Pub Fiction: Something Special in McDaids - The Session #149

 

Seamie sat at the back of the small lounge bar, his elbows resting on the table as he nursed his bottle of stout, his third of the afternoon. They had draught porter here of course, and it was kept in good order in fairness, but he preferred the ritual pour - and the strength and tart dryness - of the stout instead. He’d take a couple of half-pint bottles over a pint of plain any day. And as for the shiny new taps? Well, he had no idea how they worked and didn’t much care. The so-called swingin’ sixties how are ya, everything was changing, and not for the better. And Watney’s? Those little red barrels of English piss were propped up on almost all the bars he frequented now. He didn’t care much for ale anyway, apart from the odd barley-wine of a cold night.

His stomach rumbled, but it was drowned out by the chattering of the men propping up the counter and the clatter of barmen behind it. At this time of the day the place was full of journalists and businessmen grabbing a quick pint before heading to their cosy homes. They were talking their usual shite of course, of politics and sport, both subjects Seamie had no interest in. Anyway, he was as likely to sway public opinion by getting involved in such talk about which TD should do what as he was to appear on the pitch in Croke Park.

He hadn’t eaten today. Not that that was an unusual occurrence, as most days he’d do without breakfast or lunch, partly because of disinterest but also because he needed to mind the few bob he earned from the council for sweeping the streets. Anyway, there was rarely any food in the little bedsit he shared with his brother Iggy near the canal. Iggy didn’t work, or couldn’t work, ever since he was let go from the biscuit factory for being too slow. Not physically slow but mentally slow, or maybe both. Since then all he did was sit in the big chair by the window, looking out at the rare barges that passed by and crying. Iggy cried a lot.

Seamie heard a commotion as two men walked in and were greeted by those gathered at the bar as if they were old friends. He recognised one of them, a spectacled so-called poet that seemed to often be in bother. Seamie had read some of his stuff but didn’t care for it. He preferred classics like those in a little treasured book of 19th century poets he kept in the breast pocket of his overcoat. James Clarence Mangan, now he was a real poet with a proper poet’s name to boot. He never wrote about stony grey shite …

His stomach rumbled again, louder this time and he coughed to cover the sound, not that anyone was paying him a blind bit of attention as the writer held court.

He counted the few coins he had in his pocket, he had enough for his favourite meal with a few pence left over. He raised himself from the bench he was sat on and hobbled to the side of the bar.

‘Peter?’

One of the barmen broke off from conversation with a customer and went to him.

‘Alright Seamie? Another bottle?’ he said as he reached for the shelf.

‘No, no. Can I get a Bovril and a toasted sandwich?’

‘God you can Seamie, sure. The toasted special?’

‘Aye, perfect. Lovely’ He counted out his coins and handed them to the barman. 

He paused. He had just enough left.

‘I will take that stout Peter, just don’t open it.’

He handed over the rest of his coins.

‘I’ll drop them down to you.’

Seamie returned to his seat and finished the last of his stout while he waited for his sandwich, trying not to listen to the insufferable bar talk that had reached a new level of pompous stupidity. Why were men so loud and obnoxious at times?

The barman arrived with the mug of Bovril and a toasted sandwich on a plate with a knife. He placed the bottle of unopened stout on table and went back to chatting with the now large throng that crowded the counter. Seamie carefully cut the sandwich in half and watched the cheese ooze out from the edge. There were lads that would eulogise about a pint of stout but surely a decent sandwich deserved some special words too? If Seamie could only write then he’d have penned an ode to the toasted special. There was something about the combination of cheese, ham, onion and tomato shielded between two slices of overdone toast that suited a public house, especially with a mug of Bovril. That, in fact, was your only man.

Seamie slurped his hot drink and nibbled at his half sandwich, savouring it, relishing it and appreciating how something so simple could change your mood. He finished his Bovril and sat back, staring out past the rounded windows into the darkening sky. He wanted to stay a bit longer, but knew he couldn’t.

Taking a hanky from his back pocket he wrapped the rest of the sandwich carefully and stored it in the deep pockets of his well-worn overcoat before slipping the unopened bottle of stout into the other. 

He headed for the door.

‘See you Seamie,’ said Peter.

‘See you lad,’ he replied.

He stopped and adjusted his overcoat before opening the door, his elbow just jutting out enough to spill some of the whiskey that the poet was raising to his lips as he leaned against the door jam.

The door swung shut on shouts and insults as he heading back towards the canal, with both hands in his overcoat, minding Iggy’s supper.

(The above images of McDaid's public house from 1965 were on the Dublin City Digital Library website archive, and I previously posted it on Twitter with a link. That link appears broken and the archive has moved but is from their collection and used here for non-commercial purposes. It was wrongly reversed in the archive so I fixed and enhanced it at the time.)

This was for a call to action on pub food for this month's The Session by David Jesudason here.

Please note, all written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its sources, and a link back to this post. DO NOT STEAL THIS CONTENT!

Pub Fiction: Cat, Contraption & Mechanism

'Shoo! Git!'

Cat skidded along the counter, its paws losing traction on the shiny surface as it tried to escape the flick of a cloth from the Her, knocking a bottle containing the dregs of the dark bitter stuff over and leaving it bouncing and spinning on the cold marble – a small trail of froth and stickiness in its wake. It was usually less clumsy, but the Her had surprised Cat when she had come up from the Underneath and caught Cat staring curiously at the newly delivered ham that she had left hanging from a hook above the counter while she relayed a message to the Him.

'That bloody cat!'

Cat stopped running when it was out of harm’s way and slinked off towards the other end of the bar, where it sat down and began cleaning itself of the small drops of liquid that had landed on its calico coat while the Her cleaned up the mess on the bar, all the while muttering and throwing annoyed looks at Cat, who stopped its preening every few moments to make sure that the Her was still far enough away not to hit it with anything. From down below in the Underneath came the sounds of clinking and the grunts and groans of the Him and - being by default a curious creature - Cat jumped down from the bar and padded down the worn timber steps, careful to avoid the Her as she headed towards the kitchen with the ham on her shoulder.

Cat sat on a step halfway down and looked at what was happening in the place that it saw as its play- or more accurately hunting-ground. The Him was down here wrestling with a large, heavy wooden barrel that had arrived earlier, while the Himling  - who looked like a younger and less rotund version of the Him - stood with his finger rooting in his ear and a glazed look in his eyes.

'Jaysus, don’t stand there like a gobdaw, help me with this will ya?'

This was a common sight for Cat, with the Him doing the work while the Himling just stood around until forced to move and do something by the shoutings of the Him. Cat didn’t really know what was being said but it was no stranger to the tone being used when he occasionally got under the Him’s feet or just generally got too close.

A similar scene had played out the previous day with Him shouting at the Himling above the dull clinking of glass as the Himling filled a big round tub with the old bottles that had sat in crates down here for the last while. Next the Himling donned a sacking apron and added some cold water from a tap on the side wall to the tub before topping it up with steaming water from a bucket to which he had added some spoons out of a bag labelled ‘Soda Crystals’ - not that Cat knew what the bag contained as it could not read of course.  All the while the Him was shouting at the Himling to hurry up as Cat watched on from its perch on a broad shelf filled with dusty paraphernalia. The Himling then got a brush-like thing with loads of bristles and proceeded to push and twist it around inside the bottles one by one, checking them by holding up towards the bare lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, until all of them had been scrubbed. Next the Himling scraped off the old label from the outside of the bottles and rinsed them all before setting them upside-down in a rack in order to drain and dry.

Today the bottles were still sitting there and Cat came cautiously down the stairs to find its perch once again and watch the ritual he had seen happen many times before, pausing just briefly to distractedly push with its paw a few of the wooden corks that were floating in hot water near to a very low stool.

Him and the Himling ignored Cat, as they were currently rolling the barrel back and forth on the cold slabs, which they did for a short while before placing it on its side - and with some effort - onto a low wooden stand. Cat watched as the Him loosened something with a hiss on what was now the top of the barrel before picking up a brass tap with a perforated tube on one end and a wooden mallet, he then wrapped some folded newspaper around the end of the tap and positioned it at the bung at the bottom of what had been the round top of the barrel, before striking the tap end a few times to drive the bung into the barrel followed by the tapered end, with the paper wrapping forming a tight seal. Cat had watched this process on occasion before and sometimes a jet of black liquid would shoot out of the barrel and hit the Him square in the face, causing a string of words to be uttered that would make the Her come down the steps and tell the Him to shut up as there were gentlemen and ladies present in the Up Above that day. But no accidents happened this day, so the Him got a mug and poured some liquid into it from the now secured tap, tasting it before grunting approvingly.

Cat jumped down on the newly tapped barrel and watched as the Him then took the Contraption with its rectangular bowl and 4 pipes and placed it under the tap and proceeded to fill the bowl with black liquid from the tap that was now in the barrel. The Himling then sucked the ends of each of the four pipes to get the liquid to flow into the four bottles he had just positioned under each of the pipes, spitting mouthfuls of black liquid back into the bowl that was being filled. The Himling would take the empty bottles he had cleaned the previous day from their rack at one side of the Contraption and once filled by one of the four tubes, he'd put them on the ground on the opposite side and put another bottle under the filling pipe and repeat the process.

'Get off of there!'

The Him had dragged the Mechanism towards the barrel beside where the Himling was leaving the bottles and positioned the bucket of corks beside it, he threw a cork at Cat but missed - Cat just looked at the Him curiously and continued his observations. The Him just sighed and inserted a cork from the bucket into a pull-out section on one side of the top of the Mechanism, he slid that section into place, positioned a bottle on a little plate underneath before pulling down on a long lever that forced the cork into the bottle. He then placed the bottle into a crate and repeated the process, the Him and the Himling working in silence apart from the quiet gurgle of the dark liquid in the Contraption and the dull clunk of the lever in action of the Mechanism.

'Oh hello pussycat!'

The Herling had arrived home from wherever she went during the day, and Cat liked the Herling as she gave it little treats of meaty scraps and hard rubs behind the ear, both of which pleased Cat. But today the Herling went to where the Him and the Himling were sitting on the low stools in front of their machines, picked up a crate of filled bottles and carried them over to a table near the back of the Underneath. She opened a brown envelope that was sitting on the table and took out a thick bundle of oval, beige labels tied up with string. She cut the string and left the pile beside the crate of bottles. Then she got a small bowl to which she added a spoonful of white powder from a bag with the word ‘Flour’ written upon it – not that Cat knew that - and mixed them together. Then she used a small paint brush to put some of the mixture on the back of the label and affixed it neatly to a bottle, then she too – like the Him and the Himling – fell into the non-musical rhythm of repetitive work, with the air smelling of hot corks, spilled stout and floury paste, tinged with the greasy metal smell from the Mechanism and the musty odour of the Underneath itself.

Cat wasn’t happy at being ignored, it jumped up beside the Herling and sniffed at the mixture in the bowl before butting her elbow with its head, almost making the Herling drop a bottle.

'Silly puss! Don’t do that.'

The Herling picked up Cat and put her back up on the barrel that was almost empty, much to the annoyance and mutterings of the Him. Soon the tap began to gurgle and the tray in the Contraption that the bottles were being filled from was empty. When he had finished corking the bottles, the Him pried out the brass tap from the end of the barrel and used the mallet to beat back a round piece of timber into the hole to seal the cask tight again. Cat had to jump quickly off the barrel as the Him and the Himling lifted the barrel back upright and set it near a trapdoor to the Outdoors where Cat knew these barrels appeared and disappeared from regularly.

The Herling was finished putting the beige round labels with writing on them on the bottles and the Him and the Himling took the crates, each holding two dozen bottles, and stacked them at the end of the cellar six high, where Cat knew they would sit for a third of a Moon’s Time before being brought a crate at a time up into the Up Above where the people came and the corks were removed from the bottles with a long handled machine that was attached to the bar, before being poured into a glass in exchange for Round Metal Things that clinked as they were tossed into a drawer underneath the counter.

Cat yawned and stretched, then it sniffed the air for any smell of the Grey Squeakers that sometimes wandered into the Underneath, as it was his job to catch, play with, and crunch them. There was no scent of them today but it would return by its secret way later that night to check again, on its nightly patrol of the Underneath.

Just then the Herling appeared beside Cat and picked it up.

'Come on puss, up we go.'

Cat let himself be carried up the stairs purring contently, with Him and the Himling following behind after having cleaned the Contraption, putting away the Mechanism and mopping the slabs.

When everyone was upstairs the Him closed the door into the Underneath, and they headed towards the kitchen and the smell of cooking ham. The Him stopped briefly to gather four glasses before opening  two bottles of stout and two minerals. They had an hour to eat, drink and rest before the doors would be opened and more bottles poured for their thirsty patrons.

And as ever, Cat would watch over all proceedings …

Liam K

'Contraption'

'Mechanism'

[The bottling routine described here is adapted from notes regarding the procedure in the 1950s in “A bottle of Guinness Please” by David Hughes, and supplemented by passages in “3 Score and 10 – A Great Leap” by Cartan Finegan plus parts of Flann O’Brien’s “Myles Away from Dublin.”]

(Cat Photo via rollingroscoe on morguefile.com, and the Contraption and Mechanism photos were taken by the author from the public house display in Carlow County Museum.)

Pub Fiction: What's Good for You...?

[Warning: Contains violent descriptions]

He stirs …

He hears the front door closing and being latched as the last of the stragglers make their way on unsteady feet into the night, then the creak of the worn oak steps as the widow makes her way slowly upstairs to her bedroom. Muffled sounds carry through the layers of timber as she slowly undresses and her now lonely bed takes her sparse weight, a sigh drifting down to his all-hearing ears. His eyes shine green in the darkness down below as he stands on the cold stone floor in the place where he lives in the shadows, beneath the floorboards where the people drank, danced and talked just a short while ago.

He creeps silently from his hiding place, past the crates of bottles that line the oak shelves of the cellar, his eyes well accustomed to the darkness as he stretches his limbs, his joints cracking like the breaking of a rodent’s bones. The steps are as cold and damp as his skin as he crawls slowly up them to the heavy trapdoor and uses his back to push it open, his nose sniffing the remnants of food and stale beer. He eases his way from his hiding place and slowly lets the door sit silently back into it place, a task that takes almost all his strength. Now he stands as upright as his hunched back will allow, his squat body glowing palely in the light from the moon that shines through the window, reflected off the wet street outside.

He is a thing of legend, mocked and maligned by the questionable works of bewildered writers over the centuries. He and his solitary people are known by many names but in this dark and wet land and in his current form he is known as a Cluricaun – at least in modern speech – a creature who hides in cellars and is rarely seen. On his withered body he wears just a ragged apron he found that smells of sour beer, mould and the rats that he eats when he can catch them – their guts and blood soaking into the ancient leather-like material.

In the darkness he starts to search for the scraps of food that may have fallen on to the wooden floor and have been missed by the widow’s brush. He walks with a strange lumbering gait, pivoting at the hips, his big feet splaying widely, but silent as he searches in the forgotten corners of the room. He has two pockets in his apron, one he fills with the few crumbs he finds that will make a welcome change from his usual fare, and in the other he places any spent, discarded matches he finds wedged between the floorboards or stuck under the skirting boards. He stops as he hears a sound from up the stairs as the widow turns in her sleep and her bed creaks, his over-large head cocked at an angle and his big, pointed ears listening carefully for further movement, but nothing else stirs the silence.

He dares not go behind the bar in case he hits against the bottles or glasses in his clumsy way, although he was not always so. He is beyond ancient now and some of his bones and joints have seized or fused together causing him to walk in such an ungainly fashion. Finished with his search he returns to the trapdoor and with difficulty eases it gently open, and once again balances it on his humped back as he lets it close quietly and he heads back down the steps to his lair. The few tiny pieces of bread he found upstairs are soon eaten and his ever-present thirst rises - his need for drink urgent and greedy. He goes to the part of the cellar where the barrels labelled ‘XX Stout’ are kept and removes an old piece of twine from around his neck, on which is tied his most important possession. It is a long narrow tool, pointed and with curved threads at one end, and a handle on the other – a gimlet. He pushes the tool into the hard timber of the barrel and twists it from side to side before turning it clockwise and letting the threads find purchase as the tool drags itself into the oak until it pushes through the stave and spins freely. He removes the tool and quickly puts his mouth to the spurt of black frothy liquid that erupts from the hole. He drinks enough to sate his thirst but not so much to be noticed by anyone, and when he finishes he removes three matches from his pocket and jams them in the hole, letting the liquid swell the wood and block the small opening he made. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and thinks about how much he loves the dark liquid that arrives weekly into his lair. Drinking it makes him feel more content and fuller than the rats and morsels of food could ever do. He creeps back into the darkness behind the old furniture and crates that are stacked in a jumble in the farthest reaches of the cellar and lays down on a pile of damp sacks. This is the place he goes to when the widow descends the steps to put the strong black liquid into the bottles that she serves to those who visit the room upstairs. He watches her from the darkest recesses of this place when she corks each bottle and puts them into crates, and she never misses the liquid he removes so carefully.

He dozes now and remembers a past life when he lived in secrecy too but above ground instead of below, when he was nimbler, younger, and stronger. A time where he roamed the streets and fields of this place and hoarded the shiny trinkets he took from those who would not miss them, and kept them safe in his secret hiding place. But over time and before he recognised it happening, he had gotten old and careless. He forgot where he stored his treasures and, unable to move quickly and be unseen by the bigger folk, he retreated as others of his kind had to the dark safe spaces below the surface where he could hide more easily, slowly weakening and decaying. He knows also that one day soon he will need to crawl into the hole he has prepared under one of the slabs in this dark place, remaining truly hidden as he turns back into the earth from which he came.

He is brought back to the present by a noise from upstairs, a series of heavy thumps and muted cracks followed by a low moan. He cocks his ear to the sound and hears the whimpering groan again. Slowly and carefully he ascends the steps, once again raising the trapdoor, and listens. He hears the moan again and he eases his way out of the cellar, carefully closing the heavy trapdoor behind him, and slowly peers around the corner of the bar.

The widow is lying at the foot of the stairs, a glass tumbler rocking on the floor not far from her outstretched hand. She is crying softly now, and even from where he is half hidden he can see that her old limbs are twisted at impossible angles. One slipper is on her foot while the other is halfway up the stairs. He wobbles over to her not knowing what to do, and her eyes open wide when she sees him approach and she mumbles a prayer through her broken jaw. Her body is trembling with pain and fear as he stands over her. He has seen the same thing happen to the rats that are caught in the traps in the cellar, as they writhe and squeal in the dark, awaiting death.

He pauses and stares at her for a short time until he steels his resolve, knowing what he has to do. He takes his gimlet from around his neck and kneels with some difficulty beside her, before forcing the tool into the widow’s ear and upwards until he feels the bone give way and a sharp crack. Her body goes still and the low sounds she had been making stop. He removes his trusty little tool and is about to wipe it on his apron when he stops, and for no reason he can think of, licks the blood from it instead. It tastes a little like a rat’s blood but richer and stronger, and there is something else there, as if some of the widow’s very soul and essence was contained within her lifeblood. His eyes open wider and he licks his lips, then he puts his mouth to the widow's ear and sucks at the blood that is trickling out in a slow stream as her heart pumps for the very last time.

When he finishes, he stands up and stretches out his curved back, he twists his joints and feels them freer that they have been in many a decade, or perhaps centuries, as he forgot his age many years ago. He feels a great change happening, his limbs no longer ache and he is fuller and healthier than he has ever been from drinking the black liquid from the barrels. He looks at the widow’s body and feels a little sadness for what he has done, but she would have died anyway, he just ended her pain quickly. So what if he had received an unexpected reward for his good deed?

Someone would find the widow’s body in the morning and know that she had fallen down the stairs. There was no trace of his act of mercy to be seen and no sign of blood there either. He heads back down to his lair, easily opening the trapdoor and letting it slam behind him as he almost dances down the steps quite full of life. Perhaps he should venture outside, find more suitable clothing, and look for his lost treasure? Yes, that seemed like a great idea. Maybe he will find a new and more suitable place to live, although he does still love that black liquid – stout – that arrives here in those barrels so maybe he should stay close by after all?

But he now knows what he needs to do to keep feeling this strong, and that he will have to supplement the barrel theft with something else - something redder, richer, and stickier. He also knows of course where that precious liquid can be found, and that new people will come to this place soon to replace the widow. Then they will bottle the black stuff in the barrels and give it to the too-loud people who come through the door and sit on the stools at the bar. Some of these people will wander home very late at night - on their own, and full of stout, down lonely, darkened streets ...

There will be new sources of his vitality he thinks, his eyes burning bright red from within in the darkness of the cellar.

All written content here is my own and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit, and a link back to this post. Images are also the author's own.

Pub Fiction: The Stars beneath the Sea ...

My favourite pub, The Stars beneath the Sea, sits on a narrow, cobbled street a short ten-minute walk from my home. There are well-worn limestone steps and a cold metal handrail that leads up to a creaky door, and inwards to a brightly lit room with huge gothic-shaped windows on two sides. Dust motes eternally hang in the sunlight, twisting and turning but appearing to never land.

The double height space has a gallery wrapping around all four sides, bisecting the windows on the two sides and a rusty-orange brick wall on the others, it is accessed by a shaky spiral staircase. The walls are covered in rare breweriana and the chairs and tables are all oak or beech, worn smooth by a thousand drinkers. The floor is timber too and looks like it was reclaimed from a ship, as indeed it possibly was.

The bar counter is dark marble, streaked with glittering white threads and cool to the touch - never sticky. The barstools have bottom-shaped but unpadded seats, and the arms wrap around you snugly when you sit, like the embrace of a loved one. There is a hanger for your coat under the countertop and a brass footrest for your feet - well-polished but reassuringly scratched and scuffed in places.

There is a cast iron stove - or two.

The pub serves three well kept beers on cask as well as five on tap - and there is always a stout, a mild or a brown ale available - with a small selection of corked and caged interesting bottled beers. Pints are served - not too cold - in conical glasses, and half-pints in the elegant pilsner shape. Bottles are presented with over-sized Worthington glasses and I am always allowed to uncork and pour my own. Regardless of the choice you make, the bar mat always matches the beer.

The barperson can judge your mood to know if you want the companionship of polite conversation, or to be left alone with your own thoughts, or if you just seek the comfort of a good book. The other patrons of the bar are quiet and respect the sanctity of the surroundings, the talk low just below the not-loud volume of the music, which is jazz and no later than 1970.

The food - served all day, every day - is a selection of pies or sausages, served with a cheesy mash and three types of gravy. There are no crisps, no chocolate, no corn-flavoured snacks, but there are pickled eggs, cubes of anonymous cheese and slices of charcuterie served with white pepper and celery salt. Soft napkins are always supplied, as are tiny metal forks.

There is a cat - or two.

Sturdy French windows lead onto a veranda that hangs precariously over a slow-flowing river, populated with ducks and black swans, and an otter on occasion. There are barges tied up close by and there are tall, repurposed mills, factories and warehouses along the quays opposite, and at just the right time of day their bricks glow golden in the sunlight.

When it gets dark the lights are dimmed and a candle burns on every table, flickering and dancing in time with the music. There are reading lights in certain sections, and a bookcase filled with short story books of every type. Newspapers are also provided and always return neatly and intact to their rack, never a page missing, but occasionally a crossword done.

There is no standing allowed, even at the bar, no one jostles your elbow or leans too close to you. All are welcome and all who enter this sanctum abide by the unwritten rules. There are no arguments, no rumourmongering and no lies being given wings. There is just a sense of calm and contentment, emphasised only by the quarter-hour chimes of the ancient clock that hangs above the bar…

I will have a pint - or two.

Liam K.

(With apologies to George Orwell …)

Pub Fiction: Rituals

A freezing easterly wind blew through the village as the old man limped to the doorway of the public house. He turned the cold handle and opened the door with a sharp creak, closing it quickly behind him and resting his palm for a moment on the brass push-plate, staring at the fading condensation marks from his fingers when he pulled his hand away. He turned and glanced at the others in the establishment as he rolled up his worn cap and shoved it into the deep pockets of his overcoat. Four men were lined out along the counter, their elbows on the dark mahogany countertop and their hands held in front of their mouths as if in prayer. They stared straight ahead, even when they took a sip from the small glasses sitting in front of each of them. Two well-dressed men were sitting at a table on low stools, one talking in whispered tones as the other nodded along, tipping the ash from his cigarette onto the floor at his feet.

He made his way to the bar where the man behind the counter looked up at him from his newspaper and without a word took a small bottle of stout from the shelf behind him and opened it before pouring it with care into a glass and placing it in front of the old man. He took some pennies from a small pouch in his pocket and put them on the counter, then he picked up the glass and walked to a table at the back of the small room, conscious of his ungainly gait and the eyes of the men at the counter, and the man behind it, on his back. As he sat down, he heard the scrape of his coins being removed from the counter and the sound of them being thrown into a drawer that held precious few other coins on a night like this.

The two men who had been talking got up, put on their caps and left with a small nod to the man behind the bar, letting in a blast of cold air that even managed to reach the corner where the man sat. There was silence in pub now, just broken by the wind that whistled outside and the rhythmic tic-toc of the clock that hung over the back of the counter, its pendulum swinging back and forth the only movement to be seen in the dim light from the lamps on the wall.

He lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink, being careful not to spill any of it as he did so, but he placed the glass back down on the table a little too clumsily when he was wiping the froth from his lip with the sleeve of his overcoat. The thud of the glass on the wooden tabletop broke the silence, causing one of the men at the bar to look over his shoulder towards the noise before finishing his whiskey and nodding to the man behind the bar for another, which he let it sit in front of him as he returned to the same pose as his fellow silent drinkers at the counter.

The old man thought about these nights and whether they really improved his mood, but the need for some interaction, even if it was almost hostile in nature was better than staying home and staring at the flames dancing in the peat of the hearth in his hollow house. He had hurt his leg that day repairing the wood and wire fence that marked the boundary of his little farm, and the two mile walk to the village had been difficult and painful, but it was Thursday night and this was the short journey he undertook four nights a week every week to this public house in the village, where he drank two small bottles of stout before making his way back to his own house over the hill. He could not call his house a home, as a home was something comforting, a place you felt a part of, or an attachment to at least. It had ceased to be such a thing when his wife had died three years previously, and as they had not been able to have any children he was alone now in the house and in the world, or so it seemed to him. Since her funeral his life at become a series of tasks to be mentally ticked off every week or month, an existence to be lived through more than an actual life.

And this was one such undertaking, something that had to be done, like the sparse shopping he did once a month in the big town, or mass on a Sunday morning followed by a visit to the graveyard that fell away from the site of the church into what seemed to him to be the coldest part of world at times. But it was these habits that kept him functioning in this world and gave his life at least some sense of vague purpose, if only for his own sanity. He felt he was destined to perform these rituals until his body finally gave in to age and he would once again see his darling wife. He could picture her now when he closed his eyes, see her as she was in her youth. She had been a striking woman with jet black hair, skin like porcelain and green eyes that flashed and twinkled when she smiled. Even as she aged, and even as that foul disease had ravaged her body her eyes remained pure and youthful right to the end. He opened his own eyes and stared at his drink, blinking the wetness from them, as no man in this parish could be seen to be crying. He picked up his glass again and finished the remaining liquid in one go before standing up carefully and with some trouble from his lame leg going to the bar.

A bottle opened, poured, placed, and paid.

He returned to his table and stared at the clock, listening to the tic-toc and watching the pendulum, wishing he could make it go faster and that he could force time to jump forward in huge leaps to get to where he wanted to be, but knowing it was a futile task. Things happened at their own pace and the progression of the hours, weeks, months and years could not be affected by the hopes and wants of a tired old man. His leg ached even more now and as he looked at one of the men at the bar raising his glass to his lips it occurred to him that perhaps a something stronger than stout might help with the pain. He held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to the man behind the bar, who looked down at him curiously before pouring out a small glass and bringing it to him. He placed it beside the glass of stout, taking the worn pennies that the old man had left out for it.

He drank back the whiskey in one go and followed it with a gulp of stout to wash the taste away, but it still burned his throat and caused him to cough. He grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his mouth as he sat there, all the while the four men at the bar stared at him via the reflection of the long mirror that hung behind the bar. He felt embarrassed at not being able to take to whiskey but in truth he was not a big drinker, and rarely had anything stronger than his small bottles. The men leaning on the bar returned to their drinks and thoughts, and the man behind it stood looking at the door and then his pocket watch, before glancing back at the old man briefly.

He thought he felt the pain easing in his leg so with that belief in his head, and wanting to show the other men he could hold his drink, he cleared his throat and signalled for another whiskey. The barman hesitated at first but eventually stretched for the bottle and went through the same routine again, removing the empty glass and replacing it with a full one. More pennies scarped along the rough wooded table.

This time he sipped it, taking care not to breathe in as he did so and having a smaller gulp of his remaining stout after each drink. He immediately began to feel better, as the pain was almost gone from his leg and he felt a numbing cloud form around the thoughts in his head. Perhaps this could be a new part to his weekly routine he thought, on Thursdays he would add a couple of small ones to his stouts, especially on cold nights like this. Yes, that is what he would do. And look, time was moving quicker now too, the clock had jumped forward and the four men had left one by one, disappearing quietly and separately into the night so that now it was just him and the man behind the bar left in the place in the near silence.

The clock chimed on the hour and the man behind the bar got up and started tidying away glasses, draping a towel over them before counting the money and recording it in a small notebook which he dropped into the drawer and locked with the turn of a key. The old man nodded to him and slowly if a little unsteadily got to his feet, raising a hand towards him to say he was fine. The man from behind the bar followed him to the door and waited until he buttoned up his overcoat, retrieved the cap from the pocket and venture out into the cold night, before locking the door behind him and turning off the lights.

The old man was now standing in the middle of the rutted road, the pain in his leg just a dull ache as he started a little unsteadily toward home. He felt warm inside for the first time in months if not years. The full moon was in his back, as was the cold wind. He watched his dim shadow dance on the uneven road as he made his way up the hill, the few lights still shining in the houses in the village quickly falling behind him as he walked onwards.

He passed the abandoned farms and the houses that stood like roofless bunkers in the moonlight, inhabited only by the long-lost memories of the people who lived there in his youth. He crested the top of the hill and looked down on his own bleak house, roofed but with the same lost ghosts of his past waiting inside the door. He stood for a moment staring at that building of cold stone and ancient timber before feeling a sense of loss creep up along the road and settle into his bones, replacing the warmth that was there just minutes before. He wanted to turn back, back to the pub for maybe one more drink if the man from behind the bar would let him back in, so he started to return to the village before stopping suddenly. Foolish, he thought to himself, and he turned again back towards home, but his bad leg suddenly gave way and he stumbled sideways, falling towards the ditch. He put out his hands to save himself but his foot slipped on a shallow muddy puddle and he was falling backwards now instead, with the whole world tilting away from him. He heard a loud crack and an intense pain in the back of his head, then he was staring at the sky.

Even with the moon at its fullest, the stars were bright and twinkling. He no longer felt cold or pain and the stars were dancing now and changing, coalescing into a pair of green eyes that sparkled and shone in a pale face surrounded by black hair …

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The drops fell rhythmically into the basin of water below.

‘Edward, put your hand to that tap will you please?’

‘Sorry, yeah. Now. There.’

Jacob sat on his bar stool, one foot resting on the brass rail that ran along the length of the counter. His elbow and forearm leaned on the sticky, cold dark marble and the back of his index finger dragged the condensation from his too-cold pint down into the soaked beermat. His other hand was gripping the armrest as he edged forward to get into as comfortable a position as he could. His mind got lost among the bubbles breaking in succession on the top of his pint, the long fringe of his dark hair hanging forward almost touching the rim of the glass. The scream of the coffee machine springing into action broke through his thoughts and he scrunched his eyes so tightly closed that when he opened them he saw dark stars falling onto the bar before vanishing into the black marble surface.

At the other end of the counter the barman, Edward, was creating some over-complicated boozy coffees for a too-loud man and woman who lounged drunkenly against the counter. They touched each other lightly when they spoke, the way new couples do, as if afraid that without these tactile, reassuring probes the other would seem less real or perhaps fade away, just becoming a pale shadow, and they would be left alone and incomplete. Edward placed the coffees on the bar in front of them, turned and wiped the top of the coffee machine from habit, before flicking his tea towel and shoving it into its usual resting place in the belt loop of his trousers. Some small motes of dust were caught in the low sunlight which angled through the huge windows that looked out on to the busy city street from two sides. The specks wandered lazily in the air towards Jacob before getting lost in the relative darkness that existed at his end of the bar.

Jacob returned to looking at the pint glass on the countertop, his finger had stopped halfway down the glass and tears of condensation had appeared either side of it running downward. He pulled his hand away and wiped them on his jeans, then shook his head and tried to focus on his book. He liked coming to this bar at this time of the day as it was quiet and very few people wandered in from the street, and certainly none that he knew. So apart from the interactions with the barman he could sit alone and think, or like today just try to read one of the more harmless volumes in his collection of science fiction books. Lately he had begun to reread some of those he was most familiar with, as there was a safety in the half-remembered plot that meant he did not have to focus too much on the actual words and could just let his eyes scan the storyline, filling in any small gaps in the plot that his brain had forgotten.

He glanced up from my book and Edward was looking at him with a sheepish grin, his broad flat face framed by a mass of fuzzy dark hair that appeared to have a life of its own, as it seemed to move independently at times, usually out of sync and slightly behind the rest of his body.

‘How’s that beer?’

‘I haven’t tasted it yet Edward.’

‘Oh right, yeah. Okay …’

It was clear that Edward was not going to move until he got an answer, so Jacob took a fair sip and carefully placed his pint back exactly in the centre of the coaster, twisting the glass so that the logo faced towards him.

‘Well?’

‘It’s grand Edward, nice.’

‘Ah good, it just went on there this morning, yeah.’

‘Mmm, hmm…’

Jacob focussed intently on the book and hoped that Edward would get the hint and leave him in peace. Edward was okay really. He worked in the bar every Saturday afternoon, so he was regular company for Jacob, but he did not seem to understand the concept of someone wanting to sit alone and just read in a pub, enjoying the solitude and peace. This was Jacob’s chance to recharge, unwind and get into the right frame of mind for another week of work that would quickly come back around on Monday. But Edward seemed to think it was his singular task to engage him in conversation on any subject he could think of to ‘cheer him up’ as he had said on his second week working here. Jacob had gone to pains to repeatedly explain to him that he did not need - or want - any cheering up and that he just wanted to drink his pint in solitude, apart from the company of the familiar characters in his book. Edward took this as a challenge and every week since, for the last four months, he would try to get him involved in a talk, and every week Jacob got slightly ruder and ruder in his responses, in his own mind at least.

One of the couple down the bar let out a shrill laugh that drowned out the jazz music playing in the background. Edward had managed to squeeze out of Jacob a few weeks ago that he liked this genre of music and now every Saturday afternoon he was greeted by Mingus, Monk or Davis, or another of his jazz heroes when he walked through the door. The drunken woman of the pair looked down the bar at Jacob and whispered something to her partner, causing him to look at Jacob and blurt out a laugh that he half-heartedly attempted to cover with his hand, before turning away with his shoulders shaking. Jacob shifted uncomfortably on his stool and felt his face go bright red, because he knew why they were laughing.

Jacob was fat. I was odd that he used to be quite comfortable with that word, and it was how he had always been described, or at least for as long as he could remember, and there were far worse words. As a child he had been christened ‘sausage’ by the other children in his class at school, based on a rotund character in a book they were reading on a wet miserable day that Jacob had never forgotten. One of the other children had shouted out that Jacob resembled the unlikely hero in the book size-wise, and everyone had laughed, including the teacher. Jacob had laughed too even when they all chanted his new name and pounded their tables until they teacher finally made them quieten down, as it seemed the best thing for him to do. He had laughed off all these types of names and comments ever since but lately he found himself getting embarrassed or angry if he heard or even perceived a comment about his weight. A lack of confidence had crept into his world and he seemed to always think the worst of people, as paranoia - often misplaced - seemed to be taking a bigger grip on his life than ever before. His age was not helping either, as now that he was in his forties his joints ached more than ever, and his back was almost constantly in pain. Jammed into a barstool and leaning on the bar at an odd angle, even if he looked wedged and stuck there, helped his physical discomfort – and this was the appearance that was causing amusement to the couple at the other end of the bar.

Edward glanced at Jacob and then looked down at the couple and stuck his jaw out. In his own way he was quite protective of his customers, so he strode down to the other end of bar and started to clear the not quite empty glass mugs away from the couple, much to their bemusement.

‘Now. There you go. Okay?’ He stood with his arms folded staring at them.

They looked at Edward and back down at Jacob, who pretended to read his book. Then without a word they got up and left, the man laughing again at some whispered comment just as they pushed through the door and staggered out onto the busy street. Edward washed the mugs at the basin in the sink, dried them and placed them back on the rack over the coffee machine. He dried his hands in the towel in the belt loop of his trousers and leaned on the bar staring out the long side window at the people doing some last-minute shopping prior to heading home for a night in front of the television, or before getting ready for a night back in the town.

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Jacob winced.

‘Edward, the tap …’

Edward turned back around and tightened the tap again until the drip stopped.

‘Ah, sorry now. We must get someone to fix that.’

There was a rap at the window behind Jacob and he turned around to see the coffee drinking drunken woman wobble slightly before puffing out her cheeks and raising her arms by her sides, causing her coat to swell out. Jacob turned back to his pint and picked it up, taking a huge gulp, but he could still see her smirking at him in the old whiskey mirror that sat behind the bar, just before her partner pulled her away from the window. She batted him with the back of her hand and they staggered down the street, hailing a taxi as they went.

‘She was some piece of work Jacob, don’t mind her. Sure, isn’t it better to say there you are than where are you? Eh? Anyway, she’s no oil painting herself, is she now?’

Jacob did not look up. He stared at his pint, wishing he could get lost inside the glass again. To dive in like a cartoon character he half remembered from a television show from his childhood, but to never resurface, or if he did then to return as a skinnier version of his current self, or perhaps just one that was at least comfortable once more in their own appearance. He did not like feeling this way, it seemed alien to him, he was no longer the bullet-proof person he had been for many years since his childhood.

‘She’s a bitter feckin’ shrew is what she is!’

A woman’s voice had come from the top corner of the bar, out of sight of Jacob although she surely must have been there when he entered. She stood up, drained the last of her pint and banged it on the counter, clearly annoyed.

‘I know her, I used to go to school with her years back. She’s always been a bit of a stuck-up ignoramus. Her name is Catherine – she calls herself Cathy now – and that’s her new partner she’s trying to impress. She changes them quite often, always seeking perfection, not realising that she’s the feckin’ issue. She likes to make fun of others to make herself feel better about her own fractured, unhappy life.’

‘Another please Edward,’ she said, picking up the pint glass and jiggling it at him.

‘Sure Annie, what will it be this time? That’s Jacob there by the way …’

‘And what is Jacob drinking might I ask?’

‘That’s the new pale ale from the lads out by the bridge - he said it was grand or nice or something like that,’ replied Edward with a grin.

‘Wow, with a stunning review like that I’ll have to try one, thanks Edward’.

Jacob smiled at the comment and looked away.

She came around the bar and leaned against the corner as she waited for her drink. She was tall like Jacob but not quite so large, her long dark hair falling over the right side of her face like a now forgotten film star from the forties, causing her to grip it with her left hand and drag it back over her shoulder each time she raised her head, which she did now. He recalled seeing her here before, studying her phone intently as she sat in one of the front windows.

‘Ah, so you’re the Jacob who’s responsible for the decent music?’

Jacob glanced at Edward who did not look up from pulling the pint but just shrugged. ‘She asked me why I’d changed the music and I told her.’

‘Well thanks, it’s a big improvement on that hip-hop rubbish that Edward used to play.’

‘Hey!’

She laughed and looked at Jacob again as Edward placed the pint in front of her. She came closer and raised it to Jacob.

’Well, here’s to grand and nice beer.’

‘Cheers,’ said Jacob, raising his glass.

Just then the song changed, and a few unmistakeable opening notes drifted from the speakers.

‘Gotta love a little Brubeck,’ Annie and Jacob said absentmindedly and in unison.

They stared at each other.

Edward smiled and turned to the sink, pretending to wash up more glasses and cups.

‘Can I join you Jacob? I don’t want to impose if you’d rather be alone – I know what that’s like.’

‘No, that’s fine. In fact it would be great.’

Jacob closed his book and swivelled on his stool to face Annie, feeling more comfortable and at ease than he had in a long time.

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‘Edward …’

‘Christ, okay. I know. The feckin’ tap...’

‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘Just … thanks.’

Liam

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