to fetch more side plates.
As Suzy had anticipated, for drinks before dinner most of the Pillars of Sussex favoured pints of beer. At least, maybe some of them would have preferred something else, but drinking pints of beer before dinner was a necessary component of their masculine ritual.
So Suzy was kept busy behind the counter, pulling pints, and Jude was kept busy handing them round and taking orders, a system that avoided a crush at the small bar. Dinner was scheduled to start at eight, and at ten past Suzy asked Jude to warn Max she was about to usher the Pillars through to the dining room.
In the kitchen, Max and the spotty youth who gloried in the title of sous-chef were rushing around in a panic of preparation, while Kerry sat at the table pontificating on the merits of the current Top Twenty. In front of her, there was an open bottle of wine the chef had been using for cooking. As Jude came in, Kerry pushed it away, as though she hadn’t just been taking a surreptitious sip.
‘Are you set, Max? Suzy wants to send them through.’
‘Bloody hell! Why doesn’t she ever give me enough notice?’
‘The dinner was meant to be at eight.’
‘Yes, but . . . Kerry, have you put all the bloody starters out?’
‘I will,’ replied the girl, once again put-upon.
‘They should already be bloody there!’
‘I’ll help,’ said Jude, and passed Kerry a tray of stuffed field mushrooms from one of the heated cupboards.
Kerry rose complaining from her seat, but at that moment the door from the hall opened and she lost all interest in the dinner. ‘Hello, Geoff. Is Dad here?’ she asked excitedly.
The man who had entered without knocking did not wear a uniform, but his dark suit instantly spoke the word ‘chauffeur’. He was short, thick-set and balding; his features sagged, as though they had melted in excessive heat.
Kerry’s manner towards him was one of indifferent acceptance, treating him like some kind of fixture or fitting.
‘Your Dad’s just freshening up in his room. I’m wondering where I’m going for the night.’ He nodded at Max Townley. ‘I’m Geoff, Bob Hartson’s driver.’
‘And what do you think you’re doing, just walking into my kitchen?’
‘It’s where the chauffeur always goes, in the kitchen,’ the driver replied evenly. ‘It’s his proper place. While the boss eats the posh grub in the dining room.’
‘Oh, shit!’ said the chef gracelessly. ‘I’m not meant to be feeding you too tonight, am I?’
‘No, I don’t want your ponced-up nosh. I’ll go down the pub and get something with chips. Then I’ll come back and play on my Gameboy, so if anyone can show me which room I’m in, I’ll be fine.’
‘Be in the stable block,’ said Kerry. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘Bloody stable block?’ the driver objected. ‘What’s this? Staff quarters? I thought if I got to stay in this poncy gaffe, at least I’d get a decent room.’
‘That’s where Suzy’s put you, Geoff. I suppose I could have a word and see if there’s a room in the hotel where—’
‘No,’ Jude interposed firmly. ‘Suzy’s got quite enough on her plate. If that’s the room she’s allocated, then you’d better stick with it.’
The driver shrugged, unworried. His protest had only been for form’s sake. Always worth trying, like asking for an upgrade on an aeroplane. Sometimes it actually worked.
Kerry took him out through the back door to the stable block.
At that moment, Suzy came in from the dining room. ‘OK. We’re off!’
Chapter Five
‘I am Bob Hartson, a Pillar of medium height . . .’ a ripple of knowing laughter greeted this sally. Kerry’s stepfather was a tall man with the muscle-bound body of a retired wrestler. The corrugated face beneath his corrugated grey hair was red and unvisited by imagination.
‘. . . and I would like to introduce to the Pillars of Sussex my guest – Mr Nigel Ackford.’
His sponsor looked on indulgently, as the young man at the far end of the table rose unsteadily to his feet. His suit was perhaps a little too sharp and his tie a little too pastel for the tastes of some of the guests, but he said what protocol demanded of him.
‘I am very honoured to be here, even at the pediment of the great Pillars.’
The formula was greeted by raucous laughter and wild applause, disproportionate to any possible interest or wit in what had just been said. Jude doggedly continued clearing the dessert dishes.
In the remains of one sherry trifle a cigarette butt had been stubbed. Max wouldn’t like that. It wasn’t the first thing of the evening Max wouldn’t like. Normally, he would have returned home by this time, and missed seeing the latest insult to his cuisine, but that evening he had tried to neutralize his anger by drinking vodka. The ploy hadn’t worked – the alcohol seemed to make him even testier – but it had ensured he’d have to stay the night in one of the staff rooms. He might not have cared about the dangers to himself, but there was no way he was going to put his precious Ducati at risk from drunken driving.
Donald Chew, by now almost comatose with drink, smiled approvingly as the new president rose to his feet to reply to the young guest. James Baxter wore the heavy, over-elaborate chain which had, until recently, hung around Donald Chew’s neck. Baxter had spent his life in local government, working mostly in the planning department, and was seeing out his last couple of years before retirement in a job where, in spite of a fine-sounding title, he could do little harm. His main professional duty now seemed to be lunching, and he took disproportionate pride in being president of the Pillars of Sussex. He cleared his throat portentously before his reply.
‘Your words are pleasing to the highest Pillar of Sussex. Welcome, and may you enjoy our dinner.’
Since they’d already finished eating, this didn’t seem to make sense, but Jude had, much earlier in the evening, realized logic played little part in the protocol of the Pillars of Sussex.
‘And tell me, Mr Ackford,’ the President rumbled on, ‘a little of yourself . . . or of those details which you are willing to share with the Pillars of Sussex.’
This was greeted by another automatic ripple of hilarity. Not for the first time, Jude wished she understood the rituals of male laughter. Its triggers seemed to have nothing to do with the humour of what had just been said; there were just certain prompts which, in an all-male assembly, required an immediate responsive guffaw. How to recognize these prompts Jude had no idea; she reckoned she never would – having been born the wrong gender.
Trifle dishes balanced up her arm, a skill mastered in her late twenties when she’d run a cafe, Jude made her way back towards the kitchen. As she left, she heard Nigel Ackford begin to present his professional credentials to the assembled Pillars.
‘After
