‘Who’s this, then?’ one man asked, leaning on the other end of the bar. ‘Ain’t seen you in the Boatman before.’
‘Oh, leave it out, Stigsy!’ Alice shook her head, taking a wad of notes and about a pint of loose change from the man she’d just served. ‘She’s an Out-Sider. Only moved here a few weeks ago.’
‘Moved where?’ Stigsy said, leaning forwards to inspect me with a leer, as though he could find an address label, or catch a whiff of Old Side takeaway pizza.
‘Damson Farm!’ Alice folded her arms and stuck her chin up. ‘Like I said, neutral.’
Stigsy sniffed. A few of the other men stepped closer, and a woman seated at a table in the corner with a set of dominoes called out, ‘You know the rumours, Alice. Maybe Damson weren’t so neutral as all that!’
‘Yeah!’ various people in the crowd agreed.
Oh my goodness.
What the hell had I walked into? I’d thought it was rural Nottinghamshire, not the Wild West.
‘Shame on you, Carole-Ann Matthews!’ Alice yelled above the growing murmurings. ‘If we’re talking rumours, what about your Dylan going to Ziva Solomon about his manky elbow because he couldn’t be bothered to see Dr Porter over at Brooksby, eh?’
Carole-Ann turned scarlet, suddenly finding her dominoes deeply engrossing.
Alice picked up a tea-towel and began slowly drying a pint glass, somehow making the gesture appear ominously threatening.
‘And you, Dennis?’ she asked, her voice soft with menace. ‘You want to talk about the rumours regarding your little Tuesday night rendezvous? John Stoat, do I even need to mention the words MOT?’ She scanned the room, eyes narrowed. I don’t know about the rest of the crowd, but every hair on the back of my neck stood up.
‘That was an emergency!’ An older man with tattoos covering his bald head blurted, before grabbing his bottle of cider and flinging himself out the door.
‘Now,’ Alice carried on. ‘If anyone of you want another drink today, or any other day I’m in charge of this bar, you’d better sit down, shut up, and make sure you don’t pass within three metres of my friend here unless it’s to extend a warm, New Sider welcome.’
The only sound in the whole room was my heart, approaching warp-speed as it rattled against my ribs.
‘Well, a friend of Alice is a friend of ours, isn’t that right, fellas?’ A man wearing a tie and formal jacket over the top of his Mansfield Town football shirt said. ‘Nice to meet you, love.’
‘Cheers, Kev,’ Alice nodded, the rest of the pub echoing his comments with rumbles of assent as they turned back to the screen and picked up their pints again.
I pressed one hand to my wheezing chest. ‘And you arranged to meet me here why, exactly?’
Alice handed me a glass of white wine, eyes glinting. ‘Nothing to get your knickers in a knot about. These lot know where the balance of power lies.’
‘And you didn’t think to warn me?’
‘Nothing to warn you about!’ She waved her hands at the now settled room. ‘Besides, I thought it would be good practice for them, having a new face turn up. Prise open their narrow minds a fraction. Isn’t that what you wanted to talk to me about?’
I took a long slow sip of wine, eyes closed as I regained my composure. ‘I’m driving, obviously, I can’t actually drink this.’
‘Drink away. It’s on the house. Ray over there starts his Uber shift in a couple of hours. He’ll drop you back, no worries.’
I was very worried, actually. Although, the more wine that settled in my stomach, the more I remembered that this totally proved my whole point, that the village was in dire need of someone to come up with a brilliant idea to end all this nonsense once and for all.
Alice wasn’t so sure.
‘You want towhat?’ she whispered, leaning across the bar, eyes darting.
‘Just an initial meeting, so we can get the ball rolling.’
‘Did you see what happened here, less than an hour ago?’
‘I did.’ I stifled a hiccup. ‘And I also saw that people actually need both sides. And they know it. The doctors, MOTs, they’re just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been looking into conflict resolution in small communities, and what we need is one person to stand up and speak out. The key is making sure that it’s the right person – someone people listen to, and respect. Someone with standing, who wields power. Once you—’
‘Blummin’ ’eck, Eleanor, do not even joke about that being me!’
