(11/20) Farther Afield Read Free

my chickens. They can always do with a bit of fresh green.'
    I promised to do so.
    'Well, now,' said Mrs Pringle, rolling up her sleeves for battle, 'what about them kitchen cupboards?'
    'Very well,' I replied meekly. 'Which shall we start on?'
    Mrs Pringle cast a malevolent eye upon the cupboards under the sink, those on the wall holding food, and the truly dreadful one which houses casseroles, pie-dishes, lemon-squeezers and ovenware of every shape and size, liable to cascade from their confines every time the door opens.
    'We start at the top,' Mrs Pringle told me, 'and work down.' She sounded like a competent general issuing orders for the day to a remarkably inefficient lieutenant.
    I watched her mount the kitchen chair, fortunately a well-built piece of furniture capable of carrying Mrs Pringle's fourteen stone.
    'Get a tray,' directed the lady, 'and pack it with all this rubbish as I hand it down. We'll have to have a proper sort-out of this lot.'
    Obediently, I stacked packets of gravy powder, gelatine, haricot beans, semolina and a collection of other cereals and dry goods which I had no idea I was housing.

    'Now, why should I have three packets of arrowroot?' I wondered aloud.
    'Bad management,' snorted Mrs P. There seemed no answer to that.
    'And half this stuff,' she continued, 'should have been used months ago. It's a wonder to me you haven't got Weevils or Mice. I wouldn't care to use this curry myself. That firm went out of business just after the war.'
    I threw the offending packet into the rubbish box – a sop to Cerberus.
    'Ah!' said Mrs Pringle darkly, 'there'll be plenty more to add to that by the time we've done.'
    It took us almost an hour to clear all three shelves. Mrs Pringle was in her element, wrestling with dirt and disorder, and glorying in the fact that she had me there, under her thumb, to crow over. I can't say that I minded very much. Mrs Pringle's slings and arrows hardly dented my armour at all, and it was pleasant to come across long lost commodities again.
    'I've been looking everywhere for those vanilla pods,' I cried, snatching the long glass tube from Mrs Pringle's hand. 'And that bottle of anchovy essence.'
    'It's as dry as a bone,' replied Mrs Pringle with satisfaction, 'and so's this almond essence bottle, and the capers. What a wicked waste! If my mother could see this she would turn in her grave! Every week the cupboards were turned out regular, and everything in use brought forward and the new put at the back. "Method!", she used to say. "That's all that's needed, my girl. Method!" and it's thanks to her that I'm as tidy as I am today,' said my slave-driver smugly.
    'My mother,' I replied, 'died when I was in my late teens.'
    But if I imagined that this body blow would affect my sparring partner, I was to be disappointed.
    'It's the early years that count,' snapped Mrs Pringle, throwing a box of chocolate vermicelli at my head.
    I gave up, and we continued in silence until the cupboard was bare. Then I was allowed to retreat upstairs to dust the bedrooms whilst Mrs Pringle attacked the shelves with the most efficacious detergent known to man.

    A little later, over coffee, Mrs Pringle gave me up-to-date news of the village.
    'You've heard about the Flower Show, I suppose?' she began.
    I confessed that I had not attended this Fairacre event on the previous Saturday.
    'A good thing. There's trouble brewing. Mr Willet says he's writing to the paper about it.'
    'Why? What happened?'
    'You may well ask. Mr Robert won first prize for the best kept garden.'
    This did not seem surprising to me. Our local farmer always keeps a fine display of flowers and vegetables.
    'What about it?'
    Mrs Pringle took a deep breath, so that her corsets creaked.
    'Mr Roberts,' she said, with dreadful emphasis, 'has Tom Banks working in that garden three days a week – if working you can call it. And, what's more, he had all the farmyard manure at his beck and call. How can us cottagers compete with