Nurse Kelly has come across to The Old Ship on her day off and is now perched on one of the stools at the bar, chatting to Alison. The seat is a little high for comfort, but Kelly likes that it makes her legs look longer.
She watches Alison work. The bar manager is always impeccably turned out, like Peggy Mitchell used to be.
Alison and Kelly have forged a deep friendship in the trenches of the menopause.
It’s the 11 a.m. coffee rush and both barmen are down in the pavilion doing their best barista routine, drawing hearts and flowers in froth, flirting for tips, which are usually excellent at this time of year. Meanwhile Alison serves the occasional Buck’s Fizz or freshly squeezed orange juice at the top bar, for nothing celebrates the birth of the baby Jesus like mid-morning alcohol. She’s on her own until lunch, so the chat with Kelly is snatched between serving customers and clearing up after 168those who can’t be bothered to return their glasses, because that would just be too hard, wouldn’t it.
The Christmas tree winks at her in the corner. The needles are a bugger to get out of the carpet, but thankfully that’s the cleaner’s problem. Every time the pub door opens, a blast of icy air reminds those inside that, while things might be cosy and toasty here in the pub, the elements outside remain intent on destroying human life.
Alison is often stressed at this time of year. There are high expectations of communal goodwill at Christmas and she’s never sure she can deliver. The masses, in determined high spirits as they flock to the Old Ship after feasting on an embarrassment of dead animals, require an atmosphere of hardcore festive joy while their bellies struggle to digest the riches within.
How times have changed from when families living on the isle of Samson were removed for their own good, malnourished, starving, trying to survive on a diet of limpets and potatoes.
The bar is frenetically busy during the holiday season. Until it isn’t. Which is almost worse. At some point soon enough Alison will have slow days and slow nights, after which she will go to bed alone.
She doesn’t want to think about that so she pours her friend another drink and Kelly starts confiding in her, telling her how she’s worried about her cousin. She always calls the lad Alec rather than the ridiculous Thor.
‘He’ll be on his own for Christmas. Made it clear he didn’t want to spend it with me. I reckon the poor sod will spend all his time holed up in his bedroom.’
‘All kids do these days,’ says Alison.
‘But he’s not a kid anymore,’ sighs Kelly. ‘You’ll keep an eye 169out for him, won’t you? He’s a strange one, I know, but then, who isn’t? I’m sure he could make friends if he put in the effort. But of course, anything I suggest is ignored because I was never young, was I?’ She shakes her head.
‘No need to worry,’ says Alison. ‘He seemed happy as Larry at the sing-along the other night.’
As she sees it, part of her job as bar manager is to offer advice and support to her customers, provide a motherly shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, soothing words when required. Alison is the modern equivalent of the village wise woman. Otherwise, as a woman over forty, she might be labelled a witch.
So she doesn’t like to worry Kelly by telling her that two of the chambermaids were making fun of Thor on singalong night and that he stood by himself as he always does.
To cheer herself up, Alison says, ‘Any gossip?’
Kelly leans in to whisper her latest juicy titbit – there’s a chap staying over at the Star Castle Hotel on St Mary’s who’s just been admitted to the hospital after accidentally falling on a lightbulb, which lodged you know where.
‘Is he an illuminati?’ snorted Alison, and the two women cackle gleefully.
Their laughter is interrupted by Mrs Dalton from Room 14 – a regular guest at the inn at this time of year. Around the corner, they hear her loudly announcing to the receptionist on duty that there has been an incident.
‘There was no mattress protector. I would strongly advise you to use them!’ Mrs D’s voice has the resonance of someone used to breeding and training gun dogs for several decades. ‘Small accident, I’m afraid!’ she booms.
The last thing Mrs Dalton sounds is afraid. 170
Alison smiles. The nasty chambermaids will have to deal with that.
Mrs D, now assured she will be furnished with a mattress protector, comes through to the bar carrying the source of the accident, kissing the dog tenderly on the nose. The animal has produced so many excellent pups, her bladder issues are excusable.
Mrs Dalton bids a cheery farewell to all and sets off to see her other dogs – the ones who now work for the island’s gamekeeper – a song in her heart and a packet of dried liver treats in her pocket.
Later this afternoon Kelly is planning to catch the air bus over to Land’s End, then via slow taxi and slow train make her way across country to visit family and friends in the Midlands. Alison will miss her. She has a stocktake to sort, and a barman to bollock; she needs to bring up more sherry, organise the mulled wine, then supervise the Secret Santa for her staff.
‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ plays over the speakers.
Of course we bloody do, thinks Alison.