Snakes and Ladders

She always had the front cover of the books she read torn off to prevent the pub’s patrons from inquiring about her one creature comfort when there was nothing else to talk about. She had an image to keep up as proprietor of the pub that bore her maiden name as a stern, strong woman capable of doing what her husband could, which, she thought on occasion, would be tarnished if the frequenters of Acker’s knew she read straight-to-paperback steamy love stories from the seventies.
Ten years had passed, he thought, and she still needed to prove something to the man who “stole her youth”, who kept her like the furniture behind the counter or in the bedroom of the old pub they shared and resided in. Or so she would tell him when she used to have a drink with him on the quieter nights in this pub, tucked away in a rainy Dublin suburb.
That was her, Alice Acker: publican, romantic novel enthusiast and mother. Separated too for those ten years he had been coming to hers after work. When he had work. In her youth, his thoughts swimming, she must’ve been good looking, her grey hairs appearing under the dim bar lights now. It was the eyes that gave her that beauty, two gems of kindness perfectly placed in her weathered-with-worry face. But she was old, she would always reiterate. It was those eyes that showed him the only kindness in Ireland he knew recently, the good word and the occasional free pint for his services as handyman.
- Right Tim, I can pull you a few more only if you come round tomorrow morning, ladder and all, to give the roof a mending. The weather this week’s been blowing off the slates, awful isn’t it?
- Would I be able to get them pints tonight? Yeah, grand Alice, ladder and all. You’ve always been good to me Alice...
-You start anything like that tonight with that mouth of yours and I’ll be reconsidering my offer. Loosened by the drink y’are now. As you know I like to be keeping this place as respectable and sober as I can.
It was true, he thought, staring at his face’s reflection in the mirrors behind the bottle on show, he had seen the biggest of builders thrown out by her arms for giving so much as a wink to her. She knew our game. Marriage makes you suspicious he supposed. And those arms, lovely and strong were now gently turning the pages of her coverless novel. Best leave her.

Still engrossed by his own reflection, he touched the high cheek bones and pulled at the bags under his sunken, red tinged eyes. It was Friday and the eight days into the new year of the new Ireland hadn’t been treating the former site manager well. The year before, what a year that had been; the gold rushing men of the construction sector had reached the topmost rung on the ladder of wealth before shaking and crashing down into the depths of the Dole lines, him among them. And with the lines lengthening, his and Ireland’s problems would both pile up into that already tall slag heap of disaster.
He came to the conclusion that despite all Alice’s charity to him, Tim wouldn’t be donning his luminous jacket for a good while again. He left his stool after that thought.

In a perfect world the black stuff in his belly wouldn’t just fill the empty stomach, but also wouldn’t torrent out of him loudly and stink to high heaven afterwards, he said to himself flushing. He probably should’ve bought some chips on the way here earlier, but he knew his doctor would disapprove. He flushed again and with cupped hand wafted the air that hung around his face. His face.
Tim moved his face to the corner of the mirror as the cold tap ran. The crack reflecting over the scar on his left cheek. You couldn’t see it under the bar lights and stubble fortunately, the great chasm of ugly torn across his face, but in this fluorescence it stood out in his eyes. A memory of the building site before the project went bust. A last severance package from the housing industry. Back in now, a bird never flew on one wing, his mind reminded him, closing the gents door firmly with two pulls, pitying the next poor soul to use the toilet.

In his absence, just about to sit down beside his half empty pint, was an aging man with white hair in black, and behind him, someone bristly chinned in a grey suit. The former upon further inspection was sporting a white collar and Tim didn’t know whether to bless himself or not. The other was a regular.
- Good to see ya tonight Jack. Ah! And Father, to what do we owe the occasion?
- It’s only my new year’s resolution to spread His word to all in Dublin, starting from the bottom rung, up.
- Ah stop, I'm doing my best here, ya joker, ha!
- I was actually about to comment on the new arrangement you have in here, you must know it’s been a while but...
-Ah, you know yourself, you’re welcome here anytime. You should join us all more often, I sometimes need absolution for the black thoughts I have about bread knives and these feckers godpardonme. Here’s one now, the man who I owe the redoing of most in here to, Fr. James O’Cleirigh, Tim Finnegan, lives up in one of those big houses on Iota Drive. For now, ha!
-Nice to meet you Tim, which parish are you in up there? Father O’Conner’s?
-Uh, ya... And nice to meet you too.

And with that Tim picked up his pint glass and coat and sat in the booth - beside where’d he set up the stage for that magic lad or a guitarist singing Dubliners’ songs - much to the scowls of Alice, alone with his own thoughts, eavesdropping on quiet whispers between a regular and an irregular in Acker’s.

- You must know I'm so sorry to have met you under the circumstances I did. Burying your wife and child on the same day must be a terrible, terrible thing. You’ve been in my prayers even since the accident itself.
- Thank you James, I used to wish that I was in the car myself sometimes, and that sometimes, things would be different then...
- ... There was nothing that could’ve been done Jack, it was His will and He works in mysterious ways, you must remember that. Things like that happen every day, to the best, to the worst of us, to the old and the young.
- What I meant, Father, was that I used to wish I could’ve been there, in the car, with them, when it happened. And that I could be with them now.
- Oh. But you must... oh.
-Sorry James if I've upset you, but that was just how I grieved for a time. I like to think I've come to terms with the crash, with blaming myself and others for it. I'm grand now. Though I still feel desperately sorry for the other family, mother and sister taken as well, leaving that boy on his own, in some shop somewhere in the Midlands, not much older than my Jack is now.
And then a pint was slammed down by the strong right arm of Alice, still sporting a scowl.
- That’s the last you’re getting tonight Tim after the way you embarrassed me in front of my guest and friend over there in your sorry seat. Have you no respect for God or myself ya useless sod? I suggest you down your payment there and go home for tomorrow before you fuck up again in front of the man who married myself and Mr. Loggerhead, baptised my Anne over on Gardener’s Street years ago, before we moved out to Tulsk to his family pub. As you know I like to be keeping this place as respectable and sober as I can.
Oh and be round for ten would ya?

To which she turned herself and walked back to her perch behind the counter to continue, frown and all, the rinsing and drying of a set of glasses bearing assorted brand names of bear, out of earshot of the priest and accountant, out of sight of Tim.

Funnelling the ends of the cold Guinness down his throat, making big glugging noises, Finnegan awoke himself from his stupor to drown himself in the unlikely pair’s conversation.

- Ya I had never wanted to be a doctor like my brother, God rest him. I could never get used to burying my mistakes. I prefer my chastity and poverty thank you very much Alice. Though if the right woman came along.... ha! I can look at the menu, as long as I eat at home, am I right? Don’t tempt me Alice with those eyes of yours. But I digress. Being a priest is easy; all I had to do was do a baptism on Saturday, and the usual, outside wedding season.
And with his free hand Tim picked up the collar of his threadbare coat to make his way slowly to the door, ears alight.
- This recession business has people asking: “will people be coming back to the church, Father?”, and I think no, they’ll just use it as a poor man’s shrink. Like in confession in the last week, three unfamiliar voices come in to my box as I'm ready my Tom Clancy; one suicidal lad, no more than child, worry in his voice and money in his pocket, a girl wanting an abortion, crying her eyes out, and last, on Monday I think, an old man saying he’s in love with an 18 year old boy in his hospital. I should start charging, shouldn’t I?
To which Tim shut the door of Acker’s behind him. First his left arm was raised, then the right to don his coat against the cold, cloudless night. Fresh air was what he needed to sober himself up before he got home to his family, he thought as he shielded cigarette and lit lighter within the left breast of his coat. They’d all be in bed by now. The just closed door opened again, the warmth and talk escaping.
- Right I’ll be right back, need fags from Spar… Gotta light? Tim is it?
- Ya, here you are.
- Majors and Guinness are me only vices, can never make it through a Lent without them. Cheers. Hey, wait one second. Are you alright to walk home now in the state you’re in?
And as Fr. James O’Cleirigh returned the lighter, Tim Finnegan replied in the affirmative, turning his back on the priest and began to make his way home, looking back only at the sound of tyres screeching, a thud and the sight of an off-duty taxi driver hop out of his car and shout into the pub, “Fuck. Here help us would ya? I'm in a bit of trouble, ya know?”, as the blood poured out of the old, white haired man’s head.