literally falling apart. And the whole of the exterior just had to be
repainted, from the gutterings along the top to the front door at the bottom.
Should she get it all done? Three weeks earlier she'd stood and surveyed
the scene. Could she ever find anywhere else so pleasingly attractive as
this?
No! She'd stay.
She'd consulted the Yellow Pages and found Barron, J, Builder and Decorator;
not so far away, either at Lower Swinstead. She'd rung him and he'd called
round to survey the job. He'd seemed a personable sort of fellow; and when
he'd quoted a reasonable (if slightly steep) estimate for both the
restructuring and the repainting, she'd accepted.
He'd promised to be with her at 7. 30 a. m. on Monday 3 August. And it
was precisely at that time that he knocked in civilized manner on the front
door of
'Collingwood', again admiring as he did so the drip-stone moulding above it.
Born in North Oxford, Mrs Bayley spoke her mind unapol- ogerically: 'You look
as if you've just come straight from the abattoir, Mr Barron!'
The builder (rather a handsome man, she thought) grinned wryly as he looked
down at overalls bespattered with scarlet paint.
'Not my choice, Mrs B. I'm with you, all the way. If there's a better
combination of colour than black and white and yellow, I don't know it.'
Mrs B felt gratified.
'Well, I'll let you get on then. I won't bother you no one will bother you.
It's all very quiet round here. Would you like some coffee later?'
'Tea, if you don't mind, Mrs B. Milk and two teaspoons of sugar, please.
About ten? Smashing!'
From the ground-floor window she watched him as he removed the aluminium
ladders from the top of the van, stood there for a few seconds looking up at
the dormer window, then shaking out the first extension and, by means of a
rope and pulley at the bottom, elongating the ladder to its fullest extent
with a second, smaller extension. For a few seconds he stood there, holding
the loftily assembled structure at right angles to the ground; then easing
the pointed top of the third stage most carefully, lovingly almost into place
against the casement of the dormer window some thirty feet above, before
finally fitting the bottom of the ladder on the compacted gravel of the
pathway which divided the front of the houses there from the wide stretch of
grass leading to the edge of Sheep Street, some four or five feet below.
For several minutes Mrs B stood by her front window on the ground floor,
looking out a little anxiously to observe her builder's varied skills.
Across the road, a solitary jogger in red trainers was running reasonably
briskly past the Bay Tree Hotel, his tracksuit hood over his head, as if he
were trying to work up a sweat; or just perhaps to keep his ears warm, since
there was an un seasonal nip in the air that morning. Mrs B thought jogging
a silly and dangerous way of keeping fit, though. She'd known the young
North Oxford don who had written the hugely popular Joys of Jogging, and who
had died aged twenty-seven, whilst on an early-morning not-s&joyful jog.
Jogging was a dangerous business.
Like climbing ladders.
And Mrs B's nerves could stand things no longer.
She would repair to the second-floor back-bedroom to continue with her
quilting as well as to quell the acute fear she felt for a man who (as she
saw it) was risking his life at every second of his working day. But before
doing so, she knew she had the moral duty to impart a few cautionary words of
advice. And she opened the front door just as the builder was beginning his
ascent, his left hand on a shoulder-high rung, his right hand grasping a
narrowly serrated saw, a long chisel, and a red, short-handled Stanley knife.
'You will be careful, won't you? Please! '
The builder nodded, successively grasping each rung (each 'round' as the
firemen say) at a point just above his shoulders as he climbed with measured
step, professionally, confidently, to the top of the triple-length ladder.
