Christmas at the Dog & Duck

by Jill Steeples

  ‘What are Eric’s plans, do you know?’

  ‘When he leaves the pub? I don’t think he knows yet. I’m not sure he’s thinking that far ahead. What I do know is that it’ll be a major upheaval for him. He’s trying to appear as if it doesn’t bother him, but I can tell he’s really concerned about the future. The pub has been his whole life for so long. He’ll find it a huge wrench to leave.’

  ‘Hmmm, I bet. And he’s not the only one either. Think of all the locals who use the pub as a meeting place. That won’t happen if the place is turned into a restaurant.’

  ‘Exactly. It will have a real impact on the local community.’

  ‘And you personally, I guess? If you were to lose your job.’

  ‘Yeah. I’d be sad to leave the pub, but that doesn’t really matter. I can always find another job. It’s more the loss of the pub to the community that concerns me. And what it will mean for Eric, of course.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll take the opportunity to retire?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Although I couldn’t really see Eric as the type to sit at home in his slippers watching Tipping Point. It was the pub that gave him a purpose, a reason to get up in the mornings. My gaze drifted out of the kitchen window as we fell silent for a few moments, both lost in our own thoughts.

  ‘Look, do you fancy a drink? I’m going to call in to the pub on my way back – do you want to come with me?’ Max’s deep brown eyes appraised me warmly. A look I’d seen before. A look I’d previously misinterpreted as desire. Now, in the unflattering lights of the kitchen, in my grease-stained PJs, I saw the look in his eyes for what it really was: friendliness, politeness. That was all. There was no hidden meaning behind the seductive gaze. No desire to rip off my clothes and take me on the carpet. What had I been thinking?

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve got plans,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

  ‘Shame.’ He nodded, his gaze sweeping over me. ‘Maybe some other time?’

  I smiled and showed Max to the front door.

  Some other time? I highly doubted it. Max had a girlfriend. And as much as I liked him, I didn’t really want him as my friend. I had plenty of those already and spending too much time alone with Max was likely to do serious damage to my peace of mind.

  Seventeen

  ‘Why don’t you go off for an hour or two, love, and enjoy the celebrations outside?’

  It was the August bank holiday weekend and Little Leyton’s summer fayre was well underway. The sun was shining high in a cloudless sky and already we’d seen a steady trickle of customers through the doors of The Dog and Duck. We had jugs of cold Pimms filled to the brim with strawberries and mint and oranges, ready for serving, and the garden was bathed in a warm glow, festooned with colourful bunting and an array of billowing hanging baskets and pot plants.

  ‘Would you mind?’ I asked, already undoing the ties to my apron. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll be long.’

  ‘Take as long as you like, darling,’ said Eric fondly, who I suspected wouldn’t be going far, but instead would be happy mooching around his pub all day, chatting with his customers.

  Outside, the warm sun caressed my bare arms. I popped my sunglasses on and wandered down the High Street and around the village green, stopping at all the stalls to inspect the goodies being sold. Already, I’d bought a jar of green tomato chutney, some plum jam and a lemon drizzle loaf. I was just walking past the stall for St. Cuthbert’s when I heard someone calling out my name.

  ‘Over here, Ellie!’

  Standing with her head and hands through the wooden stocks was the Reverend Trish Evans who was smiling at me broadly and waving as best she could with her hands locked down.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I said, dropping my head to the side to talk to her.

  ‘Would you like to have a go at throwing some wet sponges at me? Three for 50p. You know it’s for a good cause.’

  I didn’t like that idea at all. It didn’t seem right somehow to be throwing wet sponges at the vicar, but if she insisted… And as Trish had mentioned, the proceeds from today’s fayre would be split between two worthwhile charities, a local children’s hospice and a fund towards building a permanent structure for the refugees in France.

  When Max and I had returned from our trip, me, Josie and Eric had all agreed that we wanted to continue our fund raising activities for the refugees in Calais. Max had volunteered the services of a couple of his men to go and help with the construction of the new building, but they still needed donations towards building materials. We saw it as an on-going campaign and had decided to continue collecting clothing donations in the pub too, with a view to making further trips over to France in the future. Although one thing was for sure, if I was going over to the continent again, I certainly wouldn’t be taking Max as my co-driver. No way. That route led only to disappointment and heartache as I’d already found out to my cost.

  Now, I popped my 50p in the bucket and picked up the first sponge. I threw it half-heartedly in the direction of Trish, but it fell far short of reaching her.

  ‘Come on, Ellie, you can do better than that,’ urged Trisha.

  Thankfully my second and third attempts were just as bad, one went flying over her head and the other hit the wooden board to the side of Trisha’s face. Mind you, I did wonder if it had been anyone else locked in those stocks, someone like Max Golding, whether my aim would have been much better. The way I felt about him now I’d probably pay fifty quid to throw wet sponges into his face. I sighed, wondering how one man – one gorgeous and unavailable man admittedly – had managed to lodge himself into my head quite so firmly, and was now refusing categorically to move out.

  Waving goodbye to Trish, I wandered on, past the tombola and the coconut shy.

  At the Daisy Chain Mother and Toddlers stall, I spent a lovely time browsing through their selection of paperbacks, before picking out a romance, a crime thriller and an historical saga. I loved a bit of bedtime reading and once I’d finished with them they’d be able to go on the bookshelves at the pub.

  ‘Oh, hi Ellie, how are you?’

  It was Victoria Evans, the young woman from the local newspaper. With sunglasses worn high on her head and with her notepad and pen in her hand, she looked every inch the roving reporter.

  ‘Great thanks. And you?’

  ‘Yes. I’m doing a write-up of the event for the paper so I’m just getting round trying to see as much as I can.’

  ‘Well, my highlight has been throwing wet sponges at your mum,’ I admitted, with a smile.

  ‘Ha ha, yes, you’ve reminded me. I need to go and have a try at that too. I don’t get too many of those kind of opportunities,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘If you have a chance, Victoria, could you mention in your article that there is still a collection point in the pub for any donations that people might want to make towards the refugee fund.’

  ‘Of course, I will,’ she said, hurriedly scribbling it down in her notebook.

  ‘Oh, and if you’ve got any other free spots in the paper in the coming weeks, perhaps you could do a little mention of the German beer festival that we’ll be holding soon. There’ll be music and dancing and regional German foods and some great beers too. It’s always a brilliant event, it would be good to spread the word.’

  ‘We’ve got an “upcoming events” feature in the paper now, so I’ll make sure it goes in there, if you like?’

  ‘Thanks Victoria, you’re a star.’

  I felt much more at ease asking Victoria for help, rather than her boss Tim Weston, who I’d always found a bit slippery and sleazy. I knew if I’d asked him for help in promoting our events he would only have probed me on what was happening behind the scenes at the pub and I really didn’t want to be drawn into those kind of conversations. Not that I would have anything to tell him. There were low-level mutterings sweeping around the village that the pub might be changing hands soon, but it was still just rumour and intrigue at the moment.

  Half an hour later, I eas
ed myself up from the grass where I’d taken the opportunity to lie in the sun, dipping into the romance I’d bought and relishing the sensation of the sunrays caressing my skin. Hot and sultry days like these were few and far between so you had to make the most of them when you could. Wandering back to the pub, I passed Paul and Caroline, my parents’ next-door neighbours, who were standing in the queue to the refreshments tent.

  ‘Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea with us, Ellie?’ Caroline beckoned me over.

  That’s what I loved so much about Little Leyton. That I could wander through the village and meet so many friends, people who looked out for me and cared about me. In London, I could go for days without talking to anyone but the people I worked alongside. Here, if I hadn’t drawn my curtains by eight-thirty in the morning, then I knew someone would be knocking on my door asking if everything was okay.

  Relative newcomers to the village, Paul and Caroline had only moved in a couple of years earlier, but they’d quickly become good friends with our family, and Mum and Caroline were always popping into each other’s houses for a cuppa and a chat.

  ‘Oh, I do miss your mum,’ she said now, as we sat down at a table in the sun.

  ‘I know, me too, but they are loving it in Dubai. I’ll be speaking to her later, she’ll be sorry to have missed the summer fayre, she always enjoys it so much.’

  ‘Well send her my love, won’t you? And you know if there’s anything you need or if you ever want to pop round to ours for a meal, then you know you’ll always be very welcome.’

  ‘Aw, thanks Caroline.’

  Definitely, there were so many lovely friends and interesting characters to be found in Little Leyton. Talking of which… Over on the other side of the green I saw Max Golding and my heart lifted. Very interesting… Showing off his tanned legs in khaki shorts and with a fitted black T-shirt, sculpting the contours of his chest, he looked more than interesting. There should be a whole different category for the likes of Max Golding. Sexy, dashing and… I shook my head. Forget about him, Ellie. Move on, I chided myself. But where was the lovely Sasha today, I wondered with a pang. Really, I should go over and chat to him, show him that I was perfectly cool with the whole situation. Definitely, after my tea, I’d go and seek him out.

  As I took another bite into the delicious comforts of my cream scone, a flash of lightning forked through the sky and a dark rumbling of thunder indicated its intent.

  ‘Crikey, that sounds ominous,’ said Paul, looking up to the heavens. Just then the clouds opened and heavy rain poured down upon us. I held my arms up into its path. Cool, refreshing and potent. People stood up, surprised by this unexpected change in the weather, running for cover under the marquee and into the surrounding shops and houses.

  Paul chuckled, getting up from his seat. ‘I think that might be the guvnor’s way of telling us that summer is well and truly over.’

  Well, either that, or an omen to me that I should keep well away from Max Golding at all costs.

  Eighteen

  In the following weeks I took heed of that warning from the heavens and duly kept my distance from Max Golding. Fortunately, I didn’t run into him at the pub even though I knew from Dan that he had been in on a couple of occasions. And I didn’t bump into him on any of my walks either. I took that as a sign from a higher authority that this was the way it should be. Max Golding should come with a government health warning, I’d decided, and the sooner I got him out of my system the better. Luckily I’d been very busy and I hadn’t had chance to think about him… much. Although now on the last night of the beer festival with all our friends and locals in, suddenly I was feeling his absence much more keenly.

  The pub was alive with excited chatter, laughter and, yes, some raucous behaviour too. The place was filled to the gills with happy punters intent on sampling the array of beers served in traditional steins and soaking up the atmosphere provided by the oompah band, the Bavarian Buskers, who played an array of lively pop songs in folksy Bavarian style.

  Eric, Dan and the other guys had thrown themselves into the spirt of the evening and were sporting lederhosen, which gave rise to a great deal of good-natured ribaldry. Josie and I wore jaunty Tyrolean hats and had plaited our hair into bunches. With our white tie-front blouses and blue gingham aprons over black dirndl skirts we certainly looked the part of Bavarian serving ladies. All of the bar staff had been called in to assist on what we knew would be one of our busiest evenings of the year and Eric presided over proceedings with his usual flair and good humour.

  It was lovely having Josie back behind the bar, she’d only just started taking on a couple of shifts in the week leaving Ethan at home on babysitting duties. Not that we’d have much chance to chat this evening, but she had shown me the latest photos of Stella on her phone, totally adorable, and I’d made a promise to pop round to hers later in the week for a catch-up and a cuddle with little Stella.

  After serving behind the pumps for a couple of hours, I swept around the bars, collecting glasses from the tables, a job that took much longer than usual as everyone was in high spirits and wanted me to stop and chat with them. I even got roped into some energetic dancing with a couple of the buskers. A group of men who had come in from a neighbouring town by minibus had taken over the small back bar and were getting louder and merrier by the moment. Eric was keeping a close eye on them. He certainly didn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, but he wouldn’t tolerate behaviour that would spoil the enjoyment for the rest of the customers.

  As I manoeuvred around the group of guys, collecting their empties, one of the guys grabbed me around the waist and pulled me towards him.

  ‘Hello Heidi,’ he whispered in my ear, ‘You are looking very… lubb…very ludd… very luv… luverly…’ He sighed contentedly, pleased with himself at getting his words out, albeit not an actual word, but I knew exactly what he meant. ‘Can I just touch your plaits?’ He waved his hands around in front of his face trying to get a grip on my hair, but fortunately his aim was well off.

  I laughed and extracted myself from his hold. ‘I wouldn’t if I were you. My boyfriend is the strong, possessive type. Doesn’t like anyone messing about with his girl.’

  ‘Aw, well I won’t tell him if you don’t,’ said the man, who was clearly the worse for wear, having downed several pints of strong German beer over the course of the evening. His friends, who had been watching our interaction intently, threw back their heads, laughing at his antics.

  A little while later, I was back in the kitchen loading dirty glasses into the dishwasher.

  ‘Not causing you too much grief, are they?’ asked Eric, who was free of his plaster cast now and moving around much more freely.

  ‘What, that group of lads? Nah, it’s nothing I can’t handle.’

  You couldn’t be a shrinking violet or easily offended if you’d worked as a barmaid for as long as I had. I was used to the backchat, the cheeky comments and the innuendo that came with pouring pints of beer for a living. I gave as good as I got and could usually deflect a tricky situation with a sharp retort or a witty quip. If things ever got more out of hand then Eric was always around to step in and take control of the situation, but it rarely came to that.

  We were taking advantage of the much-welcome lull in the evening’s proceedings. Josie had left after the main rush wanting to get home to her little one, and Dan and Andy were out the front manning the bars. Eric poured us both a long cool lemonade topped up with ice and lemon, and we took a moment, away from the hubbub to take a reviving sip and remark on what a great evening it had been.

  ‘I haven’t seen it so busy since… well since the last beer festival.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ My mind cast back to the previous year when there had been a ‘Beers of the World’ festival. Then, I’d come home from London for a long weekend especially to attend, as a customer mind, not as a member of the bar staff. Johnny, me and a crowd of locals had sat in the front bar, sampling a variety of beers, and slowly and surely gett
ing ourselves very, very merry. I couldn’t remember much of the detail, naturally. It was all a bit of a haze then and more so now. Although I do remember the laughs. And the feeling of warmth and love I’d felt curled up in the crook of Johnny’s arm. I sighed. Tonight it was Polly snuggled up in Johnny’s arms. A pang of longing for that lost evening whirled its way around the pit of my stomach. Where had that suddenly come from?

  ‘So, Ellie?’ Eric’s voice nudged me out of my reminiscing. ‘Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘Ooh go on then.’ I ran my hands under the tap and pulled a clean, fresh tea-towel out from the dresser, tucking it into the apron on my skirt. ‘I could do with some good news, what is it?’

  ‘Hunters Inns? The company that were buying the pub? They’ve pulled out.’

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t help a big smile from spreading across my lips. ‘That is good news. But why?’

  ‘Apparently their surveyors looked at the pub and gave it the thumbs-down. I think they had plans to extend the place, but with the restrictions on it because of its listing, they realized it wasn’t going to be a viable option.’

  ‘Well we could have told them that,’ I said, laughing.

  ‘Exactly.’ Eric nodded. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am though that it’s not going to be turned into a carvery.’

  ‘Oh me too.’ I threw my arms around his big chest, giving him a squeeze. ‘Such good news, but what’s the bad news?’

  ‘Ah yes, well, there was another buyer waiting in the wings. A new deal’s been done.’

  ‘Already?’ My moment of joy was short-lived.

  ‘Yep. A private buyer apparently, so I don’t have any details. And that’s the thing. At least with Hunters we knew what they had in mind for the pub. It’s anyone’s guess what this mystery buyer might intend to do with the old place.’

  ‘Hmm, I see what you mean. Well, it can’t be any worse than turning it into a carvery, can it?’

  Eric grimaced and gave a slow nod of his head.