Fate Worse Than Death (3 page)

When she faced them on her own Lois felt trapped, a prisoner behind the bar. She was a neatly attractive woman in her mid-thirties, her figure still good, her smooth fair hair held back from her round face by a band of ribbon, her twice-daily fresh blouse either pie-frilled or tied at the neck in a bow. But her anxious brown eyes and full, slightly drooping cheeks gave her the look of a worried hamster, and it was this obvious vulnerability that was the attraction for the lunch-time regulars. Realizing that she disliked being teased, some of them liked nothing better than to tease her.

One of their favourite pastimes was to engage her in discussion of the food. Lois was a good cook, and she and Phil had taken over the pub with the intention of building up a trade in hot and cold bar snacks. This was an innovation at the Flintknappers Arms, and the more vocal of the regulars found Lois's chalked-up menus an inexhaustible source of entertainment. They would read them aloud, haltingly, like great stubble-chinned backward boys, solemnly enquiring about the ingredients of each dish; and Lois, hopeful of their custom, had at first explained and described with kindly patience.

But there seemed to be nothing on the menu that they ever fancied. What they would
really
like, they finally said in answer to her desperate enquiry, was a juicy rabbit pie, well flavoured with onions, such as they remembered from their youth.

Anxious to please, Lois went out of her way to procure a rabbit and made them their pie. She chalked it up on the blackboard with pride. Ah, said the regulars, nudging each other, but was it a
fresh wild
rabbit? They knew perfectly well that a lingering strain of the myxomatosis that had decimated the Breckland rabbits in the 1950s had effectively stopped any trade in the creatures.

Lois had no sense of self-preservation. Unwilling to lie, she admitted that the only rabbit she had been able to find was in a deepfreeze cabinet in the International stores at Breckham Market.

Frozen
rabbit? said the regulars, scandalized. No, no, that weren't no good. 'Tweren't no use offering them rabbit unless it was fresh from the warren. They couldn't stomach aught else, they said, sniggering surreptitiously. It wasn't until they had gone through a similar routine with their next request, for steak and mushroom pie (
bought
mushrooms? No, no, mushrooms had to be fresh-picked from what used to be the paddock at the old Hall. Hoss muck, that was what mushrooms needed – why, you used to be able to gather great ol'things as big as saucers, nothing to beat'em for flavour. They couldn't fancy
bought
mushrooms) that Louis realized it was all a tease. With the exception of Howard Braithwaite and Desmond Flood, not one of the regulars had any intention of spending money at the Flintknappers on food.

Lois was vexed. She thought their joke stupid and inconsiderate, and she allowed her hurt feelings to show. The men loved it, watching with coarse-featured, gap-toothed glee as her cheeks reddened and her breasts heaved with suppressed indignation. They felt no malice towards her, but they shared a streak of ancient rural barbarism that led them in instinctive pursuit of anything defenceless. Sensing her growing fear of them, they never tired of tormenting her.

It was so easy to fluster Lois. They soon found that they could take it in turns to get her in a tizzy by calling out an order while she was serving someone else and then claiming, when she had pulled their beer, that they had ordered something different.

And then there was the money game. ‘You've given me the wrong change!' one of them would protest. The others would support him, staging loud and inaccurate reconstructions of the transaction and confusing Lois completely. It was not their intention to rob her, but they always carried the joke and its many variations to the brink, harrying her until she was prepared to placate them with money. Only then, when she stood at bay beside the open till, would the originator relax and look again at the change she had given him and say with a smirk, ‘Ah, no – hold you hard. I do b'lieve you're right, my dear. My mistake.'

Lois grew to hate the lot of them. But as long as she was left in sole charge of the bar only on the odd occasion, she was prepared to endure. What finally drove her to protest to her husband was the unusually hot weather that occurred during their second summer at the pub; the low-ceilinged bar room became unbearably stuffy, and the mingled smells of the customers'beer and sweat sickened her. And now she was forced in there much more often, because Phil had taken to disappearing almost every day.

When she complained one morning, her husband was noisily incredulous.

‘Oh come
on
, Lois – don't try to tell me you're run off your feet, I can see from the takings that you aren't. Surely you can give me a break at lunch-time, considering that I'm stuck behind the bar every single night of the year!'

Lois explained why she found the regulars unpleasant. She longed to tell them to take their custom elsewhere, she said, but she was afraid to do so because trade was so slack.

Phil Goodwin shouted in alarm. ‘Don't do anything to turn them away, for God's sake! The takings are too low as it is, we need every penny we can make. And don't be so sensitive – if they try to tease you, just laugh it off. They're all trogs,‘ he added with contempt; he avoided his midday customers because he despised them. ‘They must be direct descendants of the Neolithic flint-miners!'

‘Not all of them. You can hardly call Howard Braithwaite a trog, or Desmond Flood. They don't belong to this part of the country any more than we do. But that doesn't make them any easier to deal with. I feel sorry for Desmond – it's humiliating for him that Sandra went off just before they were going to be married – but I'm glad he's stopped lunching here now. He was always such a misery. As for Howard, he's bad-tempered and picky with his food. From the way he barks and complains you'd think he couldn't stand the sight of me, and hated coming here. But he hides behind the
Financial Times
so that he doesn't have to talk to the other customers, and sometimes he holds the paper upside down. Whenever I happen to look in his direction I can see him peering at me over his half-moon glasses … I don't like him. He's creepy.'

Her husband dismissed her unease. ‘An old fool having harmless fantasies. Ignore him.'

‘And Charley Horrocks isn't a trog either, not with that upper-crust accent. But he's the most difficult of the lot.'

‘Charley Horrocks is a nutter!' Goodwin exclaimed. ‘If you can get rid of him, do. He'll be no loss!'

‘Don't think I haven't tried. But I can't deal with him, Phil – he's impossible to communicate with. I'm sure he's been getting worse lately, the heat must have gone to his head. Couldn't you make a point of staying here today and getting rid of him yourself?'

‘Ah, well, yes, I'd stay if I could, love. But I have to go and see the accountant. My appointment's at twelve – God, is that the time, I'll have to rush!'

Lois wasn't surprised by his reaction. She knew her husband too well. For one thing, he wasn't really any better at coping with the regulars – and with Charley Horrocks in particular – than she was. For another, he was obviously up to something.

The pub closed, as the licensing laws demanded, from two-thirty in the afternoon until six in the evening. The Goodwins had those few hours to themselves each day, and it would have been more practical for Phil to see his accountant then. It would also be a useful saving of petrol if Lois could take the opportunity to go to Breckham Market with him and do the shopping. So if Phil deliberately made his appointment at a time when she couldn't accompany him, it must be because he had some good reason for wanting to shake her off. Probably he wasn't going to see the accountant at all; perhaps he wasn't even going to Breckham Market …

‘You've plenty of time,' she suggested brightly. ‘You needn't leave for at least half an hour. I've been thinking – if you really must go into town today, why not take the children to the swimming-pool? They'd love that. I'll see if I can find them.'

‘No!' Phil used the second finger of his right hand to make a characteristically nervy tour of his three-sided moustache, as though to make sure that it was still there. ‘No point in trying to find them, they'll be in the forest with their friends. Anyway, I can't hang about, you know how difficult it is to park in Breckham. I'd better leave now. Listen, don't worry about Charley Horrocks, everybody knows he's harmless. Just don't let him con you, that's all. The trogs are honest, I'll say that for them, but Horrocks will do us down if he can. Don't for God's sake give him any credit! All right? Good girl –'

As a parting gesture, he patted her bottom. It was not a form of caress that Lois greatly cared for at the best of times and she particularly disliked it when, as then, it was done absent-mindedly. But she took it as conclusive proof of what he was up to.

She recognized all the symptoms. He was on the prowl again. Whenever he was dissatisfied and restless, he went looking for excitement with another woman. She minded, of course; but she knew better than to take any of his affairs seriously. Phil was always full of talk, but not much use when it came to action.

The Flintknappers Arms opened at ten-thirty in the morning, every day of the week, and closed finally at eleven at night. The Goodwins did all the work themselves, except on Saturday mornings when they employed Beryl Websdell to give the bar room a thorough cleaning.

They rarely got to bed until well after midnight, and were always up again before seven each morning. There was always so much for both of them to do: last night's final glasses and dirty ashtrays to be washed, the bar towels to be laundered, the ladies'and men's lavatories to be swabbed out, everywhere to be cleaned and polished; hot and cold food to be prepared, the bar to be checked and restocked, the till to be cashed up, crates of empty bottles to be heaved out, crates of full bottles to be heaved in. The cellar work alone – disconnecting empty beer casks, cleaning the pipes, connecting full casks – took Phil Goodwin anything up to two hours a day.

Lois had to fit in her ordinary domestic work in their private quarters as and when she could. One of her grievances about being tied to the bar from ten-thirty to two-thirty was that it was such a waste of her time when she had so much to do elsewhere. In a smaller, more compact building, it might have been possible for her to keep an eye on the bar from her kitchen; at the Flintknappers the two were separated by a lobby, a long passage and four doors. In a more civilized community, the regulars might postpone their visit to the pub until at least noon; in Fodderstone, Charley Horrocks was invariably on the doorstep at opening time every day of the week, every week of the year.

‘Hottest August for half a century or I'll eat m'hat!' he boomed as he shambled past Lois on his way to his favourite bar stool. His massive body was clothed in a government-surplus khaki shirt and trousers of voluminous World War II cut, and his features were overshadowed by a solar topee as worn in India in the days of the British Raj. He frequently asserted that the hat had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, the third Earl of Brandon; but everyone in Fodderstone knew perfectly well that Charley had bought it for fifty pence at a village jumble sale.

‘Hottest, or I'll eat m'hat,' he repeated as he sank panting on to the stool. His beetroot complexion was glazed with sweat. ‘Eat m'hat,' he concluded, taking it off to reveal sparse grey hair hanging limp about his ears. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. Lois was still at the double doors, fastening them back so as to let in as much air as possible, and having recovered his breath he summoned her by slapping his hand on the counter. ‘Service! Let's have some service here!'

Lois should have taken a firm line with him from the first, but she had been over-anxious to please every customer. Now it was too late for her to try to insist on courtesy. She glared at his back, pursed her lips above the pie-frill of her collar, and went round to her side of the bar, silent with a disapproval that Charley failed to notice.

‘'Mornin', m'deah,' he boomed with lordly affability, as though he had only just seen her. Unlike her husband, he never shouted. He had no need to. He possessed the naturally penetrating voice of the horsey upper classes, having been bred to make himself heard above the noise of pounding hooves. ‘I'll have a pint of your best.'

Lois closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She knew by heart how the conversation would proceed. It was always the same, every day of the week, every week of the interminable year.

‘Only if you pay cash.'

He affected not to hear. When she repeated it he blustered, ‘Haven't been to the bank today. Just put it on the slate.'

His tone of command never failed to infuriate her, but she kept her dignity. ‘You know perfectly well that we don't give credit.'

‘And why not, hey? Are you implyin'that my credit isn't good? Now see here, m'family used to own this village, and most of Breckland as well. My credit's good throughout Suffolk. Just you pull me a pint, and let's have no more of this bloody nonsense.'

‘Not until you pay for it in cash.'

‘For God's sake …' He tugged a chequebook from the pocket on his bulging hip. ‘Change one of these for me, then. Twenty pounds'll do to be going on with.'

Lois took a second deep breath. Charley Horrocks had owed them money for over a year. Phil frequently demanded repayment, and every so often Charley would condescend to write him a cheque; but the cheques always bounced.

‘You know we don't change cheques without a bank guarantee card,' she said.

Charley huffed and puffed, attempting to blow down her defences. No gentleman, he asserted, could be expected to carry pieces of plastic about his person. ‘Fetch me your employer, m'good woman,' he commanded, waving his chequebook. Lois's hamster cheeks quivered but she said nothing, knowing that he would eventually discover that he had just enough cash in his pockets for his immediate needs.