John Matlock and Mal Weaver were sat at a circular wooden table in the corner of their local ale house discussing the prospects, odds and tips for the day’s horse racing. The newspaper, sprawled across the table like an invasion map with circles of red ink around the names the two men felt to be firm favourites, was being studied. The gee-gees obsessed them.
“There’s the three-fifteen at Haydock. Sunshine Boy. Won at Aintree last week. Then there’s… Electric Warrior. That’s the same race.”
“Electric Warrior. …”
“Depth Charge has a wonderful jockey. Fancy it?”
“Odalisque…I like the sound of that one.”
“You havin’ a flutter or what?”
“Can’t mate. Wife’d kill me. I‘d get earache all fucking day and night.”
Mal shook his head in mock disbelief, the red ballpoint pen clasped between his teeth.
“You’re too bloody cautious you.”
“Take that pen out of your mouth.”
Mal let the pen drop on to the newspaper. The two men both finished the dregs of their pints at the same time.
“Well these pints are dead. Fancy another?”
“Yeah why not.”
“Same again?”
“Ai.”
A young woman in a blood-red plastic coat walked into the bar side, almost taking the door of its hinges. A scowl marked her face and a curl of blonde peroxide hair dangled and bounced low: an attempt to mask a lazy left eye. The clatter caused the entire room to turn their heads.
Early afternoon and already three sheets to the wind. The men in the pub leered at the peculiar beauty before them. There was a dried train of blood down her leg, but she didn’t appear to notice or care.
“You’ve got a cut on your knee love,” said the barmaid.
“I know.”
The young woman opened her handbag and reached for the purse. A man in a flat cap stood close by.
“Hey Lo, my wife’s got the same coat as you,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Ai…which suggests she’s got style…or you haven’t.”
He laughed.
A few other patrons chuckled.
“Shurrup!”
Standing at the bar in a crooked fashion, the barmaid met a steely gaze.
“I’ll have a treble vodka, Jayne.”
Everybody in the town alehouses knew Gypsy Lola. A life of penury befell her at a young age and she’d never bothered to fight or rally against it.
All sorts of rumours circulated. Most popular being Lola’s encounter with a young gentleman confronted with her menstrual blood and her utter disregard. He’d reported back to all his mates in the pub she’d said: “All good sailors sail on the Red Sea.”
Lola had never been good at working for a living either. ‘Working clash’ as she described herself. In fact, she was just bone-idle. She loved a good scrap and people of the town would often see her yelling and screaming at various types. Once she’d glassed a former lover and spent sometime inside.
Lola stood at the bar in knackered worn down, black heels with the weight of her body on her right leg and hip.
“She’s pissed already she is,” noted Mal.
John said nothing and turned to the rugby game on the television – a sport he had no interest in whatsoever. Mal furrowed his brow and thought over the tough decision as to whether he placed a bet on Sunshine Boy or Electric Warrior: or both.
Lola necked half the treble and gasped. Between her breasts sat a medium-sized silver crucifix with a deep red stone-centre crafted in a Celtic design. It had been given to Lola by her mother Eliza on her death-bed, aside from the few meagre possessions, numerous debts and old tattered photograph albums.
John turned away from the television and stared at the girl as she knocked back the last of the drink. A warm sensation crept along his neck. She did not noticed him scrutinise the crucifix. The red stone became an intense focal point.
“She’s as rough as a butcher’s apron that one,” said Mal, having noticed John looking at her.
Lola fumbled around and produced a packet of Drum and papers. She rolled a disjointed, fat cigarette on the bar then rummaged around in the imitation-Prada handbag for a lighter. John reached into his right hand coat pocket and felt his Zippo. He pressed it hard into his fist and thought of offering, then declined.
“You’ll have to smoke it outside,” said the barmaid.
Without a word in reply, she walked out of the back entrance into the tiny courtyard of the pub.
The uneven concrete floor with high walls was little more than a few old benches and metal chairs placed higgledy-piggledy. She lit the cigarette and plonked herself down on a bench. The coarse wood rubbed against her thighs and knickers. She spat several times on the floor and aimed for the cracks in the concrete paving and on the ants below. One ant struggled in the saliva before it crawled its way out. Once more, she spat and covered several ants in her thick green-tinged saliva.
John appeared and lit up a cigarette too. He didn’t acknowledge the woman, not properly. A vague awareness of each other’s presence existed between them.
Lola held her head down and refused to look, as if fascinated by the business of the ants. Neither spoke. John looked up to the thick grey cloud above. An aeroplane curved into view descending low. The roar of the engines drowned out all other sound.
John watched his cigarette burn and saw spirals of blue-grey smoke twist into nothingness.
Lola flicked away her cigarette into the corner of the courtyard. It continued to smoulder. She muttered under her breath and continued to spit on the ants.
John looked on in horror at how uncouth she had become. He walked close to the table. Lola saw a pair of dark brown shoes and immediately looked up.
“Not so warm, is it?” said John.
“What?”
“Said, it isn’t so warm out.”
“Suppose not.”
“Might rain later, it said.”
“Looks like it.”
“Do you want a fag?”
“No, ta. Just had one.”
John took a large drag of his cigarette. A billow of smoke pushed out of his lungs and off into the air. He coughed, his throat burned: a piece of tobacco had fallen down into his gullet. He hacked grew louder.
“You alright, mate?”
John reached into his mouth with two fingers and pulled out a saliva-coated lump of tobacco. He inspected it then flicked it away.
“Am alright…bit of baccy…nothing to worry about.”
He felt an utter fool. Lola stood up and allowed John a full glance of the crucifix. She noticed the direction of his stare. She edged off the bench and went back into the bar stopping off at the toilets.
John remained in the tiny square courtyard, a barrage of memories assaulted him. He twisted his mouth from side to side thinking of the crucifix. It had been a long time. Mental images faded then renewed. A flurry of recollections. The markings and style were distinguishable enough for him to have remembered the time on Llandudno Pier. The calmness and the sureness juxtaposed with the pounding sea.
He had presented his girlfriend Eliza with a token of his esteem and affection. Her eventual betrayal rankled still. All the tender moments gone: first glances, first touches, first kisses, first confessions of love, days out in the car, love-making in secluded farmers fields, the excited plans of marriage and a future together. All evaporated in a petty betrayal.
John pictured Eliza as her twenty-one year old incarnation: the way he remembered her as she stood before him those dark-brown eyes flecked with light hazel. He called them whirlpools. Many times he felt content merely looking at her. Quiet moments when no words were needed or spoken. They would often lounge around on sofas or beds. She talk about her childhood in rural Ireland. He loved the soft intonations of her Kerry accent. Sometimes he made him laugh and he could not explain why.
They took long walks into the countryside and lay under sycamore trees to avoid the sweltering sun. Some days a wind blew soft and caressed their faces, arms and legs. John would tickle her ear with a blade of grass. She pretended to sleep, dying not to laugh.
One time, she tossed him off into her handkerchief. A tiny drop of semen ran down her leg. Most of it went on to the grass. John was most fond of this memory. He adored her lack of inhibition. Eliza placed a fingertip into the dripping cum, sucked on it and smiled. They hesitated, then kissed.
Mal popped his head out from the back door and announced the bet placing cut-off point fast approached. John drew on the remnants of his cigarette and threw it into a large glass ash tray. The daydreams now aggravated him.
He resented them and his weakness for sentimentality. Upon returning to the bar, he saw Lola stood next to a spotty young man in a baseball cap and tracksuit. Her vitriolic tongue and coarse voice punctured the room with all sorts of expletives.
“She’s got a bloody gob on her,” said Mal.
John pretended not to hear his friend’s comment and went back to his place at the bar. He’d witnessed the same old scene many times before and would probably endure it for years to come. He drowned it all out and fixed his eyes on the newspaper.
“You’re a fucking silly cunt. You owe me that money and if I don’t get it Ryan, I’ll fucking kill you, you hear?”
Lola continued mouthing a barrage of crude insults. The crucifix swung between her blouse: the heirloom: once a lover’s gift bought with over half-a-week’s wage packet reduced to clattering around a drunkard’s breasts.
Mal handed John a pint of Guinness. He supped it without once looking at Lola. What’s past is past and does not bear thinking about, John warned himself.
The landlord appeared and ejected her. Gypsy Lola stormed out of the Lower Angel without a fuss. It was the same old song and dance. Ryan followed. The landlord shook his head.
“If she comes in here again, tell her she’s barred,” said the landlord to the barmaid.
“She’s bloody puddled,” said Mal.
“Not right in the head,” replied the barmaid.
John agreed, but said nothing. What’s past is past.
“Are we having a flutter or what?”
“No.”
“Fair enough. Won’t be long. Watch me pint.”
Mal went off to the bookies and John stayed rooted at the bar. Not long after a man with rotten teeth and scab-covered face barged through the doors. For a moment, he thought Lola had returned for another round of mayhem. The man wedged a pristine and expensive bicycle against the door and looked at everybody.
“Anybody interested in buying a push-iron?”
“Is it nicked?” asked John.
“Nah, mate. Just trying to raise some money, like. Wife’s in hospital. It’s got a basket and everything,” said the man, who touched the wicker basket attached to the front like a true salesman.
“Well, you’d best had keep it then. Sounds like you need it”, said John, returning to his pint. “Go on, sod off.”
