Tales from the Finchbottom Vale – (01) Soft Lips and Sensible Shoes

 

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.