Springtime at Hope Hall

by Pam Rhodes

  HAPPY FEET

  Tap dancing for fun!

  Beginners welcome!

  5-year-olds and above

  THURSDAYS 5.15 p.m.

  MAIN HALL

  Kath nodded approval. “That says it all. I should think that class will prove very popular.”

  Della beamed as she moved the last poster over to the top of the pile. “I thought you’d like that. You’d be a bit over the hill for signing up for this class though!”

  HIP-HOPPERS

  Have you the bottle for break dancing? How’s your locking,

  waving, robotics, b-boying and dime stops?

  STREET DANCING is the way!

  10–14-year-olds

  THURSDAYS 6.30–7.45 p.m.

  MAIN HALL

  “Well,” said Kath, “that all seems like a different language to me. But let’s get these out there and see how things go!”

  ***

  “Hello, Steph.”

  She looked across at her dad, who had chosen one of the darkest alcoves in the pub to wait for her. She unwound the long red scarf from her neck and drew down the zip of her jacket as she walked across to him. He stood up as if unsure whether he should hug her. She didn’t give him the chance, pulling up a chair on the opposite side of the table.

  “How have you been?” he asked.

  “As if you care. You left us, remember?”

  Dave grimaced. “That’s my girl. Straight to the point. No niceties.”

  She stared at him. “What did you expect?”

  “I didn’t know what to expect. You called me about meeting tonight. It’s what I’ve wanted for a long time. I’m just glad you’re here.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if I’m staying.”

  “Shall I get you a drink while you decide? A Diet Coke, right?”

  As she watched him walk across to the bar, she realized how different he now looked from the dad she’d always known. He was wearing tight, dark blue jeans with a pale pink shirt. His hair was razor cut at the sides, but longer on top, where his natural curls had obviously been gelled into shape so that it looked as if a small, stiff busby was perched on his head. Hang on, she thought. Dad’s hair was going grey. Not any more, it seemed. His locks were now a dark chestnut shade, which looked rather odd against his eyebrows, which still matched his original hair colour. But they looked different too! She peered at the mirror behind the bar, which reflected a clear, close-up image of his face as he ordered drinks from the bartender. The straggly long hairs she was used to seeing had been trimmed and his eyebrows flattened into unnaturally neat lines across his forehead. His face looked thinner – or was that just because of the hair cut? Perhaps not, because where was the pot belly she used to pat whenever she teased him about how paunchy he was getting? He looked lean, perhaps even on the thin side. How ridiculous! Getting fit was one thing. Trying to look as if he were twenty years younger than his actual age was nothing short of pathetic.

  “I couldn’t remember if you liked ice or not, so I got some anyway,” he said as he placed the glass down in front of her.

  I’ve been drinking nothing but Diet Coke for years now, she thought. Why would I expect my father to know if I like ice or not? He’d have to be interested in me to know that.

  “Your mum always liked ice with her lime and lemonade,” he added, as if for something to say. “How is she, your mum?”

  Steph turned on him then. “Do you mean is she falling apart without you? No, Mum’s too busy trying to keep everything together and sort out the mess you left behind when you walked out on her. Do you mean is she upset? Well, wouldn’t you be if your husband repaid you for devoting twenty-five years of your life to looking after him by taking up with a money-grabbing single mother half his age? Is she missing you? Missing your rubbish everywhere, and having football on the telly morning, noon and night? Missing having your dinner cooked and ready on the table, and doing all the clearing and washing-up afterwards because you think, as the man of the household, you should be waited on hand and foot? No! What she does miss is the husband who owns half that house and knows how much it costs to run, and yet he’s swanned off to pay someone else’s bills without a thought to how she’s going to cope all on her own.”

  “Once things are a bit more settled, I’ll talk to Mum about those bills.”

  “Talk won’t help. Money is what she needs. Take responsibility for your actions, Dad!”

  “I can’t stretch to paying anything at the moment. Mandy and I—”

  Steph practically choked on the Coke she was drinking. “Mandy? What’s she got to do with you paying bills that are in your name in your house that you share in partnership with your wife? Mandy can pay her own bills. Mum can’t. Sort out your priorities, Dad!”

  With a sharp intake of breath, he looked her straight in the eye. “Mandy is my priority.”

  Steph sat back in her seat, suddenly finding herself with nothing to say.

  “I love her, Steph. This isn’t just a fling. It’s the real thing. I love her.”

  “You’re ridiculous. A ridiculous old fool.”

  “I want to marry her.”

  “Just one small obstacle there. You’re already married and you’ve made a mess of that. Do make sure Mandy knows what lousy marriage material you are!”

  “I’m going to ask your mum for a divorce.”

  “Good. She’s better off without you. You’re not fit to lick her boots!”

  “I’d like to see her – to explain.”

  “Don’t bother. There’s nothing you can say to her that’s worth hearing.”

  “I know your mum, Steph. After all these years, I know her well. I need to speak to her myself, but I don’t know how to suggest it. Could you ask her? Ask her if she’ll see me?”

  “Ask her yourself. Pick up the phone and talk to her. I’m not passing on grubby little messages for you.”

  “Darren came round at Christmas. He spent the evening with us. He got on really well with Mandy.”

  “Whoopee for him. He’s never had any more sense than you. Like father, like son.”

  “He said he’d have a word with your mum.”

  “Why? Because you haven’t got the nerve to speak to her yourself?”

  His head dropped and there was silence for a while.

  “For the first time in years I’m happy, Steph. Really happy.”

  “Good for you. How old are her children?”

  “Belle is five. Marlin had his third birthday last weekend.”

  “Well, isn’t that just the perfect new little family for you! It’s been weeks since you had any time to spare for the kids in your own family. You remember Bobbie, the little boy who adores his grandpa? Do you even care that he doesn’t understand any of this, and thinks you don’t like him any more? Have you just turned your back on him and swapped him for someone else’s kids you think are better?”

  “Mandy and I wondered if Bobbie might like to come over and play some time?”

  Steph huffed with disbelief. Then she zipped up her jacket, rewound the scarf at her neck and walked out of the door without a backward glance.

  “Percy Wilson, if you don’t stop your hearing aid whistling, or at least turn it down, I’m going to lose my rag!”

  “What?” said Percy, turning round to look at Ida’s furious face, his expression a picture of innocence, presumably because he wasn’t sure whether she’d spoken to him or not.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! There’s no point you wearing that hearing aid, because you never listen to a word that’s said to you – and all we hear is the deafening squeak it makes. Why don’t you go to the doctor’s and get it changed?”

  He looked puzzled as he tried to make out what she was saying. In exasperation, Ida turned back to the other ladies on her table, her face red with indignation.

  “Are you all right, Percy?” asked Connie, who was sitting next to him on the table alongside Ida’s.

  He looked up at her in surprise.

 
“That squeak must be driving you mad. Can I help? Turn it down a bit, perhaps?”

  He winked at her and touched his right index finger to his nose. “No need,” he whispered. “I only have it this high when Ida’s prowling around. I love the way it always winds her up. I’ll turn it down again now, so you and I can have a nice quiet chat.”

  Connie stifled a giggle as Percy tipped his head nearer to hers.

  “We’ve got history, that Ida and me. She’s always been a Bossy Boots – and I should know! Grew up in the same street, we did: Stirling Road, around the corner near the shops. Believe it or not, I’m still in the same house today. Her mum and dad moved into the posh end of the street when the new houses went up in the fifties. Perhaps that’s what gave her those airs and graces. She was a little madam then, and she’s an even bigger madam now.”

  “I didn’t realize you’d known each other so long.”

  Percy drew his chair closer until the two of them were in a conspiratorial huddle.

  “Certainly we knew each other – almost in the biblical sense, if you know what I mean,” he whispered, his eyes shining with mischief. “Well, I exaggerate. I kissed her once, and she definitely liked it. In fact, she was so enthusiastic, I suddenly caught that gleam her eye – you know, the look some would-be brides get when they’re collecting bits and bobs for their bottom drawer? In the nick of time, I realized that she only needed one last item to make her marriage plans complete: a husband! I never kissed her again. I was off like a shot.”

  Connie spluttered with laughter just as their conversation was interrupted by Jess, one of a handful of volunteers from the local senior school who regularly did work experience by coming along to help with food preparation and serving at the Grown-ups’ Lunch Club.

  “Mind your arm, Percy, so that I don’t spill the gravy all over you!” “Extra mash?” he asked, peering at the plate.

  “Of course,” replied Jess. “And two Yorkshires as well, because I know they’re your favourite.”

  “You’re a good girl. Bring the mint sauce over too, would you? There’s a love. Oh, and if that’s apple pie we’ve got for pudding, I’m partial to lots of custard. Could you tell Maggie that? Tell her I’ll give her a big hug later if she can put an extra dollop of custard my way.”

  “Percy, you are awful!” As she spoke, Connie reached out for the condiments and daintily tipped a small pyramid of salt onto one side of her plate.

  “… but you like me!” he guffawed. “Who used to say that? Some comedian or other. Dick Emery, wasn’t it? My memory is awful, but I’m pretty harmless really. It’s all good fun.”

  “In the same house for all those years then?” Connie cut up a neat cube of carrot and dipped it first into the salt, then the gravy, before popping it into her mouth. “You were never tempted to move away – for work, perhaps, or because your wife wanted to live somewhere else?”

  At first, she thought Percy hadn’t heard her question as he concentrated on cutting himself a large chunk of Yorkshire pudding, which he appeared to swallow without chewing it at all.

  “Margaret lived in our street too. She was the girl next door – well, except for my gran’s house in between. She never had any interest in moving away, and neither did I, especially as we had her dad and my mum to look after as they got older. Her dad went on till he was ninety-five, and my mum was ninety-two when she passed away the year before him. We were both the youngest in our families, you see.”

  “That’s the way it was then,” Connie agreed, carefully carving her meat into perfectly equal mouthfuls. “We looked after our own, didn’t we? I cared for my mum for several years too, until she went into hospital and never came out again.”

  “Margaret and I both had elder brothers and sisters,” continued Percy, “but they disappeared as soon as they could. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, because my brother Frank idolized Mum – but deep down he was glad he didn’t have to stay around to look after her.”

  “Well, it was a bit different for me. When I married Eric, we did move away, because he got a job in Portsmouth in the dockyard there. He’s a gem, my Eric. He arranged to move back without a harsh word when Mum needed our help. Well, he never really had a mum of his own, you see, after her house collapsed on top of her during the war. He lost his baby brother then too, and his dad was never the same when he came back from Burma. So my mum became his mum really. He was very good to her – and very good to me. A good father too. He’s always been a gem, my Eric.”

  “Lost him, have you?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “No, he’s in the shed. He likes potting – and he’s never liked dinners cooked by anyone but me. He’s not a club sort of person really. I just like to get out a bit. I’ve left his dinner on a plate in the oven – pork chops today. He can have it when he’s ready.”

  “Hey,” interrupted Percy. “Just take a look over your shoulder at that table of Merry Widows. I don’t think Ida’s stopped talking since she sat down, but she’s managed to keep shovelling down her dinner at the same time.”

  Sure enough, three of the ladies on the next table were tucking into their roast lamb dinners in silence as Ida held court.

  “For the old but bold! That’s what it says. Have you seen that new poster on the noticeboard? Well, I think it’s a bloomin’ cheek. I mean, who do they mean by that? It must be us, mustn’t it? Who else do they think can’t touch their toes, are as stiff as a board and must be feeling their age?”

  “Well,” said Flora, who was sitting opposite her, “that certainly describes me. I haven’t seen my toes for years! Mind you, I’ve not seen the notice either. What’s it about?”

  “It’s a dancing class,” replied Betty, with her mouth so inconveniently full that she had to dab her lips to be sure she hadn’t dribbled anything out as she spoke.

  “Is it ballroom?” asked Doris. “I was good at that. Bert and I won a cup once for our quickstep.”

  “It says it’s armchair exercise,” said Betty. “I rather like the sound of that.”

  “Will they have a telly on so we can watch the soaps while we’re at it,” chuckled Flora. “It will feel like being in an armchair then.”

  “Ah, but then it says they’re going to do sing-along dancing.” “What dances?” enquired Doris. “Quickstep, do you think? Even though Bert’s passed on, I reckon I could still manage a cheeky little quickstep!”

  “The more important question,” interrupted Ida, her voice booming across the chatter, “is the music. I happen to know who’s running that class, and I would suggest that her music choices are likely to be highly questionable.”

  “Who?” demanded Doris.

  Laying her knife and fork deliberately down on her plate, Ida drew in breath as if she were about to start a momentous speech. Her announcement needed their full attention.

  “Della Lucas!”

  “Who?” Doris looked puzzled.

  “Della Lucas!” repeated Flora. “I know her mum. You do too. You know – the dancing teacher. She’s taken classes at the Congregational hall for years.”

  “Oh, you mean that girl of hers? The one who used to be in the paper so often for winning all those dancing cups?”

  “I haven’t heard anything about her for ages,” mused Betty. “Where’s she been?”

  “On the high seas, apparently,” stated Ida. “She’s been gallivanting around the world to all sorts of unsavoury places. Apparently she’s now had enough and is back home with Mum and planning to inflict her outlandish ideas and her music on us.”

  “Sounds great,” enthused Doris. “I’m going along.”

  “Me too,” agreed Flora.

  “You’ll do no such thing!” Ida sounded like a stern headmistress. “We will keep our dignity and decorum until we know a great deal more about what little Miss Lucas has in mind. Is she properly trained? Does she have the right medical knowledge, the appropriate attitude, the correct equipment?”

  “It sounds like it just needs armch
airs,” ventured Doris. “And I don’t mind modern music. My granddaughter records CDs for me with all the latest music she’s into, and I have to say I rather like it.”

  “Well,” continued Ida, glaring around the table at each of them, “you are free, of course, to make up your own minds, but remember, when it all goes horribly wrong, I told you from the start it would be a mistake.”

  “We can always just leave if we don’t like it.”

  Ida turned her icy stare towards Doris. “How many times have I told you, Doris, that you are too hasty? You jump in without thinking, without any research or preparation at all.”

  “The last time you said that,” retorted Doris, “was when I fancied watching that American TV series, and you told me it was immoral and I wouldn’t like it at all. Well, I did, and I’m still loving it – so you were wrong!”

  Ida sat back in her chair, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “All right, do it. Make a fool of yourselves. Just don’t come whining to me when you realize I told you so.”

  “Pudding, ladies?” enquired Jess, who had suddenly appeared at Ida’s elbow with a tray of apple pies. “Custard for everyone?”

  Kath and Ellie always chose a quiet corner in the tiny café at the end of the High Street when they met for a catch-up. From the moment Kath met the wife of the new vicar who had arrived at St Mark’s two years earlier, she and Ellie had hit it off. Perhaps it was because the two of them shared the experience of holding down a high-powered management job before life took a turn in bringing them to the same small town twenty miles north of Portsmouth.

  ***

  While Kath’s former career had been in hospital management, Ellie had been running a local authority social work team when she first met James. He was the complete opposite to all her previous partners, who had mostly been artistic, easy-going and full of theories about how to put the world right. James was an academic and actually quite shy, preferring the company of books to large crowds. Becoming a vicar was quite an unlikely career choice for him, but the intense sincerity in his face as he explained that he wasn’t choosing a career but a vocation that called him to serve Christ through caring for the community around him, touched Ellie’s heart and conscience as nothing ever had before.