The original house, a mouldering mansion with fourteen bedrooms and a set of stables just outside the town boundary on Hunting’s Lane, had been the hereditary burden of one of the less well-heeled families of landed gentry in those parts until Arnold Hatch, philanthropist, relieved them of it for what he termed “rubble value”—£300 cash—in 1963. Seven years later, by an interestingly devious manipulation of mortgages, sub-contracts, promissory instruments, share exchanges, hints and threats, he was the owner—at no extra expense whatsoever to himself—of splendidly-appointed premises that fulfilled a never before suspected public need and were the pride and wonder of the town.
He took Baxter on an outside tour of inspection.
“Those lights,” he said. “We keep them on all night, sometimes all day. Just as well to let people know you’re in business. They think the better of you for a bit of display.”
A battery of golden floods gave the front of the building, rich in imitation half-timbering, the appearance of having been doused in maple syrup.
“The missus designed the name-board,” Hatch explained. “She’s mad on flowers. They’re a sort of theme of the club, as a matter of fact; you know—a motive.”
Baxter gazed admiringly at Mrs Hatch’s creation, the word Floradora across the central façade in letters more than a foot high.
Hatch pointed.
“The first letter—that’s made in forget-me-nots, you see? F for forget-me-nots. Then I think the next one’s lavender. Or lupins, perhaps. You can pick them out better in daylight. The R’s roses. D for daffodils. She took a lot of trouble over it.”
“Top-hole!” Baxter exclaimed softly.
“The windows on that side,” said Hatch, “belong to the Wassail Hall. That’s an idea that people have taken to in a big way. Medieval banquets. They come from all over for those.”
Baxter, whose inclination to venery had been in no degree diminished by sleep, was beginning to wonder if he had placed too hopeful an interpretation upon Hatch’s reference to young ladies. At the moment, it seemed that proprietorial pride was his sole emotion.
“We give them a dagger each to eat their capon with, and a bottle of mulled sack...”
“Sack?”
“Aye. Well, it’s a sort of modern equivalent. Everybody gets a tankard or a goblet. You see those end windows?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where the minstrels’ gallery is. I tell you what...” Hatch looked at his watch. “We can go in that way. There’ll be no one there just now.”
Only one central light shone in the Wassail Hall. It showed a lofty room capable of seating perhaps 150 people on rough-hewn trestle forms. Set in the wall at the further end was a small railed enclosure, some twelve feet above the ground, the minstrels’ gallery. Baxter saw the glint of a drum kit, wires, an amplifier.
Hatch nudged his arm and pointed to a board just below the gallery.
“Gentles, pray hurl ye no bones at ye minstrelles.”
Baxter grinned.
There were other notices, all in Gothic script.
“Comforte chamber for ye dames.” Another for “ye Esquires”.
“Mine Hoste bids welcome to All Goodlie Folk from Ye Tobackow Colonies of Americay!”
“The Yanks love that one,” Hatch said. “They’ve a grand sense of fun. One of them told me he’d come all the way from Milwaukee just to see the serving wenches. He said he’d heard back home that they were all descended from Nell Gwynn, but that was just his joke, I expect. On account of the costume.”
“I expect so,” said Baxter. It was with considerable relief that he saw Hatch turn and lead the way to a small door marked “Private: No Varlets allowed”.
By means of corridors, they were able to avoid the bars and the gaming section, until they reached a room that seemed to have been designed as a compromise between office and boudoir. It contained a desk of white maple with gilded drawer handles, two small arm chairs covered in floral cotton, a miniature pinewood dresser, a tallboy that could have been (and was) a filing cabinet, a sofa and, whimsically rather than seriously designed as a Victorian work basket, a safe.
On the dresser tea things were set. A woman sat at the desk. She was softly blowing the surface of the cup of tea held close to her mouth. Her eyes regarded Hatch and Baxter through the steam for several seconds before she put the cup down, revealing a fleshy, high-complexioned face that had collapsed a little through too early adoption of false teeth, but was lively and by no means unattractive.
“Mabs, this is Mr Baxter. He’s an executive friend of mine.”
Hatch introduced the woman as Mrs Margaret Shooter, manageress of the club’s motel section.
Baxter looked impressed. “I didn’t know there was a motel here, as well.”
Mrs Shooter looked at Hatch, who said: “Well, there is, and there isn’t, if you follow me. We’ve half a dozen overnight chalets more or less ready for occupation, but we’re not officially in business yet.”
“The project isn’t finalised,” Baxter translated.
“Aye, that’s it, exactly. Anyway, take the weight off your legs, and Mabs’ll find us a drink, won’t you, girl?”
Mrs Shooter produced whisky, vodka and gin with the air of a perennially youthful aunt, expert in the art of providing audacious treats. She smiled warmly and often upon Mr Baxter, who found himself simpering and shrugging like a callow youth. He liked Mrs Shooter tremendously; she was cuddlesome and sympathetic, and yet stimulatingly cheeky. She moved in a cloud of perfume that made him think of bath-water-borne breasts: white, soapy whales. He did not mind at all her addressing him as “son”. It was even flattering, in a way. Soon he was calling her “Mabs” and accepting as perfectly natural her habit of squeezing the inside of his thigh every time she wished to emphasise something or to encourage him to laugh.
Hatch said: “Bill here wanted to get off to bed tonight with Sally Hoylake.”
Mrs Shooter’s amazement wrought an owl-like transformation: her eyes vastly enlarged and her mouth pouted into a beak. “Oo-hooo-hooo! Slip-knot Sal! Hooo...!”
Hatch smiled. “He didn’t want to take any notice of me.”
Another hoot from Mrs Shooter. Then she grabbed and held Baxter’s knee. “Good job you did, though, isn’t it, son? Christ, yes!”
Baxter hoped that somebody would tell him just what he had escaped from, without his having to ask.
Mrs Shooter, still affectionately grasping his knee, had half turned and was talking to Hatch.
“Funny how young Sal went nasty in that way. Different again from her mother. We were very close, her mum and me. We were in Broad Street in those days.” She burrowed under the lee of her left breast and scratched ruminatively. “We both worked at the old doctor’s place until he got taken off, poor old chap.1 Now there”—she peered earnestly at Baxter—“was one of nature’s gentlemen. Every blessed inch of him.”