Last Walk Home

‘I’m going to let Heather share my kitten,’ Jill told Mr Pickthorn.

‘That’s right,’ he said approvingly. ‘It’s good to share.’ He took a bag of sweets from his pocket and all three of them dug into the bag with pleasure.

The girls went off a few minutes later with their arms round each other’s shoulders. The curve of the lane took them out of George’s vision before they reached the cottages.

There was the sound of a vehicle approaching along the Hayford road and George glanced towards the school. Prompt as always at half past four Rachel Lloyd, the headmaster’s wife, drove up in her old blue station wagon to collect her husband. As she turned into the playground George gave her his usual wave and Rachel waved back at him in friendly fashion.

This was George’s customary signal for tea. He went round to the rear of the bungalow and put down his secateurs and gardening gloves on the seat in the back porch. In this fine sunny weather he liked to come out again for an hour or two in the evening, after he’d cleared away his tea-things and listened to the news.

Inside the school Henry Lloyd heard the station wagon and at once began to lock up. In the classroom next door Janet Marshall also heard the car. She had already finished her own locking up and she came out of her classroom and handed her keys to Mr Lloyd.

‘On your way home,’ he said, ‘I wonder if you’d be kind enough to call in at Mrs Abell’s cottage and give her a message from me?’ In addition to her other activities Heather’s mother acted as school cleaner and caretaker; neither job occupied a great deal of time.

‘Yes, of course,’ Janet said.

‘Ask her if she’ll be sure to give the cloakroom a good turn-out this evening.’ The headmaster’s face looked strained and weary. ‘Please don’t imply any criticism of her work, she can’t be expected to perform miracles in the time she’s allowed – but the cloakroom has got rather grubby and it makes a bad impression.’

‘I’ll be suitably diplomatic,’ Janet promised. She went back to her classroom to pick up her things. As she came out of the front door a moment later she gave Mrs Lloyd – sitting waiting in the station wagon – a little wave and spoke a word of greeting. Mrs Lloyd nodded and smiled in reply.

Rachel Lloyd was a large, vigorous-looking woman, a couple of years older than her husband but looking somewhat younger than him. Her thick chestnut hair, lightly streaked with grey, was drawn back into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck; she had the fresh complexion and clear skin of a countrywoman.

Janet walked unhurriedly out of the playground and turned right, in the direction of Rose Cottage. As she passed Brookside she saw that Mr Pickthorn had gone in as usual for his tea. She paused for a moment to admire his delphiniums. They were very fine, a dozen or more delicate shades of blue, a colour she particularly liked in a garden; she must definitely try to grow some at Rose Cottage.

She walked on up the lane and turned in at the gate of the first of the pair of cottages. These were a good deal more modern than Rose Cottage, they had been built shortly after the First World War.

No. 1 was an exact twin of its partner except that it sported a magnificent white jasmine clothing the end wall and a blue ceanothus in full flower in the front garden. The late Mr Abell had been a keen gardener and had taken many prizes at local shows. He had tended the garden up at Mayfield Farm in addition to his duties there as stockman.

The light drifting fragrance of the jasmine greeted Janet as she walked up to the front porch. Mrs Abell’s mother, Mrs Perrin, kept a large rocking-chair on the porch in summer, she liked to sit out there knitting on warm afternoons. The chair was empty now, the knitting laid down on the cushions. The front door stood propped open by a large stone and Janet could see Mrs Perrin in the kitchen, standing ironing at the table in the middle of the room. She glanced up at the sound of footsteps and saw Janet coming up the path.

‘Do come in, Miss Marshall,’ she called out. She was a short, heavily-built woman in her middle sixties with coarse grey hair pulled up into a great bun on top of her head. She was solid and unflappable, healthy and active enough in spite of some trouble with her legs, stout tree-trunk legs encased even in the summer heat in thick stockings, to disguise the veins knotted and corded from years of standing over ironing-boards, cookers, sinks. She more than pulled her weight in the household.

‘I expect you want to see my daughter,’ she said as Janet stepped across the threshold. The kitchen smelt of warm ironing and ancient horsehair upholstery – from the two huge sagging black armchairs standing one at each side of the hearth. ‘She’s out in the garden, picking peas.’ Mrs Perrin nodded towards the long back garden carefully planted in geometric rows of vegetables, bordered by sternly disciplined bushes and fruit trees. ‘Heather’s next door, playing with Jill Bryant.’

‘I’ll go out and speak to Mrs Abell, if I may,’ Janet said after a civil enquiry after Mrs Perrin’s health. She went out through the kitchen door.

A belt of tall, thickly-grown trees encircled the far end of the two gardens, completely screening them from Rose Cottage. Halfway down the garden Janet could see Mrs Abell kneeling among the onions and carrots. She stood up suddenly and darted off to a row of peas, she stooped and began filling her wooden trug with plump young pods.

She was a little scuttling, sideways-glancing woman, colourless and careworn, full of anxieties about life, about managing, averting trouble and disaster. Bad enough when her husband was alive but ten times worse after he fell down dead five years ago from a totally unexpected heart attack among the plant pots and the wooden staging in one of the Mayfield greenhouses.

Janet delivered the headmaster’s message and Mrs Abell promised to give particular attention to the cloakroom. As Janet turned to walk back through the garden the two girls, Jill and Heather, came out of the back door of the adjoining cottage and ran down the garden, throwing a ball to each other, laughing and squealing. They caught sight of Janet across the fence and came to a sudden stop.

‘Hello, Miss Marshall!’ Jill cried and Heather gave her a smile. Janet waved and smiled in reply but said nothing and continued on her way.

Jill’s mother, Mrs Bryant, was standing in the back doorway of her cottage. ‘You’re not to pester Miss Marshall,’ she said to the girls in an easy, tolerant tone as soon as Janet had passed out of earshot. ‘I’m sure she sees enough of you children during the day, she must be allowed some peace.’ She yawned widely. ‘I’m going upstairs now for a nap. Don’t get up to any mischief and don’t go making a lot of noise.’

She went slowly upstairs. On her wedding-day twenty-one years ago Mollie Bryant had been slender and pretty with a fine skin, corn-coloured hair and bright blue eyes. She’d put on a great deal of weight since then. Her hair had darkened and she’d taken to bleaching it; it was now a harsh brassy colour. Her skin had grown lined and weather-beaten and had developed a permanent shade of light brick from stooping over the oven in her kitchen.

She was fond of cooking and served a substantial high tea every evening when her husband and son came in. Nowadays she felt more and more the need to toil upstairs out of the hot kitchen in the sultry afternoons, put on something loose and cool, lie down and close her eyes. She opened the bedroom door and began to unbutton her dress; five minutes later she was fast asleep.

Shortly before six her husband Ken walked down from Mayfield Farm for his tea. He would go back again afterwards to work in the turkey sheds for an hour or two.

He came through a wicket gate set in the screen of trees and walked up the back garden towards the house. He was a tall, powerfully-built man in his late forties, with straight black hair sleeked back from his forehead and dark bushy eyebrows meeting across his nose. His sleeves were rolled up, showing muscular brown arms with a strong growth of black hair.

The two girls ran up to him, besieging him with questions about the kitten.

‘I can’t bring it home for another day or two,’ he said, laughing as Jill swung on his arm. ‘We can’t take it from its mother yet – you don’t want the poor creature dying on you.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ Jill said reluctantly. She went with him into the house and Heather ran home next door for her tea.

Ken pushed open the back door and went into the kitchen. Mollie had already come downstairs again, somewhat refreshed after her nap. She hadn’t bothered to comb her hair or powder her face – she wasn’t going anywhere and she wasn’t expecting visitors. She had merely slipped on a cotton kimono and thrust her bare and unlovely feet into a pair of flat mules.

She had laid the table and was now busy cutting bread. ‘You’re back then,’ she said to her husband in ritual greeting, looking up at him with a cheerful smile.

He gave her a nod, mastering his irritation at her slatternly appearance. He had to discipline himself these days not to snap at her. He’d tried friendly suggestion, diplomatic hints, outright advice that she should lose weight, do something about her hair, her skin, her clothes. He still felt it not impossible that out of that slack flesh, the lines and folds, the slim nymph of twenty-one years ago might somehow be conjured up again.

But none of his efforts produced the slightest effect. ‘I’m not a girl any more,’ Mollie said with easy acceptance. ‘Can’t expect to stay young and beautiful for ever.’

Ken made a stern effort now to speak amiably to her as he went over to the sink to scrub his hands. ‘Warm old day,’ he said. ‘We’ll end up with a storm if this keeps on.’

‘I wouldn’t mind a drop of rain.’ She began to butter the bread. ‘It’d cool things down.’

He studied her reflection in the mirror above the sink. The kimono was gaily coloured with a jazzy design in lemon, apricot and orange. Mollie had always had a fondness for bright colours and they’d suited her well enough when she was a girl. She had bought the kimono on holiday a couple of years ago to wear on the beach, now it was downgraded to housewear in hot weather. The belt kept slipping and the kimono fell apart periodically to reveal a dingy nylon petticoat straining across her bosom before she clutched the folds about her again and refastened the belt. He dried his hands on the roller towel, closing his eyes briefly against a glimpse of vast bare thighs, quilted and dimpled, pale as lard.

The roar of a motorbike sounded in the lane, growing louder as Dave Bryant drove up to the cottage, dying away again as he parked the machine at the side of the house. He came in through the back door a couple of minutes later, carrying his crash helmet under his arm.

‘Hello, Mum, Dad.’ He grinned at Jill. He was a sturdy lad of twenty, nothing special in the way of looks, a frank, intelligent face and a generally likeable air, the kind of lad an employer would probably engage on sight.

He was apprenticed to a Cannonbridge firm of builders on a day-release scheme, working three days a week for the firm and spending the other two days at the local technical college. He was an industrious lad and a good student, he had taken more than one prize.

‘Sit down, everyone!’ Mrs Bryant commanded. She patted her frizzed hair into place and began to dish up. They all ate with keen appetite, there was never any trouble with finicky eaters at Mollie’s table.

‘This is a very good rhubarb tart,’ Dave said with keen appreciation towards the end of the meal. He and Jill never regarded their mother with criticism, they took her as she was, not having known her in her willow-slim, com-gold days.

‘I’ll bake you a couple of tarts for the party on Friday if you like,’ Mrs Bryant offered expansively. The party was an end-of-term social at Dave’s college and she’d already promised half a dozen goodies.

‘Oh yes, please,’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘That’d be great.’

‘Are you inviting Clive to the party?’ Jill asked her brother.

‘I did ask him,’ Dave said without much interest, ‘but I don’t think he’ll come. He said he’d let me know.’

‘You should try to persuade him,’ Mrs Bryant said as she stood up to fetch a massive fruit cake from the larder. ‘He never goes anywhere, he sticks in those digs all the time, making his models – it can’t be healthy for a lad of his age.’

Clive Egan was twenty-one years old, the only surviving child of Mrs Bryant’s cousin. His parents were dead and he lived in lodgings in Stanbourne with a Mrs Turnbull, an elderly widow. He was employed as a general building worker by the Cannonbridge firm where Dave Bryant was apprenticed.

‘It would do Clive good to go to the party,’ Mrs Bryant said with a jerk of her head. ‘It’s not much of a life, living in digs.’ She poured herself another cup of tea. ‘Mrs Turnbull’s a good sort but the lad needs more life at his age.’

Ken took a huge slice of cake and bit into it. It was undeniably excellent, full of plump raisins and glacé cherries. His mood softened. ‘Go on, Dave,’ he said. ‘You ask Clive again. You’ll find he’ll go to the party with a bit of persuading.’