Scene 3 – The Cornucopia on the Lane
After alighting from his bus on the Strand, Colin found the pub he was looking for on Temple Lane, near the submerged Victoria Embankment. It was at the end of a pontoon skirting King’s College and around the back of the Courtauld Institute.
‘The Cornucopia on the Lane’ proclaimed itself ‘The World’s Narrowest Gastro-Pub.’ Tucked between a gentleman’s outfitters specialising in Crown Court clothing and the offices of an accountancy firm, the pub stood as a thin slice of Tudor England. With a core structure built around 1598, the Corny, as the locals called it, had distinctive leaded windows and half-timbering on its gable. Although they were recent additions—installed for the tourists who all-too-infrequently strayed that way—they looked the part to Colin.
A roll of thunder momentarily drowned the hum of the traffic, and Colin eyed a black cloud the size of a small county coming in from the South and wished he’d brought a coat.
He wondered if, like the pub, he looked the part, or would he be seen for what he was, a South Lundeinjon pretender?
Across the street, a gowned lawyer stared at him for a moment too long before turning into an alley. Dismissing it, Colin chided himself for being paranoid and stepped up to the kerb.
“Can’t be helped now,” he muttered to himself, shucked up his collar, strode across the street, and pushed his way through the swing doors at the front of the pub, where the warmth of a log fire immediately stroked his chilled face invitingly. Ignoring the clatter of glasses and waves of conversation, he let his eyes roam around until they rested on his quarry.
Allie McTavish was the landlady of the Corny. A tall woman with a jet-black bob, hazel eyes that were large enough to be Anime, olive skin that seemed to glow from within, and a semi-permanent cigarette jutting from the side of her mouth, she cut an imposing figure. At the mention of Liam’s name, she waved Colin into a back room of the pub, where she made cups of tea for both of them using a small Primus sat on a melamine shelf next to a fold-out desk, on top of which lay a mess of papers and accounting books.
“Sorry about this,” she said, lighting the Primus. “Since the river breached its banks, I daren’t use electricity. Not until I gets the blooming place waterproofed anyway.”
“I’m getting a taste for it,” Colin said. At least a third of central and east Lundeinjon lay under water after a combination of a storm surge and rising ocean levels lay waste to the administrative, financial, and commercial districts of the city two years earlier. South of the river, it was worse, with most of Southwark, Bermondsey and Rotherhithe under water as far as a line drawn between Clapham Common and the Cutty Sark in Greenwich. The Pool of Lundeinjon had turned into a lake, one that was getting bigger with each succeeding winter.
“The trouble is, the builders had to reskill to do the work. Half of them went to the Netherlands to train, and half of those never came back, and who can blame them?” Allie lit another cigarette after throwing the old one in a bin filled with its fellow dibbies. “So, getting a tradesman to do the old necessary is an utter trial. I really don’t know what I’m going to do until then. Sid, our barman, has to be on call all the time. What with the hand pumps getting clogged and things.”
Colin nodded appreciatively. One of the first things he’d learned was to let an informant talk. It made the business-talk transition easier. “I’ll ask around the office. See if anyone knows someone and send them your way.”
Allie smiled. “Thanks, darling. I’d be ever so grateful if you could sort it.”
She leaned forward, letting an inch or two of cleavage show. Colin blushed, and the smile turned into a chuckle. She sat up straight again, adjusted her top, and her face went serious. She looked like a different person.
“Anyway, Liam Corbett doesn’t send someone all the way down here to look at my tits. What can I do for you, my darling?”
“Dominic Stewart,” he said. He kept his voice neutral and looked her in the eyes as he said the name. A first reaction is often the important one. In this case, Allie narrowed her enormous eyes until they were almost slits.
“Little shit,” she hissed.
“That bad?” he prompted.
“Bad?” Allie’s mouth mirrored her eyes, folding itself into a thin line. “That man has a bar tab as long as the Central Line. They ought to lock him in the Tower.”
Colin’s pen stopped mid-scratch. A bar tab? That was less scandal and more like a typical night out for bar cruisers. Haines would eat him alive.
“That’s not the end of it either,” Allie took a long drag and flicked ash into the bin. “I’ve heard he has a girl stashed away in a little flat somewhere near Tooting Bec. Him, with that lovely wife—that actress—wosername? Kate Steinberg, that’s it. The American girl who did ‘To Fly Away, Away’. Lovely film. I cried like a drain.”
Better, but he would need corroborating evidence. “I don’t suppose you remember who told you about Dominic’s little love nest?”
“Oh yes, but there needs to be a quid pro quo, my darling,” she said without pause. “Back scratching, if you like.”
“What can I do for you?”
“You don’t mess about, do you?” Allie laughed; an ah-hah-hah-hah cackle of which the Weird Sisters would be proud. “Liam. He’s a proper gentleman, for an Irish anyway, he rang me and told me you were coming down. Said your old man is Abi Shrikeman, the boxing promoter, and you could get me tickets for the Borton fight in the New Year.”
He hadn’t spoken to his father since graduation. Choosing sides in a domestic war left wounds, some stitched shut, others still seeping. He’d imagined the reunion for years, but it wasn’t supposed to start like this: for a scrap of gossip and a few column inches.
Attempting not to choke on his principles, he said, “That won’t be a problem. I’ll talk to Dad tomorrow if he’s in town. If not, I’ll give him a ring.”
“I like a man who doesn’t flinch,” Allie said, all smiles now. “The man you want to speak to is Tony Lavorato. He’s the caretaker at Streatham High School on Abbotswood Road. He’s got a house in The Spinney, just around the corner. Just let him know I sent you.”
“Thanks, Allie,” Colin said, holding out his hand. He glanced at his watch. There was enough time to head back to his flat, have a shower and get ready for his meeting at Catterick’s at nine. He’d have to spring for a taxi, but at least it wouldn’t be out of his pocket. This would be on The Announcer. “I’ll call over on him tomorrow after school is out. Could you do me a favour and let him know I’ll be coming?”
She took his hand and shook it firmly. “Of course I will, my darling. But try for front row seats, will ya?”
“I’ll do my best,” he said and stood up to leave.
“One more thing,” Allie said, holding on to his hand. Colin looked at her earnestly. “You didn’t get this from me. Is that okay?”
“That’s okay.”
As he walked to the door, he caught a reflection of himself in the mirror behind the bar. He barely recognised himself. In the mottled glass, a young man stared back—sandy hair tousled by the rain, jacket damp at the shoulders, aquiline nose giving him a slightly patrician profile that his South Lundeinjon vowels couldn’t quite live up to. And that unsettled him more than the favour, more than the gossip, and more than Haines’s scowl ever could.
Compromises, especially those concerning values, come with a price, he thought as he pushed the door aside. A light flared in the alleyway where the lawyer had disappeared—a striking match. He thought he saw a shadowy figure moving back into the darkness and momentarily considered following.
“No point in inviting trouble,” he concluded and ran through the rain to the Strand, where he hailed a cab to take him to his apartment in Charing Cross.
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