Free A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope

branch.’
    Alice wiped James’s nose hard enough with a piece of paper kitchen towel to make him whimper.
    â€˜Don’t be a disgusting little boy. I don’t think I really am a Conservative, but my husband—’
    â€˜Not?’ said Miss Pimm, swivelling her gaze back.
    â€˜No,’ Alice said staunchly, remembering Sir Ralph, ‘I believe the Park—’
    â€˜That,’ said Miss Pimm, ‘is quite different.’
    She looked round the kitchen. It looked rather loud to her, though considerably cleaner than in Major Murray-French’s day. But she did not like being entertained in kitchens, even the kitchens of people newly moved in who might perhaps be forgiven for having nowhere else. When Miss Pimm had brought her mother to Sycamore Cottage fifteen years before, the first thing she had done was to make the sitting room respectable for callers. She remembered standing on a chair hammering in nails for the ‘Cries of London’ above the fireplace, the position they had occupied in all the houses of her life.
    Natasha came in through the door to the hall carrying a doll dressed like a teenage fairy, and wearing an expression of faint disgust.
    â€˜Charlie’s crying and he’s pooey,’ she said.
    Alice stood up.
    â€˜Would you forgive me, Miss Pimm?’ she said, ‘I must just see to the baby.’
    Miss Pimm sat on. There was much information yet to impart. She inclined her head.
    â€˜I am in no hurry.’
    Alice left the room. Natasha came up to the kitchen table and put her gauzy doll down. She looked at Miss Pimm who seemed to have nothing about her that Natasha could admire. The texture of her stockings reminded Natasha of drinking chocolate powder.
    â€˜Pretty doll,’ said Miss Pimm with extra elaborate articulation, as if speaking to a half-wit.
    â€˜She’s called Princess Power,’ Natasha said. Her voice was proud. ‘She’s got net petticoats, pink ones.’
    She turned the doll upside down to demonstrate and Miss Pimm looked hastily away.
    â€˜But,’ said James slowly and earnestly, from across the table, ‘she hasn’t got a willy.’
    Panic blotched Miss Pimm’s neck with purple patches.
    â€˜Have you?’ said James.
    Natasha hissed at him.
    â€˜Shut up.’
    â€˜Charlie’s,’ said James with real sympathy, ‘is only little. But it’ll probably grow.’
    â€˜I’m afraid,’ said Natasha to Miss Pimm, ‘that in James’s class at school they talk about willies all the time . But you must just ignore him. Like Mummy does.’
    â€˜School!’ cried Miss Pimm on a high note of relief. ‘And do you like your school?’
    â€˜No,’ said James. ‘I hate everything except being at home.’
    â€˜He cries every morning,’ Natasha said. ‘It’s so embarrassing. My best friend is called Sophie and she has Princess Power too only her petticoats are yellow. I like pink best.’
    â€˜Yes!’ cried Miss Pimm. ‘Yes! Pink!’
    Alice came back into the room holding a large baby. Miss Pimm was afraid of babies. Alice sat down and picked up her pencil again, wedging Charlie into the space between her and the table.
    â€˜So sorry about that,’ Alice said. ‘Now, what else was there?’
    Miss Pimm wanted to say that a cup of tea was one of the things. It was five past four. She would have liked a cup of tea and a Marie biscuit. She cleared her throat with meaningful thirstiness and said, ‘Well, there is our little Sunday group.’
    Charlie seized Alice’s pencil and drew a thick, wild line across her list. Instinctively Miss Pimm’s hand shot out to prevent the desecration of neatness, but Alice didn’t seem to notice.
    â€˜Group of what?’
    â€˜Why, children .’ She looked at Natasha and stretched her mouth into an attempted smile. ‘We meet in the church room for songs