Rambles on the Edge. Wendy Maitland

my first visit I took the children who had been scrubbed and put into decent clothes, but not decent enough for us to be ushered into pews near the front where the children could see what was going on. Ladies in hats and gloves showed us where we should sit, but when I noticed that the back rows were filled with Africans I decided to go and sit with them. ‘No, you can’t go there,’ the hat ladies said. ‘You can’t sit with blacks,’ and went on to insist that I accept the pew offered. Later, when communion was served, I saw that the Africans waited until everyone else had been served before they left their seats and came up to receive communion themselves. When I asked about this I was told that whites could not drink from the communion cup after blacks, so whites went first. This made me decide to make a point of joining the Africans for communion next time. This is the church of Christ where we are all one body, I thought. What is going on here?

      Despite this form of apartheid practised at the church I wanted to persevere because the hat ladies were all passionate cooks who gave phenomenal tea parties organised by a large bouncy woman called Elsa. She might easily have been a model for Beryl Cook postcards if she had not ended up in the obscurity of Hartley, where her tiny short-sighted husband worked for the local cotton ginnery. Elsa had a refreshing view of Christianity in which any occasion that encouraged the eating of vast quantities of food could be counted as an a blessing received from above. ‘I don’t have to worry about dieting,’ Elsa explained, ‘because I say a prayer with each meal asking Jesus to take away the calories.’ I looked at her generous bulk overflowing the chair as she reached for another slice of cake. ‘Does it work?’ I asked, making the question sound innocent. ‘Of course it does – if you have faith,’ Elsa said. ‘Maybe not straight away. You have to be patient. Jesus works in mysterious ways. It’s a promise from the Bible.’

      Another of these prodigious tea parties was given by a church member whose husband was a senior manager at the ginnery, with the kind of salary that allowed his wife to indulge her tastes in home décor. At the party I was admiring her new curtains, which clearly had not come from the local textile factory, when she said she would be glad to tell me how to find the best ones as her method never failed. I was curious to hear it, and she went on: ‘When I’m in a curtain shop in Salisbury looking at all the designs on display, I ask God to choose.’

      ‘How does he do that?’ I asked, riveted.

      ‘I walk slowly along the rolls of fabric and when one catches my eye, I take that as a sign and say a prayer. It is the most amazing thing – God always chooses the best ones however expensive they are.’

      Such a novel way of choosing curtains left me with much to contemplate as I surveyed the drab assortment in my new home and how I might involve God in locating better ones. When it was my turn to host one of the tea parties, I invited Eric’s wife to join us. She had never visited the converted shed where we lived and neither had any of the other church women, so I decided this was a good opportunity to show them the kind of accommodation that Eric thought suitable for his farm manager and family to live in. When the first guests arrived, surprised to find themselves in a bean field where tea was to be served in a shack, they were clearly taken aback, and when Eric’s wife arrived there were enough disapproving murmurs and remarks made that guaranteed the degree of embarrassment I had intended. She was not an uncaring person and apologised, explaining that she and Eric were planning to move to Salisbury and we would have their house when this happened.

      I was impatient to tell Adam this unexpected good news and thought he would welcome it, but when I told him, he had his own entirely surprising announcement to make. ‘I’ve decided to give up dairy,’ he said. ‘It’s a mug’s game. No sort of life for any of us. I want to have a complete change, no longer sculling about on frigging dairy farms where I’m working half the night as well as the day. I’ve always liked the idea of being a city slicker, wearing a suit, going to work with a briefcase instead of a rubber glove. Leading a civilised life, earning proper money. What do you think?’

      We were just beginning to settle to life in Hartley and this was a complete turnaround, but I didn’t want him to burn himself out with dairy work if there was a good alternative.

      ‘What sort of city-slicker job could you get without any of the qualifications or background they would be looking for?’

      ‘I’ve already heard of something from one of the sales reps who comes round all the time. It’s with Bowmaker, which is a finance company based in Salisbury. They need a cattle specialist to head up their beef-stock department. It would mean travelling around the country, appraising herds and negotiating loans. Right up my alley.’

      ‘Living in Salisbury?’

      ‘Yes. Then you’ll be happy because you can get a job as well. Several hospitals to choose from, or doctors’ surgeries. It’s a golden opportunity. I’ve already written to Bowmaker and they’re going to give me an interview. I didn’t want to tell you until there was something more definite to go on.’

      ‘Well,’ I paused, caught unawares. ‘It’s a bit sudden. You could have given me some advance warning of this latest change of plan. But I won’t mind having a proper house instead of living in a field with all these beans, I can tell you. It isn’t so good for Louise, though, having another change of school.’

      ‘The schools in Salisbury are far superior to any out in the countryside. It will be a great move. I’m confident about Bowmaker. The rep has put in a good word for me.’

      It didn’t take long for a reply. The letter from Bowmaker gave details of the position and invited Adam to meet them. It all happened very quickly when he drove the eighty miles to Salisbury on his next day off for the interview, and came back the same day, elated.

      ‘It went even better than expected,’ he said as he took off his shoes and socks to walk barefoot on the cool floor after a hot day in the city, and went to the drinks cupboard to pour each of us a gin and tonic. Settling himself into an armchair, he said, ‘I hit it off straight away with the boss who seems an easy-going sort of chap. As soon as we’d got the formalities out of the way he took me for lunch at Meikles which was very civilised of him. I can see how city life is going to suit us.’

      ‘What about the pay?’

      ‘That’s still under discussion, but will be a lot better than what I’m getting here. On my next day off we can go and look at houses to rent. Let’s drink to a whole new life, my love. City life!’

      Adam’s new boss suggested we should go to the government housing agency for one of their subsidised houses, which sounded to me like council housing reserved for impoverished tenants. This would not be improving our lifestyle in the way Adam had described, but anything would be better than the bean house. It was a considerable surprise, then, to find that we were offered a rather grand house which had lately been an ambassador’s residence. When UDI was declared a number of ambassadors were recalled to their own countries, leaving their big houses unoccupied, so these needed suitable tenants to look after them. The one offered to us was close to a good school in a select neighbourhood of leafy streets and trim gardens, where big shiny cars stood in gravelled drives – a very different community from the one we were leaving behind. As if this was not enough of a leg-up in terms of social elevation, the house stood in its own grounds with a walled garden, for privacy as well as security we were told. The entrance gate opened onto a short driveway with parking for several cars beside an imposing house where a flight of steps led to a porch embellished with pillars – allowing no entry for rainwater, I noted.

      There was a woman caretaker currently in residence making sure the house was kept safe until tenants moved in, the agent told us, but she was not at home on the day that he showed us round. Beyond the front door, the house was a rambling pile of a place with a central courtyard almost like a cloister with numerous rooms around it, while the kitchen was located discreetly at the back among a warren of sculleries and pantries, There was even a butler’s pantry and a meat larder with its own cooling system. Going from one extreme to the other, I wondered how I would cope with all this. But the drawing room was a clincher: forty foot in length with a fireplace at each end and, crucially, a television set which was a fixture so I knew the children would be instantly won over. The walled