In the same instant, Ryan saw his grandmother leaping up from her seat with a shriek and wiping frantically at her clothes.
“Grandma! Are you okay?” Ryan said, his voice filled with alarm as he took in the broken glass and cracked plates scattered across the floor. “Did something hit you?”
“Yes, I think I took the brunt of all the liquid from one of those glasses on the tray,” Miriam replied, her voice shaky. “My blouse is soaked.”
“I’m so sorry!” the waitress said in a panic. “The tray just slipped out of my hands!”
“Stanley!Stanley!Stanley, come back here!”
It was now Grace’s frantic voice that had Ryan’s attention. His grandmother, too, swung her gaze towards Grace, who had sprung from her chair and was now sprinting for the door.
“What’s wrong?” Ryan shouted as Grace picked up speed.
“Stanley made a bolt for it when the tray hit the floor!” Grace called out over her shoulder. “The noise must have frightened him. He ran out from beneath the table and yanked his lead from underneath my foot. He was running for the door before I realised what was happening! I have to catch him!”
Grace vanished through the double doors of the pub before Ryan could say anything else. One of the double doors was propped open to allow customers easy access, which was how Stanley had made good his sudden escape. Ryan could hear Grace shouting Stanley’s name as she fled outside.
“Go and help her!” Miriam said urgently, still wiping at her dripping blouse.
“I can’t just leave you here, Grandma,” Ryan insisted, even as his gaze flicked again to the door Grace had just run through. “Are you hurt? Did one of the glasses cut you when it broke?”
Miriam shook her head impatiently. “I’m fine, Ryan. I’m half-soaked from the contents of that beer glass that came hurtling towards me, but that’s all.”
Several other members of staff were now running towards them, one of them offering paper towels for Miriam to dry her clothes while the others began clearing up the mess on the floor.
“These young bar staff will sort me out,” Miriam said, accepting a handful of paper towels with a grateful nod. “Now, off you go and help Grace find Stanley. She needs you more than I do.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ryan couldn’t stand the idea that his grandmother had been cut or grazed by a piece of broken glass or smashed plate and just wasn’t telling him. The terrible racket that had filled the pub had given everyone a fright, his grandmother in particular, given her proximity to where the tray hit the floor. He’d caught the look of shock on her face in the immediate aftermath of the incident and he was worried about the effects that fright might be having on her.
But Miriam’s steely glare soon reminded him that his grandmother was no delicate flower.
“Ryan Lewis, I am perfectly fine!” she said, her tone as stern as her expression. “If you don’t get out there and help Grace, what on earth will she think of you? Now, go!”
Miriam shooed him away. Ryan knew he couldn’t let Grace run around outside on her own chasing after that daft dog. Only a few seconds had passed since she’d sprinted through the pub doors, but he didn’t want to delay any longer.
With one last look at his grandmother, who only glared at him again, Ryan turned for the doors and ran outside. Glancing around, he saw Grace rushing around the perimeter of the small car park, which was lined with shrubs, before racing around Ryan’s car which was parked at the far end and peering underneath it, all the while calling out Stanley’s name.
Without success, she hurried back towards the pub building, and when she saw Ryan there, she held up her hands in despair.
“I thought he might have run towards your car, maybe thinking it was safer there,” she said. “But he’s nowhere in the car park.”
“I’ll check the front gardens of the pub and you head for the beer garden at the back,” Ryan said.
Grace nodded, her eyes filled with panic. Ryan sprinted around to the front of the pub. The garden area there was decorative only, just a thin strip of plants and shrubbery that bordered the building and separated it from the main road beyond. With his heart in his mouth, he ran towards the road, fearing that he might find the dog injured on the busy high-speed road, which was precisely the reason why he’d sent Grace to the beer garden at the back.
If Stanley had rushed out here in a panic and ended up on the road and been struck by a passing vehicle, he didn’t want Grace to be the one to find out about it first.
Ryan looked one way along the main road and then the other. Cars rushed by, most of them going faster than they should have been. When he saw no sign of the little dog anywhere on the treacherous road, Ryan felt a surge of relief.
That relief didn’t last for long, though. The dog was still missing. After running along the front gardens and thoroughly checking the shrubs while calling out Stanley’s name, Ryan knew the dog wasn’t in this particular area.
Across the road, the sweeping grasslands of the South Downs were wide open for some distance. If Stanley had crossed the road and run off in that direction, Ryan was sure he would still be visible. The little dog might be fast on his feet, but he wasn’t that fast.
Ryan jogged around to the beer garden at the back of the pub, where he found Grace conducting a frantic search amongst the tables and chairs, poking into the shrubs on either side of the space as she passed. She called out Stanley’s name over and over again, but there was no responding bark or yelp to be heard.
“I can’t find him!” Grace said when Ryan reached her. “He’s definitely not in this area.”
“What’s wrong, love?” asked a man who was sitting at a table in the beer garden beside a woman, the two of them huddled in jackets and reading newspapers.
