by Rosie Howard
By the time the bar started to fill in the evening, Maddy’s tiredness receded with the effort of keeping busy. Kevin had made another mystery disappearance, so she had no choice but to keep the kitchen closed. By nine o’clock the bar was seething and the noise levels had reached a peak, the laughing and chatting blending to form a wall of sound, set to the backbeat of the jukebox. Maddy smiled, joked, pulled pints and whisked up and down the bar, restocking shelves and collecting glasses whenever she could grab a minute.
The students were an entirely new set from the ones Maddy had studied with, but the locals, the younger ones at least, recognised a familiar face and greeted her with casual warmth. Several of the men smiled encouragingly and offered to buy her drinks. She declined with friendly grace, sipping occasionally from a tall glass of iced water she kept by the till. The heat from the lights and the crush of all the bodies had raised the temperature to midsummer heights despite the chilly autumn night outside, and the plate-glass windows at the front ran with condensation. Maddy felt a cooling blast of air from the doorway up her back as she leant to collect a stack of glasses on a table. She leant into it gratefully and found herself pressed up against a long, hard body.
‘Oops, sorry,’ she smiled, turning to apologise.
‘My fault entirely,’ said Ben, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders as she started away in alarm. ‘Wasn’t looking where I was going.’
‘Did you see Patrick?’ she asked, allowing him to take one of the stacks of glasses from her and heading back to the bar through the throngs of people.
‘He sent his love,’ said Ben. ‘Told me he was bored, too.’
‘He must be feeling better then,’ she said, loading the glasses into the machine.
‘I could do with a pint.’
She drew one, uncomfortably aware he was watching her closely while she did it.
‘What will you have?’ he asked, passing her a tenner.
‘I won’t. That is, not when I’m working, thank you.’
‘You don’t ever drink when you’re working?’ he queried mildly. ‘One wouldn’t hurt, surely? Help you relax?’ He didn’t add that she seemed on edge.
‘I don’t like … not when I’m …’ She wanted to say ‘feeling vulnerable’ but stopped herself.
He nodded slowly, as if he was coming to a conclusion about something.
Thankfully, customers left promptly after she called time. She remembered having to prise out reluctant homegoers with a crowbar in the past, as they tried to make their last pints last for ever as an excuse to keep the night going. Now, though, the bar emptied rapidly; the drinkers who hadn’t already left for home were now keen to head off to the Sails nightclub at the bottom of town on the quay, where the bar stayed open until two in the morning at the weekends. Patrick had talked gloomily of the demise of the pub when the nightclub owner – a huge, handsome Irishman called Jonno McGrath, a formidable figure with his shaven head and his tattoos – had finally succeeded in getting his late-opening licence, but soon discovered that drinkers in the little town were still keen to start the night in the pub, moving on to the nightclub only when he had closed his doors for the night.
Soon Maddy was ushering out the last drinkers and closing the door against the increasing chill. Collecting yet more glasses on the way back to the bar she was relieved and pleased to see Ben was still perched at the end of the bar.
‘Tea?’ he asked.
‘Bit too busy to make you tea.’
‘I meant for you, seeing as you don’t drink on duty.’
‘You’re mighty fascinated by my drinking habits. But yes, a cup of tea would be very nice. Thank you.’
She whisked around collecting glasses and wiping tables, finishing just as he came back with two steaming mugs.
‘I’ll do that,’ he said, as she started to haul the chairs onto the tables, ready for hoovering the next morning. Maddy looked at him for a long moment, deciding whether to refuse. He gazed calmly back, an amused smile pulling up the corner of his mouth.
‘Okay,’ she said, shrugging. ‘Thanks.’
Taking a swift gulp of tea, which was so wonderfully hot and strong she nearly moaned with gratitude, Maddy got ready to do the till.
The task was absorbing but mechanical. Quickly, she totalled up the float, bagged the notes and reconciled the takings with the till roll. Breathing a sigh of relief that the two tallied, she bundled it all up and shoved it in the safe. This time, the busy night had delivered some pretty healthy takings. She was puzzled anew at Patrick’s insistence that Dennis wanted higher turnover so he could put up the rent.
By the time she finished, Ben had positioned himself back on the other side of the bar, where he sat quietly watching her.
Thinking she ought to make conversation, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head.
‘You know that hypnotism thing?’
He nodded.
‘Could you, like, make me do a “chicken laying an egg” impersonation, then?’
He considered her question more carefully than it merited. ‘If you were – for some reason best known to yourself – secretly desperate to imitate a chicken, I could probably disinhibit you enough, using hypnosis, to allow you to do it.’
Maddy nodded, not meeting his eye.
‘So, are you capable of doing anything a bit more useful?’
‘I think I could probably help you,’ he said carefully, cradling his tea in his hands.
She noticed he had long, lean fingers. Like a piano player.
‘You did help,’ she said, waving at the chairs.
‘I mean with your drink problem.’
She gasped. ‘I am not an alcoholic.’
‘Didn’t say you were,’ he replied with irritating calm. ‘What I actually said is I could help you with your “drink problem”, by which I mean the difficulty that makes you too scared to drink in certain circumstances. When you’re nervous. On your guard.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Didn’t need to,’ replied Ben. ‘I’m guessing it’s a fear of losing control.’
She glared at him, refusing to answer.
‘Tell me what happened to you, Maddy,’ he said quietly, his eyes not moving from her face.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘I can help.’
‘No. You can’t.’
‘It’s tempting to try and forget traumatic events,’ he said, watching his hands now, but glancing up to see if he had her attention. ‘That would be the easy way.’ His voice was slow, soothing and low.
Despite herself, Maddy leant in, listening.
‘But the trouble is,’ he continued, ‘in the long run, denying things have happened doesn’t work. When trauma happens to us it messes with our sense of order. How the world should work. The unprocessed memories just eat away at you from the inside, you know – they can be a very powerful force.’
‘Yeah? Lucky I don’t have any, then.’
She marched purposefully to the door.
‘Any what?’
‘Any memories of it,’ she replied, holding open the door and gesturing for him to leave.
He stood, with his head on one side, considering, and then he nodded as he strolled towards the door.
‘Bear it in mind, Maddy,’ he said, putting a warm hand on her shoulder. ‘I could help – if you’ll let me.’
Driving back home along the track by the river, Ben was preoccupied. As he had already suspected, keeping his promise to Patrick wasn’t going to be easy. He knew that look: the vigilance, anxiety, fierce defensiveness. Initially he thought the fear and anger she exhibited when they first met was down to seeing Dennis. He could quite imagine the obnoxious little man could have that effect on people. And then, of course, there was her distress at Patrick being ill. But, with those few leading questions – and she hadn’t liked them at all – his suspicions were confirmed. It was more than any problem Top Taverns could push her way. ‘Something’ had ha
ppened to her – ‘something’ very bad indeed … and then her accidental disclosure that she had damaged memories of whatever this traumatic event was? Now that was interesting …
He sighed as he parked his car and got out, swinging the keys in his hand absent-mindedly. She was turning in on herself. Doubtless she thought she could deal with it that way. Alone. Trouble was, he’d seen someone do that before. Someone he loved.
It hadn’t ended well.
CHAPTER FOUR
Next morning Maddy was in the kitchen when she heard the door of the bar open and checked her watch. Only half past ten. What a pain. She would send whoever it was away until opening time.
‘Mads!’ shrieked a voice. ‘It’s true, you are here. Ohmigod it’s so good to see you!’
Maddy had a vague impression of multicoloured rags topped with something exceptionally hairy swooping towards her and enveloping her in a giant, animal-smelling hug.
‘Bleurgh,’ she muttered, spitting out white, stringy hair. ‘Blimey, Flora, what the hell are you wearing?’
‘Mads!’ Flora exclaimed again, holding Maddy’s face firmly between her hands and giving her a smacking kiss on the mouth. ‘It’s so completely fantastic to see you!’
‘You too, Flora, but good grief, what is it with the dead goat?’
‘My jerkin?’ she asked, smoothing it proudly. ‘Local sheepskin, actually, straight from the South Downs and lovingly handcrafted by Jez in the unit next to mine.’
‘Er, lovely,’ Maddy muttered doubtfully. ‘Not so “straight from South Downs” they forgot to kill it first, I hope?’
‘God no; don’t you like it?’
‘It’s distinctive,’ said Maddy, ‘although now you mention it, I can tell it’s dead by the smell.’
‘Same old Mads,’ said Flora happily. ‘Whatcha doing?’ she added, peering at the pile of icy lumps Maddy was hauling out of the freezer.
‘Disposing of unwanted UFOs.’
‘You what?’
‘Unidentified Frozen Objects,’ she elucidated. ‘I need to sort out the menus and, frankly, I can’t use a lot of this because I don’t know what it is and how long it’s been here.’
‘Hmm. I see your problem,’ agreed Flora. ‘I’m pretty sure this is fish pie.’ She poked one cling-film-wrapped parcel. ‘Or possibly apple crumble.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Maddy, taking it from her and lobbing it into the dustbin on the other side of the kitchen. ‘She shoots, she scores,’ she cried, making crowd-cheering noises. ‘So, how’s everyone?’
‘Fine,’ Flora replied. ‘We’ve all missed you, of course, taking off like that, without warning.’ A frisson of criticism fizzled and then faded. Flora gave Maddy a twisted smile. ‘It was all crap,’ she admitted. ‘A mess. But I’m glad you’re back.’
They both stared into space, remembering.
‘I’m sorry …’ they both blurted, simultaneously, and then laughed.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Maddy, ‘that I didn’t respond to your texts when I went to London.’ She looked at Flora, appalled and remorseful to see the girl’s chin wobble at the memory. ‘It was unforgivable. But I just needed to separate myself completely from … everything here.’
She looked at Flora with pleading eyes, willing her to understand.
‘I’m sorry too,’ said Flora at last, twisting a beaded plait distractedly. ‘I’m sorry it happened and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t stay. If I could have done something … I didn’t realise …’ she trailed off. ‘You didn’t even say you were going to leave,’ she added, her voice filled with betrayal and regret.
Maddy rushed over and gathered her friend into a hug again.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, into Flora’s sheepskin jacket. ‘It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing. Nothing you could have done differently. Honest. But I didn’t mean for you to get hurt as well.’
They clung together, until Maddy eventually leant back and looked Flora in the face.
‘Are we good?’
Flora nodded. ‘’Course.’ She summoned a wobbly grin. ‘Just don’t go again, okay?’
Maddy couldn’t answer. She knew she would, but this time she would do it right.
‘Things to do,’ she went on briskly after a moment. She got up, chucking the last few frozen parcels into the bin, saving only the several bags of frozen peas.
‘Soup,’ she explained economically. ‘Talk to me while I cook? Make us a cup of tea and tell me the news.’
While Flora was filling her in, she quickly diced a bag of onions and a couple of pounds of potatoes into a big pan. After frying them gently in butter she poured in all the bags of frozen peas and added several pints of milk and some stock cubes.
While it was coming to the boil, she chucked yesterday’s French bread into the blender and whizzed it into breadcrumbs.
‘Wow,’ said Flora, as she watched her friend giving the soup an occasional stir whilst deftly putting together a batch of shortcrust pastry. ‘You’re cooking. I’d forgotten that.’
Maddy blushed. ‘It’s nothing complicated. Just pea soup for lunch. And treacle tart too. I promised someone.’
‘I’ll definitely be having a bit.’ Flora’s mouth watered as Maddy poured golden syrup from a huge catering-size tin into a large saucepan, adding lemon juice and a pinch of dried ginger.
‘So, what’s been going on here since I left? Bit of a big question, obviously.’
‘How long’s it been?’ asked Flora. ‘Must be three years? You know me and Will got together?’
Maddy nodded, checking the soup and adding double cream.
‘We split up.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘Yeah, well …’ she said cheerfully. ‘You know how it goes. Anyhow, me and Freddie started seeing each other.’
‘Cool,’ said Maddy, not actually remembering who Freddie was. ‘He’s nice?’ she hazarded.
‘He is!’ said Flora warmly. ‘Anyhow, that’s all finished now. And then there was Steve, of course.’
‘Still with Steve?’ Maddy queried, but Flora shook her head. ‘Oh, okay,’ said Maddy, beginning to get dizzy with the effort of keeping track. ‘So,’ she said, worried how long this tale might take, ‘who are you with now?’
‘Lovely Jez,’ sighed Flora.
‘Jez the dead sheep guy?’
‘That’s the one,’ she agreed happily, drawing her shaggy waistcoat more closely around her. ‘You should come and see what we’re all doing. There’s a real buzz, you know.’
‘At the farm?’
‘Yes, although the farm’s completely gone now. First they let us have the farm buildings, then they got rid of the dairy herd altogether. They’ve sold the farmhouse now, to a rich couple from London. We thought they’d chuck us out, but they didn’t. They’re quite nice, actually. The husband, Giles, works in London and stays up there quite often, so his wife, Serena, has to look after all his rare-breed pigs. She’s really posh, all blonde and glamorous, but she swears a lot.’
While Maddy heard all about the blonde, manicured posh bird tiptoeing around in her bright pink Hunter wellies having to feed the pigs, and how the two boys Josh and Harry, both at boarding school, brought their mates to stay in the holidays, she blended the soup and put together the treacle tart. With more of the cheese from the market for ploughman’s lunches again, and Brendan’s pasties, which were selling really well, the menu was still short and simple. After just a few days of serving freshly made, simple food, she was gratified to see the number of lunch covers already rising every day. It would give her something positive to tell Patrick when she saw him next.
‘You should come and see us after lunch,’ Flora was saying. ‘We’ve got a guy making shoes, a muralist, potter, everything. It’s a really good vibe. We all muck in together.’
‘I will,’ decided Maddy, shoving her guilt at the work proposals and emails right down into the back of her mind. ‘It does sound absolutely brilliant. I can’t stay long, though.’
Flora nodded, distracted, as Maddy slid a slice of warm treacle tart onto a plate and handed it to her with a jug of thick, double cream.
‘Enjoy,’ said Maddy. ‘I’ve got to open up.’
Flora was in no hurry to leave. After she had polished off her tart she ensconced herself in the window seat near Pirate, who responded by dipping his head coyly and trying to climb onto her shoulder. She watched Maddy hungrily as she whisked around. Eternally sweet and optimistic in nature, Flora reminded Maddy of a dog that wags its tail at a cruel master. With the disappearing trick she had pulled, she wondered who was the cruel master and thought – guiltily – it might be her.
The pub was pleasingly busy. A couple of people who had heard about yesterday’s leek and potato soup were quickly persuaded to try the sweet and creamy pea soup instead. The treacle tart was snapped up too, with expressions of bliss and rueful regret at the effect on waistlines.
Maddy was just chatting to a jovial man in a blazer who was having a drink at the bar with his wife when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw two new customers come in and head for the bar.
‘What can I get you both?’ she said as she turned to them with a smile.
‘Hello, Maddy,’ said Ben, detaching himself from the willowy blonde at his side so he could get his wallet out. ‘What would you like, Serena?’
‘I’d like a bloody Mary’, she said. Maddy took an involuntary step back.
‘Really?’ Ben queried, raising an eyebrow.
‘Nah,’ she giggled, ‘I’ll have a dry white wine please. I just wanted an excuse to say “bloody”. As a matter of fact, what I’d really like is a “bloody Giles”. It would be nice if he was here once in a while, rather than skiving off to London all week. His sodding pigs got out again last night. Before I bumped into you I’d spent the morning rounding the little buggers up from not one but three of our neighbours, who think the whole thing’s damned hilarious.’
Ah, thought Maddy. Clearly this was the sweary posh bird.