The Harbour

There was once a story behind the name of the old boozer but it’d died along with those who gave it breath. The nature of death was supposedly interlaced with the name of the departed. As long as the name was kept alive then so was the deceased. And so The Harbour lived on; a crooked and doddery old thing.

As far from the coastline as was possible, the rickety boozer endured. A retired sea dog limped back from many an adventure upon the seven seas. Fantastical stories that never found a purchase in the place of his birth and so they dried to salt over the years. Scattered upon the winds of time. So many stories die upon the silent breeze.

The Harbour had undoubtedly seen better times. This now a progressive and enlightened era. An up and coming generation of know-it-alls who failed to venerate those who’d gone before. Youngsters holding a torch of superiority fuelled by Convenience Knowledge. A bubble gum wisdom that would eventually burn civilisation down. Society crumbling into its constituent parts in the name of a culture that contained no sense nor reason.

The Harbour was a bastion of the old ways. Whether it would be the last bastion was anyone’s guess. Pubs were falling like dominoes. Leaving moth eaten holes in the fabric of reality. Holes that could never be repaired.

There was an epidemic coming. An obesity of the mind that was crashing towards the shore of sanity on the greedy waves of a perfect storm. Lockdown was the conspicuous horseman of this apocalypse. His deathly fellows quietly led their nags forth. Cloaked in a cold, infectious darkness. The internet wore a blank face. Mirrored its madness upon the visage of the enraptured. The devil’s constant obsession with humanity had found him the crack in his enemy’s defences. An open wound of greedy curiosity that he infected with seductive lies.

No longer was there the need to tune in. Everyone was dropping out. A race to the bottom. People were at sixes and sevens as they became the common denominator of one. The simple maths of division.

Everyone felt it. The winds of change couldn’t waft away the stench of decay. Coherence had died on a watch where everyone was sleeping and no one wanted to take responsibility for the coming end. And so the sleep of denial was the only option left to them. Pretend it wasn’t there so that it would go away. The numbing inoculation of ignorance; what wasn’t known couldn’t harm. But of course the damage was already done and everyone knew it. They just didn’t like to talk about it.

Sitting lopsidedly in the midst of the village, The Harbour drew a smattering of regulars on a daily basis. For some, this was the teat they suckled upon as their final days ticked away to the sound of the grandfather clock that sat in the main bar. A cosy anteroom of life. If they were at death’s door then this was the best place to await its opening.

There was an assumption that the church was the oldest building in the village. Assumptions had a habit of being wrong. The earliest gatherings were always to share food, drink and warmth. This then was the original place of worship and had withstood the many ripples of appropriation that alter meaning and seduce the masses into compliance with the latest fashion in status quo.

George was a regular but that wasn’t to say that he frequented The Harbour on a daily basis. Health and finances were natural limiters to his visits. He saved himself for the days he would visit this place. There was reward in this and the reward was a form of worship. He’d always respected his local pub and the man who ran it. He’d learned that respect could ferment and become a heady brew of the sacred. His words at the bar were well rehearsed. Prayers to the assembled. Knee bent on the brass bar that ran along the bottom of the pew over which Mick reverently handed the amber filled pint glass.

“Thanks, Mick.” George bowed his head in gratitude before quaffing a third of his pint.

“You’re welcome you old git,” Mick grinned at George as he stood in his pulpit. Hand resting gently on the tap handle of George’s preferred ale.

The two men were locked in a moment. George’s bright eyes spoke volumes about the man. There was plenty going on behind them. Yet they weren’t unkind. The slope of his shoulders told a different story. The weight upon him was almost visible. Some drag along baggage that they could readily relinquish. Others have no choice in the matter and those burdens weigh heavily upon them, threatening to bury them in the dirt before their allotted time.

“Cheers,” George raised his glass and made short work of his first pint.

Mick took the glass. Had a notion to tell George to go easy on the beer, as was his duty. The obligations of a landlord were as contradictory as people themselves. Serving intoxicating beverages and in the next breath staving off the effects of the alcohol. It was against the law to serve a drunk punter with further booze. That grey line slithered and slid snakelike through each day. Mick was judge and jury here. This sometimes amused him in his rarefied position of arbiter behind the bar of the pub he’d owned for several decades. This was his place, not by virtue of the name above the door but because he was a part of the very structure and it was in his blood. This his home, as every public house should be a home.

The alchemy entailed in transforming bricks and mortar into the gold of a home has no singular formula. The ingredients are love and toil. A trial of errors that’s a labour of mostly thankless love. The rewards are never obvious, as they lay deep. Not hidden to all. Open and obvious to those who see well enough.

And Mick knew that George saw well. George had made it plain in his appreciation of Mick’s home. Poked the bear playfully to draw Mick out. But never with malice. His a recognition of a fellow traveller on life’s path. And at some point the two men had become friends. Mick had sometimes reminded George that friendship was hard to come by in such circumstances. The roles either side of the bar were necessarily antagonistic. A gentle battle as drinkers sought an escape from the harsh realities of their lives, even as they communed in the warm glow that alcohol provided. The clergy held an elevated place in the proceedings of every church. Parents and never friends. George and Mick had gone beyond these restrictions.

Mick placed George’s second pint on the bar before him. Turned the glass so that the pint glass’s livery faced the man, “there you go.” This a tongue in cheek ritual between the two men. Everything in its right place. Quiet pride in a job well done.

George shook his head and smiled, “keeping a thirsty man from his pint. There should be a law against such torture.”

Mick shrugged, “what can I say. Perfection takes time.”

“In which case,” George grinned, “you’ll outlive us all, you ugly bugger!”

“I should bar you for disrespecting the good looks of the landlord,” Mick was shaking his head in faux hurt.

“About time we had a good looking landlord,” George winked at Mick, “when will I meet him? Does he have kissable lips?”

Mick laughed, “don’t let Ben hear you talking like that, he’s likely to give you a smack.”

“It’s where he’ll smack me that worries me,” George turned and stuck out his bottom to emphasise the ridiculous point he was making.

The childish banter was a welcome break. Both men were younger and lighter for it. The slope of George’s shoulders almost absented itself. Mick loved the potential for that. Wanted more of it for the tortured man who came to The Harbour in search of a peace that looked set to forever elude him.

Then the moment was shattered with the sound of voices preceding the opening of the pub door. Mick noticed George flinch and an overwhelming grief befell him. A bitter sadness that Mick could taste, and in the tasting of it he felt a familiar anger. Protestation at the injustices of life.

Mick shook his head, “I’m sorry George,” he said under his breath, “I’ll bring you a pint over.”

They exchanged a knowing look as George took himself over to a corner table. Exiled in the boozer he’d drunk in longer than most. Mick watched him go and wondered how it’d come to this. But he knew only too well how. Had seen it before. The slow and constant drip of a poison that turned people from their true course and made of them a callous and cruel lot. From his pulpit he saw the devil’s work more clearly than most. He’d heard confessions aplenty and seen the darkness within. Heard things that went well beyond the experience of most. But he seldom broke the sanctity of the pub. There were times when silent rules must be broken, he knew. Judging the timing of such things was a task that burned. Some consequences were shared whether he liked it or not. And that included questions of whether he’d failed to act and questions as to whether he’d been hasty in his actions. The cold light of day was a relentlessly accusatory light.

Alan and Rob approached the bar. One amiable. The other hard, his pleasantries a learned behaviour that held no warmth. Both men wore affectations. They were surface level only. Mick saw a lot of this. People who held back and avoided showing their true faces. Stick around long enough and you’d see enough of them to know why they were hiding. Mick had their measure. He’d seen it all play out and felt sick to his stomach that it continued to play out on his watch.

Mick served the drinks and exchanged pleasantries as required. Subduing his discomfort as best he could. Wondering at his own part in the needless pain George was suffering. Not for the first time he considered barring both men. Knew it couldn’t stop there. Unable to assess the potential fallout. To him. To his beloved pub. And beyond.

He sought refuge in the notion that a church can hardly bar members of its congregation.

Churches were after all a gathering-place of sinners. The problem was that Alan and Rob knew the game and how to play it. They were a part of a group that Mick had become increasingly uncomfortable with. But discomfort and dislike weren’t strong enough grounds to act, and Mick had encountered people adept at never taking it far enough to become conspicuous. He suspected that there was a dark seam of humanity that was far more depraved than the prison population. A demographic that would never be caught. He wasn’t saying Alan and Rob were quite that bad, but they smelt off all the same.

The two men sat at the largest table in the bar area. The biggest and best spot in the pub had been co-opted by them and the group which would arrive soon enough. Bringing with them a noise and chaos that grated and jarred. As though they were acting out how it was to enjoy time in a pub. Aliens having observed how it was done, but having no heart for it.

Mick weathered the storm and smiled sweetly. He hoped that it would all blow over. Deep down he knew otherwise. Once a predator had its teeth sunk in the neck of its prey it seldom let go. He tried to think of it as playground behaviour, but cruelty always led to bad outcomes. There was no wishing it otherwise.

Certain of the group were abrupt and disrespectful when they came to the bar. Again they pushed it just far enough not to warrant any sanction. A tap dripping acid. Damage done out of furtive malice. An interesting game that relied upon the way things looked. For if Mick was to react he would struggle to justify his reaction. Were he to ask the group to leave, any basis for the expulsion he articulated could see his pub emptied of most of its clientele. Cheating within the rules. Childish disregard of boundaries. But then some people never grew up. Remained trapped within an entitled and unregulated state. Toddlers with adult bodies. Intent upon having things their way. Dangerously angry whenever they didn’t win.

All the while, Harry sat in the corner. A part of the furniture. Looking almost as old as the pub in this state of partial exile. Broken by the unwarranted hate of a group that’d once counted him as a member. The damage they were doing him, insidious. Creeping into the marrow of his bones and inflicting a pain beyond measure. The safe harbour of his local had become a torture chamber.

Two hours later they left without saying goodbye to Mick. Harsh stares over at George’s table. George not looking up from his paperback. A meagre defence against a naked hatred he’d done nothing to earn. They left a mess that Mick cleared away after the pub door shut. He remained quiet. Stifling his grumbles as he tried not to rise to it. Looking forward to the reward of calm and quiet now they were gone.

“Peace offering,” he said as he placed another pint in front of George.

George looked up from his book and smiled at the other pint Mick was holding, “you’ll get in trouble if they see you doing this. You sure you want to sit with the village pariah?”

“Better than the village idiot!” Mick sat. Drank some of his pint. Sighed contentedly. “That’s better,” he said as much to himself as to George. “You’re no pariah, George.”

George’s sad eyes regarded Mick, “not yet maybe, but you can see the way things are going. Emotion rules the day. There’s no sense nor reason to these things and they already have the numbers.”

“You’ll always be welcome here George,” Mick watched as George sighed and drank some more of his pint.

“I know,” he drew in breathe, “but…”

“But me no buts, sir!” Mick chuckled.

George smiled, but his eyes watered with a sadness that crushed Mick, “I’m already a second class citizen in my own local and I don’t see that changing. It’ll only get worse.”

“I could…” began Mick.

George raised a hand to stop that train of thought, “you already offered and I appreciate it. But it would only make things worse. They’d have a field day with the injustice of it.”

It was Mick’s turn to sigh.

George drank more of his pint, “you’ve listened to me and remained open. That’s all I could ever expect and more. After all, you poured me my beer as you did so.” There was a twinkle in those sad eyes now. The old George remained and he shone through in this moment.

“You forgot to mention that I am the sexiest landlord…” began Mick.

“…in the village!” added George raising his pint.

Mick raised his, “cheers.”

George looked down at the table and his entire demeanour changed. It were as though he’d been transported elsewhere. And in a way, he had. “She killed him, Mick. As sure as eggs is eggs. As surely as if she’d pulled the trigger herself. She killed him. My poor, sweet boy. He was full of love. He never saw it coming. I’d do anything to swap places with him. I’d give everything for him to be here instead of me. But I can’t. It all goes against nature. It’s evil is what it is. An evil I have no defence against. Just the same as Ethan didn’t.” His shoulders were shuddering with silent tears, “I thought it might end with Ethan’s death.” George looked at his friend now. Sadness tinged with despair, “but it’ll never end. That is the nature of what she brought upon me and my son.”

Mick sense a finality in George’s words, “what are you going to do?”

“I’m leaving,” he was shaking his head as though he didn’t agree with the decision he’d been compelled to make, “tonight’s my last night in The Harbour.”

“Where are you going?” Mick felt weak somehow in the asking of this question.

“Best you don’t know,” George drank more of his pint. Mick noticed his hand was trembling with the emotion of it all, “best no one knows. That way she can’t find me.”

Mick’s eyebrow’s knotted, “but… Sally and Ethan are buried here, mate.”

George attempted a smile that faltered on his lips. Raised a fist to his chest and thumped the place his shattered heart resided, “they’re here and they always will be. She tried to take everything from us, but she will never touch that. That’s ours. Always will be.”

Mick nodded, “you know I don’t want you to go. You shouldn’t have to. They…”

George spoke over his friend, “…are just following orders. That’s groups for you, Mick. We’re all easily led. We both know that.”

“You make them sound like the gestapo,” Mick grinned.

George returned the grin, “seems like a good analogy. Villagers turned on each other back then. Betrayal and intrigue all the way. Time for me to go underground and join the resistance.”

“One more for the road?” ventured Mick.

George smiled and the years fell away from him along with the sad pain of the worst of betrayals. The betrayal of love and the fatal betrayal of his only child, “why not? That’s always the best pint of the evening.”

“And it isn’t always just one,” said Mick with a knowing grin.