The Finchbottom Vale
is nestled comfortably between the Ancient Dancingdean Forest to the south and
the rolling Pepperstock Hills in the north, those who are lucky enough to live
there think of it as the rose between two thorns.
The Vale was once a
great wetland that centuries earlier stretched from Mornington in the East to
Childean in the west and from Shallowfield in the south to Purplemere in the
north.
But over the many centuries
the vast majority had been drained for agriculture, a feat achieved largely by
the efforts of famous Mornington Mills, of which only three had survived to the
present day and even those were no longer functional and were in various states
of repair.
There were only three
small bodies of water left in the Vale now one in Mornington, one in Childean
and third of course was Purplemere.
Throughout its history
the Finchbottom Vale was largely dependent on agriculture and so it remained
into the 21st century.
To the north of the
Vale, in the lee of Pepperstock Hills, lay the modest town of Purplemere.
On the western side of
the town was the residential area known as Hill Side, and in one of its many
quiet road, called Oakham Crescent was Starlings House the home of Geoffrey and
Thelma Haycock.
The pair had been
married for twenty years and the overwhelming emotion in their union had grown
to be indifference.
There was no love
between them, which was a great shame, because it wasn’t always so.
They met and married
while at University, it was love at first sight, she was a willowy cello
playing student of sociology and he was a rugby playing budding engineer.
Not perhaps an obvious
match on the face of it but it was without doubt a love match.
When they were first
married their love was all consuming and were a very loving couple and could never
have envisaged being apart.
These feelings
continued into their post graduate years until after ten years of marriage and a
succession of miscarriages and the realization she would never bear a child the
love faded first into uneasy friendship and finally to mere tolerance.
But for some reason
they stayed together for another ten years, for his part he stayed with Thelma
for the sake of the love that was once so abundant, for Thelma it was a kind of
self-flagellation, Geoff was like a hair shirt.
It was to remind her
of her failure as a wife and a woman.
By the time they
reached their milestone 40th birthdays, which were only a week apart, they were
complete strangers sharing a house, separate beds, separate rooms and separate
lives.
He had survived the
lonely years through his books and his work but whereas his books were as
reliable as ever they had been his job had turned sour and he wasn’t sure what
the future held.
Thelma coped with the
emptiness in her life by throwing herself headlong into her work as a social
worker and with endless voluntary work with the Citizens advice bureau and then
there was the Women’s Institute, the parish council, committees for this,
meetings for that and always organizing something and constantly planning for
some event or other.
As a result the large
house they shared in Purplemere was always hosting some meeting or group or
subcommittee.
The house that they
bought when they were in love, so it would one day be filled with laughing
children, was instead full of chattering do-gooders.
On the many evenings
the house was taken over by Thelma and her cronies, Geoff either went out or more
often than not hid himself away in his study with his books.
He would sit in big
leather chair with a book in his lap and his headphones on to drown out the
chattering.
And that was how he
would spend his evenings a good book and Rachmaninov or Mahler for company.
It was on one such
evening when he first saw her.
He had been to the
kitchen to get himself a coffee and it was when he was on the return leg to his
study when there was a knock on the front door and as he was the closest he
diverted to open it.
When he had done so he
found a small woman in her early thirties with bobbed brown hair on the other
side of it where she stood at the threshold staring down at her sensible shoes.
When she looked up she
said in a small timid voice
“Hello, I’m Annest,
I’m here for the meeting”
“Annest?” Geoff said
“what a beautiful name”
“Thank you” she
responded as her eyes returned to her shoes
“I’m Geoff, come in.
the meeting is at the end of the hall”
She gave a weak smile
and walked on down the hall and Geoff paused to watch her as she progressed in
her black woolly tights and sensible shoes.
A nervous little
kitten headed into the lion’s den.
When he was seated
back in his study he Googled the name Annest and found it was of Greek origin
and meant "pure or holy"
Over the following
weeks he came to recognize her delicate knock on the door and more often than
not managed to get there first to let her in.
She always appeared at
the door the same way, eyes fixed on her shoes, dressed in black woolly tights
and rather frumpy understated garb.
And when she finally
glanced up he would see she wore little or no makeup, the merest hint if any at
all, nothing to make her noticed, understated like her clothes, leaving her
almost anonymous.
He found that the new
visitor was so different from his wife’s normal cronies that she rather
fascinated him.
As his curiosity was
roused on one of the rare days when he and Thelma were engaged in rare
conversation he said
“I noticed you have a
new face among your number of late”
“Well there are
several actually, which one do you mean?” she replied tersely
“Five foot nothing and
sensible shoes” he clarified
“Oh the mouse” she
replied
“Mouse?”
“Yes the others call
her “mouse” as in “quiet as a church mouse”
“Because?”
“Because she’s quiet
and she spends a lot of time at the church”
She snapped
“Why are you so
interested?”
“I’m just curious” he
replied “she just doesn’t seem to fit with your normal intake”
“No she doesn’t”
Thelma agreed “A nice girl though and she’s very efficient, she actually does
everything she’s asked to do in a timely fashion, most don’t”
And then as if to
anticipate his next question she added
“I met her when she
volunteered at the Citizens Advice Bureau”
And before he had a
chance to respond she left the room.
Later that day Thelma
was in the kitchen and as she stood at the kitchen sink she was watching the
man she had once loved to distraction as he stood on the lawn raking up the
autumn leaves.
Thelma regretted being
sharp with Geoff earlier, it was the first time they had spoken sentences to
each other for months and it was also the first time he had shown any interest
in anything other than his books and music for years.
As she reflected on
the conversation she hoped he had asked about Annest out of more than just curiosity
as he had suggested and that it might lead somewhere because she had come to realize
that things had to change.
Her fortieth birthday
had been a watershed for her and when someone at work said
“Life begins at 40”
“Yes it does” she
replied
That simple phrase “Life
begins at 40” had really struck a chord and she thought about it and decided
that hers very definitely would.
Annest Anderton was a
thirty two year old spinster who had lived her whole life in the parish of St
Johns in Purplemere.
She was brought up to
be a miracle child by her mother who was 44 when she fell pregnant and her
father was ten years older than her, and both her parents doted on their miracle
all her life.
But as often happens
to an only child born to middle-aged parents she ended up caring for them when
infirmity struck.
First her father with
Parkinson’s and then her mother with dementia.
She was 28 when, within
weeks of each other, she lost both parents and she was all alone, by which time
the world had moved on and left her behind.
In the 5 years since
her parents deaths she had made herself a very busy person, she worked four
days a week as an administrator at St John’s Church in Purplemere, which was a
large Victorian building in the town center, on Fridays she volunteered at the
Citizens Advice Bureau also in the town center and on Saturdays she ran the
church bookshop.
On Sunday’s she spent
most of the day at church either worshiping or helping out in some capacity,
Sunday school, serving drinks or setting up.
And in the evening’s
she had recently become involved with Thelma Haycock’s committees.
So in fact she was an
exceptionally busy person and the reason for her busyness was that she was
lonely excruciatingly lonely.
And she thought that
if she kept herself busy she wouldn’t have the time to notice her loneliness.
It didn’t work of
course but she did it anyway.
She had hoped to make
some friends among the committee members but the majority of the people on
Thelma’s committees were not people of faith with the exception of the parish
council and church event committees and those of a secular disposition seemed
to resent her because of her faith.
Mainly they disliked
her because she made them look bad, because she actually did what she promise
to do.
Thelma was pleasant
enough with her and her husband Geoff was always nice and she chatted with some
of the members but she hadn’t made any friendships that extended beyond the
meetings.
Some of the women were
actually quite unpleasant to her and one in particular, Marisa Loock, was a
bully.
She was a big unit
from Holland build like a shot putter and had the personality of a storm
trooper.
Geoff Haycock answered the door to Annest as he often did and they
exchanged smiles and pleasantries as normal.
And then Geoff watched Annest as she went down the hall and then there
was an increase in the volume of the murmurs as she went in.
Geoff was on his way
to the kitchen to get his coffee when there was another knock, so he turned
around and opened it and Lisa Gumbrell, a sour faced middle-aged woman pushed
past him.
“And a heartfelt good
evening to you too” Geoff said
And the woman just
snorted in response.
He followed her down
the hall as she walked into the lounge and he looked in and saw Annest seated
nearest the door and she glanced in his direction and smiled.
He was returning her
smile as Marisa Loock turned and said
“Anne! Anne! Let Lisa
sit there”
“Annest” she retorted
politely
“What?” The storm
trooper barked
“Annest” she repeated
“My name is Annest”
“Whatever, you need to move to let Lisa sit there”
Annest looked around her and asked
“Where will I sit?”
“Somewhere else” Marisa growled
Geoff was stood in the threshold of the door and had heard the
exchange
“You old cow” he wanted to say but instead he said
“Stay there Annest, I’ll get another chair for the late comer”
For some reason he felt protective of her and when he spoke to her she
looked up and smiled, she had a lovely smile when she chose to deploy it.
So when he witnessed her being bullied by the by Marisa Loock he was
moved to intervene.
“Stay there Annest, I’ll get another chair for the late comer” he said
“Or you could just move” Marisa said to her in an intimidating tone
“That’s settled then
Annest will stay where she is and I’ll fetch another chair” Geoff corrected her
and Marisa and Lisa both turned and glared at him.
If their aggressive
display was intended to disarm him it failed miserably, he was after all a
rugby union player until only a few years earlier.
There were two chairs
in easy reach of where he was, one was in the kitchen and the other in his
study, the one in the study had a wobbly leg so he went and got that one.
When he returned to
the lounge Marisa was still trying to bully Annest into moving.
“I don’t know why you’re
being so selfish” she snarled “and causing all this fuss when you could just
have moved”
“I looks to me like you’re
the one making all the fuss”
Geoff said and set the
wonky chair down
Marisa then turned her
focus on him and was about to speak when he leant down and said in a hushed
tone
“Before you say another
word, just remember you are a guest in this house”
As he straightened up
he glanced over at Thelma and she was smiling at him, he smiled back and as he
left the room he thought how much he’d missed that smile.
Geoff had taken to
leaving his study door open towards the end of the evening over the two months
since Annest first knocked on the front door so he could see when people were
leaving or to be more precise when she was leaving.
At first she would
walk straight past the door with her head down and her eyes fixed on the
sensible shoes, but gradually she progressed from a side wards glance through
to a smile and even a wave but on that night she stopped by the door and said
“Thank you for
earlier”
“No problem” he
replied “You shouldn’t let them talk to you like that, you don’t deserve it”
“Thank you” she said a
smiled a wondrous smile “Good night”
“Good night Annest”
It was at that moment
when he realized that she no longer fascinated him, his feelings for her had
moved on.
So if not fascination
was it then infatuation or was it even deeper than that.
And if it was the “L”
word what the hell was he going to do about it.
The weekend following
the realization that his heart had been reawakened he was sitting in his study contemplating his situation when there
was a knock on his study door and when the door opened Thelma was standing
there and she said.
“I think we need to
talk”
“Yes” he agreed
They went into the
lounge where Thelma opened a bottle of wine and filled two glances.
As they sat opposite each
other they sipped their wine in silence for a more than ten minutes before she
asked
“Are you happy Geoff?”
He stared at his glass
for a moment before replying
“I was happy, once”
“Me too” she agreed
sadly
There was another
silence, shorter this time until Thelma took a deep breath and said
“We are both forty now
but I still have hopes”
“Hopes?” Geoff asked
“Yes” she said “Hope
that’s it’s not too late for one thing”
“What for us?”
“No, no,” she replied
“for both of us”
“You mean its time?”
Geoff said
“Yes, I think so” She
replied
By the end of that
weekend after a lot of frank speaking and soul searching Thelma and Geoff had
made their plans.
Though in all honesty
Geoff did not lack the will he doubted his ability to achieve his aims.
And so he spent many
hours in his study over the following days racking his brain as to just how he
should proceed.
It was during one such
session in his study that he was interrupted by a tapping on the door.
He sighed at the
unwelcome interruption and got out of his chair and crossed the room and
steeled himself to be rude to whoever it was who was intruding on his thoughts.
He pulled open the
door sharply
“Wha…?” he began but
stopped himself when he realized it was Annest.
“Oh hello”
“Am I interrupting?”
she said quietly
“No not at all” he
replied “How can I help?”
“Thelma sent me to get
a thesaurus, she said you have one” Annest said getting almost the whole
sentence out without staring at her shoes.
“Yes I do” he said
“Come in, it’s on the bookcase behind the door”
Annest stepped inside
the room so he could close the door and they could both see the bookcase.
“I think it’s on the
middle shelf” Geoff said and was scanning along the row
“There it is” she said
excitedly and reached for it but she was such a nervous little kitten that she
fumbled the book and it fell to the floor.
“Oh shit” she said
which made Geoff laugh
They both crouched
down in unison to pick up the thesaurus and they found themselves nose to nose
and inexplicably and without any warning she kissed him with her soft pale pink
lips that tasted of peppermint.
For about 30 seconds they
remained crouching down by the bookcase with no other contact other than their
lips, and then all too soon it came to an abrupt end and she got hurriedly to
her feet.
“Oh God I’m so sorry”
she said and turned red faced to leave, but the door was closed and she had
nowhere to go.
She was like a
terrified rabbit caught in the headlights and repeated over and over “I’m sorry
I’m sorry”
“Hush” Geoff said as
he got to his feet “Hush”
And he lifted her chin
so he could see her eyes and added “it’s ok”
Then with his hand still
on her chin he guided her lips back to his.
After a long and prolonged
kiss Geoff hugged her to his chest, kissed the top of her head and said
“Was it just the one
book you were after?”
“For now” Annest said
and giggled
“You’d better go
before they send out a search party” Geoff said
“Do I have too?” she
asked in a small mouse like voice.
“Yes” he said “for
now”
Thelma smiled when she
saw Annest return, looking flushed, to the lounge clutching the thesaurus to
her chest.
She had hoped when
Geoff had asked about Annest that it might lead somewhere and when she saw
Geoff defending her against Marisa’s aggression that night at the meeting she
knew.
And as she watched
Annest blushing in the doorway she knew for sure it was mutual.
Although most of
Thelma’s committee meetings were at Starlings but a couple of times a month the
meetings were held elsewhere.
And the night after he
and Annest had kissed in his study was one of those nights so he would have to
wait another day before he saw her again.
He poured himself a
drink and headed towards his sanctum when he heard Thelma coming down stairs.
“I’m off Geoff I’ll
see you later” she said and smiled “Have fun”
“Bye” he replied a
little confused by her cheerfulness.
As the front door
closed firmly behind her he walked into the study and said to himself
“At least I’ll have a
nice quiet evening”
With his wife Thelma
away from the house for a meeting, Geoff walked into his study and said to
himself
“At least I’ll have a
nice quiet evening”
But no sooner had his
backside hit the leather of his Chesterfield than there was a loud knocking on
the front door.
“I spoke too soon” he
said getting up again “It had better not be Jehovah's Witnesses or I’ll tell
them where they can stick their Watchtower”
He had opened the door
expecting to find someone selling double glazing or upvc soffits or driveways
but instead he found the little brunette who had stolen his heart.
“Hi” he said and his
delight showed in the smile that lit up his whole face. “Come in”
“Thanks” She responded
and stepped into the hall
“I didn’t expect to
see you today” Geoff explained “The meeting isn’t being held here tonight, it’s
at Daphne somebody’s”
“I didn’t come for the
meeting” Annest said boldly “I came for this” and with that she stood on her
tiptoes and kissed him
It was about an hour
after they had made love in his bed and Annest said as she lay beside him with
the duvet pulled up under her chin.
“What did we do?”
“Do you mean you’ve
forgotten already?” Geoff replied laying on his side watching her “I thought it
was quite memorable”
“No I didn’t mean that”
she said and rolled over onto her side to face him, “That was wonderful”
“You haven’t done that
for a while have you?” he asked
“No not since college,
but it wasn’t like that” she confessed
“I’m glad” Geoff
replied
“You made my toes curl”
she said and blushed
“I’m glad about that
too” He added
“Does that happen
every time?” she asked
“I don’t know, why
don’t we find out” Geoff said and kissed her as he caressed her tenderly beneath
the duvet.
“Well that answered my
question” she said letting out a satisfied sigh as she lay her head on his
chest.
“Well I must say I’m a
bit surprised at your brazen behaviour” Geoff said
“I’m a jezebel” Annest
responded proudly
“I thought you were a
good Christian girl and here you are sleeping with a married man” He pointed
out “doesn’t it make you feel wicked?”
“A little” she
admitted “but I had permission”
“From who?” he asked
with surprise
“Thelma” she replied
“I see” He said
smiling to himself, he realized at that moment why Thelma had left the house so
cheerfully and instructed him to have fun.
“What about you” Asked
Annest “don’t you feel guilty for committing adultery?”
“No for a second” he
replied
“You don’t?” she asked
with surprise
“No because I too had
permission”
“From who?” she
demanded
“Thelma” he replied
“Of course you did”
And for the next half
an hour there they lay in each other’s arms dosing in the semi darkness.
“What do we do now?”
She asked when they were both awake.
“Well not that” Geoff
replied positively “I’m not 18 years old you anymore you know”
“I didn’t mean that”
Annest said and blushed “I mean where do we go from here”
“Well Thelma and I are
divorcing” he explained “Did you know?”
“Yes she told me”
“And I have been offered
a job at a new Engineering company” Geoff added “It’s a good job and it comes
with a house”
“Oh, where?”
“Mornington”
“Oh” she exclaimed and
the mouse had suddenly returned
“Don’t say it like
that, it’s not like it’s the other side of the world”
“It might just as well
be” Annest responded
“Don’t look sad” he
said and lifted her chin up so he could see her eyes, which were filling with
tears.
“When do you start?” she asked
“January 5th, if I
decided to take it” he said “but you know what they say “New Year New Start””
“So soon?”
“Is that not enough
time for you?” he asked
“What do you mean?”
“Well obviously I
won’t accept the job unless you come with me”
“Me?” Annest asked in
disbelief
“Of course you” he
replied matter-of-factly
“Really?”
“Yes really” he
confirmed
“I’ve only ever lived
in Purplemere” she said softly
“So?”
“Where will I work?”
“We can start looking
tomorrow” he said “there will probably be something at Topliss”
“Is that where you’ll
be working?”
“Yes” he replied “So
what do you think?”
“I think “New Year New
Start”” she said and kissed him
“You do realize that until
my divorce comes through we shall have to live in sin”
“And where exactly
will sin be located?” she asked
“Well our particular den
of sinfulness will be 21 Military Row, in Mornington village”
Geoff had left Annest
laying smugly beneath the covers in his bedroom.
In order that she
could redress alone because he knew she was shy and modest, he liked that about
her, amongst other things.
So he was already down
stairs when she walked down the staircase managing to make her five foot
nothing stature appear twice the height due to her self-satisfaction with the
evening’s events.
You said “until my
divorce comes through”” Annest said
“Yes I did say that”
he agreed
“So what happens after
your divorce then?” she asked as she put her coat on
“Well isn’t it
obvious?” he asked
And Annest just shook
her head in response
“You really don’t
know?”
“No” she replied
“Well you’ll have to
marry me of course” Geoff stated matter-of-factly
“What?”
“Don’t get all coy” he
said with false pomposity, “I have my reputation to protect”
“You and me?” she
asked
“Unless you have
someone else in mind for me”
“No, no one” she said
with a quizzical look on her face
“That’s alright then”
“You want to marry
me?” Annest asked
“That was the general
idea” he said “I’m sorry it can’t be a church wedding but with me being a
recent divorcee”
“You really want to
marry me” she repeated though not a question this time.
“Of course I do,
haven’t you been paying attention?”
He stopped and smiled
at her and said “Well?”
“Well I think you have
been rather presumptuous” she said haughtily
“Fare enough there was
a girl at Tesco’s I rather liked the look of” he said and made towards the door
“Don’t you dare” she
said and blocked his path
“So what’s your
answer?”
“You haven’t asked a
question yet” she said
“Oh it’s like that is
it?”
“If you think I’m
worth it you should do things properly”
“I won’t bother then”
he said and she slapped him on the chest
“Ow” he said “You
bully”
“You know what to do”
she said and brandished her fist at him
“And they say romance
is dead” he said and dropped to one knee and took hold of her hand
“Annest Anderton will
you ma…?”
“Yes” she shouted and
grappled him around the neck
They were still locked
in an embrace when the front door opened and Thelma stepped inside.
“Ah, I see it all went
well then” she said
“Yes” they chorused
As they were moving
into a rented house in Mornington there were no time pressures to sell their
properties, Thelma was still going to live at Starlings in the short term,
until she decided what was best for her and Annest decided to let out her flat,
her thinking was that the rent form the flat would at least give her some
income in case it took her a while to find work in Mornington, she had no idea
how many job opportunities there would be in a village.
The other thing was
that she had only ever lived in Purplemere so the thought of severing every connection
with the place worried her, if only in the slightest.
Though she harbored no
worries in regard to Geoff she was as sure of him as it was possible to be.
She had thought for a
while she might keep her job at St John’s church.
But in the end she
decided that driving to and from work every day would eat into the time she would
otherwise spend with Geoff.
As it turned out she
needn’t have worried on either score.
The village of
Mornington was thriving under the stewardship of the St George family and the
reacquisition of the previously compulsory purchase land and the infrastructure
of the old military airfield had brought new opportunities.
Their new life
officially began not in the New Year but on December the 16th when they moved
into 21 Military Row, a house they would occupy for the rest of their lives.
On January the 5th
Geoff began work at Topliss Engineering and 3 weeks later Annest became the
Administration Manager.
Annest’s life had finally
began in earnest she had a lovely home that she shared with the man she loved,
a job that played to all of her strengths and fulfilled her.
However Annest never
wavered from her taste for woolly tights and sensible shoes but she never again
concentrated her haze on them.
She also had that
thing which had always eluded her, she had an abundance of friends.
Geoff and Annest were
married in Purplemere registry office on December 16th exactly one year after
they first moved in together and among the many well-wishers present was Thelma
and the new man in her life.
