G Malliet: Death of a Cozy Writer

“As I live and breathe,” he cried, already pulling a pint of Albert’s usual.

Albert slumped onto a barstool, first checking carefully to make sure its four legs stood more or less evenly on the flagstones. More than once, he had found himself discarded on the floor when one of the rickety chairs seemed to vanish from beneath him.

“On your way to visit your father, is it, then?”

Albert laughed mirthlessly.

“‘Home is the sailor, home…’ ” he trailed off, looking around him. “You’ve, er, fixed the place up, haven’t you, Jim?”

Jim Tanner swelled with owner’s pride. In response to sagging trade, for Newton Coombe was miles from the major motorways and only to be discovered by the most dogged American tourist, Jim had decided to give the customers what they wanted. What they wanted, apparently, were striped red velour seat coverings and antique farm implements suspended from the ceiling. The place now looked like a cross between a Victorian brothel and a cowshed.

“Nice,” commented Albert, stifling an inward shudder. It was just what one of the major chains would have done to liven up trade.

“Didn’t half cost the moon, let me tell you. Still, folk seem to like it.”

The two of them sat in mutual friendly silence, both gazing raptly at the decor. In a chair nearest the fire, the orange tabby who had been alive since Albert could remember-could it possibly be the same cat?-roused herself, stretched, and began a fastidious cleansing of her paws, fixing Albert the while with a suspicious green-eyed glare. Disconcerted, Albert turned away. Apart from the cat, he and Jim were alone in the pub; it was both too late and too early in the day for his regulars.

“He must be getting on by now, your dad,” said Jim, reverting to his earlier subject. It was unusual to find Albert down here at all; in fact, Jim was trying to calculate the last time he had seen him. Must have been well over a year or two ago, some family gathering. Sir Adrian’s birthday, was it? If memory served, that had gone about as well as the other gatherings at the manor house. It was well known in the village that their most famous resident could be “difficult.”

“He was seventy this year. Sometime in April, I think.”

Jim registered the vagueness, rightly aligning it in his mind with indifference, pretended or otherwise. Straightening a few bar towels unnecessarily, for Jim ran a spotless establishment (his lady wife saw to that), he said casually, “Artists can be difficult, can’t they?”

“I should know. I’m surrounded by them all the time.”

“Oh, aye. Still in the theatre, are you?”

Albert winced. To have to be asked whether one was still in the theatre was a lethal blow to any actor’s ego.

“I’m starting rehearsals for Dinner at Eight next month.” He forbore to mention that the play was not only being produced by a repertory group, it was being produced by a repertory group in Sheffield. He felt sure even Jim would recognize this was about as far from the West End as any actor, respectable or otherwise, would care to be seen dead.

“Bit late for dinner, isn’t it? Eight?” was Jim’s only comment. “Generally we finish serving ’round here at seven, except for stragglers who’ve lost their way into Cambridge.”

Albert grinned in spite of himself. He was still having a little trouble getting Jim’s face entirely into focus.

“Quite sensible, too. My father certainly would agree with you. I suppose that’s why this execrable family dinner of his is planned for seven tomorrow night. Did you know he was planning to get married?”

“Oh, aye, Watters was in here last week. He said he hadn’t met the bride-to-be, although he had the idea she was likely younger than Sir Adrian. He didn’t seem to know much else about what was going on. It all seemed to have come on sudden-like,” said Jim, as if he were discussing a flu epidemic.

“Good old Watters. ‘Younger.’ There’s an understatement for you. I’d say if you put her age around a third of my father’s you wouldn’t be far off.”

Jim found from somewhere behind the bar a filthy rag that had escaped his wife’s notice and proceeded to smear the highly polished surface of the bar with it. Outside, he could hear the wind kicking up to an unholy howl, the pub sign swinging madly on its hinges. Business would be slow tonight.

“It takes men like that sometimes, you know. Mind,” and here he lowered his voice, glancing around as if there were someone other than the cat to overhear. “Mind, if the missus were to pop off I might be tempted to give a younger woman a try-who’s there among us doesn’t have our daydreams, eh?” He paused, remembering just in time that Albert’s orientation was rumored to be in the other direction, and that his daydreams, presumably, were likewise directed the other way. Jim Tanner’s mind, broad enough to encompass most of the variety of the human condition (“You see it all in my line of work,” was his oft-repeated motto), still skittered away from wandering into any of the specifics of what might constitute Albert’s daydreams. Recovering himself, he went on, “But I think on the whole a more mature woman’s what a man my age needs. The missus when she were young were handful enough-a strong-minded lass, she were.” He paused, paying mental tribute to the red-headed virago that was the Mrs. Tanner of forty years ago. “Not sure I could live through that twice, not at my age. You follow?”

“Oh, I follow all right. You mean he’s set to make a gigantic fool of himself.” For the first time, anger seeped through the alcoholic haze that had kept Albert barely tamped down all day. “And a fool of his family, while he’s at it.” He attempted to slam his fist on the bar and missed. The impetus from the swing nearly pulled him off the barstool.

Registering the change in climate, Jim decided that Albert’s next beer would be one of those nonalcoholic pissbrews he kept on tap for just such occasions. When they were as drunk as young Albert here they didn’t even notice the difference.

“You do realize what this does to us, his children?”

“Oh, aye, emotionally like-”

“Emotionally be buggered.” Albert had known Jim most of his life and saw no need to pretend the Beauclerk-Fisk family laundry couldn’t stand an airing like anyone else’s, even had discretion ever been a part of his nature-which it had never been. Furthermore, a lifetime of theatre training, while rewarding him poorly in a financial sense, had encouraged a natural tendency to speak from the heart, regardless of the consequences.

“What I want to know is what he’s going to do with the will this time,” he continued now. “He’s owned and disowned most of us several dozen times over the years-I don’t think even Ruthven, the mercenary little shit, has any idea what Father is worth or how much, if anything, is liable to be Ruthven’s cut. And with this wedding… well, you do see, don’t you? We don’t any of us even know who this woman is.”

Jim, who at his death would probably be worth no more than 5,000 pounds once the Inland Revenue got through raping his widow, still could appreciate the similarities. Where there was money at stake, even piddling amounts, the heirs were sure to behave badly. Why, when Mrs. Cottle up the way had died last year her two daughters had had a regular knock-down drag-out in her front garden over some trinket the old lady’d probably bought at Torquay for ten pence back in the 1930s. Jim, whose reading was largely confined to racing forms, had no idea what a famous writer like Sir Adrian might have raked in over the years; he only knew the mansion itself was probably worth a few million. And if some stranger were to come along and grab the whole lot now that the old man was approaching his twilight years… yes, Jim could see where this could lead to a right mess in any family. ’Specially this one.