Page 60 of It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Moments later, the pub’s phone rang and I peered round the dining-room door to see Becky’s face light up. While she spoke into the handset, she looked in my direction, grinned and gave me a massive thumbs up before hanging up, doing a little dance and dashing into the kitchen.
I turned back to the dresser, feeling all warm inside, and began to handle the cutlery for the third time that evening.
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 fromEastEndersplay 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 aremorethan 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.’
