“Anyway, you didn’t take to her either, Jude.”
“No, I agree.”
“Well, since we both feel the same on the subject, why did you raise it?” asked Carole, almost petulantly. The effects of the lunchtime Chardonnay had dissipated. Their lack of sleep the night before was catching up with both of them.
“It was just, talking to her on the phone…”
“Yes?”
“…she sounded different.”
The address Jude had been given was probably not far from the sea, but you wouldn’t have known it. Southwick was another of the interlocking sprawl of villages which make the area between Brighton and Worthing a virtually continuous suburb. And the house which Shona Nuttall owned was, like so many in that part of the world, a bungalow. Its dimensions were adequate for one person, but not lavish.
Carole and Jude were both shocked by the appearance of the woman who opened the door to them. She was undoubtedly Shona Nuttall, but totally transformed from the Shona Nuttall they had met not so long ago as the queen of the Cat and Fiddle. She was still of ample proportions, but whereas her body had previously been restricted by corsetry, everything had now been allowed to hang loose, and gravity had exacted its revenge.
Her large cleavage was still on display, but, without the engineering which had formerly thrust it upwards, had the texture of muslin and slumped like an old ridge tent. Her style of dress had changed too. Carole and Jude remembered her in a spangly top and tight trousers. Now she shuffled around in a sweatshirt and jogging bottoms. And she was wearing none of her bulky gold jewellery.
But it was in her face and hair that the change was greatest. Without any make-up, the skin was sallow and sagging. The flash of a gold tooth in her unlipsticked mouth looked somehow grotesque. And, unmonitored by regular visits to the salon, the colouring had grown out of her hair. Some had been carelessly swept back into a scrunchie, the rest hung, lank and grey, around her face.
When Carole and Jude introduced themselves, Shona Nuttall claimed to remember their previous encounter, but seemed to have little detailed recollection of the occasion. Still, that was perhaps to be expected, given the number of customers who pass through a pub, particularly a well-situated one like the Cat and Fiddle.
She ushered them through into her sitting room and seemed relieved when they refused her halfhearted offer of tea or coffee. On a small table beside her seat on the sofa was a large glass of colourless fluid. The way Shona Nuttall subsequently drank from it suggested the contents were stronger than water. Probably vodka, the almost odourless favourite of alcoholics everywhere.
The impression that Carole and Jude received from the room was of universal velvet. The heavy bottle-green curtains were velvet. The pinkish chairs they sat in, though actually covered in Dralon, had the feeling of velvet. Even the olive-coloured carpet looked like velvet. And on various surfaces stood photographs in frames of burgundy velvet. All of them featured Shona hugging glazed-eyed customers at the Cat and Fiddle. There seemed to be no family photographs.
The room was not exactly untidy, but it gave off a’ feeling of dusty disuse. Despite the July heat, all of the windows were shut, and it took Carole and Jude a little while to realize that there was air conditioning – an unusual feature in a bungalow on the South Coast. But the air conditioning couldn’t completely flush out the smell of old cigarette smoke.
Once various inconsequential pleasantries had been exchanged, Carole announced, “What we are really interested in, Mrs Nuttall – ”
“It’s Shona, please, love. Everyone calls me Shona. And, actually, I never was ‘Mrs’. Only ‘Miss’. Ploughed my own furrow,” she added, with an attempt at her old heartiness.
“Very well, Shona, Jude and I were interested in why you sold the Cat and Fiddle. When we were last there, it all seemed very well set up and thriving.” This was a slight exaggeration. On the winter evening when they had visited business had been slack. But the pub was well known for doing a brisk trade in the summer. That was ensured, if by nothing else, by its location, perched on the river outside Fed-borough. In one direction was a view of the rolling South Downs; in the other the tidal waters of the Fether swelled down towards the English Channel.
“Yes, yes, I was doing very well,” Shona agreed. “And I’d always planned to sell up and retire at some point. The Cat and Fiddle was my nest egg, going to fund my retirement. It was just…well, I hadn’t planned to do it quite so early.”
“So why did you – ?”
But the ex-landlady wasn’t ready to answer that kind of question so soon. “I mean,” she went on, “without false modesty, I think I made a bloody good publican. I brought a bit of atmosphere to that place, everyone said so. And I also think publicans can do some good. You know, people come in weighed down with their problems…trouble at home, trouble at work, all their little worries about health and that…and after a drink or two they realize that life’s not all bad.” She took a breath. Carole tried to get in, but wasn’t quick enough. “You know, the job of running a pub involves a lot of different skills, but I think one of the most important is acting as a kind of therapist. God, the stuff you have to listen to behind the jump…”
“‘Behind the jump’?” Carole echoed curiously.
“Means ‘behind the bar’. Expression publicans use.”
“Where does it come from?”
“No idea. Anyway, as I was saying, I reckon we publicans take a lot of burden off the NHS, you know, and the social services. The amount of listening we do, it’s got to help people, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, I’m sure lots of people have cause to be very grateful to you,” said Jude.
“But you still haven’t told us why you sold the pub earlier than you intended,” insisted Carole.
“Had a good offer.” Shona Nuttall shrugged. “Recession supposed to be coming. Smoking ban had hit business a bit. Pubs closing down all over the country. So I got out at the right time, as it turned out.”
Despite the positive nature of her words, there was a wistfulness in the woman’s delivery which made Carole press harder. “Was that all there was to it?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think Carole’s asking whether you found yourself under any pressure to sell.”
The blowsy ex-landlady looked at both of her interrogators in turn, as though assessing how much she should tell them. Then she conceded, “Yes, there was a bit of pressure, yes.”
“What kind of pressure?”
She sighed, took a sip of her drink and reached forward to a packet on the table in front of her. “Sorry, I need a cigarette. Better have it quickly before the bloody government bans people from smoking in their own homes.”
She lit up, took a long drag, sighed again and began. “Look, pub business is a funny old world. You can be taking it in hand over fist one day, next nobody wants to know. It’s all to do with reputation and goodwill. Keep the image of your premises right and you can be sitting on a goldmine. And I think I done well with the Cat and Fiddle over the years. ‘Course I started off with a lot going for me. For a start, I came into some family money, so I didn’t have to mortgage myself up to the hilt. And then again the location’s hard to beat, this is an area where there’s always going to be a lot of tourists. Anyone who managed to lose money at the Cat and Fiddle during the summer must be an idiot.
“But I built the business up slowly. Built up my staff, built up the reputation of the place, got it into the right pub guides, on the right websites. Though I say so myself, I done a good job.
“And yes, I always planned to retire some time, but obviously I wanted to do it when the time was right, when I’d get the maximum payback on my investment. And I did have offers. Location like the Cat and Fiddle, the big chains are bound to be interested. But I didn’t like the idea of my pub just going the way of all the others, being branded, looking exactly the same. I wanted the Cat and Fiddle to keep its individuality.”