‘Neither can I.’
‘Say goodnight, Dicky.’
‘Goodnight.’ He longed to hold her in his arms, feel her comfort, comfort her.
Georgie took hold of his hand and squeezed it. ‘That’s all for now. I’ve got to think. It’s been so sudden. Whatever can have caused it? He seemed to be in good health. Never ailed a thing for years.’
‘Heart gave out, I expect.’ He held her hand in both his. ‘See you in the morning. Don’t worry about the pub. Bel and I will keep things going. You can rely on us. Goodnight, love.’
Georgie picked up her drink and began to sip it as though he weren’t even in the room. So Dicky left, numb with heartache.
He remained numb with heartache for what seemed like an age. They had to wait for the result of the post-mortem, yet keep the pub going as cheerfully as they could, order this, cancel that, pay wages, pay bills, this and that, that and this, all of it pointless or so it felt. The least that could be said for it was that it occupied his mind and, for a while, stopped him brooding. Dicky didn’t dare talk about the future, nor the past come to that; in fact, he didn’t dare talk about anything at all to anyone. Georgie stayed on at Grandmama’s so they never got a chance to talk in depth. He couldn’t, not with Grandmama’s eagle eye on him. She didn’t say it but he knew she was thinking that she wouldn’t put up with any hanky panky under her roof. Not that he and Georgie ever got near it. There seemed to be something strange and alien keeping them from being close. Maybe it was the ghost of Bryn ever present between them. Perhaps after the funeral his ghost would go to rest.
Dicky was right. Bryn’s funeral closed a chapter in his life, in all their lives and at last the way forward felt clear. As Georgie had said, the old wood had been done away with. Overnight Dicky got back his bouncy happiness and Georgie looked as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She was more lively than she had been for a long time and regained a lot of her old sparkle. Two nights after the funeral Georgie moved back into the Royal Oak, and she and Bel and Dicky kept to the old routine: Bel sleeping at the pub and Dicky in number one Glebe Cottages.
There was plenty of nudging and winking going on behind the tinned soups in the Village Store as they had all fully expected that Dicky, now Georgie was a widow, would move in with her, but he didn’t. Somehow Georgie wasn’t ready for it, not yet. She’d explained to Dicky how she felt. ‘I want to make a completely new start with you and I’m not quite ready yet. Bryn dying like he did, so suddenly, I didn’t have time to get used to the idea and I haven’t yet. I won’t have you marrying half a person, because that’s how I feel at the moment, only half a person.’
Dicky, being the romantic he was, could understand that and he didn’t want half a person either.
‘I’ve cleared his wardrobe and removed all his things from Liz and Neville’s but I haven’t quite got rid of him.’
Dicky, fearing his clothes might turn up at the Scout Jumble Sale, asked, ‘Where have you taken his things?’
‘To Oxfam. Where else?’
Dicky nodded. ‘I see. It won’t be long, though, will it? Before we marry?’
Georgie put her hands on his shoulders. ‘No, it won’t be long. But we’ll have a very quiet wedding, very early in the morning, just us, and after we’ll slip away for a few days’ honeymoon. Then I shall have to get used to being Mrs Georgina Tutt.’
‘Blessed day.’
‘You see, if we marry too soon after Bryn, people will think we were glad to see him go. Which I wasn’t in a way, because he was doing everything we asked of him and you must admit he had changed a lot. He was much nicer to know, the divorce was going through and he was doing his best to make things right for you and me.’
‘I admit he did seem to have discovered his heart.’ Dicky grinned at her.
‘He did discover it and all because of you. And he regretted so much that afternoon when, you know, we … he really was very cut up about how badly you felt about him and me …’
Dicky placed a finger on her lips to stop her going any further. He really couldn’t take the wraps off that particular discovery, it still hurt. ‘I don’t want to hear about that. Let’s put that behind us for ever, right now. There’s only you and me to think about now, no one else.’
‘You’re right. Just you and me. But there is also Bel. Dicky, will she be all right, do you think, living back in Glebe Cottages on her own?’
Georgie saw a twinkle in Dicky’s eyes. ‘I’ve an idea she won’t be living there on her own for very long.’
Surprised, Georgie asked, ‘She won’t?’
‘Remember the chap called Trevor who used to deliver the bread and then got taken on in management? Well, Bel and he’ – Dicky crossed two fingers – ‘they’re like that and I think there’ll be wedding bells before long.’
Georgie was aghast. ‘I’d no idea. She’s kept that quiet. How’s she going to fit in a husband as well as working at the Store, helping here and school caretaking? She’ll never manage it.’
‘No, I think you’ll be looking for a new dining-room manager and the school a new caretaker.’
‘Well I never. She never mentions him.’
‘Made a mess of it first time round and it makes you cautious, doesn’t it, I expect.’
‘Give me a kiss.’
‘What for?’
‘For being such an understanding man.’
After the disastrous meeting about modernising the village no one had the heart to pursue the matter with the council, nor even to call another meeting, but Mr Fitch hadn’t allowed the problem to disappear from his agenda. He knew the wheels of local government turned slowly but like an elephant they never forgot, and one day they would arrive with all the paraphernalia of modern city life on a couple of wagons, and he’d worried about it on and off ever since Bryn’s sudden demise. Then all at once, in a flash of inspiration, he saw a part solution which might satisfy Miss Pascoe and also Angie Turner, and deter the council from going completely off the rails.
He set about the scheme the very next day. It involved, to begin with, getting Angie Turner on side. He debated whether or not to tackle our Kev too but decided he’d had enough backhanders recently and that he was getting far too greedy. No, he’d have to go direct, straight to the top with a generous plan, nothing to do with road safety at all on the face of it. But it would help the environment. After all, the main problem was the number of vehicles. Cut down on those and what possible reason could there be for large-scale capital investment in traffic control? Then he remembered Miss Pascoe. Drat the woman. She was a stumbling block and a half, and no mistake. He spent a distracted morning with the question of Miss Pascoe at the forefront of his mind. Then inspiration! Of course! Tactics.
So that lunchtime he arrived at the school and reorganised the supervisory duties so that Miss Pascoe was free to lunch with him at the Royal Oak. She brusquely refused alcohol of any kind as she was teaching in the afternoon, but she did listen to his plans. A complete refurbishing of the computer situation at the school, which he knew was dear to her heart, and also he, personally, would subsidise a reinstated minibus service to bring the children in from outlying villages and farms. ‘One from the Little Derehams direction and the other from Penny Fawcett. How about that for an idea?’
‘And the computers?’
‘No more second-hand gear like that I gave you before. Up-to-the-minute technology. Cross my heart. Scanners, whatever you want.’
‘All this is if I agree to the minibus idea?’
Mr Fitch had to smile. ‘Well, fair’s fair. This way everyone gets satisfaction.’
‘You are a rogue. An absolute rogue. No minibus, no computers.’ Her eyes twinkled, which took the sting out of her uncompromising statement.
‘Something like that.’ Mr Fitch grinned like a cheerful schoolboy caught out in a scam. ‘Say yes!’
Miss Pascoe placed her knife and fork side by side, dabbed her lips with her napkin, then looked
into those frosty light-blue eyes of his and said, ‘I see nothing changes with you, you’re always the same year in year out, nothing stops your scheming, evil mind from working overtime.’
‘I take exception to that last remark. I’m only trying to do my best to help everyone. The village, the school, the children. Be fair.’
‘If the staff agree, then yes. They feel just as strongly as I about the safety of the children, you know. They back me every step of the way.’
‘Good! I’ve got to get the parents on my side. I’m sure they won’t mind paying a small fixed sum to save them having to turn out twice every day to get the children to school and home again. That Angie Turner has a long walk, poor girl, having no car.’
‘She’s a firebrand, but nobody’s fool. Been very upset by Bryn’s death.’
‘Haven’t we all?’
Miss Pascoe looked at her watch. ‘Got to get back.’
‘No time for pudding?’
‘Sorry. No. Must go. I think we can say yes to your diabolical scheme.’
He smiled to himself. ‘I thought you would. I’m off to give Angie Turner a ride to school in my car.’
‘Take her home too, it’s only fair.’
Mr Fitch hesitated. ‘You’re a dragon, that’s what you are. I’ll be seeing you.’
‘Thanks for lunch! An even bigger thank you for being so generous.’
‘Not at all. My pleasure.’
Miss Pascoe got to her feet, picked up her bag and said mischievously, ‘Just hope Angie’s two-year-old twins haven’t got sticky fingers.’
‘Eh, what?’
Miss Pascoe laughed when she heard Mr Fitch groan as she left the dining room.
Jimbo stood tidying his souvenir display and thinking about poor Bryn. Such plans, cut down in a moment. Massive blood clot finding its way to his heart. Maybe he’d better start running again with Peter, but he’d begin slowly and build up. Jimbo recalled those early-morning winter runs, when the fields were covered with a light frost and the trees bathed in icy crystals, like a winter wonderland for fairies. He picked up one of the tins of sweets and studied the picture on the lid of the beck on the spare land and the little footbridge over it, and the huge beech trees in the background, and loved it. He smoothed his hand over a framed picture of the church with the words ‘St Thomas à Becket, Turnham Malpas’ on a small label attached to the mount. He chose a red pencil from the display and lovingly read the words on the side. ‘All in such good taste,’ Harriet had said with her tongue in her cheek, when she saw them for the first time. He chuckled. What would he do without her?
One of Vince Jones’s doorstops caught his eye next and he stroked the decorative knob stuck to the end of it. He held it in his hand as though about to place it under a door when the thought struck him. Good grief! It was the third week in September! Third week! That rang bells. What on earth was it? He slapped his forehead with his open hand. Of course! My God! Bryn’s tour. He checked the date on his watch. Four days and they’d be here.
But no one to meet them at Gatwick. No one to conduct the tour. ‘Linda! Got to go. Won’t be ten minutes. Hold the fort!’
‘But the mothers will be in soon, I can’t …’
She was too late. Jimbo had gone, running across the green as though the devil himself were in hot pursuit. He hammered on the back door of the pub. ‘Georgie! Georgie!’
He heard the bolts being dragged back and the key being turned, and there in front of him stood Georgie still in her dressing gown. ‘Sorry! Sorry! But I’ve just had a thought.’
Georgie stepped back to let him in. ‘It’d better be good.’
Jimbo answered, ‘Depends on how you look at it. Georgie, Bryn’s tour, aren’t they due in four days’ time?’
Georgie looked at him as though he’d said the Martians were due any minute. ‘Tour? Oh, good grief. Yes. You’re right. They are. Never gave it a thought.’
‘Paperwork. Was there any paperwork with his stuff at Neville’s?’
Georgie tapped her head with her fingers. ‘Can’t think. If I find it what are we going to do? I can’t conduct a tour.’
‘I’ll do it.’
‘No, no, we’ll have to cancel.’
‘Too late. We’ve scarcely time to let the customers know, anyway. Meals, theatre tickets, no, it’s easier to run the tour. The hotels will want paying in full, at such short notice, and they weren’t cheap hotels, were they?’
‘No. My God! They weren’t. What are we to do?’
‘First, find Bryn’s paperwork, then we’ll decide. Must fly, Linda’s on her own.’
‘Right.’
‘When you’ve found his files give me a buzz.’
Jimbo fled back to the Store, his head whirling with ideas. If push came to shove he’d conduct the tour himself. He would. Yes, he would. Could be fun. Give him a break.
Harriet, having delivered Fran to school, was already in the kitchens behind the Store making the icing for a wedding cake order. She turned to smile at him as she heard his footsteps. ‘Where’ve you been, might I ask?’
Jimbo explained. Harriet listened open-mouthed. He concluded with, ‘So I shall do the tour for him.’
‘You will?’
‘Yes. Can’t be that difficult. Just need to read his files, get to grips with the itinerary, ring ahead and away you go.’
‘Poor Bryn. Poor Bryn. He intended making his fortune with his tours. Probably would have done, too.’ Harriet stood gazing out of the window on to the garden. ‘Remember Stocks Day? Me saying I’d seen him? It was such a shock. Poor Bryn.’
‘God rest his soul. He’d be delighted to know we were going ahead with it, though, wouldn’t he?’
Harriet smiled. ‘Yes, of course he would. Yes, that’s the best thing to do. A kind of tribute to him, wouldn’t it be?’
Jimbo nodded. ‘Yes, he’d have liked the idea of that.’ Jimbo dipped his finger into the icing. ‘Yes, Bryn would be delighted.’ He licked his finger clean. ‘That’s good.’
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2002 by Orion.
This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books.
Copyright © Rebecca Shaw 2002
The right of Rebecca Shaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 4016 0
Orion Books
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
www.orionbooks.co.uk
A Village Dilemna (Turnham Malpas 09) Page 25
