‘Sorry, Pete. I can’t make exceptions. One rule for everybody. Eighteen or eighty-three.’
She tensed, expecting him to put up a fight, but instead he reached into his pocket and handed over the money. ‘Thanks, Pete. Give me a nod and I’ll bring another over when you’re ready.’
‘Ar, that I’ll do.’ He bent down to the dog. ‘Remind you of anyone, Skip? Yes, just like our Marjorie. We likes a woman with a firm hand, don’t we, boy?’
‘I think you’ve scored a hit there,’ Mark said, on a laugh, as she returned to the bar.
‘How so?’
‘To be compared with Pete’s late wife is the height of compliments and not one given lightly.’
Livvy glanced over at the old man. He was staring into space, sucking on his teeth. ‘He’s on his own? That’s rather sad.’
‘Another saddo here,’ Mark said. ‘Divorced,’ he added as explanation. ‘All very amicable, I’m relieved to say and a while ago. Speaking of which, I thought there was going to be a couple running this place? I only saw one name over the door as licensee. Is it just you? Sorry. Eye for detail. I notice these things.’
Livvy leaned her hip against the glass washer and pondered what to say. ‘That’s right,’ she said crisply. ‘There’s only me.’
Mark took the hint. ‘So, what are your plans for the place?’
She hesitated. ‘I don’t really know.’ This wasn’t true. She and Gavin had once had plans. Wonderful plans for a gastropub. All scrubbed pine and mismatched chairs. They’d had plans for their life together, but it seemed those had been mismatched too. Like the couple in the story, he’d run away. Only not withher. She straightened her shoulders. ‘Ease into things gently, I think.’
Mark nodded. ‘Well, you won’t get all that much tourist trade being this far up the hill away from the beach, but the beer garden has a fine view over the bay in the summer. That’s a draw. You get the builders coming in from work when they’ve finished a shift building those houses on the new estate.’ He shrugged. ‘You won’t be as busy as the pubs on the front but it’s steadier, more all year through trade. Helps, of course, if you do food and it’s probably the only way to make money. Are you planning on doing any?’
Gavin was going to do the cooking and she was going to concentrate on front of house. A wave of loneliness engulfed her. It was all going to be so much harder on her own. She bit her lip, refusing to show weakness. ‘It’s something I’m thinking about.’ Forcing a smile, she added, ‘I’ll have to find a chef though. I’m strictly a toast girl.’
Mark eyed her curiously. ‘Well, there’s usually someone around looking for work, even in the winter. And you’ve got a few months to get established before the summer season gets going.’
He was being kind, but Livvy sensed he was dying to ask more. Just as she was determined not to reveal the sorry truth. ‘Thanks,’ she said, coolly. ‘For the advice.’ To her relief, a couple walked in and she had an excuse to cut the conversation short in order to serve them.
CHAPTER 2
Beaujolais nouveau – a young wine, simple or complex on the nose, designed to be drunk in autumn
Livvy lay in bed that night, exhausted but unable to sleep. Her brain hard-wired back to the moment when, just as they were about to enrol for the pub licence course, Gavin had turned to her in panic.
‘I can’t go through with it, Liv. It’s too much responsibility. What if it all goes tits-up?’
She squeezed his hand. ‘It won’t, darling. We’ve talked it all through. We’re going to make a go of it.’ When he hesitated further, she added, ‘Gavin, this is our dream. To run away to the seaside. To have our very own pub. We’ve worked so hard for it. Saved up, gone without. The course is the last hurdle.’
His face was ashen. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He shook his head vigorously. ‘It’s not for me. I can’t do it.’
As he stumbled down the steps of the town hall, she cried after him, ‘But we’ve nowhere to go. It’s too late to back out now, the flat’s been let.’
As an answer, without turning around, he’d simply put up his hand in a sad, defeated gesture.
Livvy had stood, one foot on the step above. One foot already on its way to the future.
She could back out and, like Gavin, run away. Part of her longed to do just that. And part of her acknowledged she’d known this was coming. She thought back to his shifty glances whenever she’d tried to discuss a business plan, his refusal to attend meetings at the bank. She had put in the lion’s share of the money, Gavin had promised to put in the lion’s share of the work. It had all been decided. And now their plans were nothing but dust and ashes.
Someone knocked into her, forcing her onto the next step up. It was a man wearing a suit and a carnation buttonhole. Probably on his way to the registry office.
Livvy hovered, thinking furiously. She had nowhere to go except to the pub she’d just bought. She had no job other than as its new landlady. The enormity of it all overwhelmed her and, for a second, tears threatened. Then anger began to lick at her.Bloody Gavin! How dare he force me into this position?She should be excited, looking forward to the next phase in her life. Instead, she was facing it alone.
Two more wedding guests hurried past, in flowery dresses and cheap perfume. Gavin had proposed once, but only in a horrible, jokey sort of a way, when drunk. The memory was the final straw. A pure, white-hot rage fired within her.I’m going to do this. Even if it means doing it on my own.She’d wasted enough time on Gavin Marshall. She’d marched after the women and had turned decisively left to the examination room.
Livvy flung herself over in bed and thumped the pillow into submission. She could do this! Even without Gavin. She was the one with the background in hospitality, with years of experience in the family business. What’s more, she longed to prove to her father she could stand on her own two feet, run her own place. Her parents hadn’t been happy with her decision to break away but Livvy couldn’t be satisfied knowing she was thought of as the Smith-Lygott nepo child. It would have been all too easy to stay working for them and within their long-established company. The Smith-Lygott hotel chain, at its zenith, had had a worldwide reputation for luxury and excellence. All well and good but it had been built up by her father. Livvy wanted something she’d created, something of her own, no matter how lonely the path forward was going to be.
Willing herself to sleep, she closed her eyes. And opened them again at the sound. Wind buffeted at the building. Her bedroom shook and the windows rattled. The pub was set high on the main road leading east out of Lullbury Bay, on an exposed stretch of cliff. Livvy pulled the duvet over her head, tried not to think about how alone she was in this big old building and concentrated on sleep.
