell you. This village is amazing, you know. No road signs, no street lights, no house numbers, a real genuine backwater it is. They’ll love it. We live here and don’t value it enough. It’s normal to us, you see. To people who live in New York it’s a piece of living history.’

‘
It is
.’

‘I know, we need to remind ourselves, though, just how left behind we are. Wonderful.’ Bryn went to stand at Jimmy’s front door. ‘I mean, just look at it. Where in the world would you see houses still looking like they did the day they were built? Not a single house out of character. The only eyesore is the bus stop outside the Store. There’s nothing else to spoil it, is there?’

‘That’s right, if yer don’t look at Neville Neal’s house. Or at Sir Ralph’s Hipkin Gardens.’

‘I know, but even those have been sensitively designed.’

‘I’ll give you that. Right, I’m off.’ Wryly Jimmy added, ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll be back.’