by Jane Bailey
“Oh! Jack Shepherd is a good man,” says Miss Lavish.
“Ah, Lavinia, but good for what?”
Chortles.
“Perhaps not good for her,” suggests Mrs Glass.
“I remember ’is father, Arthur Shepherd,” says Tosser suddenly from her smelly corner. “Real tosser ’ee wuz.”
But then she goes on to tell us about Arthur Shepherd, ably assisted by questions from the others, and I learn a lot about Uncle Jack. Seems he came from a strong Chapel family in Stroud, his father all hellfire and brimstone and preaching the evils of alcohol and lust. His mother was a compliant woman, a teetotal champion of needlepoint. Jack and his brothers were all brought up bent double with guilt. When Jack married Joyce, a Church girl, it was an extreme act of defiance. There were plenty of Chapel girls with no previous record of kissing, good girls with wide hips who could make pies. But no, he chose a church girl from Painswick who could floor a dozen men with a bat of her eyelashes. Whether it was because her generous lips and firm buttocks provoked feelings he preferred to deny or what, but Jack’s father never forgave him. So Jack embraced the church instead (a little too tightly, maybe) while his father spent the first eight years of their marriage sulking and shovelling on the guilt, and the remaining years buried in it himself and wishing he had known his lost granddaughter.
Joyce Stringer was not the woman her father-in-law made her out to be, neither did she have the strength he credited her with to bear his contempt.
“Lord, tiz awful.”
“A tragedy.”
“She ’ad plenty o’ sweethearts, mind. But see ’er own father died in the Great War when she were – oh, barely four year old I’d say. ’Ee wuz just like God lookin’ out of a photograph, ’ee wuz, an’ they say she put men on a peddy stool. And Jack, she put ’im on a peddy stool an’ all.”
“Ah! There now, that could be true.”
I can see why Tosser is so welcome in the knitting group now. But she only speaks if she chooses, and no one can make her.
“’Course ’er mother’s side of the family wuz all inbred.”
“Never!”
“Well! That explains it!”
“It explains a lot!”
I can’t see how everything is made clear by the fact that all of Aunty Joyce’s family were in the baking trade. But I listen intently.
“Joyce’s mother seemed all right when we met her last Christmas, mind,” says Aggie.
“Ah!” says Tosser. “She weren’t inbred. Twuz ’er mother – Joyce’s grandmother. An’ ’course twuz what ’er uncles tried to do to poor Joyce’s mother – Ivy … I’ve known Ivy when she wuz a littl’un. Not well. Tiz no wonder she’s disgusted by you know what …”
“But Joyce’s father, he would never’ve let that lot near his family …”
“No! No! ’Ee wuz Ivy’s saviour ’ee wuz. But see that’s Joyce’s problem. When she were a littl’un, she asked ’er father why ’ee wuzn’t in the war, so next thing Ivy knows ’er ’usband’s gone and joined up. Well, she never saw ’im again. She ’an’t never forgiven our Joyce for that. Not ever. Nor never will.”
“Well I never!”
“Tiz cruel to make your own child feel bad like that.”
“Dreadful!”
“That might explain why she’s so –”
“Tiz a wonder she don’t have more children, though.”
“Perhaps he can’t … you know what,” suggests Mrs Chudd with a mischievous look.
“Ah, you know his trouble,” says Mrs Glass. “All that Chapel lot. They want children but they want the Immaculate Conception. He wants a wife who’s a virgin for ever!”
“Get away! Well, he won’t find many virgins in Sheepcote!”
“Go on! There’s always Lavinia.”
Everyone looks at Miss Lavish, but she continues knitting without looking up, and says, “You presume too much.”
People stop knitting and stare. Miss Lavish gets up, counts how many we are, and goes off to the kitchen to put the kettle on and prepare tea. As soon as the door has swung behind her, everyone looks at Tosser, who wipes her nose on her sleeve and decides to explain.
It seems Miss Lavish is a dark horse. She was once in the arms of a handsome young soldier who promised the earth in a whisper. Then he went and splattered his body over a field in France.
Had he married her before he went away, she could have been saved from a lifetime of the dreadful millstone named spinsterhood. But for one simple ceremony she was destined to face the world as a sad, unfulfilled Miss, instead of an aggrieved but worldly Missus. And to think it had been her own idea to wait until the war was over! It had been a foolish idea encouraged by her mother, who was afraid he would leave her widowed. This was before she realized that, in that infamous Great War, everyone came back in pieces, if they came back at all, and there would be no spare men to marry in his place.
But Miss Lavish is not what she seems at all. For one night, when he was home on leave, Jarvis Cooksley took her out walking up the woods near the school, and there, under the beeches, they made love.
I wonder how Tosser knows this, but then Tosser knows everything that happens under the stars in this little valley.
Miss Lavish comes in with a rickety trolley of tea things. But we all look at her differently. Sometimes, when children giggle at her tricycle, or when she sees beech-nut shells in the verges, or when she envies other women’s domesticity, or when she hears them complain about their dull husbands, or when she senses a look of pity in their eyes, does she perhaps remember her night in the beechwood and think, “I, Lavinia Lavish, am not a virgin,” and does she pedal faster and smile?
On the way home Miss Lavish takes my hand between the hedgerows and guides me through the pitch black.
“You know, you mustn’t believe all they say about Uncle Jack and Aunty Joyce. They like to have something to gossip about.”
“That’s okay,” I say, “I never really listen.”
“Yes, I know. But they tried to draw you in today. I didn’t like that. They’ve no right to ask you questions. None of their business.”
We walk on into the total darkness.
“Lavinia …”
“Yes?”
“Why do you think they’re so horrible to each other, Uncle Jack and Aunty Joyce?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’re not.”
“They are.”
A bit of elder bush swipes me in the face and she beats it out of the way.
“Well … sometimes, I think, things can go so wrong that it’s hard for people to show their feelings for each other.”
“Oh, they know how to show their feelings all right. They’re just rotten to each other.”
Miss Lavish swaps places with me and walks on the inside, to protect me from stray twigs and branches.
“You know how sometimes at school the boys tease the girls and pull their hair?”
“Yes …” I say, unsure why she’s changed the subject.
“Well, what they’re really doing, of course, is flirting.”
“Flirting?”
“They’d really like to kiss them.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s just a way of making contact.”
I think this through. She could be right.
“And sometimes, when people are so badly upset that they don’t know how to be affectionate, well … they hurt each other instead.”
“Why?”
“Making each other feel guilty – hurting each other – it may be all they can manage. But it’s a way of making contact.”
Grown-ups are all a bit confusing.
“I know they love each other really,” I say.
“I expect they do.”
“Oh, they do!” I insist.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well … it’s just … she always warms his socks on the range for him. And he … he cleans her shoes every night. Scrapes all the mud off with a knife and a rag, a
nd polishes them. He leaves them in the hall.”
Our eyes have become accustomed to the dark, and we can see the dark outline of Weaver’s Terrace next to us. Miss Lavish stops and holds both my hands in hers and whispers, “You know, Kitty, you’re the best thing that could’ve happened to them.” Then she opens our little creaking gate and kisses me goodbye.
People will say we’re in love
The next morning after milking Tommy lies in wait for me and pulls me aside as I’m about to head back down the lane. “Follow me.”
I expect him to lead me across the fields to an adventure, but he scrambles up some large stones behind the cart at the side of the barn and beckons to me, putting his finger to his lips to stop me asking questions. Although the barn is made of Cotswold stone, its top half has been renovated with corrugated iron, and in it is a rusted gap which Tommy now puts his cheek to. “Come on!” he whispers. “Look!”
I look. We press our faces on the cracked iron and watch. There is nothing to see. Three POWs are heaving milk churns on to the cart. And there is Aunty Joyce pouring the milk pails into the churns. She wears brown corduroys and wellingtons. Her blonde hair curls out from under a red headscarf, tied gypsy-like at the back of her neck.
“What are we looking at?” I whisper.
“Keep looking.”
So we do. Aunty Joyce continues to pour milk from the pails, and the three men continue to shift it. The horse lifts its tail and does a poo. I whisper a laugh, thinking this is it. But Tommy is still pressed up hard against the rusted iron, concentrating, and I can hear his breath next to my ear.
Then I see something. It is only a small difference, so slight I wonder if I’m on to the right thing at all. But I’m intrigued.
As Heinrich bends down to pick up the churn next to Aunty Joyce, their eyes meet. She flushes, and continues to look at him for a moment, then reaches for the next pail. As he lifts the churn on to the cart we can see her steal a glance at him, then look down quickly.
“She’s in love!” I whisper.
“Ssssh,” Tommy whispers gently, putting a hand on my arm.
I pull away from the spy-hole and look at Tommy’s hand on me, then I look up at him, trying to recreate some of Aunty Joyce’s drama for myself. But Tommy is too busy spying to notice me.
We hear the two other POWs leave the barn and walk, chattering, up to the farm. Tommy beckons me to look with him again.
Aunty Joyce is gathering the empty pails and Heinrich walks over to her. He stands in front of her for a moment, then enfolds her pink knuckles in his giant hands. She stands there looking at him, as if waiting for something.
“Joyce!” he says. “I luf you!”
Suddenly Aunty Joyce has shaken her hands free and is walking towards the barn door. She turns to look at him, bright red and shaking, and says quietly, with a note of apology, “I’m a married woman!” Then she gathers her tray of tea things with wobbly hands, clunking cups all over the place. “And I love my husband.”
She is out of the barn door and coming this way, so we duck down behind the old cart until she’s passed us.
“Golly! D’you think Uncle Jack knows?”
“’Course he don’t.”
We sit quietly for a moment on the cold stones, each pondering what we’ve seen. Much as I like Heinrich, I find I’m not at all happy about this turn of events. I want things to be as they should be: wives with their husbands, children with their mothers, fathers tumbling about with their children and not crying when they see a tree.
“Tommy …”
“Yeah?”
“Why doesn’t Aunty Joyce have another baby?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. P’raps Jack can’t get it up.”
I frown and say, “Oh, right.”
“Like the rabbit,” Tommy explains. “The rabbit could get it up, Jack can’t. I ’speck. Dunno for certain.”
Ever so briefly I picture Uncle Jack in a cage with Aunty Joyce. “Still, she did say no to Heinrich. She did say no, didn’t she? She said she loves Uncle Jack, didn’t she?”
Tommy looks thoughtful. “Yes, she did.”
We get to our feet and amble down the farm lane.
“You wanna meet my mum? She’s coming Boxing Day.”
He shrugs.
“I want you to meet her.” He kicks at the muddy stones, so I add, “So’s we can arrange for you to come an’ live with us, after the war.”
“I … I …”
“I, yi, yi, yi, yi I like you very much!” I say, attempting an exotic accent like Carmen Miranda.
He tries to look indifferent, but smiles at the bare hedgerows, and then at me. “Okay, then.”
On the last morning of term I have a sudden urge to ask Aunty Joyce a question as she sees me out of the door.
“Can I have a cuddle?”
“Pardon?”
“Will you give me a cuddle?” I look up at her earnestly. “I haven’t had one in ages.”
She stops tying my ribbon for a moment, and with a look of mild exasperation she kneels down and puts her arms around me. I cling on as tightly as I can. I can smell the soap in her housecoat and the deeper woman-smell, and I can feel her softness. I squeeze and squeeze and just can’t bring myself to let go. She is a familiar scent to me now, and I want more of it. Eventually Aunty Joyce wrenches herself free and begins to do up my shoelaces, which I usually do up myself. She is biting her lip and fumbling furiously with them.
Then she packs me off to school, and when I turn to wave I see her sheltering her eyes with one hand, and I could swear she is crying. But she couldn’t be, because Aunty Joyce never cries.
I’m gonna see my baby
On Christmas Eve the church is full. Whole families with grandparents and children and soldiers home on leave squash into the pews, and babies’ heads pop up between shoulders. Candles have been lit in all the windows. The organist is playing a medley of carols at a lethargic pace as the last few people arrive and say their silent prayers.
I wait with the Sunday school and older children at the back of the church ready to process forward at the sign of the vicar. I wanted to be a lamb or an angel, but Miss Didbury made me a donkey. I’m wearing cardboard ears, attached to a donkey head made out of a cardboard box. An old grey woollen skirt (that belonged to Aunty Joyce’s mother), slit at the seam, makes a tent-like cloak tied above my head, upon which the donkey-effect head perches precariously. I keep peaking out from the slit in my cloak. I want to see the look on Uncle Jack and Aunty Joyce’s faces when I arrive with Mary and Joseph. I find, inexplicably, that I want them to be proud of me.
Everyone seems to have arrived now. A tune ends, and as the organist pauses a gust of wind comes from the porch at the back of the church as the outer door is opened again. Heads begin to turn to see the latecomer. It is Miss Hubble, carrying her baby close to her chest.
A low murmur begins.
Peeping out from my cloak I can see Uncle Jack’s drained face turned towards Miss Hubble. He looks at Aunty Joyce who looks back at him with a frown. Then Uncle Jack rises to his feet and walks slowly towards Miss Hubble, head bowed. He is going to find a seat for her, and I begin to feel little pangs of pride. With an avuncular arm around her shoulder, he steers the young mother back towards the door, and all the shepherds and angels and farm animals distinctly hear him say, “This isn’t the place for you,” for all the world as if she were an infant who had mistakenly wandered into the senior school.
I am furious. I look at the lantern-holder next to me – who is Tommy – and I can tell he feels the same, only Tommy is so used to the unfairness of everything that it only just surfaces on the rigid set of his mouth. I don’t know if he slips out for a fag stub with the older boys or what, but at about that moment he seems to disappear.
Uncle Jack returns to his seat, the self-appointed do-gooder applauded by the quiet relief of the treacherous congregation. The organist begins to play, pulling out all the stops, as we process to the crib at the fro
nt of the church carrying candles and lanterns. After depositing our lights around the manger, we disappear into the vestry, where Lady Elmsleigh has offered to help ‘backstage’ despite her lack of belief, and where Tommy is miraculously waiting for us by a little external door for the vicar’s use only.
When the music stops the vicar welcomes everyone and says a prayer. It is accompanied by rustling and giggles from the vestry as shepherds struggle to secure their blankets’ safety pins and wise men run about looking for their tobacco tins of frankincense and myrrh.
At last an innkeeper emerges and stands under the pulpit, with Mary and Joseph hobbling after him.
“Is there any room at the inn?” asks Joseph in a soprano voice, lifting his head a little to reveal a beard of boot polish.
“I’m sorry,” says the innkeeper, “we’re packed like sardines in ’ere.”
“You sure? My wife is with child.” He nods at Babs Sedgemoor who is wearing a blue candlewick bedcover.
“Sorry. Nothink ’ere, Joseph.”
The parishioners smile, babies shriek and sing from the depths of the pews and the vestry continues to bubble with noise.
After two more innkeepers, Tommy eventually takes pity on the pair.
“Well, I’ve no more rooms left,” says Tommy, “but if you’re really desperate like, I’ve got a stable you can ’ave.”
“That’s very kind. My wife’s … with child.”
“Oh, is she? I’ll get some fresh straw.” He heaps some more straw on a hay bale set out for Mary to sit on, and takes her hand to help her.
Then the prisoners of war stand and face the congregation. They sing ‘Silent Night’, and their voices are beautiful. Some of the women have to wipe tears from their eyes, ashamed and confused at how they can be so moved by their enemy. Aunty Joyce does not take her eyes off them, and even her eyes are glistening when the song is over.
While Betty Chudd reads the first lesson, it is my job to fetch the baby Jesus doll from the vestry door, secrete him under my cloak, and hand him miraculously to Mary.
