Chapter Eleven #2
Unfortunately, neither lunch nor further exploration of the attractions of Bradford-on-Avon stirred any further ideas for prying the information out of Mrs Dorter.
They wandered through the Shambles, then headed back to the inn in time for tea.
Mrs Dorter once again presided over dinner, managing to exclude Iris from any conversation without being obvious about it.
At its conclusion, she stood to address the company.
‘Game Night will be held in the game room as is customary,’ she said. ‘Pamela will be in attendance for those who require snacks and drinks. I myself will be retiring early, I’m afraid, so I will bid you all an enjoyable evening.’
With that, she departed the dining room.
‘And that’s our last chance,’ muttered Iris.
A woman named Alice, half of one of the illicit couples staying there, leaned across the table.
‘If you’re looking for something more entertaining tonight,’ she said, ‘the ladies are going out dancing at the Three Horseshoes while the men waste the evening playing cards. We have room in our car for two more.’
‘What do you think?’ Iris asked Gwen.
‘Sounds like fun,’ said Gwen. ‘I’m game.’
‘Splendid,’ said Alice. ‘We’ll change shoes, then rendezvous in the front parlour.’
Iris’s wellies had been placed by the door of their room. She picked them up and went inside, then contemplated the two pairs of shoes she had brought for the trip.
‘I packed for walking, beetling and dinner,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect dancing.’
‘I’d recommend the walking shoes,’ said Gwen. ‘Just in case our ride is too drunk to get us back after.’
‘I’m hoping to get too drunk as well,’ said Iris as she put on her Oxfords. ‘You remember my continuing curse: men who dance with me meet violent ends.’
‘You’ll be dancing with locals tonight,’ said Gwen. ‘I doubt the curse will be bothered.’
‘The Curse Takes a Holiday,’ said Iris. ‘There’s a title for something.’
‘It’s odd how a religious sceptic like yourself believes in a curse,’ commented Gwen as she slipped on a pair of slingbacks.
‘Recent evidence does support the idea,’ said Iris.
‘Or maybe dancing with gangsters and murderers increased the likelihood.’
‘There is that,’ admitted Iris.
Alice was waiting for them with another woman named Renee.
‘The others have gone on ahead,’ she said. ‘The men have disappeared into a cloud of cigar smoke. You can smell it from here.’
‘Unfortunate,’ said Renee. ‘I really don’t like that scent permeating a man. But let them have their fun. We’ll have ours. Come, ladies.’
Alice drove, while Renee turned and leaned on the back of her seat to talk.
‘We’ve been trying to figure out what you two are,’ she said. ‘You’re not lovers, and you’re not on the prowl for men.’
‘Not any of the ones here, certainly,’ said Gwen.
‘Oh, it’s not such a bad selection this month,’ said Alice with a laugh.
‘I take it you’re not here with your husbands,’ said Iris.
‘We are, in fact,’ said Renee.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ she said. ‘Only I’m with hers and she’s with mine.
We left Bristol amid a haze of respectability in separate cars, then stopped for lunch along the way and made the switch.
Then on to Dorter’s Inn for a weekend of Smith-ing, and we’ll return to our regular lives Sunday night with some spicy memor--ies to share. ’
‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Gwen.
‘“Goodness had nothing to do with it”, as Mae West once said,’ laughed Renee. ‘But there is a small coterie of similarly minded people who are in the know about this place, so we were surprised to find you both here and unaware of what was going on.’
‘We’re just two good friends having a mildly rustic getaway,’ said Iris. ‘Explore the sights, see Nature, red in tooth and claw. Or mandible and claw, in my case.’
‘I must say you’re being quite open with us about all of this,’ said Gwen.
‘Neither of you seemed particularly taken aback by what’s been going on,’ said Alice. ‘We appreciate that. The fact that Gwen didn’t run screaming from the room when Norris made a pass at her was a relief.’
‘And refusing him was excellent judgement on your part,’ added Renee. ‘We’ve all run screaming from Norris at one time or another.’
They parked down a few buildings from the Three Horseshoes and walked to the pub. Alice and Renee disappeared through the door immediately. Iris hesitated, hearing the sounds of frivolity within. She glanced at Gwen.
‘Are you ready for this?’ asked Gwen.
‘Absolutely not,’ replied Iris. ‘After you, Mrs Bainbridge.’
‘No, after you, Miss Sparks!’ replied Gwen, pushing her through the doorway.
Inside, several of the tables had been cleared out to make space for the dancing, which was already in progress.
Iris and Gwen, who had been expecting something along the lines of a rustic local band with a fiddler and a guitar, were pleasantly surprised to see a four-piece swing combo in from Bath where they must have played afternoon tea dances.
Here, however, freed from the more genteel restraints of those tourist resorts, they were cutting loose, and the local crowd, already fuelled by the hardworking barman in the back, was trying with varying degrees of success to replicate the jitterbug moves that they had seen in newsreels and American films.
Fortunately, slower dances were brought into the mix, and the local men were by no means shy about asking the visitors to join them.
Iris danced, reluctantly at first, but soon eased into the spirit of things.
No violence occurred to any of her partners, with the exception of the occasional foot getting trod upon as the room became more and more crowded.
She changed partners after every dance with an eye towards not encouraging anyone more than they should have been. Still, a few tried.
‘You wouldn’t want to go out back and look at the stars with me, would you?’ asked one red-cheeked hopeful several years her junior as the sax player crooned ‘The Stars Will Remember’ in a passable impression of Steve Conway.
‘Sorry, no, but that’s a good line,’ she replied. ‘It’s bound to work on some lucky lass sooner or later.’
Around eleven, Alice collected them.
‘We need to get back while we still have some energy left,’ she said.
They piled back into the car and drove back to the inn. Once inside, they went to the game room. As they passed the dining room, Gwen noticed that the dessert dishes from dinner had only been partly cleared, still stacked on the trolley near the door to the kitchen. Sloppy, she thought.
When they reached the game room, only the mismatched husbands of Alice and Renee were still there, playing gin rummy.
‘Goodness, we shouldn’t have left you stranded like that,’ laughed Alice, coming over to kiss each of them in turn. ‘Did you clean out the others?’
‘Um, they’ve stepped outside for a smoke,’ said one of them, smirking slightly.
Gwen looked at him, then turned to Iris so the men couldn’t see her speak.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she muttered to Iris.
‘What?’
‘They were all smoking away in here when we left, so no reason to go outside to do it. The dishes at the dining table haven’t been cleared. And I don’t see Pam in attendance.’
Iris immediately turned and grabbed a poker from by the fireplace.
‘Excuse me for a moment,’ she said.
She walked quickly through the dining room and opened the far door, Gwen following her as she went through a connecting pantry to the kitchen.
The kitchen was a huge one, with a large central table where meals for twenty could be prepared and copper pots that had escaped requisitioning during the war hanging from the walls.
It was on the tabletop that she saw Pam, struggling against the grip of one of the men staying at the inn while Norris attempted to climb on top of her.
‘Stop squirming, you stupid girl,’ he snarled. ‘There’s money in it for you when we’re done. Hold her down, Elster!’
Her cries were muffled by the other man clamping his hand over her mouth.
‘Hello,’ said Iris from the doorway. ‘I hope I’m interrupting something.’
The two men turned in surprise.
‘You can walk away right now,’ said Norris. ‘This is none of your concern.’
‘Oh, but it is,’ she said, stepping into the room.
‘I warn you, I am not without influence in these parts,’ he said. ‘I can make things very difficult for you.’
‘Once you’ve recovered from your injuries, you are welcome to try,’ she said, holding up the poker.
‘Here now,’ he said, sliding off the table on to his feet. ‘There’s no need for that.’
‘There isn’t, in fact,’ she agreed. ‘I’m perfectly capable of crippling you both without it.
But this isn’t my house, and this is a lovely kitchen, so I’d prefer to restrict the damage to just the two of you.
We could take things outside if you’d prefer an old-fashioned bare-knuckle brawl. I like those as well.’
The man called Elster released Pam and stood in front of the table, his fists clenched. He had at least a foot and three stone on Iris. She looked up at him and smiled.
‘Did you want to go first?’ she asked sweetly.
Pam rolled off the table and grabbed a long knife from a rack. Iris held up her hand.
‘No, dear,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to be hauled in for murdering the guests. It might be a deterrent to repeat business. I’ll handle this. Now, sir, as to you. You may either stand down or make the first move. But if it’s the latter, I guarantee I’ll be making the last one.’
‘Come on, Norris, there’s two of us,’ urged Elster.
‘And two of us,’ said Gwen, slipping into the room behind Iris.
‘You must be the muscle,’ sneered Norris as he sized her up.
‘Actually, she is,’ said Gwen. ‘She really doesn’t need my help. But I’ve been practising, and I’m improving.’
‘What is the meaning of this?’ came Mrs Dorter’s voice from behind them.
‘Oh, good,’ said Iris, stepping aside to let her in. ‘I was hoping you’d show up.’
‘Mrs Dorter, these two drunken harridans have been making some absurd threats and accusations,’ said Norris smoothly.