‘I certainly am, Mr Leigh,’ she replied. ‘But I wonder if we might be a little less formal tonight? My name is Sally. I feel like a real old school ma’am when you keep calling me Miss Roberts.’
‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘I was waiting for you to suggest it, actually. I didn’t like to, with you being Kathy’s teacher an’ everything. Anyway, I’m Albert.’ He grimaced. ‘Not surprising really, is it, that I was reluctant to tell you? I hate it, but that’s what my parents called me and unfortunately I don’t have another name, so I’m stuck with it.’
‘A popular name at the time, I suppose,’ she said, thinking to herself that she didn’t like it much either. ‘Queen Victoria’s husband was Albert, wasn’t he? I suppose that’s why it became popular.’
‘I’m not as old as all that!’ he retorted, but fortunately he was laughing. She laughed too.
‘No … sorry … I wasn’t suggesting that you are. But the next king – Edward VII – he was an Albert as well, wasn’t he? Didn’t they call him Bertie?’ She guessed that Mr Leigh – Albert – would have been born during the reign of that monarch. She, Sally, was born in 1916, during the reign of George V, which made her feel very old when she thought about it; and she guessed that Albert Leigh must be quite a few years older than herself.
‘You have a good knowledge of history,’ he commented, ‘but then you would have, with you being a teacher.’
‘It’s not terribly relevant to being an infant teacher, though,’ she replied. ‘But I’ve always been interested in history, especially modern history, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, the First World War is being regarded as history now, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I wasn’t old enough to be in that one, but I did my bit in the last one. Anyway – Sally – I’m pleased you agreed to come with me. I hope we’ll have a very pleasant evening.’
‘I’m sure we will,’ she smiled.
The taxi dropped them right outside the Fishing Net and Sally waited whilst he settled up with the driver. There was a welcoming feel to the restaurant even from the outside. The paintwork was sea green and curtains that resembled fishing nets were draped across the windows.
There was a pleasant friendly ambience, too, when they entered the place. Albert gave his name, and a waitress in a smart green dress with a paler green apron and cap showed them to a corner table for two. The tablecloths were of green and white checked cotton, the silver cutlery was bright and gleaming and the table mats depicted seascapes of various resorts and fishing ports of the British Isles.
The same theme was continued on the walls. There were looped fishing nets, lobster pots, and sepia photographs of fishermen and trawlers; stormy seas; herring girls – as the women who used to follow the fishing fleets around the coast of the British Isles were called – engaged on their task of gutting the herrings; and well-known fishing ports of Britain, with Fleetwood, a few miles up the coast, being featured more than once.
The menus were large, both in shape and in content, and the waitress handed one to each of them, at the same time lighting the candle in a green glass bowl in the centre of the table.
‘Hmm … We’re quite spoilt for choice,’ observed Albert. ‘Shall we have something to start with? I think the allowance they’ve given us will run to that … But it doesn’t matter, of course,’ he added hurriedly, as though realising that that might sound rather stingy. ‘You choose whatever you want, Sally. We’re here to have a good time.’
The list of starters was not quite as extensive as the main menu. Neither of them fancied hors d’oeuvres or soup. ‘I’d rather like some shrimps,’ said Sally.
‘Yes, I’ll go for that too,’ agreed Albert. ‘Morecambe Bay shrimps potted in butter; sounds good. Yes, let’s push the boat out, if you’ll pardon the pun.’
When the waitress returned in five minutes or so they had both agreed to order scampi with chips – plus vegetables – for the main course, a dish that was becoming very popular. From a separate wine list Albert ordered a bottle of Chardonnay.
‘I’m not a connoisseur of wines,’ he told her. ‘Far from it, but I’m told that Chardonnay is considered to be rather superior to the ordinary Liebfraumilch.’
They all sounded quite glamorous to Sally. Wine drinking was becoming rather more fashionable now because many folk had discovered that pleasure on holidays abroad, but this was something that she had not yet experienced, apart from a short trip to France a couple of years ago with her parents.
‘Do you serve drinks at your hotel?’ she asked. ‘Alcoholic ones, I mean.’
‘No, we don’t,’ he answered. ‘We don’t have a licence. Very few of the smaller hotels have as yet. It’s just the larger ones like the Norbreck and the Imperial, and lots of others, of course. Maybe one of these days …’
Conversation lagged a little while they were waiting for their meal. But just as Sally was searching in her mind for an opening remark the wine waiter arrived with the bottle of Chardonnay. He poured a little of the golden liquid into Albert’s glass. He tasted it knowingly and when he nodded that it was acceptable the waiter poured out a glassful for each of them.
‘Cheers,’ said Albert, raising his glass. ‘Here’s to an enjoyable evening … and the start of a friendship?’ he added with a slight query in his voice and a quizzical look at her.
She nodded. ‘Yes … Cheers, Albert,’ she replied and they clinked their glasses. ‘Mmm … very nice,’ she commented, after she had taken a good sip of the wine. ‘Not too sweet, not too dry; very pleasant.’
‘As I say, I’m not an expert,’ Albert said, ‘but it seems OK to me.’ He grinned. ‘Well then, Sally, are you going to tell me a little about yourself? For instance, how long have you been teaching?’
She laughed. ‘A good way of finding out how old I am, Albert?’
‘No … no, not at all.’ He looked a little confused. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. Anyway, I don’t know how old you were when you started teaching, do I?’
‘It’s no secret,’ she replied. ‘Why should it be? I’ve been teaching for fourteen years, all at the same school. I trained for two years at a college in Manchester and then I was lucky enough to find a post in my hometown, which pleased my parents, of course.’
‘And you must have liked it there, at your school, or you wouldn’t have stayed?’
‘Yes, that’s true. There has never been any incentive for me to move elsewhere. I was twenty when I started teaching, so that makes me thirty-four, doesn’t it?’ she added with a twinkle in her eye.
‘All right, cards on the table,’ he replied. ‘I’m forty-five, and I see no reason to be secretive about it …’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘You’re an attractive young woman, Sally. Have you no special boyfriend? Forgive me if you think I’m being personal, but you must have a lot of admirers?’
She laughed. ‘If so, then I don’t know where they are. No, I don’t have a boyfriend.’ She was soon to realise why he had asked.
‘Actually … I noticed you at the football match,’ he told her. ‘When they played Preston. You were with that young fellow from your school. And … well … I just wondered.’
‘Oh yes, that’s Phil Grantley,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t see you there. You’re a supporter of Blackpool, then?’
‘Of course! You could say I’m one of their greatest fans,’ he said with the most enthusiasm she had seen him show so far. ‘I never miss a match if I can help it. What about you? Do you often go?’
‘Occasionally, when I’ve someone to go with,’ she said. ‘I’ve been with my dad sometimes, when he’s not working. And then Phil asked me to go with him, so I did. We’re just mates,’ she added. ‘That’s all. Just like I’m mates with most of the other fellows on the staff.’ Any regrets that she had felt regarding Phil’s lack of interest she was trying to push to one side.
‘Actually … I was engaged once,’ she went on to say, just in case he should think there was something odd about her. ‘To another teacher that I met
soon after we both started working in Blackpool. But then … well … the war came along and unfortunately Martin was killed. He had joined up straight away and he was part of a bomber crew. They were shot down during the Battle of Britain.’
‘How dreadful for you.’ Albert looked most concerned. ‘Yes … that terrible war caused misery for thousands, in all sorts of ways. As I know from my own experience,’ he added. He offered no further explanation and she did not ask. He looked almost angry for a moment, and she assumed that it might be something to do with losing his wife. Then he smiled rather sadly. ‘But life has to go on. I expect you have learnt that, haven’t you, Sally?’
‘Indeed I have,’ she replied. ‘As I said, I enjoy my job; in fact it’s become almost my whole life. Which, I suppose, is not entirely a good thing,’ she added thoughtfully.
Their shrimps arrived – tiny pink morsels in butter in little brown earthenware pots, served with triangles of brown bread and butter. They both proclaimed them delicious, and just enough not to take the edge off the appetite.
The scampi dish, too, which soon followed, came up to expectations. The pink shellfish, which were really the tail ends of large lobsters, were moist and flavoursome, encased in crispy breadcrumbs. The chips, too, tasted like the very best home-made ones.
‘I must confess I’ve never had this dish before,’ Albert said. ‘It’s well worth the trying.’
‘You don’t serve scampi at your hotel, then?’ asked Sally.
‘No, we never have done. But it’s something I may well consider putting on the menu. It would be a nice change for a high tea. I could learn quite a lot from this menu here. I’m pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food and the standard of the cuisine.’
‘Yes, it really is excellent,’ agreed Sally as she tasted the fresh garden peas and the green beans which complemented the fish.
‘Do you know … when I won the raffle prize I was not particularly pleased at first,’ Albert told her. ‘I thought it was a question of “coals to Newcastle”, if you see what I mean. I’ve never been in the habit of dining out. I was conceited enough to think that we put on a better meal at our own hotel, but I know now how mistaken I was. And then … well … I thought of inviting you along, and I’m so glad that I did. And so pleased that you agreed to come with me.’
‘I’m pleased too,’ she replied, meeting his eyes for several seconds as he regarded her with obvious admiration. She lowered her gaze, a little discomfited. One ‘date’ – if you could call it that – was all right, but she was not sure that she would want to go out with him again.
‘Now, do you think you could manage a pudding?’ he asked, as the waitress arrived to take away their empty plates. They had done justice to the meal, only a few chips remaining on each of their plates.
‘I’ll leave you a few minutes to decide,’ the waitress smiled as she handed out the menus again. ‘But I can recommend the lemon meringue pie, one of our chef’s specialities.’
‘That’s good enough for me, then,’ said Albert. ‘How about you, Sally?’
‘Yes, I agree,’ she replied. ‘It’s one of my favourites.’
‘We’ll both have that, then.’ Albert handed the menus back. ‘And then two coffees, please.’
‘My mother makes lemon meringue,’ said Sally. ‘But she uses a packet mix; it’s really good, though.’
‘Yes, it’s a very popular sweet at the moment,’ said Albert. ‘It always goes down well when we put it on. I must confess, though, that I use a ready-made mix as well. Shh …’ He put a finger to his lips. ‘Sometimes we have to consider the time factor and cut a few corners now and then.’
‘I’m sure you have a good reputation, though,’ said Sally. ‘Have you had the hotel a long time?’
‘For ever,’ he said, smiling. ‘At least it seems so.’ He explained that the business had been started by his parents in the early 1900s, and it had been taken for granted that he and his sister should work there. When his parents had retired he and Winifred had taken over the boarding house and had tried to make it a little more ‘high class’.
‘We gave it a name,’ he said. ‘“Holmleigh” – one of my sister’s bright ideas – and we refer to it as a private hotel now.’
‘And you are expecting that Katherine will work there as well, are you, when she leaves school?’ asked Sally. He seemed to pick up on the note of slight censure in her tone.
‘Yes, I hope so,’ he replied, ‘although it’s a long time off; Kathy’s only six, well, nearly seven. Who knows what might happen in the future? Why? Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’
‘I believe in children being allowed to attain their full potential,’ she replied. ‘Katherine’s a very bright little girl. She may well have other ideas when she grows up. I know she says that’s what she wants to do at the moment, but she doesn’t really know about much else yet, does she?’
‘Well, we’ll see,’ he replied. ‘We got the impression, Winnie and I, that Kathy was just an average sort of scholar. I know she tries hard – you said so – but she’s not top of the class or anything like that, is she?’
‘No, but children often develop later and surprise us all,’ said Sally. ‘Anyway, we can’t really look so far ahead, can we?’
The lemon meringue pie arrived and they tucked into it with gusto. It was time for a change of direction in the conversation, thought Sally. She had noticed a certain edginess in Albert’s remarks. A man who likes his own way? she pondered. But then her married friends told her that most of them did! She had noticed, too, that he never spoke of his wife and she assumed that this must be a ‘no-go’ area.
‘Scrumptious!’ he declared, spooning up the last morsel of his lemon meringue. ‘That’s one of our Kathy’s words, and it sums it up very nicely.’ His earlier tetchiness seemed to have vanished. He leant across the table, looking more intently at her.
‘You were saying earlier, Sally,’ he began, ‘that teaching seems to have become your whole way of life. And I’m pretty much the same with the hotel; my life revolves around it. Not entirely a good thing, as you also remarked. It seems to me that I need a change, and so do you.’ He paused for a moment before saying, ‘Would you consider coming out with me again? We get along very nicely, don’t we, and … well … I would like to see you again.’
She did not answer for a moment. She had assumed that this would be an isolated occasion, but maybe she should have guessed that he might have other ideas. It might be churlish to refuse. She didn’t need to get too involved with him if she didn’t wish to do so. And where could be the harm in accepting? Invitations were pretty thin on the ground at the moment. She liked him, perhaps more than she had thought she might, although his company had kindled no real spark of attraction or excitement in her.
‘Yes, why not?’ she answered, smiling at him in a friendly way. ‘Thank you, Albert. Yes, I’ll go out with you again, sometime.’ She wanted to make it clear to him that it might not be a regular occurrence, and maybe not just yet either, if that was what he had in mind.
‘That’s good,’ he replied. ‘I thought you might say no.’
She could see that he would have been disappointed if she had refused. The relief he was feeling now that she had agreed showed in the more relaxed tone of his voice. She decided she would go along with her decision to see him again with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. It was no use being half-hearted; but at the same time she pondered that she hardly knew the man. It might well turn out that they had very little in common, or that they didn’t like one another very much on a further acquaintance.
But he seemed determined to please her. ‘What sort of things do you like to do?’ he asked. ‘The cinema, theatre, dancing … or another meal? I don’t think you’re the sort of young lady who makes a habit of going to pubs, are you?’
She agreed that this was true. ‘It’s the way I’ve been brought up,’ she told him. ‘Like many girls – women, I suppose I should say! – of my age. It wa
sn’t the thing for women to go into pubs on their own, was it, or even with men at one time? Not until the war; I suppose that has changed things to a certain extent. I do have a drink – occasionally – with some of the members of our staff. Yes … I enjoy the theatre and cinema, when I go, which isn’t very often. I used to enjoy dancing, but I haven’t been for ages.’ Hardly at all since Martin was killed, she mused. They had spent many happy times dancing at the Tower or the Winter Gardens ballroom. ‘The only thing I do regularly – once a week – is my French conversation class.’
‘And I have a darts match once a week,’ he replied. ‘Not always the same night, and occasionally it might be more than one night; but I’m sure it’s a problem we can get round. I must admit I go to the pub … oh, possibly two or three times a week, but it’s mainly for the company. There’s just my sister and myself at home, apart from Kathy, of course. We get on quite well, but sometimes I like a change of company and so does Winnie.’
‘You’ll be getting busy at the hotel very soon, won’t you?’ Sally enquired.
‘Yes, it’ll be Easter this weekend, of course, and the first of our visitors will be arriving. After that there’s a lull until Whitsuntide, then it’s all go until the end of the Lights. At least, we hope it will be. But the boss has to be allowed a night or two of freedom. Bosses, I should say; Winnie and I sort it out between us.’ He smiled. ‘I’m sure we’ll be able to come to some arrangement.’
Sally smiled back, a little hesitantly. It seemed as though he was assuming he would still be seeing her during the summertime. Well, that remained to be seen.
‘Actually, I had a bit of a surprise last weekend,’ he went on. ‘My sister, Winnie, she had a date, of all things! With a man, I mean.’
‘And that was unusual, was it?’ asked Sally.
‘I’ll say so! You could’ve knocked me down with a feather when she told me. Apparently she’s met this chap at her drama group. He’s only just joined, just come to live in Blackpool, and they seem to have taken quite a shine to one another.’
Time Goes By Page 11