Chapter Two
Lad
18 th December
That evening, Auntie Lou had booked a table for the guests who had arrived early in The Ancient Mariner pub in the village. There were six of us in total, though a few more were due to arrive and stay on the farm with us over the week.
It was a beautiful old pub with views of the sea, so picturesque it hardly looked real. The white walls were accented with old wooden beams, from which hung decorations that the owner must have kept for decades. The bright neon oranges, blues and pinks had faded with use, but I could almost smell my childhood Christmases when I looked at them, complete with a real tree at the far end of the bar with a rickety old angel atop it.
“Toad in the hole night,” Lou said as we shuffled into the sofa seats on our table with drinks in hand. “Every Tuesday in the winter, or so the barmaid told me yesterday. Very popular with the locals.”
“You’ll be a local soon,” Ross reminded her with his usual sunny smile. “A real Porthglen native.”
“It might take a while for them to accept me,” she said pointedly.
“Not with my help,” he said, planting a kiss on her cheek. She giggled like a schoolgirl.
Opposite them, Archie barely hid his snort of laughter in his pint of beer.
“Fifth of the day?” I asked him derisively.
Lou immediately shot me a warning look.
“First.” He met my eyes as he countered my accusation. “Cufflink shopping took longer than we thought.”
His bright eyes sparkled at me as if he’d won a point in our sparring game.
“How long can it possibly take to buy cufflinks?” Lou’s best friend Jude chuckled, slotting in next to me on the sofa seat.
“Too long,” Ross said. “Everything I liked was so expensive. I refuse to pay ￡500 for pieces of metal to hold my shirt cuffs together for one day.”
“Hear, hear,” Lou said, raising her wine glass and taking a gulp from it. “Weddings are so over commercialised. It’s like there are all these people waiting to take money from us just because we want to get declare our love for each other.”
“Well, then you’ll be glad to know I did not spend ￡500 on cufflinks,” Ross grinned. “Archie found me a nice pair of simple silver and aquamarine ones. Light blue to match the bridesmaid dresses.”
“How lovely,” Lou said, with a fond smile at Archie.
He nodded curtly, almost as if he was embarrassed to have been a help.
“What a thoughtful touch,” I teased. “Have you spent a lot of time thinking about the colour scheme of the bridesmaid dresses, Archie?”
He threw a glare at me and retorted, “Unlike you, I was here when they chose the colour in the shop.”
My face reddened. It wasn’t always easy to get time off work, and with the journey to Porthglen being so long, I had missed a lot of the milestones. Lou had chosen her dress with Ross, Archie and Ross’ sister – Archie’s mum – Amelia to help her. Granny Jean had declared it bad luck for the groom to be involved in choosing the wedding dress, but that hadn’t phased Lou.
“He’s going to be my husband,” she had said. “If I can’t trust his opinion, whose can I trust?”
Despite my good reasons for missing it, I had felt awful. And Archie was only making it worse.
“I think you could drive yourself mad with all these little details,” Amelia chimed in. “No one’s going to notice your cufflinks, Ross.”
“Tell that to Mum,” he scoffed.
Ross’ mum was the complete opposite of Granny Jean’s stoic pragmatism. She was a warm, sentimental and affectionate woman who had already welcomed Lou like another daughter.
Lou said she had cried at almost every detail of the wedding planning, overcome with love and pride for her son.
It was sweet, and a little overwhelming for those of us who were used to Granny Jean.
“Then Mum should pay for your cufflinks,” Amelia pointed out.
Archie was quiet, thumbing the edge of his pint glass. Sometimes it was hard to know what he was thinking, but I knew how fond he was of his uncle.
“Agreed,” Ross laughed. “But I don’t need her to. I’ll wear them just to please her.”
The food came – toad in the hole for everyone except Archie who had Coeliac disease and so could only eat gluten free food. The pub had reluctantly agreed to cater for him, which had culminated in a couple of boiled potatoes, a singular sausage and some cabbage.
He looked at it with a disappointed blink, but didn’t say anything.
I almost felt sorry for him. It had to be difficult not to be able to join in with what everyone else was eating.
He noticed me looking at him and narrowed his eyes.
“I’m surprised you’ve gone for the toad in the hole, Imogen,” he mocked. “I thought you London types exclusively ate ￡30 keto sprouted mung bean salads.”
And just like that my pity for him evaporated.
“Well, when I found out it had gluten in it, I just had to eat it in front of you,” I snarled, perhaps a little too harshly.
He grimaced. Lou and Ross both gave me reproachful looks.
“Touche,” Archie said reluctantly. In an attempt to lighten the mood for his uncle, he added. “Anyway, let’s cheers. To this wonderful evening, and the honour that we are all together to celebrate Lou and Ross’ upcoming marriage.”
The table rumbled with exclamations of ‘cheers’, and the clinking of glasses. As my pint glass knocked Archie’s cider, I could have sworn he winked at me.
The food looked like a dog’s dinner, served in a rustic fashion with a ceramic dish that was probably older than the dusty Christmas decorations, with mashed potato and gravy slopped on top of the toad in the hole and boiled veg on the side.
And yet, it was exceptional. Light, crispy Yorkshire pudding, herby savoury sausages and the creamiest mashed potatoes I’d ever had.
After the meal, I offered to get in another round of drinks.
Draining my pint, I made my way to the bar.
A grey-haired woman in an ill-fitting white polo shirt glared at me from across the bar top.
“You’re not from Porthglen.” Whether it was an observation or an accusation, I couldn’t quite say. “None of you are. What are you – travelling Christmas carollers?”
She snorted at her own joke.
“We’re a wedding party,” I explained, a little put off by her tone. “But surely you know Ross? He’s been a butcher in Porthglen for twenty years.”
“Yeah. Him I know. And his family, yeah. You , I don’t know,” she said pointedly.
“He’s marrying my aunt,” I offered. “Lou? She’s been coming here on and off for four years?”
“Never seen her before,” the barmaid said, arms crossed. “Are you going to order or what?”
Well, I guess that answered my question about being considered an outsider. Poor Lou had some ground to make up with the locals it seemed.
“Another bottle of Malbec, the house cider, whatever you’ve got on draft for my friend here, and a glass of water for my tipsy mother please Brenda.” Archie appeared next to me with a slap on my back that was slightly too hard to be considered friendly.
Brenda nodded curtly at him and started to pour the drinks.
“You come here a lot then?” I asked him testily.
“Every weekend since I was eighteen,” he answered. “And frankly, quite a few times before that too.”
“Why couldn’t you get them to make you gluten free food if you’re such a regular?” I teased.
“We don’t do that muck here,” Brenda asserted, pausing pouring my pint to make sure she was heard.
I raised an eyebrow and met Archie’s gaze next to me.
“This isn’t London,” he reminded me. “Things in the country are a little more… traditional.”
“Right,” I said. “Nothing more traditional than refusing to feed someone because of a genetic condition they have no control over.”
Brenda glared at me again, and I struggled not to be intimidated by the fire in her eyes.
“You really aren’t from round here, are you?” He laughed.
“No,” I said sternly. “Don’t say that like it’s such a terrible thing. London’s great.”
He guffawed. “If you like pollution and gentrified food.”
“And accessible transport, cultural and historical events, some of the best restaurants in the world…?” I pointed out.
“We have a bus,” he shrugged.
“That only runs twice a week,” I said. “My taxi today cost we ￡40 just from the nearest town to here.”
“Well, most people here have no reason to leave,” he said. “We’re not jetting off for conferences and facials.”
“Conferences and facials?” It was my turn to chortle. “Is that what you think my life is?”
“I remember the first time we met,” he said. “I got the gist of you just from your outfit.”
“Oh?” I said, turning from the bar to face him. “Please, do enlighten me.”
He sucked in his breath, ready for my challenge.
“Well, you were in a trouser suit that only London would think was fashionable.”
“My Molly Gray designer suit you mean?” I said. “I remember the party. It was Bonfire Night, Ross had a house party. Again, that was a ￡40 taxi.”
“That’s right,” he said. “Now, round here, most folk would wear a jumper, maybe some cute mittens and a woolly hat to a family Bonfire Night party. But no, not Imogen, our London lady. Mustard yellow flared suit trousers, a thin white silk blouse that showed your red bra and a matching jacket. You shivered during the fireworks.”
“I came straight from work,” I protested. “The train takes four hours to get here, not to mention the taxi!”
“You’ve mentioned the taxi three times,” he retorted. “And still, you looked ridiculous.”
My feathers ruffled.
“Well, what about you at the engagement party?”
The drinks were laid out on the bar and Brenda was waiting sullenly for payment, but we didn’t notice.
“What about me at the engagement party?” He asked.
“You wore a wedding dress !”
He chuckled at the memory, “Yeah, that was really funny.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “It was tacky.”
“Everyone else laughed,” he shrugged. “Especially once everyone had a few drinks in them. Did it really bother you that much?!”
“It’s just one example of your disgusting lad-ish behaviour!”
“Lad-ish? Is that even a word?”
“Yeah, it means someone who is a lad . Do you not have dictionaries in the countryside?”
He chuckled.
“We have dictionaries,” he said. “We also have a sense of humour. The wedding dress was funny. My uncle looks back on those photos fondly, and I think Lou does too. And frankly I looked great in a dress. Maybe you’re just upset that I’m so secure in my masculinity that I can do that.”
“You looked like the support act for the sort of bargain drag shows they put on in Benidorm,” I scoffed. “It was embarrassing for my grandmother.”
“Oh, yes, I remember her too,” he said. “It’s a wonder Lou is such a bubbly person when her mother is so sour. That must be where you get it from.”
That was the final straw. I picked up his cider from the bar and chucked the contents over his face with a satisfying splash.
The regret was immediate, but the deed was done.
Archie stood there blustering as cider dripped down his hair with a faint fizzing sound. The pub-goers looked at each other in disbelief.
At the far end of the room, Lou looked stunned. Ross fell to laughing as soon as he realised no serious harm had been done.
Amelia rushed over to offer a packet of tissues from her handbag to her son.
I expected her to be angry with me, but instead she slapped Archie on the arm.
“What did you say?” She accused him. “I told you to be nice.”
He looked back at her with the expression of a schoolboy reprimanded for pulling a prank on a teacher.
“Nothing,” he muttered. “We just had a disagreement.”
I felt the need to defend him, at least for Lou’s sake.
“I overreacted,” I said quickly. “Sorry, Archie.”
“It’s fine,” he said, just as quickly. “Forget it.”
A brief silence followed, including not just our group but the entire pub who were eagerly watching for any further excitement.
Brenda interrupted in her dryest tone, “Are you going to pay for the drinks, or what?”