Dorothy's cottage is half way up Monkton Way, just before the
sign pointing the way to the Priory, monastery on a hill pasture leading to
Monkton Woods. Nobody nervous cares to go anywhere near Monkton Priory after
dusk, but Dorothy loves to walk in the woods and that is where she rescued her
dog Minor. Mr and Mrs Barker live next door in a house called ‘Dunroamin’,
which they bought from a commercial traveller who was tired of listening to Dorothy
playing Beethoven at all hours. They don’t go for walks much even during the
day because Mrs Barker says her legs won’t take it. Mr Barker walks to
Middlethumpton and back to visit his old colleagues at the Town Hall. But
sometimes he goes by car. That is when Mrs Barker goes with him to do her
shopping.
Weather permitting, Mr Barker spends many daylight hours in
his garden, digging, planting, weeding and harvesting vegetables in abundance according
to season. When he has time on his hands or nothing pressing to do in the
garden, he builds bits onto Dunroamin. He calls them his house improvements. Mr
Barker has built a built-on washhouse, a built-on winter garden, a built-on greenhouse
and a built-on tool shed in quick succession. There are so many new bits that
you can no longer see much of Dunroamin's original walls at the back, so that
any new house improvements will have to be attached to the previous ones.
Fortunately, Mr Barker is well-known at the only store he frequents, where it
is possible to buy anything needed for house improvements.
Mrs Barker grows flowers, or rather, she watches them grow.
The actual pruning and watering is done by Mr Barker, somewhat reluctantly
since they take up space that could be more usefully used to grow more home
produce. Mrs Barker loves roses most of all, so they grow in profusion all over
the front garden, and some even climb up the front of the house. People passing
Dunroamin on hot summer days on their way to their picnics in the grounds of
Monkton Priory always stop to look at the glorious display. Mrs Barker tells
her husband at least once a week that passers-by would not want to inspect rows
of potatoes and runner beans.
The problem is that Jim Barker has decided that it is a waste
of time growing things you can't eat. The only reluctant exception to his rule
is geraniums, a few of which Mrs Barker is allowed to have in little pots
perched on outside window ledges and standing around in the yard, though, as Mr
Barker says, strictly speaking the back garden is his territory except for the
washing line.
Minor spends many an hour in Mr Barker's vegetable patch,
often after dark. Since he is less visible to the naked eye when he digs his
holes on the far side of the runner beans and between the rows of onions, he
likes to bury the bones Robert Jones the butcher there. He is undeterred by the
smell of onions Mr Barker planted especially to deter the hole-digging. Minor
is helped by the soft soil surround the onions, since it can be displaced
easily. Mr Barker has spent many a morning raking the loose soil back into
position.
Dorothy and Jane Barker enjoy neighbourly chats over the hedge
dividing their back gardens. This distracts Mr Barker from whatever he is doing,
since he listens in despite himself. Dorothy is a well of information and Jane
forgets to tell him most of it, so it is important to be informed elsewhere,
though he does not let on that that is the case. These eavesdropped chats also
give Minor a chance to visit Mr Barker’s vegetable patch, and Dorothy does
nothing to stop her dog from following his burying instinct. Mr Barker dearly
wishes he could find a way of keeping the beast out without alienating Dorothy
since she would find a way of punishing him, usually by giving something to eat
that he did not really like. Mr Barker had never been known to cook anything
for himself. Mrs Barker likes to remember the one time he brought her a cup of
tea after she had carelessly sprained a foot, such a striking contrast was it
to Mr Barker’s usual custom.
One morning soon after the latest confrontation between dog
and gardener, Jane caught Jim measuring the space between the back door and the
built-on tool-shed. A dreadful thought crossed her mind. She interrupted the
washing up and opened the kitchen window.
“What are you doing, Jim?”
“Nothing, dear.”
“Nonsense,” said Jane, since Jim did not use endearments
extravagantly. “You must be doing something with that yardstick.”
Fear of another extension to the house became real, causing
her to say “Don't even dream of extending the pantry.”
Mr Barker blushed. He had something quite different in mind,
but Mrs Barker always managed to make him feel guilty, however good his
intentions were. He decided to go along with the pantry idea, at least in
theory.
“‘What about all the jars of pickled onions? We haven't
finished last year's and this year's onions are nearly ready to harvest,” he
argued.
He was starting to think it might be a good idea to measure up
for a pantry extension while he was at it.
“I'm not pickling hundreds of extra jars of pickled onions
just to give you an excuse for building me somewhere to store them,” snapped
Jane.
Pickled onions were a sore point.
“But what shall I do with all the lovely onions, Jane?”
“Put them on the compost heap, or call Minor and tell him to
bury them.”
With those words, Mrs Barker went back to cleaning Mr Barker’s
second-best black shoes. She was smiling sardonically. She knew that Minor was a
sore subject with Jim. On other hand, pickled onions were a sore subject with
her, they having caused her more indigestion than anything else from Mr
Barker's variegated vegetable patch. The argument they had just had was a repeat
of arguments held at regular intervals about the destiny of Mr Barker’s opulent
harvests. The rows they had about Minor’s digging were even more frequent.
“I'll bury Minor one of these days,” Mr Barker muttered, as he
dug up some of the dog’s precious bones and dumped them in the dustbin.
“I heard that. Minor's a nice little dog. You just don't
understand him.”
“I understand him all right. He's a nasty, sly creature
waiting to pounce on my vegetables the minute I turn my back on him. Remember
what happened to my potatoes last week?”
“Don't make such a fuss. You grow far too many. When are we
supposed to eat them all?”
“We usually manage to, don't we?”
Now it was Mrs Barker’s turn to improvise.
“Of course we do, it’s just that…”
Mrs Barker managed to sound contrite, but actually she was now
only at pains to prevent her husband delving deeper into what happened to the
piles of superfluous produce. She preferred not to mention all the baskets of home
grown vegetables she distributed in the neighbourhood, earning a pound or two
in the process from people grateful for fresh produce.
The good thing about the garden was that it kept Mr Barker
more or less out of mischief. He didn't sit around the house all day or play
with electric trains in the living room, or make secret trips to the off-license
or disreputable establishments like the husbands of other ladies she could name.
Cheered that Mr Barker was not pursuing the subject of
vegetables and had stopped measuring, she marched into the garden and plucked a
large floral tablecloth from the washing line.
“I'll make us a cup of tea before I start on the dinner, Jim,
she offered as Jim put on the clean shoes. Boiled, baked, or chipped?”
“Both.”
Mrs Barker ignored the ambiguous answer. He always ate her
cooking, whatever it was. She had no time to waste with the ironing piling up
and no vegetables prepared. She was going to help out in the charity shop next
day. Whatever Mr Barker was scheming and planning, she would put a stop to it
in no time at all.
But Mr Barker was ready for the battle of wills that would
surely follow his explanation that he had decided to build a perimeter fence
around the garden. Only the birds would be able to get in and out and since
Minor was not a bird and therefore could not fly, he would be forced to stay
outside.
“He can bury his bones in the churchyard for all I care. He
could and dig himself a hole there for good measure. I’ll fashion him a cross
out of scraps of wood.”
Mr Barker could be quite callous.
“What was that?” called Mrs Barker over her shoulder.
“I said, once the fence is up that's the end of Minor's little
games.”
She stopped dead in her tracks.
“What fence?”
“Just a little one to keep out stray animals.”
“But I don't want to live in a prison.”
Mr Barker decided not to beat around the bush.
“It's either that dog or me. And that's an ultimatum.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” retorted Jane Barker as she counted
out the chops for dinner. She would serve rice instead of Jim’s beloved
potatoes. That’s what she always did when she was annoyed with him. Sometimes
she hoped he would leave her, but had never broached the subject. He had threatened
once got as far as threatening to leave her after she had taken half the
contents of his wardrobe to the charity shop and earned effusive praise there
for her generous donation. But Jim Barker would not leave her when it came to
the point. No one could cook like Jane, and no one enjoyed his food more than Jim
did. But revenge was sweet. She could hear his disappointment.
“Where are my potatoes?” he would ask sadly. “I can’t mop up
the gravy with rice. It all falls through my fork.”
“Well, use a spoon then,” Jane would taunt him. “Rice is good
for you. You don’t find many fat Chinese and they even eat rice for breakfast.”
“But they don’t have your gravy all over it,” he would argue,
but he couldn’t win. Short of cooking himself, he would have to put up with
whatever Jane put in front of him. And cooking was something he had never
thought of attempting.
No. The only way to keep the peace would be to say nothing
more about the fence. He would leave Jane under the impression that she had won
the day.
Next morning, after giving Mrs Barker a lift the charity shop,
which was less a charitable act than a means of making sure she wasn’t taking any
more of his clothes there, he pointed his ancient car in the direction of the
D.I.Y.. The car engine sounded like several rounds of gunshot while it was
warming up, but Mr Barker maintained that it would soon be an old-timer and
anyway, he was an old-timer and wouldn’t like to be put on the scrap heap,
either. At the D.I.Y. he bought a large number of tall wooden posts, a sack of
ready to mix quick-dry concrete, a bucket to mix it in, several rolls of green chicken
wire, a coil of matching wire and thousands of nails. With about a dozen wooden
posts attached precariously to the roof rack and the boot of the car buckling
under the weight of all the other stuff, he drove home and set about putting
his fence up.
Minor could not understand what was going on. Why was Mr
Barker going to plant trees when there was a forest up the road? From the
comparative safety of Dorothy's patio Minor watched Mr Barker grunting and
groaning, and muttering “‘Serves you right, you horrible mongrel”. Minor found
it oddly fascinating that Mr Barker was digging such deep holes. Dorothy was
too busy playing Beethoven to notice what was going on next door.
Very soon all the tall posts were in position, though the holes
had not yet been filled with concrete. Mr Barker had a scratch lunch of beans
on toast, Mrs Barker having opened the tin and sliced the bread. Then he took a
nap, giving Minor just enough time to wriggle through a vulnerable spot in the
hedge, recover as many bones as he could find among Mr Barker’s potatoes and
onions and drop them into the freshly dug holes.
When Mrs Barker came home after a long, tedious day at the
charity shop followed by tea and cakes in the back room and an intense gossip
with one of the other volunteers, she could hardly believe her eyes. The chicken-wire
fence was half built. What duplicity. She gave Mr Barker a piece of her mind.
“What will people think of us? We haven’t even got any
chickens.”
“What people? I don't want any more dogs in my garden, and
that's that. And don’t even contemplate getting chickens to justify the fence!”
“Perhaps I should. At least we’d have fresh eggs every
morning.”
That was not such a bad idea, Mr Barker decided, but he would
not pander to Jane by saying so.
“The fence is to keep livestock out, not in.”
Ignoring that remark, Mrs Barker put on a whining voice.
“Nobody will stop to admire my roses if they are behind bars.”
“I don't care a damn about your roses, Jane.”
Mrs Barker cradled her head in her hands. She could feel a
migraine coming on. She wouldn’t be cooking anything that day or the next. Mr
Barker could make himself more beans on toast, for all she cared. She could
open him a tin of sardines for supper.
Mr Barker went back to the job in hand, mixed the concrete and
shovelled it into the holes around the posts. He left the bones where they
were. Serves Minor right for putting them there. They would save quite a bit of
concrete. By the time it got dark the fence was more or less finished.
“ I've left the front garden almost without chicken-wire, so
your roses aren't in a cage after all, are they?”
Mrs Barker had to agree that her husband had done a good job
and if it made him happy, she would be able to live with the result. Perhaps
she would get the chip-pan going after all.
“And Minor won’t be able to get anywhere near my vegetables. I
should have thought of it years ago.”
“Minor wasn't here years ago. Remember?”
Was her husband losing his marbles now he had retired from
balancing Middlethumpton town hall's books?
Later that evening, while Mr and Mrs Barker were watching TV
and Mr Barker was congratulating himself over a cool beer and a plate of chips on
having solved the problem of bones buried in his back garden, Minor dug the
deepest hole of his entire life to push himself underneath the chicken wire. Unfortunately,
the only accessible bone left was the one in the hole Mr Barker had forgotten
to cement in, so it didn't take Minor long to retrieve his treasure, but it did
make a terrible mess.
What Mr Barker said when he discovered the mess next morning
is best left to the imagination.
Dorothy confined her remarks to those of wonderment mixed with
puzzlement when she saw the fence around Mr Barker’s back garden and did not
hazard a guess at its purpose. Jane would tell her eventually, she was sure.
Dorothy had also forgotten about the competition for the best
Duggy's dog biscuit slogan until one Saturday morning a few weeks later she was
very surprised to see a strange postman standing on her doorstep when she
opened her front door. She was waiting for Albert, the vicar's eldest son, to
come for his piano lesson. He was late, and so was the postman, who should have
delivered her letters two hours earlier. She was not accustomed to the postman
ringing her bell, so was about to shout at him when she saw that it was not the
postman she knew.
“Morning!” he said. “I'm from Lower Grumpsfield, helping out
here while Mr Smith recovers. Are you Mrs Dorothy Price?”
“Miss. And yes, I am. But what has happened to Mr Smith?”
“Haven't you heard?”
The postman tried to look over Dorothy's shoulder into the
cottage.
“No,” said Dorothy. “Are you looking for something?”
“Mr Smith has broken his arm, so I'll be doing his round until
it’s knitted.”
The postman looked more triumphant than sorry as he said that.
Dorothy started to take a dislike to him.
“That's bad luck for Mr Smith. He won't be able to practise
his trumpet.”
“And good luck for his neighbours,” laughed the postman. “Now
they can enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.”
“Don't be so heartless, and please put my letters through the flap
from now on.”
“I can’t do that today, Mrs. I have to give you this one
personally. It's registered, you see.”
Dorothy wondered who could possibly want to communicate with
her in such an elaborate way.
“It looks friendly enough though,” the postman said, examining
the letter minutely from every angle before handing it to her. “Not from the
Inland Revenue. A bit strange though. It's got paw marks all over it, as if a cat
had walked across it. But there ain't no cats at the post-office.”
“There aren’t any cats,” Dorothy corrected automatically.
“That’s right. Like I just said. No flippin’ cats.”
Older ladies could be really stupid sometimes, he thought, as Dorothy
turned to go back into the cottage muttering something about ignoramuses.
“Funnily enough,” the postman called after her. “I delivered a
letter just like it somewhere else this morning.”
He was starting to wonder if Dorothy might be going a bit soft
in the head, but Dorothy did not hear the comment. She was too busy
scrutinizing the paw marks.
“It’s from that dog food factory in Middlethumpton,” said the
postman.
“So it is,” said Dorothy, ignoring the postman’s
inquisitiveness. “It must be about the competition.”
“Competition? Oh that. Awful dog slogan contest.”
The postman could not help being curious to find out what this
crotchety old woman got up to in her spare time. And anyway, it paid to be
informed about the activities of the people you delivered letters and parcels
to.
“Didn't you enter?” asked Dorothy.
“Me? Us postmen ain't popular with dogs, Mrs Price.”
“We. Subject pronoun. And it’s Miss, if you don't mind.”
“Just imagine if me trouser legs were to smell of dogs or
cats. I'd have all the dogs in the neighbourhood running after me and nipping me
trouser legs.”
“My trouser legs,” Dorothy corrected automatically.
“Yours as well? Do you wear trousers, Mrs? I hadn't thought of that.”
Communication was proving arduous for both the postman and
Dorothy, but the garrulous man persisted.
“But you wouldn't, would you? It's not your problem, is it? Now,
as I see it...”
The postman knew a lot about the subject. After turning away
in puzzlement, he came back to the front door and launched into a long
monologue.
What a pity Minor isn't interested in postmen, Dorothy was
thinking.
“Mind you, not all dogs are vicious,” said the postman, now perched
firmly on his hobbyhorse.
“Take those big dogs, for example. You'd think they would
knock a man down, wouldn't you?”
Dorothy looked at the postman, and thought they probably would
if given half a chance.
“Well, you're wrong. They're as good as gold. It's them little
dogs I don't like. They come at you like greased lightning and before you can
turn round they've got a piece of your leg between their fangs.”
Dorothy had never thought about it before, but postman
probably lived quite dangerously.
“Vicious dogs should be on a lead,” she said.
“You tell their owners that. Some keep their animals inside
all day long. If I have to ring the doorbell, they yap and bark and go frantic.
Sometimes I hear things breaking inside the house. Then I get on my way as fast
as my legs can carry me.”
“I expect you do.”
Most postmen like talking about their nasty experiences, but
none in such detail as this one. He still hadn't finished.
“In fact, I've heard of a postman ending up in hospital with bites
and bruises and concussion before now. We should get danger money.”
“I expect you should, but I'll have to go in now,” Dorothy chipped
in, while the postman paused for breath. “The kettle’s boiling.”
“Making tea, are you?”
Before Dorothy could do anything about it, the postman was
sitting at her kitchen table pouring out her tea and talking about every dog on
his round in Lower Grumpsfield. He was just about to start on the dogs his
brother-in-law, who also happened to be a postman, had encountered in
Middlethumpton when Dorothy finally got round to opening her letter.
“I expect it's to tell me I haven't won,” said Dorothy,
steaming the envelope open over the kettle. “I wouldn't be surprised. It's the
silliest slogan you could imagine.”
“Don't you believe it, Lady. They'll be looking for something
they haven't thought of themselves. Why else have a competition, unless you've
run out of good ideas?”
“I never thought of it that way,” said Dorothy, seeing the
postman in a new light. “That was clever of you, Mr ...?”
“Wilkins.”
“Mr Wilkins. Have some more tea.”
“I don't mind if I do,” said Mr Wilkins, gulping the first lot
down to make space in his cup.
Ignoring Mr Wilkins’s unseemly haste, Dorothy spread her
letter out on the table to read. Mr Wilkins peered over his teacup and read the
first part upside-down.
“Dear Dorothy Price,” he read aloud. “We the world famous
manufacturers of Duggy's dog biscuits are privileged and honoured to inform you
that you have been selected as one of the two joint winners of our Duggy's dog
biscuit competition.”
“Congratulations!” said Mr Wilkins, reaching for the sugar. “Nothing
like a good cup of tea.”
He dropped four lumps of sugar into his cup from a height
causing splashes to jump over the rim onto the tablecloth. He didn’t dare do
that at home with the kids looking, but here he didn’t have to set a good
example.
“I can see that,” said Dorothy.
“You won then, did you?”
“Yes, you read the letter out. But how...” Dorothy watched Mr
Wilkins pour the second lot of tea down his gullet.
“Us postmen are used to deciphering funny writing, Mrs Price.”
“We postman,” Dorothy corrected automatically.
“No, US postmen. Upside-down and sideways writing is my
speciality. It saves twisting and turning all the letters and parcels.”
Dorothy held her letter up in the air so that Mr Wilkins could
not see what was on it and read the next bit out loud for him to hear, though
why she did that is a mystery, seeing that it was none of the postman’s
business.
“Out of the four thousand, three hundred and ninety-two
entries, yours went onto the shortlist of two...”
Mr Wilkins tapped with his spoon against his saucer in
appreciation.
Dorothy got slower and slower as she proceeded.
“Since both entries on the shortlist had the same slogan, we
felt it only just and fair to let you share the prize.”
“Ah! That must have been the other letter.” Mr Wilkins fancied
himself as something of a sleuth.
“This means that you will be going on your mystery tour of the
universe with...” and here Dorothy gasped so dramatically in utter horror that
Mr Wilkins got up to save her from falling in an apoplectic heap.
“Laura Finch,” she screamed. “L A U R A damn and blast F I N C
H.”
Dorothy’s lips became taut and pale.
“Mind your language, Mrs,” warned the postman, fearing that
Dorothy would have a fit any minute.
“I won't, I won't!” she shrieked, holding the letter at arm's
length as if it could bite.
“You won't do what?”
Mr Wilkins was quite bewildered at this turn of events. He put
his cup back onto its saucer with a loud clatter.
“I won't go on a mystery tour of the universe with that woman,
and that's that!”
Mr Wilkins leant back and nodded wisely.
“Ah, now I remember where I delivered the letter. Mrs Finch is
the nice lady on my regular round,” he said, remembering that she was a soft
touch for gratuities if you helped her a bit with heavy shopping.
“Nice? She’s the last person I would want to go with on
holiday.”
Mr Wilkins could see that Dorothy was not going to be very
good company from now on, so he got up saying he had to get the wife some cough
mixture before the chemist shut and made good his escape.
Dorothy did not even notice that he had left. She was hopping
mad, not able to take in the treachery of Duggy's dog biscuits, conniving to
make her go on holiday with that woman. She was still so angry that when Albert
Parsnip arrived for his piano lesson a few minutes later he got a very cool
reception. The little boy perched nervously on the edge of the revolving stool
and stabbed at the piano keys with trembling, sticky fingers.
“You haven't practised...” she rebuked him callously.
“Sorry, Miss...” sniffed Albert, wondering how she had
guessed.
“...and your hands are dirty.”
“Sorry Miss,” Albert recited. He often found himself saying “sorry”
for things he had done and shouldn’t have, or things he hadn’t done and should
have. “I got a puncture and fell off my bike again.”
Albert could not prevent salty tears rolling down his cheeks.
Falling off bikes was a Parsnip speciality, but today Dorothy
had no sympathy for Albert's tale of woe. She was rather glad to have an excuse
not to teach him, with the prospect of a free holiday coming to nothing thanks
to that woman.
“You'd better go home and put iodine on your knees, young man.
And come on foot next time, with clean hands!”
“I could wash the, Miss,” Albert said.
“Go home!” commanded Dorothy.
Albert had to push his bike all the way home, because the
front tyre was as flat as a pancake. When he got home, Mr Parsnip was working
on a sermon about forgiveness, meaning that he was leaning back on his
swivelling chair trying to decide how to start. Still smarting from his
misadventure, Albert stood in front of his father's pompous writing desk and
waited, fidgeting nervously and hopping from one foot to the other.
“Been playing football, Albert?” queried Mr Parsnip without
looking up. He could see Albert from the blood-encrusted knees downwards where
his desk ended and did not look at the boy’s upper half at all. “You'd better
have a bath and don't let your mother see those scuffed-up shoes.”
Scuffed-up shoes were a trademark of all the Parsnip boys, as
if it were a contagious disease. A quick glance at his now receding son
revealed the rest: Albert was unkempt.
“I fell off my bike and I'm not going to Dorothy's again,”
said the boy, turning round to confront his father belligerently. Then tears
rolled down Albert’s cheeks and Mr Parsnip was forced to break off and look at
him.
“We can talk about that when you're clean,” he said callously,
“and her name is Miss Price.”
The vicar returned to meditation on a possibly sermon before
giving that up and getting on with some pencil sharpening. While other men had creative
hobbies like model trains or jogging, Mr Parsnip sharped pencils. He sharpened
pencils to recover his equilibrium now. It would save him the bother of
disciplining Albert further and after all, no amount of counselling could
replace a good scrub.
“Miss Price had red eyes and she shouted at me because I fell
off my bike,” Albert whined as he stood at his father’s study door.
Remorsefully, because he had omitted to show his son any
sympathy, Mr Parsnip now tried to think of suitable comforting words without
actually condoning Albert’s conduct.
“Perhaps she's sickening for something,” Mr Parsnip answered, and
was instantly filled with missionary fervour.
It was high time he called on Dorothy. He sent Albert to the
kitchen to be dealt with by Edith. He then scribbled a few hasty thoughts on forgiveness
that had just occurred to him in connection with his neglect of his parochial
duty on Dorothy, omitting to even contemplate his own need to forgive his
eldest son for having to remind him of his duty as a man of God and father of
five. Fathers disciplined; mothers comforted, in his mind. He would compose the
sermon some other time. There were more important things to see to now, and
they did not include seeing if Albert was all right.
