‘Gilbert, that’s no answer!’
‘It is. I’ve said postpone till next year. This,’ he pointed to the exposed floor, ‘could be of national importance.’
‘If it’s just this little bit, we could fence it off and make a detour with the pipes and then the men could finish the sewers and you could have your bit of fun too.’
‘Bit of fun? And there was I, thinking I’d found someone with a soul.’ Gilbert shook his head and sadly turned his back on her and began working again.
‘Oh, you have, but you’re not being fair. I was only trying to work something out to everyone’s benefit.’
‘I have no idea at this moment of the extent of this site. It could be just this bit or it could cover acres.’
‘Acres? Mr Fitch won’t have that.’
‘Oh, won’t he? You just wait and see.’
In The Royal Oak the Roman ruins were discussed with fervour. Vera decided that Mr Fitch would want to cover everything up.
‘He’ll do like they do when there’s a preservation order on old trees. It was in the paper a while back. Builder wanted to cut some old oaks down, Council said not on your Nellie, so he felled ’em about five o’clock one Bank Holiday Monday morning. Daft Council said they couldn’t understand him doing it at a time when no one was about to stop him. I sometimes wonder about these councillors.’
Jimmy asked what on earth trees had to do with Roman ruins.
‘Same thing but different. He’ll get some other company to come, at the weekend of course, and get it all filled in and then look us straight in the face and say, “What Roman ruins? Where are they?” There’ll be no answer to that because they won’t be there no more and the Romans haven’t left an address book have they, to let us all know?’
‘Gilbert Johns is digging up there,’ Willie said.
‘Well, he’s about as much use as a yard of pump-water. My cousin Dottie cleans for ’im. She’s not allowed to move a thing. There’s old rubbish all over the place. As soon as one lot goes another lot takes its place. Drives her mad, it does. And books, they’re everywhere. If she says should she sort some out to go to a jumble sale he nearly lies down and dies. “Dottie,” he says in that sad voice of his, “these are my children, my life’s blood. How can I thrust them out into an uncaring world?” Still, he pays well and never complains if she has one of her turns and can only flick ’er duster.’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Seems funny to me. How can yer make a living poking about with bits of old stone and that? Beats me. It’s not like a man’s job, is it?’
‘Takes all sorts, Jimmy.’ Willie shook his head. ‘Talking of which, what’s Louise doing about the Show?’
‘Latest is they’re still waiting to see what’s happening about the ruins. They say old Fitch is nearly blowing a gasket. Blazing, he is. Told her off for telling Gilbert. Asked her who exactly it is she’s working for.’
‘Yer start to lose interest in growing stuff, when yer don’t even know if there’s going to be any Show.’
Jimmy shook his head sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry, Mr Fitch’ll sort something out. Ridiculous state of affairs, you can’t please yerself on yer own land now. Things is coming to a pretty pitch. When my grandad was a boy you were master of yer own destiny and what you owned you owned. Not nowadays, nowadays, it’s …’
Vera shuffled about impatiently. ‘You two going to put the world to rights, because if you are, I’m off. It’s not the same since Pat stopped coming in.’
Jimmy felt annoyed by Vera’s uncharitable attitude. ‘You should be glad she’s found someone.’
‘Oh, I am, but …’
‘Well?’
‘I am, I said!’
‘There’s more to it than that. I can tell.’
‘No, there isn’t.’
‘There is. Go on, tell us, we’ve a right to know, Willie and me. We’ve looked after ’er interests all these years.’
Vera hesitated only for a moment. It wasn’t often she knew the gossip before these two did, and it really was a juicy piece of news. ‘Well, they do say there’s someone in Little Derehams after him for money.’
‘You mean he owes ’em some?’
‘No, I mean …’ With her hand Vera draw a large arc around the area of her stomach and nodded knowingly.
‘You don’t mean …’
‘I do. That’s what she says. You’d think she was ’aving quads she’s that big, so they say, and it’s early days yet apparently. I don’t know whether to tell Pat or not.’
Jimmy leaned across the table and pointed his finger at Vera. ‘You keep well out of it, understand? Don’t interfere. It could all be a tale. She could be naming him ’cos of his reputation; maybe she daren’t name who it really is.’
‘OK! So what if it’s true?’
‘Say nothing, please. Right? Just this once mind your own business.’
Willie, curiosity getting the better of him, asked, ‘Who is it anyways?’
Vera looked warily at Jimmy and then whispered, ‘Simone Paradise.’
Willie, amazed, shouted in a stage whisper: ‘Simone Par—’
Jimmy nudged him. ‘Shut up, keep yer voice down.’
‘I don’t believe it, I really don’t. Her and him have nothing in common.’
‘Well, they have now, or so she says!’ Vera chuckled and then tapped Jimmy’s arm, adding, ‘Pat’ll know soon enough, but I shan’t tell ’er. I’m off. Don’s bringing fish and chips home tonight, we’re warming ’em in the microwave when he gets back. Wish we had a fish and chip van here. Be grand, that would. Toodle-oo. We don’t get far but we do see life, don’t we?’ And she left the bar laughing.
Sure enough, Vera didn’t get the chance to tell Pat. She found out for herself the next morning.
Chapter 20
Pat went into the Store to have a quick check with Jimbo about when she would be required for his next list of functions. It was a busy morning and Jimbo and his assistant were having a hard time keeping up with the flow of customers. While she waited to speak to him, Pat wandered along the shelves trying to think of a little treat for Dean, seeing as he’d finished his exams. Chocolates? He liked them special ones in the gold boxes, but they were too expensive; he’d have the box finished inside five minutes. No, they wouldn’t do. What on earth could she buy for him? She’d reached the stationery shelves, and was thinking of a nice new pen when she bumped into Barry’s mother. They’d had an uneasy truce since Pat had informed her that she and Barry weren’t sharing a room on their holidays.
‘Morning, Pat.’
‘Morning, Mrs Jones. How’s things?’
‘Fine, thanks. I’m thinking of entering the shortbread competition – any chance I might win?’ She smiled a kind of crooked smile, half-teasing, half-serious.
‘With me on a winning streak, perhaps not.’ They both laughed. Then they fell to discussing the weather, the Roman ruins, the …
‘Hello, Grandma!’ A neighbour nudged Barry’s mother and chuckled.
‘Who are you calling Grandma?’
‘Not me, that’s for certain!’ Pat joked.
‘You,’ she nodded in Barry’s mother’s direction. ‘It’s you I’m meaning. Thought you’d have been the first to know.’
Mrs Jones drew herself up to her full height and asked for an explanation.
‘Oh dear, things is more serious than I thought. Not like you not to be in the know. It’s your Barry got her in the club, she says.’
Mrs Jones turned and looked piercingly at Pat, who replied by raising her eyebrows and shrugging her shoulders. Mrs Jones asked her sharply. ‘Do you know who she means?’
‘Don’t ask me, haven’t a clue.’
The neighbour nudged Mrs Jones again. ‘Yer know, Simone Paradise. It’s ’er – she says your Barry’s to blame.’
Pat went white as a sheet. Mrs Jones hit her neighbour a smart stinging slap across the face, followed by a swipe with her handbag, which sent the other woman’s bask
et spinning out of her hand and the contents all over the floor. A bottle of tonic water smashed and spewed its contents over Mrs Jones’s tights.
As she leaped back out of the way, Mrs Jones shouted, ‘Don’t you dare make disgusting accusations like that! Simone Paradise is a tart and my Barry would never go with a tart. My Barry’s a good boy. Whatever she says isn’t true. D’yer hear me? Not true!’
‘Ask him then. She swears it’s him. No good coming all indignant with me, the evidence is there for all to see. It’ll be number five. Course I’m not saying they’re all his, but …’
Mrs Jones almost boiled with anger. ‘None of ’em’s my Barry’s. Believe me.’
‘Little white hen that never laid away, is he? Come off it, Mrs Jones, we all know what your Barry’s like, and your Kenny,’ she paused for dramatic effect, ‘and your Terry.’ The whole store was listening and the air was filled with sniggers at this last statement.
Pat, who’d been standing white and shaking during this argument, turned on her heel at this and left. Jimbo called after her but she ignored him. He then went to sort out the row.
‘Now, ladies, shall we finish our shopping and then leave. I don’t like to have this kind of confrontation in here; it upsets the other customers.’
Someone waiting at the meat counter shouted, ’Yer wrong there, this is why we come in ’ere. Good bit of nice clean fun it is, better than the telly any day.’ There was a gale of laughter at this remark and Jimbo could feel things were definitely getting out of hand.
The neighbour said indignandy, ‘And who’s going to pay for this broken bottle? Not me, that’s for certain. Put it on Mrs Jones’s bill, will yer, Mr Charter-Plackett?’ She gave a triumphant smile in the direction of Mrs Jones, who writhed with indignation.
‘This is on me. No one pays for it. Just step out of the way and mind your shoes on the glass. Thank you, ladies.’
The assistant came to clear up the mess, and Jimbo returned to the till. Mrs Jones went home with her shopping only partly done; half her heart was feeling sorry for Pat, the other half for herself. She’d kill that neighbour of hers! No, she wouldn’t – she’d kill the neighbour’s pea plants instead. That would hurt her a lot more, watching her peas dying inch by inch, oh yes … a slow torturous death. Coming on lovely they were, be just right for the Show, ’cept she’d do for ’em once and for all. Saying that about her Barry. Weedkiller she’d put on ’em, all over ’em – the leaves, the stalks, every inch. She’d plenty in the shed, and she’d use it double strength. That’d sort her out.
Pat collected her bike from the school cycle shed and stormed home. Halfway up the drive she began to cry. That woman had punched a hole clean through her future. How could she have been such a fool as to think for one moment that he could have the slightest serious interest in her and her children? He’d been fooling her all this time. She’d been a complete and utter idiot. All the signs, everything she’d ever known about him she’d simply pushed to the back of her mind, ignored them, scorned them.
She’d believed all his talk about it being different with her, which come to think of it, it was. It really was. He’d never tried anything on. Always been restrained, even sometimes when she’d been tempted he’d said no. So what was he playing at? What’s more, what was Simone Paradise playing at? It was that French grandmother of hers who was to blame. The Paradises had always been a queer lot, but the French blood had made them even odder.
She was beautiful though, was Simone. That long dark hair, almost to her waist when she’d not taken the time to roll it up into that great plaited bun at the back. The slow swinging walk, with her layers of beads jingling at every step, the roll of her hips, the gaggle of little children at her long swaying skirts. Always dreamy, relaxed, come day go day. The children she dressed at Oxfam; Pat’s had been too, but Dean and Michelle didn’t manage to look like Simone’s kids, all peasant and gypsy-like. They said she and the children lived on pasta and beans. There were bins of them in the kitchen and great swathes of herbs hanging up to dry. Funny woman she was and not half.
In front of the mirror when she got home, Pat studied herself. OK, she was short, slimmer now since she’d dieted, though Barry said he liked something to get hold of so he didn’t want her to get too thin, brown hair cut short – in a thousand years hers would never grow as long as Simone’s – skin mediocre, nice straight nose, her mouth could be a bit more generous. Simone’s was rich and soft and moist and ruby red without the aid of lipstick, but he wouldn’t want that great gaggle of kids, would he? Oh no, Simone Paradise wouldn’t be a marriage proposition. He didn’t like pasta anyway – he’d told her as much. And that cottage was crammed to the thatch with kids, all of them in two bedrooms. Oh no! Pat Duckett was a better proposition from the point of view of comfort. Nice four-bedroomed house, all mod cons, two children soon off her hands, money in the bank. Oh yes, she could see right through it all now. He was coming for tea tonight … well, she’d show him!
She wore the long skirt she’d bought years ago and never had the brass cheek to wear, topped with a long baggy brown blouse from Oxfam – no, it was from Cancer Research. She put on four necklaces, the biggest, heaviest ones she could find, then carefully applied eye-liner and eye-shadow, leaving her skin smooth and shining. She put on every ring she could find, including some of Michelle’s, and then she boiled a great pan of pasta and emptied a large jar of tomato stuff onto the mince and added almost a whole tube of tomato purée. That’d show ’im.
When he came he politely made no comment at her appearance. She flung her arms round him and kissed him in front of the children and her dad. He returned her kiss, somewhat surprised because she was usually very circumspect about touching him in front of the family.
When they sat down to eat Michelle noticed her rings. ‘Mum! You’ve got my rings on!’
‘Only borrowed ’em, that’s all. Like pasta do yer, Barry?’
‘Er… yes thanks. I’m not keen on it usually, but this is good. Very tasty.’
‘Well, yer’ll be used to it, I daresay. They tell me she cooks a lot of it.’
‘Who does?’ He began to grow wary.
Grandad looked at the two of them. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing,’ Pat said as she shovelled pasta into her mouth, pretty certain it was going to work itself into a clump which she wouldn’t be able to swallow.
Barry stoically struggled with his food. He had a nasty feeling that Pat knew about the rumours. She hadn’t given him a chance to explain. He couldn’t in front of the kids, didn’t want them to lose faith in him.
‘Finished, Dad?’
‘Yes, thanks. Very nice that was – bit heavy on the tomato, but very nice.’
‘Well, now.’ Pat cleared away the plates leaving Barry’s because he hadn’t finished. ‘Lemon meringue pie?’ She looked round the table and Grandad, Dean and Michelle nodded their heads. ‘And what about you, Barry? Perhaps some goat’s cheese and oat biscuits with fresh fruit would be more to your liking – more natural-like?’
‘Mum!’ Michelle protested. She sensed things were wrong but couldn’t understand what.
Now Barry definitely knew she’d heard the rumours. But this new Pat had jammed up his ability to talk. He wasn’t on her wavelength at all. She came to stand beside him. His plate of pasta and mince was still not finished. He looked up at her. ‘Now, Pat, what’s up?’
‘What’s up? This is what’s up!’ She picked up his plate and emptied the contents on his head. Barry sat there, with tagliatelle and tomato sauce and meat sliding down his face.
‘Now get out.’
‘Mum! Mum! Don’t! Poor Barry! I’ll clean you up, Barry. She didn’t mean it, did yer, Mum?’
Pat ignored Michelle’s pleas. ‘Out, and don’t come back for the next thousand years.’ She leaped towards the back door and opened it wide. ‘Go on out. You lying, cheating sod. I can’t believe I was such a fool as to believe yer.’
Barry stood up. He’d
made no attempt to get the pasta and tomato sauce off himself, so it slid uncomfortably around his collar and down his shirt-front.
He slipped on a splodge of tomato sauce and almost fell, but Dean put a hand out to catch him. ‘Barry, don’t go.’
‘Don’t you dare stop ’im.’
Michelle began to cry. ‘Barry! Mum! Grandad, stop her, please!’
‘It’s nothing to do with me.’
‘It is! I want him for a dad.’
When Barry had left, Pat slammed the door after him, sat down and burst into tears.
Dean was angry. ‘Well, what made you do that?’
Through her tears Pat said, ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She dragged all the rings off her fingers and the beads from her neck. She scrubbed her eyes, smearing the eye make-up, then hauled Michelle’s flipflops from her feet and stood up and said, ‘You lot can clear this up. I’m off to bed.’
‘Mum, what have you turned him out for? What’s Barry done?’
‘Been spreading it around …’
Her father shouted, ‘Pat!’
Contrite, Pat sat down again. ‘I’m sorry. I thought I was the only one, but I’ve found out I’m not – he’s got someone else. I know you like Barry and want him for a dad but there’s things happened … and I’m not having it.’
Michelle wailed her disappointment. ‘I’ll never get a dad now. I want a dad. I want a dad. I want …’
‘Come and sit on your Grandad’s knee. Perhaps I’ll do for now.’
Michelle snuffled a little longer into her handkerchief and then decided to sit on his knee.
Dean argued she’d been too hard. ‘It was a nasty trick you played, Mum.’
‘What kind of a trick do you call what he’s been doing?’
‘But what’s he done? Or is it that you’ve listened to all those gossips in the Store that you talk about?’
Pat instandy realised the common sense of what Dean had said. But she brushed it aside because she was so angry. ‘Never you mind.’
Michelle gave a horrified shriek. ‘Our holidays! It’s all spoilt now because of you! I hate you, Mum! I hate you! I want Barry back!’
The Village Show (Tales from Turnham Malpas) Page 20
