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

by Sophie Ranald

  I laughed. ‘Poor alpaca. Or poor Adam. I’m not sure who gets the shitty end of that stick.’

  ‘Yes, well, anyway. Here it is. The Gladstone Arms. “Serving the community of Winterborne Newton since the seventeenth century, the Gladstone Arms fell into disrepair…” blah blah. Says it got closed down ten years ago – that’s about right, I remember sneaking in there after I got my A Level results and getting completely wankered on snakebite and black – “Members of the local community decided something needed to be done. Establishing a co-operative shareholding, they invited residents to become part of the solution, and together turned the Gladstone Arms into an asset of real community value.”’

  ‘How did they do that?’

  ‘Probably started by picking a load of used hypodermic needles out of the carpet. The place has loads of social problems. But they don’t say that here.’

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘Hold on, there’s a link here, “Our story”. It’s taking ages to load – no, got it. They say they started out by forming a committee and appointed a chair, secretary and treasurer. Then they held their first public meeting. They invited loads of people from the community: local councillors (hopefully not bent planning officers), someone from a charity that works with elderly people, the local vicar – all the worthies, basically.’

  ‘Surely local vicars are massively down on pubs?’

  ‘You’d think so. Anyway, then they embarked on a massive fundraising exercise. It explains how the co-operative model works, but you’ll remember that from when you studied corporate law, right?’

  ‘Wrong. It was ages ago and I was probably hungover.’

  ‘Okay, so essentially everyone buys a shareholding, and however much money they put in, their shares are of equal value. So if you get someone with deep pockets who bungs you a grand, they get the same voting rights as an old dear who puts in a fiver.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘And then – here’s the good bit – they contacted a charity that exists purely to bring derelict pubs into community ownership and reopen them, and they applied for funding through them.’

  ‘Is that really a thing?’

  ‘Looks like it. They’re called Heart of the Community. I’ll send you over the link.’

  I imagined sitting at one of the tables in the Nag’s Head with my laptop, composing an email that might be a final lifeline for the pub. I imagined pressing send, then waiting and waiting for a reply. I imagined trying to persuade people to donate money – people who were struggling anyway, barely getting by month to month – and the first donations trickling in, like a few grains of sand when what was needed was a mountain. I tried to guess what Shirley would say when I mentioned the idea to her, but my imagination completely failed me on that one.

  It seemed like the most fruitless, thankless task ever. It felt doomed to failure.

  ‘Heather? This is a totally daft idea, isn’t it? I should just accept that it’s been a fun few months, let the place be sold and move on with my life. Shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You know what, if you’d asked me that a couple of months ago, I’d have said yes. But now I’ve seen what you’ve put into that place. You love it. And I reckon you’re good at it. So maybe this won’t work. Maybe it’s a stupid idea. But if you give it your best shot, at least you’ll know you tried, right? It’s like when I go to court. There’s always a chance I’ll lose. The judge could be in a foul mood, the other side could have stronger arguments, something could come to light at the last minute – anything could happen. So all I can do is work my hardest, go in there and fight for it.’

  ‘Fight? Funny, that’s what Zoë said.’

  ‘I reckon Zoë’s right,’ she said. ‘How about another cocktail?’

  On the way to the Nag’s Head the next day, I filled Zoë in on what Heather and I had discussed – although it had all got a bit blurry after the fourth pisco sour.

  ‘Obviously I was a bit drunk by the end,’ I said. ‘But it felt like there’s hope, you know. Like, other people have done this and maybe so can we. Now, though, in the cold light of day…’

  ‘Cold is right.’ Zoë dug her hands deep into the pockets of her coat. It was a long, military-style grey number, slightly too big for her, which she said she’d bought from a charity shop after resolving to buy no new clothes for at least a year. It was eight o’clock and the morning was a deep, depressing grey. ‘Light, not so much. It’s funny how everything seems so positive when you’ve had a couple of drinks and you’re with a mate and you’re having a laugh, and then the next morning the Fear gets you.’

  ‘Too right. I mean, it’s so much money and we’ve only got as long as it takes Fabian to get his planning permission in principle, and then he’ll rush the deal through as quick as he can.’

  ‘Then we’ve got to be quick, too,’ Zoë said. ‘Agile, right? First thing is to get as many people through the doors as we can before Christmas. Let’s talk to Drew. He’s the social-media marketing guru – he’ll have good ideas. And I’ll get cracking on that Christmas menu.’

  For a second, the optimism I’d felt the previous night with Heather resurfaced, but then, as we approached the pub, the scale of the challenge facing us descended again. In my head, I mostly only saw the good bits of the Nag’s Head: the way the lights above the bar made its wooden top glow when it was freshly polished; the smell of Zoë’s cooking when plates were carried through from the kitchen; the buzz of chatter and laughter when the place was full of people having a good time.

  But now, on this overcast, freezing morning, I saw all the things I’d noticed when Joe and I had walked through the door that first time: the ugly, threadbare carpet; the dingy walls hung with old-fashioned prints of nothing in particular, like they’d been ordered as a job lot years ago by someone who didn’t really care; the musty smell that never quite went away, which I was sure was due to rising damp or some other dread condition that would cost a fortune to fix. Not to mention the ever-present pong from the men’s toilets – evidence, surely, that every pipe in the place would need replacing sooner rather than later.

  ‘The first thing we need to do,’ Zoë said, ‘is get those bloody Christmas decorations up. Let’s crack on before Shirley gets in. Once they’re done she can’t make us take them down again.’

  ‘She might,’ I said.

  ‘She won’t.’

  So, as soon as Drew arrived, we sent him up to the attic room on a treasure hunt that I was sure was just as likely to turn up spiders as spangles.

  But, although there were cobwebs in his hair when he emerged from the warren of upstairs rooms after twenty minutes or so, and he was covered in dust, he was grinning cheerfully.

  ‘Check this out!’ He dumped an armful of black bin liners and boxes on the floor. ‘It’s a tack fest straight out of the eighties. Fabulous.’

  One long box contained the white and silver tree Shirley had described; another was full of red and green baubles. There were swathes of slightly moth-eaten tinsel and a huge tangle of fairy lights.

  ‘God only knows if these still work,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll probably switch them on and trip all the electrics.’ Zoë eyed the plug dubiously.

  ‘Or there’ll be some fault that creates a spark and we’ll burn the whole place down,’ I predicted.

  ‘Well, then Cathy can collect the insurance money and all our problems will be over,’ Zoë said.

  ‘If we go down, we’ll go down in flames.’ Drew eased the tree’s branches open, and a shower of glittery fake needles rained down onto the carpet.

  ‘Jesus, the plastic in that thing,’ Zoë said. ‘It’s basically a biohazard in Christmas tree form.’

  ‘Never mind that. Help me get it up.’

  ‘Do you normally need help getting it up?’

  Drew and Zoë shook with laughter, and I couldn’t help joining in. Any spark of attraction I’d hoped might develop between them hadn’t materialised, and I was fairly sure it wasn
’t going to; the banter that passed between them seemed purely friendly. But what that meant about Zoë’s feelings for Joe, if anything, wasn’t a problem I could dwell on right now.

  I heaved one of the corner tables aside, and Drew lifted the tree onto its rickety stand. After wrestling with the knots and kinks in their wire, together we wound the lights round and round its trunk and hung what seemed like hundreds of baubles on its balding branches, hiding the worst bits with swathes of tarnished tinsel.

  ‘Ready for the big reveal?’ Drew knelt and reached for the plug socket. ‘God, this carpet still reeks of fags.’

  ‘Go on then. Hope you’ve got the fire services on speed dial, Alice.’

  I knew Zoë was joking, but I kept my phone in my hand, just in case. Drew pressed the switch. For a second nothing happened, then, one by one, the lights glimmered to life. Blue, violet, silver and white, they blinked steadily among the sparkly branches, reflecting off the multicoloured balls and stars.

  Suddenly, the dingy interior of the pub felt cosy and welcoming. The glow of the tree made the gloomy room look like a picture on an old-fashioned Christmas card; it only needed a couple of stockings hung up over the fireplace and a ginger cat snoozing beneath them – and a fire in the grate would have helped, of course. The grey, rainy street outside seemed a world away, and I knew that if I was there, I’d want to walk through the door straight away, into the warm, and stay as long as I could.

  ‘It certainly hides a multitude of sins,’ Drew remarked.

  ‘Be amazing to see it scrubbed up properly,’ Zoë mused.

  ‘Shit,’ I said, hearing the familiar rattling car engine outside, ‘Shirley’s coming.’

  We looked at each other like three kids caught snaffling mince pies out of the tin.

  ‘I’d better get cracking on some muffins.’ Zoë fled to the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll just get everything back to how it was upstairs.’ Drew legged it through the ‘Staff only’ door.

  I glanced around, but there was nowhere for me to hide. Own it, I told myself.

  But one look at Shirley’s face when she walked in the door told me it was going to be okay. She gazed around, her hands clasped to her chest, and then she reached up to wipe away a tear.

  ‘Oh, my poor old pub,’ she sighed. ‘It looks just like the old days. I suppose the place deserves one last hurrah.’

  ‘Shirl,’ I said. ‘Listen to me. This doesn’t have to be the end, not necessarily. I mean, I know you and Juan are looking forward to starting your retirement in Spain, and that’s great. But the Nag’s Head doesn’t have to close, you know. There’s a way to save it. It’s an outside chance, but it might just work.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve backed plenty of outside chances in my time and the buggers always pull up lame around the third fence.’

  ‘Maybe they do. Maybe this will. But I think we should try. Let me explain.’

  I made her a cup of tea and sat with her while I explained all about community ownerships and co-operative shareholdings – all the stuff that had seemed so logical and possible when Heather and I discussed it. But I could see from Shirley’s face that I was on a hiding to nothing.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ she said. ‘Taking on someone like Fabian Flatley. That man’s a shark and we’re minnows. People like him always get their own way, with their money and their sharp suits and their laptops and their gift of the gab. We’ll be eaten alive.’

  I looked at her careworn face, the dark roots growing out of her peach-blonde hair, the cerise lipstick settling into the lines around her mouth. I felt sorry for her, and I recognised that she was almost certainly right. But at the same time, I felt a surge of frustration. She might not want to take on Fabian Flatley, but I did. She might not know how to fight this kind of fight, but I did. Or at least I hoped I did.

  ‘Shirley,’ I said. ‘You’re forgetting something. I got a training contract at one of London’s top ten law firms. I own sharp suits, and a laptop. I’ve been told I have the gift of the gab. I’m not just a barmaid; I’m a solicitor. Or I almost am. And you know what they call lawyers? Sharks. So why don’t you leave this with me and let me see what I can do?’

  She looked at me like I was a greying sheepskin rug that had lain in front of the dead hearth for decades then suddenly jumped up and started gambolling around the pub bleating away.

  ‘All right, Alice. You do what you think best. I think you’re daft as a brush but I won’t stand in your way. Now I’ve the stocktake to do, if you’ll excuse me.’

  Twenty-Five

  I looked at Shirley’s departing back for a moment as she headed towards the cellar stairs. She’d known and loved the Nag’s Head for far longer than I had; it was her pub far more than it was mine. And although she seemed resigned to it being sold, even complicit in it, I knew it must hurt her at least as much as it did me – more, even.

  But she had her own life to lead, her longed-for retirement in the sun with Juan. I, on the other hand, had a mission. If the Nag’s Head was to be saved, it was for me – and Zoë, and Drew, and whatever ragtag army of volunteers and donors we could marshal – to do it.

  And the frightening thing was, I had no idea where even to begin.

  Wearily, I began setting up for the day, but before I’d finished arranging the menus on the tables, the door opened. It wasn’t one of our early regulars with a laptop, eager for coffee. It wasn’t the mums with their buggies.

  It was Maurice.

  ‘Good morning, Alice.’

  ‘Hello! I didn’t expect to see you here so early. What can I get you? Tea? Coffee? Half of Guinness?’

  Surely not at this time of the morning, not even in the midst of the horror Maurice was still enduring with Wesley.

  ‘Actually, Alice, I came to talk to you.’

  ‘To me? Of course.’

  I led him over to a table at the back of the room where we would have more privacy, rather than his usual one in the corner by the window. We sat down, and Maurice removed his hat, placing it carefully on his lap, but I could see that his hands were twisting the fabric, restless and anxious.

  ‘How are you bearing up?’ I asked. ‘How’s Wesley?’

  Maurice took the carefully ironed handkerchief out of his pocket and looked at it, but his eyes were dry.

  ‘I went to see him yesterday. In that place.’

  ‘The detention centre?’

  He nodded. ‘It’s horrible, Alice. It’s like a prison. Not that I’ve ever been to a prison. We’re law-abiding people.’

  ‘I know you are. Of course you are.’

  ‘He says the room where he sleeps is tiny – and cold. He has to share with another man, a refugee from Syria. There’s no privacy, no door to the toilet even. And Abdul – he’s not a violent man, Wesley tells me. But I was worried, wondering if he should ask to be moved. Because Abdul is traumatised. He screams in his dreams at night, and Wesley can’t sleep.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. It must be awful.’

  Maurice nodded. ‘The food is horrible, he says. He’s got so thin. They eat off plastic plates so they can’t use them as missiles, or break them and turn them into weapons.’

  I nodded. He must know, I thought, that I could be of little or no help to him. Perhaps he just wanted me to listen, so I would.

  ‘The worst thing, he says, is that all the people there are so sad. It’s like limbo, you know, in the Bible. Purgatory, they call it. No one wants to be there, but they dread leaving more.’

  ‘Because leaving would mean being deported?’

  ‘We can’t say “deported”. Wesley says your young man explained it to him. Deportation’s only for criminals. For people like him, it’s called removal.’

  Removal. As if they were talking about an inconvenience, like a piece of unwanted furniture or a load of rubbish, not people at all.

  ‘And Wesley’s not a criminal. Of course he isn’t.’ I was reassuring myself as much as Maurice.

  ‘
He’s no criminal. Not here. But back in Jamaica, he would be.’

  My mind whirled with confusion. Different scenarios rushed through my head – had Wesley killed someone, back in Jamaica, and fled justice to join his brother? But it couldn’t be – not that gentle, church-going man. And surely Maurice wouldn’t have harboured a fugitive from justice for all these years, even if he was his own brother?

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘The problem is…’ Maurice folded the handkerchief and tucked it carefully back in his breast pocket, and his hands returned to twisting the brim of his hat. ‘The problem is that he isn’t telling the truth.’

  I waited.

  ‘Your young man, Joe, says he can appeal the decision to remove him. But Wesley doesn’t want to. He says he must live with the consequences of what he’s done. And that means I must too.’

  I said, ‘But if there’s a reason why he should be allowed to stay here, surely you should use that? I don’t know anything much about immigration law, although I know how harsh and unfair it is, but people do get offered asylum, all the time. Joe will help him, I’m sure. He’ll do everything he can for Wesley.’

  ‘He’s a good man.’

  I wasn’t sure whether Maurice meant his brother, or my boyfriend, but either way I was sure it was true. I nodded again.

  ‘But he can only help if Wesley tells him the truth. And Wesley doesn’t want to do that. He’s too ashamed. He’s afraid of the consequences.’

  ‘Maurice,’ I said, ‘whatever Wesley’s done, surely it can’t be that bad?’

  ‘I don’t believe it is. So last night, I made up my mind. I decided to speak out. To tell you, so you can tell Joe, and he can help Wesley.’

  I felt a heavy weight of responsibility. Part of me wanted to bundle Maurice into a taxi and take him to the Billings Pitt Furzedown office, shut him in a meeting room with Joe and leave them to it. But I couldn’t. He’d chosen to confide in me, and so I had to hear him out.