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pestering her, they’ve offered her a good price, and she could get herself a nice little bungalow, one of those retirement homes up by the rec …’ But even Mrs Totty’s optimism faltered at the idea of Dorrie away from Kelsey Road, living in a bungalow. ‘Well, maybe not,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘It’d be too much to expect of her, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘So why are the school so anxious to buy?’
    The house backed on to the playing fields of Lavenstock College, the minor public school whose Victorian buildings could be seen in the distance, surrounding the chapel and its clock tower. A familiar, well-loved view. Across the sweep of green turf, the irregular yet orderly grouping of buildings looked serene, peaceful and traditional, especially when a cricket match
was in progress, though in truth more pleasing from afar than they did on closer inspection. Once, at a time when the Butterfield-style, polychrome, brick-and-stone-banded school had just been built in the High Victorian Gothic tradition, when the great horse chestnuts surrounding the playing fields were new, Lavenstock College had stood with its back to open fields, the town and its industry falling away below it to the river; now the town had crept upwards and outwards and spread itself around the school, a new housing estate having filled in the last empty space to complete its encirclement.
    He’d asked Dorrie the same question last night – why did the school want to buy? – but she’d shrugged and evaded a proper answer. Mrs Totty, on the other hand, could hardly wait to inform him. ‘Well, you know, they’ve already bought three of the houses either side of here – oh yes, they have, starting when him at number 12 retired and put his house on the market! When the folks next door to him saw what price he’d got from the school, they weren’t slow to follow suit, I can tell you! The school bought that as well, and made an offer for this and for number 18, which 18 jumped at – but not Dorrie! A real thorn in their flesh, she is!’ she finished, not without satisfaction.
    Sam, too, felt indignant on Dorrie’s behalf. She’d been born in the house sixty-odd years ago, and had lived there with every expectation of staying there until she died. Why should pressure be put on her to move if she didn’t want to?
    ‘What it is, you see, lovey, once they’ve got all four, they mean to have them down, to make a new entrance for the school. That new estate that’s been built either side the Tilbourne Road, see, near the present school entrance, well, it’s lowered the tone! Don’t want the posh parents in their Rolls Royces and their Bentleys having to drive through that, do they? They want to make a new entrance along here, and then put up some schoolrooms or whachoumaycallems where the present entrance is, to screen the estate.’
    Sam could see now what the school was after. Kelsey Road was generally regarded as one of the best roads in Lavenstock, quiet, tree-lined, unassuming, houses of different styles and ages mingling easily together, some of them substantial properties with big gardens, some less so. A school entrance leading off Kelsey Road would form a very pleasant and dignified approach
to the school. On the other hand, buying four houses to pull down simply for that purpose was going a bit over the top. Wasn’t it?
    ‘ … but you know, Sam,’ Mrs Totty was going on, ‘those Tilbourne Road houses aren’t an eyesore, they’re lovely, really. Wouldn’t mind one myself, anyway.’ She sighed. ‘Chance’d be a fine thing, eh?’
    So it would, Sam thought, with Joe Totterbridge, her useless husband, around. Bone idle before he became entitled to his state retirement pension, he did virtually nothing now except sit on his backside and watch television.
    ‘It’d break Dorrie’s heart to leave this house, Mrs Totty.’
    She paused in the act of picking up the teapot, and stared at him. ‘Sam, I’m as fond of you as I am