by Angela Huth
Miss Pears looked down at her hands. They were indeed shaking, so that the bag made quite a noise.
‘I’m all nerves, going out,’ said Miss Pears, quietly, so that no one else should hear. She envied Mrs Grace her composure.’ Nothing seemed to shake her – outings, medical check-ups, anything. But then of course she’d lived in villages, she’d worked for the nobility, she’d probably experienced many a garden fête.
The first thing Miss Pears noticed when they arrived at the village green was the brass band. The musicians sat in a semicircle, legs apart, shaking spit from their instruments and flipping through their sheet music. In her excitement Miss Pears tightened her grip on her lunch bag and tore it at the corner.
Then, as she dithered down the steps, causing a lot of complaints from those behind her, the musicians struck up with Whenever you feel afraid.
‘Well I never,’ said Miss Pears to Mrs Grace. But Mrs Grace was thinking about something else and only answered, ‘Nasty sky.’ Then she turned away and waddled off in the direction of the church. Miss Pears considered shouting after her that she was going the wrong way, and to mind the road: but then she thought it wasn’t worth it.
She was left standing on her own, her mouth slightly open, looking up at the giant trees – terrible thing if one of them crashed down – and listening to the music. Then she noticed most of the people seemed to be herding towards something, past the band. She set off to follow them – something must be going on. Mrs Grace would miss it, but perhaps Mrs Grace had been to too many of these sort of things to mind.
Mrs Radcliffe wetted her lips as the applause died down at the end of Miss Warburton’s speech, and reset her smile. After a suitable pause, she began:
‘Ladies and gentlemen, I find it a great honour and pleasure to have been asked here today. As you know, I myself am a firm supporter and indeed a member of the Country Women’s Guilds, and I honestly believe that the day we open membership to men, your first new member will be my husband.’ (Small laugh. That line always went down well with women’s institutions.) ‘As you know, although he’s a very busy man, he takes a great interest in all our activities, and he has asked me to tell you how very sorry he is not to be able to be here today. But you know what a politician’s life is . . .’
Her eyes trailed round the listeners. A Miss Burrows, the district nurse, she recognised; the farmer, she forgot his name, from whom she used to buy free range eggs; a few strange mothers and children. And then a small woman with sloping shoulders and wide hips, hands lolling at her sides, a detached expression on her square face. Mrs Radcliffe found her eyes paused when they came upon this woman. There was something odd about her. Mrs Radcliffe hesitated, then returned to her speech with a jolt she hoped no one would notice.
‘Looking round –’ (she gave another quick look round, this time determined not to stop at the woman with the odd face) – ‘looking round there seems to be a most impressive display on the stalls, and I know how much trouble this means you must have all taken: what hard work behind the scenes it must have been.’ Her voice was rising. People at the back of the crowd were beginning to fidget. Bloody stupid of Miss Warburton not to have arranged a microphone. It was difficult enough to hold their attention . . .
Her own attention was on her listeners again. This time she caught sight of a woman a little apart from the crowd – a woman standing alone looking up at the trees, solid legs planted wide, blue scarf round her pudding face, hands clutching at a small paper bag. – Of course.
It was then that Mrs Radcliffe remembered. Well, it would make a lovely afternoon for them, poor things. She renewed her smile and decided, with a spontaneity unusual to her, to cut her speech short. A quick word about all the good work the Country Women’s Guilds do, and on with the opening.
‘And so I ask you to give as generously as you can to this very good cause. And now, I won’t keep you any longer from enjoying yourselves – and spending. And so it is, with great pleasure, I declare this fête open.’
Miss Pears heard the clapping – it sounded a little muted from where she stood – and gave a brief dab at her paper bag. She could see a small girl with a satin bow in her hair shuffling up to the lady in the big hat and smart red coat. The child curtsied and handed the lady a beautiful posy of carnations and fern in a twist of silver paper. The lady laughed, and held it up to her lapel. It was a pretty sight, thought Miss Pears. She wondered if her niece Janet’s little girl would be about that age now.
The crowd round the table began to break up and make for the stalls. Miss Pears noticed several of her lot seemed hesitant, dithery, compared with the villagers. Well, she for one knew where she was going. The home-made cakes.
She walked towards a stall under one of the largest trees, the long thick grass tickling her ankles above her shoes. But when she managed to reach the stall, pushing her way through the nattering women, there were no cakes, but only second-hand clothes. Hands were holding them up: a very large bathing suit with boned breasts, and a tatty old scarf, no better than a duster, blew in the breeze. Nothing that Miss Pears wanted. A lot of old rubbish. She saw Mrs Grace nearby, sniffing at the stuff, not touching anything – so she knew that she was right about that. It was a lot of old rubbish.
She turned, and made her way to another stall. This time she found the right one, a long trestle table covered with tantalising cakes. It was difficult to take them all in at a glance, with people shoving and pushing and asking the price. But there was a particular one which caught Miss Pears’ fancy: chocolateiced and decorated with a swirl of pink sugar roses. It was hard to tell, just looking, whether the icing was soft or hard. If it was soft, she’d have it. She put out a finger to prod it, very gently – she wouldn’t harm it in any way, of course, just test the icing, when a lady with a biting voice behind the table snapped: ‘No touching please.’
Miss Pears’ finger whipped back in fright. She’d meant no harm. Oh well, have to risk the icing. She took out her purse. The ticket on the chocolate cake said 35p. She tipped all her coins into the palm of her hand, still holding her paper bag, all very awkward. She began calculating in her head. Counting the odd coins was difficult because the paper bag got in the way, and yet if she didn’t put her finger on them she forgot which number she’d got up to. Very muddling. She realised, though, if she bought the chocolate cake, and she could just manage it, there’d be precious little over for tea. Though of course that didn’t matter so much, seeing as she’d still got her lunch.
Miss Pears was about to ask the snappy lady if she could have the chocolate cake when the people around the stall suddenly began to drift apart, as if to make way for someone. Miss Pears turned round. There before her, so close she was almost touching, was the lady in the big hat and the red coat, the posy of carnations pinned to her lapel now. The lady gave a huge smile, her lips all glossy red. She seemed not to be looking at Miss Pears, though, but at the snappy lady behind the counter.
‘What lovely cakes!’ From under the big hat her voice brayed, close-to. ‘I must take some home for the children. They’re real fiends for cakes.’
‘There’s a good selection, isn’t there?’ A middle-aged woman in silk polka dots edged up to the lady in the red coat. She had a kind face under a shiny straw hat that danced with cherries.
‘Which ones will you have, Mrs Radcliffe?’
The snappy woman’s voice was all sweetness now. Miss Pears’ hands tightened on her paper bag and her coins and her empty purse. Several people craned forward to get a good view of Mrs Radcliffe’s decision.
‘Well, I don’t know, do you? It’s so difficult to decide.’ She put a navy blue finger to her chin then suddenly pointed it very fast at several different cakes. ‘That, that, that, that, and er, that, I think.’ She took a £5 note from her bag and handed it over the counter. ‘Why don’t you keep the change as my contribution to the afternoon?’
‘Well, that’s really very kind of you, Mrs Radcliffe,’ the snappy woman glowed.
‘Thank you so much, Mrs Radcliffe. We’ll get Mrs Radcliffe’s cakes boxed up, won’t we, Mrs Leigh, and get someone to put them in her car?’ The nice lady with the cherry hat sounded efficient. ‘Would you care to come and look at the garden produce, now, Mrs Radcliffe?’
The two ladies, red coat and polka dots, moved away. Miss Pears stood by the stall and watched Miss Leigh snatch up the five chosen cakes, including the chocolate one, and put them under the table. Without them, it was almost bare. A couple of dull sponges left, sprinkled with icing sugar, and a weedy looking jam roll. Miss Pears began to put her coins back into her purse. Then she opened the paper bag to check on the bacon, shining pinkly through its piece of greaseproof paper. She might as well go and have her lunch.
Miss Warburton was privately disappointed by the bring-and-buy stall. There, not much imagination had been shown – tinned pears, dishcloths, a silver painted horseshoe, a baby’s dummy. Mrs Radcliffe had had quite a difficult time choosing anything. Eventually, she had settled for a bottle of tomato ketchup.
Miss Warburton was also disappointed in the weather, as she kept repeating to Mrs Radcliffe.
‘Just our luck, after so many good Saturdays.’
‘Well, at least it isn’t raining.’ Mrs Radcliffe made it quite clear, by her determined step, there was no point in her stopping at the second-hand stall. Miss Warburton took the hint, and didn’t suggest it. Instead she guided her guest of honour towards the village hall, where she could be certain a good tea had been laid on.
The band struck up again, this time Getting to know you. They seemed to have a particular liking for the music of the fifties. Mrs Radcliffe sprang a little on the balls of her feet, in time to the music.
‘My husband and I used to dance to this before we were married,’ she said. Anything to get off the weather.
‘Really? How very interesting.’ Miss Warburton herself hadn’t danced for fifty years.
The village hall was a bare, lofty place which smelt of newlyscrubbed wood and warm scones. Mrs Radcliffe noticed that its high windows were edged with skimpy maroon curtains, and she wondered why it was that nine out of ten village halls she went to chose that particular colour for their curtains. She’d have to tell Christopher.
A couple of dozen tables were laid with white cloths and jam jars of cow-parsley and honeysuckle: someone had taken a lot of trouble. Extra chairs lined the walls of the hall, and on the stage a trestle table was stacked with thick white cups and home-made things. Miss Warburton introduced Mrs Radcliffe to the tea helpers, and pressed her to choose a lot to eat. But Mrs Radcliffe picked only one salmon fishpaste sandwich, besides her cup of tea. Miss Warburton laughed understandingly.
‘We all have to think of our figures, don’t we?’ Then she waved her hands in a flurry as she saw Mrs Radcliffe beginning to open her bag. ‘No, no, please! Tea on the house.’ Mrs Radcliffe thought it wise to accept the offer with no fuss.
She and Miss Warburton wound their way through the tables, nodding at people, looking for a free seat. Mrs Radcliffe noticed that the woman who wouldn’t budge out of her way at the cake stall sat at a table alone. But instead of eating the provided tea, she seemed to be having trouble cracking a hard-boiled egg on the table. Miss Warburton hurried past all the tables that were occupied by only one, drab woman, and finally asked Mrs Radcliffe if she would care to join the Bennet sisters at their table. They were the people responsible for the raffle. Miss Warburton knew they would be honoured if Mrs Radcliffe would be so kind as to call out the winning numbers. Mrs Radcliffe cheerfully agreed to do this. She calculated that could decently be her last duty. She could still be home by five-thirty. She began to nibble her sandwich.
Miss Pears had never come across such a tough-shelled egg. She banged it on the table, thwacked it on her knee, but it wouldn’t break. In the end, with great patience, she lay it on her plate, waited till it stopped rolling about – till it was quite, quite still, then crashed her fist down upon it with all her force. This caused not just the shell to break, but also the white and even the hard boiled yolk. Miss Pears began picking at the shattered bits, peeling away small chunks of white from small pieces of shell.
She noticed, meanwhile, that quite a lot of her bus-load sat at tables by themselves, while the villagers chose tables with their friends and sat together. The child who had given the lady the flowers passed nearby Miss Pears’ table. She held out a small chip of egg to her and the child smiled. But then a fat woman snatched at the child’s arm and hurried her away to the other end of the hall.
Still, she was happy with her lunch, on her own. She liked to eat alone. That’s why she always saved her meals till past the proper meal times. No one seemed to mind. Perhaps they didn’t notice.
All the others seemed quite happy, too, as far as she could tell. There was Lily, at the next table, squinting over her pile of sausage rolls. She’d always been greedy as a pig, Lily, and her table manners were nothing to write home about, either. When the lady in the red coat passed her table, Lily looked up, still chewing, mouth still open, with no respect at all. Then her eyes watered – she couldn’t take bright colours, they always hurt – and the tears trickled down her face.
Mrs Grace, Miss Pears noticed, had chosen one of the chairs at the edge of the hall. But then she wasn’t eating anything, just sipping a cup of tea. Miss Pears looked at her quite hard. There was something up with Mrs Grace, she could tell. She had that look in her eye. She’d been obliging for so many days, too: perhaps the time was up. Miss Pears looked round for the Supervisor – not that she ever listened to anyone, stubborn old bitch, but it would be worth giving her a hint about Mrs Grace. However, the Supervisor was nowhere in sight, so Miss Pears began on her bacon.
As soon as she had finished her lunch she made her way to the stage to choose her tea. On the way she passed Mrs Grace.
‘Coming up for something to eat?’ she asked. Mrs Grace didn’t answer, or didn’t seem to have heard. ‘There’s some lovely gingerbread,’ Miss Pears went on, ‘and scones. Shall I treat you to something?’
Still Mrs Grace didn’t answer. Instead she got up, as if Miss Pears didn’t exist, put her unfinished tea on her seat, and left the hall. She’d always been unpredictable. Muttering to herself that there were some people who looked a gift horse in the mouth, Miss Pears climbed the stage. She decided to spend every penny she had on tea.
Half an hour later, feeling pleasantly full, she made her way back to the village green. She had no money left, so there was nothing else she could buy. She would sit on the grass beside the band and listen, until the Supervisor told them to get back into the bus.
Outside, the sky was darker, the green of the trees and hedges more vivid. Miss Pears shuddered. Sometimes, millions of pellets of sky, black as soot, streamed through her eyes, her mouth, her nose, till she could hardly breathe, and her hands and feet went icy cold. She hadn’t had an attack like that, mind, for several weeks now: not since they’d been giving her those new red pills. But she didn’t like anything black: it always reminded her.
She walked carefully back to the band, heavy with tea. It swayed and gurgled in her stomach, a comforting sound.
But the musicians weren’t there: probably gone for tea themselves. They’d left their instruments propped up against their chairs, their peaked caps on the seats, their sheet music making little snapping noises as the breeze pecked at the pages.
Mrs Grace sat on one of the seats, in the front row. Her feet, not quite touching the ground, swung backwards and forwards, hitting a trombone. She stared into space, sulky looking. Still, Miss Pears thought, might as well have a go at her.
‘Understand the music?’ she asked. No answer from Mrs Grace. ‘I used to be able to play a few notes, years ago.’ She paused again. Mrs Grace just didn’t seem to be interested in anything today.
Oh well. She’d tried. Nobody could say she hadn’t. Anyhow, here was the band coming back. Now Mrs Grace would have to budge.
‘Had a nice sit-down, have you?’ he asked. ‘Afraid I’ve got to shift you now. Back to work.’
Mrs Grace took no notice of him. She stared unblinking at his stand of music. The man touched her shoulder.
‘Come on, now, love. Up you get.’ The conductor was tapping his stick impatiently on his knee. Everyone was looking at Mrs Grace, now. The man with the red beard tried again.
‘I said come on, dear. Very sorry and all that. Up – you get.’ He tried to lever her gently up from the chair.
But with startling speed Mrs Grace leapt to her feet herself, spun round, picked up the slatted chair, brandished it for a moment above in the air, then brought it crashing down upon his head.
‘Bugger off, you fucking creep,’ she screamed. ‘No one’s going to bloody turn me off a fucking chair if I bloody want to be on it.’
Her voice ripped the heavy air. At once every member of the band stood. The conductor edged forward to protect his trombonist, whose face was scattered with blood from his head: it streamed down into his beard. The conductor tapped Mrs Grace on the shoulder with his stick.
‘Now, now, madam, we don’t want any trouble –’
‘And as for you, you toady old bit of bullshit –’
She lashed out at the conductor with hands tightened into claws, and kicked at his shins.
Miss Pears was aware that all at once everyone at the fête seemed to be crowding round Mrs Grace and the musicians. All her lot had appeared from nowhere, very fast it must have been: usually they moved quite slowly. There was Lily, eyes full of water, screaming abuse at the whole band: Wendy the Egg running round and round in small circles, cackling with laughter, her head quite bald: her wig must have fallen off somewhere. Barbara the Giant was standing on a chair, almost as tall as the oak trees, fists clenched, ready to punch someone: Annie and Mavis, hand in hand as usual, stamping their gym shoes – when it came to revolt against authority, they were a loyal lot, the girls.
