The Arrangement ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 45 )

The village’s first singles dining club attracts attention when an alliance between one of the pub’s helpers and a complete stranger who is not to be trusted. When proof is found, it’s time for friends to act, and save a lovely but naive, vulnerable lady from being taken advantage of.

Penny Marshal, you may remember, after the Bridge club failed, Dave at the pub said she was starting a singles dining club. It wasn’t given much credence but word got out that it was happening and the founding members were those of the bridge club that were single. Liz Wintern, and Donald Spears were the first, though strictly speaking Donald was not single being married and still living with his wife. Donald assured Penny that a divorce was imminent and, other than sharing the same address, his wife and he were ‘estranged’. Penny being desperate for men, was prepared to bend the rules until more men were forthcoming. Roger Cleverly turned up out of the blue apparently having maintained some contact with the village since he won the Longest Carrot competition. He saw the club advertised in the Drum. You may remember his carrot was 26ft long by way of its root getting into a well and then winding round and round. 

Dave told me Penny had wanted to put a small poster up in the pub to advertise the club. When he saw it, it was headed, ‘Male members wanted’, he suggested she change it, though Dave complimented her on her directness. She returned after having thought calling it a Singles Dining Club might put people off so she changed it to the Village Dining Club, which unbeknownst to her was soon referred to as the the VD club. Sometimes you just can’t win. Dave also told me that Penny had asked him if he wanted to join. 

‘She must have been desperate’ I nearly said, but as I value being able to frequent my local hostelry I decided not to. Then Dave said

‘She must have been desperate,’

I replied, sounding far too much like a obsequious Uriah, that I was sure he had much to offer a future Mrs. Watts. To which unbridled sycophancy, Dave replied,

‘Ain’t going to happen pal.’

I did find out that Jean, who helps out at the pub when there are functions had signed up to the club and was hoping to attend the first dinner. So I guessed the first diners would be Penny Marshall, Donald Spears, Jean from the pub, Liz Wintern, Roger Cleverly. The sixth diner was, we found out later, an agricultural rep from Shipston that up to then, nobody had met.

Penny had booked a table for six at the Bell near Westmill. She thought that it would be better avoiding the curiosity of the village by holding it at the Drum. Nevertheless there were several locals that, by sheer coincidence, decided a drink at the Bell would make a nice change, on the same evening.

The history of singles groups, and now online dating is as old as courting itself. Many villages had a matchmaker and that was an Irish tradition going back centuries. As were arranged marriages for power, title, and profit. Lonely hearts columns in magazines and newspapers ran alongside births, deaths, and marriages - all human life is there - ran under the title of the News Of The World. Online dating is now universal but the risks are the same as they ever when eyes meet across the crowded room, bar, ball room, disco-dance floor, rave or singles dining table. 

A week after Penny’s first dinner I was in the Drum when Jean came in with a ‘friend’, and introduced him to Dave as Andy Sloane. Once they were served they both left for a quiet corner. Jean rarely comes into the Drum unless she’s working so it was a surprise to Dave and me that she should come in with company. As an excuse to converse Dave came over to wipe down the table and to bring me a fresh pint. We both concurred that this Andy Sloane was unknown to us both and we then presumed they might have met at Penny’s dining club.

Jean is about ten years younger than Dave and has been single since her husband, a long serving fireman, died about five years ago. She had been a midwife but had then been persuaded to take early retirement in one of those culls when a short sited government decides there’s too many health workers, only to find five years later, there’s not enough. 

It’s not only in villages that if a friend turns up with a stranger is it impossible not to fall into judgement. All sorts of questions arise regarding the stranger’s credentials, if only in the hopes that the relationship will be a safe and happy one. If it’s a friend you think might be vulnerable, naive or gullible, it may be natural to feel protective, don’t you as a friend have a responsibility to look after their well being? But irrespective of what you feel, should you do anything about it? Perhaps we all play at matchmakers and in our minds deciding whether the couple we see ‘suit’ each other, or not. This is mostly guesswork and we’ve all seen matches given no chance of success but have turned out to achieve exactly that. 

This Andy Sloane follows Jean as they leave. He gives no backward glance before the door is closed, and that is noticed. A small gesture but one that invites a thank you from the landlord, and a desire to be remembered, but he avoids it. It preserves his anonymity, he remains the stranger. On its own it proves nothing, but we noticed it.

On such flimsy evidence a prejudice is born. It is often the little things which incline you to a distrust or a dislike, and Dave and I dislike him. We share the distrust, and wonder what it is he’s after. Jean’s not particularly attractive, maybe that’s his type, maybe that makes her easier. She been alone since her husband died, she’s not as worldly wise as others in the village, we judge her experience with men to be minimal. We categorise her as ‘defenceless’, and him as the sort that preys on lonely defenceless ladies. He’s perhaps a much travelled rep, a rep with a reputation, and then Jean is not short of a penny or two, she has a house and two good pensions, she’s a ‘nurse with a purse’ as the saying goes. A target and what better way to meet one than on a dating site or at a singles dinner.

The village bellringers were to hold a celebration at the Drum, a decade in existence. Some old members, and several that had moved away had returned for a kind of reunion. As Jean would be helping out this would give Dave the opportunity to find out more about Andy and maybe put our minds at rest. I had also spoken to Penny saying how happy Jean was and I congratulated her on her first success, some flattery to lubricate the conversation. She told me that Andy was divorced and was staying in a Shipston hotel whilst looking to for a cottage in the area. He was an agricultural rep serving the west of England which meant a lot of travel and staying away.

I mentioned this to Dave who then told me that Roger Cleverly had been in with Penny, just as friends, and they had mentioned Jean and Andy and were wishing them well. The firm that Andy worked for was Pearson Agro Chemicals based in Reading. Maybe so, but we still didn’t trust him. 

A few days later I encountered one of Todber’s adopted sons in the village store and asked him if he’d heard of Pearson Agro Chemicals. He said he had and a few days before they had been visited by their rep. He’d forgotten his name but searching through his multi-pocketed overalls found a card, Andy Sloane, Technical Support.

‘A rep’ I asked Sean.

‘Well, no he’s not really. He’s down here from Reading.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t know, but he travels back to Reading every weekend because his wife’s just had her third baby. God help them.’

Dave and I spent most of an evening deciding whether to say anything or not, or should we just mind our own business. I asked Rachel what she thought without naming names, and she said if it was me would I want to know? I said I would, and she agreed, at the risk of being told to mind you own business. In the long run, she said, the truth would out, better sooner than later.

Knowing and working with Jean, Dave decided he should tell her what we’d found out.

The following day I was interested to know how it went and whether Jean was ever going to speak to us again.

‘She knew,’ Dave said to my astonishment. ‘She knew everything about him, he’s only down here for a month or two, she just wanted a bit of fun.’

I was speechless, but then Dave broke the silence,

‘Maybe, my friend, we are the ones that are bit naive.’

Listen to Village Tales and other short stories from the HONKEYMOON CAFE

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.