‘I’m going to do the flowers myself from now on,’ she declared. ‘Everything has to be grown at Peasebrook. That’s our selling point. If they don’t like it, they can go somewhere else.’
So she and Dillon had spent hours poring over florists’ websites and leafing through seed catalogues. He told her what they could grow: tulips, narcissi, peonies, dahlias, roses of course, sweet Williams, sweet peas, alchemilla … She sent a couple of the girls who worked for her on a floristry course, and by the next wedding season they were doing the bouquets, buttonholes, table arrangements – everything.
‘I want that freshly-plucked-from-the-garden look,’ said Alice. ‘Not those awful stiff formal arrangements. I want it all frondy and feathery and Thomas Hardy-ish.’
In the end, Dillon had suggested a polytunnel, to get the biggest seasonal range, and Alice had declared him an utter genius.
So they had got quite close, and sometimes they ended up in the White Horse having a drink, and Alice bobbed about the pub like the butterfly she was, chatting to everyone. And then she’d met Hugh, at a friend’s party in London, and Dillon backed off. He could tell it was time for him to cut the ties, because there was absolutely no way a man like Hugh wanted the likes of Dillon cosying up to his girlfriend. And he tried to make it so that Alice didn’t realise he was deliberately avoiding her, because he knew the minute she twigged she would be insistent about including him, and Dillon simply couldn’t face the humiliation or the power struggle.
This was the first time he had been cornered in public, and he didn’t have a watertight excuse. He felt the prickly panic of a socially awkward situation.
‘You’ve got to meet everyone,’ Alice urged him. ‘They’ll all be at the wedding. Come on.’
She was tugging at his arm. Across the pub, Dillon saw Brian Melksham come into the bar for his Friday pint. Relief flooded him, just as Hugh walked over and put a proprietorial arm around Alice. There was no mistaking the underlying message.
‘I can’t,’ said Dillon. ‘There’s Brian. He’s having my ferrets off me.’
Alice’s face fell.
Hugh smirked and gave an unpleasant laugh.
‘It’s like the bloody Archers in here.’
Dillon grabbed Brian’s arm and walked him over to the bar. ‘Don’t look over. Just pretend we’re deep in conversation.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Alice wants me to go and sit with all her mates.’
‘Is she here with that knob?’
‘Yep.’
No one in the White Horse thought much of Hugh. They all thought Alice deserved better.
‘I seen his white tart trap in the car park,’ said Brian. ‘Nothing that a squirt of slurry wouldn’t put right.’
He pulled a fiver out of his pocket for his pint. That was what Dillon loved about people in the White Horse. They didn’t suffer fools.
At the end of the evening, the landlord called time. Dillon had stayed on for a game of pool in the back room but he decided he’d leave now, before the traditional Friday night lock-in. You had to be in the mood and he wanted a clear head for the weekend.
He walked back through into the main bar and saw Alice and her friends getting ready to leave. Most of them were unsteady on their feet, draped all over each other, braying and swaying. He looked at Hugh, who was holding his car keys. His face was flushed red, his eyes slightly glazed. He couldn’t possibly be fit to drive. Dillon looked at the empty champagne bottles littering the table. They’d had shots too. Someone had set up a J?ger train – shot glasses of J?germeister balanced on glasses of Red Bull. There had been much hilarity as the domino effect pushed each shot glass into the next one.
But Dillon knew Hugh’s type. He wouldn’t let a small thing like being over the limit stop him. Dillon had only had two pints over the course of the evening. He wasn’t going to risk his licence. Besides, drink driving was illegal for a good reason.
He walked over to Alice, who was just coming out of the loo. He could see she had drunk too much to have any common sense left.
‘You shouldn’t get in the car with Hugh. You shouldn’t let him drive.’
Alice waved a hand. ‘It’ll be fine. It’s only the lanes.’
‘Please. I’ll give you a lift.’
Hugh came looming up behind Alice. He was waving his keys. ‘What’s up, ferret boy?’
Dillon didn’t falter. ‘You shouldn’t be driving.’
Hugh’s stare was flat and hard.
‘Mind your own bloody business.’
‘Come on, man,’ said Dillon, distressed. ‘I can give you guys a lift.’
Hugh prodded him in the chest. ‘Butt out. I’m fine to drive.’
Dillon bunched his fists and stepped forward. One of Alice’s mates spotted what was going on and started shouting ‘Fight! Fight!’
Alice looked worried. ‘Honestly, Dills – he’s fine.’
Dillon scowled. It went against all his instincts, to let Alice get in the car with Hugh.
‘Piss off, Mellors,’ said Hugh. ‘Come on, Alice.’