Jimbo, observing the growing crowd collecting in
Church Lane, said, 'Harriet! What am I doing dressed like this?'
'Enjoying participating in village life.'
'I'm not, though. I feel an absolute idiot.'
Harriet appraised his appearance, taking in the dishevelled wig she'd
insisted he wore, the old leather sandals long abandoned by him at
the back of his wardrobe and, most genuine-looking of all, the scratchy,
brown, muddied shift affair she'd crafted out of a length of hessian
she'd found at a sale. 'Actually, you look very peasant-like. I'm
quite proud of you. Especially your tights.'
Jimbo inspected the thick brown tights he wore. 'Proud?' He turned
to look at her and, noting the twinkle in her eyes, couldn't help
himself laughing. 'OK. OK. Point taken. Why ever I allowed myself
to be dressed up I'll never know.'
'Because you're a darling and a sucker for country ways.'
'No, it's because you can twist me round your little finger, that's
why.'
'Never once have you joined in the parade, you always find an excuse
for being busy, busy, busy behind the counter and not participating;
well, this year you are, so cheer up. Oh, look! There's the twins.
Suddenly they look so grown-up.' Harriet waved to Beth and Alex. 'Come
and walk with us, or the girls are up at the front if you prefer?'
Alex spoke for both of them. 'We'll join the girls, thanks.'
Instead of leading Beth by the hand as he'd done since the day they
could both walk, Alex gave her a push in the direction of the head
of the procession, and she willingly accepted his decision and followed
him.
Harriet watched the two of them press their way forwards. 'Strange
how Beth is really the more outgoing of the two and yet she accepts
Alex's lead without a murmur. Can't believe the two of them will be
leaving the village school next year. Doesn't seem two minutes since
they were born.'
'The piper's tuning up. Am I ready for this? No, I am not.'
'Yes, you are.' Harriet grinned at Jimbo's discomfort. 'Right! Here
we go. I get all primeval and go like jelly inside when I'm doing
this. Maintaining a six-hundred-year tradition really makes me feel
as though I belong. Doesn't it you?'
Jimbo considered how he felt. 'I suppose. But I do feel a complete
idiot.'
Movement began at the head of the procession, the piper, at the very
front, began to play a melancholy tune on his ancient silver flute
and they all started to move off towards the village green with Jimbo
still feeling all kinds of an idiot.
Into view, as they reached the green, came the stocks covered to the
very top with dead flowers. Standing beside it was the Rector dressed
in his devil's costume, the horns on his headgear glinting in the
bright June sun. There came an eager mumble as soon as the dozens
of sightseers gathered in front of the houses surrounding the green
caught sight of them. The press were there in force, as always, and
Jimbo desperately hoped that they wouldn't recognise the urbane, stylish,
man-of-the-world Store owner, seeing as he wasn't wearing his striped
apron and his straw boater. The wig was beginning to itch his bald
head. Surreptitiously he scratched as best he could without disturbing
the damn thing. God! It irritated him. Why ever had he allowed himself
. . . but now, having walked all the way round the green, it was his
turn to beat the dead flowers off the stocks. He surprised himself
by beating the living daylights out of them and suddenly he was a
village peasant angered by the vagrant who had brought the plague
to the village and thus killed all his children, or his wife, or his
mother. He looked up at the Rector as he straightened himself and
saw one of his bright-blue eyes close swiftly in a wink. Jimbo grinned
back. So at least, maybe, Peter was participating with his tongue
in his cheek, as indeed any sane member of a twenty-first-century
village must. Although . . .
Harriet thrust his bunch of fresh flowers into his hand. He glanced
at her and saw with surprise how distressed she was. 'Darling!'
'It all seems so real, Jimbo. So real. God! Just think how you would
feel if you really had lost . . .' Tears sprang into her eyes.
'I know, I know . . .' And he did. But his two girls were up at the
front with the other village children, his two sons at Cambridge and
beside him was his beloved Harriet, and his mother was somewhere in
the procession, no doubt beating the dead flowers from the stocks
with her usual gusto as though her ancestors had been born and bred
here for centuries. Thankful that he'd had the foresight to move his
family from London and that blasted rat race, Jimbo stepped smartly
round the green for the second time, his flowers clutched tightly
in his hand. When he reached the stocks he saw Peter was divesting
himself of his devil's costume and was revealing the white cassock
he wore only today, Stocks Day, and when conducting weddings. Jimbo
placed his fresh flowers on the stocks to symbolise a new beginning,
a laying aside of death and destruction. The plague had finally gone.
Death had been beaten.
Peter's prayer of thanksgiving for the survival of the village and
his blessing of everyone taking part rang out across the green, the
long, mournful dirge of the piper subtly changed to a lively, bouncing
tune, signalling that the villagers could feel safe from disaster
for yet another year.
Cameras flashed, voices called out, 'Look this way.'
'That's right.'
'One more! You two stand together. That's it.'
'One more! One more!'
Jimbo obliged, his wig askew, his hessian costume now also itching
like fury, but a bright, relieved smile on his face brought on by
doing his bit like everyone else.
'Your name? Your name?' Looking more closely when he didn't get an
immediate reply the photographer said, 'Oh! It's you, Mr Charter-Plackett,
didn't recognise you.'
Inwardly Jimbo groaned; his reputation had just bitten the dust well
and truly. Grumpily he said to Harriet, 'I'm not wearing this for
the rest of the afternoon, you know. I'm going home to change.'
'Spoilsport.'
'This wig is flea-ridden.'
'It never is.'
'It is. It itches.'
But Harriet's attention was elsewhere. 'Jimbo, look! I could swear
that's Bryn Fields over there.'
'Where?'
'Over there by the oak. His back's to us, but I'm sure it's him. Well,
that's a turn-up for the books. How many years is it since he did
his moonlight flit?'
'You're imagining things. He'd never dare come back, not after what
happened.'
Harriet stood on tiptoe. 'I'm sure it is. He's turned round. Look,
there! There! Talking to Willie Biggs.'
'Nonsense! That chap hasn't a flying officer's moustache like Bryn
had.'
'It's very like him even so. He's very tanned, which he would be,
wouldn't he, if what they say is true.'
'Maybe he has a brother. I'm going home to change.'
'I'm not. I never do. I'm going to the fair with our children and
then having my tea on the green like all self-respecting villagers.'
'I'll check the Store, give a hand and come along for tea when I see
the tables out.'
Harriet, still agog at the prospect she might be right about Bryn
Fields, didn't notice that Jimbo was looking at her. She ignored the
jostling by the crowds too as they pushed past to get to the spare
land where the annual joys of the fair awaited them, and tried to
keep her eye on that tall, distant figure. She was certain it was
him. It must be. She became aware of Jimbo and glanced at him to see
why he was still there. Raising her eyebrows she said, 'What is it?'
'This Stocks Day thing must be getting at me. I'm so grateful I still
have you.' Despite the hustle and bustle of the crowd he kissed her.
'Oh! It has got to you, hasn't it? It always does to me. Glad you
joined in?'
Jimbo nodded, smiled and went home, feeling gratified deep down that
he'd done his bit for the village. He shook his head. What was he
thinking of? How could beating dead flowers from the churchyard off
the stocks and then heralding a new beginning by laying fresh flowers
there possibly have any effect on anything at all, especially when
the plague had died out years ago? How could a rational, educated
man, an entrepreneur, a man of means, a man getting ahead in the world
believe in such a thing? No, not getting, he was ahead. His chest
swelled at the thought. He pushed his key into the front door with
pride. Nothing, but nothing would stop further successes this year.
He'd just seen to that by doing what he'd done.
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