and scalded himself twice, through getting too close to the fire or the cooking stove. He seemed to have no fear and was as good-natured as a cat on a dairy farm.
Sam had long since settled in as a teacher at St. Paul’s Ladbroke Grove. To begin with, as she had finally admitted, the children had been a good deal more unruly, and quite a bit more smelly, than the darlings of Middle Hill. “But they’re just as bright,” she assured me, before I could offer any criticism. “They’ve had harder and dirtier lives—but they’ve got such spirit, Hal. They fight a bit, call the teachers names—but it’s not hostile. It’s cheek, really. They know we know more than they do, but they don’t think that makes us better than them… we’re all equal. When we get on to the really interesting bits of a lesson, they all quiet down and concentrate. They know all about city life, of course, and, since they usually live in cramped conditions, there’s little we can teach them about the raw practicalities—money, work, sport. We don’t teach sex but we don’t need to—they’ve seen all that, too.”
“So what do you teach them?”
“History. Geography. Biology—how animals work, what happens on farms, which many have never seen, why the seasons change. Art— they love art. Many of them can look at pictures all day long.”
“Do you prefer it to Middle Hill?”
“I keep asking myself that question. I loved village life, but I like my life here too. Growing up in Bristol, we had excursions—day trips—into the countryside. But although I enjoyed those trips, I never felt part of the countryside, never felt it was part of me. In Middle Hill I did start to respond to, you know, the wildlife, the seasons, I started getting to know the hedgerows, the copses, I learned the different breeds of cow and pig, I knew all the words for the different parts of horses’ harnesses, I understood the diagnoses of the local vet—most of them, anyway. And yes, I loved it, all of it. But”—and her eyes shone—“I think the city is my natural habitat. Bristol wasn’t London, oh no, but… your sister was right and I’m glad we are here.”
We were in the kitchen at the time, making Will a hot drink. Having grown up with condensed milk, he didn’t share Sam’s or my revulsion.
“The real difference is the parents. In Middle Hill the parents were behind the children. Here, it’s different. Once or twice parents have come in and said that their child is being turned into a dreamer, that we shouldn’t fill their heads with far-off places. So I ask them to sit through a class. The headmistress doesn’t mind. When they see how we teach—what we teach, how the children react—they change their minds, usually. Some of them become quite interested themselves. More and more parents are coming to the school—that has to be good. I say ‘parents’—it’s the mothers, of course.”
Lottie, meanwhile, had found herself a man at last. His name was Reg and, when she had met him, he had been a trainee policeman. He was nice enough, if creepy-quiet—tall, thin, with very short-cut dark hair and a mustache. Why did Sam’s sisters always seem to go for men with mustaches? Reg liked fishing, so Lottie and he spent hours on river and canal banks, on the edges of reservoirs, filled-in gravel pits, and so on. It got Lottie out at weekends, so that she saw a bit of the countryside on the edges of London. Reg lived in a police barracks and, after a day’s fishing at the weekend, they would arrive home late, usually after Sam and I were in bed, and spend the night together. He would be gone at dawn the next day. I never knew if Lottie thought she was deceiving us, but neither Sam nor I cared. Lottie must find her happiness where she could.
But then Reg was conscripted into an army unit in Yorkshire. So, more tears as he made his farewells. He and Lottie did not get engaged before he went, so I hoped there would be no replay of the Faye episode. Still, it wasn’t easy for Lottie.
Sam had made friends with one of the other teachers at the school, a woman called Ellen Smith whose speciality was science. She came round for lunch one Saturday and brought her fiancé with her. He, Edward, was an assistant harbormaster in the Port of London. I