That's Life

35

That’s Life

    Bellingford was looking its best under a blue July sky. In the semi-detached cottages of Higgledy-Piggledy a large batch of scones was in the oven and Jasmine was breathing heavily at Richpal Singh’s elbow as he tried out a new recipe involving asparagus and filo pastry. At the large scrubbed kitchen table Mrs Fitzroy worked on the accounts, now and then pointing out to Richpal the error of his ways—whether in relation to the amount he’d spent on basic ingredients this past week or the new recipe—and keeping a sharp eye on the way Gwennie Potter was chopping vegetables.

    At Number 24 The Green Ruthven Harris was trying to persuade an interior decorator with a very particular client that some balloon-backed Victorian mahogany chairs they’d got in on spec were extremely desirable items… Out the back in the immense shed Gary Shurrock shouted: “I knew it! I told him, the blithering idiot!” and, picking up a nasty little occasional table that was (a) riddled with woodworm and (b) heavily and clumsily restored, walked over to the smithy with it.

    “Want some FIREWOOD?” he shouted above the din.

    “YEAH! TA!” bellowed Penn.

    “The more the merrier!” shouted Bob Potter.

    “Good!” Shuddering, Gary dumped the awful thing.

    Penn stopped bashing an immense hunk of iron. “Anyone hungry?”

    Bob and Doug both admitting they were, Gary admitted he was too, actually: been at it since dawn.

    “Fancy salami sandwiches?” asked Penn cheerfully.

    As a matter of fact everyone fancied salami sandwiches, so they adjourned to a private little spot at the rear of the smithy and had them, washed down with a couple of bottles of beer, Bob explaining somewhat redundantly that yer sweated it out, in a forge. Gary didn’t bother to tell Ruthven elevenses was on: them as spent good money on hideous things riddled with woodworm could whistle for their elevenses.

    Further round the square Graham Howell’s new minibus drew up and a perspiring Graham led the day’s first load of mixed Japanese, Chinese and American tourists, plus a few retired persons from Portsmouth, into Le Petit Cabinet de Carole at Number 21, where its smiling proprietor capably took over and he was able to mop his brow. Not that it was a particularly hot day, but coping with a foreign language—make that three, half the time the Yanks were as incomprehensible as the rest—was no sinecure. And so far none of his desperate enquiries had managed to elucidate what the Hell Americans meant by “Graham crackers”—they were something real, they weren’t taking the Mick. He’d really thought Rosie would know, but no. Belinda had looked completely blank, as had the new people in the health food shop. Yet another one had asked him wistfully this morning if he knew of a “store” that stocked them.

    Next-door at Number 22 the weaver emerged from the former family-room with a just-completed afghan, hot off the loom, and went into Marion’s laundry. “What do you think?”

    The potter was concentrating on her wheel. “Hang on!” The weaver watched with interest as the clay rose into a beautiful shape. Just as she was about to say: “That’s lovely!” Marion squashed it down again and stopped treadling.

    “Wasn’t it working out?” she said feebly.

    “Mm? No, I was working the clay. –Let’s see. Ooh, is that the one with my nannies’ mohair? That’s lovely, Wendy!” she approved.

    “Yes, the mohair’s worked in well!” beamed the weaver. “I might sell it through Carole.”

    “I thought Robert was gonna put your work in the new exhibition in the gallery, though?”

    “Huh!”

    Marion replied to the sub-text: “I tried to tell him those big coiled pots of mine had absolutely nothing in common with that Erin Donahue’s raku work, but he’s gone and put them together, and they just swear at one another! And none of them are selling.”

    “No. He never listens!”

    “Not to me, at any rate,” she agreed heavily. “And he doesn’t know anything about crafts.”

    “No. I wish Colin was still here,” said Wendy sadly.

    There was a short pause. “He didn’t know much about crafts, either… No, well, so do I, actually,” admitted Marion.

    The Village Bookshop at Number 23 didn’t usually get much custom at this hour of the morning, but Alice Humboldt was waiting on an early grandmother who was greatly taken with a version of The Sleeping Beauty from Perryman Press, refraining from mentioning that Anna’s comment had been: “The draughtsmanship’s excellent, but it’s very frightening.” Down the back Caroline, with the sleeping Baby Katherine in her carrycot beside her, was working on the accounts, humming tunelessly to herself as she did so. Alice was very, very glad about the resurgence of this humming, which, never mind the fact that both Caroline and Robert were thrilled with Katherine, hadn't been heard since Colin’s death. Possibly on account of this she agreed kindly that The Sleeping Beauty was lovely, but proffered one of her own favourites, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch. The customer looked through it, gasped: “But that’s so cruel!” and decided to buy The Sleeping Beauty. Oh, well, nowt so quare as folk, thought Alice, accepting her credit card.

    “Was that that book about the seagulls you were trying to sell again?” asked Caroline, as the satisfied customer departed.

    “Mm. Don’t tell me: you agree with her: cruelty to poor dumb animals.”

    “Well, yes. Kiefer loves it, though,” she admitted.

    Alice had never met a kid that didn’t love it. She eyed her tolerantly.

    Caroline sighed. “Colin loved it, too. We were all down on the beach one day and Rosie read it to the kids… He said it was satisfying because it was so ’orrible.”

    Alice swallowed hard. “Did he? Mm.”

    Caroline took a deep breath. “We’ve decided. We’re going to call the next one Colin, if it’s a boy.”

    “That’ll be nice,” she managed. “Um, Robert does agree, does he, Caroline?”

    “Yes!” he said fiercely. “He wants to!”

    Okay, he wanted to. So be it. Alice got on with rearranging the denuded display that had featured The Sleeping Beauty. Er… crumbs, was that what had provoked the humming? Nowt so quare as folk, then.

    The sun shone on Bellingford. The lacemaker from upstairs at Number 21 came downstairs and sat outside with her cushion on her knee. Pretty soon a lady from the minibus was out there cooing: “Did you ever? Isn’t that just darling! –Ruthie, honey, come see: they got a real lacemaker!” One of the more recently installed woodworkers looked out of the front window of Number 22 and said to his fellow: “She’s out there again! We’ve got to get out there, Colin was right all along; we’re losing custom to the cow!”

    “You’re volunteering to lug one of the lathes in and out every day, are you, Francis?”

    “No!” he snapped.

    There was a short silence.

    “We could at least put a bench out there, do some carving. I’ll speak to Robert.”

    “He’ll tell you what he told you before: the council won’t allow mess on the footpaths!”

    “Then why did Colin tell us we could do it?” he shouted.

    “Don’t ask me.”

    Francis stared moodily out of the window. There was a whole bunch of them clustered round the cow: she was selling reams of the stuff, and he knew for a fact she didn’t even make it all herself, there was some other cow that she sold stuff for—

    “I’m doing it!” He seized a bench and marched out with it, returned, grabbed up his tools and the piece of wood he was carving, and went out there.

    “Oh, my! Just look, Lou-Anne, a woodcarver, isn’t that just darling!” In two seconds flat they were eagerly clustered round him…

    Bellingford basked under the blue July sky. The Haworths stood in Moulder’s Way, looking silently at the three cottages.

    After quite some time John ventured: “All right, darling?” –She’d been avoiding Moulder’s Way since the funeral, though they’d had Penn and Baby John-Mark over to their place fairly often.

    “Yes,” said Rosie with a sigh. “’Member when Colin first came down, the weather was still nice and he used to sit outside in his cane chair?”

    John shifted Miss June Haworth to his other shoulder and took her hand firmly. “Mm. Knocking back the beer.”

    “Yes.” After a moment she said: “I thought Georgia might be interested in Number 7.”

    “Don’t think Max wants to be reminded of Henry, darling.”

    Rosie smiled a little. “No. Once a upon a time that wouldn’t’ve stopped her.”

    “No; she’s had a few corners knocked off, these past two years,” he said with a tiny sigh.

    “Yeah. Like the rest of us. Some of us didn’t feel we had all that many corners to lose,” she said with what sounded perilously near tears in her voice.

    John squeezed her hand hard. “No,” he agreed simply.

    After a moment she said: “I’d say it was so unfair, but after 9/11 nothing seems unfair. Or maybe I mean everything does.”

    “Life,” he agreed, squeezing her hand again. “There’s been good things, too, Rosie.”

    She brightened. “Yes, of course! You’re a good thing, aren’t you, June Haworth?”

    “I’m a good thing too, Mummy!” cried Bunting immediately.

    “You’re a super-good thing, Bunting!” she agreed with a laugh.

    “I’m a super-good thing, Daddy,” he explained. “Can we go inside?”

    “In a moment, old chap.”

    “Is Tim a good thing?” he asked as the big black dog returned, panting and waving his tail, from an inspection of the cottages’ rickety picket fences.

    “Tim’s always been a good thing. Through thick and thin,” replied his father placidly.

    “Thick, thin, and all your puce and magenta hags,” corrected Rosie on a dry note.

    “That’s what I meant, largely,” John returned calmly. “Well, um, you don’t mind if Georgia and Max use Yvonne’s old cottage for the summer, then, Rosie?”

    “No, ’course not!”

    “Good,” he murmured.

    “I’d never of believed she’d get together with Max again,” she admitted.

    “No, well, crises tend to do that sort of thing, don’t they? –Don’t ask me whether I think it’ll work out,” he added hurriedly. “I’m not actually Captain Omniscient.”

    Rosie smiled a little. “Aw, gee, aren’tcha? –As a matter of fact I think it will work out. Georgia really works at anything she’s set her hand to. I just wish— Never mind.”

    “What?” he murmured.

    She swallowed. “It sounds really stupid. Oh, well, if you’re not used to me sounding stupid by now—! I just wish Colin could have been here for the wedding.”

    “So do I,” said John simply. “It was the sort of horrible hooley he’d have really appreciated!”

    Tears sparkled on Rosie’s lashes but she smiled at him and corrected: “’Orrible ’ooley!”

    “Exactly!” said John with a laugh and a sigh.

    It had been a joint wedding, with the brides a froth of white lace and tiny frilly white orchids: in fact, as one or two employees of Double Dee Productions pointed out, it was just like the wedding at the end of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes! Some had wanted a garden wedding, but late April in the south of England was still too cold for any such thing, so the Workingmen’s Club was again pressed into service for the reception. The actual ceremony was at the registry office in Portsmouth. There was the most tremendous traffic jam: quite possibly Portsmouth’s officials had not anticipated the amount of Press attention the twin weddings of “the Rose sisters” would attract. Especially after Molly and Georgia and their fiancés had given in to Derry Dawlish’s and Brian Hendricks’s almost tearful pleadings and agreed to do one last series of The Captain’s Daughter: The New Generation. That was, the financial aspects of the proposal having been gone over with a fine-tooth comb, especially by Georgia, they had determined that it would be more than worth their while. Though Terence had warned Derry that he’d better film Molly’s bits right smart if he wanted her before she was the size of a house: he had no intention of delaying his family for the sake of a blessed telly show. Smiling feebly, the great director had conceded this. Brian and Derry had, of course, had a terrific fright when the sisters said they didn't want to do any more telly, so the publicity was all the more frenetic on account of it. The Press, however, didn’t bother to follow the bridal party back to the village for the reception, having got more than enough to fill their space, initially as the brides and their attendants, including Lily Rose herself as matron of honour, got out of the cars to go into the registry, and then in the building itself until a couple of red-faced officials backing up a very red-faced security man herded them out again, and then again in front of the building as the couples emerged, beaming and waving, in billowing clouds of lace-edged tulle—it was a very windy day.

    “Richpal’s Jasmine Chicken was lovely,” remembered Rosie.

    “Mm? Oh, at the wedding reception? Yes, delicious. As good as Mr Singh’s.”

    Rosie stared at the three cottages. “Molly and Terence are okay, don’t you think?” she said after a bit.

    He smiled. “Very much so!”

    “Yes; thank goodness. –I always thought it’d be her and Colin,” she said on a dreamy note.

    John was aware she’d always thought this. “Mm.”

    “That first time I took her to see him in hospital… Oh, well. Funny how things turn out.”

    “Mm-hm,” he agreed, trying to sound both agreeing and calmingly neutral.

    It didn’t work. Rosie looked hard at Number 9. “Very funny.”

    He took a deep breath. “Art and marriage don’t mix, Rosie. I doubt if Anna’s ever wanted a conventional relationship—and if she ever did, she’s long past it.”

    “It’s ludicrous, there’s bags of room in that place of his: she could easily—”

    “Bollocks, Rosie. It isn’t what they want.”

    “I’m sure it’s what he wants!” she replied with vigour.

    John hesitated. Then he said: “Perhaps it is, but Richard’s been on his own for a fair while now, hasn’t he? And despite best intentions, I think if they set up household together he would resent it if she buried herself in her work all hours of the day and night, or, uh, took off unexpectedly.”

    “Like now,” she said, giving Number 9 an evil look.

    He swallowed. Anna had packed up her sketching things and her camera and taken off on a tour of England’s industrial architecture. Without, as far as they had been able to tell, giving anyone any notice of her intentions. And certainly without any indication of when she might return. “Yes. Rupy was right all along, sweetheart: Anna needs space to do her own thing.”

    “But I thought if we gave her space she’d get better!” she cried.

    In the sense of “recover”, undoubtedly. “Um, well, she has, Rosie. We all thought she was off men for good when she came to England, didn’t we?”

    “Um, pretty much.”

    “And instead she’s become Britain’s most renowned painter of the male form!” he said with a sudden laugh.

    “Very funny, John.”

    “Sorry. No, well, I really meant ‘off relationships.’”

    She sighed. “Mm. Well, if it suits her—and if Richard can put up with it…”

    “I’m sure he can. He’s the type that likes his own space, too. Well, shall we pop into Number 7? See if there’s anything we ought to salvage before we think of selling it?”

    “Hang on. There’s something I need to tell you.”

    “What?” he said, staring.

    “It’s more cousins,” said Rosie baldly.

    John found he was incapable of laughing: he gulped.

    “It wasn’t my idea!” she said quickly.

    “Whose?” he croaked.

    “Theirs, of course.”

    “Y—um, no, darling, whose cousins?”

    “Partly mine and partly Terri’s,” said Rosie on a weak note.

    John passed his hand over his bald pate. “Go on,” he croaked.

    The Australian contribution was Rosie’s cousin Martina Roberts, on the one hand—one of Aunty Allyson’s girls, John had met her: they lived in Sydney—and on the other hand, one, Jamie Adams. Who?

    “Um, technically she’s not really a cousin, she’s Anna’s niece.” John just stared. “Um, Barbara’s daughter: they live in Darwin, John,” she prompted feebly.

    “Oh! Went up there to get away from Julia—right! But my God, how old is the girl?” he croaked.

    “Um, well, I think Barbara must of left home when she was pretty young, John. Um, well, nineteen. That is grown up.”

    He passed his hand over his bald pate. “Right. Technically,” he noted somewhat pointedly, “this Jamie would be your first cousin once removed, Rosie. But I’m definitely not asking whether Jamie is a common female name in Australia. And Terri’s? Spanish?”

    “Mm.”

    Abruptly John collapsed in the long-awaited helpless splutters. He laughed so much he had to hand Miss June Haworth over to Rosie and hang onto the dubious support of the gatepost of Number 7 Moulder’s Way.

    “Mm, look at you, June! What a big girl!” she cooed. “–Little, really,” she said to Bunting.

    “Yeah,” he agreed tersely.

    “Though she is one and a bit already,” said Rosie with a smothered sigh.

    John blew his nose. “Don’t start mooning, Rosie. Not on top of another conglomeration of cousins! Have Joanie and Terri between them managed to tell you the Spanish one’s age? Even approximate age?”

    “Twenty-two.”

    Martina was only in her early twenties. “Oh, good, then she’ll fit in.”

    “He,” she said in strangled voice.

    John’s jaw dropped. Then he managed to croak: “God, your Aunty Allyson’ll be on the next plane!”

    “I must admit that was my thought, too, but heck! It’s about time Martina got away from the apron strings!” she said with vigour.

    “I tend to agree. Well, the more the merrier, I suppose. Girls in the bedrooms, the Spanish boy in the dining-room? Or girls sharing a room?”

    “That might be better, only—”

    John eyed her drily. “Go on.”

    “Um, Joanie only said she might.”

    “Another Spanish one?”

    “Mm. Um, she’s older.”

    “Go on: what is it? Middle-aged spread, as Yvonne would say? Broken marriage? Both?”

    “I’m not sure. –Well, Joanie only rung this morning, while you were outside worshipping that flaming parsnip patch!”

    John swallowed. “It’s urgent, then?”

    “Um, well, Joanie said it might be the best solution—”

    It dawned she was rather flushed and agitated. He put his arm round her. “It’s all right, cuckoo, of course she can come! If she doesn’t want to share with the kids—well, Bellingford isn’t the tourist mecca of the south coast yet, is it? There are empty cottages all over the place, and loads of people who’d take her in. –Marion Hutchinson, to name only fourteen,” he recognised with a wince.

    “That’s a good idea, it’d get her off Penn’s back!” she beamed.

    “Yes. Come on, let’s see what’s in there.” He went up Number 7’s path without more ado, accompanied by the frisking Tim and the gleeful Bunting.

    The sitting-room of Number 7 Moulder’s Way now contained a giant electric fire and a huge lounge suite, not the property of John Haworth. Upstairs the narrow single bed he’d supplied was now in the smaller bedroom and the main bedroom was occupied—almost entirely occupied—by a giant king-size thing.

    Rosie panted in. “Ooh, double!” she gulped.

    “Mm. Henry’s presumably washed his hands of the lot. Well, yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice,” he said, pulling a comical face at her. “Martina and the Spanish boy? Jamie and the Spanish boy? Older Spanish lady and the Sp—” He didn’t have to go on, Rosie had collapsed in helpless giggles already. Grinning, John got up and took June Haworth off her. “Not that it isn’t nice being jiggled against Mummy’s titties while Mummy’s in hysterics, eh?” he murmured, kissing her satiny forehead.

    And, all the cupboards of Number 7 being found to be empty, they adjourned to the Green for elevenses.

    Higgledy-Piggledy was very busy. A flustered Gwennie Potter looked frantically round for a table for them but lo! There were Rowena and John Mason, beckoning and smiling! Well, she was beckoning and smiling; he was just smiling apologetically. Rosie forged off to join them immediately. John took a deep breath. The woman would be absolutely bound to mention Colin. Resignedly he joined them.

    She did mention Colin, not even waiting until the first cupfuls had passed their lips. He would be so pleased to see everything going so well! Well, yes, he would. Hurriedly John agreed with her and urged a scone laden with cream and jam on his life-partner.

    Helpfully Rowena cut Bunting’s piece of scone in two, unasked. “There you are, dear, that’s better, isn’t it? –And I must say, dear Penn does seem to be coping quite well, though of course one mustn’t expect miracles.”

    “Mm, well, she’s keeping busy, Rowena,” said John temperately. “Doug’s a tower of strength.”

    “Of course! John and I thought at first that he was, well, a trifle dour, as the Scots would say—didn’t we, dear?”—The unfortunate Mr Mason gave them an anguished, apologetic look.—“But of course that’s just manner.”

    Rosie swallowed scone with cream and jam. “Yeah. He’s a very nice man,” she said, smiling at her, “and in fact we think that Penn will turn to him in the end.”

    “My dear, that’s just what John and I think!” beamed Rowena. She topped up both Johns’ teacups, unasked. “And it’s probably too soon to say this, because I know you miss Colin terribly, my dears—”

    “Rowena—” began her husband in agony.

    “No, it’s all right, John,” said Rosie, awarding him her lovely smile. “Don’t let’s pretend Colin was a saint. We want to remember him as he really was! Were you going to say that Penn’ll actually be a lot happier with Doug than she would have been with Colin, Rowena?”

    “Well, yes, my dear. I don’t think there will be the, well, highs and lows, so to speak: Mr McIntyre obviously isn’t that sort of person. But I think it will be a more comfortable relationship for her.”

    John Mason looked at Rosie in some trepidation, but she nodded her curly head and said: “Yes, you’re right. I don’t think that it would ever have been a comfortable relationship with Colin. He could be really pig-headed—well, the tsunami relief shit was a case in point if ever there was one—and never mind what he might or might not have said, he’d been used all his life to taking all the decisions, in fact to making them for other people. And he was over-protective, too. Penn couldn’t handle that very well. You’re right, Rowena: Doug can offer her a—a much more ordinary existence.”

    “Yes,” agreed John Mason with considerable relief.

    Rosie smiled at him. “Mm. She’ll be able to be quietly happy with him, where she would never have been that with Colin. He was an extraordinary person, not an ordinary one.”

    “Indeed he was, my dear!” agreed Rowena vigorously. “One of those unique personalities who are rather like, if it doesn’t seem too fanciful to say so, a comet across the sky of our day-to-day little lives!”

    Their table was reduced to silence—though it would have been true to say none of them actually disagreed with her.

    “Yes,” said John Mason at last on a weak note. “Well, hate to think what he’d’ve said to that, Rowena—but you’re right, dear, he was. Come on, now, everyone: eat up! What about a plate of toast?”

    Rowena had her handkerchief out and was delicately mopping her eyes but at this she blew her nose briskly and rubbished the mere idea of toast. But graciously allowed him to order another round of tea and scones—as a salute to dear Colin’s memory! Possibly more than one person at the table had the thought that ladylike tea and scones was not a completely appropriate salute to the Colin they’d known, but they took it as meant.

    Bellingford basked on a warm August afternoon. A tourist coach inched its way into Medlars Lane and prudently drew up opposite the first cottage. The guide herded the eager floral-frocked visitors off. Yes, it was adorable: quite genuine throughout! She didn’t have to say anything else: Mrs Granville Thinnes shot out of the perfect Medlar Cottage and took complete charge…

    “And now,” she smiled, “this— Yes, delightful, isn’t it? A quince: very unusual indeed to see them grow to that size, but of course it’s over two hundred years old!—This is largely 17th-century—stone, yes—quite nicely restored. And naturally we don’t advertise this, but I’m sure there’d be no objection to my telling you! The owner is Euan Keel!”

    Terrific excitement amongst the genteel persons who fancied the “Ancient Cottages of Bellingford” tour, and uninhibited peering and snap-taking…

    “Don’t go outside: that’s the three-thirty lot,” warned Euan with a sigh, going into the kitchen.

    “They’re late, then,” noted his father.

    “Aye: mebbe they were genteel enough for Hermione to offer them tea.”

    He sniffed. “No’ a taste of pheasant, though.”

    Alas, his son and his daughter-in-law collapsed in helpless sniggers.

    “I suppose there’s no hope she isn’t telling them?” said Terri weakly, blowing her nose.

    “Not judging by the way they’re staring, no!” replied Euan with feeling. “Och, I have to say it: this canna be what Colin envisaged!”

    There was a short silence.

    “No’ unless he was daft,” agreed his father sturdily. “Just think of where ye could ha’ ended up and count your blessings!”

    “Where, Dad?” asked Terri, very puzzled. “Not his old flat in town?”

    “Och, no! Hollywood, wi’ a pack o’ vain, mindless idjits, makin’ a spectacle o’ himself for the rest of the mindless idjits to gawp at!”

    To the heartfelt relief of both Keel males—though on the elder it didn’t show—Terri collapsed in another fit of helpless sniggers, gasping: “Yes! Medlars Lane with Hermione and her nice tourist ladies is so much better!”

    Bellingford basked in the warm August sun. Jim Parker was out in his front garden, dead-heading a few roses. He wouldn’t have said “No” to a beer, but unfortunately he was right out. Helluva pity Colin had gone… And young Bob’d be over at the smithy, of course. Not that it wasn’t about time he found out what solid grind was. He might get over to the pub in a bit—or the Club: the pub’d be full of holiday-makers, this time of year. Not that Terence wasn’t real good about chasing them out of the snug…

    He’d put in a lot of marigolds this year, the heron having told him that marigolds kept the pests off, but what he was looking at right this minute, if his eyes didn’t deceive him, was a huge great green caterpillar, sitting right on a marigold! Well, shit! Served him right for believing a word the heron said, eh? Laboriously Jim removed it and squashed it to nothing. Make a cuppa? Couldn’t be blowed. No-one to chat to over it. If only Anna hadn’t pushed off to look at ruddy factories he could of popped down there, chewed the fat, taken her a nice lettuce, maybe…

    He was hoeing vigorously round the marigolds, his mind half made up to hoe the ruddy things right in, when there came a familiar rattling noise. Jim wandered over to his picket fence and leaned on his hoe as Jack’s old green truck pulled in.

    “You been listening to the heron?” the bugger greeted him, looking at the marigolds.

    “I’m hoeing them in, and sod orf!” snarled Jim.

    “I merely asked. She reckons you can eat ’em in salads,” he noted.

    “Right, pull the other!” retorted Jim smartly.

    “Um, no, honest: they’re an old herb or something.“

    “Crap. If you’d believe that you’d believe anything. Believe they keep the caterpillars orf,” he admitted sourly. “’Aven’t brought us a beer, ave yer?”

    “Uh—no. Sorry.”

    “Then you can push orf again.”

    “What’s wrong with you?” said Jack feebly.

    “’Uge ruddy green caterpillars all over me garden, that’s what’s wrong with me!” he shouted.

    The echoes died away on the warm summer air of Harriet Burleigh Street.

    “Well, one ’uge green caterpillar,” admitted Jim with a silly grin. “Sorry. Pissed orf. Out of beer. Well, wishing Colin was still ’ere, to tell you the truth.”

    “He’d of had a few in, all right,” agreed Jack with a sigh.

    “Yeah. Oh, well. That’s life, or something. What are you here for? Ma Mason’s sink-bench need adjusting again?”

    “No.” Jack eyed him warily but he didn’t make any cracks about Pam Melly—or her mum, that was a first. “Told Rosie I’d look in on the Spanish lady.”

    “Right. She’s got that dump over the road with that flaming untrimmed privet hedge. Well—moved in, ain’t seen hide nor ’air of ’er. That dim young Martina, she come up to see if she needed anything. Dunno that she got any joy out of ’er, mind.”

    “No. –She is pretty dim, isn’t she?” said Jack heavily.

    “Yeah. That little Jamie, she’s a bright girl, though.”

    “I’m bloody nearly old enough to be her granddad, Jim,” said Jack heavily.

    “Uh—wouldn’t go that far. Didn’t mean to imply nothing by it.”

    “No,” he said heavily.

    Jim eyed him thoughtfully. “The Spanish lady’d be more your age.”

    “Right, and does she speak a word of English?” he replied vigorously.

    “Uh—well, Martina brung the Spanish boy to do interpreter,” admitted Jim.

    “I dare say. Rosie reckons she can speak English, though.”

    “That right? Been up the Superette yet, ’as she?”

    Jack opened his mouth to deny any interest in the matter. He met the old man’s sardonic glance. “Uh—well, Belinda reckons she hasn’t, no. Terri seems to be bringing her casseroles and stuff.”

    “Yeah, been over several times. One theory is,” he noted thoughtfully, “that they’ve got ’er lined up for Jock Keel.”

    Taken completely unawares, Jack went into an agonised spluttering fit.

    “Yeah,” said Jim, grinning all over his face. “Heard about the pheasants, yet?”

    “Eh? No,” said Jack blankly. “Jock’s not setting ’imself up in competition with old G.T., is ’e?”

    “Nope! Doesn’t need to!” Triumphantly Jim retailed the saga. It was fair to say it lost nothing in the telling. At one point Jack adjured him angrily to pull the other, but when Jim replied that he’d got it off Terri, conceded it wasn’t a gigantic leg-pull after all.

    “Remind me to shake Jock’s hand!” concluded Jack, trumpeting into a large, black-stained handkerchief.

    “I’ll do that. Can I remind you to cut back that stinking privet ’edge over the road, as well?”

    “It isn’t that bad.”

    “You can smell it at five ’undred yards!” retorted Jim crossly.

    “Oh—literally stinking,” said Jack feebly. “Don’t really mind the smell, meself.”

    “That’s just as well, considering Top Lane’s full of the bloody stuff! Rosie was saying that in most parts of Australia it’s classed as a noxious weed!”

    “Uh—really? Well, I’ll cut it back if she’ll let me,” he said kindly.

    “Yeah. Be firm. Not like you were with Anna,” said Jim ill-advisedly.

    Jack gave him a sour look. “Even flaming Richard Peregrine-Hyphen-White’s barely made it to third base with her!”

    “Knows what she wants, and good on ’er,” said the old man mildly. “Well, go on, or ’ave yer chickened out?”

    “I haven’t chickened out, but is she gonna understand a blind word I say?” he said heavily. “All right, I’m going!”

    He was just gonna stump across the road, but thought better of it. ’Cos if the answer was a lemon, Guess Who’d be waiting for him to cross back over to the trusty truck? Yeah. He got in and, in view of the increased traffic in Bellingford in summer—not that anything was moving in Harriet Burleigh Street of this precise moment, but you never knew—did a proper turn and pulled up by the Spanish lady’s apology for a gate. Well, it did open and shut—just. Never seen a lick of paint since the end of the War, though. The First World War. He went up the path feeling bloody Jim’s eyes boring into his back every step of the way.

    At first he thought she wasn’t gonna answer the door. Then he heard movement inside and it opened. Crumbs! For a moment he thought he was looking at that dame that had sung at Colin’s funeral! She was dark, with an oval face and a curved nose, not big enough to be called beaky. Tall, but her figure was pretty much an older version of Terri’s and you couldn’t say that was all bad. Thick black curly hair, piled untidily on top of her head. Definitely not pretty, but, well, handsome, he guessed. Or would of been, if the eyes hadn't been very red and swollen. Bad sign. She was wearing a dressing-gown—in the middle of the afternoon? Bad sign, too.

    “Jack Powell,” he said easily. “Rosie sent me over. You’d be Terri’s cousin, that right? Good to meet you. Thought you might need some odd-jobs doing. Bit of gardening? Carpentry? Anything, really. Plumbing, if you need it.”

    “Par-don?” she stumbled.

    Oh, shit! Those eyes of old Jim’s were boring right through him! “Odd-jobs,” he said clearly. “Can I do anything for yer?”

    “I am sor-ry. Par-don?”

    Bugger! “Odd-jobs. Got anything that needs fixing?” Nothing. “Can—I—fix—anything—for yer?” he said laboriously.

    “Feex… Oh! ¡Sí, sí!” she gasped. “I am sor-ry. Par-don me. It is all… to feex.”

    Uh… Oh! “Stuff broken? Lead me to it!” said Jack cheerfully.

    “Par-don?”

    “Show—me. I—will—fix—it.”

    “¡Gracias! Thank you!” she gasped. “Please to come in.”

    On the other side of Harriet Burleigh Street Jim gave a slight sniff as the Spanish lady’s front door closed behind Jack. There was an expression for it, he was almost sure. “It never rains but it—” No. Not that they hadn’t had enough of that, this past year! Um… “No fool like an—” Not that, neither, though if the cap fitted—! Um… was it a Froggy expression? He sort of thought it might be. Colin would of known. Something like “Just when you think everything’s changed, you realise it hasn’t.” “Here we go again?” Well, yeah!

    There probably wasn’t much point in waiting to see if the bugger was gonna trim that privet hedge, but he’d give it a bit longer. Jim leaned on his hoe in the sun.

    … No, well, maybe the closest you could get to it in English was “That’s life.” But Colin would of appreciated it, that was for sure! All of it. Warts and all.