Rod's - Part 2

They sat on rickety folding chairs in the back yard. The afternoon air was warm. Another train thrummed in the distance, then was gone. The bees and the distant chink of glasses was the loudest sound.

“I wonder why people nowadays want so much STUFF.”

“Stuff? Such as?”

“Oh, you know, Mike, expensive cars, stereo systems, pubs with 50 kinds of fizzy beer on tap, holidays in the Caribbean, frozen Black Forest Gateau, computers…”

“Hey! I’m getting a computer next week…”

“I mean, this is the most basic pub you could imagine. One sort of beer – but it’s good. No food, apart from crisps. No musak. But it’s perfect!”

“Amazing beer. I wonder how he keeps it in such good nick. I mean, it’s not as if he gets a huge amount of trade here…”

“You don’t think he drinks it himself? I mean, did you see his shaking hands?”

“I don’t think so; that might be one of those nerve things. A lot of the old school landlords didn’t drink – I think he’s one of them. Keeps everything proper.”

“Yeah, the place is spotless. Don’t think it would be if he was a raving alcoholic."

“By the way, on our cycle tour of the Lake District next month, we’re sticking religiously to the list of teashops my mum gave us. No pubs, remember.”

“Received and understood.”

 

“Your parents, being ministers – well, your dad – do they actually believe in God and all that stuff? Or do they just pretend they do because that’s his job?”

“Oh, I think they do. I mean, I don’t think they think there’s a big old bloke with a beard up there, and angels and celestial harps and things. Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking. If there was a heaven, it would be sitting out here with you on Rod’s back porch. This lovely warm weather would last forever. Rod would never get tired going up and down the stairs; there’d be no three o’clock closing…”

“And no raging hangover the morning after, I suppose…”

“Well, there’d be no morning after. This would just go on and on forever. But then, if this was my heaven, how would they make everybody else’s heaven? I mean, what if your heaven was hurtling along that road through the fields in a noisy souped-up car. That would sort of interfere with MY heaven…”

“If you got your kicks out of noisy cars, you’d probably be in the Other Place anyway. So, what would be your idea of Hell, then?”

“Good question. I dunno – perhaps this place would have been turned into a nite spot. There’d be a big neon sign with ‘Rod’s’ on it and a flashing arrow pointing the way.”

“And if it was Hell for you, I bet ‘Rods’ wouldn’t have an apostrophe either.”

“Definitely not. Well, we are both editors, literary people, so that would be an extra little twist, just for us. And there’d be no real ale, either, the bar would festooned with about a hundred fizzy lager taps. Everything would be painted purple with yellow spots. The place would be full of 17-year-old kids getting bladdered…”

“Pretty much like any pub on the Old Kent Road, then.”

“Perhaps we already are in hell, then. We just don’t know it.”

“Only we can come out here to Heaven, whenever we want to. Perhaps this is time off for good behaviour.”

“I wonder what we did in our previous life to deserve living in Camberwell. Fancy one for the road?”

“Yeah, why not. Bag of cheese and onion crisps too, if that’s not too exotic for Rod.”

“I’ll see what I can do. He’s definitely got pickled eggs…”

“Thought this was supposed to be Heaven…”

 

Mike nudged the back door open. The blue-overalled regular was nowhere to be seen, but Rod was still there, leaning against the bar and reading a newspaper.”

“Same as, when you’re ready - two pints of Fremlins. And a bag of cheese and onion and a pickled egg.”

“Certainly. Just a moment.”

Rod shuffled down the steps in his slippered feet. Bunions were another of Rod’s afflictions and they were more comfortable to wear than shoes. Muffled clangs and bumps came from the cellar; perhaps he needed to change a barrel.

 

Five minutes had passed. There were no more sounds from the cellar. The clock ticked. More minutes. Julie appeared at the door. “Taking a while?”

 “He went down there…what, almost ten minutes ago?”

 “He hasn’t come back?”

 “No.”

 “D’you think he’s OK? Maybe had a funny turn down there?”

 “Should we go and have a look?”

 “I dunno - he might think we’re trying to nick something. P’raps there’s another exit from the cellar. A secret passage?”

 “You’ve been reading too many smuggling stories. Anyway, why would he go down this way and pop up somewhere else?”

 “These ‘ere Kent smooglers…they pretty inscrutable…Oh look! There’s someone coming up the path – next to that little hut!”

Mike turned to where Julie’s finger was pointing through the small window. A figure was shuffling up the path. He paused to admire Rod’s vegetable garden, then continued up to the door, a squat, rotund chap in black trousers and white T-shirt. Definitely not Rod.

“Af’noon. Rod in?”

“Er, he disappeared down the cellar a good ten minutes ago. He hasn’t come back up.”

“Bit rum –you ‘ad a look down there?”

“No, do you think we should?”

“No ‘arm in lookin’…”

Mike and the new arrival walked carefully down the steps. A bare, whitewashed, rough-plastered room, lit by a single 40-watt bulb. Beer barrels on stillages. On a small table, two pint glasses, full of brown Fremlins, flat, no heads. But no Rod. No door; the only way in or out was the stairs.

“How weird - I could have sworn I saw him go down there – so where is he?”

“You sure, you saw him go down? Sure you didn’t just THINK he’d gone down there?”

“No – absolutely. I definitely saw him take the tray and go down the steps. And those look like our pints, there…”

“Well, there be an explanation for everything. Grab that glass and get me a pint from the barrel; I’ll leave the money on the counter. Give your two a top-up too…”

 

They climbed back up the stairs, Mike carefully carrying with the tray of pint glasses. They left the money under the counter.

“You there, Rod?” the new arrival called up the staircase into the living quarters. No reply. He climbed the stairs; they could hear him stumbling about, opening and closing doors. Presently, he reappeared. “No, he ain’t up there. You sure you saw ‘im go down those stairs?”

“Yes, positive.”

 

Mike and Julie drank their pints back inside, under the fisherman picture. The new arrival consumed his pint in silence, then slapped his empty glass on the counter. “Be orf, then. Happen Rod’ll turn up, sooner or later.”

Mike glanced at his watch. Gone half-past three  - well past closing time. “Well, I suppose we ought to be on our way.”

 

On the walk back to the B&B in Faversham, Julie said: “Do you thnk we ought to tell someone?”

“Tell them what? That Rod’s disappeared? Probably does it all the time.”

“But HOW did he do it? I mean, you, said, there’s absolutely no way out except those stairs. And we were there all the time! I mean, this is UNCANNY!”

 

All the way back to Faversham, they speculated on Rod’s disappearing act. A secret passage., hidden behind a moving panel in the cellar? Had Mike been hallucinating ? Fremlins was strong stuff, stronger than its light, malty taste would suggest. Perhaps he’d only thought Rod had gone down the stairs into the cellar? But then, how did you explain the two already-poured pints? Paranormal activity? Was Rod some sort of ghost? Or a hologram?

“Maybe we should go back this evening, when it opens again? Try and find out what happened?”

“We can’t. We’re meeting my parents in Faversham.”

“Tomorrow lunchtime then?”

“We’re meeting Trisha.”

 

 

 

All that week in the Commodities & Markets Weekly office, Mike kept tabs on the Press Association reports, looking for any reports of disappearing pub landlords in Kent. There was nothing.

The publisher’s office was on four floors. At the top, the dozen or so Commodity & Markets staff were crammed into a room no bigger than a modest domestic lounge. Shrieks of laughter and profanities emanated from the room in a continual stream all day and on into the evening.

Mukran, the advertising sales manager who hailed from an obscure part of central Asia and spoke six languages would now and again bellow “FAX!” into the fax machine if it failed to go through. “They can’t HEAR you, Mukran!” other people would explain. But Mukran still kept doing it. He also belted out snatches of opera at top volume, at random, unexpected moments.

The people whose job it was to compile the endless columns of commodity prices that were the main constituent of the paper gritted their teeth and somehow got on with the job.

Staff came and went; the average tenure was around six months. The pay was poor and the workload relentless. Things often went wrong. Once, the editor had typed: ‘Gimmie bluddie headline, mon!’ into the empty space at the top of an article, an instruction to the sub-editor. The paper was printed with it still in place. Surprisingly, none of the readers seemed to notice, or if they did, they clearly weren’t fazed by it.

The God Squad, as they were referred to, were down in the basement, a reversal the natural order of things, if you believed in Heaven and Hell. Here, Julie edited the Anglican Church Times.

She’d asked the editor, who commuted from Kent, to bring in that Wednesday’s copy of the Faversham Times. She scoured it, cover to cover. Again, no mention of anyone disappearing in the Ruddenfield area, or anywhere else for that matter.

In between the basement and top floor, some dreamy, posh young women edited a dreamy, posh magazine read by people in the Houses of Parliament. It was considered a stepping-stone to greater things, in TV, Radio or ‘proper’ newspapers. Commodity & Markets wasn’t a stepping stone to anything, except the dole queue, or possibly serious substance abuse.

A bishop rented an office on the third floor. He frequently complained about the racket coming from the Commodity & Markets office.

 

To be continued in Rod's Part 3

Rod's Part 3 of 3 | ABCtales