The Crown was an attractive Georgian building, let down by a rather shabby modern extension with a corrugated iron roof. The pub was set well back from the road, with a scrubby, uneven lawn in front of it, on which were randomly arranged wooden tables and benches. Two of them were occupied by smokers, nursing pints and well wrapped up.
Although it was still sunny, a biting wind was rising as Jason and Emily walked up the path to the entrance. They both wore woolly hats, and the brand-new waxed Barbours that Emily had excitedly bought, as early Christmas presents to each other, for their new country life. Jason also had on a pair of new hiking boots, which were starting to rub painfully. He was ruing not having worn them in around the house for a few days, first. Although at least, he compensated himself, they did look the part.
In small gold letters above the saloon bar door were the words: LICENSED PROPRIETOR, LESTER BEESON.
As they entered the noisy interior, into the ingrained smell of beer, ancient carpet and wood smoke, Jason peered around, taking it all in with excitement. The wooden tables and chairs looked as if they had been there forever, as did some of the characters. In addition to festive decorations, the nicotine-ochre walls were hung with ancient agricultural artefacts and there was a row of horseshoes nailed to an oak beam above the bar. Below were rows of spirit optics, a photograph of a cricket team and several pewter tankards. A warren of doorways led off to other rooms. He need look no further for the archetypal English country pub for inspiration for his paintings of drinkers, he thought, happily. And there were plenty of candidates here this Sunday lunchtime, hunched on bar stools, standing around or seated in the recessed booths.
Presiding over the L-shaped bar, from behind the counter, was a massively tall and large-framed man in his late fifties; he had a mane of hair, a cream shirt with the top two buttons undone and a large gut bulging his midriff buttons. A younger man and two women worked busily alongside him, pulling pints, pouring wine, jabbing shorts glasses up against the optics.
Instinctively, Jason patted the right pocket of his jeans, checking his phone was there, deciding he would try to take some surreptitious photos.
Then, suddenly, it felt to him as if someone had hit the pause button on a video he was in.
Both he and Emily stopped in their tracks.
Heads were turned towards them. Staring eyes from every direction.
The hubbub of conversation stopped. There was total silence, punctuated only by the ping-beep-bloop-ping of a flashing gaming machine on the far side of the room, like a forlorn extraterrestrial left behind on a mission and trying to attract attention.
Jason felt like they were the couple in the film he had seen years ago, Straw Dogs, entering a pub full of folk in rural Cornwall. Was he just imagining the atmosphere? He put an arm around Emily and squeezed her, reassuringly.
Almost as quickly as it had happened, the moment passed. The video began playing again. Conversations seemed to resume throughout the room. All except for one old man in a checked lumberjack shirt and grey trousers, seated on a bar stool, who continued to stare at them with open hostility. Jason had a good memory for faces, and he looked like the tractor driver who had thundered recklessly down the lane towards them, passing them without slowing down.
Emily was looking at him strangely again, the same look she’d given him in the kitchen earlier. She waved a hand in front of his face. ‘Hello? Darling? Are you OK?’
He nodded.
‘I thought you were about to pass out,’ she said.
‘No – I – I just – had an image – for a painting – flash into my mind. I was trying to capture it.’ He smiled. ‘I think it’s time for that drink.’
Was the shrink right, he wondered, about the trauma of moving? Was his mind in shreds from the pressure of the move plus anxiety over his forthcoming exhibition? Hallucinating?
They waited at the back of the crowd at the bar, until he caught the big guy’s eye.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘We’re booked in the restaurant for lunch – name of Jason Danes at one thirty – we’re a bit early.’
The barman beamed. ‘No problem at all, sir, madam – and welcome to Cold Hill village. If I understand it, you’ve just moved in?’
‘That’s right,’ Jason said, proudly, happy to be recognized as part of the community.
‘Well, we all look forward to seeing more of you both.’ He stretched out a hand past the grizzled old man and another old man seated beside him. ‘Lester Beeson, I’m the landlord, in charge of this rabble.’ He looked pointedly at the man who was still glaring daggers at Jason and Emily.
‘Jason Danes,’ he replied. ‘This is my wife, Emily.’
‘All of us in the village are happy to have you both with us; we need a little rejuvenation. Too many grumpy old gits like Albert, here.’ He nodded at the grizzled man. ‘And old Wilfred over there!’ He pointed at an elderly, morose couple seated in a window booth, whom Jason had noticed when they’d entered. They were sharing a pack of crisps, eating without saying a word to each other.
‘Wilf!’ the landlord boomed across the crowded room. ‘Meet some new arrivals in the village! Give them a real Wilf welcome, eh?’
The man, who had lank white hair hanging down either side of his face as if a damp mop had been plonked on his head, picked up his pewter tankard and raised it in the air at Jason and Emily, while his wife just scowled.
‘Your table’s not quite ready, sir,’ Beeson said. ‘Can we offer you both – as a tradition to all newcomers to Cold Hill – a drink on the house? A pint of Sussex’s finest – Harvey’s – for you, Mr Danes, perhaps?’
‘Thank you very much. And a dry white wine for my wife.’
‘Pinot Grigio?’
‘Perfect,’ Emily said.
All the seats were taken, so they stood with their drinks a short distance from the bar. ‘Cheers, darling!’ Jason said.
They clinked glasses. Emily sipped, then wrinkled her face.
‘How’s the wine?’ he asked.
‘Lukewarm and horrible.’
‘Want me to change it?’
She shook her head.
Behind them, a loud rural Sussex accent said, ‘What they doing in here, Lester? You letting standards drop?’
‘Shut it, Albert.’
‘I’ll not shut it. They should never have allowed that development. I told Mary, over my dead body would it go through.’
‘Yep, well, you still look pretty much alive to me.’
‘Bah! Scandalous. A blooming housing estate, ruined the whole village, that’s what it has. He’s that painter fellow?’
Jason and Emily, hearing him clearly, exchanged a smile.
‘Probably does nudes and all,’ he continued.
‘I could paint a portrait of you in the nude, if you’d like!’ Jason called out.
‘Jason!’ Emily hissed.
The old farmer stared at him again. Then he broke into a near-toothless smirk. ‘Paint me to look like James Bond, eh?’
‘Superman, if you’d like – Albert, is it?’ Jason said.
‘Albert Fears.’ The old guy supped his pint, then set it down on the bar top. ‘Seen her yet?’ he said, suddenly, still staring at him.
‘Seen what?’ Jason responded, aware of Emily frowning.
The old man smirked again. Two yellowed stumps in a mouth of bare gums. ‘They’re all around, still. You can’t get rid of ’em like that, you know. It’s not about bricks and mortar, old or new.’ He winked and turned back to his tankard, lifting and supping it again.
‘Who is around?’ Jason asked. ‘What do you mean, they’re all around? Who?’
Albert Fears gave him a piercing look. ‘They’re around to those what can see them. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’
‘No, I’ve no idea, I’m sorry.’ He turned to Emily, who was looking puzzled.
‘Why don’t you tell ’em, Harry?’ He turned to the equally ancient, wiry man next to him, who had been sitting in silence, pint glass in front of him, holding an unlit briar pipe. A stout, rough-hewn stick was propped against the bar beside him.
Taking his own time, the man pivoted on his stool. He wore a baggy shirt with a red and white spotted cravat, grey trousers and ancient walking boots. His white hair was styled in an old-fashioned, boyish quiff, and he sported a goatee beard. Observing Jason and Emily through sad, rheumy eyes, he said, ‘I used to drive the digger.’
‘Digger?’ Jason echoed.
‘Ask anyone, they’ll know about the digger.’
Albert grumbled loudly behind him at the landlord. ‘Six generations of my family have farmed here, Lester. Cold Hill exists because of the big house. The Lord of the Manor. Now it’s a bloody housing estate, we’re going to have all these city folk coming along, thinking they’re living the bleedin’ rural idyll.’ He swivelled around and stared hard again at Jason and Emily. ‘That’s what you believe, isn’t it – that you’re living in the countryside, eh? But actually you are just living in suburbia. Bah. Good luck to you. You’ll never leave. No one ever has.’ He swivelled back to his beer.
A pleasant woman in a black polo shirt with the pub’s name on it came over, holding a clutch of menus, and told Jason and Emily their table was ready.
‘Nice to meet you!’ Jason said to both old men, as Emily turned away in disgust.
Neither acknowledged him.