Chapter 15 #3
I’d just about finished setting up the room when I heard a loud male voice proclaim ‘Hello, anybody there?’ as he approached the end of the bar just beyond the private dining room.
I peered out through the crack of the door to see who on earth would feel the need to announce their presence so loudly.
It was the fucker himself: Christian Woods, accompanied by a picture-perfect family of an attractive wife and two tweenage daughters.
The four of them were inexplicably wearing matching Aran wool jumpers, as if they were part of the same veteran cricket team.
Even looking at them made my throat feel constricted and itchy.
The three female Woodses were despatched to the other side of the pub to find a table.
‘That’s if you can make your way through the Christmas crowds!
’ he scoffed while looking around, as if he was surprised to see the place so empty.
Becky emerged from the kitchen, a winter storm brewing in her eyes.
‘Bit quiet tonight, isn’t it, Carly?’ Christian said.
‘I’m Becky, as you’re well aware. And I know it was you, Christian. How could you do this? Everyone working here has got families, you know. You’re killing us.’
‘I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, Becks. I’ve just come here with my family for a bite to eat and a celebratory drink.’
‘Celebratory?’ Becky replied.
‘Yep! Because, by the looks of things in here, we’re not far off securing our next property development contract. So, a bottle of your finest champagne, if you don’t mind?’
While Becky fetched the bottle from the fridge, slammed it down on the bar and snatched his ￡50 note to take payment, I realised I wasn’t breathing, my entire body frozen as their dispute continued.
I knew Tom and his colleagues would be arriving at some stage, but until then I felt as if I was watching a scene from EastEnders play out in real-time, with some dastardly Steve Owen-style character in the midst of quietly threatening Peggy in the Queen Vic.
Whenever we used to watch these dramatic episodes on Christmas night, Livvie had always shouted at the telly for someone to secretly record the conversation so they could use it as evidence down the line.
SHIT! THIS IS YOUR CHANCE! RECORD THIS, MALLY!
With fumbling hands, I took my phone out of my pocket, aimed the handset through the crack and tapped record just as Christian removed some rolled-up sheets of paper from the back pocket of his dark pink trousers.
He straightened the stapled sheets out on the bar and pushed them towards Becky as she unceremoniously plonked the champagne in an iceless ice bucket.
‘What’s this?’ she asked.
‘A new offer for your perusal. And for all your little community pub elves – or whatever it is you call them – to vote on, of course. I think you’ll find that, given tonight’s no-show and the direction this business is quite evidently heading in, the figures I’ve proposed here are more than generous. ’
He knows about the no-show! This is proof!
At that moment Becky looked right at me, and right at the camera.
Her face changed into one of surprise so quickly that it caught me off guard and my phone clattered to the ground.
Christian’s face whipped round, but not before I’d glanced down to clock that my phone – which wasn’t visible behind the door frame – was still recording.
‘And who do we have here?’ he sneered. ‘One of your little helpers is having a nice eavesdrop, are they?’
I stepped out of the room, leaving the phone behind.
He didn’t recognise me. But why would he?
It wasn’t as if our paths had ever crossed on the rare occasions I’d dragged myself out of bed on Sunday mornings to cheer my brother on from the muddy sidelines of the football pitch over two decades ago.
I took a deep breath, trying to focus on the fact that his cream jumper actually made him look more like a weirdly large nativity sheep than a cricket player.
I kept the farmyard thought in my head as I took a small but decisive step out of the doorway and into the main bar area.
‘Becky didn’t tell you there’d been a no-show tonight,’ I said, my voice shaking, but my thoughts as steady as they’d ever been.
His smile faded for a nanosecond. It was the chink I needed to see to bolster my confidence even more.
‘Speak up, darling, I couldn’t quite hear you.’
‘I said, Becky didn’t say anything about tonight’s no-show. So how did you know that they didn’t turn up?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, someone probably said something on Facebook or…’
‘Seriously, just stop talking.’ Apparently these words had come from my mouth.
And there were more following fast behind.
‘We know it was you. We know the shitty reviews are you. We know the calls to the council are you. For some reason, you seem absolutely determined to get your hands on this place. What’s driving it, Christian?
Did someone once refuse to serve you in here back in 1999, is that it? ’
Becky stood open-mouthed behind the bar, her eyes widening. My raised voice had captured the entire pub’s attention, with me at the heart of a David vs Goliath showdown. It felt… bloody brilliant. Livvie would’ve been proud.
Christian chuckled casually and raised a hand of calm towards the gawping punters, as if to say, Nothing to see here, get back to your drinks, folks .
He turned back to us and smoothed down his side-parted hair with the heel of his hand and spoke quietly in a faux-relaxed voice so that only me, Becky… and my phone… could hear him.
‘Didn’t you know? There’s a housing shortage.
And it boils down to this: if I don’t develop this place, someone else will.
It’s just a simple matter of time and economics.
And, sure, maybe I’ve been trying to hurry things along a little, but that’s for everyone’s benefit in the long-run; surely you girls can understand that? ’
It was the word ‘girls’ that pushed me over the edge. I was nearly forty, for fuck’s sake. Who did he think he was?
‘It’s not going to happen, Christian,’ I said, arms folded, standing as high as my five feet and two inches could possibly take me. ‘Especially after everyone finds out what you’ve just said here tonight.’
He scoffed. ‘You’re so na?ve. This is just how it works in the real world. Plus, why would anybody believe you?’
I picked up my phone from behind the door frame and held it aloft, clearly showing him that the device was still recording. ‘Because we’ve got this whole conversation on camera.’
‘Hey, let me see that!’ he hissed.
As he lunged towards me to grab my phone, I sidestepped him and threw the phone to Becky, which she caught coolly with one hand and continued to film.
Christian shook his head a few times quickly, as if he was trying to convince himself this was all a bad dream.
‘Whatever. It’s not like anybody will care about your silly little video clip, anyway. I play golf with the head of the planning department. And I went to Cambridge with the editor of the Western Daily Press . My application will get waved through, just like all the others.’
I laughed. ‘Sorry, am I meant to find that impressive? Because I work with the editor of The Helix in London, and I’m sure he’d be very interested in commissioning an article about sleazy small-town developers who are sucking the lifeblood out of lovely places like Scarnbrook to line their woolly little pockets. ’
Becky snorted at my knitwear reference, and a look of genuine terror flew across his face. ‘Hang on a sec, who did you say you were again?’
‘I didn’t. But I’ve been meaning to ask: have you been in touch with my brother, Josh Allister, lately?’
Christian froze. From the very little I knew about him, I could already tell he was the type of person who valued others in terms of what he perceived to be their transactional value.
And, in his eyes at least, Josh was an influential asset – no doubt useful for namedropping every now and then – that he couldn’t afford to lose.
‘Shit, you’re Josh’s sister?’
I curtseyed for the first time in my life. ‘One and the same.’
‘Fuck. I had no idea. Shit, stop recording now, Becky, okay?’
‘We’ll stop recording if you promise to stop obsessing about getting your hands on this place,’ she said. We were an unstoppable team, now, certain of victory.
‘Yeah, yeah, fine. Whatever.’
I nodded at Becky, who tapped ‘stop’ and stowed the phone away in her pocket for safe-keeping.
Christian opened his mouth to say something.
But at that moment the pub door opened to a cacophony of noise.
Finally, it was the festive revellers from Tom’s company, WeFacilit8, who immediately shifted the pub’s atmosphere from tense, soap opera cliffhanger to something more akin to a Gavin and Stacey Christmas special.
Christian’s top lip curled upwards in frustration. He swivelled 180 degrees, fetched his family from the other side of the pub and made a swift exit without looking back once.
I was rooted to the spot, but all of a sudden Becky was bouncing up and down in front of me like some kind of magic jumping bean, and handing me my phone.
‘Fucking hell, Allister – I think that was probably the best thing I’ve ever seen in real life!’
‘Did that… really just happen?’ I said, still frozen.
Becky somehow leapt over the bar as if it was a move she practised in private every night, grabbed me by the shoulders and looked directly at me. ‘YES!’
And, after a couple of seconds, I joined her in the magic jumping bean stakes as she ripped up the offer papers he’d left behind and threw the scraps in the air, which fell like confetti all around us.
I had no idea where my sudden ability to hold my own in an argument had come from. But I was fucking proud of myself.
‘Er, what the hell is happening?’ It was Tom, who’d extricated himself from his throng of colleagues to order a round of drinks.