The only person resentful about the success of the talent
contest was Mr Cobblethwaite, who was now even more determined to take over the
talent show, mainly to enhance his own reputation, but ostensibly to finance
the renovation of the town hall..
It had not been difficult for the Robert Jones to persuade the
vicar to go along with his wish to announce his engagement to crown a memorable
afternoon. Robert was sure that his unfair behaviour over Cleo’s first marriage
was now firmly in the past.
Robert was now almost a national celebrity. He immediately set
about reorganizing his life. Since it would have been churlish to expect Cleo,
the woman he had almost sacrificed to his pride not so long ago, to move from
her delightful little cottage with its beautiful garden, Robert stuck a notice
saying ‘flat to let’ on the door of his shop. He was happy at Cleo’s bungalow
and sure that she was, too. Now they were an engaged couple, though Cleo had
not actually said yes to his proposal of marriage. It was normal in this day
and age for betrothed couple to live together. Not in his wildest dreams could
Robert imagine what could stop her marrying him, and Cleo gave no inkling that
she was torn between loyalty to Robert and her love for his rival.
It did not take long for someone to respond to the invitation
to view Robert’s flat and that someone was Gareth Williams, who had come to
Robert’s shop only minutes after Robert had put the offer on display.
“Good evening, Mr Morgan. What can I do for you? Some nice
sausages or back bacon? Half price as it’s nearly closing time.”
Gareth Williams knew about the price reductions at closing
time. You could get cheap strawberries at the local supermarket at closing
time. That is why he had broken off his organ practise to go shopping. He had
already procured the strawberries. But on seeing the advert for the flat he
answered with
“I just want some streaky bacon but I’d like to move into the
flat, Mr Jones.”
“You can have back bacon for the same price as streaky, Mr
Morgan.”
“Streaky is what my mother used to fry.”
No arguing with that, thought Robert. Better move on to
letting the flat.
“I haven’t moved out yet and you haven’t even seen the flat,”
he told Mr Morgan.
‘It can’t be worse than where I am now, Mr Jones.”
“Just let me lock up and I’ll show you what you’d be getting.”
Mr Morgan was enchanted by everything.
“There’s even space for my Hammond organ,” he enthused. “My
mother sent it to me. She was always complaining about having to polish it. She
was glad to see the back of it. It’s in the kitchen at the moment, where the
washing machine would be if I had one.”
No wonder his clothes usually looked unwashed.
“Are you quite sure the flat is what you’re looking for, Mr
Morgan?”
It was. The fitted kitchen, complete with washing machine,
would be included in the deal and Mr Morgan could wash his clothes properly in
future. Within an hour, the takeover had been finalized and Mr Morgan was
trying to persuade his new landlord to move out next day.
Since Cleo’s cottage was too small to hold two lots of
furniture, Robert would have to leave most of his other stuff behind, too,
which seemed to Mr Morgan like a good idea. The deal would be from one Welshman
to another, emphasized Robert. When it came to settling up, Mr Morgan found he
was more of a beneficiary than a tenant. After penny-pinching Mr Davies, his
current landlord, Mr Jones was a model of magnanimity. So much human kindness
almost moved Gareth Morgan to tears. Almost.
‘I’ll help you redecorate, Mr Morgan, and I’m sure Cleo will
want to help, too. We’ll get it all finished by Christmas.”
“Cleo?”
“I live in her cottage now, Mr Morgan.”
“Oh. That’s nice,” said the organist. “I didn’t know it was
serious.”
Mr Morgan told him he couldn’t possibly wait till Christmas to
move in. On the other hand, even if he thought the walls were beautiful as they
were, why look a gift horse in the mouth? He would move in now and they could
renovate round him.
But Mr Morgan’s dreams went far beyond just moving into a new
flat. He could see himself entertaining a string of lady friends. Not that he
had any, but he had a soft spot for several of the fair sex and hoped to make
progress very soon in his new surroundings. In view of the prospect of a
liaison with one or the other of the ladies at whom he had set his cap, he had already
started to smarten himself up. He had taken a pile of old suits and other
garments, most of which had been ordered from catalogues by his mother and were
consequently entirely unsuitable for the life he was about to lead, to the
charity shop in Middlethumpton, and bought himself a pair of jeans and a blazer
at the same shop, since they were less dated than what he was donating and
ready to wear. He had even started to take a shower nearly every morning and
now wore a masculine type fragrance on top of the pungent after-shave lotion
called ‘Magic Musk’ that he had used for as long as he could remember, and
which he promised himself to replace entirely with something less overpowering
when funds allowed.
Gareth Morgan decided not to cramp his style by going to Wales
for Christmas and would warn his family not to send anything breakable through
the mail, so with any luck they would refrain from sending any flacons of Magic
Musk and stick to ties and socks. Not that he would wear the ties. These days
his preference was for an open shirt with a silk cravat. One could say that he
was going through a kind of sartorial rebirth, finally cutting the umbilical ties
to Wales, to Megan (his mother’s choice of bride for him that she still
insisted was viable), and most of all to his mother’s mail order catalogues. At
the age of forty, this was not a day too soon.
If some of Gareth’s new fashion and other ideas in his head came from well-thumbed
copies of Playboy kept under the mattress even though his mother was a hundred
miles away, no matter. It was all part of his belated growing up. Gareth was
altogether delighted with the prospect of the dazzling future in store for him.
He might never return to Wales at all if it all turned out right, though quite what
it took to turn out right was still undefined in practical terms.
Robert was taken with the idea of about moving from his flat
much sooner than he had expected. Cleo agreed that it was nice to have him
around, but not quite as light-hearted about reorganizing her cottage
practically overnight so that not just one larger-than-life personage would
find room there, but two. She could still have backed out of a permanent
relationship with Robert, but she didn’t.
It was fortunate that Gloria, another space-filling personage,
was going back to the States. She had booked her return flight on that fateful
afternoon after she had spilt the beans about Cleo’s marriage and thought Cleo
would never speak to her again. Now things had turned out well she was planning
to spend at least a year in Upper Grumpsfield or Middlethumpton as soon as she
had organized things at home. She did not tell Cleo, just in case there was
opposition. To her plan
***
Despite the success of the talent contest and the
publicity it had awarded Upper Grumpsfield, It was impossible to ignore the
dilapidation of St Peter’s parish church and the decline in numbers of
worshippers The parish church had definitely seen better days. You could read
about the heroic role St Peter’s played during wars and pestilences in the
church annals.
The vicar lamented the fact that most people showed
little inclination to go anywhere short on sensation. Mr Parsnip’s felt responsible.
He wondered how he could coax people out of sports centres and clubs and into
church on Sunday mornings, without actually increasing the attraction factor.
“Of course, going to church does not make you a
Christian, any more than visiting a mosque makes you a Muslim,” he preached, “but
both are sacred monuments to great beliefs and if you identify with one of them
in theory, you should support its traditions in practice.”
As a standard part of his sermons, this message was
really only received by people who heard it and so did not need to be encouraged.
He suggested thinking of St Peter’s as a special kind of club.
“Read the literature,” he would say. ”After all,
the Bible is one of the bestsellers of all time, with the Koran probably just
as successful.”
Not that Mr Parsnip was an expert on the Koran, but
he was sure that must be worth dipping into if so many people had a copy. He
wondered if anyone still thumbed through the Bible that was still part of the
fittings of many a hotel room in Britain. It was a good read, after all.
All his arguments in favour of going to church and religion
made good sense to Mr Parsnip, though they were too different kettles of fish, but
most fell on deaf ears, possibly because he lacked the creative energy needed
to update his way of presenting them. He meant well, but he was out of touch. He
was the most unflappable vicar the village had seen in centuries because he
simply didn’t notice what was going on round him most of the time.
Edith was not the only one who thought the vicar
was at least a hundred years too late for his true calling, that of an
itinerant preacher, a spasmodic fire and brimstone evangelist delivering the ‘heavenly
message’ then wandering off into the wilderness to meditate silently for weeks
on end before arriving at the next conurbation to repeat his mission. She had
started her own private savings fund to send her husband to Africa and the
heathens. No one knew about it. When there was enough money to buy an air
ticket, she would buy one. She was not sure if she should wait to fund a return
ticket. Her pocket money was meagre. She would have to continue to rely on charity
shops for her clothing if she was ever to get enough money saved for a ticket
to darkest Africa.
In the meanwhile, Mr Parsnip had to provide for his
family as well as he could. Edith Parsnip was in constant dread of the
evangelical instinct breaking through the way it had on the day of the recovery
of the donation box, when he had almost caught his death thanking God in the
pouring rain. She fervently hoped he would not become so evangelically
overloaded ever again. She could live with most of his other foibles, but not
with his fervour. He should reserve that for Africa.
“It’s in his veins,” she had once confided in Clare.
“Anything that’s in your veins comes out sooner or
later if not kept firmly in check,” said Clare, laughing. She would not have
swapped with Edith in a month of Sundays, though strangely enough, her own
marital situation bore certain similarities as far as the entertainment potential
of their partners was concerned. Karl von Klippen was a model of chivalry, but not
exactly a bundle of joy. Maybe it is in the veins of identical twins to look
for identical partners.
