‘I gobbled it up for you all,’ said Yvonne.
‘It was spent gladly, helping one of our own to get back on track,’ countered Maurice. He held out his hand towards Yvonne. ‘I’ll give you a lift home, dear lady.’
‘Thank you,’ said Yvonne to Molly in the doorway. Her shoulders weren’t sagged, her spine was straight and she had a smile in place. ‘I feel better tonight than I have done for ages. Like a storm’s cleared me up.’
‘Long may that last,’ said Mr Singh and waved goodnight to her.
‘Well, that was intense,’ said Sharon with a whistle when Maurice and Yvonne had gone. ‘I’m glad for her. That husband of hers sounded a right prick.’ She put on her thin jacket and picked up her bag.
‘Yes,’ said Molly with a nod. ‘I think this marks the beginning of her journey to a new and kinder life on a proper footing.’
‘Isn’t it funny how none of us would ever have met normally. I mean this nicely—’ Sharon looked at Laurie ‘—but you and me wouldn’t mingle in the world. I’d think you were too posh for me and you—’ she turned to Pete ‘—are just too handsome for me to have ever spoken to without melting into a pool of drool, but here . . . we all mix lovely, don’t we?’
Pete chuckled. ‘Yes we do, Sharon.’
Laurie was smiling too. She put on an affected posh voice to say, ‘See you next week, Shar-onn.’
‘Ha. See ya, love.’
‘If you ever want to talk to me on a one-to-one basis, Laurie – and Peter of course – you have my number,’ said Molly when Sharon had exited. ‘When someone has died and isn’t around to answer questions only they can answer, it can send your life into a tailspin. If closure is impossible to find, sometimes it is necessary to make it for yourself. It’s possible, with the help of guidance.’
‘Thank you, Molly,’ said Laurie. She had the sudden urge to hug the woman, but didn’t.
‘ ’Night Molly, Mr Singh,’ said Pete, falling into step with Laurie towards the door and out of it.
‘Wow,’ he said as they walked across the square to the car park. ‘Didn’t expect that tonight.’
‘Poor Yvonne,’ said Laurie. ‘I hope she makes up for all the life she missed.’ She zapped her car lock. ‘Well, see you next week.’ She found herself hoping he’d keep her talking, suggest the pub quiz again.
‘Have a good week,’ said Pete, zapping his own car. He really shouldn’t mention the pub quiz. He shouldn’t open up the door to familiarity.
‘Bye.’
‘Unless, you fancy a drink?’ He hadn’t meant to say it – really. The words came out of his voice box as if they’d bypassed his brain.
She should say no, he would understand a polite refusal.
‘Oh why not,’ she said. As if the words had left the blocks before her brain could halt them.
The Daily Trumpet would like to apologise to Eric Bradbury, the landlord of the Spouting Tap in Little Kipping, after wrongly reporting that he had been admitted to hospital with an enlarged prostitute. We did of course mean ‘prostate’.
Chapter 27
‘You ’ere for t’quiz?’ said the same woman as last week, as soon as they had walked into the Spouting Tap. Again she looked harassed and again she didn’t wait for an answer but stuffed a pencil and a piece of paper into Pete’s hand.
‘Groundhog Day,’ said Pete, which made Laurie giggle.
She has a lovely smile, thought Pete. Sweet, natural. Tara had a toothy smile and a sexy gap between her two front teeth. Perfectly straight because she’d had blinding bright white veneers. A smile she could turn on to get what she wanted.
They sat in the same seats as last week and Pete went to the bar and again Laurie tried not to study his form, appraise his wide shoulders, imagine him in a firefighter’s uniform. Imagine him out of a firefighter’s uniform.
She hadn’t had sex in ages. Maybe the night he died – the night Alex was going to propose – they would have made love. He hadn’t touched her for weeks before then and she hadn’t felt able to initiate intimacy, as if there had been an invisible barrier in place between them. The last time she remembered them getting close in bed was Christmas Eve but he hadn’t been able to get an erection. He’d apologised and she’d said it was fine because she was just happy that he’d tried after such an arid period of nothing. He’d cuddled up to her and said, ‘You do know that I love you, don’t you?’ and she tried not to think that she’d just been given a compensation prize.
Pete arrived at the table with the red wine that Laurie had asked for, a pint and two packets of crisps.
‘Couldn’t resist the highly recommended craft ale Old Buggerlugs,’ he said. ‘And I thought these might go down well with them, although we shouldn’t crunch during the questions. Hope you like cheese and onion.’
‘Thank you, but I’m allergic to potatoes,’ said Laurie. ‘I come out in big lumps if I’m anywhere near them.’
Pete looked horrified. ‘Oh crap, I didn’t know. I’ll take them back.’
‘I’m joking,’ said Laurie.
‘Ahh . . . you had me there,’ said Pete with a laughing growl. He smiled and Laurie thought again what a drop-dead gorgeous smile he had, set in a drop-dead gorgeous handsome face.
‘Just got here in time by the look of it,’ said Pete as a large group pushed into the pub, looking for vacant seats. He picked up the pencil. ‘Mixed Doubles again?’
‘I can’t think of anything else,’ said Laurie.
‘How’s the Daily Trumpet? You been there this week?’ asked Pete.
‘Oh yes. They’ve had a bumper crop of mistakes recently. Poor Alan. If he had a swear box in his office, he’d be able to buy Fleet Street.’
‘You get on well with him, don’t you? You know, just from how you speak about him, I can tell.’
‘He’s a great bloke. Very funny and kind.’ She took a sip of her wine and then dived into the crisps. Pete noticed her nails, short, neat, practical. She filled him in on why she enjoyed working there so much and Pete sat open-mouthed as she told him about some of the cases. It sounded like a madhouse.
‘Is this bloody mike working?’ said the disembodied voice of the quizmaster who was sitting out of sight around the corner.
‘Yes,’ came a chorus.
‘You’ll all be glad to know that Eric is back home upstairs in bed,’ the quizmaster went on and a cheer erupted. ‘His enlarged prostitute has been dealt with.’ More laughter, big hurrays. ‘Are we all ready? Right, question one, it’s a music one.’
Laurie gulped as the strains of ‘Always on My Mind’ came out of the speaker. Whenever she heard it, a cocktail of conflicting emotions bombarded her and their base ingredient was despair.
‘It’s a two-part question, who first released it and in what year? You get half a point for each correct answer.’
The tune prodded something deep in Pete’s brain. It had been playing for his and Tara’s first dance at their wedding reception. Her favourite love ballad, she’d once told him. She’d cried as he held her. He’d felt her tears soak through his shirt. He had found a single of the Elvis recording at an antiques fair and put it in a frame for their first anniversary. She had cried then too.