by Sam Short
Pushing the pot into a position in which it benefitted from the last beams of evening sunlight, Pepper grabbed her fork and slipped her wand back inside its pocket. She tugged the gate closed after her and gave the plant a farewell wave before climbing onto her bike and heading for Picklebury town centre. She smiled to herself as she pedalled, aware of how grand the term town centre made the few roads, streets, and businesses, which just happened to be near the geographical middle of the small town, sound.
The town centre was just the right amount of busy for Pepper, though, and as she cycled along High Street, watching the greengrocer dismantling his pavement display as other shopkeepers locked up for the day, she realised again how happy she was that she didn’t live like her sister.
Although certain that London had its positive traits as well as the long list of negatives that Pepper had compiled on her visits to the city, she was absolutely sure beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would never live there. The first time she’d visited and spent a Saturday being shown the sights by Jas and her unruly daughter Claire, Pepper had become so annoyed by the stampeding crowds of people and the acrid stench of vehicle fumes, that she’d almost abandoned her sister and niece outside Harrod’s and gone looking for somewhere peaceful where she could recharge her batteries.
It hadn’t been through a sense of family loyalty that she’d abandoned her plan to escape, and trudged into the upmarket department store, though — it had been because the city was so scary. Everywhere she’d looked, there had been people. People carrying bundles of bags each emblazoned with the name of the store it had come from. People clutching briefcases, their eyes on the pavement as they hurried through the streets like ants. People shouting. People arguing. People laughing. People pointing. People taking photographs with their phones. People crying — if you counted the small humans being pushed around like royalty in their carriages, that is. And Pepper had counted them. She’d counted hundreds of babies being steered through shops and along busy pavements, their parents oblivious to the feet and shins the pushchairs they controlled scraped and bumped. Finally, Pepper had switched her mind off and tried her best to ignore the crowds of people and the incessant buzz of noise, and was able to make her sister and niece believe that she had enjoyed her day out in London.
On subsequent visits to her sister’s home in the city, Pepper had suggested days out to parks and museums instead of shops and palaces. Jas hadn’t minded, but her daughter had, and had refused to accompany her mother and aunty to such boring places as the Natural History Museum or Richmond Park. That was no loss to Pepper, and, she suspected, no significant loss to her sister either. The very day she’d turned thirteen, Claire had taken to being a stereotypical teenager like a rock star to a drug problem, and she’d continued wearing that accolade through her teens, and now into her early twenties. Jas pretended that Claire would sort herself out eventually, but Pepper could sense what her sister really thought about her daughter’s behaviour.
As Pepper cycled past the Picklebury library, sandwiched between Aunty Em’s bakery and the small store named The Bazaar, which sold not much of one thing, but thousands of countless things, she reminded herself that wherever life took her, it would never take her to a city. Not to live in, anyway, and neither would it ever make her feel sorry about never having become a mother.
Picklebury may not have had a superstore in which Pepper could buy everything from a bag of blanched almonds to a television with a ninety-inch screen. Neither did the small Derbyshire town have a clothes shop which catered to Pepper’s tastes, but what Picklebury lacked in conveniences, it abundantly made up for in peace, quiet, and a lack of people who wanted to bother her.
As she cycled towards the police station, she wondered again whether she should just hand Agnes Mowbray’s purse to the officer who’d be sitting behind the reception desk, instead of searching for the gardening club and delivering it by hand to its owner. Then she remembered the rude look the woman had given her as she’d dragged her shopping trolley towards the waiting room door in the police station, and she shook her head.
No. Agnes had been rude to her, and Pepper didn’t like that. She wanted to put the churlish woman who’d been wearing a green beret in the position of having to thank Pepper for the good deed she’d executed. That, and the fact that Pepper wanted to see what went on at a gardening club. She imagined it would be the sort of place where knitting patterns switched hands and stories of how good life had been back in the forties were told. Now all she had to do was find the club. That was easier said than done, though. She knew from what Agnes had said that the club was held on a Thursday night, but just being in Picklebury on the correct day didn’t mean she would instantly find it. Although Picklebury was small by the standards of larger towns, it was still big enough to allow a person to be anonymous and to hide a meeting of plant loving people amongst the narrow streets and winding country lanes.
Doing what anybody did when they required information about the movements of people in a small town, Pepper brought her bike to a squeaking halt outside the hub of the town and leaned it against the sign advertising local lamb and potatoes as the Thursday night meal special, with a pint of beer costing only three pounds.
Only three pounds! Pepper remembered a time in the nineties when she’d been able to go out with her friends with a ten-pound note in her purse and could afford to get tipsy, buy something to eat, and get a taxi home. She let out a sigh. Those days were gone, and so were those friends. These days everything was different. Too different for her liking. But that was life she supposed. People changed. Places changed. Life changed.
Shaking such depressing thoughts from her mind and reminding herself that she neither wanted or needed friends, Pepper pulled the door open and stepped inside the Country Bumpkin Public House. She smelled the air with approving nostrils, her mouth watering as she detected the delicious scent of roasting spuds and the malty notes of real ale. She ignored the rumble in her stomach, casting away the thought of ordering a meal. She would not be seen eating alone in a pub like some lonely outcast. Anyway, there was a homemade lasagne waiting for her at home. She’d made it for her and her sister to share, but when Jas had asked for cheese sandwiches instead, Pepper hadn’t liked to try and force a more substantial meal on her.
She’d freeze half of it and pop the other half in the oven as soon as she got home, right after she’d found the gardening club and handed the purse, which was somewhere in the depths of her bag, over to its rude owner.
Although not quite half-past six in the evening, the pub was impressively full, and Pepper was pleased to hear that the hum of conversation and the frequent peals of laughter were accompanied by the background sounds of a Bowie song. Apparently the person in charge of music at The Country Bumpkin had taste, and Pepper discovered her spirits were lifted as she approached the bar and caught the barman’s eye.
“Can I help you?” offered the man, his full beard speckled with beer foam. “What can I get you, love?”
Sure there was a law that prevented people from drinking alcohol while serving on a licensed premises, Pepper scowled. The scowl wasn’t a reaction to the overzealous rules regarding alcohol, though, the scowl was an automatic reaction to a stranger daring to call her by such a disparaging pet-name. She pressed her lips tightly together and fixed the man with a hard stare. “I am not your love,” she said slowly.
The barman smiled. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s a habit I’ve formed over the years. No offence meant.”
Pepper took a long breath. “Neither am I your sweetheart.”
“Gosh. Did I say that?” asked the man. “I am sorry. It’s a habit. My sister keeps telling me some women won’t like it, but nobody’s ever mentioned it before.” He ran a curious eye over Pepper. “Until today.”
“Then perhaps today is a sign,” said Pepper. “A sign that from this day on you should afford people who frequent your establishment a little more respect.” She raised an eyebrow. “Just a
thought.”
The barman leaned forward, resting his elbows on the polished wooden bar and peering at Pepper over beer pump levers. “You’re quite uptight for a lady with such great taste in music,” he said. “You’re wearing patches and badges on that jacket of yours celebrating some of the best music minds of all times. I’d have thought that listening to the good stuff would have chilled you out a little.” A suspicious expression crossed his face. “Or are you just one of those people who wears that jacket for the sake of what people call modern day fashion? Like those kids I see wearing AC/DC T-shirts, who couldn’t name any of their songs let alone tell me who the first singer was.”
“I certainly do not wear it for the sake of fashion!” said Pepper. She narrowed her eyes. “Their best song, in my opinion, is Touch Too Much, the first singer was Dave Evans, who was replaced by Bon Scott who fronted the band until he died and was replaced by Brian Johnson.”
The barman cracked a broad smile. “You are a woman of taste!” he enthused. He pointed towards a corner where three men stood huddled around a glass-fronted cabinet. “You should check out the jukebox. It’s not one of those new-fangled internet connected jobbies. It’s a real one. With vinyl records!”
Softening her attitude, Pepper gave a thin smile. “Maybe I will,” she said. “But not today.”
“Okay. Fair enough,” said the barman. “Can I get you a drink, then? On the house — consider it my way of apologising for calling you love.”
“And sweetheart,” Pepper reminded him.
The barman gave a deep laugh and winked. “I’m not giving you two drinks, love,” he said.
“Don’t call me —“ began Pepper. She gave her head a quick shake. “Oh, never mind. I didn’t come in here for a drink, I came in here for directions.”
“Directions?” said the barman. “I’m sure I’ll be able to help you there, sweetheart. I’ve lived in Picklebury my whole life.” He stood up straight and ran his fingers through his beard. “And that’s fifty-two years, although most people say I don’t look a day over forty-two.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Pepper. “That beard could be hiding a multitude of sins.”
“There are a few wrinkles beneath it,” agreed the barman, adding another wink. “But we’ve all got a few of those, haven’t we?”
Not liking the way the barman had looked at her as he’d asked his last question, Pepper chose not to answer. “I’m looking for a gardening club,” she said, instead. “A lady named Agnes Mowbray is a member, if that helps.”
“Well, I know Agnes,” said the man. “I went to school with her. I’m not sure about a gardening club, though. There are plenty of clubs in Picklebury to choose from. There’s a book club, there’s a boating club, there’s a vintage car club, there’s a real ale club — held in this very pub on a Sunday evening. There’s a watercolour painting club, a salsa dancing club, and there’s even a rumour that there’s a nudist club in Picklebury, but I’ve never seen evidence of it, and I’ve got some thirty times magnification binoculars. I’ve not heard of a gardening club, though, but I know a man who might be able to help you.” He pointed to a doorway over Pepper’s right shoulder. “He’s in the back room, through the restaurant, where the pool table is. His name’s Stan, and he’s got one of those plots up at the allotment gardens. He’s well known for growing prize-winning fruit and veg. If there’s a gardening club in Picklebury, Stan will be the man in the know.”
Pepper nodded. “Thank you, barman,” she said, turning her back on the bar and striding towards the archway in the wall with the words Good home-cooked food this way written above it in white paint.
“The name’s Michael,” said the barman, his voice raised. “And I’m the landlord!”
“Then thank you, Michael,” said Pepper, without turning to look at him.
“You’re welcome…” said the barman, his last word hanging in the air, begging an answer.
“My name is none of your concern,” said Pepper. “Thank you for your help.”
Striding past the jukebox, and through the arch in the wall adorned with photographs of sports teams, Pepper slowed her pace as she heard a man speaking in low menacing tones. “You’d better not be messing me around, Stan. If you are, I promise you’ll regret it.”
Chapter 8
Huddled in the corner of the room, standing alongside a rack attached to the wall in which several pool cues leaned, were three men. Two of them with their backs towards Pepper, and the other being forced into the angle of the corner.
Pepper used the word men loosely for two of them. Firstly, a real man wouldn’t intimidate another man so much older than he was, and secondly, they both appeared to have only recently, and reluctantly, left their teenage years behind.
Both dressed in hoodies, and with an earring visible in one of the men’s ears, they stood in the personal space of the elderly gentleman they held captive in the corner, one of them with a prodding finger on his chest.
The older man, his flat cap perched precariously on his head as he stood in the corner, both hands raised defensively in front of him, nodded as he spoke. “Come on, lads, you know me — when have I ever let you down before?” His eyes widened as he saw Pepper, and he cleared his throat. “I promised you, lads. I’ll give you the money I bet on the pool game when I see you tomorrow.”
“You what?” said the man with his finger on Stan’s chest. “What are you talking about?”
Stan rolled his eyes and made small gestures with his head in Pepper’s direction. “I said, I’ll give you the money I lost while playing pool with you tomorrow. When I get my pension.”
“What?” said the man. “What do you mean you’ll give us the money tomorrow? What money?”
The other young man turned slowly to face Pepper as Stan jerked his head in her direction again. He jabbed his partner in the ribs with a fist. “That’s fine, Stan,” he said. “You can give us the money whenever you’ve got it; we were only messing about with you. As you know!”
Stan gave a forced laugh. “Oh yes! You two are always messing about!”
The other man turned to face Pepper, too, and dropped his finger from Stan’s chest as a smile replaced the scowl on his face. He stepped away from the corner. “Yeah. Tomorrow’s fine, Stan. Or next week. Whenever you have it. No worries, it was only a friendly bet on a game of…. pool.”
Pushing his way past the two men, Stan adjusted the angle of his cap and tidied the front of his jacket. He smiled at Pepper. “Hello,” he said.
Pepper looked between the three men. “Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Aye, Pet,” said Stan, a wide smile on his red face. “Everything’s perfect. How about you? Come for a game of pool, have you?”
“No,” said Pepper, giving the two young men a look which made one of them avert his eyes. “I was looking for you… Stan, isn’t it?”
Stan nodded and took a few more steps away from the other two men. “Aye, that’s me,” he said, looking Pepper up and down, suspicion on his face. “Who’s been telling you where you could find me? And what do you want?”
Pepper frowned. “The barman… I mean the landlord — Michael. He told me you were in here. He said you might be able to help me find the gardening club I’m looking for.”
“Gardening club?” said Stan. He ran his eyes over Pepper again. “Oh, right. You mean the gardening club near the allotments.”
“I don’t know what club I mean,” said Pepper, ignoring the looks the two young men were giving her. “All I know is that a woman named Agnes Mowbray will be there.”
Stan nodded, walking towards the archway. “Aye, that’ll be the club next to the allotments. Do you know where the allotments are?”
“No,” said Pepper. “I don’t.”
“They’re right at the top of town,” said Stan. “You’ll find the club in the building next to them. The building with the red door.” He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at the two men. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay, bo
ys?”
“Yeah,” said the man with the earring. “You’ll be seeing us soon enough, Stan. Picklebury’s not a big place, and we all live here. It’s hard to hide away.”
Pepper stood aside as Stan hurried past her, and she nodded towards the floor as movement caught her eye. “Your shoelace is undone,” she said.
“Not again,” said Stan, grunting as he bent at the waist and fumbled with the loose lace which hung from his muddy boot. “What is it with these new laces? They don’t seem to stay tied.”
“Maybe it’s your age, Stan,” laughed one of the young men. “Maybe you should get some of those shoes with Velcro fasteners! You know, like toddlers wear.”
“Maybe you should watch your mouth,” replied Stan.
“And maybe you should remember that we’re going to be coming to see you again soon, Stan,” said the other man. “So maybe you should try and be a bit more polite.”
“Maybe you should all try and be a little nicer to one another,” suggested Pepper, disliking the tension in the room.
“Maybe you should shut your mouth and mind your own business, you old —” began the shortest of the young men.
“Oi!” said the other man, spinning to face his friend and grabbing him by the collar. “You don’t speak to ladies like that! Say sorry to her!”
His face red, the shorter man dropped his eyes to the floor. “Sorry,” he mumbled, pushing the other man’s hand away.
Pepper shook her head and sighed. “No apology is required because as I pay no attention to what comes out of the mouths of people like you, I literally couldn’t care less about what you said to me. It’s irrelevant. You’re irrelevant.”
“Then I take my apology back, you old —”