Just Saying: An absolutely perfect and feel-good romantic comedy

by Sophie Ranald

  But this morning it felt different. It felt as if it might not rouse from its slumber as it usually did. It was just me, I told myself, that weird, almost hungover feeling I’d had all morning, the vague, unspecified unease I’d felt around Joe, as if we’d had a row. Except we hadn’t. Not really.

  ‘Did you see that young fellow I was talking to the other day?’

  ‘Fabian Flatley?’

  ‘Oh, so you know him?’

  ‘I’ve never met him. But his company owns the place across the road, that used to be the Star and Garter. It’s studio apartments now. Drew lives in one of them.’

  ‘He’s an astute businessman. Ambitious.’

  I couldn’t help wondering whether Shirley had formed her own impression of Fabian as an astute businessman, or whether he’d told her he was one.

  ‘What about him? What was he doing here? You two were talking for ages.’

  Shirley nodded. ‘What he said to me, love, was… Well, he said things have moved on. He said young people now don’t want to drink in pubs like they used to. They want to sit at home with their herbal tea and stream things, don’t they?’

  ‘Sometimes they do,’ I replied defensively. ‘But they go out too. I mean, come on. Look how many people came to our games night. Look at all the people that come here every morning, and drink coffee and work.’

  ‘Coffee’s all very well,’ Shirley said. ‘But it don’t butter no parsnips. This place is still running at a loss. It has been for a while. And all the time, the value of the property’s going up and up.’

  ‘We could turn it around,’ I insisted. ‘We are already. I mean, I know I don’t get to see the accounts or anything. But the takings have been up, haven’t they? We’re full most days.’

  ‘And run off our feet. And if you hire more staff, that means more costs. It’s not sustainable, that’s what Fabian said.’

  Fabian again, I thought. Like he’s some big cheese who’s just connected with you on LinkedIn.

  ‘He wants to buy the place, doesn’t he? And turn it into flats, like across the road?’

  Shirley nodded. ‘He’s spoken to Cathy, the landlord, already. He’s made an offer, and it’s been accepted.’

  Although I’d been expecting her words, they still felt like a punch in the stomach. ’So does that mean the pub will close?’

  ‘Well, to be fair, love, that’s been on the cards for a while. Juan and I want to move to Spain, start our new life there. And let’s be frank, no one’s going to take on a place like this, not when it needs so much work.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Oh, Alice, I know you think you would. I know you’ve fallen in love with the old place. And I know how much time and work you’ve spent on it. But it’s a money pit. Last time Cathy was out here she got some workmen to quote on upgrading it, giving it a spot of TLC, and – well. Let’s just say that idea got shelved, right there. So we’ve just been limping on, waiting for the time when it would finally need to close. And now that’s happening.’

  ‘But we’ve done so much! The new menu, the new website, the games afternoon, even the coffee machine – it’s really made a difference. We’re getting far more customers in than before. Almost all the people that used to go to the Star and Garter come here now.’

  Shirley’s face softened. ‘I know, love; you’ve done a great job. It’s been wonderful to see the old place getting some love. But a few coffees in the morning, them fancy vegan things on the menu, even a load of punters sat around playing cribbage on a Saturday afternoon – it’s a drop in the ocean, compared to what the place needs spending on it.’

  I took a sip of my coffee, but it had gone cold and tasted horribly bitter all of a sudden. I felt queasy, the feeling of unease I’d woken up with now crystallised into cold fear that seemed to have closed itself around my throat so I couldn’t swallow.

  The Nag’s Head was going to close. There’d be no more early mornings wiping the tables and pushing the Hoover around. My plans to clear out the rooms upstairs would never be realised – or at least, they would, but only when the builders turned up to divide them up into tiny studio rooms like the one where Drew was staying. The open mic poetry nights we’d been talking about would never happen. The chestnut wellington Zoë had talked about putting on the Christmas menu would never be cooked.

  And I wouldn’t have a job. I could get one, of course – there were far more bars desperate for staff than there were people wanting to work in them, as I’d discovered when hiring help for the Nag’s Head. But, my brain said, petulant as a child, I don’t want to work in just any bar.

  I wanted to work here. I wanted to be in charge. I wanted it to be mine.

  But even as my mind articulated the thought, I realised how far-fetched and downright stupid the idea was. Not only would refurbishing the pub cost a fortune, but the land on which it stood and the structure of the building itself was a valuable asset – and would be more valuable divided into residential units than it could ever be as a pub.

  ‘I know you’re fond of the place,’ Shirley said. ‘Heaven only knows I am, too. But it’s no more my pub than it is yours. And really, this was only ever a bit of fun for you, wasn’t it? Something to do while you got your head back in the right place and then went back to being a lawyer.’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m not going to go back to being a lawyer.’

  ‘Well, you were never going to spend your whole life working here, were you? You’re too good for this place. That’s what I saw on your face, clear as day, first time you walked in with your other half. You were thinking, “Look at us, in a place where common people drink. Isn’t it bizarre?”’

  My face flamed with embarrassment. The Alice who’d walked into the Nag’s Head all those months before and looked around in fascination at the stained ceiling, the worn carpet and the jar of pickled eggs had thought she was too good for it. She’d felt like she’d arrived on another planet. And now, it seemed to me like that girl, so confident of her future, so secure in the life laid out for her, was the one who was an alien.

  ‘But you should have seen some of the places I drank in when I was a student. Absolute dives. This place – sure, like you say, it could do with a bit of a facelift, but deep down it’s all right. It’s more than all right. And it’s the people that make a place, anyway.’

  Shirley shook her head. ‘Whatever you say. It’s neither here nor there, anyway. Cathy’s accepted Fabian’s offer and that’s that. End of an era, but it’s a relief in a way.’

  ‘When’s it going to happen?’ I asked, desperate for at least a small stay of execution.

  ‘Cathy reckons we may as well stay open over the festive season,’ Shirley said. ‘No point missing out on what profit there is to be made over Christmas and New Year. She thinks they’ll be ready to complete on the sale by mid-January, although of course Fabian’ll need planning permission for the change of use. He’ll get it though, you mark my words. He’s the type who’s got every bent local councillor on speed dial.’

  So that was it – weeks, just a matter of six or eight – before the deal was done and the Nag’s Head closed its doors forever.

  We sat there in silence for a moment. Then Shirley said she had a pile of admin to get through that was enough to give a person a nosebleed and she’d better crack on. Heart sinking, I said I’d finish off the cleaning before the doors opened. And we both stood up and took our cups to be washed and got on with our work as if it was just another normal day.

  At half past ten, Zoë arrived, breezing through the door and calling out, ‘Hello, hello! You’ll never guess what, I managed to persuade the guy from Ready Steady Bread to part with some of his sourdough starter. So it won’t be long before we’re baking the Ging— I mean, the Nag’s Head’s very own artisan bread. How cool is th— What’s the matter, Alice?’

  I shook my head and pointed to the office, where Shirley was sitting staring silently at her computer. She wasn’t typing anything and her hand wasn’t
even on the mouse, and I’d have bet anything that if you’d asked her what was on the screen, she wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

  ‘Kitchen?’ Zoë whispered.

  I nodded and we went through to the space that used to be Juan’s and was Zoë’s now. So much had changed since the days of the catering-sized bags of frozen chips and the ready-meal lasagnes. Now, fresh vegetables were stacked on shelves, kimchi and dill pickles were fermenting away in their jars, and the freezer was home to several chicken carcasses waiting to be turned into stock and later soup.

  Zoë dumped a shopping bag on the counter and pulled out a jar of beige-coloured sludge that was presumably her precious sourdough starter. Giving the glass a little pat, she put it on the shelf next to the pickles.

  ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  Leaning my hip against the counter, I told her. I didn’t make any more of an attempt to soften the blow than Shirley had when she’d told me – but, whereas my reaction had been to want to cry, Zoë was made of sterner stuff.

  ‘But we can’t let that happen, Alice. We just can’t. It’s bullshit. They can’t close this place down and turn it into shitty, poky little studios that wankers pay a fortune to live in because there’s some ridiculous communal living space with a water cooler and a pot plant. Not Drew, obviously – he’s not a wanker. But that Flatley man is.’

  ‘What? How do you know him?’

  ‘He goes to my gym. Never puts his weights away, sits on the bench talking on his phone when you’re waiting to use it, doesn’t clean his sweat off the equipment. Pillock.’

  I sighed. ‘Pillock or not, he’s buying the Nag’s Head.’

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

  ‘But there’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘Of course there fucking is!’

  I felt, for the first time that morning, a brief flare of hope, mixed with a completely unfamiliar emotion: a new respect and liking for Zoë. It had never occurred to me before that whatever her feelings for Joe and me, she genuinely loved the pub.

  ‘What? What can we do?’

  ‘I don’t know! I haven’t figured it out yet. But we can bloody well fight for this place, and I’m going to. Aren’t you?’

  Twenty-Four

  It wasn’t Tuesday, and Heather and I weren’t in Pret a Manger. Rather than waiting another five days, I’d asked her if she was free to meet that evening, and she’d suggested a cocktail bar near her work. I’d arrived first, a few minutes early, and been escorted to the table Heather had booked, where I ordered a pisco sour and took a look around.

  Heather might have valued reliability, consistency and convenience when it came to lunch, but clearly she took a different approach to her evening entertainment. I’d entered the bar through a fridge in the back of a greasy spoon café in Hoxton. The room was so dark I could only just see that it was decorated with Barbie and Ken dolls in various sex positions (and yes, gay, lesbian and polyamorous relationships were represented). When the waitress brought my drink, she put a little bowl of popcorn flavoured with Aleppo pepper down on the table too.

  I realised that this was the kind of place Heather came with her Tinder dates. It was so off-the-scale hip; the people around me were so self-consciously having fun, the waitress’s multiple piercings were so clearly what she’d describe as a ‘curated ear’. It had been so long since I’d been anywhere even vaguely fashionable, and part of me felt giddy with excitement to be somewhere fabulous again. But a bigger part felt flooded with sadness for the Nag’s Head, which was now never going to have the chance to become a favourite hangout of beautiful people.

  ‘Hello!’ Heather came dashing through the not-a-fridge door. She was wearing a cocoon dress in a pale lilacy grey that would have made me look as if I’d been dug up after being dead for several weeks but was subtle and interesting on her. Her hair was scooped back in an elaborate half-French plait, which managed to look casual and undone even though I knew it would have taken her ages to get it that way. Unusually, she was wearing heels: charcoal suede peep-toe shoe boots with a sculptural, bulbous heel.

  I stood up and returned her hug, wishing I’d worn something more fashion-forward than my jeans and Bardot jumper. And then I thought, I bet that girl with the earrings doesn’t know how to clean beer lines, and I do.

  Heather ordered something called a cereal martini – or it may have been serial, I had no idea; it seemed equally implausible that someone should order a drink that tasted of cornflakes as one that kept repeating on you – and took a handful of popcorn.

  ‘Christ, that’s hot! Practically took the roof of my mouth off. But I’m going to eat all of it anyway, I just know it. I had the most depressing salad for lunch, all cold and damp like this pissy weather. How are you?’

  ‘Awful. Everything’s gone to shit.’

  ‘Oh no. It’s not you and Joe, is it?’

  ‘Not that. We’re okay.’ Hanging on to okay by our fingernails, but still just about okay enough that the word could be used about us.

  ‘So what…?’

  Briefly, in between large gulps of my cocktail that left an alcoholic egg-white moustache on my top lip, I told her.

  ‘The pub’s being sold. Shirley’s retiring to Spain. I’m going to have to get another job.’

  Heather sipped her own drink and listened, her head on one side, as I explained about the Nag’s Head being sold to be converted into flats and Juan wanting to play golf in the sunshine and eat paella that hadn’t come in a box from Iceland. I could almost hear the thoughts forming in Heather’s mind: Well, the sensible thing to do is to get a job at a law firm. Wasn’t it only ever meant to be a temporary thing, to make ends meet? There are other bars you could work in, if you really think it’s the right thing for you, although it seems a bit – you know…

  But to her credit, she didn’t say any of those things. She said, ‘That must be gutting.’

  I nodded miserably.

  ‘After all the work you put in,’ Heather went on. ‘And the worst thing is I never actually got around to coming and seeing it, visiting you there. I’m sorry. I’m a rubbish friend.’

  ‘You’re not. You’re busy, and you weren’t to know the plug was going to get pulled on the whole thing.’

  ‘Is it definite, though? A done deal? I mean, property stuff usually takes ages to get through.’

  ‘Zoë says we should fight for it. But it just seems impossible, and I don’t know how much fight there is in me right now, to be honest.’

  ‘What?’ Heather shovelled more popcorn into her mouth. ‘Ouch, that bloody burns. Of course you must fight for it, if that’s what you want to do. And I can totally see why you would. This city – this world – needs places where people can get together and have a laugh more than it needs luxury bloody apartments.’

  ‘There is a housing shortage, though. You read all the time about the escalating homelessness crisis for young people in British cities today.’

  Heather gestured the waitress over. ‘Same again, Alice? Another pisco sour, please, and I’d like a vodka saketini, and could we have another bowl of this napalm popcorn?’

  She turned back to me as the waitress sloped off. ‘Of course there’s a housing crisis – everyone knows that. But you’re not going to solve it by charging millennials north of fifteen hundred quid a month to live in twenty-five square metres. I mean, come on! If he’s supporting rough sleepers to find sustainable, safe roofs over their heads or addressing the problems experienced by families living in insecure private rentals, then whoever this dude is who wants to buy the place can be all smug on his website. Until then he can shut the fuck up.’

  I laughed. ‘I agree. But, worthy cause or no worthy cause, people do want to live in those places. Drew says the one where he’s staying – which is just across the road – has a massive waiting list.’

  ‘Hmmm. Well, the first question is, will he get planning permission? I bet he won’t.’

  ‘He did across the road
,’ I pointed out. ‘Shirley reckons he’s bribing a planning officer.’

  ‘Well, if he is, that’s a criminal offence. Can you find out if it’s true?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d even begin to look into it.’

  ‘Bribe one yourself?’

  I laughed. ‘If only. I’ve got no money, for one thing. And anyway, that wouldn’t be right. Would it?’

  ‘Guess not. Not exactly a good look on your CV, if you ever do decide you want to get back into law.’

  ‘Heath, you know I don’t. Not ever.’

  ‘Okay, okay, fair enough. Well then there’s only one solution I can think of.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘They go low, you go high.’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Michelle Obama. That’s easy to say. But what would I actually do?’

  ‘Buy the place yourself.’

  ‘Oh, right. With my amazing assets totalling thirty pairs of worn shoes, a laptop that’s on its last legs and a fluffy ginger cat that isn’t even mine.’

  ‘Okay, so maybe not just you on your own. But aren’t community-owned pubs a thing now?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are they?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure they are. There’s a place in the village where my dad lives that was closed for ages, and everyone moaned about how the heart had been ripped out of the community, and eventually they stopped moaning and did something about it. Hold on.’

  She pulled her phone out of her bag and tapped at the screen impatiently for a bit.

  ‘Honestly, I like this place and everything but the reception’s dire. Last time I met a Tinder guy here we literally sat on opposite sides of the room for half an hour because we couldn’t message each other and it’s so frigging dark I couldn’t recognise the bloke. Which may also have been because he was completely different from his photo. Looked like the love child of Adam Driver and an alpaca.’