Mr Parsnip retrieved his rusty old velocipede from the pile in
the bicycle shed, pumped up the tyres a bit, clamped his trouser legs in his
bicycle clips and set off in a zigzag line towards Dorothy's cottage. He was
postponing the moment he would have to face her by enjoying all the gardens
along the way and wondering why no one bothered much about the vicarage garden.
“Good evening, vicar,” a voice called to him from way above
his head. It was Cleo Hartley balancing precariously on a kitchen chair cutting
the hedge. “Preparing to join the crusades, are you?” she called in fruity
tones.
Cleo had successfully revived the garden at her cottage on
Monkton way. She lived only 32 cottages nearer the village than Dorothy Price,
which is where Mr Parsnip thought he should smooth troubled waters.
The vicar was startled to hear a voice from above. He dragged
a shoe along the ground to slow himself down to a standstill, climbed off his
bike and peered up at the owner of the voice.
“Ah, Miss Hartley,” he said, relieved that it was a human
gardener and not a heavenly one. “You should come to church. That's one of our
most rousing tunes and we could certainly use you in the choir.”
“Maybe I would, but I can't sit on your pews for long.” Cleo snipped
at some twigs. “They are so short from back to front that I slip off and fall
on my knees. I’m a tall woman and it’s very uncomfortable, I can tell you! Those
pews were made for little people, not tall humans with athletic ancestors.”
“I'll see what I can do,” replied Mr Parsnip dishonestly. He
knew that his pews were not designed for ladies of Miss Hartley's well-built
stature. Most English ladies were shorter than Miss Hartley with shorter legs,
making sitting and falling on their knees easier. Falling on one’s knees was
part of what church was all about. Sitting quietly to listen to God’s words
another. But singing also belonged to the ritual, If Mr Parsnip knew a good sermon-starter
when he came across one, he also knew the value of having a few quality singing
voices in the choir, like Mr Jones’s, for instance. What Cleo Hartley had just
said would make a good sermon for Mother’s Day, though he was not quite sure
what the short pews had to do with being a mother. And he really should mention
that the choir needed her, and they sat on benches which were less inconvenient
to sit on. However, not wanting to get involved in a discussion that might
influence his unborn thoughts on the topic he had now settled on for Mothering
Sunday, he changed the subject.
“Your garden looks very nice. I wish I had your green fingers,”
he said.
“Hard work, Mr Parsnip. You should try it! Good for the soul,
too,” she said, stretching her Chicago vowels as wide as possible. “Get some of
your parishioners to work over that disgraceful vicarage garden,” she
suggested.
The vicar, who was certainly no nearer digging the vicarage
garden than he had been before and thankful for the idea, congratulated himself
that he had provoked what was actually the nearest the good lady had ever come
to actually saying she would come to church, although where she came from was sure
to be the heart of Gospel country and where he got that idea was a figment of
his imagination. If she would come and join in with Robert Jones in the choir,
the singing would improve by leaps and bounds, and his hands would join hers in
improving the vicarage garden.
In addition, it would be one more sheep for the fold. Mr
Parsnip’s fold was very important to him, especially as the uncomfortably calculating
bishop had started to drop hints that St Peter’s Upper Grumpsfield might have
to move to St Agnes’s Middlethumpton if church attendance did not pick up.
“That's also thanks to my compost, Vicar,” she confided,
disappearing behind the hedge as she climbed off her chair. “Nothing like
compost for getting your garden to grow. Would you like a piece of apple pie?”
“Sorry, no time today. How about Monday afternoon?”
Mr Parsnip was almost as fond of apple pie as he was of the cherry cake he judged at the annual
vicarage fete. Cleo thought she would say yes and bake a fresh apple pie for
the occasion. She might even invite Dorothy.
“Are you going to see Dorothy Price?” she inquired now, having
already heard about Dorothy's good fortune from Mr Wilkins, a postman who treasured and spread any news that
came his way.
“No, no. I wanted to admire your flowers,” Mr Parsnip insisted,
since chatting to Cleo was purely delaying tactics to which he did not admit,
even to himself. Cleo guessed, however, that the vicar was in no hurry to get
to Dorothy’s cottage and decided to find out why.
“I expect you want to talk to Dorothy about the prize, don’t
you?”
“What prize?”
“The Duggy dog biscuit prize.”
“This is the first I've heard about it. Someone told me she is
out of sorts.”
Cleo came round the hedge to put the vicar in the picture.
“‘Well, I don’t know what out of sorts is supposed to be, Mr
Parsnip. I’m not sure we have them in Chicago. All I can tell you is that Mr
Wilkins, that gossipy postman from Lower Grumpsfield who is doing poor Mr
Smith's round while he's at home with his broken arm came in for a quick cup of
tea. He told me that Dorothy has won a prize in the Duggy's dog biscuit competition
and that she doesn't want it because she won't go on a mystery tour round the
universe with that crazy woman from Lower Grumpsfield. You know, the one with
the loud voice.”
“Slow down, slow down,” interrupted Mr Parsnip, who was
completely out of his depth now Cleo had slipped even further back into her
American drawl whilst trying to make it all plain enough for the vicar to
understand. “One thing after another, dear lady, and more slowly please.”
It was the pot calling the kettle black for Cleo to accuse Laura
of being loud-voiced, the vicar decided. Was she also loud-mouthed? He’d had
enough experience of loud-mouthed women. His sister Beatrice was loud-mouthed
and he had never got the better of her in an argument. No wonder he had settled
for Edith. She never raised her voice, even when sorely tried.
“Well, as I was saying, Dorothy has won a prize and she
doesn't want it,” Cleo shouted as if louder was more comprehensible than a
respectable English dialect. She grabbed the garden shears, snapped them open
and shut a few times like a crocodile’s jaws, and then snipped away vigorously
at stray edges of the hedge as though she were giving it a much-needed short
back and sides.
Mr Parsnip finally got the gist of the conversation.
“I see. She’s won a free trip round the universe.”
“So when you get there…”
“To the universe?”
“To Dorothy's cottage, Mr Parsnip,” said Cleo, finding the vicar
even more exasperating than usual.
“Of course, of course. Silly me. But there must be a
misunderstanding. I've heard that Dorothy is quite ill.”
“She was fine this morning. You can tell her from me that if
she doesn't want to go round the universe, I'll go instead.”
Cleo came to the garden gate.
“I call it ungrateful to turn down such an opportunity,” she
concluded in mercifully softer tones, wiping her brow, which was glistening
with all the tiny droplets of perspiration that had gathered there during her
tussle with the hedge.
Mr Parsnip thought Cleo was being more than a trifle petulant,
but as he was in a forgiving frame of mind, he merely replied “If you come to Saint
Peter’s tomorrow, you can hear all the verses of that nice hymn I was just
singing, and you can sit on the velvet chair reserved for the Bishop.”
“I’ll think about it, Vicar.”
Cleo climbed back on her kitchen chair to complete the
hedge-cutting and took no further notice of the vicar. Eventually, perceiving
that their conversation was over, Mr Parsnip heaved himself back onto his
bicycle, pushed himself off the curb and meandered off up the road.
“Don't forget to tell Dorothy what I said,” Cleo called after
him, now in a thoroughly bad mood at the thought of how intransigent Dorothy
was being about the prize.
But Mr Parsnip was already out of earshot.
Minor was guarding Mr Barker's vegetable patch through the
chicken wire from Dorothy’s side when he heard Mr Parsnip's bicycle scraping to
a halt. He hid himself behind the rainwater barrel, hoping to avoid Mr Parsnip's
gushing but inept kindness to dumb animals.
Dorothy was weeding her front garden with vicious jerks and
energetic rake wielding. She straightened herself up and looked over the garden
gate.
“What are you doing here?” she queried without so much as a
fleeting smile.
“Are you sure you should be working so hard in your condition,
Dorothy?” the vicar started.
“What condition? I’m not pregnant, Frederick.”
Mr Parsnip blushed, as well he might.
“You know that’s not what I meant, Dorothy. Albert told me you
are not well, so I've come to see how you are.”
“Well I'm not unwell,” retorted Dorothy, stooping to yank an
uninvited nettle out of her antirrhinums. “I’m perfectly well, thank you.”
Her face was so flushed from looking down that Mr Parsnip was
sure she must be sickening for something if she hadn’t already got it.
“Is there anything in particular you want to talk about,
Frederick?”
“Are you feverish? You look feverish, Dorothy.”
“No, just hot from gardening, but I’m sure you didn’t come
here just to ask me that or to help me with the hard work. Just spit it out,
Frederick!”
The vicar was hesitating the way he probably would when
breaking the news to the bishop that the lead on the church roof was being
systematically removed by unknown persons, once he had plucked up the courage
to inform him.
“Get on with it Frederick! I haven’t got all day.”
Mr Parsnip leaned his bicycle against the garden wall and mopped
his forehead with his scarf. He shouldn’t have listened to Albert. Albert was
only a child and could not judge how adults felt.
“All right,” Dorothy conceded, taking pity on him. “You'd better
come in and sit down.”
Leaving her gardening gloves and yellow wellies on the
doorstep Dorothy sock-footed her way into the kitchen.
“I am indeed a bit tired,” the vicar said, wishing he were
somewhere else, anywhere else.
“Sit down. I'll put the kettle on.”
Dorothy was almost sorry that she had been so short-tempered
with poor Frederick. Something was troubling him, after all.
Nobody said anything more until the hot, steaming tea was in
the cups and Mr Parsnip had dropped three lumps of sugar into his and stirred
it vigorously.
“Dorothy, you make the best cup of tea in Upper Grumpsfield,.”
He said.
Mr Parsnip felt more able to cope after he had taken a sip or
two of the brew. He was desperately trying to think of a way of patching things
up between them, although he couldn't understand why they weren't getting on. Dorothy
could see that he needed prompting if he were ever to get to the point of his
visit.
“Is there something on your mind apart from my state of health,
Frederick?”
Mr Parsnip cleared his throat. He had no idea what to say now
it was clear that Dorothy was perfectly all right. Dorothy had seen enough courtroom
dramas on TV to know that people get nervous when you let them stew, but seeing
how miserable he was, she decided that poor Frederick had stewed long enough.
“If it's about the prize...”
“Errr...prize?” Mr Parsnip feigned surprise. “No. It was
Albert who made me worry.”
“Don't you want to hear about it, then?”
“Albert’s piano lesson? I leave everything to Edith.”
Thinking that Frederick had never said a truer word, Dorothy
pressed on.
“I was talking about the prize, Frederick!”
“Do you want to talk to me about it, Dorothy?” he said, hoping
she didn’t.
The vicar cast an eye on a homemade fruit loaf that just
happened to be on the table.
“There's nothing to talk about, actually. I've made up my
mind, and that's that.”
Dorothy pursed her lips and made no move towards the fruit
loaf. Instead, she handed him the offending prize letter and he read it
carefully before passing judgement.
“If I had won a holiday, I wouldn't think twice about going,”
he said finally, wishing Dorothy would stop being unfriendly and offer him a teeny-weeny
sliver off the loaf, but she didn't.
“Not even if it meant going with your worst enemy?”
“If I had a worst enemy, I would think the prize had come from
heaven to tell me to patch up relations with him,” preached Mr Parsnip, feeling
good and deciding to write a sermon about what he had just heard himself
saying. Anyway, if Laura was her worst enemy she was doing well on that score.
Frederick thought Laura was rather ravishing, if the truth be known.
“Well, this prize didn't come from heaven, it came from
Duggy's dog biscuits, so don’t preach at me, Frederick. It won’t do any good.”
Mr Parsnip fell silent. He had failed to understand most of Cleo
Hartley’s explanation of the event and skimmed through Dorothy’s prize, reading
the name Laura and thinking what it would be like if he took a holiday with the
charming prima donna instead. However, it had been a very long day, and thinking
hard made him drowsy. His eyelids became heavy and he looked as if he were
about to nod off.
“Wake up, Frederick, and answer a very important question.”
“Well, just a teeny weeny sliver,” demurred Mr Parsnip.
“Not the bread! Wake up and listen!”
Mr Parsnip sat up straight and felt about as foolish as it was
possible to feel.
“Do you remember the music festival at Middlethumpton a few
years ago?”
“How could I forget it? Errr.... Wasn’t it wonderful?’
“No, it wasn’t a bit wonderful, Frederick. If you remember, some
of the best singers from our village choir left after it and went to sing in
Lower Grumpsfield's choir instead.”
“Did they now?”
“And somebody I used to think of as a friend and colleague was
responsible for that.”
“Oh dear,” said, Mr Parsnip suddenly remembering the
embarrassment of it all as if it had been yesterday. “But that was ages ago.”
“That makes no difference to me. That Finch woman knew exactly
what she was doing.”
“‘Oh dear!” said Mr Parsnip, flinching at Dorothy's aggressive
tone of voice.
“Well, you must let bygones be bygones, Dorothy. It doesn’t do
to bear grudges.”
“You don't seem to understand, Frederick,” she continued. “In
plain language, that woman stole my best singers for her choir and now she’s sharing
my prize and that means that we have to go on this holiday together.”
“Try not to be upset, Dorothy.. I'm sure that Laura was only
doing her best for Lower Grumpsfield. You always do your best for Upper
Grumpsfield, don't you?”
But Dorothy was adamant.
“That woman was only ever interested in herself.”
“You must look on the bright side,” advised Mr Parsnip, who
would have liked to contradict Dorothy. Suddenly feeling full of vitality, he
got up and walked around Dorothy's kitchen while he decided what to say next. Finally
he decided he had found a solution.
“I've got an idea, Dorothy. I'll arrange a little meeting for
us all, and you can talk things over. It would be a pity to miss the chance of
a lifetime just because of a silly old feud.”
Dorothy was not amused.
“And we can have another music festival in Upper Grumpsfield.
You’d like that wouldn’t you, Dorothy?”
“Well...”
“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, Dorothy. It’s a very good
reason for calling a meeting.
“It won't do any good, you know.”
Forgetting all about the currant loaf, the vicar made for the
door. Now he had a mission he was full of enthusiasm. He was sure everything
would turn out for the best.
“How about tomorrow at four o'clock?” he proposed.
“If you insist.”
“I do, I do,” said Mr Parsnip, and left via the kitchen door,
almost ran to his bicycle, mounted it awkwardly from the wrong side and rode
off into the gloom congratulating himself on his tact and diplomacy and leaving
Dorothy wishing she had been more forceful and refused to join in with the
scheme.
The vicar did not enjoy his bicycle ride back to the vicarage
from Dorothy’s cottage. If Minor liked long walks, he liked long runs even
better. He insisted on following the vicar’s back wheel all the way down Monkton
Way. Minor's persistence and high-spirited barking made Mr Parsnip very nervous
indeed. His zigzag lines became even more precarious until he finally wobbled
off his bike altogether and crashed in a heap in the middle of the road. Minor
stopped just long enough to lick the vicar's face before trotting off home, tail
wagging and nose in the air.
Mr Parsnip's thoughts at that moment had little to do with his
Sunday sermon. Having made sure that no bones were broken, he picked himself up
stiffly and pushed his warped bike ruefully the rest of the way back to the vicarage.
“That's what comes of trying to be a Good Samaritan,” he
muttered.
Edith Parsnip was quite shocked when she saw her husband
wheeling his bike up the drive. She ran towards him shouting “Frederick! What
has happened to you? Where have you been all this time?”
In no time at all Edith found herself pushing the battered
bike towards the shed while she listened to a very garbled story about Cleo, Dorothy
and that awful hound, Minor. She thought her husband might be exaggerating
somewhat.
Later, when he had soaked his bruises in a hot bath, Mr
Parsnip remembered his parting words to Dorothy and phoned Laura.
“Good evening, Laura, good evening, errump...” Edith heard the
vicar stutter. As usual when she hadn't been told what was going on, and was
again obliged to hover around near enough to eavesdrop while she pretended to
do something useful, in this case lay the kitchen table for the next meal.
“Errump...I was just wondering if you would like to come to
tea tomorrow afternoon at four o'clock.”
Edith Parsnip could not believe her ears.
“I've decided to organize a music festival.”
The vicar did not mention his attempt to patch things up
between Laura Finch and Dorothy Price. What a good job he had thought of the
music festival – or was it Dorothy’s idea?
“That's the first I've heard of it,” Edith commented quite
loudly, clattering the cups and saucers. She hated it when Mr Parsnip tried to
put one of his hair-brained schemes into action because she always got the jobs
nobody else could be persuaded to do and anything involving Laura definitely
belonged in that category.
“You'll join us, then, Laura, won’t you? ... You will? ... That's
simply splendid. Thank you, thank you. Till tomorrow then and God bless.”
Mr Parsnip replaced the receiver with a sigh of relief and
went into the kitchen to see if he could find something to eat. There wasn’t so
he turned tail and made for his study. Edith followed him.
“You never told me anything about a music festival,” she said.
“I couldn't. I've only just decided.”
“Don't you remember that old trouble with the village choirs,
Frederick? I’d hate to go through that again.”
“That's the whole point of the exercise.”
The vicar told her all about his plan for patching up relations
between Dorothy and Laura. Edith reluctantly agreed that a music festival might
do the trick.
“I’m sure Laura and Dorothy are wiser now,” said Edith. “They’ll
be friends again when you get them doing something really important together.”
“I hope you're right,” said the vicar, who was starting to get
cold feet now his wife had spelt it all out so uncompromisingly. He should have
explained about the Duggy prize, but he didn’t.
“You’d better ask Mr Morgan to come to the meeting,” she
suggested.
Edith had a soft spot for Mr Morgan. She enjoyed watching him
enjoy his food whenever he came to the vicarage, and his organ playing was in
her opinion quite out of this world.
“Old Mr Cross was still our organist when the silly business
with the choir happened, so Mr Morgan can't take sides,” Edith added. “And
coming from Wales, he is bound to have experience of music festivals. So we should
ask him to take part in the meeting, shouldn’t we?”
Mr Parsnip could not deny the logic of this argument. He would
keep the best brandy hidden, however.
“You’re right. I'll invite him straight after church.”
Edith Parsnip glowed with happiness for the rest of the
evening, not least because Frederick Parsnip never usually said she was right
about anything. That night she dreamt she had won the Nobel Prize for good
ideas.
The vicar did not dream at all. He tossed and turned and having
only found sleep as it was getting light outside, he woke up on Sunday morning
with a migraine headache which made ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ sound even more
like a battle cry.
The vicar’s sermon about loving all your enemies did not get a
very good reception from his parishioners either, if the daggers drawn looks were
anything to go by. His only consolation was Mr Morgan's obvious eagerness to come
to tea even at such short notice.
Mr Parsnip is, like so many who cannot keep their heads
organized, very fond of lists. Traditionally, while he is waiting for the
Sunday lunch to be served, he makes lists of things he wants to read, write, do
or buy, lists of all the people he wants to help, a list of the problems he needs
to solve and lists of all the undealt with items on the previous week’s list
after sorting out what he has achieved. Not liking to throw anything away, he
keeps all his lists in a tray marked ‘IMPORTANT’. At the end of every month he
checks all the weekly lists and makes end-of-the-month, rather alarming lists
of all the things he hasn't yet managed to think, say, or do. That list has its
own special place under his desk since anything left over, unreadable or
defunct is consigned to a shoebox for safekeeping. Mr Parsnip has numerous
dated shoeboxes full of the debris of previous months. It is unlikely that the
documents will ever be looked at again. In fact, many of them have helped to
warm the vicarage parlour by being consigned to the grate, but Edith Parsnip is
careful to leave enough paper in each box to convince the vicar that his gems
of wisdom are still there.
With such an unreliable filing system, it is not surprising
that most of his lists never see the light of day again. Luckily, the old music
festival lists turned up eventually in box No. 4 marked ‘EVENTS’ and still
awaiting Edith’s recycling. The vicar was just settling down to sieve through
some of his old festival suggestions when he was obliged to inspect the family
fingers for signs of grubbiness and escort the five Parsnip boys to the table
for lunch. Since it was Sunday, this was eaten in the dining-room, an event
that called for strict supervision. Mr Parsnip’s ideas about rearing children
were scant and vague, so he was glad that Edith allowed him a vestige of
authority. He would make sure no fights occurred during the meal and deal with
the music festival lists later. Mr Parsnip did not enjoy Sunday lunches.
After the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and huge portions
of apple crumble had been polished off, accompanied by squabbles and arguments
by the children and listening to advice on how to keep the peace between two harassed
females and the scarcely more delicate subject of portable loos, the vicar at
last escaped to his study.
“We'll do everything as though we were in a courtroom,” he told
himself. “Laura and Dorothy will draw lots to see who goes first. That way each
lady will get a fair chance to state her case.”
Satisfied that he had solved the problem of how to cope with
the two ladies and leaving any other decision, however urgent, to posterity, he
yawned widely and settled back in his chair for his digestive forty winks.
The vicarage fell silent except for Mr Parsnip’s gentle
snoring and the clatter of dirty dinner dishes being dealt with by Edith to the
accompaniment of the perennial voices of Gardeners’ Question Time administering
age-old wisdom about compost heaps, preventative measures against wily snails
and birds and growing things in grow-bags. Most of the boys had gone out for a
game of football on the common. They would not reappear until hunger, excessive
rain or injury drove them home. The twins were sent to have a sleep and heard
later to quarrel about whose car should go first on the Carrera track.
At twenty to four, Mr Parsnip was battling bleary eyed with
consciousness and wishing he had woken sooner. Could he take a meeting in his
carpet slippers? His brown brogues were sitting highly polished at his studio
door. Edith had sent him an unmistakeable message about his shoe-work.
At ten minutes to four, Mr Morgan arrived.
Gareth Morgan prided himself on his appearance, though, viewed
objectively, it left much to be desired. Today he was dressed to the nines in his
Sunday best tweed suit with its shot silk waistcoat, a whitish shirt, an
unfortunate tie and almost new leather winkle-pickers. His mother would have
been proud of him. After all, she had bought most of it for him (except for the
shoes and the hideous tie) from her well-thumbed mail order catalogue. What is
more, she had invested all her Christmas club money in Gareth’s wardrobe shortly
before he left home.
“Good afternoon, Mr Morgan. Nice of you to come,” said Mr
Parsnip, trying not to look at Mr Morgan's saucy neck adornment.
“Nice of you to invite me,” replied Mr Morgan, who was always
pleased to be invited anywhere, especially at tea-time. Today he was looking
forward to hearing good news about the organ repairs. He could think of no
other reason for being invited at such short notice. Someone must have made a
big donation.
Mr Parsnip had taken the precaution of not telling Mr Morgan
what the meeting was in aid of, just in case the latter cried off on hearing
that Laura would be coming. Mr Morgan was, for all his bluster, a shy person
who had taken up the organ partly because organists can only be seen from the
back and can only see their listeners through a sort of driving mirror while seated
with his back to the congregation, which made eye contact impossible. When he
saw that the tea table was laid for no less than five people, he was uneasy.
The last time he had been to tea at the vicarage, Mrs Parsnip's identical twin
sister Clare had arrived out of the blue and he had spent all afternoon trying
to decide who was who.
“Is your sister-in-law visiting you again, boy?” he inquired,
fearing the worst.
Ignoring the familiarity, the vicar mused on the question. His
sister-in-law was a pain in the neck, if the truth be known. He often thanked
his lucky stars that he had been spared Clare, even when Edith was at her most
exasperating.
“Clare? No, not today, fortunately ... errrump I mean
unfortunately.” His Freudian slip of the tongue had given him away. Mr Parsnip had
a similar identification problem to that experienced by most men when
confronted by the identical twins. Fortunately, the vicar usually recognized
the clothes his wife had on, even if the face defeated him when presented
double.
“Would you like a drink, Mr Morgan?”
“I don't mind if I do, boyo.”
Mr Morgan never minded if he did.
Mr Parsnip fetched a bottle of his second best brandy and
poured generous quantities into lemonade glasses decorated with Disney figures.
The vicarage holds the record for glass breakages. They were down to the last
half dozen tumblers again.
“Iechyd da! Down the hatch, boyo!’” Mr Morgan toasted,
draining his glass in one draught. He didn't mind what the glasses looked like
so long as its contents were potent enough.
“Cheers!” croaked the vicar, coughing and spluttering in an
attempt to do the same. He wasn't up to Mr Morgan's rate of imbibing. Mr
Parsnip belonged more or less in the drinking- for-medicinal-purposes category.
Communal wine was his drink after all, he would argue, though he had been known
to attempt to keep up with the bishop on his best brandy.
“Would you like another?” he gasped when his voice came back.
Mr Morgan was already holding up his glass in readiness, but unfortunately
for him the doorbell rang and Mr Parsnip headed for the front door
absentmindedly swinging the brandy bottle. Mr Morgan was forced to resort to
the sherry, which was standing on the sideboard and only occasionally drunk by
Edith or added to grown-up trifles (and usually eaten by the boys!). No hard
feelings, though. Gareth Morgan was used to improvising.
Dorothy and Laura had walked up the vicarage path on opposite
sides of the road. They had not greeted each other and each had made a point of
looking over hedges into other people’s gardens so that their eyes did not have
to meet.
Now they were standing mute on the vicarage front doorstep, Dorothy
in her Sunday hat with its pink ostridge feather and Laura in a frothy blue creation
that made her look a good deal more frivolous than she felt. Laura won the first
round by knocking the brass gargoyle forcefully while Dorothy was still
negotiating the steps.
Edith, who had raced and beaten her husband to the front door,
invited them in. They stepped wordlessly into the hall as Frederick Parsnip meandered
towards them, bottle in hand, feeling somewhat light-headed and lacking the
necessary earnestness for the occasion.
“‘Welcome, welcome!” he exclaimed jovially, bottle-pointing
the way into the dining-room.
The two ladies stepped solemnly inside, ignoring the vicar’s
inebriated conduct. Mr Morgan couldn't believe his eyes. He moved nervously
towards the patio door, the sherry bottle tucked under his arm and Mickey Mouse
glass in hand. A quick getaway was what was needed now.
Gareth Morgan, who was garrulous with his friends at home, disliked
and preferably avoided conflict in this nearly foreign country. A free Sunday
tea was no consolation for the row he sensed was brewing between Dorothy and Laura.
He tried to negotiate the sliding door onto the patio.
“No, no,” said the vicar, tugging at Gareth Morgan’s arm to
pull him back into the room. “I want you to stay. I absolutely want you all to
stay.”
The brandy was giving the vicar a warm, confident feeling.
“Edith?” he called out to his wife, who was getting the tea. “Edith,
come along! We want to get started.”
“Get started on what?” squeaked Mr Morgan, now unable to
escape.
“On the meeting!”
“What meeting? I don't know anything about a meeting. It's
Sunday. I don't go to meetings on a Sunday.”
“Well, make an exception and sit down!” shouted the vicar with
more belligerence than was strictly necessary.
Mr Morgan felt unable to enter into a dispute with the vicar,
so he sat down meekly on the edge of the chair the vicar was pointing to.
Gareth’s lips were pursed and he was determined to suffer in silence.
The two ladies sat down grimly on the chairs Mr Parsnip had
delegated to them exactly opposite one another with himself between them at the
head of the table. Edith Parsnip slipped timidly into the chair opposite Gareth
Morgan. She was indeed carrying a small torch for him, but she would never admit
it to anyone.
“Would you like some marble cake, Mr Morgan?”
“Not yet, Edith,” said Mr Parsnip. “Let's have the meeting
first.”
“But Frederick, you said...”
“Meeting now, cake later,” insisted Mr Parsnip in a voice whose
authority startled everyone. Edith exchanged exasperated looks with Mr Morgan,
who had only come for the cake. He now felt he had been lured there under false
pretences. Edith pushed a generous slice of the marble cake onto his plate and
was rewarded with a thankful nod.
The vicar stood up.
“‘We are gathered here together...”
“So we are,” synchronized the two ladies.
A chill swept through the room and a protracted silence ensued
while the vicar consulted his notes.
“I have something to say,” Laura Finch announced, standing up
suddenly, and it dawned on the vicar that he was already out of his depth.
However, he had no intention of letting Laura take charge of
the proceedings, so he stood up straighter and cleared his throat to announce
without further ado the foundation of The Upper Grumpsfield Festival of Poetry,
Music and Art.
“‘The what?” everybody exclaimed except Edith, who had taken a
large bite of cake and would never speak with her mouth full even if what she
had to say was important.
I repeat: “The Upper Grumpsfield Festival of Poetry, Music and
Art.”
“The Upper Grumpsfield Festival of Poetry, Music and Art” they
all recited.
Dorothy stood up to be on the same level as Laura.
Mr Parsnip wrote the title words on his list and then drew a
ring around the each first letter.
“The TUGFOPOMA”, he read.
“The what?”
“TUG OF WAR?” screeched Mr Morgan, clearly baffled.
“Not tug of war. TUGFOPOMA. That’s an acronym. Everything has
an acronym these days,” claimed the vicar.
While the vicar was explaining, he realized that ‘TUG OF WAR’
might be a more appropriate title, but he was saved by the bell when Mr Morgan
rose unexpectedly to his feet.
“What a splendid idea. An eisteddfod.”
“This is England. We don't have those … whatsits here,”
protested Laura, who refused to use foreign words on principle. What is more,
she could not pronounce the word Mr Morgan had used.
“Well, it's high time you did, boyo!”
Mr Morgan was a believer in all things Welsh, especially if
they involved music.
“You're right, Mr Morgan,” said Mr Parsnip. He was relieved to
have a supporter and perceived that the meeting had taken a happy turn. “An
Eisteddfod is exactly what we need.”
“Oh yes, with poetry and art!”’ Laura Finch enthused. She had written
poems in her time and was about to take up painting. ”I could…”
“We didn’t mention poetry and art, Frederick. Just music,” interrupted
Dorothy. Quite apart from not wanting Laura to produce poems and paintings to
cloud the issue, Dorothy genuinely doubted about the wisdom of making things
more complicated than they needed to be, so it was not only her eagerness not
to let Laura emerge as a poet or a painter that was bothering her.
“‘So it was your idea was it, Dorothy?” Laura said. “In that case...”
Mr Parsnip hastened to intervene.
“‘No, no, no, dear Laura. It was my idea. Mine entirely. But
on second thoughts, let’s just have the music this time. We can call it a
TUGFOM.”
Dorothy was delighted with that decision. Edith, who had been looking
earnestly at plate waiting for a shouting match to develop, now stood up, applauded
heartily and dispensed cake onto each plate, not forgetting to give Mr Morgan,
who had been eating all through the meeting, yet another generous slice.
But now Mr Morgan wasn’t thinking about cake. He was wearing a
broad smile, because his dream was about to come true.
“This will remind me of home in the valleys,” he said. He was
prone to tearful emotional outbursts. Edith passed him a paper napkin.
“Thank you,” he sniffed into it. “I've never been away from the
land of my fathers this long before.”
Mr Parsnip took no notice of Mr Morgan. He had learnt by
experience to treat Celtic passion with contempt. He gave Edith a black look
for encouraging what he considered to be an embarrassing display of melodramatic
humbug. “Can we take a vote on the TUGFOM idea?” he requested. It was much more
important to enlist their official support than to bother about Mr Morgan.
Four hands went up in approval, including the vicar’s. Gareth
Morgan was still too busy drying his eyes.
“Unanimous, then,” said the vicar. “It’s such a good idea, if
we can get it organized.”
Laura Finch was not going to be the one to do that. She wanted
to make that clear from the outset. There are people who make music and people
who organize events and ne’er the twain may meet, was her argument. She would
concentrate on winning first prize.
“Doing what?” said Dorothy.
“Leading my ladies chorus to their destiny,” replied Laura.
“But you two must BOTH help with the organisation,” insisted
the vicar.
“Us?” said Dorothy and Laura simultaneously.
“You've hit the nail on the head,” said the vicar, beaming
because he thought they were volunteering mutual participation and delighted
that things were going so well.
The two ladies looked at each other hatefully. No way could
they work together. Even being in the same room was proving tedious.
“Well, you’ll have to count me out. I'm going away on holiday,”
said Laura.
“But we haven’t set a date yet,” argued the vicar.
“I’m going away for a long time,” said Laura.
“That's a shame. Where are you going?” said Gareth Morgan.
“I'm going on a tour of the universe, Mr Morgan. I won it in a
competition.”
“What a coincidence. I won a tour of the universe, too,” said
Dorothy.
“Well, that's a turn up for the books,” said Gareth Morgan, wondering
what was going on between the two ladies standing opposite one another exchanging
angry looks.
Edith swallowed her tea hastily and wiped some of the cake
crumbs off her lips. Now she felt she would have to do something.
“Do have some more marble cake, everybody,” she invited,
standing up at the ready. She hoped that her baking would prevail over the
mounting aggression.
“Not until Dorothy explains to me how she got hold of my
slogan,” countered Laura, pushing Edith down onto her chair and staring angrily
at Dorothy.
“Wait a minute. I thought of that slogan all by myself, so you
must have stolen it from me.”
“I did nothing of the sort. How dare you!” shouted Laura.
“If I understand rightly,” shouted Mr Morgan, whose Celtic
sense of drama was flaring up, fired not only by the conflict but also by the
chemical interaction of the cheap brandy and supermarket sherry, “you, dear ladies,
are going on a holiday around the world together.”
“Together? Never!” they chorused. “Never ever!”
Mr Parsnip's heart was pounding. Had he released some devil or
other? What a good job his Tuesday night meditation was only two days away.
“Why not, bach?’ Gareth asked. He was saving up for a caravan
holiday in Boulogne, where he hoped to trace some of his Norman ancestors. He could
not believe that anyone would turn down the chance of a free holiday anywhere.
“Because we...”
The two ladies were momentarily lost for words.
There was a terrible silence, during which Mr Parsnip sat down
heavily, mopped his forehead and loosened his dog-collar. Edith remembered the
fruit loaf she had baked and scuttled off into the kitchen to get it. Mr Morgan
emptied the last of the sherry into his Mickey Mouse glass.
Then the two ladies realized how foolish they were. They
started laughing out of sheer embarrassment. That made everyone else in the
room laugh, too. Mr Parsnip laughed out of pure relief and Mr Morgan because he
thought the English were daft. Edith Parsnip hurried back to join in the
merriment, though she had no idea what had prompted it.
No one had laughed that loud at the vicarage in living memory.
The laughter went up the chimney to the room above, where the Parsnip boys were
watching TV after creeping up the stairs unseen, black and blue from a fight
with local rowdies. Forgetting their concerted misdemeanour, they hurtled down
the banister one after another to see what was happening.
Then there was an almighty crash from the direction of the
kitchen. Minor had taken advantage of the distraction at the tea-table, where
he had vainly tried to get at Laura Finch’s feet, to help himself to the rest
of the Sunday joint, sending the meat platter crashing to smithereens on the
stone floor.
Dorothy blushed with embarrassment as Minor appeared with the remains
of the leg of lamb between his teeth.
“Never mind. It doesn't matter, really it doesn't,” said
Edith. “The boys can do without meat in their sandwiches this evening and have
Nutella instead.”
Minor snarled unpleasantly in defence of his trophy. Laura
Finch screeched in horror and remembering the nasty incident involving Minor outside
the grocer’s shop was glad it was not her ankle. It looked very much as if the
truce in aid of Mr Parsnip’s ambitious project would not solve other
fundamental difficulties in the relations of the two ladies.
Fortunately for Mr Parsnip, Laura remembered that she and
Dorothy had more or less buried the hatchet only a few minutes previously, so
she refrained from further negative comments about Minor. She insisted that she
just needed some fresh air. Dorothy showed genuine concern and Gareth Morgan
offered to take them both home in his car.
Mr Morgan's car was an aged black saloon festooned with his
mother’s knitted seat covers and a home-made crocheted sun blind on the back
window that created speckled light when the sun was intense and generally
hindered visibility, though Mr Morgan was not aware of that, as he never consulted
the rear mirror. Laura, having made a remarkably speedy recovery thanks to her
perception that there was more to be gained than lost by keeping the peace, bent
herself almost double to get into the back of the car and beckoned graciously
to Dorothy to climb in beside her. Minor jumped onto the front passenger seat, still
hanging on to the Sunday joint, after Edith had thought better of trying to
rescue it. Soon they were chugging down the road in second gear, the ladies
feeling anxious because Mr Morgan, who was at an advanced stage of inebriation,
kept up a non-stop commentary about music festivals in general and Eisteddfodau
in particular, giving the road hardly any of his attention.
“If you are going round the universe, when can we have the eisteddfod?’
he asked. “We must do it while the weather's good. Then we can have an open air
concert, like they do in the valleys when the rain stays off.”
“We'll decide on the date next week, won't we Laura? But don’t
bank on good weather, Mr Morgan.”
Laura agreed with Dorothy, adding that she thought TUGFOM would
a charming name, any definition being preferable to a Welsh one.
“I can't wait to start rehearsing,” enthused Mr Morgan, his
whole being embracing the idea of bringing Welsh traditions to the English
pagans. He broke patriotically into the Welsh national anthem, singing all the rest
of the way to Dorothy's cottage in Upper Grumpsfield, then all the way to Laura
Finch's house in Lower Grumpsfield and finally all the way back home to his
little flat above Mr Davies the newsagent in Station Street.
Mr Parsnip was over the
moon. He had not in his wildest dreams expected the two ladies to patch things
up after all that enmity, thus paving the way for an eisteddfod to rival any
that had taken place in the Welsh valleys. He wondered if it was all too good
to be true.
