The Coming of Age. June. Part 3

14th June. The Churchyard at St Jude’s, a closed one, is now riddled with large holes where treasure hunters, excited by the story in last week’s paper, have been digging pits in the night. The Mayor says the people of this town do not deserve the Reverend Scuffling.

I have to go and do some shopping but cannot decide whether to detour to St Jude’s to have a look, thus betraying a vulgar curiosity. There seems to be nobody else there when I arrive so I go into the churchyard to look round. There are at least a dozen holes, all near the yew tree, where there is little evidence of actual graves. I suppose the people digging were afraid of turning up a coffin complete with grinning skeleton.

I am just peering into one of the holes to see what is there when the Church door opens and out come Vera Buddle and the Reverend Mr Scuffling. I cannot decide – it’s obviously one of my indecisive days – whether to brazen it out or hide in the hole and hope they go away. I jump in, rather athletically I think, and crouch down. They turn the corner and move away and I try and get out but the hole is about four feet deep and surrounded by piles of excavated earth, I can’t seem to get any leverage. I am wearing my new jacket too and do not want to get it dirty.

‘Excuse me,’ I call, ‘I seem to be stuck.’

Luckily, I still have that loud voice, developed over years of child-rearing.

The Reverend Mr Scuffling looks rather surprised but comes and helps me to scramble out. The Reverend gets a little muddy but then he is a clergyman and has to help people. Vera Buddle is standing a little aside looking disapproving.

‘The strata here are really interesting,’ I say. ‘There seems to be a layer’ – I catch a glimpse of something pale in the side of the hole – ‘of calcified er material.’

The Reverend looks interested. Vera Buddle disdainful.

‘And underneath, there is a patch of darker er stuff,’ I go on. ‘Could this be bones and er ... er wood? Perhaps the remains of a coffin?’

Vera Buddle sniffs. I gabble on about soil staining and strata and things. I know all about this from much reading of those gruesome American thrillers that feature forensic scientists. I thought I put on rather a good show of disinterested academic curiosity and convince them both.

Later though I hear, from Mavis of course, that Vera Buddle thought I was going mad and needed Treatment as the stuff in the side of the hole was an old clay pipe and some earthenware pottery, and anybody, but anybody would have known. Of course I didn’t have my glasses on at the time.

I try to sidle discreetly out of the churchyard but the Reverend Mr Scuffling follows me. He smiles very nicely at me. He is quite attractive when he smiles. I smile back. I know he’s not married. He is very young though. Perhaps he likes older women?

‘You are obviously interested in this church. I wonder if you would be interested in joining the cast of the Pageant?’

Preparations for the pageant are well under way. I was not going to get involved. Well, there has to be somebody to be an audience and I had decided that would be my role. My decision had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that being in it would have meant thrice weekly rehearsals with Piers Hackett and Vera Buddle or having to intone in public words written by Crispin Velge.

Mavis told me that the bad-tempered poet has written the ‘book’ for the pageant. She says ‘book’ with inverted commas. I think she means script. No one, however, can understand it. Keith who, when not doing DIY, is a tactful man and pillar of the local drama club, offered to ‘make it more accessible’ but Velge threw a tantrum and refused to have a single word changed.

Piers Hackett, stung by the editorial in the local paper has thrown himself into the project and is to be one of the clergymen who exorcise the ghost and sing a Te Deum. I wouldn’t have thought you needed many rehearsals for that but apparently you do.

Luckily there are plenty of people in this town who fancy themselves as Thespians. The whole of the Operatic Society and the Drama Group and many school children are to be in it.

‘Oh, no,’ I reply. ‘But if there is any other way to help I would be very happy.’

He has such a nice, eager, open face, like a chipmunk, that I didn’t like to say no outright.

The Pageant is to take place at the foot of Nell’s Tump and we all have to bring cushions or folding chairs to sit on. It sounds like Proms in the Park. I wonder if we will be allowed to sing Land of Hope and Glory at the end? I suppose not; it would split the town down the middle.

18th June. I worry about the lack of a spring. How is the Reverend Mr Scuffling going to get round the fact that there is no water at all in this area? Perhaps he plans to strike one of the rocks, like Moses, and hope water will gush forth.

19th June. We are in the middle of supper at Val’s that Saturday when I suddenly remember that Crispin Velge once had an enormous crush on Poppy. We talk about the Pageant and I suggest that Poppy should sacrifice herself for the greater good and ask Velge to dinner and then persuade him to read her his script. She could then not understand it, which she wouldn’t anyway - mind you, she is absolutely hot on the difference between 18th and 19th century chintzes and where you would place a whatnot - and suggest he makes a few tiny alterations.

‘Oh, Jessica,’ she said, ‘I know we should all do what we can but the last time I saw Crispin he insisted on reading me a poem he had written about me, describing me as an aardvark because he said I was shy and defenceless.’

Val, Julia and I look at each other.

‘When I got home I looked up aardvark,’ she went on, ‘and it said they had pig-like snouts and asinine ears. I was very upset.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it unkindly’, I said. ‘He probably needed the word to rhyme with something.’

‘Crispin’s poems don’t rhyme’ said Poppy. ‘They have internal assonance.’

We are reduced to silence by this as none of us wants to be first to admit we don’t know what it means.

Then Julia, with that sang froid, which so impresses Val and me, says ‘What exactly is internal assonance?’

Poppy says she has no idea. He told her that’s what they had. ‘You have to be very careful with him, he flies into a rage if you say anything about his poems except that they are wonderful. So that’s what I do.’

I don’t think my idea will work. The Pageant is going to be unintelligible and probably very dull.

24th June. It is Midsummer’s Eve. Late in the evening there is a noise of reedy fiddle music and talking in the garden of Fran’s house. I dash upstairs and hang out of the bedroom window to see what is happening. It occurs to me that I spend rather a lot of time looking out of the window these days. If I had the time I’d try to get a life.

Candles are arranged in the garden next door and a circle of women – well I assume they are a circle and that they are all women, but I can only see a small segment because of the trees –are moving round in measured tread.

I guess that this is Fran's circle dancing group celebrating the solstice. Circle dancing is big in this town like ethical cotton and herbal compresses. I went once but managed to bring the whole circle down every time I tried to join in. I forgot the steps as usual although there were only two of them and giggled and this was considered very bad form. It’s a spiritual thing and you have to be entirely serious and think only elevated thoughts.

At near midnight, the music is still continuing. There is the sound of a door opening on the other side of me. I can hear the raised voice of Tripletmother but cannot hear what she is saying.

Phil Mitchell steps out into the garden to try and see what is going on next door but one and is instantly silhouetted in the glare of his own security light, like someone trying to escape from Colditz except that he is naked which seems to be the bed time fashion these days.

I duck down in case he sees me but he even more quickly returns into his house. Like my son in law, he doesn’t have the courage of his own nudity.

With the security light, which is dazzling me as well, I cannot see what happens next. There is a sound of slithering and dragging and then a noise of water. Phil or Grant Mitchell shouts ‘Shoo, Shoo!’ and the sound of more water gushing.

Fran’s garden is suddenly completely silent and then filled with shrieks. The security light goes out again and after a second or two of total blindness, I am able to see that Phil, now wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms, is holding a hosepipe high into the air and directing it so that the full force of the water arcs right over my garden and into Fran’s. He is confused by the sudden darkness and turns round, still gripping the hosepipe. There is another scream as the fierce jet hits Tripletmother standing in the doorway of their house and then continues round the garden, washing away flowerpots and knocking over several lightweight plastic chairs.

‘Turn the tap off; Turn the tap off…’ he shouts.

‘I’m all wet,’ shrieks Tripletmother. ‘I’m soaked through.’

‘Turn the bloody tap off, you silly woman.’

‘I’m absolutely soaked and it’s all your fault. Don’t call me silly.’

Phil obviously decides that he must turn the tap off himself so lays the hose down and moves towards the house. He activates the beam and the security light comes on again. The hosepipe, still gushing water, has a life of its own however; it uncoils and writhes round. The water jet hits Phil in the back, drenching his pyjama bottoms, and pursuing him as he tries to get into the house to turn off the kitchen tap. The water gushes across the kitchen and then falls silent.

On the other side I can just hear Fran in her best ‘I am a Counsellor’ voice say ‘It is almost midnight and we must finish the Solstice ritual with the rum and egg two way circle.’

There is a howl of rage from my other neighbour as the women go Ohmm in unison and the fiddler, who seems to have lost his or her touch in the excitement, sends some atonal cadences screeching into the night air.

The stimulation is all too much for me and I decide I must have a medicinal tot of something or I’ll never sleep. Next door’s security light remains on because Phil is still out there doing things with his hosepipe so my kitchen is quite bright. I reach the drinks cupboard but the light suddenly goes out. I take what I think is whisky and decide not to bother with a glass.

It is unexpectedly nice, delicious in fact. I have several swigs and then a few more before eventually returning to bed. It is quiet on both sides.

25th June. I wake very late with a throbbing head and am surprised to discover a half-empty bottle of something labelled ‘Quince Brandy’ on my bedside table. I can’t remember buying this.