.
morosely at a letter. He looked dreadful. There were bags under his eyes, a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and he hadn’t bothered to brush his hair.
‘We’ve got to get out,’ he said.
Scarlett stared at him. ‘What do you mean, get out?’
‘The brewery wants us gone. They’ve been holding the licence for us since your mum—’ He hesitated. Neither of them could bring themselves to say the word died. ‘But they won’t go on doing that for ever. They want a licensee on the premises to deal with any bother.’
Long ago when Scarlett had first learnt to read, she had asked why only her mother had her name above the pub door as licensee. She had been told that the brewery preferred to have a woman in charge and, since the brewery’s word was law as far as they were concerned, she had never really thought to question it.
‘But surely they wouldn’t mind having your name up there now,’ she said. ‘You’ve been here for years. Everyone likes you. They all say what a good landlord you are. The brewery must know that, surely? And I could help as much as possible. We can keep it going between us.’
‘It’s not as easy as that,’ her father said.
‘What do you mean?’
Victor sighed. He dropped his head in his hands and ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up on end. Fear wormed through Scarlett’s stomach. This was her dad. When things went wrong, her dad was always there with his cheery manner, making it all right again.
‘Oh, we don’t have to bother ourselves about a little old thing like that,’ he would say. ‘Worse things happen at sea.’ Or, ‘It’ll all come out in the wash.’ And generally he was right. Up till now, whatever life had thrown at them, they had coped. Surely he could solve whatever was worrying him this time?
‘I can’t hold a licence,’ he admitted.
Scarlett stared at him. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘Because I can’t, all right?’
Fear fuelled the anger that had been simmering in her ever since her mother had died.
‘No, it isn’t all right! You say we’ve got to leave here, leave the Red Lion, because you can’t hold a licence? I want to know why.’
‘Look, it’s best you don’t know.’
The anger boiled over, all the irrational resentment at what had happened, even at her mother for going and leaving them when they needed her so much.
‘I want to know! I’ve got to leave my home because of whatever it is. I’ve got a right to know!’
Victor rubbed his face and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Because—’ his voice came out as a croak ‘—oh, God, Scarlett, this is so hard. Worse than telling your mother—’
‘Go on!’ Scarlett raged.
Victor still wouldn’t look at her. ‘Because I’ve got a record,’ he admitted.
His whole body seemed to sag in defeat.
Scarlett did not understand at first. She gazed at her big strong dad, who used to throw her up in the air and catch her, who could move the heavy beer casks around the cellar with ease, who could down a yard of ale quicker than anyone. All at once he seemed somehow smaller.
‘A record? What do you mean? What sort of—?’ And then the truth dawned on her. ‘You mean a police record?’
She couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t true. Her dad wouldn’t hurt a fly. He was everyone’s friend. He could not possibly be a criminal.
Victor reached out to her. Instinctively, Scarlett went to the safety of his arms. She was folded into the comforting familiarity of his scratchy jumper, his pubby smell. She felt his voice vibrate through his chest as he struggled to answer her honestly.
‘That’s about the size of it, yes.’
Scarlett felt as if she had been kicked in the stomach. Her whole view of the world lurched, shifted and rearranged itself into a darker, more frightening picture.
‘What did you do?’ she whispered into his neck, as visions of robbery, of murder rose in her head. Desperately, she drove them down, hating herself for even entertaining such horrors.
‘Breaking and entering.’
A burglar. Her father was a burglar.
‘You went into someone’s house and—and stole things?’ she asked, appalled. ‘How could you? How could you do that?’
Wicked people did that. Her father wasn’t wicked. He was the kindest man in the world. She reared her head back, needing to see his expression. Victor looked stricken.
‘You think I don’t regret it?’ he countered. He held her by the shoulders now, his eyes boring into hers, willing her to understand. ‘There’s not a day doesn’t go by when I don’t wish I’d said no, but I was young and stupid, Scarlett. You got to remember that. It was wrong, I know it was wrong, but you got to think about what it was like then. Times were hard. It was back in the thirties, in the depression. Work was hard to come by and what jobs there was around wasn’t paid well. I’d just met this girl, a corker she was, and I wanted to impress her—’
‘My mum?’ Scarlett interrupted.
‘No, no, this was before I met your mum. But this girl, I wanted to take her out, show her a good time, and I hadn’t any money. Then this mate of mine, he said he was doing some decorating at this old girl’s place, and she had more money than sense and she wouldn’t even notice if we took a few bits. But she did, of course. And we got caught, and I got sent down—’
He paused. Scarlett’s heart seemed to be beating so hard it was almost suffocating her.
‘One stupid mistake and I ruined my life. My family cut me off. My mother died while I was inside and my brother said it was from shame over me and none of them have had anything to do with me since. And of course when I came out nobody wanted to give me a job. Who wants a man with a record when there’s plenty of others with a clean sheet? I was on my uppers by the time I met your mum. She turned everything round. She believed in me. She was a wonderful woman, your mum. The very best.’
Scarlett couldn’t take any more. She twisted out of his grasp, marched out of the building and went for a long walk, turning everything she had just learnt over in her head. None of it made any sense. She finally found herself back home again with everything still surging around inside. It was midday opening and there were a few customers in the bar. Not wanting to speak to anyone, she ran upstairs, grabbed Gone with the Wind from her bedside table and hurried down to the far end of the garden. Neither of her parents had been keen gardeners, so the patch had gone wild since the days of digging for victory. Down at the far end, beyond the apple trees, was a hidden sunspot. Scarlett lay down in the long grass with the sun on her back, opened the book and escaped into her namesake’s world. A little later she heard her father calling her name. She kept silent. Then she heard him scrunching down the gravel path at the side. It sounded as if he was going out. Scarlett read on, immersing herself in the burning of Atlanta.
Hunger finally drove her back inside. She walked down the garden with that faintly drugged feeling that came from living vividly inside another person’s life. The back door was open, of course. Her father had locked the front of the pub but nobody ever even thought of locking their back doors. As she went into the kitchen she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Six o’clock! Opening time, and her father wasn’t back. She put the kettle on, made a cheese sandwich and wandered into the serving area behind the bar, munching. Should she open up? She checked the till—yes, there was enough change. She ran an eye over the stock—yes, there was more than enough for the poor trade they were doing at the moment. But open up on her own—? In the kitchen, the kettle was boiling. Just as she was pouring the water into the teapot, her father walked in at the back door.
‘Scarlett!