Another Catcher in the Rye moment. Been getting them a lot lately. This was the situation: Morrell — who insisted his job title was School Director — was the worst kind of New Labour, and Ayling had been this lifelong worst kind of Old Tory. Not only that but he was one of the guys behind the plan to close down a whole bunch of Herefordshire schools, primary and secondary.
Well, not close them down, merge them — that was the get-out term. What you did was to put two fairly successful small secondary schools under one big roof.
Thus creating a massive new sink school where nobody learned anything except where to get good crack, and they had to lower the academic goalposts and fiddle the results and the cops spent so much time on the premises you might as well set up a permanent incident room on the playing field.
And why was Morrell quietly supporting this? Why had Morrell — whose party claimed to stand for education, education, education — been up Ayling’s bum? Simple. This school had a lot of land, and fields all around, perfect for expansion. So, if Ayling’s scheme went through, while some other bastard might be out of a job, Morrell could find himself director of an operation twice the size, with a much bigger salary.
That was how much of a socialist Morrell was. Right now, curled up on the rescued sofa in a corner of the sixth-form leisure suite, Jane just couldn’t wait to leave this lousy place for good.
‘You thinking about sex again, Jane?’
Sweaty Rees Crawford chalking his snooker cue, getting in some final practise for this afternoon’s Big Match, the final of the Sixth Form Championship in which he was playing Jordan Hare — Ethan Williams taking bets on the outcome. Jane couldn’t decide.
‘Look,’ she snarled, as her mobile went off inside her airline bag. ‘Don’t you go projecting your sad fantasies on me, Crawford. You screw that thing around much faster, there won’t be any chalk left. Who’s this?’ Snapping into the phone.
‘You don’t sound too happy, Jane.’
‘Coops?’
‘Oh, Coops,’ Rees Crawford said, leering at her, and Jane gave him the finger.
‘It is OK to call you now, is it?’ Neil Cooper said. ‘Your lunch break, right?’
‘Sure.’ Not like it would matter anyway, the way she was feeling. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Only I said I’d keep you up to speed. It’s starting tomorrow.’
‘The dig?’ Jane gripping the phone tight. ‘The dig’s happening?’
‘Officially starting tomorrow.’
‘So Bill Blore…’
‘He’s here. Don’t say wow. Please do not say wow.’
‘He’s in the village?’
‘He’s actually been over a few times, doing geophysics, making sure we haven’t got it all wrong and what’s under there are concrete lamp-posts or something. You, er… want to meet him?’
‘Me?’ Jane lowered her feet to the floor. ‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Actually,’ Coops said, ‘he wants to meet you.’
‘Stop taking the piss. I’m not in the mood.’
‘No, really. He’s meeting all the people involved with Coleman’s Meadow from the outset. You were the outset. What time’s your school bus get in — half-four? Should still be some light. So if you want to come over to the site when you get home?’
‘Wow, you are serious.’
‘All I’d say, Jane,’ Coops said, ‘is, don’t get carried away. Whatever he tells you, don’t get carried away.’
‘You know me, Coops,’ Jane said, tingling. ‘Ms Cool.’
On a good day, Merrily would have been leaving the church nursing some new and unforeseen possibility, the softly gleaming ingot of an idea. Saved again.
Or at least not feeling sick with dread.
When she walked out, in Jane’s red wellies, under the dripping lych-gate, it was like Ledwardine was drifting away from her. All its colours washing out, daytime lights in the shops burning wanly behind the sepia screen of slanting rain. Gutted by the feeling that the village was getting bigger and, at the same time, more amorphous, more remote.
Like God?
All she’d seen, in meditation, were the small crises she’d failed to react to, the issues she’d back-burnered. All coming together like coalescing clouds, making darkness.
Crossing to the Eight Till Late, she saw a pale orange poster in one of the mullioned windows of the pub on the edge of the square.
Christmas Eve at The Black Swan Inn.
Ledwardine’s own
LOL ROBINSON
(‘The Baker’s Lament’)
in concert.
9 p.m.
All welcome.
God, Barry hadn’t wasted any time, had he? All welcome. Would that work? Already she could hear the background noise from the bars, people talking and laughing while Lol, bent over his guitar, murmured his tribute to Lucy Devenish whom most of the Swan’s clientele had either never known or considered mad.
From Brenda Prosser at the shop, she bought a box of All Gold for Sarah Clee.
‘They must be mad.’ Brenda apparently continuing a conversation she’d been having with the previous customer who’d already left the store. ‘Merrily — pardon me for being nosy, but do you get properly recompensed? I mean for all these flowers and fruit and chocolates you keep buying for sick parishioners?’
‘Erm… no. Who must be mad?’
‘Those archaeologists. All turning up this morning in their Land Rovers. And a TV camera team, too — what’s that programme…?
‘Trench One? They’ve arrived? I didn’t know that.’
‘And a big tall crane. We didn’t know there was going to be TV. What can they hope to do in this weather?’
‘I actually think they like it, in a way,’ Merrily said. ‘Makes it look more dramatic on TV if they’re fighting the elements and they’re all covered in mud. Makes archaeology look like… trench warfare?’
‘Rather them than me.’ Brenda shivered. ‘All the farmers have moved their sheep from within about half a mile of the river, did you know?’
‘Doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Give Sarah my love, will you?’ Brenda said.
Not possible, as it turned out. The rain had slowed, but there was no promise of brightness in the swollen sky when Merrily reached the age-warped cottage in Blackberry Lane, with its window boxes of yellow and purple winter pansies. Brian Clee, retired postman, had the front door open before she was through the garden gate.
‘I’m sorry, Merrily, should’ve rung you.’ He looked worn out, frazzled ‘She was only took in this morning, see. Another ward closure — some infection. Half the hip ops postponed.’
‘That means she’ll be in over Christmas?’
Merrily followed Brian Clee into the house, his white head bent under the bowed beams in the hall. She left Jane’s red wellies on the doormat, took off her coat and stayed for a cup of tea, listening to Brian’s opinion of the county hospital, its unfriendly, automated rip-off, too-small car park, its smoking ban in the grounds so you couldn’t even have a fag to calm your nerves.
‘She’ll be fine, Brian. We prayed for her last weekend, and we’ll do it again on Sunday.’