A Rival Creation

by Marika Cobbold

  ‘Well there you are, Dad,’ a woman spoke triumphantly, ‘aren’t you glad you’re in that nice home, now, instead of here with all this going on? They’ll be doing their business in our garden and playing their music all night long. No, you be glad you’re away from it all in Fairfield, Dad.’

  Liberty turned to see Dad give his daughter an evil look.

  ‘We must call the police immediately.’ Nancy had elbowed her way to the front of the crowd, one hand placed protectively on her stomach. ‘That field is privately owned. It belongs to Campbell’s Farm. It’s in use.’

  ‘It certainly is now,’ the old man chuckled, ‘but Campbell has left it fallow this year and last. There’s no crop on it now.’

  ‘The police can’t do anything,’ someone said.

  ‘We must reason with them, like the good neighbours we are,’ Neville appeared with Gladys at his side, his large face bright red under the feathered cap.

  Now I’ll do it, Liberty thought. I’ll run up to Oscar and I’ll grab him, and we’ll take off across the field and get into one of those old buses and drive away, ram raid out from the ring of rusty—

  ‘Well I’m certainly glad we’re leaving. Your life will be a misery, you know, with that lot camped here.’ Liberty turned to find Victoria coming up behind her with Oscar, a manicured hand on his arm. Liberty concentrated on the fingernails. A French manicure, Victoria definitely had a French manicure.

  ‘Hello Victoria, hello Oscar. Yes very lucky.’ Liberty smiled, her eyes still fixed on Victoria’s hand. Lucky, lucky lucky, she thought. You’ve got Oscar, and a baby, a French manicure and no New Age Travellers. No, forget the French manicure; she never had liked the way the white bits on the tips of the nails were filled in by the white varnish. She herself preferred as little white on her nails as possible. Looking down at her own hands, where the marks from Cissy’s teeth were still showing white against the faint tan, she wondered if she was going mad. ‘Poor woman,’ they would say. ‘She became Good and only hours later they took her away. They say it’ll be years before they let her out again.’

  ‘I feel a bit of a spoilsport, but I don’t really go in for fancy dress, never have.’ Victoria leant against Oscar’s arm, cool and fashionable in a long navy blue-and-white spotted dress, worn as a waistcoat over a blue linen T-shirt and draw-string blue-and-white striped trousers. It was a look Liberty had admired on the pages of several fashion magazines for months, but as usual failed to follow up. Instead, she had chosen to turn up looking like something that had fallen off the back of a carnival float.

  ‘You look very nice,’ she kept smiling.

  ‘I told Oscar that if he dressed up as Robin Hood, I’d divorce him.’ Victoria gave Oscar’s arm a playful tug. She looked a little surprised as Liberty burst out laughing, a shrill laugh it seemed, even to Liberty’s ears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but you didn’t really mean that, did you? I mean if I wrestled poor old Neville Pyke to the ground and stripped off his costume for Oscar, would you really divorce him?’ She had tried not to look at Oscar but now she saw a small smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. Then he looked away. ‘Only kidding,’ she pulled a face. ‘It must be the heat.’ She shifted from one foot to another, jingling her bells.

  ‘Well it’s nice that you have the guts to make a fool of yourself,’ Victoria said. ‘I never would.’

  ‘How sweet of you to say so,’ Liberty turned to Oscar. ‘It was a nice presentation.’

  ‘Thank you. I like your costume.’

  Victoria raised an eyebrow. ‘I told him the whole thing was too serious,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s all a bit of a joke anyway.’

  Liberty wanted to ask her to be more precise. What was it that was a bit of a joke? The Award, life in general, people who handed you back your husband although they did not have to?

  ‘I’d better find Mike and get over there.’ Oscar nodded to the field.

  ‘Oh come on, it’s Saturday.’ Victoria tugged at his arm. ‘I want to get back home. We’ve got all that packing to do. Get someone else to do the story.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Oscar snapped, a look on his face Liberty had not seen before. She had to fight back an impulse to put her hand up and smooth out the frown on his forehead; it was not her job any more. All she could do was stand around in her awful costume, jingling her bells and turning pink from heat and emotion.

  Oscar called to the photographer and then he turned away without looking at her, leaping over the stile and striding off across the field towards a camper van painted with huge, triffid-like sunflowers.

  Liberty could not take her eyes off him. She did not care if Victoria wondered why she was staring. She would remember him like that, dressed in the crumpled cream linen jacket and blue shirt that was just a shade paler than the blue of his eyes. He looked so good that day, that had she not known better she would have thought he was vain.

  ‘Ask them what the hell they think they are doing,’ a man called from the back.

  The crowd lining the edge of the recreation ground was getting angry, everyone yelling and shoving to get a better view.

  ‘Get away with you, filthy trash. We don’t want your sort here!’ a woman shrieked. Liberty had to agree with the sentiments, she just did not like the tone of voice. It was like those court scenes on television when a particularly nasty criminal was bustled inside, cowering under a blanket. Just as she felt herself wishing for the return of capital punishment or planning a spot of lynching with castration thrown in, someone in the watching crowd would start the jeering, face contorted, teeth bared, and all at once you were a liberal.

  ‘Where do you think they keep the blankets?’ Liberty asked Victoria. ‘You know, the ones they use to cover suspects with. I can’t somehow imagine them freshly laundered and stacked in a cupboard at the police station, ready for the next villain.’ She paused. ‘Then again, why not?’

  ‘I can’t say I have ever given it much thought,’ Victoria said.

  ‘Well nor have I, until now,’ Liberty answered meekly.

  She scanned the field for Oscar, but he was gone from the sunflower camper, and was nowhere to be seen amongst the jumble of children and dogs and wild-haired adults. ‘My goodness what a to-do,’ she said, hoping to deflect Victoria’s contempt with a thoroughly sensible remark. ‘Really,’ she added for good measure. When Victoria did not answer she said, ‘It’s funny, don’t you think, how all the men have long hair and most of the women have theirs really short?’

  ‘Well that’s the way they are, isn’t it?’ Victoria said.

  Oscar appeared from the throng round the psychedelic fire engine. He was talking to Mike the photographer, pointing in the direction of a small girl, or at least Liberty thought it was a girl with tangled fair hair and dressed in a grubby white shift, standing on her own a little distance away, her fingers in her mouth. Then he was surrounded again as a group of women and children joined hands and began dancing. Liberty craned her neck as, now and then between the prancing figures, she glimpsed him, a head taller than the others, scrubbed and clean shaven, his pale jacket spotless, his expression calm. They could all be part of some Victorian tableau entitled ‘The Arrival of Enlightenment’, or ‘The Natives Welcome Their Ruler After a Long Absence’, she thought, amused.

  ‘We must stop them before they start digging the latrines,’ Nancy said to a general murmur of approval. Over by the fire engine a couple of men from the village were arguing with a small group of travellers. ‘And those dogs,’ she added. ‘They foul everywhere, they’ll run in here too, and then it won’t be safe for our children to play. You know what dog dirt does to children.’

  ‘Has anyone called the police yet?’ someone asked.

  ‘They can’t do anything,’ a man standing next to Liberty sneered. ‘You must have seen in the papers, it takes weeks, or months even, to get rid of them. They’ve got rights, would you believe it.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Nancy had elbowed her way
forward, her arm protectively in front of her belly still. ‘That field is private property, not common land. It belongs to Campbell’s Farm.’

  ‘There’s no crop on it,’ the man said. ‘That’s what counts.’

  Ted Brain had been muttering soothing words of tolerance and alternative life styles. ‘I’ll talk to them,’ he said, taking a step up on the stile. The crotch of his trousers got tangled on the barbed wire below and he grew pinker by the second as he pulled at the pale blue material of the trousers. ‘I’ll reason with them. I’m sure we can come to some…’ with a final yank he was free, ‘… mutually acceptable arrangement.’

  ‘They’ve got a cow and all,’ a young boy called from his vantage point half-way up an elm tree.

  ‘That’s it. I’m going over there.’ The man who had been standing next to Liberty removed his black-and-purple shell suit top and folded it carefully before hanging it on a sticking-out branch in the hedgerow. One milky-white trainer and then another climbed onto the stile and he was across before Liberty had a chance to ask him why it was that the cow in particular upset him so.

  ‘We’ll have the television down Neville, I’m telling you.’ Gladys Pyke craned her neck and tugged at her husband’s arm.

  ‘Kate Adie do you think?’ Liberty could not help asking.

  ‘She’s in Bosnia,’ Gladys said matter-of-factly.

  So that joke fell flat, thought Liberty, trying to spot Oscar, who had broken loose from the circle of dancers and disappeared. Victoria bent down and picked up her basket of produce from the ground.

  ‘Liberty, would you tell Oscar I’ve gone home to have a nap. Oh and,’ she turned round, ‘do tell him not to be long, I’ve got a list as long as my arm of things for him to do.’ She wandered off through the crowd.

  After a while people began drifting back towards the stalls and the refreshment tents, and by the time the police arrived, driving their Range Rover up the field to a barrage of cat-calls and the odd unenthusiastic missile from the travellers, only Gladys Pyke and the old man from the home in Fairfield were still standing, staring, on the other side of the hedge.

  ‘They don’t want any trouble, so they say.’ Oscar had found Liberty back at her stall, sitting on the stool, painting. He shook his head slowly, smiling down at her. ‘I’ll always remember you in that suit.’

  Liberty sighed. ‘I was afraid of that.’ She put her brush down. ‘By the way, Victoria has gone home to have a nap. She asked me to tell you not to be long.’

  It was Oscar’s turn to sigh. ‘Right,’ he said, turning away. Still not looking at her, he said, ‘I love you, you know that. I think I always will.’

  ‘And I’ll never stop loving you. What is it they say? “Until the mountains crumble and the seas dry”. In fact, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if I mumbled your name on my deathbed.’ Unable to stop herself, she got down from the stool and went right up to stand next to him so that her shoulder touched his arm. Looking around her quickly to see that no-one was watching, she put her hand in his. They stood like that for a few moments with all the shouting and fussing going on around them, then the microphone screeched and Ted Brain’s voice boomed towards them, and they moved apart.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, if I can have your attention for a moment. We have one last item on our agenda. The judging of the Fancy Dress competition. So, could we have all the contenders up here with me, ready for Lady Wilson, our judge.’ Lady Wilson, a tall woman with a careful hairstyle and an even more careful smile, stepped out from the crowd and strode up to the line of adults and children forming in front of the podium.

  Liberty moved behind Oscar, grateful that he had the sense not to suggest she entered. Instead, he whispered, ‘Lady Wilson, who is she?’ His voice was thick and a little unsteady. Liberty put out her hand and touched the back of his neck with her index finger, just for a second, and his hand flew up and grabbed hers, but he was still looking straight ahead towards Ted Brain and the parade of competitors.

  ‘Awfully grand, that’s who she is. She lives in that thirties monstrosity, all red brick and dark tiles, half-way between here and Greenway. Her sons went to Tollymead Manor. She always said she felt more Greenway than Tollymead. I guess she’s changed her mind.’ With her free hand she fished out a handkerchief from the waistband of her striped leggings and blew her nose. ‘Her husband was in garden centres,’ she sobbed, ‘you know, the kind where they sell furniture and Christmas decorations and china, and where you can even find the odd over-priced plant, if you’re lucky.’ She sniffed. ‘There’s one on the Fairfield road, Gardeners’ Lodge, open seven days a week. Evelyn hated it.’ Suddenly her voice rose. ‘She hated it,’ and she buried her head between his shoulder blades crying, ‘hated it.’

  Oscar swung round and grabbed her by the arms, forcing her to look him in the eyes. ‘This is ridiculous,’ he said. ‘I’m going back home to tell Victoria that I love you and—’

  ‘To hell with everything else, including your baby?’ Liberty rubbed at a tear and then another one. ‘I won’t let you and I’m sorry, I should have stayed away from here today.’

  The microphone gave a warning whistle, making them both turn. ‘The winner of the Best Fancy Dress, and the prize of a twenty-five-pound gift token to spend at any Gardeners’ Lodge,’ Lady Wilson announced, ‘goes to Rebecca Flood’s Maid Marian.’

  A small girl in pink, with a little bow and arrow strung from her shoulders like a dislocated fairy’s wing, stepped up onto the podium and Liberty clapped, tears streaming down her face. A stout woman close by turned to her, nodding and grinning, ‘Your little girl, is it? I can see you’re ever so proud.’

  ‘No,’ Liberty said.

  The woman looked at her as if she had just kicked a fluffy white kitten, and the old habit of not wishing to cause offence took over. ‘I mean no, she’s not my little girl.’ Liberty dabbed at her eyes with a tissue she had fished out from her sleeve. ‘But had she been I would of course have been proud, very proud indeed.’

  The woman gave her another look and turned her back.

  Liberty stayed looking straight in front of her, tears still running down her face. Oscar’s hands gripped her shoulders, and she looked up.

  ‘I can’t leave you,’ he said. ‘Do you hear me? I love you.’

  Village Diary

  Tollymead: The award ceremony to present Tollymead with the coveted trophy for Most Caring Village was not without incident. Moments before the vicar of Tollymead, the Reverend Ted Brain, received the award from the Tribune’s editor Mr Oscar Brooke, the first of a caravan of New Age Travellers rumbled onto the adjoining field belonging to local farmer Derek Campbell. By the time the fête drew to a close, the visitors were already settled in and washing was drying on the lines.

  There were heated arguments amongst the Tollymead residents as to how to treat the visitors, but Mrs Nancy Sanderson’s suggestion to set a nearby herd of heifers on them was comprehensively rejected as uncaring and not in keeping with the spirit of the village. The police were called, however, but explained that there was nothing they could do until Mr Campbell sued for an eviction order.

  The barn dance went ahead as planned, held in the Fresh Produce marquee, empty now of prize vegetables, chocolate sponges and home-made raspberry jam. Everyone had a marvellous time, and the few travellers who appeared, lured by the lights and the laughter carried across the moonlit field, soon left again; whether due to the somewhat frosty welcome or the music, Abba, was anybody’s guess.

  Then, with the music stilled and only a few of us remaining, gathered round the last of the flickering candles, chatting about this and that and life and death, the way one does at 2 a.m., I asked Anne Havesham, who had been taking notes most of the evening, if she never tired of working. Her answer was to recite to us the much-loved poem by Longfellow:

  Art is long, and Time is fleeting,

  And our hearts, though stout and brave,

  Still, like muffled drums, are beating

>   Funeral marches to the grave.

  Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

  Let the dead Past bury its dead!

  Act, act in the living Present!

  Heart within, and God o’erhead!

  Lives of great men all remind us

  We can make our lives sublime,

  And, departing, leave behind us

  Footprints in the sands of time;–

  We all agreed that sums it up pretty well; this peculiarly human desire to transcend mere existence.

  Thirty-eight

  There was a rumour going round that the travellers, still ensconced in Campbell’s field two weeks after the fête, had descended on Tollymead because of the Diary. Pat Smedley told Nancy Sanderson who complained to Ted Brain who told Liberty all about it on the Monday when he came over to talk about dates for Karen’s stay. Apparently Pat had a friend in Everton whose accountant son was a New Age Traveller in his spare moments.

  ‘Yes?’ Liberty said to Ted over a mug of coffee.

  ‘Well, his mother is an avid reader of the Diary and apparently she had been telling her son all about the new age dawning at Tollymead and her son then went off and told his mates amongst the travelling fraternity that Tollymead was just the place to congregate after the summer solstice. I couldn’t trouble you for another cup?’ Ted held the butterfly mug out for a refill. It was one of two mugs that Liberty had pinched from Glebe House. She and Evelyn always had their morning coffee together from those mugs.

  Taking it across to the Aga, and measuring out the instant coffee she said, ‘Maybe the travellers won’t cause as much trouble as everyone is expecting.’ She could hear herself, how anxious her voice sounded. ‘Don’t you think people are over-reacting just a little bit? I mean these are not Beelzebub and all his little helpers camped at Campbell’s Farm, but just some people with lots of pets and rather unfortunate ideas about personal hygiene.’