Home Truths Sophia Waugh
My little town really is extraordinary. It is a blip on the map of rural England, of no particular architectural merit or interest, no cultural draw, not much money. But it has the most extraordinary life force of its own. When I first moved there I found this oppressive. I hate the word ‘community’ – it is always used with a sense of smug superiority – and fought any attempts to make me belong to such a thing. So what I would say is intrinsic to the town (which my father-in-law insisted, till his dying day, was a village) is the energy that comes from it. We are still proper West Country folk, but there’s a little bit of middle-class Ambridge in there, too. Somewhere there are committees and people having meetings. There is bound to be at least one Linda Snell.
We had a fair the other weekend. Or a fayre, I’m not really sure. In any event, the street was closed and there were lots of stalls. And it was marvellous. I suddenly realised how much talent lurks unseen behind the nicely painted doors. Everyone was there with their shining Saturday faces and their secret lives: the science teacher who is a painter; the woman who makes lampshades out of 19th-century novels (although my neighbour promised to do me one for a fiver as opposed to £90); the Italian teacher who produced the most amazing food stall. There was quite a lot of craft of the type more closely related to Morris dancing than William Morris, but somehow it didn’t matter.
It helped that the sun was out – for once God was shining on his West Country world – and I could have done with a brass band, but there was something so gloriously wholesome about the whole thing that I felt a direct link not just with Ambridge but with the village celebrations of Hardy’s Wessex. And then I remembered: Tess Durbeyfield danced in her white frock with Angel Clare looking on from a patronising distance; Helen Archer was crushed to the point of attempted murder; Miss Marple stumbled across so many murders in the quaint village of St Mary Mead. Had I been suckered into this idea of ‘community’ after all? Were these good folk not only cooking up a fine lasagne but also slipping arsenic into the amatriciana sauce? Was the lampshade lady bashing her gentle husband with her Elizabeth Gaskell collection?
You can learn a lot by the stickers people put in their windows. Not just at election time but all the year round. Why, for instance, does the very mild man (who might or might not have kidnapped our cat) have quite so much advertising in his cellar window? Language teaching, fair enough – but advice on what to do if you are frightened of your partner? What story lurks behind that little piece of paper? Who belongs to the writing club and should I? Is it to share writing or partners? (There must be a fair amount of bedhopping in a town this size, mustn’t there?) We have three churches but no drama club. I think that’s a good sign – I’m convinced that the reasons middle-aged people suddenly join an amateur theatrical group are more to do with sex than Stoppard – but if they’re not having sex with each other perhaps they’re doing something much less healthy and more sinister.
A shadow came over the sun and my heart. Perhaps it was more fayre than fair. Perhaps this jolly community was about much more than papier mâché and flower arranging.
Or perhaps I should stop reading so much fiction.
‘Hey, wait up!’