Free House
by Philip J. Lees
When I retired from public life I found myself with an unaccustomed amount of time on my hands. I talked the matter over with Clare, my wife, and without too much difficulty we bought a pub in the village of Abbot’s Crowley, in Buckinghamshire: after public life, what better than a public house? My friends thought it odd that I should enter into such a venture, because I have never been a very sociable kind of person. But I thought I would try, I would ‘have a go’, and from the beginning my philosophy was quite simple: give the customers what they want.
The ‘Hawk and Sparrow’ was a free house, that is, it was not tied to any particular brewery, so I was at liberty to sell any kind of beer I wanted. I had always been a champion of individual freedoms and at one time achieved some notoriety by supporting various gay and lesbian causes—though I was neither, in spite of the insinuations of the popular press. Thus, to be the manager of a free house seemed somehow appropriate. Before long, I was able to offer a selection of no less than seventeen different draught ales, from Ruddles bitter to Theakston’s Old Peculiar. Perhaps because of this, perhaps also because of the tasty snacks that Clare produced, apparently effortlessly, from the small kitchen that led off the back of the bar, our custom had soon expanded to the extent that there was scarcely a local resident who was not a regular.
I was not a chatty barman; I was a discreet barman. One finger tapped on the side of the nose was enough to elicit a knowing smile and a commitment to silence. It was one such conversation that led to the invention of the rather strange game that, as far as I know, is played only under this roof, and no other.
I was talking to Eric Bolton, the butcher who supplied us with the first-rate meat that went into some of Clare’s collations. During the week he usually popped into the saloon bar for a pint at about seven thirty and on Saturday evenings he and his wife would come in together and spend the evening in the lounge. They were a devoted couple in their fifties.
On the occasion in question he seemed moody, not his normal, cheerful self, and I wondered why. It was a quiet time, so after pulling his pint I found some menial tasks to occupy me, near where he sat on his stool at the polished oak counter, and waited for him to use me as a confidant, should he so desire.
“John, there’s no romance any more,” he said suddenly. I was startled. Such a remark seemed incongruous, coming from a man of his Falstaffian stature and florid face, forearms brawny from wielding the tools of his profession.
He sensed my surprise and shot me a look. “Between you and me, right?” he said. I nodded.
He sighed and his eyes took on a faraway expression. “I remember when Mary and me were courting,” he said. Eric was not originally from these parts and his voice had a Devonshire burr. “You could go to the cinema then and see Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, real romantic Hollywood stuff. Now it’s all just sex.”
I wasn’t so sure about his second example, but I saw his point and said so.
“Back then,” he continued, “I could just quote a line or two from a film and Mary would love it. Nowadays,” he shook his head, “I can’t find the words, somehow.” He looked at me defiantly. “I love my wife. I just can’t find the words, even though I know she’d like to hear it.”
I was sympathetic. I knew from my own marriage to Clare—the perfect wife—that in the context of wedlock, romance was a matter of the utmost seriousness and importance.
“Why not write it down,” I suggested, without really thinking. Perhaps my years as a bureaucrat had conditioned me to believe that ‘putting it down on paper’ was the cure for all ills.
“What? You mean, like a love letter?” Now it was his turn to be surprised.
“Why not?” I said. The more I considered it, the better the idea seemed. “Write down how you feel. Take your time, get it right. Then give it to Mary, or just leave it where she’ll find it. You don’t even have to sign it. She’ll know who it’s from.”
Eric stared at me for a moment with his mouth open, like a bemused fish. Then I saw him reach a decision. “John, that’s bloody brilliant,” he said. “I’ll do it.” He took a deep swallow from his glass, as if to seal the pact, and smiled for the first time that evening.
I told Clare about it later—naturally my own dearest darling was sealed within the envelope of my discretion—and she confessed herself impressed by my handling of the situation. Then she took on a thoughtful look and for a second I began to worry: though Clare is the most wonderful woman in the world, some of her schemes have, in the past, had embarrassing consequences.
“It would be so nice to get a letter like that,” she said wistfully, and I knew that my own penmanship must be put to use again before long.
§
The following Saturday, Eric and Mary Bolton came in at their usual time. The pub was quite full and nobody else seemed to notice, but I was watching them carefully and it was quite apparent that something had happened. Mary glowed with contentment, and Eric seemed to be vibrating with excitement; he shifted from foot to foot as he pulled back her chair and helped her sit down, like a boy on his first date. Later I saw Mary reach over to take her husband’s hand and whisper something in his ear. He smiled like someone accepting an Oscar or a Nobel prize.
Clare was watching them, too, and I saw her looking thoughtful again. I was afraid she was getting one of her ‘ideas’, but I was too busy to talk to her until we had locked the door behind the last customer and were starting on the cleaning up.
“Everybody should get love letters,” she said suddenly. Clare can keep a secret as well as I can, but when it comes to her own thoughts she has a tendency to blurt.
“That would be nice,” I agreed. “A little difficult to arrange, though.”
I had not intended my remark to be sarcastic, but Clare clearly took it as such.
“Why?” she demanded, her violet eyes flashing, and I knew I would have to acquiesce to whatever plan she was concocting.
“You could write them,” she continued, “and we could hand them out to women who need them.” She smiled that coquettish smile I have always found so irresistible. “I know you’re good at it.”
“And what about the men?” I protested, playing her game for the time being. “Don’t they get love letters, too?”
She considered that for a moment and I began to feel quite alarmed. She was taking me seriously.
“They could be unisex,” she said. “‘Your eyes’, ‘your smile’, ‘I long to feel your arms around me’, that kind of thing. You know,” she paused for a second, “generic.” She had learned that word from me and now I wished she hadn’t.
“It’s a wonderful idea, darling” I said, temporising, “but I don’t have the time to write love letters for all our customers. You know that.”
Her face fell as she realised the truth of my statement, then she brightened again. Oh no! I thought. When my dear Clare gets one of her ‘ideas’ she seizes on to it like a dog to a bone, shaking it and chewing it until every last fragment of nourishment has been extracted.
“I’ve got it!” she said. “They can write them to each other.”
I didn’t understand. “Who can write them to whom?”
“The customers.” Clare now wore that special smile I had learned to dread. She had it all worked out and I knew that now it would be up to me to execute her intrigue.
“You can tell them it’s a game,” she continued, confirming my expectation. “Anyone who wants to get a letter has to write one first. They’ll all be anonymous and you can collect them, shuffle them up and pass them out again. Discreetly, of course.” That was another word she had picked up from me.
I thought wildly, searching for an avenue of escape. “What about handwriting?” I said. “What if someone gets their own letter back?”
Clare kissed me on the cheek and I knew I was lost.
“Details,” she murmured in my ear. “I know my clever lambkin will work everything out.”
§
To my amazement, the customers I approached proved to be quite receptive to the idea. I presented it to them as a game, as Clare had suggested, and after the first few positive responses I overcame my initial trepidation and spread the net wider. I had warned the early participants that there would be a ‘start up’ period during which nothing much would happen, but in fact it was only a matter of weeks before the letter exchange was in full swing. Even some of the older married couples, who I had expected would be doubtful, ‘signed up’ saying that it would be a good bit of fun, or something similar.
As it turned out, the difficulties I had foreseen were easily overcome. Through the Ministry I still had access to people who could type up documents with complete confidentiality. On Fridays, I would drive up to London to drop off the current correspondence and pick up last week’s batch. Sonya, the typist, had been instructed to mark with an ‘M’ or ‘F’ if a particular letter was clearly intended for one sex or the other, but surprisingly, this was very rarely necessary. As for the second problem, if, by chance, a customer got back the same letter that he or she had written, it was simply returned to the ‘pot’ and a replacement was provided.
From ten o’clock onwards every Saturday evening (I quickly learned not to distribute the letters any earlier) many of those who came to replenish their drinks would slip a folded piece of paper across the bar and would receive a small, white envelope in return, while the other customers politely pretended not to notice. It was understood that this extra transaction signalled the last order of the evening.
I myself never read any of the letters and I was ignorant of the authors of those I handed out, so you never knew if what you read was from your own spouse—I mean, it could easily have been. I supposed that those who loved their husbands or wives in their hearts secretly addressed their letters to them, while those who did not, did not.
I don’t think I have ever lived in a happier community. Saturday night became the high point of the week in the ‘Hawk and Sparrow’ and, from what I gathered, in the village as a whole. Interestingly, Sunday church attendance rose dramatically, perhaps because of niggling feelings of guilt among the population. Reverend Lawson was possibly the only person in the village who was unaware of what was going on, but he told me how pleased he was by the exuberance of his current congregation.
The only sad consequence has been the departure of Mary Bolton. As it turned out, the letter Eric sent to his wife on my advice, which started the whole thing and gave them both such pleasure, was well below the average standard and, after reading the efforts of other, more literary correspondents, Mary became disappointed in her husband and ran off with a visiting writer. Fortunately, the quality of Eric’s meat is as high as it was before. I have decided to remain aloof from the letter exchange and I have asked Clare to do the same. After all, some things are best kept in the family.
- End -
© Copyright Philip J. Lees 2004