Child’s Play. Reginald Hill
required of Yorkshire publicans and John Huby was well qualified to open the batting for any county side of licensed victuallers.
‘John, love, it’s turned six,’ said Ruby Huby.
‘Oh aye.’
‘Shall I open up? There’s a car in the car park.’
‘So what? Let the bugger wait!’ said Huby, continuing to stack bottles of light ale on his bar shelves.
Ruby Huby looked anxiously out of the window. Happily the newcomer did not seem impatient. He was standing by his car examining with speculative interest the foundations of the restaurant and function room extension which, begun in anticipation of Aunt Gwen’s will, looked like being its first casualty.
‘Right,’ said Huby looking round to make sure everything was as serious and sombre as it should be. ‘Let him in. But he’d best not want owt fancy. I’m not in the mood.’
As ‘fancy’ when John Huby was not in the mood could include any mixture from a gin and tonic to a shandy, the odds on a clash seemed high.
Fortunately the man who entered, in his thirties with a dark beard, a mop of strong crinkly hair and a broad-shouldered athletic-looking torso, had driven far enough to develop a simple thirst.
‘What’s your pleasure?’ asked Huby challengingly.
‘Pint of best, please,’ said the man in a soft Scottish accent.
Mollified, Huby drew a pint. First of the night, it was rather cloudy. He looked speculatively at the stranger, who looked speculatively back, sighed, drew another, got a clear one at the third time of asking and handed it over.
‘Cheers,’ said the man.
He drank and looked round the bar. The landlord’s ambition for development had clearly not begun here. The furniture and fittings would probably have pleased Betjeman. Even the inevitable fruit machine belonged to a pre-electronic age. There was a deep recessed fireplace which contained real coal piled on real sticks for lighting, if and when the landlord decided his customers deserved it. On the brick hearth lay a sleeping Yorkshire terrier. A stout woman of mid to late forties was bustling around the room, laying out ashtrays and a girl in her late teens with a mass of springy blonde curls and an even greater mass of even springier bosom was polishing glasses behind the bar. She caught his eye and smiled invitingly. Pleased at this first sign of welcome, the stranger smiled back.
Huby, intercepting the exchange, snapped, ‘Jane, if you’ve nowt better to do than stand about grinning, bring us some fresh martini up. We’ll mebbe be getting a rush of the gentry tonight.’
The stranger put his glass down on the bar.
‘Mr John Huby, is it?’ he asked.
‘That’s what it says over the door.’
‘My name is Goodenough, Mr Huby. Andrew Goodenough. I am the general secretary of the People’s Animal Welfare Society. You may recall that the Society was mentioned in your late aunt’s will.’
‘Oh aye, I recall that well enough,’ said Huby grimly.
‘Yes. I fear it must have been something of a disappointment to you.’
‘Disappointment, Mr Goodenough? No, I’d not say that,’ said Huby lifting up the bar flap and coming to the public side of the bar. ‘I’d not say that. It was her brass, to do with as she liked. And she didn’t forget me; no, she didn’t forget me. And I’ll not forget her, you can be sure of that!’
He had walked across to the fireplace, and as he spoke these last words with great vehemence, to Goodenough’s horror he raised his right leg and delivered a vicious and powerful kick at the sleeping dog. The force of it drove the animal against the brickwork with a sickening thud.
‘For Christ’s sake, man!’ cried the animal protectionist, then his protest faded as he realized the dog, though now on its back, still retained its sleeping posture.
‘Can I introduce you to Gruff-of-sodding-Greendale?’ snarled Huby. ‘I were going to stick it on the fire at first, but then I thought: No, I’ll keep the thing. It’ll lie there as a lesson to me not to waste time being friendly to those who don’t know the meaning of gratitude or family loyalty. Now, what can I do for you, Mr Goodenough? It’s not the welfare of Gruff here that’s brought you all this way, is it?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Goodenough. ‘Could we talk in private?’
‘Instead of in this crowded bar, you mean? Ruby, you look after things in here when the rush starts, will you? Come through, Mr Goodenough.’
The living quarters behind the bar proved to be distinctly more comfortable than the public area, though the same air of antiquity reigned.
‘Been in the family a long time, has it?’ said Goodenough.
‘Long enough. It were me grandad’s to start with.’
‘Yes. I was talking to Mrs Windibanks in London and she gave me something of the family history.’
This was enough to shatter any barrier of reticence.
‘Old Windypants? What’s she know about owt? Nose stuck in the air when it weren’t stuck up the old girl’s bum! Well, she got as little for her pains as me, so that’s some consolation. But you don’t want to pay any heed to owt she says about the Hubys. Listen. I’ll tell you how it really was.’
He settled down in his chair and Goodenough followed suit, like the unlucky wedding guest. Though, in fact he was not incurious to hear Huby’s version of the background to this old business.
The landlord began to speak.
‘This place were the cottage belonging to the mill that stood behind it, alongside the river. Well, it’s long gone now and it were pretty much a ruin even when my grandad got the cottage. He were just a farm lad, but he had his head screwed on, and he set up an ale house here with his sister to keep house for him. Lomas’s were a small brewery then, just starting, and their eldest lad come round to try to get Grandad to sell his beer. Well, Lomas had no luck selling the beer, but Grandad’s sister, Dot, took his fancy and off he went with her instead! Grandad weren’t best pleased by all accounts, but there was nowt the poor devil could do except get himself married so he’d have someone to help around the place. And this is what he did, and him and Grandma had twin sons, John, my dad, and Sam.’
He paused not in anticipation of any challenge to this interesting view of marriage, but to fill and light an ancient and malodorous pipe.
‘Come 1914 and they both upped and offed to the war,’ he resumed. ‘What’s more, they both came back unscathed, which was more than most families could claim. Grandma had died early on, and Grandad went too in 1919. The pub was left between ’em, but Uncle Sam had been left all restless by the war, so he took his share in cash and left Dad with the pub. Sam disappeared for a year doing God knows what. Then one day he came back, stony broke. He turned up here, asking my dad for a sub till he got on his feet again. Now Dad were a fair man, but he weren’t soft. He’d got married by then and he was just about making ends meet, but only just. So he told his brother he were welcome to his supper and a bed for the night, but after that he’d have to make his own way. That sounds fair enough to me, wouldn’t you say? Sam had made his bed and now he had to lie on it.’
Goodenough nodded agreement. The consequences of dispute were not to be lightly provoked. Besides, he had some real sympathy for the viewpoint.
‘And what was Sam’s response?’
‘Well, he were a hard man too,’ said Huby, not without admiration. ‘He told Dad to shove his supper and wedge the bed in after it, and went right back to town the same night. Next thing Dad heard, Sam had sweet-talked Auntie Dot into making Lomas give him a job as a salesman for the brewery. That did it. Grandad would’ve turned in his grave. He never made it up with Dot. Always felt she gave herself airs. Well, that’s what mixing with them bloody Lomases does to you, I’ve