Winter Of Discontent

 11

Winter of Discontent

    Miriam leaned on her counter. “Hill Tarlington’s back at Chipping Abbas. I think they might be going ahead with converting it.”

    Ted shrugged. “Got any decent cheese?”

    “NO!” she shouted.

    “Then I’ll have mousetrap,” he replied, unmoved. He went off to the fridge to get it before Miriam could tell him to get it himself. She leaned on the counter, scowling. Mrs Bates came in while Ted still had his head in the fridge so she asked nicely after the grandchildren and was duly told.

    “Anaheim?” said Ted with a laugh in his voice after Mrs Bates had exited with her Nescafé, her pastel toilet paper and her small packet of minted frozen peas.

    “Don’t ask me. Somewhere in California,” said Miriam heavily.

    “It’s where Disneyland is,” explained Ted with a smile. “Well, that and a few other institutions,” he murmured. “The grandkids must be thrilled by the move.”

    “Rubbish, Ted, Disneyland’s in Los Angeles!” replied Miriam with annoyance. “Are you gonna buy that cheese, or only cuddle it?”

    “Buy it.”—He put it on the counter. Miriam punched up the price viciously.—“Um, seen anything of those Lezzie adult ed. pupils of Hattie’s?”

    Joanna had found Hattie a job at the Ditterminster Polytech filling in for a junior Japanese tutor. No-one in Abbot’s Halt was particularly at a loss for an explanation as to why she’d taken it and in fact the sympathetic Lambie Heather had expressed the tearful hope that the Tarlington brothers and Harry Adamson between them hadn’t turned those two poor girls off men for life. This had gone down so well with her audience—Miriam and June—that she’d added that she’d thought Sir Hilliard was so lovely, but unfortunately this had ruined her effect: June had snorted and Miriam had said grimly: “You wouldn’t know, not being from round here, but ’e’s a Tarlington, Lambie.”

    Hattie’s job was not particularly onerous, consisting of one afternoon class to which, there being no afternoon bus service, Ted had self-sacrificingly volunteered to drive her, only to find himself pre-empted by the gaunt Miss Whyte—it was her day for the library in Ditterminster, so it was absolutely no trouble!—and one evening class to which Joanna drove her. She caught the early evening worker’s bus back home after the afternoon class and Joanna collected her after the evening class, though Ted had self-sacrificingly volunteered.

    The main result for the village of Hattie’s new status as an employed person was the periodic appearance of the two divorced ladies from Ditterminster to whom Ted had just made a slighting and quite possibly slanderous reference. They’d started coming to Hattie for private coaching. Kath Benson, who apparently needed more Japanese than Hattie’s afternoon class could give her, was a dark-haired woman in her forties who usually dressed in faded jeans, suede safari boots of the workmanlike but not cheap variety, and a khaki anorak of the workmanlike but not cheap variety. Penny Laing, who was learning Mandarin, was perhaps fifty, with short, cropped grey hair. She usually dressed in fawn cord slacks, suede safari boots of the workmanlike but not cheap variety, and a fawn anorak of the workmanlike but not cheap variety. It was fair to say that neither woman had made a particularly favourable impression on the village.

    In fact Miriam now goggled at her childhood’s friend and said: “Why, for God’s sake?”

    “Old Tom Pringle’s thinking of selling up.”

    The wider district was full of Pringles: there was a whole clutch of them in Dittersford, and another lot in Daynesford, and a huge tribe over to Ditterminster. “Our Tom Pringle?” said Miriam on a weak note.

    “Yeah. Well, no immediate family left here, now. He wants to go out to his son in New Zealand: Bert. I was at school with him. Remember him? Dark auburn hair, freckles.”

    “I remember your dad giving him a good belting for stealing his tomatoes. –Why tomatoes, I couldn’t imagine then and I can’t now!”

    “Because they were there. Yeah, that was Bert. He’s an architect, now.”

    Miriam stared at him. None of the Abbot’s Halt Pringles that she’d ever heard of had risen higher than assistant cow-man over to Ainsley Top Farm in the days before everything was bought up for rapeseed by the conglomerate and the farm and its cows disappeared. “Eh?”

    “Designs houses. Well, mainly extraordinarily fancy holiday homes that only the richest two percent can afford: full of huge plate-glass windows that the owners have to counteract with enormously expensive ducted central heating because of the New Zealand climate, I gather—but, yeah. Architect. –I said, I was at school with him.”

    “Y—Oh! Ditterminster School? So he was a scholarship boy too, Ted?”

    “Mm. Anyway, old Tom wants to go but he doesn’t want to land himself on Bert as the complete parasite. –Wants to get a few miserable shekels for that dump of his down Waterlogged Lane if ’e can,” he explained laboriously.

    “Don’t spell it out, thanks! Um, Watersplash Lane,” said Miriam feebly.

    Ted snorted.

    “Um, yeah,” she acknowledged feebly. “Oh—I see! But will the Lezzies want to wade through all that mud every day, Ted?”

    “Dunno. Don’t they get around in boots as it is? Thought it might be worth running it up the flagpole to see if they saluted.”

    “Y— Must you talk in riddles?”

    “Metaphors,” he said meekly.

    “Them an’ all!” retorted Miriam smartly. “Well, if I see them, I’ll tell them. –Those are safari boots,” she noted by the by. “Expensive suede ones.”

    “Er—yeah,” said Ted feebly. “Um, well, could get round to Hattie’s and ask for their phone numbers, I s’pose.”

    “She’s not there,” said Miriam flatly.

    “But it’s not Tuesday,” he said weakly.

    “Not the Polytech stuff. June said that the head Japanese teacher found her a translating job: for the Mayor. There’s some Japs come that wanna put up a new mall or something.”

    “How long is this gonna go on for?” asked Ted weakly.

    “Don’t ask me!” replied Miriam on a triumphant note. “June’s right next-door to you: why don’t you interrogate her if you’re that vitally interested?”

    “Don’t think I need to, now. How much is that?”

    Miriam read out the total.

    “What? Look, have you added Mrs Bates’s lot in with mine?” Why had he ever said it? Great screeds of print-out were unrolled from the thing… Hours later Ted tottered out into the street, a broken man. He could get on round to Hattie’s: get the number for at least one of them Lezzies out of Joanna, according to Miriam it was her day off. He looked wanly at his plastic bag of shopping. Or he could just creep home with this lot and make a nice cuppa, praying meanwhile that June wouldn’t spot him and come in for a gossip…

    He took the line of least resistance and crept home.

    “How are you, Miriam?” Hill removed his gloves and blew on his hands. “Parky, isn’t it? I’m looking for coffee.”

    “Just there, Hill!” she said brightly.

    Hill looked at the brightly-labelled tins and jars. “Yes. No coffee beans?”

    “What sort of coffee beans?” replied Miriam loudly, flushing brightly. Hill opened his mouth to bleat something, he wasn’t sure what, but she swept on: “That Harry Adamson, he went on and on about real coffee, and then Miss Waller asked for some, too, not that she’s ever here long enough to drink it, hardly, with or without smarmy-looking Argentineans in silly scarves, and Ms Kent as well, and then Mrs Whyte on top of that! And I knew the wholesalers wouldn’t stock them, and of course they didn’t, so I found another supplier and practically had to sign my life away to make them believe I was really running a business and wouldn’t bankrupt them by placing an order for half a dozen packets of coffee beans a month, and when I finally got them in, none of them would buy them because they all said they were the wrong sort!” She took a deep and trembling breath. “And when I asked them what was the right sort, they all said different things!”

    “Oh, Lor’. Coffee aficionados,” said Hill feebly.

    “And I don’t care what that stupid Dry Goods Emporium over to Chipping Ditter stocks: they’ve got a bigger client base than me, and I can’t afford to stock stuff no-one buys!” said Miriam loudly. “And stupid Ted Prosser had the cheek to tell me those dried beans had gone funny because they were out the back next to the spare loo cleaner! And I had to get in those extra cartons, because that time I ran out everyone seemed to want it at once and they were all wild with me! And the whole of the time I’ve been here only him and Hattie have ever asked for dried beans! People don’t buy them!”

    “Of course they don’t, this is the 21st century,” said Hill soothingly. “I’ll just have a jar of instant.” He grabbed a well-sized jar. “You met Julia Weekes last year, didn’t you? When we came down to look at Chipping Abbas.”

    “Yes, of course,” said Miriam dully, punching up the wrong price. “Blast! Hang on, now I’ll have to do a subtraction. Um… yes. She said she thought the shop had possibilities. I suppose she was just being kind. Um… I think that’s right. You’d better check it,” she said dully, tearing off the print-out and handing it to him.

    Obediently Hill checked it. “That’s perfectly correct,” he said, smiling nicely. “Julia wasn’t being kind, Miriam: she never says things she doesn’t mean when it’s a question of anything related to commercial success. She should be down again before long: we’ve started the Chipping Abbas conversion project. Early stages, yet, but Julia wants to confirm some of her earlier impressions. I think you and she should have a serious talk. YDI is very interested in promoting local enterprise, and Julia’ll be able to tell you exactly what’ll appeal to our customers. We might envisage some arrangement where we supply your basics—probably give you a better price than your present supplier, we buy gi-normous amounts of loo cleaner and so on!” he said with a grin.

    “Um, yes, you would; but all your posh vistors’d expect the nicest toilet paper,” she said numbly.

    Hill replied seriously: “Of course, and in pastel shades to tone with the ensuites, what’s more, but there’s the staff as well, you see. And we could certainly arrange to supply you with the more exotic consumables in the kinds of quantities you could manage. Probably send them down direct from the hotel,” he said, smiling.

    “Still—still wholesale?” quavered Miriam.

    “Certainly. Julia will probably have some ideas on how you might redecorate, too. If YDI entered into any sort of arrangement, we’d need to make sure the shop had the ambience that would appeal to the clients. I hope you wouldn’t object to that?”

    “No! It sounds wonderful!” she gulped. “I was thinking I might— And I did look at the shops over to Chipping Ditter, but they’re all so fancy and it must have cost thousands! And even if I could get someone to do it cheaper, well, I could never make the right choices, all the places have gone for different looks, and— Well, it’d be just wonderful to have someone to talk it over with, Hill!”

    “Good. Julia’d enjoy it: that sort of stuff’s meat and drink to her. As to the coffee—what about roasting your own, mm?” He twinkled at her. “The smell’s so irresistible that the aficionados wouldn’t stop to ask if it was Royal Twittering Brazilian or French-Roasted Ghanaian Rainforest!”

    Giggling, Miriam responded: “They do have silly names like that, don’t they? I’ve been to a big shop in London that does that, and you’re right about the smell! I’ll think about it! Would it be hard to do?”

    “I don’t honestly know, but don’t worry, Julia can check it on the Internet for you,” replied Hill smoothly, paying for the instant. “No, that was the right money, Miriam,” he said as she tried to force some change on him. “We’ll be in touch, it’s a promise! ’Bye!”

    “Bye-bye—and thank you!” gasped Miriam as the shop bell tinkled sharply after him.

    She sagged limply on the counter. If only it could come off! It sounded too good to be true, though…

    “Real coffee’d be nice,” admitted Ted drily.

    “You seem to manage all right!” retorted June sharply. He was drinking it as they spoke. He’d offered her some but she never had fancied pitch-black drain cleaner, so she was making herself a pot of tea.

    “I manage by driving over to Chipping Ditter every other week,” said Ted drily.

    June sniffed, but not very convincingly.

    “I have tried to persuade Miriam she ought to stock coffee,” noted Ted cautiously.

    “You and all them trendies, yes!”

    Ted quailed but June was busy with the tea and didn’t notice him, so he stopped. “Um, June, did it sound to you as if YDI were, um, envisaging a total take-over of Miriam’s gigantic commercial enterprise?”

    June put the lid carefully on the teapot. “What ’appened to that lovely china teapot of your mum’s? –Don’t answer that,” she said heavily. “It sounded to me like they were gonna make ’er buy everything through them, down to the bog paper, but leave the running of it to ’er, ’cos that’s the bothersome bit!”

    “Mm, but—buy her out? Just leave her in as manager?”

    She eyed him sardonically. “Don’t ask me. If you’re so concerned, get on over there and ask ’er yourself. Mind you, don’t blame me if she reads something into it you don’t want ’er to read!”

    “That’s why I’m asking you,” said Ted sourly.

    Well, yeah. June eyed him drily, but just poured the tea.

    Of course Hattie’s fling with the smarmy yellow-haired real estate agent with the flashing teeth was a strong factor in Hill’s not having tried to contact her for some time on his return to England. It was Harriet who had initially told him about it, explaining that she thought he’d better hear it from her rather than someone else. The next time he’d spoken to her the subject hadn’t come up: she’d been in floods of tears over Allan’s dropping Joanna. Not that he’d told her about it himself: evidently Harriet had suggested to Ma that Joanna should be invited for Christmas and Allan had immediately vetoed the idea. QED. Hill hadn’t managed to sound appropriately sympathetic: he’d hardly met the girl and though she seemed nice enough, she wasn’t right for Allan, their backgrounds were far too different. The Tarlingtons’ Christmas had been about as merry as you might expect, what with Allan brooding, Hill himself in a rotten mood over Hattie, and the first anniversary of Pa’s death.

    Various kind village personalities had now managed to let Hill know that Hattie’s fling with Harry Adamson was long since over but so far he hadn’t managed to speak to her. The fact that she pretty clearly didn’t want to speak to him wasn’t helping. He had popped over to the cottage during a couple of his visits to Chipping Abbas but she never seemed to be in during the day. Finally he got the bloody woman in the shop to state in so many words that Hattie did her Japanese tutoring in Ditterminster on Tuesdays. That certainly explained why she hadn’t been home the last time he called round.

    Okay, today was Monday. He couldn’t get down there, they had meetings in at Head Office all week, but he rang her. Nobody answered. It eventually dawned that Joanna was at work and the boys must be at school. He rang Joanna at the hotel.

    “Where is she?” he demanded grimly.

    Joanna swallowed. “Um, sorry, Hill. Um, Japan, actually.”

    “WHAT?” he shouted.

    “Um, yes, it’s the Japanese businessmen she did the translating for in Ditterminster. They wanted her for a special meeting because they’re forming a consortium with some Germans and she speaks that as well. They thought it’d take about a week, only she thought she might go and see Kenny’s dad, so, um… Well, I think she’ll be away about a fortnight, all up.”

    “Shit!”

    “Um, sorry,” said Joanna lamely.

    “Not your fault. Didn’t mean to shout. Well, uh, if she rings, Joanna, would you tell her I rang and—and I’m thinking of her?” said Hill in a voice that shook a little.

    “Yes, of course,” she said nicely.

    He thanked her and hung up. Bugger! Well, he’d just have to possess his soul in patience.

    “It was quite a surprise!” revealed Lambie Heather, giggling. “Of course I suspected dear little Gordon was up to something, but I never dreamed they were putting on a birthday tea for little me!”

    “No,” agreed Mrs Everton, trying to smile. In all her sixty-eight years no-one had ever put on a surprise party of any kind for her. And what good, pray, did Lambie Heather do in the district? Apart from the Meals on Wheels deliveries, and that was only because she’d suggested it to her! “So there were quite a few people there?”

    “Well, yes!” said Lambie with another irritating giggle. “Quite a range of people! Hattie has such a variety of friends in the village. Well,”—she flicked her a malicious glance from under the sweeping mascara-ed mink lashes—“the Whytes, of course. Miss Whyte is quite a f—”

    “The Whytes?” said Mrs Everton sharply.

    “–quite a fan. Yes, they were all there, and Mr Whyte showed us a very special little film! It was made not long after the National Trust opened Daynesford Place. Only ten minutes: Birds of Daynesford!”

    Mrs Everton’s bosom had swelled alarmingly: she had spoken to the Whytes the day before this party had apparently taken place and they hadn’t breathed a word! “Birds. Indeed,” she managed.

    “And dear Joanna was there, it was her afternoon off, and she’d brought some lovely people from the big hotel!”

    “Staff, one presumes,” said Mrs Everton coldly.

    “Well, yes, if you call the assistant manager staff. Portuguese. João, his name is. A simply lovely man: beautiful manners!”

    “Delightful,” said Mrs Everton grimly. “And were Sir Hilliard and his brother there, perchance?”

    “Um, no,” said Lambie feebly.

    She sniffed. “No.”

    June was once again making a pot of tea in Ted’s house using Ted’s tea that it apparently hadn’t dawned he really only got in for her. “Got any biscuits?”

    Ted sighed. “Yes: I’ve got a tin of cornflakes slathered in chocolate left over from that party for Lambie, and you can take the lot, June.”

    June took a couple, but admitted: “I’ve got some. Give ’em to old Tibbs.”

    “The norms would indicate he’s nearer death than me, so why not?” he said sourly.

    “What’s wrong with you?” said June in astonishment, Chocolate Krinkle suspended.

    Ted shrugged.

    “Ted,” she said cautiously, “in case you were imagining you was ever in there with a chance with Hattie—”

    “NO!” he shouted.

    “Glad we got that one clear,” she said drily.

    Ted poured himself another coffee, looking defiant. “All right, gimme a fucking Chocolate Krinkle, I’ll die happy!”

    Unemotionally June passed him the tin.

    Ted chewed furiously. “One had not hitherto imagined oneself,” he said evilly, “in the same class as Bob Medallion Metcalf and Scarecrow Whyte!”

    “You wanna get wise to yourself, then,” replied June calmly, draining her tea. “Aah! That’s better! If you really don’t want these, I will pass them on to old Tibbs.”

    “June,” said Ted heavily, “pass them on with my blessing, but Hattie’s already given him, to my certain knowledge, a tin of these Krinkles, half a fruit-cake, and a giant pot of meaty soup, and that was only this week!”

    “All right, then, get on over to Ditterminster and give them to your nieces.”

    There was a short pause.

    “You could go after you’d got your coffee beans in ruddy Chipping Ditter,” she noted.

    “I’d buy my coffee beans from Miriam if the stupid hen STOCKED them!” the driven man shouted.

    “Stupid hen, eh?” June got up. “No wonder she turned down Hattie’s invite to that party. Not that some of us was in any doubt about it, really. Ta-ta.”

    Ted just sat there morosely, glaring at the tin of Hattie’s homemade Chocolate Krinkles.

    The latest so-called Ecolodge Progress Report Meeting had in fact consisted of bloody Maurice trying to order Hill to get hold of an architect whom he’d already sussed out and who wasn’t keen. Pointless—yeah. The weather was foul, so rather than drive down to Chipping Abbas he took the train, finding himself alone in a carriage for the leg between Salisbury and Ditterminster with Ted Prosser. The iron having entered into his soul, he found himself telling the unfortunate chap all about it.

    “Sorry, Ted!” he ended with a sheepish laugh.

    “That’s all right. The corporate life, eh? Can’t say I miss that side of it. Well, miss the challenges, in a way,” he said mildly.

    Hill didn’t ask: if Ted wanted him to know his business presumably he would tell him. “Yes. I did try to tell the chap that the eco-stuff might be daft but it’s a challenge and a half—well, looking at the bloody websites, hard to think of any material they do let you use!”

    “Thatch,” said Ted thoughtfully.

    Hill gulped. “Um, yes. Didn’t think they had that in Central America, actually, but yes: that ecolodge in Belize had thatched cottages, all right.”

    Ted collapsed in sniggers. “Was there a picture? What did it look like?” he asked, blowing his nose.

    “Um, well, just like weathered thatch, ’s’matter of fact—” Ted was off again. “Yes, hah, hah,” agreed Hill. “Well, Maurice is thrilled that the chap doing the Queensland design is investigating ways of using banana leaves for thatch—don’t think it’s dawned on either of ’em that banana leaves are essentially disposable in nature, meant to be blown away in the cyclones without ripping the walls off as they go, and replaced with the current year’s crop, but sufficient unto the day. New Zealand doesn’t have the cyclones, but on the other hand I dunno that they grow anything suitable for thatch in useable quantities.”

    “Mm… I do know someone who’s an architect out there, as a matter of fact,” said Ted cautiously. “Bert Pringle. Specialises in holiday homes for the idle rich. Dunno if they’re particularly eco-friendly, mind you. But he might be interested.”

    “Good. Got his address?”

    “I’ve got his email address; his home address is impossible to either transcribe or remember: nearly all Maori words.”

    “Oh. Not Auckland, then?”

    “On the outskirts of it, I think he said.” Ted felt in his pocket, produced a strip of cash-register print-out, and wrote on it. The result read: “pringle@pupukedesign.co.nz”. So be it.

    “That’s the name of his company,” he explained. “When they first opened their office they were near a small lake by that name, and I think it started off as a joke, but then, their names are Hingle and Pringle, and no possible combination of the two sounded anything but ludicrous.”

    “Right! So they’ve since moved on?”

    “Mm: got a shiny modern office in a shiny modern tower downtown, but Bert hates it. Not one of their own designs, but nevertheless he feels it’s a really bad advertisement for the firm. They’re thinking of moving back to more or less where they were before, actually: they’re established enough for the clients to seek them out, now.”

    “Uh-huh. So anything he might take on for YDI would be as a regular commission?”

    “I think so.”

    Mm. Well, it was worth looking into: at least the man must be aware of the local conditions. He thanked Ted, and admitted that there was still a chance that the other chap might want to take it on. Ted merely replied that it couldn’t do any harm to contact Bert. No, quite, agreed Hill, wondering again what the Hell had decided an obviously competent and intelligent chap to give it all away and move back to Abbot’s Halt.

    Miriam had had a bout of flu during which she refused absolutely to countenance June’s suggestion that Hattie could help out in the shop as she wasn’t doing nothing much, only that adult ed. stuff and the Lezzies. Miriam would have lost money if she’d closed up—not to say alienating the village—so Ted and June between them took over. Young Sean Biggs got a lot of free Mars Bars, but never mind. And Ted managed to more or less put back all the stuff June had moved before Miriam tottered downstairs again.

    “There’s violets over by the stream,” he reported with a smile. “Just by the bridge.”

    “I suppose you’ll be off on your nature rambles again, then,” Miriam replied sourly.

    “Uh—yeah. If you like to call ’em that! Um, never really stopped: got my wellingtons and my great big waterproof mackintosh. Get this down you.”

    Miriam accepted the mug of tea, sipped, and sighed. “Hill Tarlington been in lately?”

    “Nope; the bosses keep calling him up to London for consultations: something to do with that trip to the Pacific he had last year.”

    “Right. Par for the course. What about the brother?”

    “Er, not a sign of him,” said Ted weakly. It must be at least six months since Allan Tarlington was last in the village: hadn’t the gossips given up on that one yet?

    There was a slight, and in Ted’s opinion, merciful hiatus while Mrs Rushforth came in, told Miriam how pleased she was to see her on her feet again, warned her not to do too much, and bought a pack of expensive pastel toilet paper, a tin of Nescafé, a pot of marg, a carton of skim milk and a packet of Digestives.

    “Dunno what the retirees eat, really. Do they exist entirely on Nescaff and biscuits?” he mused. “Oh: Miss Waller seems to be on again with the Argentinean and they came in yesterday to demonstrate a packet of real Scotch shortbread, but I suppose you won’t wanna know.”

    “You suppose right.” Miriam drank tea, and sighed. “Has that Ms Weekes shown ’er nose round the place?”

    “Uh—who?”

    “The posh dame from YDI,” said Miriam with another sigh.

    Ted had no idea who she meant but as no posh dames at all had come into the shop he replied: “Not to my knowledge. Were you expecting her to, Miriam?”

    “No,” she said grimly.

    Ted looked at her dubiously. “Go back to bed, I can look after the shop,” he said kindly.

    “No, I’m okay; I’m fed up with being in bed.”

    “Well, at least the shop’s warm. Don’t need anything?”

    “No, I can manage, thanks, Ted.”

    Ted picked up his mackintosh. “Well, uh, do you fancy a few violets, then?”

    “No, not even if there really are any.”

    “Just as you like,” he said amiably, shrugging himself into the mackintosh, and going.

    “Give them to Hattie,” said Miriam evilly to the empty shop. “I’m sure she’d appreciate them! Stupid, limp-looking things! And there won’t be any!”

Next chapter:

https://theprojectmanager-anovel.blogspot.com/2021/12/cauldron-bubble.html