(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green Read Free Page B

Albert was trying to work out how much younger Percy was than he himself. Mr Jones was shocked at the cheek of a man who was only middle-aged, and had a house and a living, in applying for one of the new homes. But he forbore to comment. He did not want any trouble in his respectable hostelry, and both customers were touchy.
    'You'll be lucky!' commented Albert at last, putting his empty glass down. 'Must get back to my bill-hook. I'd like to meet the chap as set them tombstones round the wall. I'd give him a piece of me mind.'
    'He got hurt in a car crash, other side of Oxford,' volunteered Percy. 'My cousin told me. Broke his arm, he said.'
    'No more'n he deserved,' said Albert heartlessly, and hobbled back to his duties.

    Later that morning, as the church clock struck twelve, the noise of the cement mixer growled into silence.
    Two of the workmen appeared, hot and dusty, and ordered pints of bitter across the counter.
    'And how's it going?' asked Mr Jones.
    'Not bad,' said the one in a blue shirt.
    'Just doin' the steps,' said the other, who sported a black singlet.
    'Steps?' echoed Mr Jones. 'I should've thought there'd be no steps at all in a place for old people. Bit of a hazard, surely?'
    'That's what the orders are,' said Blue Shirt.
    'Only three of them,' said the second man. 'Shaller ones too.'
    'And a rail to hang on to,' chimed in Blue Shirt. 'You'll be safe enough, Dad, when you move over there!' He winked at his companion.
    Mr Jones smiled a shade frostily. If he had spoken to his elders in such a way, when he was young, his father would have boxed his ears for him.
    'Well, I'm sure Mr Young knows best,' he said diplomatically. 'He's reckoned to be a top-notch architect.'
    But privately, the good publican found the thought of steps, no matter how shallow, and even when accompanied by a rail, a somewhat disconcerting feature of an old people's home.
    'Could lead to trouble,' he confided to his wife that afternoon when the pub door was closed.
    He was to recall his misgivings later.

    Almost facing The Two Pheasants across Thrush Green stood the house where Winnie Bailey and her maid Jenny lived.
    Adjoining it was John Lovell's surgery. Old Doctor Bailey had died a year or two earlier, and sorely did his younger partner miss the wisdom and local knowledge of his senior.
    The practice was a busy one. John had two junior partners, both keen young men well up in modern medicine. The older folk in Thrush Green still viewed them with some suspicion, and tended to hark back to 'good old Doctor Bailey' and his methods. But gradually the newcomers were beginning to be recognised, much to John Lovell's relief.
    He himself was glad to have Winnie Bailey at hand. Her memory was prodigious, and she could frequently give him a brief history of a family which he found enormously helpful.
    He was now very much a part of Thrush Green. As a junior partner to Donald Bailey, he had met and married Ruth Bassett, sister to Joan Young, the architect's wife. They lived some half a mile or so from the green itself, and as well as their own two young children they cared for old Mrs Bassett who had made her home with them since the death of her husband.
    John was a serious and conscientious man, deeply appreciative of his good fortune in having such a settled marriage and a rewarding job. He enjoyed his trips to outlying villages, for he had a great love of country life and was knowledgeable about flowers and birds. These interests were of particular value to him for they helped him to relax.
    His wife Ruth knew that if his nature had a flaw at all – which she would have denied hotly, if challenged – it was in the very seriousness which his patients found so reassuring. She did her best to lighten his load, but books, music and theatre, in which she had always delighted, could not engage his attention for any length of time.
    'You are always telling your patients,' she said, 'that they must have a few hobbies to relieve any tension,