Read Scandal in the Village Online
Authors: Rebecca Shaw
Overcome by his gratitude she muttered her thanks.
‘Will you thank your committee personally from me? I’m so grateful for all you do.’
‘Of course I will, they are a brilliant team, they’ve really rallied round this year. And thank you, I’m glad you liked everything. It’s time you went home to Dr Harris. See how she is.’
‘I will shortly. Mind how you go.’
Finally he excused himself and left.
Sylvia had settled the children down with some toys and Caroline was sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea. The colour had come back into her cheeks and she greeted him with something like her usual enthusiasm.
‘So sorry, Peter, for causing a sensation in the service. I really do apologise. I know how important it is to you.’ She turned up her face for him to kiss. Peter bent down and kissed her cheek.
‘Please don’t apologise. I’m only too sorry I couldn’t leave to bring you home myself. Sylvia, Willie has nearly finished. You go home and get him lunch. I can cope.’
Sylvia standing out of the line of Caroline’s vision pointed her finger at Caroline and said, ‘Are you sure?’
‘Absolutely.’
Sylvia nodded her head in the direction of the hall. ‘I’ll leave then.’
He followed her out of the kitchen, closing the door behind him.
Sylvia didn’t speak until they’d reached the front door. ‘She hasn’t confided in me, but you must get her to confide in you. I don’t like the look of things, Rector. Not at all.’
‘I’ve tried, but she won’t. We’ve agreed she’ll tell me when she’s good and ready.’
‘Then you’d better try your utmost. This business of you not trespassing on each other’s ground is quite out of place now. That girl in there is either ill or there’s something worrying her quite dreadfully. I’ll be here first thing tomorrow.’ With her hand on the front door latch Sylvia turned back and said, ‘Remember, I shall want some answers tomorrow morning or else. I think a lot about Dr Harris, you know. It needs sorting.’
Peter stripped off his cassock and hung it in the hall cupboard, braced his shoulders and returned to the kitchen with the firm intention of finding out.
‘Don’t seem right coming straight in ‘ere from church, but I’m dying to know what’s going on.’ Vera, accompanied most unusually by Don, settled herself down with Jimmy at his favourite table.
Don raised his glass of orange juice and said, ‘Here’s to you both.’
‘And to you,’ Jimmy answered. ‘Nice to have some male company. Don’t expect Willie will be in today he doesn’t on Sundays and not With Dr Harris being taken bad.’
‘One time if yer fainted like that it meant one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Yer were in the club.’
‘That’s not likely is it. We knows they can’t have children.’
Vera’s theory having been dismissed she felt quite deflated and sighed. ‘Yep! I expect we do. And we know it’s not him at fault. He’s proved that.’
‘Well, then.’ Jimmy glanced about him. ‘Eh! Georgie’s just come in. Got changed out o’ that sparkly suit she wears on her rare excursions into church and she’s smiling like there’s no tomorrow. The cheek of it.’
‘Bold as brass that Dicky waving and winkin’ in church. Be different if they were kids and single.’
‘Well, yer know when Cupid’s arrow falls …’
‘Cupid’s arrow! They should ’ave caught it and sent it flying back. At their age, they ought to have more sense.’
Jimmy laughed. ‘This wife of yours is very indignant, could she be just a bit jealous, Don? Did you see ’em?’
‘No.’
Bryn was busy serving with a grim smile on his face. Even his Flying Officer Kite moustache appeared to be bristling with annoyance. Georgie was pulling pints too, but well down the other end of the bar.
Jimmy called out, ‘Feeling better Georgie? It was hot in there wasn’t it?’
Bryn scowled. Georgie said, ‘It was very hot. I wonder no one else had to leave.’
Someone said, ‘They did. Rector’s wife left just after you. Went clean out on the floor. Terrible white she was.’
‘Oh! So I wasn’t the only one then. There we are, one pound eighty please.’
As the customer pocketed his change he said, ‘Thought you looked flushed Georgie.’
‘I said it was hot.’
Jimmy slyly remarked, ‘Your Bryn sized up the situation in quick sticks, ’ad you out in a flash.’
Bryn glared at Jimmy and for a second Jimmy thought he would be coming across and thumping him but the moment passed and Jimmy took a hasty gulp of his ale.
Vera was scandalised. ‘Honestly Jimmy! You’ll be getting a black eye, you will.’
‘Not me, but he might.’ He nodded his head in the direction of the saloon door.
Vera and Don twisted round to look. Bel and Dicky had just come in. It was so rare for them both to come in together that everyone would have stared in any case but today, this lunchtime, they not only stared they were appalled. Dicky really was sticking his neck out coming in. Bryn could have a very short fuse on occasion, and as he was something like twice as big as Dicky things could get lively. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding could wait, something more appetising was on the menu.
To everyone’s intense disappointment Bryn’s attention was taken by a problem in the dining-room so he had to leave Georgie and Alan behind the bar.
Vera shouted across. ‘Good turn-out for the Scouts this morning, Dicky! They’re a credit to yer!’
Dicky, who’d changed out of his Scout uniform and was looking quite the dandy in a rather startling bright red polo-necked sweater and black and white checked trousers, shouted ‘Thanks Vera! They’re a good set of boys, all of ’em! See you’ve dragged that husband of yours in. What are you getting up to nowadays, Don?’
Don lifted his glass in acknowledgement. He was known as a man of few words was Don but this time he excelled himself. ‘More to the point, Dicky, everyone’s asking what
you’re
getting up to nowadays?’
An audible gasp went round the bar. Vera choked on her drink and had to search for a hanky to dab her chin. As for Jimmy, well there was no other word to use but to say he guffawed. The customers round the table by the fireplace burst into side splitting laughter, but Bel went bright red and looked at the floor and Georgie shook her head in warning which Dicky chose to ignore. ‘Oh, this and that yer know,’ he said. He raised his glass to Georgie and grinned. ‘This and that. Eh! Georgie, have you heard the one about the husband who went home early from work one night and found his wife in bed with …’
Bel hit him very hard on the side of his head with the flat of her hand. If his head wasn’t ringing with the blow everyone else’s was. Then she hit him again on the other side with the other hand. He began backing off but she followed him right round the bar, giving him another good slap with every step she took.
‘I’ll teach you to show me up in public!’ When she was opposite Georgie she stopped slapping and faced her over the bar. ‘But for this counter between us I’d be slapping you too!’ Bel grabbed hold of Dicky by the neck of his sweater and frogmarched him out. As the saloon door shut on them they could hear Dicky shouting ‘Bel! Bel! I haven’t finished me drink! Have a heart!’
The customers nearest the windows rushed to watch them go by.
‘She still hasn’t let go!’
‘He’s twisting and turning!’
‘She’s hit him again!’
‘He’s got away!’
‘He’s coming back!’
‘No, he isn’t.’
‘Yes, he is!’
‘He is! He is! Oh, my God!’
Bryn walked back into the bar from the dining-room at this moment and they all quickly sat down, but their excitement was trembling in the air. Bryn looked round for answers but there weren’t any. Everyone was avoiding meeting his eye. He looked at Georgie but she found an urgent necessity for rooting about under the bar for a clean cloth to polish some glasses.
The door burst open and back in came Dicky. He was red faced and breathing fast but never one not to face up to a challenge, he’d come back in to finish his drink. He marched to the bar conscious that all eyes were on him, and as he loved the drama of it all he decided to play his audience to the utmost.
Picking up his drink he stood facing everyone and drank a toast to them all. First to one group and then to another. There were a few sniggers, then downright laughter and then loud applause. But he hadn’t realised that Bryn was there watching his every move.
Dicky put his empty glass down on the bar, did a few tap-dancing steps and then bowed. As he straightened up Bryn caught hold of his arm.
‘Out, you little runt! Out! You’re banned!!’ Dicky was dragged across the floor for the second time in as many minutes. Bryn flung him out, not caring what happened to Dicky as he staggered down the two steps out onto the road, and when Bryn came back in he slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
‘Alan! Where’s Alan?’
‘Here.’ Alan lurching in from the cellar with a crate of bottled beer in his hands asked ‘What’s up?’
‘Can you manage for ten minutes?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Bewildered he looked round for a clue as to what was going on. But there wasn’t a single person looking in his direction, they were all watching Bryn who was glaring at Georgie. She was eyeing the distance between her and the door marked
Private
. Bryn went towards her, a menacing look on his face.
She started to retreat. With a beautifully filed and lacquered finger she prodded the air between her and Bryn. ‘You lay one finger on me and I’m out the door and never coming back!’
‘Never have done and don’t intend to start now. In the office this minute.’
He opened the door into the back and stood aside for her to go through first. Before he shut the door on them they heard Bryn say, ‘And now, madam, I want to know what’s going on.’
Don finished the last of his orange juice and with a deadpan face, said to Vera, ‘Having brought things to a head, I think it’s time we went home and you made me my dinner.’
Grandmama had thought of asking Harriet to take her to the hospital for her check-up but in the event Harriet was too busy so she’d booked Jimmy to take her in. The bus was so smelly and the times so inconvenient that it was easier to go in with him. This was the first check-up she’d had since moving to Turnham Malpas. They said they’d transferred all her notes so it should just be a formality. She hated having to go, in fact this time she might suggest she never went again. After all, there’d been no recurrence in five years now, there was no more requirement for wasting their time.
She asked Jimmy to drop her off at the main entrance, she wasn’t having him know she was going to the cancer treatment department, or else it would be all round the village in no time as she’d found to her cost with the Harvest débâcle. The main entrance was obviously part of the original hospital but over the years it had quadrupled in size, and she couldn’t find her way. She asked a nurse, she was brown but seemed to know what she was talking about, and set off to follow the directions.
The arrows on the direction signs appeared to point not only straightforward and left and right but, rather significantly, heavenwards too and Grandmama became confused. She pushed through some swing doors and found herself in the antenatal clinic. Really! She waited to find a nurse to ask where to go, but there was only a receptionist sitting at a desk on the far side, so she tripped across between the children and the toys and the mothers in various stages of pregnancy, so many in fact she wondered if they hadn’t got television in Culworth yet, and went to ask. The receptionist was on the telephone so Grandmama had to wait. One of the doors marked with a newly painted sign saying
David R. Lloyd-Jones, Consultant
opened and out came Caroline Harris! Of all people! What a coincidence! A very distinguished looking man came out with her and they shook hands and she heard him say ‘Good luck’ and Caroline said ‘Thanks for everything’, checked her watch and hurried away.
Well, well. So she was right. It was a baby after all. Looking thin and preoccupied must be bad morning sickness, it took some people like that. Well, fancy! After all these years. A baby.
Grandmama realised the receptionist was addressing her. ‘Excuse me! I said “Can I help you?”’
‘I think I must be in the wrong department.’
‘I would think so too.’
Grandmama’s intense eyes gave the receptionist a bleak look and then asked directions. Having had them explained to her twice because she was so excited with what she’d just seen she couldn’t take them in, she departed in haste, she was going to be late if she didn’t hurry.
Peter couldn’t concentrate, he was waiting for Caroline to ring, for today was the day she got the result of her scan. He’d offered to take her in to Culworth and wait with her but she wouldn’t hear of it. Now he wished he’d insisted.
‘I’ve a surgery straight afterwards, there isn’t any point. I’ll ring at lunchtime to let you know. It would mean going in two cars anyway. It’s better this way.’
‘Look, how about going private?’
‘Certainly not. I’m a doctor, I can’t take advantage of a privileged system when the majority of my patients can’t. That wouldn’t do.’
‘Of course not, I see that.’
He went to the garage and got her car out for her and brought it round to the front of the rectory.
‘Oh thanks, darling.’
‘Least I can do. Caroline, I …’
She’d cut in to prevent him from saying something encouraging which might penetrate the wall she’d built round herself. ‘When I’ve had my appointment I’m going to see David Lloyd-Jones, I don’t need to refresh your memory about him do I?’ She’d smiled wickedly at him.
‘Of course not! Has he taken up his appointment already then?’
‘Started on Monday. Want to congratulate him.’
‘So long as that’s all!’
‘Peter! After all these years! You’re not still jealous!’
‘Not really. No.’ He’d looked away.
‘You are! Well, well. Must go or I’ll be late.’
He’d kept the conversation as she wanted it. Ordinary. Unemotional. Brisk. If that was how she coped then he’d have to go along with it. ‘Bye then! Don’t forget to ring!’ He’d longed to kiss her, hold her, hug her, longed to suffer it for her, anything but this.
He’d watched her drive away and then stepped into the house thinking about the Sunday when he’d walked back into the kitchen after Sylvia had gone and he’d found Beth sitting on Caroline’s knee being cuddled. Her thumb was in her mouth and Caroline was rocking her. ‘I do love you, Mummy. Are you better now?’
‘Much better, darling. Much better.’ Alex had got up from the floor and gone to stand beside her. He’d leaned against her legs, put an arm round her waist and said, ‘You’re a doctor, can you make yourself better?’
‘Sometimes, but sometimes even doctors need help.’
Beth lifted her head from Caroline’s shoulder and asked, ‘Are you going to need help now?’
‘Perhaps.’
Alex said, ‘When I’m grown up I’m going to be a doctor.’
Beth wrinkled her nose. ‘I’m not. It’s nasty being a doctor. You have to stick needles into people like they did when we had our booster to go to school. That was horrid. It hurt.’
‘My needles wouldn’t hurt. I wouldn’t let them. I could make you better couldn’t I, Mummy?’
‘Of course you could.’
Beth gave him a push. ‘You couldn’t, you’re too little.’
‘I’m not!’
‘You are!’
‘I’m not am I, Mummy? I’m bigger than Beth aren’t I?’
Before Caroline could answer Beth sprang off her knee and shouted ‘You’re not, you’re not, we were both born together, so you can’t be.’
‘I am, look!’ They stood back to back and Peter had to confirm that Alex was indeed taller than Beth.
Beth moaned, ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Men are always taller than their mummies. Look at Daddy.’
‘They’re not! Mr Tutt isn’t. He’s little and Mrs Tutt is big.’ She stretched her arms as wide as they would go.
Caroline had to laugh. ‘Go away you two. I want to set the table for lunch. It’s been in the oven for ages and I can smell it’s more than ready.’
After lunch the two children had gone to play on their bicycles in the back garden leaving Caroline and Peter to finish their coffee.
‘Lovely service, Peter, and didn’t the church look wonderful? Best ever I think. I was really chuffed with my arrangement. The eucalyptus leaves against the dark wood looked great, they almost lit it up.’
He didn’t answer.
Caroline said, ‘Hellooo! Anyone at home?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Well?’
Not looking at her while he answered Peter said, ‘How much longer are you going to leave me in the dark?’
Caroline looked out of the window and watched the children racing each other down the path. Beth’s sturdy little legs were pedalling as fast as she could make them, yet Alex’s long ones, pedalling far more leisurely, were pulling him ahead of her.
‘Well? You haven’t answered me. I treasure you, I cherish you above and beyond anyone else on this earth, and yet I am not to know.’
She poured him more coffee, passed him the sugar.
‘My darling girl,
it is crucifying me
.’
‘
And me
.’
Peter waited. The kitchen clock struck the quarter hour.
Caroline gave a huge sigh and said quietly, almost inaudibly and very very slowly, ‘There’s no kind way of saying this, no way of letting you down gentle, so I might as well say it straight out. I’ve had a scan because they think … they think I might have a growth on my ovaries. I get the results on Wednesday.’
From outside came the excited laughter of their two children. Inside, the kitchen boiler burst into life and the clock ticked away the seconds. Long startling frightening seconds during which Peter almost suffocated with shock. For Caroline’s sake he took a deep deep shuddering breath and then another. And then a third, before he had his voice under control. ‘My darling! Why ever haven’t you told me before? How long have you known?’
‘A while.’ She reached across the table and stroked his hand.
‘What can I say which doesn’t sound empty and trite? I am deeply sorry. You’ve been carrying this burden all alone. How can I possibly have failed you so much that you felt you couldn’t share it with me? I am so, so, sorry that I’ve let you down.’ He placed his free hand on top of hers. ‘I shan’t treat you like a fool and say are you sure, might there be some mistake, I know you too well for that.’
‘There is no mistake, darling. And you haven’t let me down. It’s my fault, I couldn’t bear to tell you. I didn’t want to break your heart.’
‘My heart! What’s
my
heart got to do with it? It’s you who has it to face.’
‘You have it to face, too. Let’s be frank. If it’s worse than they think then ... it may mean you coping on your own.’
‘Dear God! Dear God!’ Peter sat with his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands. He sat up again. The shock of what she’d said had drained all the colour from his face, it was deathly white. Just as slowly as she had spoken when she’d broken her news he said, ‘Let’s look on the bright side. We musn’t assume the worst. It could be a matter of a simple operation and hey presto! it’s all over and done with. Obviously you’d have to take care and perhaps only work a few hours, not try to do too much, but there’s no reason why things couldn’t be back to normal in no time at all. Is there?’
‘None at all.’ Caroline smiled bravely, and he recognised the bravery and held out his arms to her. She got up and went to sit on his knee. ‘This is why you fainted is it? I can scarcely manage to ask this but, are you in a lot of pain?’
‘Sometimes. But maybe it’s all in the mind, fright you know. that’s why I get snappy.’
‘Snappy? I hadn’t noticed! Wednesday. Three days. Will you go to the surgery just the same?’
‘Yes, it’s easier that way. Keep busy, you know. No time to dwell.’
Peter sat patting her arm, stroking her knee, rubbing his cheek against her hair. ‘I’ve been so blind. I’ve been absolutely unforgivably blind.’
‘I told you not to ask didn’t I?’
‘I shan’t do as you say ever, ever, again. Never. If I want to question something I shall. This not trespassing is ridiculous.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s agreeing that we are two intelligent human beings with rights to our own thoughts and decisions. What could you have done if you’d known? Nothing. No one can.’
‘I could have been more considerate.’
‘You are already far more considerate than is good for me. I haven’t told anyone at all. No one knows and I don’t want them to.’
‘We shall have to tell Sylvia.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she told me as she left just now that I … that she wanted some answers on Monday or else.’
‘I wonder what “or else” will be?’
‘Caroline, you must tell her, or I will. It’s only fair. We may need to rely on her.’
She held Peter’s face between her two hands and studied him closely. With her fingers she traced his eyebrows, and then with her thumbs gently closed his eyelids and kissed them sweetly. ‘You are my beloved. All the David Lloyd-Jones in the world can’t hold a candle to you. And why I don’t know. I wasn’t really a church person at all you know, so it wasn’t your dog collar that did it, but that morning when you walked into my surgery with your bad throat and your streaming nose and red watery eyes and that dreadful cough and your face all flushed …’
‘Heavens above! I can’t have looked very appealing!’
‘You didn’t. But you twanged my heart strings and they’ve never stopped twanging since.’
Peter grinned at her. ‘I’ve often wondered what that curious noise was when I got close.’
‘Oh that noise! that’s my hormones clamouring!’
Peter began laughing but it changed to tears. She kissed his tears away. ‘Stop or I’ll be crying too.’
‘You’re being so brave. I’ve discovered I’m not brave at all.’
‘You will be, just you wait and see.’ She got off his knee. ‘Let’s clear up. The children are very quiet, just look out and see what they’re doing.’
He blew his nose, ran his fingers through his hair, and then went to look out of the window. ‘You’re not going to like this.’ He raced out of the back door leaving it wide open. Caroline hurried to see. Alex was balanced on top of the wall and was preparing to leap down into the back lane. Beth was coming back in through the gate hobbling, both her knees badly grazed and holding her hand as though it hurt. Great fat tears were beginning to roll down her lovely rounded cheeks. ‘Oh heavens!’
They’d had them both to sort out as, before Peter could reach the wall, Alex had jumped. The drop was something like five feet and the surface of the ground uneven, so he’d hurt himself too.
After they’d settled them both in front of the television well bandaged and drinking hot sweet tea, which Alex declared doctors always said you needed for shock, Caroline had sighed and said ‘Never a dull moment!’
So here he was waiting for the telephone to ring. He’d tried concentrating on some study he wanted to do in preparation for the following Sunday but he might as well have been reading the
Radio Times
for what good it did him. Peter’s thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing.