Trouble at the Little Village School Read Online Free Page B

added Mrs Pocock sanctimoniously, ‘and not a father in sight. It astonishes me how these youngsters get pregnant at the drop of a hat and other women try for years to have children and then have to resort to this VHF treatment.’
    ‘’Course, Tricia’s own mother was no better than she should be,’ observed the shopkeeper. ‘Do you remember her, Mrs Pocock, that big brassy blonde who served behind the counter at the Blacksmith’s Arms in a skirt as short as a drunken man’s memory?’
    The customer shook her head and gave a bleak smile. ‘Maisie Proctor,’ she said.
    ‘Who could forget that madam? All kid gloves and no knickers, as my mother would say. You recall her, don’t you, Mrs O’Connor? Set her cap for Les Stainthorpe, who, as you know, was a good few years older than her, spent all his money and then ran off.’
    ‘With that brush salesman from Rotherham,’ added the shopkeeper, ‘leaving the husband to bring up the daughter.’
    ‘And a lot of people think the baby wasn’t Les Stainthorpe’s,’ added Mrs Pocock.
    ‘Then the lass goes and gets herself killed and he has to bring up her child,’ said the shopkeeper.
    ‘But fancy pushing a pram with a kiddie in it down a dark country road,’ said Mrs Pocock. ‘I mean, she was asking to get knocked down and killed.’
    ‘The boy’s grandfather did a good job bringing up young Danny.’
    ‘He did,’ said Mrs O’Connor. ‘He’s a lovely wee fella, so he is, and as happy as Larry since he’s come to stay at the doctor’s.’
    ‘It was very good of Dr Stirling to foster the boy after the lad’s grandfather died,’ said Mrs Pocock. ‘He could have ended up in a children’s home. I certainly wouldn’t want to look after another adolescent. I have enough trouble with my Ernest.’
    Knowing the Pocock boy as she did, Mrs Sloughthwaite was not going to argue with that observation, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
    ‘And I hear Dr Stirling is thinking of adopting the lad,’ continued the customer.
    ‘He is,’ said Mrs O’Connor. ‘Just needs to sort the paperwork out.’
    ‘Well, good luck to him,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘He’s a nice lad, is Danny, and he deserves a good home.’
    ‘What surprises me is that she didn’t have a termination,’ remarked Mrs Pocock.
    ‘Who?’ asked the shopkeeper.
    ‘Bianca. You would have thought—’
    ‘I don’t hold with that sort of thing,’ interrupted Mrs O’Connor, giving a small shiver. ‘A life is precious, that’s what my owld grandmother Mullarkey used to say. “Every child is a gift from God and should be treasured”.’
    ‘Well, you want to see some of them “gifts from God” hanging about the war memorial of an evening, making a racket and up to no good,’ said Mrs Pocock. ‘I’d “treasure” them and no mistake.’
    Mrs Sloughthwaite rested a dimpled elbow on the counter and placed her fleshy chin on a hand. She’s a one to talk, the shopkeeper reflected. Mrs Pocock wants to put her own house in order before she starts commenting on the behaviour of others. Take her son Ernest, for example, that most disagreeable and sullen-faced boy. Give him a few more years and he’ll be in the centre of the gang of unruly teenagers congregating around the war memorial. Mrs Sloughthwaite smiled to herself but said nothing.
    ‘It’s still wrong to take a life,’ the doctor’s housekeeper was saying. ‘And you can give it all the fancy words you want, in my books it’s murder.’
    ‘Each to their own views, Mrs O’Connor,’ retorted Mrs Pocock, ‘but in my opinion it would have been best for the lass not to have had it. There’re too many children being born to irresponsible parents. I mean, what sort of life can that child expect? Teenage mother with not much up top, feckless grandfather who’s never done a day’s work in his life, loose-living grandmother who spends most of her time playing bingo or in the pub, and all crammed into that small terraced house