(no subject)
I stepped over the threshold and found myself in the illumination that candles and firelight produce: dim, subtle, flattering and warm. And yet that wasn’t quite the first thing I noticed. The first thing I noticed was the sound of voices all around me. Bright’s Gate had always been filled with a quiet buzz, not the raucous din of other pubs you could go to. The quiet buzz was people talking, socialising, their voices mingling and coming together. My first impression on stepping into the bar area was simply that there was something very wrong, because although I did recognise the muted and somehow soporific, calming, repressing sound, the last time I had heard it in this place was after a funeral. The sound of it laced a deep chill around my shoulders and down my sides. I was sure I had gate-crashed some event, some bit of village grief or anxiety, something bad. My timing, as per usual, was impeccable.
I stretched my neck to the side, and felt every pop, one by one. And then I caught the eye of the person standing behind the bar, chatting and smiling in that same quiet, held back way. At first it was just a sliding glance on both of our parts: I did not expect to recognise the barmaid, expecting some youth from the village that was a kid when I had left, but this woman, I knew. And she knew me. She didn’t stop chatting and smiling to the guy standing at the bar, but her eyes did flicker back to mine as mine flickered to hers, and stayed there are she handed back a set of change and wandered down the bar, towards me.
“Whiskey and coke?” she asked me, quietly, her hands finding a bar cloth, and wiping down the bar, her eyes still on mine. One hand tapped a fingernail against the bar. That was new. When I had known this woman, this Hazel, she had been more a big sister to me, rough and a little wild, even with the ten plus years difference in age between us. Yet now she was an adult, with that wildness put into her eyes and away from her clothes, nails now smooth and clipped where they had once been bitten down to the quick. I didn’t stop to think how I must look, in comparison.
“JD,” I confirmed, watching as she stepped away, carefully measured two cubes where before, I’m sure, she had shovelled it into the glass, tinkle of ice against glass. And then she returned, placing the glass on the bar in front of me, and started filling it up with coke, the mixing wand spluttering as gassy soda mixed with cola syrup. She wasn’t looking at what she was doing. Instead, she had looked up at me, head slightly tilted to the side.
“Jared,” she started, and then didn’t say anything else, letting the word drop. I waited, noticing the fizz as the coke got higher in the glass, the bubbles heading towards the rim. I thought to say something, anything, to stop her filling up the glass before it bubbled over the side and onto the bar, but she was moving even as I thought, a click as she let go of the soda wand, dropping it into the holder and moving to the till.
So there I was, sitting with my jack daniels and coke, not too much ice, staring at the woman in front of me who I knew I should have called, should have informed that I was okay, should have made sure that she knew I was alive and doing well. Hazel had nursed my mother and played aunt to me. Hazel had watched as I very slowly fucked up, and then put me on the train away from home, away from everything I knew, in order to keep me from dying in front of her too. I owed this woman a lot. And I wasn't sure if all she wanted to do was take my money and stop having to look at me. It kept playing on my mind that in the old days, JD and coke was a straight two pounds. I didn't know if it had changed. That bothered me. Of all the things that could have bothered me, not knowing how much money I had to hand over was up at the top. There was something deeply, deeply wrong about that. But the expression in my face didn't prompt her to ask for money. Her response prompted old pain and relief to settle down over me. "How've you been, kid?"
Not where, I thought. How. She had asked me how I was. Did I want to tell her about what I'd done? How I'd pulled myself back out of a black hole, living in a shitty bed-sit for six months in Reading, getting a job at the arboretum, what I'd done with my life? The fact that I'd gotten myself a good job, a good life, a career, and now I was returning home? The reasons for returning suddenly seemed so small, insignificant, stupid, even. Four months with very little to do, living in this little village, and a job that nobody seemed to understand. "I've been good," I told her, quietly, taking the very first sip - just a tiny sip - and letting the banana taste, the coolness, the harshness of mix cola, spread through my mouth. I knew what the next question would be. It was the question I wasn't quite ready to answer, just yet, the question that I had no idea how to handle or to phrase, not even to this woman who every passing moment became more familiar, because more of the woman that I remembered. Hazel, who had nursed and mothered me when my own mother could not, Hazel who was a big sister and best friend one moment, and a stern influence throwing me on a train the next, and Hazel who would now want to know why I had come back, why I had come home.
Her eyes met mine, crinkled just a little around the edges, bright and intense. Here it came. "That's two pounds," she told me, holding out a hand, and for a moment I had to think through what exactly she meant, so unlike what I'd been expecting it threw me. The fainted hint of a smile curled the edges of her face at my confusion. "For your whiskey?" I'm sure I had the good decency to blush, glancing down to my old travel wallet, bulged out with bits and bobs I thought I might need to use on the way down. I rifled inside for a little bit, and brought out one of the £2 coins. Gold and silver glittered on each edge back at me. I dropped it in her hand. I took another sip. As per usual, the second tasted better then the first, less sweet, more of the harsh coke caramel and the underlying alcohol.
I stretched my neck to the side, and felt every pop, one by one. And then I caught the eye of the person standing behind the bar, chatting and smiling in that same quiet, held back way. At first it was just a sliding glance on both of our parts: I did not expect to recognise the barmaid, expecting some youth from the village that was a kid when I had left, but this woman, I knew. And she knew me. She didn’t stop chatting and smiling to the guy standing at the bar, but her eyes did flicker back to mine as mine flickered to hers, and stayed there are she handed back a set of change and wandered down the bar, towards me.
“Whiskey and coke?” she asked me, quietly, her hands finding a bar cloth, and wiping down the bar, her eyes still on mine. One hand tapped a fingernail against the bar. That was new. When I had known this woman, this Hazel, she had been more a big sister to me, rough and a little wild, even with the ten plus years difference in age between us. Yet now she was an adult, with that wildness put into her eyes and away from her clothes, nails now smooth and clipped where they had once been bitten down to the quick. I didn’t stop to think how I must look, in comparison.
“JD,” I confirmed, watching as she stepped away, carefully measured two cubes where before, I’m sure, she had shovelled it into the glass, tinkle of ice against glass. And then she returned, placing the glass on the bar in front of me, and started filling it up with coke, the mixing wand spluttering as gassy soda mixed with cola syrup. She wasn’t looking at what she was doing. Instead, she had looked up at me, head slightly tilted to the side.
“Jared,” she started, and then didn’t say anything else, letting the word drop. I waited, noticing the fizz as the coke got higher in the glass, the bubbles heading towards the rim. I thought to say something, anything, to stop her filling up the glass before it bubbled over the side and onto the bar, but she was moving even as I thought, a click as she let go of the soda wand, dropping it into the holder and moving to the till.
So there I was, sitting with my jack daniels and coke, not too much ice, staring at the woman in front of me who I knew I should have called, should have informed that I was okay, should have made sure that she knew I was alive and doing well. Hazel had nursed my mother and played aunt to me. Hazel had watched as I very slowly fucked up, and then put me on the train away from home, away from everything I knew, in order to keep me from dying in front of her too. I owed this woman a lot. And I wasn't sure if all she wanted to do was take my money and stop having to look at me. It kept playing on my mind that in the old days, JD and coke was a straight two pounds. I didn't know if it had changed. That bothered me. Of all the things that could have bothered me, not knowing how much money I had to hand over was up at the top. There was something deeply, deeply wrong about that. But the expression in my face didn't prompt her to ask for money. Her response prompted old pain and relief to settle down over me. "How've you been, kid?"
Not where, I thought. How. She had asked me how I was. Did I want to tell her about what I'd done? How I'd pulled myself back out of a black hole, living in a shitty bed-sit for six months in Reading, getting a job at the arboretum, what I'd done with my life? The fact that I'd gotten myself a good job, a good life, a career, and now I was returning home? The reasons for returning suddenly seemed so small, insignificant, stupid, even. Four months with very little to do, living in this little village, and a job that nobody seemed to understand. "I've been good," I told her, quietly, taking the very first sip - just a tiny sip - and letting the banana taste, the coolness, the harshness of mix cola, spread through my mouth. I knew what the next question would be. It was the question I wasn't quite ready to answer, just yet, the question that I had no idea how to handle or to phrase, not even to this woman who every passing moment became more familiar, because more of the woman that I remembered. Hazel, who had nursed and mothered me when my own mother could not, Hazel who was a big sister and best friend one moment, and a stern influence throwing me on a train the next, and Hazel who would now want to know why I had come back, why I had come home.
Her eyes met mine, crinkled just a little around the edges, bright and intense. Here it came. "That's two pounds," she told me, holding out a hand, and for a moment I had to think through what exactly she meant, so unlike what I'd been expecting it threw me. The fainted hint of a smile curled the edges of her face at my confusion. "For your whiskey?" I'm sure I had the good decency to blush, glancing down to my old travel wallet, bulged out with bits and bobs I thought I might need to use on the way down. I rifled inside for a little bit, and brought out one of the £2 coins. Gold and silver glittered on each edge back at me. I dropped it in her hand. I took another sip. As per usual, the second tasted better then the first, less sweet, more of the harsh coke caramel and the underlying alcohol.