Calling out to Norrie and Dilys, telling them she was going to The Crooked Sixpence – and not getting a reply because they were obviously snuggled up with Trevor and Kenneth and deeply immersed in one of the soaps anyway – she quietly closed Sunny Dene’s door.
The pub was, as always at this hour, deserted apart from the elderly Pinks, a family from the Cressbeds council estate, in the corner. She hadn’t had any phone calls from Amanda and Nikki so guessed the Dalgetty coast was clear.
Ordering a glass of wine, Posy hauled herself on to one of the rickety bar stools.
Hogarth, the landlord, served the drink in a tumbler with his usual lack of civility. He rarely acknowledged his customers, never asked any questions, or in fact instigated much conversation at all. Apart from the words necessary for drink buying and the obligatory please and thank you, he and Posy had rarely held what could pass for a conversation.
Hogarth had been the landlord here for as long as Posy could remember. Sometimes he disappeared for weeks on end to see to his other businesses – what and where they were remained an unsolved mystery – and just shut the pub with no warning. It was always regarded as a mixed blessing when he returned.
Whether there was a Mrs Hogarth or not, she had no idea. No one in Steeple Fritton knew, either. And Hogarth offspring she hadn’t even considered. You’d surely have to be drunk or desperate to want to procreate with The Crooked Sixpence’s landlord.
But The Crooked Sixpence itself could be a lovely pub, Posy thought, if only somebody cared. It was proper olde-worlde, rather than some huge corporate brewery trying to make it look that way with acres of weathered plastic panelling and fake polystyrene beams.
There were grubby armchairs and carved settles on either side of the fireplace, but no fire – just unraked grey ashes – and the tables and chairs were good dark wood beneath their patina of grime. A glorious, but unpolished, grandmother clock idly ticked away the time. All the fixtures and fittings looked right, and the colours, at one time dark reds and golds, were authentic too. It was just all so neglected and unloved.
‘Thanks,’ she handed Hogarth the tumbler for a refill, knowing she should drink more slowly. She couldn’t keep on spending money like this. ‘Quiet in here tonight.’
Hogarth paused in unscrewing the top from the wine bottle, gawping over his shoulder. ‘What?’
‘Er, I said, it’s quiet in here tonight.’
‘It’s quiet in here every bloody night –’ The wine was decanted in a vicious spurt. ‘And that’s the way we like it, as you well know.’
‘Oh, er, right, yes of course,’ Posy shifted uncomfortably on her stool. ‘Only I just wondered if maybe there was a reason why you’ve never encouraged more trade.’
‘Well, don’t wonder.’ Hogarth hurled the glass across the bar. ‘The village wants a traditional village pub and that’s what I gives them. They don’t want no idle chitchat, nor jukeboxes, nor darts, snooker, fruit machines or bloody pub quizzes, nor nothing along those lines.’
‘Well, yes, but . . .’
Hogarth leaned grimy elbows on the grimy bar. ‘Look, I knows that you youngsters wants pubs with rock and roll, and football on the telly, and drugs and stuff coming out of your ears, but my clientele likes their pints quiet, and their pubs, too.’
‘But I’m one of your clientele. And Nikki and Amanda and loads of other young people in Steeple Fritton. And we all have to go somewhere else if we want a bit of life –’
‘Good bloody riddance,’ Hogarth snarled. ‘You youngsters spend piddle all. Serious drinking is for the grownups, right? And the grown-ups in the village want a proper pub. And that’s what they get ’ere.’
Posy blinked. Not much chance of Hogarth turning The Crooked Sixpence into the next JD Wetherspoons, then.
One of the elderly corner customer contingent had unfurled itself, wandered to the bar, and now peered at her from beneath raggle-taggle eyebrows.
‘Hello, young Posy. I ’eard you’d done a runner.’
Posy, from her perch on the stool, looked down at the wrinkled face, the tortoise neck, and the emaciated body all encased in flaky layers of olive green clothing, and sighed. ‘That was weeks ago. I’ve been back for ages.’
‘Have you? Bugger it.’ The wrinkles merged together as the mouth emitted a cackle, a claw closed around a bottle of Guinness, and the heap of clothing started to shuffle back towards the corner. ‘We’ll have to gossip about something else now.’
‘Which one was that?’ Posy forgot the no-talking rule and looked hopefully towards Hogarth.
‘Oh, don’t ask me. Them Pink twins is indecipherable.’
Posy smiled. Years ago, when she’d first started drinking in The Crooked Sixpence, she’d made a huge mistake about the Pinks. Hogarth, in an unusually loquacious mood, had explained to a disbelieving Posy that the Pinks were talented musicians.
‘Them Pinks,’ he’d said, ‘are dead, dead musical. Now, when they has a bit of a singsong, that’s proper pub stuff. Not all this electric bollocks. Martha and Mary is real talented.’
‘Martha? Mary?’ Posy had blinked. The gender had completely passed her by. And musical? ‘Nah! Surely not...
‘Martha and Mary Pink has been living on the Cressbeds Estate and drinking in this pub ever since I was a nipper,’ Hogarth had said, practically garrulous. ‘And their parents and grandparents afore them. The other one over there is their brother, he plays the accordion
‘Does he? How clever. No, don’t tell me.’ Posy had been entranced, if they’re Martha and Mary, then he must be Joseph, like in the Bible.’
‘He’s Neddy,’ Hogarth had said, waddling away from the bar. ‘Like in the donkey.’
Posy still giggled at the memory but didn’t have time to dwell on it as at that moment the door creaked open. The three Pinks all lifted rheumy eyes in excitement, clattering their Guinness bottles together as they lost coordination. Posy, praying that it wasn’t Ritchie and Sonia, held her breath and hardly dared to look.
‘Hi, Posy. It must be my lucky day. I hoped I’d find you in here, and all alone, too.’
Chapter Seven
Posy looked at Ellis Blissit and sighed with relief. ‘Oh, it’s you . .
‘Not the warmest welcome I’ve ever had, but at least you’re under ninety-seven, unlike most of the clientele.’ Ellis, looking a little frayed round the edges, made his way towards her and grinned. ‘What are you drinking?’
Posy peered into her glass. ‘Hogarth’s version of house white I think.’
‘I’ll get you a refill, but I’m afraid I can’t stop very long.’
‘No, it’s all right, really. I don’t want you to buy me a drink.’ Posy tried not to notice his dishevelled black hair or the over-brightness of his black eyes and especially not the fact that the top two buttons of his faded 501s were undone. ‘I, er, wouldn’t want to keep you.’
‘Perceptive as well as beautiful. Tatty couldn’t get a baby-sitter so we’re, um, having a night in at her place. It’s half-time at the moment. Oh, hi . . .’ He beamed as Hogarth rumbled towards them. ‘Can I have another wine for Posy, please, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to take out.’
Hogarth squinted suspiciously. ‘Who’s Jack Daniels?’
‘It’s a bourbon,’ Ellis looked slightly thrown. ‘But if you don’t keep it, then Southern Comfort will do.’
Hogarth grunted. ‘We ain’t got nothing poncey like that. You can have stout or brown ale to take out.’
‘Go for the stout,’ Posy advised. ‘The iron’ll give you stamina.’
‘Will Tatty drink stout?’
‘Tatty? God, she’ll drink anything that some bloke will pay for,’ Posy shrieked with laughter, then stopped. ‘Um, yes, I mean, I expect so.’
Hogarth plonked two bottles of stout on the bar, decanted another angry gush of wine into Posy’s glass and snatched Ellis’s money, leaving scorch marks on the counter top.
‘Things still bad at the B&B?’ Ellis asked, squeezi
ng the change into the back pocket of the 501s and managing to display a fair expanse of tanned and muscled midriff. ‘Gran said you were having a hard time.’
‘The worst.’ Posy sighed. ‘Have you found anything yet?’
‘I’ve started being a highwayman, which in turn should lead to the Robin Hood bit of my business.’
‘Uh?’ Posy blinked over the edge of her glass, ‘In English?’
Ellis laughed. ‘I’ve bought a second-hand white van. I’m going to use it as a sort of taxi-cum-bus-cum-delivery service for the village – as and when required. And I’ll charge the rich ones loads and the skint ones nothing.
‘Very enterprising of you and more honest than I’d imagined you were going to be. I’m quite impressed. If only more people thought the way you do.’ Posy stared into her wine glass and wished she hadn’t. There were little black things floating in it. ‘Our problem at Sunny Dene is that no one comes to stay in the village any more. The place just doesn’t attract outsiders, or visitors, let alone holidaymakers.’
‘You should advertise.’
‘Don’t you think we’ve done all that? We’ve spent more on advertising than a multinational company.’
‘Sorry – mind you, it applies to the whole of Steeple Fritton if you ask me. No one even passes through it, let alone stops over.’
Posy nodded. ‘What we need to do is put it on the map.’
‘Like Glastonbury or Cropredy?’
‘Yes – well, no. Not like that exactly. Not a music festival. It’s been done too many times and gets bad press, which is the last thing this village needs. But the same principle. You see, you say Glastonbury and Cropredy and everyone in the world knows what you mean. We could do that with Steeple Fritton, make it synonymous with –’
‘Bad pubs and empty guest houses?’
‘Ellis Blissit, don’t be such a defeatist. Look, you admit that you need a life-challenge and so do I. Sunny Dene needs visitors, so does this place, not to mention the entire village. Why don’t we make it happen?’
‘Yeah, right. And how do you plan to do that?’
‘That’s it... That’s where it starts to come unravelled.’ Posy sighed. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’
Ellis grinned again. ‘Why don’t we meet in here, say a week on Saturday, and talk about it?’
Posy eyed him warily. ‘You’re not asking me for a date, are you?’
‘Wouldn’t dare. No, I’m serious. We’ll just mull over a few ideas, see what we’ve got to work with.’ He glanced up at the sonorously ticking clock. ‘Shit – I’ll have to dash. Tatty’ll have finished putting the kids to bed. So, I’ll see you in here about seven next Saturday, okay?’
Why not? Oh, well, there were millions of reasons why not – but still . . .
Posy nodded. ‘I’ll be here.’
Ellis turned away from the bar, just as The Crooked Sixpence’s door opened again and the Pinks fluttered into their welcome routine. Posy, who was still engaged in wondering just what Steeple Fritton could offer the world and storing up Ellis’s highwayman bus service and night-in-with-Tatty stories to tell Dilys and Norrie, nearly tumbled from her bar stool.
Ritchie and Sonia, holding hands, stood in the doorway.
Whimpering, cursing herself for not having her mobile with her and therefore not being on the receiving end of Nikki and Amanda’s warning call, Posy panicked. Ritchie looked totally, totally gorgeous. Her heart lurched at the sight of him, and all the old, familiar feelings rushed back unbidden.
Without thinking any further, she grabbed Ellis’s shoulder. ‘Could you, um, just hang on for a moment?
Ellis flicked a glance towards the newcomers, looked back at Posy, and fortunately didn’t shake off her hand. Before she realized it, he’d dumped the stout bottles on the bar and had slid his arms round her waist.
‘I, um, actually meant if you could just pretend to be with me . . .’ Posy wriggled slightly, not daring to look at Ritchie and Sonia. ‘You don’t have to – oh!’
Ellis kissed her. It was a seriously professional kiss. It was the sort of kiss that meant business. Posy, after a half-hearted attempt to push him away, found herself kissing him back. It was a bit disturbing to find that he tasted of Tatty’s patchouli and musk oil.
‘Hey!’ Hogarth’s shout penetrated the roaring in her ears. ‘You can pack that in! We don’t ’ave any of that in here!’
Shakily, Posy opened her eyes and squirmed away from Ellis. He was grinning at her. Ritchie and Sonia were nowhere to be seen and the Pinks were rocking backwards and forwards in their corner, chortling with glee.
Posy blinked in embarrassment. ‘Ooops...’
‘Ooops indeed,’ Ellis said cheerfully, picking up the bottles of stout and looking over his shoulder. ‘Mission accomplished, though. They’ve obviously decided not to stay. And I must be going, but any time you want rescuing like that just give me a yell. I think I’m going to like living here. See you next Saturday then, if not before. Bye.’
Posy was still staring at the doorway long after he’d left. Oh, God! Oh, God! What had she done? Her lips were tingling – and so was a whole lot more of her. Bugger!
She started to smile. It had got rid of Sonia and Ritchie though – and the Pinks would waste no time in telling everyone in Steeple Fritton and – oooh! What on earth would Tatty make of it?
She took a gulp of wine and was still smiling when the door clicked and the Pinks started to rev up again. Praying it wasn’t Ritchie and Sonia on a return visit, Posy reckoned this must be the busiest night the pub had seen in years.
Lola, a black jacket draped over the red cashmere, stood in the doorway, looked at the inside of The Crooked Sixpence, and immediately turned to leave. The Pinks shrilled their disappointment.
‘Er, Lola!’ Posy quickly pulled herself together and gingerly patted the neighbouring stool. ‘Over here. It’s nicer than it looks.’
At least she’d stopped crying, Posy thought, as Lola picked her way across the bar like someone tiptoeing through a pig pen. Her eyes were still reddened and puffy, and the make-up she’d obviously hastily applied didn’t hide the blotches. Despite all that, Posy conceded, Lola was a very beautiful woman.
‘How did you know my name?’ Lola looked at the bar stool and remained standing.
‘Oh, er, Mum told me,’ Posy muttered. ‘At Sunny Dene. I’m Posy. Dilys and Norrie’s daughter.’
Lola was staring at the years of ingrained dirt on the bar top with tangible horror. ‘I know. Dilys told me – and so did you.’
‘I wasn’t sure that you’d heard me in the dining room. You seemed upset.’
‘I was. I am. And I must be mad to be in here.’
‘There isn’t a lot of choice in Steeple Fritton, to be honest,’ Posy said, as Hogarth lumbered his way towards them again. ‘It’s this or sitting in your room with the telly or in Sunny Dene’s residents’ lounge with the telly.’
She thought Lola had muttered Christ, but she couldn’t be sure.
Hogarth leered at them. ‘What’s it to be? Another wine?’
‘Gin and tonic,’ Lola said quickly, ‘and let me see the glass first.’
Hogarth snorted and shuffled towards the back of the bar. There was a lot of clanking and unseen sleight of hand, and eventually he returned with a fairly respectable highball glass.
‘This do you, yer ladyship?’
Apparently oblivious to the sarcasm, Lola took the glass, held it up to the dim light bulb overhead, ran her finger round the rim, then nodded grudgingly. ‘I don’t suppose it has ever seen a dishwasher in its life, but it’ll have to do.’
‘Dishwasher?’ Hogarth snatched it away and started assaulting the Gordon’s bottle. ‘What’s a dishwasher?’
‘He’s not joking,’ Posy hissed. ‘Believe me. Best not to go down that route. Hogarth doesn’t encourage conversation.’
The gin and tonic without the added luxuries of ice and a slice, was thumped on the bar. Lola looked as though she was
about to burst into tears again. From the corner of her eye Posy could see one of the Pinks unfurling their layers of dusty rags and looking as though they were going to stumble towards the bar with cheery Steeple Fritton greetings for the newcomer. As it wasn’t wearing a headscarf, Posy guessed this must be Neddy. The ancient accordion strapped to his chest was a bit of a giveaway, too.
Pretty sure that Neddy Pink would be a villager too far for Lola in her present state, Posy urgently indicated a corner table. ‘Why don’t we sit over there? A bit more private.’
Apart from the Pinks and Hogarth they had the place to themselves. Privacy was not a problem. However, Lola seemed to welcome the suggestion and followed her into the dark recess.
‘So,’ Posy surveyed what was left of her wine. ‘What brings you to Steeple Fritton?’
‘Bad luck and your mother.’
‘Oh, right. Are you staying long?’
Lola shook her head. ‘Just tonight, thank goodness. I’m leaving for Reading in the morning.’
Posy’s heart sank. One night at the B&B wasn’t going to shore up the coffers at all.
‘I’ll give you a lift if you like,’ Posy offered, remembering that Dilys said she’d picked Lola up on the bus and that therefore, assuming Ellis’s Dormobile service wasn’t yet functional, transport might be a problem. ‘I’m off on a job hunt myself.’
‘Thank you.’ Lola’s eyes filled with tears again. She fished a handkerchief from the pocket of her black coat. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just I’m not used to people being kind, and I’ve had one of the worst days of my life and this place is just like a bloody nightmare!’
‘It gets better,’ Posy said gently. ‘But I know how you feel.’
‘I don’t think you can possibly know how I feel. I’ve lost everything. Absolutely everything.’
Posy stared at the dregs of the wine and waited.
‘Have you any idea what it’s like to have nothing? Lola knocked back the gin in one go. ‘To have nowhere to call home? No job? No bloody nothing?’
Posy shook her head. ‘Well, no, not exactly. But I do know what it’s like to be unhappy.’
Lola sniffed, reaching again for the hankie. ‘But at least you’re young. You’ve got everything ahead of you. My life’s over.’
Tickled Pink Page 8