Page 34 of The Village Inn of Secret Dream

Dodgy Del peered around the corner. ‘You open?’ he called.

Belle nodded. ‘Of course,’ she told him. ‘Come in.’

‘Only the sign still says Closed,’ said Del, with a frown.

Belle shot Pete a knowing smile. ‘I’ll fix it,’ she told him, crossing the floor to turn over the little sign.

When was Pete going to learn that she had quite a lot that she could teach him? There might actually be some hope for the future of the inn if only he wasn’t so determined to do everything his way, she thought.

She looked out of the window. It was dark already now that October had arrived and the nights were beginning to draw in. As the days shortened and everyone slowly segued from outside to in, with a drizzle falling onto the river, it was unlikely they’d be busy on a cold and damp night.

She went back across the room and had just reached the bar when she heard Del say, ‘I’m not sure I can drink that, mate.’

She looked to where Pete had poured out a pint of beer into a glass for Del. Except there was more froth than beer.

Del looked at Belle with a grimace. ‘Any chance of anything more than a half pint?’

‘I’ll pour it out,’ she said, brushing past Pete to stand in front of the lever. ‘It needs a bit of a wiggle,’ she told him. ‘And you need to hold the glass at an angle right up against the glass to ensure it’s beer and not froth that ends up in the glass.’

‘Right,’ he said, frowning. ‘Okay. Well, I’ll learn.’

But Pete was positively blushing when Josh came in a short time later and Del told him about his brother’s efforts.

‘How can anyone not know how to pour a pint of beer?’ said Josh, laughing.

Pete cleared his throat. ‘The bars I’m used to are more cosmopolitan than countryside,’ he told them in a lofty tone.

But it didn’t stop Josh and Del from carrying on laughing.

Belle thought later on that she really hoped he was going to learn how to be a landlord a lot faster than he had that evening. Despite only a handful of customers coming in, Pete had managed to overcharge nearly all of them, had got the till stuck, had caused the contactless payment machine to need rebooting and had given out vodka instead of gin.

All in all, he wasn’t a natural, she decided. But she still found she was smiling, despite the customers’ grumbles. In a way, it was nice to see him outside of his comfort zone. For a while, Pete had lost that arrogance that had suddenly appeared and had even given her a sheepish grin when he had made yet another mistake. Perhaps some of the old Pete remained after all, she decided.

He looked shattered when Belle locked the door later that evening after everyone had left.

They walked past the lounge and kitchen and into the short corridor where the bathroom and bedrooms were. It had been decided that Pete would take the master bedroom and that Belle would remain in her own.

But when she glanced inside her aunt and uncle’s old bedroom, she was surprised.

‘You’ve rearranged the furniture,’ she said.

Pete had had a brand-new bed and bedding delivered, but whereas the old bed had always been underneath the window, the new one was now in the centre of the room.

‘It makes more sense like that,’ he told her. ‘And I like to sleep in the middle of the room, not up against a wall.’

‘I see,’ said Belle, who found herself smiling to herself as she bid him goodnight.

Hearing the rain becoming much heavier outside, suddenly she was in surprisingly good humour as she went to bed.

Belle’s reaction to him moving the bed to the middle of the room had confused Pete. Her smile had almost made him think that there was some kind of private joke that he wasn’t party to.

It didn’t matter, he told himself, as he settled down in the bed. There was a draught howling into the room from somewhere and he huddled further under the duvet. The place seemed to be permanently cold.

He found it very odd to be lying in the bedroom with Belle next door. He was still aware of her soft perfume lingering in the air.

He shook his head and tried to force himself to go to sleep. But his mind was racing and it took some time before he finally began to drift off to the sound of the rain hammering down outside.

But a short time later, he came to with a start and switched on the bedside light, looking around him in a daze.