Chapter Twenty-one Garnish

      While I was in the post office sending off the latest batch of Chocolate Wishes I heard that notices had been posted on the gates of both the lido field and the tennis courts overnight, saying that when the leases expired in April the current owner, Mr Mann-Drake, intended closing them to the public.

      Everyone was up in arms about this and I detoured on my way home to read the notice on the tennis court gate. It was on laminated fluorescent orange card so it would have been a bit hard to miss, but I was only just in time, since Effie Yatton drove up in her old green Morris and removed it just as I’d finished.

      An energetic, grey-haired woman with a thin, eager face like a whippet, she nodded to me and said concisely, ‘Disgraceful! I’m taking the notices to the Parish Council meeting later, to see what can be done!’

      Then she tossed the notice onto the passenger seat on top of another one, presumably from the lido field, and drove off. I have a feeling taking them down was illegal, but when I told Felix about it while scrounging a free cup of coffee, as usual, he said he expected she would return them later and it looked like being an interesting Parish Council meeting, for once.

      I had to wait much longer than usual to find out whether it was or not. In fact, it was getting so late by the time Poppy arrived that I’d just about given her up, but she explained that she’d gone to church afterwards.

      ‘Raffy says evening prayers at five thirty every day except Sunday, so he was going straight there, and Felix and I thought we would go too.’

      ‘Felix went?’

      ‘Yes, he likes Raffy; they seem to get on really well. There were one or two other people there and it was a short service: he read out a daily office, a bit like an extended “Thought for the Day”. He has a lovely speaking voice, hasn’t he? Sort of deep and mellow and warm…It was lovely and peaceful and I felt so much better afterwards. You should try it, Chloe.’

      ‘I don’t think so!’

      ‘Perhaps not,’ she conceded contritely. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking!’

      ‘That’s OK.’

      ‘Things are obviously going to be different at the Parish Council meetings with Raffy there, Chloe. He didn’t exactly take charge, but somehow the power shifted over from Miss Winter to him…or maybe it will be a power-share?’ she said doubtfully. ‘Raffy is quite quiet, but you certainly know he’s there.’

      ‘Bit hard to miss him, seeing he’s six foot four.’

      ‘You know what I mean!’ she said, then gave me a rundown of what had happened. ‘Felix said you already know about the notices that were put up by Mann-Drake?’

      ‘The whole village knows about them now. They’re almost as much a talking point as Raffy being the new vicar.’

      ‘It’s a pity Mr Grace died before we could raise enough money to buy the tennis courts and lido for the village. Now we don’t know if the notices are meant as a threat to try and get a much higher lease next time, or because Mann-Drake intends trying to sell the two sites for housing development.’

      ‘Could he do that? The Parish Council are hardly likely to approve, are they?’

      ‘No, but he could appeal over our heads, because they’re within the village boundaries.’

      ‘What, even the lido? I would have thought that was right outside it.’

      ‘Before the Black Death the village was much bigger, though a lot of the houses have vanished since and now they’re just bumps in the fields.’

      ‘So the ones dotted around the edge are just those left?’ I said.

      ‘Yes. Anyway, Miss Winter is going to write to Mann-Drake expressing how the council and the whole village feel about it, and Raffy says he will go and talk to him as soon as he can too. But meanwhile, he’s very generously offered the tennis club the use of the vicarage court.’

      ‘I didn’t know there was one.’ Mind you, the vicarage gardens are such a jungle there could be a lost civilisation in there, complete with a stepped pyramid, and no one would know.

      ‘It’s at the back, near the rear gate. He’s going to get the men who are cutting back the trees and bushes to clear it as a priority and have the little pavilion renovated. Effie Yatton runs the tennis club and she was really grateful – so grateful that she confessed that she’s been using the vicarage drawing room to hold her Brownie pack meetings in when the village hall was otherwise engaged!’

      ‘But isn’t there an annexe to the village hall she could have used?’

      ‘Yes, but the roof is leaking and it needs rewiring. Raffy was really funny about the Brownie meetings. He said he’d wondered why there were giant papier-mâché mushrooms in one corner of his drawing room and a pile of hula hoops. And then he said he would have the annexe repaired – he is being really kind and generous about everything!’

      ‘I expect he can afford to be,’ I said acidly.

      ‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought he was mega wealthy,’ Poppy said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, he has just bought the vicarage, and the renovation bills for a crumbling Victorian wreck must be huge, mustn’t they?’

      ‘I expect he’s still raking in royalties, because he wrote all of Mortal Ruin’s songs, and you hear them everywhere, especially that one from the car advert. It’s never off.’

      ‘It’s still generous,’ she insisted. ‘He was pretty laid-back about your grandfather and the museum too. He said Mr Lyon had no intention of trying to impose his own beliefs on anyone else, and the museum and guidebook would include a lot of interesting material about the overlap between paganism, witchcraft and early Christianity.’

      ‘Well, that’s true, it does.’

      ‘Then he said he thought your whole family, especially your grandfather, should be encouraged to become part of the community. I said you already were, since you were a regular at the Falling Star.’

      ‘That’s probably not quite what he meant, Poppy! But I do think his suggestion about involving Grumps in village affairs was a good one,’ I allowed. ‘It’s better to have him on your side than against you, though since he’s not terribly gregarious, I’m not quite sure how it’s going to happen.’

      ‘Zillah seems to be joining things already, doesn’t she?’

      ‘Yes, Clive Snowball took her to the tea dance club, but I can’t see Grumps following her there any time soon.’

      She giggled. ‘No, nor I, though he would instantly be besieged by partners if he did, because apparently there’s always a shortage of men.’

      ‘And he’s tall and still very handsome.’

      ‘So is Laurence Yatton, the Winter’s End steward – and he’s single. Pity he’s more than forty years older than me! But speaking of tall and handsome, Effie has fallen for Raffy and brought him some of her home-made vegetarian sausage rolls to the meeting today, because she said she knew Maria Minchin couldn’t cook.’

      ‘I shouldn’t think she’s alone in that.’

      ‘She certainly isn’t, because Raffy told me and Felix later that he kept finding food offerings on the doorstep – jam and cakes and all kinds of things.