Free A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope Page A

and stories about Jesus .’
    â€˜I know about him ,’ Natasha said. ‘He gave some people a horrible picnic with bare bread and fish that wasn’t cooked. And then he walked about all over a lake and made a girl who was dead be alive again. If you ask me ,’ Natasha said darkly, ‘I don’t believe that bit.’
    â€˜Tashie—’
    â€˜We have eleven little members ,’ Miss Pimm said hastily. ‘And I—’ She paused and then said with quiet pride, ‘I play the ukelele.’
    They stared at her. To her misery Alice found she didn’t even want to laugh. Miss Pimm took their silence as an awestruck tribute to her skills and opened her black notebook in a businesslike way to show she was quite used to such admiration.
    â€˜Now, may I tell Miss Payne you would be happy to join the flower rota? I believe Mrs Kendall lacks a partner. And what about Mondays? The community shop is such a boon to our old people—’
    Go, Alice said to herself in sudden frenzy. Go, go, go. I hate you here, you mimsy old spinster, I hate you in my kitchen. Go.
    â€˜We have unfortunately to share our vicar with King’s Harcourt and Barleston which means mattins only once a month, but he is a wonderful man, and we must just be thankful —’
    â€˜C’n I have some crisps?’ James said.
    â€˜No. Don’t interrupt. I am sorry, Miss Pimm, but usually around now I give them—’
    Miss Pimm slapped her notebook shut and stood up.
    â€˜Naturally. I am sorry to interrupt family routine .’
    â€˜Oh no,’ Alice said, struggling to her feet clutching Charlie, and in a confusion of apology, ‘I didn’t mean that at all, I only meant—’
    â€˜I came ,’ Miss Pimm said, implying by her tone that at least some people were still in command of their manners, ‘just to welcome you to Pitcombe. I make a point of it, with newcomers.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Alice said faintly. ‘It’s very kind of you and I’m sure when I’ve sorted myself out a bit—’
    â€˜You should see upstairs,’ Natasha said. ‘It’s the most utterest chaos.’
    Miss Pimm walked to the stable door and lifted the latch. She turned stiffly and gave a little downward jerk of her head.
    â€˜Sycamore Cottage. Telephone 204.’
    â€˜Thank you—’
    â€˜Good afternoon.’
    â€˜Goodbye,’ Alice said. ‘Goodbye—’
    The door clicked shut, one half after the other. Alice subsided into her chair.
    â€˜Don’t cry,’ James said anxiously.
    â€˜I’m not,’ Alice said through a river of tears.
    â€˜You are, you are —’
    Natasha picked up Princess Power.
    â€˜I expect you’re tired.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Alice said. ‘Yes, I expect I am, I’m sure that’s it—’
    Charlie’s face puckered. James came to lean on her again, his eyes filling with tears.
    â€˜Don’t do it,’ he said. His voice was pleading. ‘Don’t do it.’
    But she couldn’t stop.
    The community shop, Alice discovered, was a large and battered van, owned and driven by Mr Finch, one-time boarding-house keeper and failed poet, who ran Pitcombe Post Office and Village Stores. Twice a week, the shop van trundled out of Pitcombe with its cargo of old age pensions, tins of marrowfat peas and packets of bourbon biscuits, to serve outlying cottages and the smaller satellite villages of Barleston and King’s Harcourt. It made thirteen stops in three hours, either outside the cottages of the most infirm, or by the clumps of people standing with clutched purses and plastic carrier bags at designated places along the route.
    Mr Finch was very excited to have Alice on board on Monday afternoons. Mrs Macaulay, who was the longstanding other helper on Mondays, despised his artistic sensibilities, believing, as she did, only in good sense and wire-haired