two large glasses of Chilean Chardonnay before they gave an order. The interior of the pub was decorated for Christmas, but there weren’t that many Christmas customers. Therein lay the cause of his lugubriousness, as he wasted no time in telling them.
“Look at the place. Empty as a barn. This should be the time of year I’m coining it, doing all the local office Christmas lunches. Should be packed out for the whole of December, and what have I had? Bugger all.”
They looked around and saw his point. A few frail Fethering pensioners had braved the cold weather to take advantage of the Crown and Anchor’s Midweek Special deals. A small, thin woman sat in an alcove nursing a pint of Guinness. Low winter sun through the pub’s windows turned the long hair, cascading down over a flowered smock, a golden colour, giving her the image of a hippy chick from the Sixties. But neither she nor any of the other customers looked as if they were big spenders.
“Is it still because of what happened in the summer?” Jude asked Ted tactfully. She was referring to the time when the Crown and Anchor had been invaded by Hell’s Angels and a murder had taken place on the premises. The pub had nearly been closed down and, although it subsequently emerged that Ted Crisp had been the victim of criminal harassment, memories in Fethering were long and adverse publicity slow to dissipate.
The landlord nodded assent. “Yeah, that’s it. Going to take years to build up the business again. And now with all this financial chaos going on, people are even less inclined to come out and spend their money down the pub. They’d rather sit at home with a pile of half-price cans of supermarket lager.”
“It’ll get better,” said Jude.
Carole picked up the baton of reassurance. “Of course it will. You’ve still got Ed Pollack as your chef, haven’t you?”
“Yes, he seems happy to stay…”
“That’s good news.”
“…as long as I can afford to keep him on,” Ted continued gloomily. “I sometimes worry about how long I’ll be able to keep Zosia on, too.” He was referring to his Polish bar manager, who had been introduced to the Crown and Anchor by Jude.
“Don’t be silly,” Carole said. Then, looking around, asked, “Where is Zosia, by the way?”
“Got some Christmas drinks thing at the university.” The girl was managing to fit a degree in journalism around her work at the pub. “So I’m on my own here today.” He looked mournfully around the bar. “Not that I’m exactly rushed off my feet.”
“Ted, it’ll all be all right,” said Jude soothingly. “This is a great pub. Ed’s a great chef. Word’ll soon spread again about how good the food is at the Crown and Anchor. By the summer you’ll have a waiting list for tables.”
“If I’m still here then.”
When he was in this kind of mood Ted was not to be comforted, so Carole and Jude thought their best course of action was to order their lunch. He handed menus across and stood with ballpoint pen and pad poised. “Can’t tempt you to the full Christmas menu, can I? It’s very good.”
“I’m sure it is,” said Carole, “but I’ll be doing all that on Christmas Day.” And she felt a little flurry of excitement at the thought.
“I might go for it,” said Jude.
“What, the full Christmas menu?” asked her astonished neighbour.
“Why not? I like turkey and stuff – not to mention turkey and stuff
“But you can’t have all that before Christmas.”
“‘Ere, are you trying to restrict my trade?” asked an aggrieved Ted Crisp. “If the lady wants to order a full Christmas menu, don’t go putting her off.”
“I’m sorry, Ted,” said Carole contritely. The teasing element with which he usually made such remarks seemed to be absent that day. The lack of business really was getting to him.
To compensate, Carole ordered a fillet steak, the most expensive thing on the menu and, while Ted took their orders through to Ed Pollack in the kitchen, the two women moved to one of the pub’s alcove tables. The thin woman with the Guinness seemed to be giving them the once over. Closer to, she no longer looked like a hippy chick. Out of the sunlight, her flowing hair was grey and the contours of her face were scored with wrinkles, like an apple that had been stored for too long. Carole and Jude were aware of the curious stare from her faded brown eyes, but quickly forgot about her when they sat down. Their conversation soon homed in on Lola Le Bonnier. Carole was intrigued as to how Jude had met the owner of Gallimaufry.
“Just going in and out of the shop, really. Then one of her kids, her baby Henry, had a problem with asthma, so she brought him along to me for a session.” Professional discretion prevented Jude from mentioning the condition which had brought Lola herself to Woodside Cottage for a consultation.
“Can you actually
“I can sometimes ease it a bit.”
At another time Carole might have asked more about that, but on this occasion she was more interested in Lola Le Bonnier, who, she observed, didn’t conform to the usual image of a shopkeeper.
“No, I think Gallimaufry for her is really just a rich girl’s hobby.”
“And she’s rich through her husband, is she? The Ricky she mentioned?”
Jude shrugged. “Lola may also have money of her own, I don’t know. But certainly Ricky never seems to lack for a few bob.”
“Have you met him too?”
“Only a couple of times recently. But I saw a bit of him in London in the early seventies.”
“When you say you ‘saw a bit of him’…?”
Jude grinned. “I do not mean we were lovers, no. He did try it on with me a couple of times, but I was a rather conventional teenager and – ”
“You mean you were a virgin?” asked Carole, intrigued by this potential new insight.
“God, no. But I was sleeping with someone else and at that stage was very much a one-man woman.”
Intriguing. Was the implication that she was no longer a ‘one-man woman’? Carole hadn’t heard much about her neighbour’s teenage years, but before she could ask a supplementary question, Jude had moved on. “Anyway, Ricky was involved on the periphery of a lot of pop groups back then. Did some producing, promotion, that kind of stuff. Very trendy.”
“And successful?”
“He behaved as if he had a lot of money.”
“But you don’t think he did?”
“I’m not saying that. The music business has always been full of bullshit, and Ricky Le Bonnier could splash it about with the best of them. I never did know with him – and I still don’t – how much of what he says to believe. He sounds like a namedropper, but when you get down to the details, he does actually know the names he drops quite well. So if he says he’s been in Mustique with Mick Jagger, he probably has. If he says he’s toured with Led Zeppelin, then that’s probably true too.”
Carole was tempted to ask, “Who are Led Zeppelin?”, but she stopped herself. She knew full well who Led Zeppelin were and, had she asked the question, would have sounded like an elderly judge from a
“You know,” Jude went on, “Ricky’s one of those people who’s clearly had a varied and busy life, but rarely tells you all the details of it.” Takes one to know one, thought Carole tartly. “Anyway, needless to say, Lola isn’t his first wife. Always rather prided himself as a ladies’ man. He’s had at least two other wives that I know of. I vaguely remember hearing about one of them dying tragically…a drug overdose or something. And I think he had at least one kid, a daughter who’d be grown-up by now, though I don’t know which wife was her mother. Or maybe she’s a stepdaughter, I’m not sure. I mean, Ricky’s about my age, so there’s probably a good twenty years between him and Lola. I seem to remember he hitched up with her about six years ago. Like so many men of his age and with his kind of past, he’s rebranded himself with a new family. Then he and Lola moved down here, and live in a great big manor house just outside Fedborough. Fedingham Court House, it’s called. Apparently Ricky’s a local lad, was brought up somewhere around here, so he’s kind of come back to his roots.
“Anyway, they settled into the country life by buying a pair of Dalmatians, then Lola presented Ricky with a couple of babies in quick succession and, so far as I can gather, the marriage works very well. He’s an amusing guy, good company, Lola appears to be devoted to him. And she’s a bright girl, I can’t see her putting up with any
