Chapter 4
Beatrice
Everything has to be perfect for Arthur Cavendish.
Those have been the only words muttered this week in the village.
The bus stop has been power-washed, flowers have been planted completely out of season, and nobody seems bothered that one frosty morning will see all of them wilted.
Parts of this pub that haven’t seen the light of day in decades have been dusted and polished as though Arthur Cavendish has come to judge us for some sort of ‘best kept village’ competition.
Honestly, I don’t get the fuss. All I have ever heard about this man is that he is everything but what his father is.
He has not a touch of his humility or grace, and he does everything in his power to besmirch their name.
Everyone else is acting like Arthur’s face hasn’t been splashed across the papers all this week because of his drug-fuelled escapades, and I know for certain that his sudden appearance here is no coincidence.
Fortuitously for Arthur, they seem to have been able to overlook his wrongdoings.
Sixteen-year-old Beatrice wasn’t quite as lucky when she was caught smoking in the old barn and treated like a jezebel for at least a month after.
But I’m not holding a grudge or anything …
Still, this is the closest I’ve come to meeting a Cavendish, and the first time in years that one has visited our forgotten little village. So, I’ve had two showers and straightened my hair for the event.
‘Finally some fresh meat in the village who aren’t your cousins or pensioners and old Beatrice Norton reminds us all that she is neither a nun nor a secret OAP,’ Cerys, Tracy’s daughter, heckles from the bar whilst tugging on her nose ring as I take the feather duster to the curtain poles.
‘Jesus, girl, you actually look fit when you don’t smell like cabbages. ’
‘Thanks Cerys.’ I chuckle, unoffended. You can always rely on teenage girls to both tear you down and build you up in one singular sentence.
‘You gonna try and pull Our Eddie’s son?’ Her bluntness I’m used to, but any talk of ‘pulling’ is a sure-fire way to set a blush alight across my cheeks and neck.
‘Despite whatever the girly magazines are saying, he’s nothing special. And when would I have time, eh? Your mother works me like a dog.’ I wink at Tracy as she finishes polishing glasses that have been lined up along a shelf for so long, I was quite sure they had rotted into the furniture.
‘Oi, you spend more time sat on that bar stool yapping away than most of my punters do,’ Tracy jests and I shrug guiltily.
‘You know it’s illegal to marry livestock, right?
I’m not quite sure on the laws on marrying root veg but that’s pretty weird too.
’ Cerys continues her analysis of my shockingly dry dating life.
‘You know you’re going to have to shag a real human at some point, Bea.
And why not the sexy son of your favourite actor?
’ She attempts to wiggle her eyebrows but they’re still growing back from a failed experiment with a razor as her mother slaps her softly across the arm with the nearby tea towel.
Living, working, and socialising in the same village that, as Cerys kindly pointed out, is either made up of old-age pensioners or my entire extended family, it’s hardly a hotbed for eligible bachelors.
And as much as she tries, I categorically refuse to go on a date with Barbara’s forty-year-old fisherman grandson.
But that isn’t the reason I haven’t so much as kissed another human since I came back from London.
It just felt like, after everything that happened, love should be the least of my worries.
How could I come home after everything that happened with Tommy and just download Tinder as though nothing ever happened?
Of course, one can swipe through the entirety of Lincolnshire’s meat market in one slow afternoon in the pub so it would hardly be worth it anyway, but that’s not the point.
How could I just live a normal life? Falling in love and finding some soppy ‘happily ever after’ just didn’t feel right then, nor does it feel any better now.
Even if the new bachelor in town is Artie Cavendish.
‘Nope, my days shall remain unchanged. I’m quite happy with the cabbagey nun thing I’ve got going on.
No one’s son is getting in the way of that, even Eddie Cavendish’s.
’ I return momentarily to my dusting but the silence that falls through the pub is short-lived.
The door swings open and clatters into the umbrella stand, and a fleeting voice sticks around just long enough to inform us that Mr Cavendish has in fact arrived and it is with every urgency that the entire population be ushered out onto the streets to greet him.
Cerys, abandoning both her post and her faux teenage seriousness that makes everything uncool, charges out of the door and her mother is fast behind her.
With petty cash in the till and a few cheeky residents who wouldn’t mind taking advantage of an unmanned bar, I decide it’s best that at least one of us hang back to hold the fort.
Trying to resume my dusting, and contain my own excitement, I pace across the carpet, running my feather duster over any and every surface.
After mere minutes of this, as though my body betrays my mind’s decision to be indifferent about the whole matter, I find myself peeping from behind the drawn curtains.
The road is bloated on both sides with residents.
Though there are few of us in this village, the turnout is immense.
Thanks to the stack of old road signs local light-fingered lad Jack Swan has pinched from the various roadworks we’ve seen over the years, the whole main road is closed off and traffic diverted away.
Leaving the crowds to swarm the car from every direction.
I can’t see him through the array of fascinators and flags, but the thought of him stepping out to greet them all like long-lost friends, to show his gratitude for such a welcome, to acknowledge the enormity of all of their efforts (even the farmers have taken a day off for this; the farmers never take a day off …), it tickles in my stomach like something’s dancing and I squeeze at the curtains to try and expel some of my pleasure.
The village hasn’t felt like this for an age.
Never mind dusting the tankards in the pub, this news has seemingly cracked the fossil that had formed around our community for so long.
They’re all normally so preoccupied with saving enough of their pensions to heat their homes, or trying their best to make sure the pub, the village hall, the chapel, all remain open as an epidemic of dying villages spreads ever closer.
So I take it back; I do get the fuss. Arthur Cavendish’s arrival is the best thing this village has known in years, and the thrill I feel clutching these damp-stained curtains is excitement for those people, out there, lining that street like children, waiting for a flash of hope, a little glimpse of something thrilling.
It’s a shot of happiness that will see them through the rest of the winter, and I suppose I have to be grateful to Master Cavendish for that.
Amidst the thick of it all, I finally see him.
Sliding out from the car, he stretches up to his full height, and looks out over the crowds, his thick, dark curls only missing a crown for his royal address.
But he doesn’t smile, and his eyes flick erratically across the crowd until they settle for the longest time on the tarmac.
That’s when I notice Barbara beside him.
I could have guessed she’d be first in, probably giving him her classic ‘everyone calls me Auntie Babs’. No one calls her ‘Auntie Babs’.
Tracy, as usual, is next to save the day, and after a short conversation, Arthur waves to the crowd and follows behind the landlady. In this direction.
They’re coming inside. And I’m here, feather duster still in hand, crouched like Gollum in the window. Act natural. What is natural in this situation? Do I sit? Stand? Lounge? Voices grow louder as they near the door and I panic.
Half sitting, half lounging with my feet precariously perched on the bench, I am dusting the table in front of me when they arrive. Tracy first, then Arthur, and Cerys brings up the rear with a grin slapped on her face.
‘And this is … Beatrice?’ Tracy concludes her brief tour with a look of confusion as her eyes settle on me.
Arthur’s gaze hits me instantly, with lashes so thick and dark, they rest against his brows as his eyes widen.
He’s like a deer in the headlights, as though I am the guest of honour and it is him who’s starstruck.
As much as I definitely did my hair and make-up for myself, it’s nice to know I’ve still got it.
‘Bea.’ Cerys coughs and points to my hand. The feather duster is upside down and, in the fuss, my black dress is covered in all of the cobwebs I have gathered throughout the day. As I right my mistake, Tracy’s blush only grows, and Cerys coughs again, motioning to my legs.
So used to overalls, tatty jeans and man-spreading like a middle-aged bloke, I have forgotten the most important rule when wearing a dress: don’t flash everyone your comically large underwear.
‘Bollocks!’ I exclaim and jump to my feet, scattering more of the cobwebs over myself and the pub around me. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Cerys titters in the corner, Tracy looks at me with sympathy, and Arthur Cavendish rolls his eyes, not even trying to hide the complete second-hand embarrassment crossing his face that I had foolishly mistaken for attraction.
I have seen his face so many times in photos, on the TV, that I thought it would feel as though meeting him would be like reconnecting with an old friend.
Yet as I look at him here and now in the flesh, he’s a stranger.
There is no hint of the smile he shares on red carpets, no charming glint in his eye when he’s flirting with interviewers. The man in this pub is an empty husk.
‘It’s nice to see you’ve put on your best underwear for the occasion.
’ He finally speaks, as he fixes his expression and seems to remember who he is supposed to be.
My cheeks burn and bile rises in my throat.
I’m on my period. I wouldn’t be surprised if they all caught a glimpse of a stray wing clinging on for dear life.
The thought makes me retch, and I hide it with a cough.
Still, Arthur Cavendish watches me closely, refusing to release me from his unrelenting gaze.
‘Can I get you a drink, Mr Cavendish?’ Tracy recalls his attention and I could kiss her.
‘Erm,’ he begins, looking around the pub as though weighing up whether to trust whatever may be on offer, ‘yeah, I’ll just have a bottle of water, please.’
Safe option – can’t catch anything from a sealed bottle of water.
Still, I take the opportunity to scarper from my seat and fetch his request from behind the bar.
Putting another six feet and a car length worth of mahogany bar between us feels like the right idea; hiding even just the lower, offending part of my body is better than nothing.
As I hand him the bottle, he sets it down almost instantly as though burned by the plastic.
‘I just need to make a call,’ he says, more to Tracy than me.
‘You mind?’ He gestures to the snug, an adjoining room with a fireplace and a couple of chesterfields that is mostly reserved for a select few regulars.
‘Go ahead.’ Tracy nods and he strides away, sliding his phone out of his pocket as he goes.
Closing the door behind him, Cerys, Tracy, and I can finally let go of the breath we’ve all been too afraid to release in his presence.
‘Nice one, Bea.’ Cerys chuckles, renewing my blush. ‘Bold. Unexpected. Never let them know your next move. Like it.’
‘Don’t,’ I groan, placing my head in my hands and massaging my temples as the reminder of it all sits painfully in my skull.
‘What were you thinking, kid?’ Tracy laughs breathily and shakes me gently by the shoulder.
‘What are the chances of no one else knowing about this except for all of us here?’ I ask, knowing full well it will be the hottest topic of the church’s coffee morning tomorrow.
‘I’ve already told the girls from school,’ Cerys says, not looking up from her phone.
With a smirk, the teen moves to the snug and presses her ear to the door.
‘What are you doing?’ I hiss, as her mother moves to stand beside her.
‘Oh, come on, aren’t you even just a little bit intrigued?’ Tracy, of all people, replies, a sly smirk on her face.
Reluctantly, I move closer to the door. It’s pretty much just a thin sheet of frosted glass in a frame that slides back and forth and gets stuck before you can close it fully, nothing special, and certainly not as thick as the rest of the original doors of the place.
So, when I crouch down to listen at the gap, Arthur’s words are crystal clear.
‘I think he’s talking to a mate,’ Cerys whispers and I instinctively move closer.
‘It’s a place people would come to die,’ he says, and though it stings, he’s not exactly wrong. ‘It’s bleak. It’s like the whole village is stuck in 1940.’ He carries on in a similar vein for a while, confessing his disappointment in rather colourful ways.
Just as I am ready to listen to my conscience and move away to complete some more productive tasks, he says something I cannot miss.
‘I’ve already had one of the weirdo locals try it on with me.
’ He seems more composed now. It’s calculated, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
‘Yes, just lay there like some strange French painting, flashed me clear as day. And that’s the sort of place you believe is good for me? ’
I can’t hear the voice on the other end. I can barely hear him for the ringing in my ears that crescendos with every one of his words.
‘What an absolute state.’
That’s all I need to hear. Eavesdropping only gets you hurt.
My mum told me that so, so many times, and yet I never quite understood how much it could hurt until now.
To have a stranger twist a story, to laugh at you so plainly, to humiliate you, it feels physical, as though he has booted this stupidly thin door down and it’s sliced me in half.
Every bit of the old me I felt peeking through that window is crushed, and my fossilised heart solidifies once more.
Without another word to the sad, sympathetic faces of the landlady and her daughter, I leave the Big Apple, and go home.