Tickled Pink

by Christina Jones

  And how did she feel? Posy paused in scrumpling up crisp packets. Okay, really. Well, she wasn’t cured, that was for sure. She was still hurt and angry, and – oh, yes, she still fancied Ritchie like mad.

  Bugger.

  The rest of the evening passed without further incident. Posy avoided looking at Ritchie, and Ritchie avoided her full stop. Flynn sat on one of the newly-refurbished bar stools and talked exclusively to Lola through several Jack Daniel’s. The Pinks sang along to the jukebox and ricocheted bits of peanut across the room as they did so. The local youths mended the flights and played darts with Eric Bristow bravado. The bar hummed with people and laughter and lively conversation.

  The Crooked Sixpence had at last come into its own.

  ‘If you want to get away, I’ll help Lola clear up,’ Flynn said at eleven o’clock. ‘I think you’ve had enough excitement for one night.’

  ‘She’s told you, has she?’ Posy pulled on her leather jacket, pocketing her night’s pay and Hogarth’s keys. ‘All about Ritchie?’

  ‘Yeah, some of it. Maybe it’s for the best. No, don’t snap my head off. Look, it’s done now. You’ve faced each other. It’ll never be so hard again. You can really make a start on getting over it.’

  She grinned at him. ‘You’re a nice man, Flynn Malone, and a whizz with Guinness. They must be missing you in Boston.’

  ‘Maybe. Who knows? They’ll have to miss me for a bit longer though because I’m not going back yet awhile.’

  ‘Because of Queen Mab or because of Lola?’

  Flynn grinned. ‘Because of a lot of things. Will you be okay getting home?’

  ‘Of course. It’s only five minutes, and I’m tougher than most of the wannabe muggers round here. Goodnight – and thanks again.’

  Outside, the air was crisp and cold, still wintry despite the day’s pretence at spring, and Posy turned up the collar of her leather jacket. What a weird day; so many things had happened, and exhausted though she was, there’d be plenty to keep her awake tonight . . .

  ‘Posy?’

  ‘Were you hanging around waiting for me? Go away.’ She peered at Ritchie in the darkness. ‘You seem to have missed the turning for Bunny Burrow, or have you forgotten where you now live?’

  He laughed. ‘It’s great to be friends again.’

  ‘We’re not bloody friends. We’ll never be friends. We haven’t been friends for ages. We were friends until we were sixteen, then sex got in the way.’

  He laughed again. She wished he wouldn’t. It wasn’t amusing. Posy exhaled. ‘Look, we’ve got nothing to say to one another, have we? Nothing at all.’

  ‘Can I walk home with you?’

  ‘No! We stopped doing that in youth club days, remember? After I’d got my first motorbike and you were the most scaredy pillion passenger in the world. Then when you bought that clapped-out van and we went everywhere in it even if it was only a couple of minutes’ walk away and –’ Posy stopped. Too many memories were flooding in. Things that she’d kept shut out for ages and ages. ‘Just go away.’

  He didn’t. He continued to walk beside her. ‘Yeah, they were the best times. Shit, I must have been mad to, um . .. You look really nice tonight.’

  ‘Nice? Like rice pudding? Or a cup of tea? Or a hot bath?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ she smiled at him. The banter was easy. They’d had years of practice. ‘Clear off home to your wife and imminent child.’

  He said nothing in the darkness. Home-going Steeple Frittonians passed them and gave them curious stares. Posy knew it’d be all round the village by morning. Dilys and Norrie would probably have plenty to say about it.

  Ritchie sighed, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry. For, well, for all of it. I should never have . . . You didn’t deserve . . .’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake just make do with sorry,’ Posy snapped. ‘We both know what you mean. And go home, please.’

  ‘Yeah, okay. And you’re all right now? I mean, I was so surprised that you came to the wedding. I couldn’t believe it when I saw you there and –’

  ‘I was only there to see if Sonia would get struck by a thunderbolt. And to ill-wish you both all the unhappiness in the world.’

  ‘Don’t, Posy. Don’t you think I haven’t beaten myself up over this ever since . . . ever since . . .’

  ‘Ever since you did what all men do and thought a bit on the side was your hormonally-given right? Because as long as I didn’t find out no one would get hurt? Because it didn’t mean anything to you, it was just sex? I’ve heard it all before, remember? Six months ago when you had to tell me about it because Sonia was pregnant.’ She sighed. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now. And to be honest I don’t even care. I stopped hating you ages ago, and apathy is a real killer.’

  ‘Do you know what really screwed me up?’ Ritchie stopped walking. ‘The day after the wedding, when everyone told me that you’d left the village. I couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t bear to think that I’d done that to you –’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. I wasn’t running away from you, despite what the coven may have said.’ She kept walking, glad he couldn’t see her face. He’d always known when she was lying. Shame really that she hadn’t been equally intuitive. ‘I’d been thinking about leaving for ages. I was going to work in Swindon, but . . . but the job fell through.’

  ‘Oh, right. Sorry.’

  ‘Will you please stop saying sorry!’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I mean . . . Oh, Christ!’ He caught up with her again. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re still here. And you’ve got someone else now, haven’t you? I was so jealous when I saw you together. Daft, I know. I’ve got no right, but –’

  ‘I haven’t got anyone – oh, yes, you mean Ellis.’ Just in time she remembered the staged kissing incident in The Crooked Sixpence. ‘Yes, Ellis and me are like that.’ Realizing that Ritchie probably couldn’t see her entwined fingers in the dark, she felt she ought to explain further. ‘Getting on great, you know. Having fun. No strings.’

  ‘Good. Only Sonia said that he, Glad Blissit’s grandson, was knocking off Tatty Spry.’

  ‘Sonia’s got her wires crossed. Such a pity she couldn’t have managed it with her legs. Goodnight.’

  The next morning, after a rather brief but unpleasant inquisitional period from Dilys during breakfast-cooking owing to Glad and Rose and Vi all having been on the phone at first light, Posy jangled Hogarth’s set of keys outside the empty shop.

  Trevor and Kenneth polka’d excitedly round her legs as she slotted the Yale into the lock. Surprisingly, she thought, she’d slept really well, with no dreams of Ritchie to interfere with her exhaustion. And Flynn was right – she’d faced up to the first meeting, and coped with it, and had come away feeling in control.

  And, if the feelings she’d been left with weren’t entirely negative, then that was understandable, wasn’t it? She’d loved Ritchie for a long time, and hated him for a brief one. It was just mathematics, really. Anyway, just so long as Lola played fair with the rotas, she and Ritchie would never have to spend any time in one another’s company again.

  The shop door opened easily. Trevor and Kenneth were shoulder to shoulder, impatient to be the first in. Posy had imagined the shop would be padlocked and alarmed after the police raid, and would let off a screeching vibrato which would fetch Tatty and Rose and the Bickeridges running along the row. It wasn’t and didn’t and she stepped inside.

  ‘Blimey!’

  Owing to the inches-deep and years-old fly-posting on the windows, she’d expected the shop to be a further extension of Hogarth’s pub squalor, or at least show the remnants of some previous porn baron tenant; therefore the empty shelves, bare counters and clear floor space came as something of a shock.

  It was clinically tidy, only the thick layer of dust over every surface, and the festoons of cobwebs in the corners, indicating just how long the shop had been unused.


  And there was no sinister air about it; all it felt was cold and unloved and lonely. But there was a faint all-pervading smell of – what? Antiseptic? Disinfectant? Something medical she was sure. Maybe it was lethal aromatherapy fumes emanating from Tatty’s shop next door?

  Posy found it quite emotional, walking round the eerily echoing space, thinking that if things had been different, she and Ritchie would have rented this place and really made it the bric-a-brac shop they’d dreamed of.

  ‘Sod Ritchie!’

  Her voice bounced off the cream walls. Trevor and Kenneth broke off in their snuffling through the dust for a moment to stare at her. She gathered, by the wagging of their tails, that they concurred with the sentiment.

  Fleetingly she wondered about the legality of the whole shop scheme. But only for a very briefly. Who on earth was going to care? The place had been empty for almost a lifetime. Hogarth wasn’t due back for months, and everyone else was doing their bit to attract visitors and money into the village, so why shouldn’t she?

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Ellis, looking cross, suddenly appeared in the open doorway. The dogs scampered ecstatically towards him and he bent down to return the greetings. ‘Tatty said she heard noises in here and sent me to investigate.’

  ‘Proper little hero, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, ha-ha. Christ, what’s that smell?’

  ‘Second-hand patchouli and ylang-ylang at a guess. And what are you doing at Tatty’s first thing in the morning anyway?’

  ‘I had a sleep-over. Mind you, the kids didn’t give me much chance to lie in. I was up at half-four reading Winnie the Pooh.’

  ‘Aaah, sweet. You’ll make a lovely father.’

  ‘Pul-ease! Still, at least it meant I was awake early enough to collect the mail, and now I’m just about to do the school run and then the shopping trip. You haven’t forgotten the courier stuff, have you?’

  ‘As if.’

  Ellis still looked angry. ‘That’s okay, then. There are a few letters for today, and a package to go out to Maplesford, but it isn’t urgent. Anytime in the next couple of days will do for that. It was delivered to someone in Fritton Magna by mistake so I’ve taken it on. It’s quite big but you should be able to manage it on the bike, and if you can, then I’ll be able to pass all one-off parcels on to you. But the letters still need to be out in the next hour.’

  ‘Oh, and just when I was planning to have a lazy day, too.’

  Ellis peered at her. ‘Is that a glint of sarcasm showing from beneath the razor-sharp wit?’

  ‘Sarcastic, moi? Listen, child. You may think you’ve had a tough morning so far, but I’ve already cooked breakfast at Sunny Dene and walked the dogs, I’m now investigating my new shop premises, then I’ll deliver the mail for you, be back at the B&B to play chambermaid, then into the pub as a lunch-time waitress, back to Sunny Dene for the dinners, into the pub for the evening barmaiding shift –’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Posy grinned. ‘Great, isn’t it? The way things work out? All we need to do now is get the carnival thing up and running, and we might have achieved our goal.’ ‘And is that what this ear-to-ear beaming is all about? Being busy, making money, and bringing visitors into Steeple Fritton?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Nothing to do with being walked home last night by a certain ex-fiancé?’

  Is that why you’re so ratty?’ Posy groaned. ‘God! That didn’t take long, did it? Who told you?’

  ‘Gran phoned Tatty last night. Tatty was really miffed that she hadn’t been there to see it for herself.’ Ellis looked serious. ‘Look, I know I’m the last person to advise on moral issues, but you will be careful, won’t you? You’ve changed so much in the few weeks since we first met. You’re stronger and happier, but you could blow it all by falling for him again, especially now he’s married.’

  Posy hooted with laughter. ‘Hark at you, Dear Deirdre! Is that honestly why you were looking so po-faced? Really? You’re the last person on earth to be entitled to an opinion. Have you and Tatty created Horatio yet?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Horatio or Hebe? The next child on Tatty’s must-have list.’

  Ellis wrinkled his nose. ‘No. No way. Tatty and I are just having fun.’

  ‘You might be having fun. Tatty is deadly serious. She wants another baby and a long-term father figure for the brood.’

  ‘But, I don’t want children. I don’t like children and even if I did, I’m far too young to have children. And me and Tatty aren’t a permanent fixture.’

  Posy laughed at the anguished expression. ‘Then tell Tatty that and sort out your own emotional chaos before you start lecturing me on mine. Oh, and by the way, Ritchie believed the snog in the snug incident. He thinks we’re a couple. He warned me that you might hurt me.’

  ‘Cheeky bastard!’

  ‘Pot and kettle and both black if you ask me, but that’s men for you. So, now you’re here, are you going to offer to help me scrape all the crap off these windows?’

  ‘Maybe later.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?’

  Ellis really did still look quite discomfited, she thought. She had a feeling it wasn’t because he didn’t want to become a window cleaner. Was it because Ritchie had assumed they were a couple? Or had it truly not occurred to him that fast and loose for him might be last-ditch at permanence for Tatty?

  ‘Don’t look so scared. I’m not pining for Ritchie, nor have I really got my claws into you. We were only pretending. Tatty, of course, is an entirely different matter.’

  Posy frowned as Ellis turned tail through the doorway, the dogs bouncing in his wake knowing that they’d pick up titbits at every shop in the row. Had he really not thought about Tatty’s feelings in their relationship? Was he, like all men, damn selfish, and self-obsessed, and happily assuming that Tatty felt exactly as he did?

  Maybe, though, she shouldn’t have mentioned the Horatio or Hebe element. It was only village gossip after all. . . Oh, what the hell! Tatty was old enough and experienced enough to fight her own battles. Whether she wanted Ellis simply as a sperm donor, or as Mr Tatty Spry, it was really no one else’s business.

  Posy wandered about in the shop for a few more moments, trying to picture it filled with something, and with hordes of customers who were just desperate to have the very something that she was offering.

  ‘Ferrets.’

  Posy swirled round. Martha and Mary Pink, a matching pair in brown tweed coats, brown zip-up bootees, and brown woollen headscarves, were framed in the doorway.

  ‘Goodness, you made me jump. Er, did you say ferrets?’

  ‘Ferrets,’ they nodded. ‘Old Perce Betterton kept ferrets in here.’

  Posy blinked. Were ferrets likely to have been the cause of the Fraud Squad raid? Porn ferrets? Drug-dealing ferrets? Money-laundering ferrets? ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Ferrets. And all manner of other stuff. Stuff, y’see. Stuff to be stuffed.’

  ‘Nope. Still not with you, I’m afraid.’

  The Pink twins shared an exasperated expression.

  ‘Garn, Posy. Try to keep up, duck. Old Perce Betterton kept this shop afore it was closed down. He did stuffing. Some for that handsome Yankee bloke’s Auntie Bunty. ’Er over at Fritton Magna with the animals . . .’

  Cogs whirred, and bits dropped into place. Flynn’s Great-Aunt Bunty Malone. Animal saviour. Had all her favourites stuffed and mounted . . . Oh, yuck!

  ‘This place was a taxidermist’s?’

  ‘Nothing to do with taxis, my duck. Perce never drove in ’is life. ’E stuffed animals.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand. So, why was the shop closed down? I mean, it’s been empty for years, and I remember the night it was raided when I was a child. Everyone then just assumed it was being used as storage for mucky mags or something.’

  Martha and Mary did a synchronized head-shake. ‘Old Perce used more than formaldehyde to stuff his animals. Oh, not yon dishy Yankee blok
e’s Auntie’s ones, duck. Bunty was well above board. But ’e ’ad a nice little sideline in moving stuff around. Money and stuff. You know, when you wasn’t allowed to take more ’n fifty quid out of the country?’

  ‘Before my time, I think.’ Posy tried to imagine Perce Betterton in this little shop, removing entrails, and inserting sawdust and glassy eyes and fifty pound notes into poodles. ‘Are you making this up?’

  They shook their heads together, the fringes on the headscarves scattering dust motes in the morning sunshine. ‘On our mother’s life, Posy. Honest. In Perce’s day a lot of people sailed away from Old Blighty with their nicely-preserved Fido or Tiddles who had an even more nicely-preserved little nest egg shoved up their bums.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’

  ‘There’s not many left alive that knows. We was going to tell you yesterday morning when you said you was interested in the shop but you’d cluttered off before we could say anything. And last night in the pub there was too many ears about.’ They leaned closer, as one. ‘We never said nothing much at the time being as Perce was a second cousin and it were a bit of a slur on the family name. Anyway, old Perce had been dead for years when the whole thing came to light, so it was best left unsaid. A Dalmatian it was, on the Harwich ferry. Burst.’

  Oh dear, oh dear. ‘And?’

  ‘Filled to the gullet with fivers, duck. Not a penny of it been declared to the taxman. Led to all sorts of nasty investigations. Found this place filled with terriers and ferrets and owls and things and about half a million quid.’

  ‘Bloody hell! And people just left their money here? Didn’t try and get it back?’

  ‘Couldn’t, duck, could they? Perce dropped dead in The Crooked Sixpence. Bad pint, we allus said. Hogarth never cleaned ’is pipes. Anyway, we reckoned no one was able to get in here quick enough to get their money out, and they couldn’t demand it back as they wasn’t officially supposed to have it. Hogarth didn’t know nothing about it, see, and no one else wanted to take the place on. ’E just shut up shop and that was it.’

  ‘Until the Dalmatian exploded on the Harwich ferry?’