A Song for Summer

"Yes, I know, Leon. But come to bed." The excitement of discovering Marek's true identity lasted a day or two but then the children became listless and depressed. They had complained about Abattoir, but the play had been the centre of their lives. Hermine was organising movement workshops for the end of term, Freya intended to put on a demonstration of PE for the parents and Bennet was preparing extracts from The Winter's Tale, but for visitors who had expected to see an original play by Brecht this would hardly make exciting theatre.

The demise of Abattoir had one immediate consequence. Chomsky returned! The news that FitzAllan was disgraced had effected an instant cure. Curiously enough, everyone was pleased to see him: they attended his classes more enthusiastically than before, bent sheets of metal into bookends and looked at his appendix scar with a sense of familiarity and relief. Ellen waited daily for him to discover the loss of his passport, but the Hungarian's room was so untidy that he was lucky to find his bed, let alone examine the state of his documents, and having met his family she felt no anxiety about Laszlo's ability to get home when the time was ripe.

Then, two days after Chomsky's return, the deputation came.

They came not by steamer but by road in two cars: the mayor of Hallendorf, the butcher who was Lieselotte's uncle, the head of the Farmer's Cooperative and several other dignitaries, wearing stiff collars and looking important, embarrassed and hot.

Instinctively, both Ellen and

Margaret, who were in the headmaster's office, came to stand on either side of him.

"Now what, I wonder," said Bennet wearily. "It can't be Chomsky caught in their fishing nets already--he hasn't been back long enough. Perhaps Frank has been lighting fires?"'

"No," said Ellen. "I'm sure not."

The men approached. Their expressions could be seen to be serious. That would be the last straw--a complaint from the village when at last relations between the school and Hallendorf itself had so much improved.

But Bennet was not one to shirk his duties. "I think we shall need some beer, Ellen," he said--and went forward to greet the mayor and shake hands with everyone and lead them to his study.

It had seemed simple enough. He would call on the old farmer who had promised him the wheel off a derelict hay cart, pay him, leave instructions and a gratuity for the farmer's boy who would put it up--and return to Vienna.

In the event it was not simple at all. While old Schneider admitted that Herr Tarnowsky had enquired about a wheel some weeks ago, the farmer did not recollect having given a firm promise to let him have it.

"I can't go giving farm equipment away," he said, leaning against the door of his filthy shed.

"I didn't ask you to let me have it. I offered you a fair price for it. However, if that isn't enough I'll increase it--on condition you and your boy put it up for me."

Herr Schneider, though interested in the price Marek now mentioned, said there was no question of them putting it up. He had haemorrhoids and was not allowed on a ladder and his son was up on the high pasture dealing with the cows.

"It's a tricky job, putting up wheels."

"Rubbish. It's going on the gable end of the coach house. Any able-bodied man can do it in ten minutes."

But this gambit was a mistake, leading back to Herr Schneider's haemorrhoids and the fact that the doctors in Klagenfurt knew nothing and cared less. "I'll sell you the wheel but you must put it up yourself,"

said Herr Schneider, adding

grudgingly that Herr Tarnowsky could use the tools in the outhouse.

Marek swore and handed over a sheaf of notes. Seemingly he had hit on the one man in the district who was not related to Lieselotte. "I'll have to borrow your van," he said.

An hour later, the wheel lashed to the back, he was on his way to Hallendorf.

If it hadn't been for Lieselotte, Ellen wouldn't have come--her dislike of meetings was growing worse rather than better--but this one mattered terribly to her helper, so she had found her usual place on the windowsill and now, with Sophie on one side and Lieselotte on the other, she listened to Bennet's summing up.

"I explained to the mayor that we were greatly honoured to be asked--as you know, a closer union of the school and the village is something I have always wanted. On the other hand, I had to tell him that I didn't feel that the school as a whole could be involved in the project. Of course any individuals--staff or pupils--

who want to help in their own time are entirely free to do so, but--"'

"Why?"'

The interruption came from Sophie, whose shyness was proverbial, and who now blushed crimson at her own daring.

Bennet looked across at her with his charming smile.

"You mean why can't the school be involved in a pageant to celebrate the life of St Aniella?"'

"Yes." Sophie nodded, still crimson. "Because we would be taking part in a religious ritual," explained Bennet. "It would be outside our brief as an educational establishment."