The Village Green Affair Read Online Free Page A

say, “Enjoy!” Life’s too short.’
     
    ‘Now I know you’ve gone raving mad. This is not me. I don’t sit in bars, especially bright, shiny bars like this, with you quoting Dicky Tutt at me. He’s a brainless fool who mistakenly imagines he’s a stand-up comic. Dicky Tutt indeed.’
     
    ‘Dicky does the human race more good in one week than most people do in a year.’
     
    ‘With the Scouts you mean?’
     
    ‘Yes, I do.’
     
    ‘And where’s that going to get him in this world? I can tell you - absolutely nowhere. He’ll never be rich.’ Neville was at his most sneering.
     
    Liz wondered how it had happened that he could be so bitter. ‘It won’t bring him wealth, that’s for certain, but he’s well loved and that counts for a lot. Do you feel well loved?’
     
    Neville drank his whiskey right to the bottom of the glass. ‘Of course I am,’ he muttered. ‘You love me, anyway. Don’t talk about such things in public; it’s embarrassing.’
     
    As it sometimes can happen in a busy place, a sudden silence fell just as Liz said, ‘Well, to be honest, I don’t feel I love you right now .’
     
    A woman spluttered with laughter, and Neville thought he heard another say, ‘Not surprising!’ He was so blinded by anger at the humiliation of it all that he banged his fist on the table with such force that Liz leapt from her chair. She knocked over her spritzer, which spilled across the table, and Neville narrowly missed a stream of it running off the table and down his trousers. He jumped up, muttered some expletive, which was completely out of character, and stormed out of the bar.
     
    Liz paid their bill but, by the time she was outside on the pavement, Neville had disappeared.
     
    Standing outside and wondering what she should do next, Liz remembered his briefcase. Had he taken it with him? She couldn’t remember. Should she get it for him, or cause him even more aggravation by making him have to come to collect it tomorrow?
     
    A waiter stood in front of her holding it aloft. ‘Your . . . husband’s, madam?’
     
    ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’
     
    He was already home when she got there, but that was because she’d stopped at a fish and chip shop and sat eating in the car, feeling sorry for herself and wondering if she really wanted to be in the explosive situation that she’d deliberately created.
     

Chapter 2
     
    The next morning Liz was in the Store early buying juice and fruit for the nursery. Now that Tom ran the Store it was unusual to find Jimbo serving his customers. He raised his boater in greeting and gave Liz a smacking kiss on her cheek.
     
    ‘Good morning, my dear Liz. How’s things?’
     
    ‘Fine, thanks. And you? What are you doing serving me? I thought you’d given all that up.’
     
    Jimbo smoothed a hand over his bald head and replaced his boater. ‘Tom’s day off. Truth to tell, I miss the cut and thrust of the day behind the counter, so one day a week is excellent therapy.’ He paused to take someone’s money for a newspaper. ‘I’m asking everyone who comes in if they know anything about a strange chap who was seen in the village yesterday.’
     
    ‘Yesterday?’ The only thing she could remember about yesterday was the fearful row she and Neville had when she got home. ‘I don’t remember seeing anyone new.’ It had been the row to end all rows. ‘What did he want?’
     
    ‘That’s just it, no one knows. Apparently he sat outside the pub for hours, then went into the pub, wandered about, went into the church and chatted to Zack about the village as he polished the pews, caught Greta Jones just as she was leaving here after work, then got on the teatime bus into Culworth.’
     
    Liz shook her head. ‘I don’t know anything about him.’
     
    She wished she could have sat mum like the mystery man all the evening, then perhaps Neville wouldn’t have thrown such a paddy. Well, it wasn’t a paddy, more a bitter, ghastly verbal