Poisoning in the Pub, The. Simon Brett

      ONE

      One of the most inauspicious events for any restaurant is to have a customer vomiting on the premises. However distant the cause may be from the establishment’s kitchens, whatever rare gastric bug may have triggered the attack, such a happening is never good for business. There is always an assumption on the part of the general public that blame must lie with the food served in the restaurant.

      Ted Crisp, landlord of the Crown and Anchor near the sea at Fethering in West Sussex, found that out to his cost one Monday lunchtime in July. His dish of the day was pan-fried scallops with spinach and oriental noodles, and unfortunately it was a choice for which a large number of his customers opted.

      Amongst those customers were two women in their fifties. The one whom most people, particularly men, would notice first was called Jude. She had an abundance of blonde hair twisted into an untidy knot on top of her head and a body wobbling between the voluptuous and the plump. She wore a bright cotton skirt and blouse, draped over with a tangle of multi-coloured scarves.

      Her companion, by contrast, looked as though she wanted to melt into anonymity. Women are said to become invisible when they get into their fifties, and Carole Seddon’s appearance suggested that was a tendency of which she strongly approved. She had on a grey Marks & Spencer jumper, beige trousers and shoes so sensible they could have given lectures in civic responsibility. Grey hair was cut into the shape of a helmet; rimless glasses fronted surprisingly shrewd pale blue eyes.

      The two were discussing Carole’s granddaughter Lily. ‘It’s down to you,’ Jude was saying. ‘If you don’t feel you’re seeing enough of her, then say something to Stephen and Gaby.’

      ‘It’s not that I don’t feel I’m seeing enough of her,’ said Carole. ‘It’s just I feel I should see more of her if …’ She petered out.

      ‘If what?’

      ‘Well, if …’ Carole Seddon was clearly having difficulties with what came next, but Jude’s look of innocent quizzicality did eventually begin to elicit an explanation. ‘The fact is, Stephen and Gaby have spoken of going away for a long weekend … you know, him taking the Friday off and …’

      ‘How nice for them.’

      ‘Yes, but …’ Jude waited patiently. She had the feeling the problem would not be an enormous one. Or at least only enormous to Carole. Her friend and neighbour had a great capacity for getting upset over trifles or, as some of Jude’s more New Age friends might put it, ‘sweating the small stuff’.

      ‘The thing is,’ said Carole in a rush, ‘they want to leave Lily with me.’

      ‘Over this long weekend they were talking about?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Well, that’d be lovely for you, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘Ye-es.’ The length of the vowel betrayed the extent of Carole’s anxiety. ‘The fact is, Jude, it’s years since I’ve looked after a baby … well, since Stephen was born, actually. And I wasn’t very good at it then. I don’t really think I have much in the way of maternal instinct.’

      ‘Nonsense, you’ll be fine. And it’s not as if you’ll be on your own.’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘I’ll be next door at Woodside Cottage. If you have a crisis, you can call on me.’

      ‘Oh, Jude, would you really help?’ There was an almost pathetic appeal in the pale blue eyes.

      ‘Of course I would.’

      ‘Thank goodness. Now, please, promise me you’ll let me know which weekends you’re going to be away, so that I can make sure Stephen and Gaby choose one when you’re around.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ said Jude easily. She was continually amazed and slightly puzzled by how seriously her neighbour took things. For Carole Seddon life was a minefield; every step in every direction – particularly a new direction – was full of potential hazards. Jude had always had a more relaxed attitude. There were things which she took seriously, but she really didn’t sweat the small stuff. And in this particular instance she couldn’t help being amused by the comfort Carole took in her potential as an assistant baby-minder. Jude, despite a varied and exciting love life, had never had any children. The right man for such a commitment had never appeared at the right time.

      But Carole Seddon, despite her dauntingly efficient exterior, and despite the fact that she had held down a responsible job at the Home Office with icy control, was totally lacking in confidence when it came to her private life. She had felt even less certainty in such areas since she had divorced Stephen’s father David, but she had never really felt at home at home. Her neuroses had made her create a wall of privacy around herself, and Jude was one of the few people who was occasionally let inside that wall.

      Carole, embarrassed to have strayed onto such an emotional subject as her granddaughter, looked round the pub for a new topic of conversation, and her eye was caught by one of many identical posters stuck on any available space. DAN POKE COMEDY NIGHT, read the legend. FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY. TV STAR REVEALS ALL HIS NAUGHTY BITS – FANCY A POKE …? The date was the following Sunday evening and the venue – surprisingly to Carole at least – was the Crown and Anchor.

      ‘Know anything about that?’ she asked.

      Jude shrugged. ‘Well, I know about Dan Poke. Was quite a big name on television a few years back.’

      ‘Really? I’ve never heard of him.’

      ‘One of the first round of alternative comedians.’

      The intonation of Carole’s ‘Oh’ suggested that that was hardly the kind of thing she might be expected to know about. Except for her secret vice of a particular afternoon chatshow, she didn’t watch much ‘entertainment’ television. Carole still had a rather Reithian view of the medium as a purveyor of education and generally watched only news and documentaries. Watching the first was easy – news proliferated from every outlet – but decent documentaries had become an endangered species. Drama, generally speaking, Carole eschewed, though she would watch classic book adaptations featuring Empire-line dresses or crinolines. And, of course, anything with Judi Dench in it.

      ‘Are there people in Fethering who would want to watch someone like that?’ she asked Jude, in a tone that very definitely expected the answer no.

      ‘Presumably. Otherwise why would Ted be putting it on?’

      Carole’s only response was a ‘Hm’ that was very nearly a ‘Hmph’ of disapproval. There was a silence while they ate, before she observed, ‘These scallops are good.’

      ‘Yes. Ted’s new chef is really doing wonders.’ Jude looked round the pub. The weather was very hot, so the outside tables were full, and there was very little space in the interior. All the pub’s doors and windows were open, but only the slightest breeze drifted lazily in from the sea.

      Fethering would always be predominantly a retirement community, so the average age of the clientele was high. The tourists the area attracted tended to be quite mature too. Small children were few, and those that were there were with grandparents rather than parents. Otherwise, a lot of well-heeled people in their sixties and seventies, representatives of the last generation whose pension provisions would be adequate to their needs, sat on the outside benches or in the alcoves of the Crown and Anchor, eating and drinking. As they did most lunchtimes