Sweet Memories of You (Beach View Boarding House) (5 page)

As Ron seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom, she hurried down into the basement and stripped his bed. Gathering the dirty clothes from the floor, she bundled everything into the laundry basket and quickly remade the bed. There was nothing she could do about the mess in here, but at least the ferrets, Flora and Dora, appeared to have a clean cage, which was a minor blessing.

She was about to go back upstairs when she remembered that Ron would need a tie. Scrabbling in the untidy drawers she discarded several before unearthing one from the bottom of the wardrobe that didn’t appear to have any burn holes in it from his pipe, or the remainder of any food. It was dark blue and very crumpled, but a hot iron would soon sort that out.

She had just finished ironing the tie when Ron appeared in the kitchen. He was a changed man in his freshly pressed suit and pristine shirt, his hair tamed by a dab of Brylcreem and brushed back from his clean-shaven face. He was still a good-looking man, sturdy and strong, his thick black hair only lightly silvered with a few strands of grey, and Peggy could understand why her friend Rosie Braithwaite had fallen in love with him.

Ron sat down at the table and Peggy swiftly wrapped a tea towel round his neck to protect his shirt from spills as he tucked into the bowl of porridge and drank a second cup of tea. ‘Rosie said she’d meet us there,’ she said, ‘and Bertie Double-Barrelled will be driving us to the hall.’

He eyed her from beneath his brows. ‘I suppose that sister of yours will be there?’

Peggy nodded reluctantly, knowing there was no love lost between him and Doris, and fearing he would use her presence as yet another excuse for not going. ‘She helped to organise everything.’

She noted the belligerent glare this statement evoked, so she placed the tie carefully over the back of a chair, well away from the mess Ron was making with his toast and margarine, sat down and reached for his hand. ‘Ron, please don’t let the side down today. We’re all so very proud of you and it would be such a pity after all the hard work that’s been put in.’

He rolled his eyes and then gave a deep sigh. ‘Ach, Peggy, you worry too much, girl. To be sure I’m not a child to be warned to be on me best behaviour, and if Rosie’s coming, then of course I’ll be the very soul of propriety.’

Peggy didn’t believe that for a minute, and neither did Cordelia, for she gave a little snort of derision.

‘Ach,’ he growled. ‘You can mock an old soldier who suffers terrible with the moving shrapnel. But you’ll see I’m a man of me word, so I am.’

Cordelia and Peggy exchanged knowing glances and didn’t even bother to reply to this blatant bit of self-delusion.

Bertram arrived promptly, looking as dapper as always in a tweed suit and belted gabardine mackintosh, the brown trilby tipped to just the right angle over his brow, a sprig of heather adorning his buttonhole. Cordelia let him help her on with her coat while Peggy knotted Ron’s tie.

‘Will you not be strangling me, woman,’ he rasped. ‘To be sure I have to breathe.’

Peggy loosened the knot fractionally. ‘There, that’s perfect. Just keep it on at least until after the ceremony.’

He glared at her from beneath his brows, then went grumbling down the steps to the basement with Harvey at his heels.

Peggy strongly doubted that tie would be in evidence within the hour, but at least she’d done her best to make him look presentable. She dressed Daisy in her warm coat and bonnet, tucking her little hands into mittens to keep out the cold, and once Ron had returned from the basement and shut the kitchen door on Harvey, they trooped outside under their umbrellas and were driven to the Town Hall.

As the little car drew up at the foot of the steps, they were greeted by the sight of Harvey shaking himself by the front door and looking very pleased with himself.

‘How did he get here?’ asked Peggy.

Ron shrugged and avoided further questioning by clambering out of the car and running up the steps to his dog.

Peggy should have been cross, but in fact she was finding it hard not to laugh at the shenanigans. Ron had clearly left the back door open and ordered Harvey to follow the car to the hall. The pair of them were wily old so-and-sos, and Ron was right – the medal he would receive today should have been awarded to both of them – but how would he manage to get round the strict rule of no dogs being allowed in the hall?

‘Stay close, Harvey, and don’t let them see the whites of your eyes,’ Ron muttered as they headed for the carpeted stairs which would lead them to the banqueting hall on the first floor.

Harvey padded along beside him, his shaggy coat still damp from his gallop through the rain.

They were about to climb the final short flight when their progress was halted by the immovable force that was Doris Williams. She was resplendent in a brown hat, tweed suit and highly polished pumps and matching handbag, and Ron noticed that the pheasant feather in her hat was quivering with her pent-up indignation.

‘Good morning,’ he said cheerfully as he tried to get round her.

She stood firm. ‘Dogs are not allowed in here,’ she hissed. ‘Get it out immediately.’

He’d faced the Hun in the trenches of the Somme, so Doris didn’t faze him at all. He glared back. ‘If Harvey goes, so do I.’

Doris’s perfectly made-up face twitched with conflicting emotions – the uppermost being one of fury. ‘You know the rules, Reilly. The Mayor is allergic to dogs.’

‘I don’t care what he’s allergic to,’ Ron retorted. ‘Harvey comes in with me, or I leave.’

‘You can’t do that,’ she squeaked in rising horror.

‘I can and I will if you don’t let us pass,’ he rumbled. ‘And the name’s Ron, as you very well know, so don’t come on with your airs and graces to me, Doris. You might think you’re posher than most, but I know better.’

Doris reddened and shot a hasty glance over her shoulder to see if anyone had overheard. ‘How
dare
you talk to me like that?’ she hissed.

‘I’ll talk any way I want,’ he retorted. ‘Now let us pass.’

Harvey growled in the back of his throat and sniffed at the hem of Doris’s skirt, his cold, wet nose nudging her leg.

Doris slapped him away and Harvey’s growl deepened.

‘Hit my dog and I’ll put you over me knee and tan your hide,’ Ron promised.

Doris went puce. ‘Then get it away from me this minute,’ she demanded. ‘Disgusting animal.’

Ron sidestepped her as she hastily wiped Harvey’s dribble from her delicate stockings, and they continued up the stairs. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ he said quietly to Harvey. ‘You don’t know what you might find, sticking your nose up there.’

Harvey sat at the top of the stairs, his tongue lolling as he wagged his tail and grinned up at Ron.

Ron looked round at the gathering outside the banqueting room doors, noting that most of them seemed to be members of the local council, with a smattering of snooty women who were the driving force of several charities and good works in the town – women whose little clique had been firmly closed against Doris following the scandal over her husband’s affair with one of his shop girls.

Ron meandered over to the bar that had been set up with trays of glasses and plates of small, unidentifiable bits of food and discovered that only sherry and soft drinks were on offer. As he loathed watery cordial, he had no alternative but to choose the sherry. He swallowed the disgusting drink down in one and took another, which he despatched in the same manner. He needed the hair of the dog really, but any port in a storm was welcome if it would see him through this awful rigmarole.

As he edged a finger inside the stiff shirt collar that was threatening to cut his throat, he saw Doris hovering on the edge of the chattering group of women who were studiously ignoring her. He found that he actually felt rather sorry for her, which was a most unusual emotion when it came to Doris, for he disliked her intensely. Yet she really was her own worst enemy, for she talked down to everyone she considered beneath her – which was the majority of people living in Cliffehaven – had never learned the art of tact, and was the most terrible social climber and snob. She might be his beloved Peggy’s sister, but they were chalk and cheese, and Ron had never been able to understand how it was possible that they were related.

Ron finished the third glass of sherry, grimacing, he caught sight of the barman who usually worked at the Fishermen’s Club and was an old friend. ‘Have you not got anything proper to drink, Sam? I need something to take the taste of that sherry away.’

The man smiled and reached beneath the counter. ‘You should have said earlier, Ron. Rosie sent this over to keep you going.’ He handed over a brandy flask. ‘Don’t wave it about too much, mate, there’s a strict rule against any hard liquor.’

Gratefully, Ron swallowed some of the restorative brandy and surveyed the crowd again. Peggy and Doris seemed to be conducting a heated exchange, the topic of which was clear, for Doris kept jabbing a finger in his direction. ‘Stay low, Harvey,’ he murmured. ‘Enemy at two o’clock.’

Harvey crept under the pristine white tablecloth covering the makeshift bar until only his nose and eyes were visible.

Ron drank his brandy, eased his neck once more against the restricting collar and tie, and wondered where his Rosie had got to. She was the light of his life and the girl of his heart, and the day would definitely go more smoothly with her at his side. He trawled the gathering for sight of her platinum curls, but she was nowhere to be seen, and his spirits plummeted. She must have had difficulty in finding someone to man the pumps at the Anchor, otherwise she would never have let him down.

As the crowd grew in number and the volume of chatter rose, the double doors at the far end were opened and people began to slowly filter into the large room which had once, before war and rationing, been the scene of lavish banquets. Not that Ron had ever attended such things, but he’d heard tell that, as the drinks flowed, those who considered themselves to be the social elite showed their true colours, and there had been many a scandal attached to the goings-on that ensued.

‘Ron. I’m so sorry I’m late.’

Ron grinned, his spirits immediately soaring as Rosie kissed his cheek and gave him an approving once-over. She looked gorgeous in a neat skirt and jacket and high heels, her slender legs encased in the nylons he’d managed to get from an old army pal who had connections with the Yanks up at the Cliffe estate. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. ‘Ach, to be sure you’re a fine-looking woman, Rosie Braithwaite. And ’tis a lucky man I am to have you at me side.’

‘Flattery will get you nowhere, but a drink might,’ she teased, her blue eyes flashing.

Once she’d taken a sip of the sherry, she surveyed the crowd and Ron used the moment to further admire her. Rosie was in her early fifties, with an hourglass figure, heart-shaped face and mesmerising blue eyes which could quite often make him go weak at the knees. He’d pursued her from the moment she’d taken over the Anchor twenty years before, but it had only been in the past couple of years that she’d allowed him to kiss her and murmur sweet nothings in her ear. To his great regret and frustration, that was as far as she would permit him to go, for Rosie was still married – tied to a man doomed to spend the rest of his life in a mental asylum – and as a good Catholic girl she believed hell and damnation awaited her should she break her marriage vows.

‘You’re looking very serious,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re nervous.’

He shook off his gloomy thoughts and smiled back at her. ‘Don’t you fret, Rosie me darlin’, this lot don’t scare me.’

She glanced down as Harvey nudged the toe of her shoe with his nose and she grinned, her blue eyes gleaming with fun. ‘Oh, Ron, you just can’t help breaking the rules, can you?’

He grinned back. ‘Life wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.’

‘Well, you won’t be able to take him into the banqueting room.’

He raised a bushy brow, his grin still wide as he tapped the side of his nose.

‘Oh, Ron,’ she giggled. ‘You are a caution.’

A commanding voice rose above the general hubbub. ‘Ladies and gentlemen. The Worshipful the Mayor of Cliffehaven, Councillor Archibald Hammond, invites you to take your seats for the award ceremony. Those being honoured today are requested to proceed to the front row.’

‘This is it,’ whispered Rosie as she kissed his cheek. ‘I’ll see you after the ceremony.’

Ron patted her pert behind before she sashayed away from him to join the crush at the door. He waited until it had started to flow through and then clicked his fingers at Harvey, who was instantly alert. ‘Stick close and stay low,’ he ordered quietly before joining the melee.

With Harvey slinking beside him, they slipped through the door into the huge banqueting hall where three enormous crystal chandeliers hung from the high ceiling, casting light on the framed portraits of past mayors lining the panelled walls.

Rows of chairs had been placed to face the stage, where a long, cloth-covered table was almost hidden by a vast, overblown flower arrangement. Behind the table was an ornate, throne-like edifice embellished with the mayoral badge of office and the county shield. Flanking this prime example of bad taste were rather less grand red velvet-covered chairs – no doubt put there to provide for the wide, well-fed bottoms of the great and good of the Cliffehaven town council.

There were more flower arrangements placed artfully along the front of the stage, and bunting had been strung overhead. A rather elderly quartet provided a musical accompaniment, but no one seemed to be taking any notice as the chatter rose to drown them out.

Ron caught sight of Doris, organising the award winners in the front row, and before she had the chance to spot him, he clicked his fingers again and slid into a seat at the back.

Harvey silently slithered beneath it, and with a soft grunt flopped down, nose on paws, ears twitching at all the sounds around him.

Ron winked at the man sitting next to him who winked back, and as the whisper went down the line and curious eyes searched for sight of the hiding Harvey, the doors were closed and a fanfare of trumpets went up which made everyone jump.