Late, Late in the Evening

way, later on because of the murders.)

Further down the road lived the Widow Winter, whose sole occupation, once she had whitened her doorstep, seemed to be to spy on the rest of the village from behind a barricade of flowering plants. She believed, I suppose, that these hid her prying eyes from passers-by while she watched from her parlour window, hour after hour, the comings and goings of her neighbours. I have no doubt that she knew exactly how often the people across the street washed their lace curtains, how long Miss Summers spent in her daily dallyings with the baker and exactly what was in everybody's string bag when people came back from their weekend shopping at the Co-op in the town. Everybody did the big weekend shopping at the Co-op because of something mysterious called the divvy.

From these Saturday expeditions we could always expect a pleasant surprise on Sunday mornings, for on the bedside table in Aunt Kirstie's room would be sugar mice in pink or white with tiny black eyes and their tails made out of string, or there might be sugar pigs or a bar of chocolate cream. Another joy was bathtime. At that age we were bathed in the large zinc tub Aunt Kirstie used for her laundry. There was no bathroom and the stone- floored scullery was considered too cold, even in summer, so, as there was always a fire in the kitchen for cooking, we were bathed in front of that. I remember that there was some special soap (said to have been made in Japan) which floated, and when we had been dried we had a glorious toasting in front of the fire.

Almost opposite our two villas there were two semi-detached cottages. They were inhabited by a brother and sister who had quarrelled many years before we were born and who never spoke to one another. They had long, beautifully-tended gardens which bordered the road and the two old people were at war every fruit-picking season with the village children, for the old lady grew strawberries and the old man had a particularly fine pear- tree. I do not believe Kenneth and I would ever have joined in the raids but, in any case, there was no temptation for us, as grandfather grew more fruit than we could eat or the aunts could make into jam.

At the end of the village, opposite Mother Honour's shop, was a tumble-down cottage where a hermit had once lived. The cottage was in the last stages of disrepair and he himself had been ragged and indescribably filthy. After he died it was discovered that he had pulled up all the floorboards and must have used them for fuel. So far as anybody could make out, all he had to live on were the stale loaves from Miss Summers' shop. Her one and only charitable action was to leave any leftovers on her doorstep overnight. As they had always disappeared by morning, it was assumed that the hermit collected them under cover of darkness and ate them.

Outside the village, but still in a sense of it, as were the people at the manor house, there were the gypsies who, every summer, had an encampment at the top of Lye Hill. Lye Hill was forbidden territory to Kenneth and me. The reason given to us by Aunt Lally (she who looked after our grandfather) was that the gypsies kidnapped small children and sold them as slaves, but the real reason (as I found out much later) was that Lye Hill was an extension of Lovers' Lane, which was also forbidden territory to us because the villagers did all their coupling in summer in the open air.

To speak to Old Sukie, the gypsy who, now and again, walked into the town with a male companion to sell clothes-pegs and paper flowers, was the favourite village 'dare' and, so far as I know, had no takers until Kenneth volunteered to waylay the so-called witch and pass the time of day with her. As my pride and my sense of responsibility would not allow me to leave him to his fate, I went along, although most unwillingly and with great trepidation, to support him. Day after day we waited on the drove road which ran alongside the brook and at last, while the village children watched from a safe distance, Kenneth's opportunity came.

When he saw the gypsies approaching, Sukie with a large wicker basket on her arm and the man slouching along beside her, Kenneth pulled his cap out of his pocket, put it on his head and then, as the gypsies came almost up to us, he raised it politely and said, 'Good morning, madam. It's a very nice morning, isn't it?'

The man muttered something and did not shorten his stride but, to my alarm, Old Sukie stopped. However, she smiled and said, 'Good day to you, my little gentleman. Wear a flower for me, then, my lover. You have a lucky face.' With that, and with Kenneth standing his ground while I drew back a pace, she picked a paper flower from her basket and handed it to him before she strode on after her man. Although she was always known as Old Sukie, she could not have been more than thirty years of age. She was a striking-looking woman in her gypsy fashion, and she carried herself like a queen.

The dark man with her-her husband, I suppose, although Our Sarah told us, with a great air of mystery and with what I now realise was a lascivious gleam in her eye, that if they were married at all it was 'only over the tongs-' was a furtive-looking fellow, but lithe and tigerish. He was tall for a gypsy and his slouching stride covered the ground with an effortless unhurried, prowling effect which was more frightening to us even than the reputation Sukie had of being a witch. His silence, too, and his apparent disregard of our presence, carried their own menace.

Soon after our first acquaintance, if one may call it that, with the gypsies, Kenneth and I gained a new companion. This was a puckish-looking, unusually tall young boy wearing a blue shirt and grey-flannel shorts who came barefoot down the road one day and found us about to take Vicky for a walk. He stopped and spoke, with an intonation so unlike our own that we were somewhat abashed, for we recognised him, in spite of his workaday costume, tousled hair and bare feet, as what Aunt Lally called 'one of the gentry'.

'Hullo. Is that your dog?' he asked.

'My uncle's,' I explained.

'It's going to rain.'

This non sequitur nonplussed me.

'How do you know?' I demanded. Instead of replying, he asked,

'Has your aunt-I suppose you've got an aunt if you've got an uncle-has she a good big tin bath? A really big one, I mean.'

'There is one, yes,' said Kenneth. 'She does the washing in it.' He did not add that we were bathed in it, too.

'Oh, good,' said the boy. 'I should think a lot of water comes down this hill when it rains.' He wriggled a big toe into the soft surface of the road. 'Nothing but sand,' he said. 'Tell you what. I'll wait for you while you take the dog out, then you borrow this tin bath of your aunt's and a spade or a trowel, see? Then we sink the bath in the middle of the road and the rainwater fills it up and we paddle. All right?'

'Suppose somebody wants to bring a cart along, or the doctor comes by on his horse?' said Kenneth.

'In the rain? Oh, they won't. Off you go with your dog and don't be long. As soon as the dog has done what it has to do, back you come, do you see? And hurry it up a bit.'

'Who do you think you're talking to?' said Kenneth. 'Besides, we wouldn't be given the bath to play with, or be allowed to paddle in the road in the rain. You must be daft!'