Pansy Potter - Hallowed Be Thy Name! Part One

Pansy Potter – Hallowed Be Thy Name! Part One

I was busy turning out the drawers in my desk when a thick, leather-bound book fell at my feet. It was a five year diary. As I stooped to pick it up I knew that if I opened it that would be the end of my busy morning. I hesitated, just for a moment, before settling down in a comfortable chair in front of the window feeling the sun’s warmth as I clicked open the diary. It fell at a page which read Pansy 2.15. Dreamily I cast my mind back to that eventful time in the nineteen-seventies.

I had been invited into the room behind the shop. The shop, or rather, the Village Store and Post Office had fairly recently changed hands and the new owners were a very energetic young couple from London. Since moving to Suffolk they had virtually turned our quiet, sleepy village upside down with their innovative ideas and plans.

The shop bell rang as I entered and Dave, the young proprietor, looked up and smiled,

“Oh, hello, Ruth, go through, Pansy is expecting you.”

As I walked into the room, I gasped in horror as my eyes lighted on what looked like a snake coiled around a tall, extremely ugly vase which stood on the floor, in the corner, opposite to where I had entered. I took an involuntary step backwards and would probably have run back into the shop if Pansy, Dave’s wife, had not called me into the room.

“Do come in Ruth” she laughed, and seeing where my eyes were riveted said, “Don’t worry about the snake; it’s in no condition to harm you.”

I tried, but failed, to look unconcerned as I cautiously stepped forward. Pansy was sitting in an old, worn Chesterfield chair in one corner of the room, opposite the snake. An equally old, worn-looking Afghan hound lay at her feet.

“Come and sit down, Ruth, and I’ll make us some coffee,” she said, getting up and walking towards what I supposed was the kitchen.

I sat spring-like on the chair, ready to make a strategic withdrawal should the snake show any signs of life but, despite my anxiety; I tried to take in this extraordinary room.

It had obviously, at some time, been two rooms but the connecting wall had been removed either side of the chimney-breast so that, although it was now one big room, it was still awkwardly divided by the large fireplace which housed a black, wood-burning stove.

The floor was covered in an insipid looking, pale green, corded carpet, designed for endurance rather than comfort. There was a large, stripped pine dresser against one wall coupled with a large, round, pine table with chairs against a further wall. To the front of the room, under the window which looked out onto the main road through our village stood the Chesterfield settee, dark green in colour, old and cold-looking. At the other end of the room, against the wall backing onto the kitchen, was a faded lavender, perhaps once purple, chaise longue. I sat in the other Chesterfield chair, nearest the door to the shop.

As I glanced upwards, my mouth dropped open, as I came face to face with a large fish, who, at first, seemed equally surprised to see me, but, its eyes gave the lie to that as they were glazed and unseeing. The fish was in a glass case mounted on a wall which was covered in what Pansy and Laura Ashley supposed was cottage-style wallpaper. In trying to ignore the snake, I had also avoided seeing what, in any other circumstances, would have been patently obvious. The room was full of dead animals. From where I sat, I could see under the bookshelves, where there stood a mangy-looking fox, seemingly, transfixed in flight. A small spider monkey clung, in death, to a macramé plant holder hanging from the ceiling. Various birds were dotted about the room but, undoubtedly, the piece de resistance, and given pride of place, above the fireplace, was the badger, beautiful, even in death.

I wondered, as I had often done before, about this strange young woman from London. Pansy was so full of energy and life, how could she fill what was traditionally known as the living room with so much death. Something furry brushed against my leg and I let out a piercing scream and, startled, even by my own noise, I leapt onto the chair. The Afghan hound had moved. Pansy came running into the room; amusement flickered across her face as she caught me foolishly climbing down from the chair.

“I’m sorry if the animals frighten you,” she said cheerfully, “but you needn’t worry, they’re all quite dead you know. Excepting Pasha of course,” she said, indulgently patting the beast that had nearly put me in the same condition as the fox and the badger.

We sat there chatting for some minutes while I wondered what the purpose of this invitation was. Pansy soon came to the point.

“Ruth” she said “I have to admit I haven’t asked you over for coffee just to be friendly. No, I thought that as you too originally came from London, you might be able to tell me where I’m going wrong.”

I instantly warmed to this frank, straightforward, young girl who wasted no time on trivialities. She was so different from the slow and deliberate, though not unkind, Suffolk people I had grown accustomed to. They needed time to get used to people as they could be slightly suspicious of outsiders and I knew from experience that acceptance dribbled from them at a very slow pace. I had lived among them for ten years and was still considered to be somewhat of an outsider. For this reason I thought it was a pity she tried so hard to fit in with them. She tried even to the extent of rushing headlong into what she supposed a cottage living room looked like. I hazarded a guess that her wish to conform had clashed with her temperament, which was strongly individual, and the result had been this awful room.

“I suppose you’ve heard I’m standing for election to the Parish Council,” Pansy said.

“Yes,” I replied, “I had heard,” but I refrained from adding that I thought this was a mistake.

“Well,” Pansy continued “I don’t think there’s much chance of my being elected, particularly now everyone seems to have turned against me. I thought you might be able to help me there. I just can’t understand it. I thought I was getting on so well, at least, with the old folk but, strangely enough, they seem to be the very people I’ve upset.”

I could well understand Pansy’s bewilderment as I had often seen her sitting in the shop writing endless letters to the council in a vain attempt to get Mrs Farraday’s fence or old Nellie’s pathway repaired. When she was cooking she more often than not made more than she needed so that there would be a meal for one or two of the old folk and she baked cakes for them on a regular basis, not to ingratiate herself but motivated entirely by kindness.

“Take old Nellie,” Pansy continued “she hobbles into the shop, buys what she wants, and hobbles out again with scarcely an extra word of conversation. I cooked a lovely steak and kidney pie the other day and took it round but she wouldn’t accept it. In fact, she slammed the door in my face! Mrs Moss is the same, so too is Mrs Ballard and Mrs Farraday. What have I done, I just don’t understand?”

So, it’s started, I thought grimly. “I’m afraid, Pansy,” I said, “that you are the object of a smear campaign.”

“Me?” queried Pansy “But why? Who?”

“You, because you have strong opinions,” I said. “Why, because you are standing for election to the Parish Council and the who is, undoubtedly, George Breadman.”

TO BE CONTINUED