Bex stood in the playground watching Alfie and Lewis hare around with their friends in the May sunshine and waiting for the bell to go, which was the signal for the kids to line up and the parents to leave. She exchanged the occasional smile and nod with the other mothers, as she’d done for quite a few weeks now, and wondered how long it was going to take for her to be on first-name terms with them. Most of them stood around in little groups, chatting, their friendships having been forged when the kids joined the school aged five – or even before that in a little place like this; at the mother and toddler groups or possibly even at antenatal classes. Bex knew it would take time to become integrated and accepted and, as far as she knew, there was no quick fix. The boys were making friends with their classmates but as yet there’d been no invitations for birthday parties or play-dates. It’ll come, Bex told herself, and, when it did, that would be when she got to know the parents. It was a shame, she thought, that Lewis’s birthday always fell in the summer holidays and Alfie’s birthday wasn’t until Christmas. Maybe, she mused, she ought to have an un-birthday tea-party – invite a bunch of small boys around to play in the garden. Or would that smack of showing off that she lived in a big house?

She could not force people to be friends with her but working in the pub was helping – although, as yet, she’d not met anyone she recognised from the school playground. The people who popped in for a lunchtime drink and a snack were mostly old men, like Harry and his friends, or people who worked in the town centre. Not shop staff but men in suits – like estate agents and solicitors. Very few women, Bex had noticed. They were probably too busy racing round, getting shopping or multitasking in the way that working women generally had to. So much for the equality of the sexes.

The bell rang and Bex waited till the boys had been led into their classrooms by their teachers before she turned to go.

‘Excuse me?’

Bex turned. ‘Yes?’ she said, brightly.

‘I’m Jo Singleton. I’m the chair of the PTA.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Bex fixed a smile on her face because she knew what was coming next. In her experience the people who ran PTAs approached other mums in the playground when they wanted something.

‘I expect you’ve heard,’ began Jo, ‘but it’s the school summer fair coming up in a few weeks.’

Bex nodded. Her instincts had been right.

‘I was wondering if you’d like to help out.’

‘In what way?’

‘Run a stall for me?’

‘Possibly. It rather depends what it entails.’

‘Oh, the committee do most of the donkey work. All we will need you to do on the day is turn up and take money or sell tickets or whatever. And, of course, before that, if you could bring any donations for the other stalls in to the school we’d be ever so grateful; cakes, bric-a-brac, prizes for the tombola...’ Jo smiled at Bex.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘That’s brilliant.’ Jo whipped out a notebook. ‘So, if I could have your name and contact number.’

Bex reeled them off. ‘I love baking. I’ll do you some cakes, shall I? A dozen or so?’

‘A dozen?’

‘More?’

‘Whatever you feel happy to produce. The cake stall always sells out.’

‘I know.’

‘That’s wonderful.’ Jo made another note. ‘So – are you the family who have moved into The Beeches?’

Bex nodded.

‘And you have two boys here, is that right?’

‘Yes, Lewis and Alfie – in years four and one.’

‘Lovely.’

‘And my stepdaughter goes to the comp.’

‘Not St Anselm’s?’

‘My late husband wasn’t a fan of private education.’

‘Late? Oh... I am so sorry.’

‘Yeah... well...’

An awkward silence fell. ‘Anyway,’ said Jo, ‘thanks for volunteering, I mustn’t keep you.’

‘No.’ And as Bex was about to say goodbye, Jo raced off. Bex sighed. Death isn’t contagious, she wanted to shout after her. Or maybe she was busy, late for an appointment. Maybe. On the other hand, being involved in the school fête was probably another good way of meeting people, as long as they could cope with the fact she had a dead husband.

Later that morning she trotted next door to her shift at the pub. Belinda let her in with a cheery ‘hello’ and then asked Bex to help her with the bottling up.

‘I might have to leave you on your own today for a bit,’ she said as she picked up a crate of mixers to lug up the cellar stairs.

‘Really?’ Bex knew she had come on in leaps and bounds in terms of competence since she’d started work there but she still had glitches. She grabbed a crate of bitter lemon and prepared to follow Belinda.

‘I’ve got to take the car over to Cattebury for its MOT. Miles’ll help if you have a problem,’ said Belinda over her shoulder. ‘Not that you will of course.’

‘I suppose.’

‘You’ll be fine. It’s got to happen one day.’ She put the heavy crate down on the bar with an ‘oof’.

‘I suppose.’ Bex put her crate down on the floor.

‘But I’d better warn you, he’s in a mood because we had a late booking for the function room tonight and they want a finger buffet for fifteen. He’s not a happy chappy – in fact he’s in a foul mood.’

Great, thought Bex. She hoped she wouldn’t do anything to make it worse.

Belinda smiled. ‘But this isn’t getting the bottling up done. While I put this lot on the shelves can you bring up a crate of Coronas, please?’

The pair worked until the shelves were full.

‘Right,’ said Belinda. ‘I’m off out, so I’ll leave you to open up,’ she glanced at the pub clock, ‘in about five minutes. Good luck.’

‘I am hoping I’m going to rely on skill and training rather than luck,’ responded Bex.

‘Indeed.’

Five minutes after the door was unbolted Harry and Alf came in for their daily pint – or two – of beer. Bex poured their drinks, operated the till and handed over their change all without a hitch. And then a party of around ten men barrelled in, none of whom she recognised. The noise level in the pub went through the roof and Harry and Alf looked grumpy at this invasion of strangers into their pub.

Bex battled as best she could making gin and tonics, pouring pints and glasses of wine and then the Guinness ran out. Flustered, she ran into the kitchen and saw that Miles seemed to be up to his proverbial ears in pastry, mixing bowls and saucepans.

‘Hi, Miles, I need a hand to change a barrel.’

‘Which one?’ he said, as he hauled a tray of vol-au-vent cases out of the oven.

‘The Guinness.’

‘Haven’t you learned how yet?’ He sounded exasperated as he put the hot tray down on the counter and picked up another of uncooked sausage rolls. He checked the oven temperature, adjusted it and slammed them in.

‘No, not yet.’

Bex stood back to allow him out of the door and returned to her customers. As he lifted the bar flap she thought she heard him mutter, ‘For God’s sake,’ as he went.

She felt a bit aggrieved. It was hardly her fault that that was a skill she had yet to be taught, nor that Belinda had left her on her own when Miles was so obviously stretched. She took the money then promised to bring the two missing pints of Guinness over in a minute.

‘It’s sorted,’ said Miles appearing at the top of the cellar stairs.

‘Thanks.’ She was starting to feel out of her depth again as a couple more customers came in and waited for their turn to be served. As she was about to deal with the missing drinks from the original order, another group of people came in.

She stuck her head around the kitchen door.

‘Miles? I need a hand.’

‘Again?’ he snapped.

Bex almost had a go at him back but she decided that it might be better not to antagonise him further. Besides, she was too busy, even with him helping out, to waste breath on sticking up for herself. In a few minutes things began to get under control and the queue was dealt with.

‘Can I order some food?’ said one of the men from the big group.

‘Of course.’

‘Best I get back to the kitchen,’ said Miles. ‘And let’s hope the food for tonight’s not ruined.’

Bex, ignoring the inference that, if it was, it would be down to her, grabbed her pad and the businessman began to rattle off the order.

‘Hang on,’ she said as she struggled to write the order down as fast as it was being given. ‘So that’s three tuna on brown, one with no cucumber, two pizzas, one toasted BLT—’

‘Two toasted BLTs,’ she was corrected.

‘—two BLTs.’

‘One on brown.’

‘One on brown, a soup of the day and a pasty.’

‘Yes.’ The guy sounded slightly shirty. ‘And if you could make it snappy – we’ve got to be somewhere else in about thirty minutes.’

‘We’ll do our best.’

‘Good.’

She began to enter the food order into the till but made a mistake and had to start again. The guy on the other side of the bar sighed heavily. Finally she got the entries all correct. ‘That’s fifty-three pounds and forty eight pence.’

The man handed over a credit card and Bex tapped the buttons. While she waited for the machine to connect to the bank she popped the order into the kitchen.

‘The group says they’re in a hurry.’

‘Then they should have gone to a McDonald’s,’ said Miles pulling a chopping board towards him and getting some bacon on the griddle.

Bex zipped back to the bar where the man was drumming his fingers on the bar.

She got him to enter his PIN, finished the transaction, and then handed him the receipt.

‘The chef says he’ll be as quick as he can.’ She thought that was more diplomatic than repeating what Miles had actually said.

The number of customers in the pub continued to grow but, with Miles busy cooking, Bex had to rely on her own skills, which she soon discovered weren’t that good when she was under pressure. Pouring drinks, ferrying food, clearing tables and taking money seemed so much harder to combine now she was pushed and the more flustered she got the worse it became.

She dashed into the kitchen in response to the little light that flashed by the till which was Miles’s signal that another food order was ready.

‘Two pizzas,’ he said.

She picked up the plates and turned round and one of the pizzas flew off the plate like a frisbee and landed, right-way up, on the floor.

‘Shit,’ groaned Bex.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’

Bex felt ridiculously close to tears.

‘At least you didn’t do it in front of the punters,’ said Miles. He dashed over and swished it up, brushed off the underside and dumped it on the plate.

‘Miles!’

‘They’ll never know,’ he said. ‘Go on – before it gets cold.’

Bex walked back into the bar and hoped she didn’t look guilty. She’d dropped the pizza and she was about to serve it to a total stranger. Supposing he got ill?

She pushed the thought from her brain and put the plates on the tables. ‘I hope you enjoy it.’

‘And the quiche?’ said shirty-man.

‘What quiche?’

‘We ordered a quiche.’

They hadn’t. She could swear blind they hadn’t.

‘I’ll check with the kitchen.’

She dashed back to see Miles. ‘They want a quiche. They didn’t order it. I know they didn’t.’

‘Really?’ said Miles, his disbelief obvious. In about a minute he’d arranged a slice of quiche on a plate with a dollop of potato salad and a small pile of green leaves. ‘Go,’ he said.

Things had quietened down considerably when Belinda returned.

‘How did you get on?’ she asked, as she took off her jacket and set about clearing some of the tables that Bex hadn’t found the time to deal with herself.

‘I had to get Miles to help a couple of times.’

‘I bet he wasn’t happy about that.’

Bex wasn’t sure whether to be loyal or lie. ‘Well, you know... I need to learn to change a barrel.’

‘Is that all? We’ll do that first thing tomorrow. It’s not hard, honest. Now, you get off, I can deal with the rest of the shift. You deserve to go home and put your feet up before you have to go and get the kids.’

‘You sure?’

Belinda nodded. ‘It’s hardly busy, is it? Not now.’ Which was true. There were only a handful of customers left. ‘Go!’

Bex said goodbye and made her way to the door while Belinda headed for the kitchen. It was only as Bex was about to turn into her drive that she remembered she’d left her mac hanging on the peg in the pub. She returned and let herself in.

The door to the kitchen was open and she could hear Miles’s voice.

‘Bloody hell, Belinda, I thought you said she’d be all right.’

‘You having to change a barrel is hardly the end of the world,’ replied Belinda.

‘But I had more than enough to do without nursemaiding her.’

‘You coped.’

‘That’s not the point. I know you like her but it doesn’t make up for the fact she’s verging on incompetent.’

‘That’s the thing, Miles, I do like her and she’ll learn. And you’re exaggerating.’

‘Huh.’

‘You’re in a foul mood because of a late order for tonight and you’re taking it out on Bex.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Belinda standing her ground.

‘I don’t like being put under that sort of pressure, that’s all. If you’d been behind the bar I could have got on with the buffet and the lunch service not had to keep abandoning them both to prop up Bex. If she doesn’t shape up, I suggest you make her ship out.’

Bex grabbed her coat and slipped out. At least she knew where she stood with Miles – on rocky ground.