Chapter 16: Enjoy Your Pub

"Nine days," Nathan said, sitting up in my bed with his hair on end. "Then what?"

"Then they sell Gran's house to pay for Steph's hot tub."

He swore.

I was already out of bed and pulling on my jeans.

"Where are you going?"

"To do a sum," I said. "Then to make an offer."

The sum took me two days.

The arrears were eighteen thousand six hundred pounds.

My own bank would lend me that against the pub's takings, on my name, on one condition.

The pub had to be mine.

All of it.

On Wednesday night I texted Steph from the barmaid's phone, because I'd blocked her and I wasn't unblocking her for this.

The Hound. 8pm. Come and hear the only offer you'll get.

She came at quarter past, to make a point.

The beer garden gate was still the only way in.

She hated that. I could see it in her face as she walked through it.

The pub was full.

The regulars had been coming every night since the chains went on, like it was a cause.

The old man with the chips. The baker. Number twelve and her gin.

Nic was on a stool at the end of the bar with her arms folded.

Nathan was off to one side with a pint, not filming anything, just watching.

The staff were behind the bar, in their aprons, on my side.

Steph stopped in the middle of the floor.

She'd done her hair and her face, braced for a confrontation.

"Well?" she said. "Make it quick. I've got a buyer interested."

"No, you haven't," I said. "Nobody buys sixty percent of a pub with a bank letter on it."

A few people laughed.

Steph didn't.

I put two sheets of paper on the bar.

"The bank's given me nine days. That's seven now. The arrears are eighteen thousand six hundred pounds."