Love: A Messy Business (2 page)

As she free-wheeled her way down the hill to the village, she wondered to herself why she was so interested in such a mundane thing as some people moving in.  Had her life really become that uninteresting?  Well, yes it had, actually.  It was hard to believe that it would soon be a year since she’d come home from University, a Psychology degree in one hand and twenty thousand pounds of student debt in the other.   At the rate she was paid at the Red Lion, she’d be a hundred before she paid the latter off and she still wouldn’t have found something useful to do with the former.   What use was psychology in a pit village, or an ex-pit village to be more precise? An ability to brew good beer or breed prize-winning greyhounds was much more in demand, and always likely to be.  Yet could she afford to move away to a bigger place where there might be some sort of proper career?   An endless cycle of poverty and pub karaoke was beckoning and it was depressing.

And so it was that Kate didn’t arrive at the Red Lion in a particularly good frame of mind.  It didn’t improve when she was told that Emma, the other barmaid, had called in sick (more like sick of working at the Red Lion, thought Kate) and was “invited” to do a double shift right through until last orders.  What else could she do but accept?  She had nothing else planned that day and she could definitely do with the extra cash.  The pub seemed even stuffier than usual and the day dragged by until the regulars came in for their evening pint. 

Eventually it was time, Kate decided, to take off her blouse to reveal her trademark low-cut bodice underneath, of which the (male) customers were always most appreciative.  She’d been blessed with brains but she hadn’t done too badly in the boob department either, it had to be said - a genuine 36D, a Double D in some bras.    Thanks Mum.  She wasn’t actually wearing a bra today though, as she’d found that this was the best way of maximising her tips, tips that she badly needed.   She had managed to convince herself that it was her who was doing the manipulating and using the men to get what she wanted, not the other way around. She did, after all, have a degree in Psychology. Most of the time, she believed her attempt at self-justification. 

What always happened was one of those strange occurrences where everyone knew what was going on but nothing was ever said about it.  Even between the blokes, there was only the occasional raising of the eyebrows and a blowing out of the cheeks as if it to say, “whoa, just look at that”.  The men knew full well that she was deliberately giving them an eyeful and were prepared to pay her for it.  She knew full well that the five pound notes arriving in the glass jar on the top of the bar were not deposited there because of her adroitness at pulling a good pint.  After all, poor flat-chested Emma was lucky to take home more than a few coins at the end of her shift.  But everyone went home happy, up to a point.   The men wished they were going home to wives with a similarly inviting cleavage, while Kate wished she was going home to somebody, somebody who appreciated her for who she was, not just for what she had on display.

Fred Yates was not one of the better tippers, but Kate still had a bit of a soft spot for him as his wife of almost forty-five years had passed away from cancer a couple of years ago and he’d never really recovered.  She didn’t begrudge him a pleasant view as he drank his usual pint of stout, excruciatingly slowly to prolong the entertainment for as long as possible on his meagre pensioner’s budget.  He liked to talk, not having anyone to talk to at home.  The conversation was rarely thrilling but it was harmless enough and helped to pass the time.

“So, I see the new owner’s moving in, eh love?”  Fred lived just opposite to Ashton House and Kate guessed that was what he was referring to, given there were no other recently sold houses in the village.

“Yeah, Fred.  I saw one of the delivery vans being unloaded as I came in to work.”

“One of the delivery vans? What do you mean?  There only was one van that I saw.  I was out in the front garden doing my weeding all day, apart from a few toilet breaks. My prostate, you see…”

Except to grimace sympathetically, Kate ignored the final clarification, which she felt fell under the category of “Too Much Information”, and continued to press for more details.

“Really?  That’s odd, don’t you think?  The place will be half-empty…”

Fred scratched his chin. “Maybe they’re those folk who they say are “house poor”, you know – they’ve spent all their money on buying the house and now they can’t afford to put any stuff in it.  Mind you, they’ve got enough money to buy a fancy car – nice blue Range Rover he was driving.”

“Who?” 

“Who do you bloody think? The new owner of course!  He was just arriving as I was setting off to come here.  Only a young chap, a lot younger than I expected.  Can’t be more than thirty at most by my reckoning.”

“Really? That’s interesting.  Well I bet he’s either moving in with his parents and they’ve sent him on ahead to get things ready, or else he’s married an older woman and she’s bringing the kids later.”

“Well now’s your chance to find out.  He’s just walked in.”

Kate’s head turned violently and involuntarily to the door and she saw Colin Love for the first time.  Kate would always deny that it was love at first sight, but right from the start she saw that there was something about him.   Hovering just outside the doors that he had barely managed to squeeze through, he had the air of a relieved newborn that had just emerged uncertainly into the world after a particularly difficult labour.  He stuck out like a sore thumb; probably feeling very much out of place in a room full of strangers, some of whom were now staring at him with curiosity and one or two with a little bit of hostility.   It had likely been quite a while since they had seen someone in their pub wearing a suit, complete with a waistcoat and it must have seemed a bit of a breach of working class etiquette.

Colin made his way to the bar – after all where else would a visitor go in search of a welcoming face and a drink to hide behind?  However, it wasn’t Kate’s face that he first made eye contact with and he reddened profusely at the sight and seemed not to know quite what to say or where to look.  Kate found that quite amusing and even a little endearing.  There was nothing she liked better than to get a man on the back foot.

“Evening, love.  What can I get for you?”

Colin looked blankly at Kate for a second or two, seemingly trying to digest what was really a very straightforward question to be asked by a barmaid in a pub.   Then his confused look broke into a smile.

“Oh, of course!  I’m so sorry. I’ll have a pint of…what’s that you have there?  Stella Artois?  That would be just perfect. Thank you.”

If Colin’s unusual attire had not given the game away, what came out of his mouth certainly did.  He was not “from round these parts” as the locals would say.  He was, they would have said with a certain amount of distaste, a Southerner. 

Kate, however, said nothing but simply smiled, nodded her head and reached for a pint glass from the shelf above her head. 

Colin obviously felt he should explain his delayed response to her question.  “I do apologize for my hesitation just now.  I was thrown by the fact that you seemed to know my name already.”

“I did?”

“Yes!  But then I realized you were calling me ‘love’, like you people do up here - not Love with a capital L.”  Colin motioned the shape of a letter L with his hand as if to make the point clearer, but all that was clear was that Kate was not following him at all.

“Love!  My name’s Love, Colin Love.”  He reached his hand out over the bar to shake hands.

“Oh, right!  I see!” said Kate. “That’s so funny!” She then realised that this might be taken the wrong way and rushed to clarify.  “I mean, that’s funny that you thought I knew your name, not that your name is Love…”

“Don’t worry! I knew what you meant and, besides, I’ve had to live with my surname all my life so I’ve pretty much heard it all, believe me.   It seems to be quite impossible to take a flight without a flight attendant telling me that “Love is in the Air” once we take off – they always think they’re the first ones to ever think of it.  It used to bother me so much that I used to take the stairs rather than the lift at my first job.”

“I’m sorry, you’ve lost me…”

“You know…that song by Aerosmith….Love in…an…”

“Oh, of course.  “Love in an Elevator”.

“You’ve got it.  There was one colleague at work that would watch out for me getting in that bloody lift just so he could start singing that chorus. What a wanker. I can laugh about it now though.”

“Well, that’s a good attitude to have.  I’m afraid I can’t compete with your surname – mine’s pretty dull…Boswell.  My nickname was Boozewell at university for...err…for obvious reasons.”

“I think I can guess.  And now you’re working in a pub.  Seems like a pretty logical career move, if you ask me!”

“You must be joking.   I didn’t get twenty grand into debt from four years at university to spend the rest of my life serving beer to a bunch of no-hopers.”

Realizing that she had said that just a little too loudly, she added, somewhat lamely, “No offence everybody.”

“None taken,” replied Mick, laconically, who was sitting in his usual seat next to where Colin was standing.  “The light at the end of the tunnel was switched off for good when the pit was closed down - thanks to Margaret bloody Thatcher.”

Wisely, Colin decided that now might not be the best time to pull out the Conservative Party membership card from his wallet for general inspection.  It might just get ripped up, and he along with it.  But he couldn’t resist making a comment.

“But, that must have all happened twenty-five years ago or more, thirty even?”

“June 16, 1987.  Twenty seven years, eleven months and three days.”  The date and the event were clearly etched in Mick’s brain.  “And there are some people in this village who haven’t worked since.”

“It’s all market forces though, isn’t it?  If the mines had paid their way, they would still be open. Survival of the fittest and all that.”

“Wouldn’t expect a bloody Southerner to understand ‘owt…” replied Mick, who finished the rest of his pint, banged the glass down with some venom and quickly walked to the exit.  His original idea of making a further point by banging the door loudly behind him was of course scuppered by its uncooperative hinges, so he had to be satisfied with a shake of the head and a meaningful glare as he squeezed out.

“Are there any more of my customers you’d like to annoy this evening?” asked Kate, a bit tartly, although she wasn’t really too upset.  Mick was a terrible tipper and he had drunk his one and only pint of the evening.  He’d be back to do the exact same thing again tomorrow.

“Ah, yes.  Awfully sorry about that.  Didn’t realize it was such a touchy subject.”

“Really?  Then you don’t know much about this part of the world then, do you? 

“I’m afraid I don’t.  I’ve lived all my life in the London area - Tunbridge Wells as a matter of fact - and this is my first time “oop North”.  He ended with a pretty terrible attempt at a northern accent, which Kate was too polite to comment on, preferring to get a little dig in of her own.

“Yeah, I could tell you’re from London way by your accent.  I bet you got a nosebleed when you got north of Watford Gap, didn’t you…”

“Nosebleed? No, I didn’t get that, but I think I may have picked up a few lice up here though.”  He scratched his armpit apishly and with a cheeky grin, which made Kate chuckle.  

“Touche.  We may have lice but at least we don’t have any of those parasites that you get down there – all those investment banker wankers.”

“Oh God yes. I couldn’t agree more.  Bunch of rogues, the lot of them.  I’m all for making money but some of those bonuses are completely unethical, aren’t they?   I much prefer to be among honest, hard-working folk up here.”

“Ha!  Probably more honest than hard-working.  But we do like to call a spade a spade, there’s no doubt about that.   Why are you up here anyway?  What do you do for a living?”

“Oh, I suppose it would be fair to say that I have a finger in quite a number of pies.”  A smile was playing in the corners of Colin’s mouth which indicated that he had just made a private joke to himself that he was enjoying hugely – but of course Kate had no idea what might lie behind it.  She was just about to enquire further when there was an almighty crash, followed almost instantaneously by some very rude words.   Peter, his senses dulled by a copious intake of celebratory alcohol had accidentally banged into a table full of nearly-empty pint glasses and sent half of them crashing to a fragmentary fate. 

“Oh shit…”, said Kate, executing her well-rehearsed routine of grabbing a mop and bucket in one hand and a dustpan and brush in the other and dashing over to clean things up.  Rather than be chivalrous and help, Colin simply sat and watched, enjoying first the view of her rear encased in her tight leather skirt and then, as she adjusted her position, an unhindered sightline down her top, revealing a mesmerising combination of jiggling and swinging that in just a few seconds forced Colin to dismount from the bar stool to allow for greater mobility in the groin area. 

Eventually, Kate returned from her disaster recovery exploits to continue the conversation that she had been quite enjoying.  But there was no sign of Colin.  In fact, the only evidence that he had been there at all was in her tip jar – a brand-new and deliciously crisp twenty pound note.

CHAPTER THREE: AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING

There was no sign of Colin at the pub for the next few days either.   Kate found that she kept looking at the door every few minutes to see if a new arrival happened to be him and she was disappointed at the end of each shift when, again, he hadn’t put in an appearance.  It was partly due to the fact that there was no opportunity for another welcome donation to her anti-poverty fund, but it was more than that.  He was good-looking, there was no doubt about that – quite tall and he obviously looked after himself, which was more than could be said for most of the blokes around the place, for whom grooming, diet and personal hygiene seemed to be quite alien concepts.   Intelligent conversation wasn’t part of their repertoire either, and Colin seemed pretty articulate and ready to talk in more than grunts and expletives.  Kate reflected that she couldn’t remember having a decent conversation with a real, live male since she had left University.