Seeing Stars by Christina Jones Read Free Book Online

non-stop without ever listening to the replies.
    Zillah always thought the clientele suited The Weasel and Bucket admirably, being sort of ancient and dark and gnarled and
     unchanged for centuries. Timmy Pluckrose, the pub’s current landlord, had resisted the trend for wide-open drinking spaces
     and light bright eating areas. So the huge fireplace, the inglenooks, the uneven polished floors, the odd corners, the rickety
     tables and chairs, the tiny leaded windows covered in ivy, and the low beams which all had ‘duck or grouse’ signs pinned to
     them, hadn’t altered in living memory.
    ‘Billy giving you trouble, Zil?’ Timmy Pluckrose, tall, thin and balding, appeared from the kitchen. ‘I can always bar him
     you know.’
    ‘As if,’ Zillah grinned, dropping lemon slices and ice cubes into three glasses of house gin and low-cal tonic for the elderly
     Cousins Motion. ‘You’ve never barred anyone in your life. And I gave him the wrong drink so he had every right to grizzle.’

    ‘Did you?’ Timmy’s pale eyebrows arched towards his non-existent hairline. ‘Not like you. Are you feeling poorly?’
    Poorly didn’t even come close. It was nearly one o’clock. Amber would have arrived at Reading station. Lewis would have met
     her.
    ‘I’m fine,’ Zillah lied, then smiled at two of the three ancient Motions. The male third had slipped off, clearly unnoticed
     by his cousins, to the gents for a crafty fag. ‘Not having a sandwich today, ladies?’
    They shook their heads in unison.
    ‘Go on,’ Timmy wheedled. ‘I can do you a nice bit of ham off the bone and some mustard.’
    ‘We’re not paying your inflated prices, Timmy Pluckrose,’ Constance made a prim moue with thin lips made even more mean by
     a slash of unflattering crimson lipstick. ‘A fortune for a couple of slices of white loaf and a scrape of marge and a bit
     of ham you can see through – I don’t think so, thank you all the same.’
    ‘You get crisps and a salad garnish as well. Tasty, well balanced and healthy-ish, not to mention exceptional value for money.
     And the surroundings are second to none. You could go and sit out the front in the garden in this glorious sunshine, beside
     the stream, and watch the world go by …’
    ‘No thank you – ouch!’ Constance stopped and glared at her younger cousin. ‘Why did you jab me like that, our Perpetua? I
     know money slips through your fingers like water but we are not – definitely not – eating out again.’
    Perpetua, grey and wispy, half Constance’s height and a quarter her width, stood on the tiptoes of her sturdy sandals and
     whispered urgently in the area of Constance’s ears. As Constance’s ears were always hidden by a glazing of fat, lacquered,
     bleached curls it was a wonder anything penetrated.
    ‘Ah …’ Constance nodded slowly. ‘Ah, right.’ She beamed at Zillah. ‘We’ve changed our minds. Three rounds of ham and mustard,
     please. We’ll take one for Slo eventhough he says the ham gets stuck in his dentures but it’s no good giving him cheese because of the flatulence and anyway
     he’s been so good about giving up smoking that he deserves a bit of a treat although I’m a touch worried about the amount
     of time he spends in the lavatory these days – can’t be too careful with your prostate at his age. We’ll be out in the garden.’
    Mrs Jupp from the corner shop pushed her pointed face over the bar top. ‘Now that the flaming Motions have made up their flaming
     minds, I’ll have two pints of Pegasus Pale please, Zillah. Some of us is sole traders and only has our lunch hours. We can’t—’
     she shot a cutting look at Constance Motion ‘– all swan out of work as and when we choose.’
    ‘Come along,’ Constance gathered her cousin to her, ‘don’t rise to her bait. We know that some of these
small
business people are simply envious of the nature of our business empire. Of course, all it takes is damn hard work