Sker House by C.M. Saunders Page A

mist... I mean, Machen?” he asked, stepping carefully over Champ's extended paw.
    The landlord nodded, plucked a clean glass from the shelf above his head, and began filling it, his face a picture of relief. Was business that bad he'd be so happy to sell just one more pint of beer? Surely not. No matter how bad business was, the four more quid he spent in the bar wouldn't make much of a difference. The landlord wanted company. It soon became apparent that Lucy's assumption of Machen being 'a bit tipsy' was very accurate. In fact, 'a bit tipsy' didn't even begin to cover it. If not quite the entire three sheets to the wind, he was at least two-and-a-bit.
    As he waited for his beer, Dale's eyes drifted back to Izzy, who'd finished her manic bout of cleaning and was now washing her hands. “Right, that's me finished 'ere,” she announced. “I'll go and help mam finish off in the kitchen.” Drying her hands on a towel, she disappeared through the door behind the bar.
    Dale paid for his beer, collected his change, and turned to take his place back at the table in the corner. But then his eyes settled on the man they called Old Rolly. He was sitting in the same place as he had been when they first saw him, staring into space and nursing a half-empty pint of no-doubt warm dark ale. A well-read newspaper lay neatly folded on the table. The bloke had to be seventy-five years old. With his long white beard, he looked like a renegade Merlin. The pubs of Great Britain are full of men like him. Their working careers over, their lives had no structure, and with nothing else to do with their time they became slaves to their own self-devised routines. As they approached their twilight years they still wanted to be sociable, a part of something, but all they were physically capable of doing was sitting around and reminiscing, doing crosswords and watching telly. So they became creatures of habit; sitting in the same place, drinking the same thing, bringing order to their lives the only way they knew how. Most of them were just lonely old men who craved a bit of interaction, even if they could only ever be on the periphery of things. It was sad to watch them while away their remaining hours alone in pubs because they had nothing better to do. But at least they were able to do what they wanted.
    To help pay for his studies, Dale worked in a Southampton pub called the Saint. When he took the job he knew a Welshman working in a pub in an English port city would get his share of ribbing. It was one of the reasons he applied for the job in the first place. He wanted to see what it was like inside the lion's den. During the afternoons, the place was the domain of regulars like Old Rolly. Dale never had any problems with them. But it was a different story with some of the younger local lads who seemed to resent him being there. They usually called him 'Taff,' which was tolerable. One of those affectionate insults, like calling a Scotsman 'Jock' or an Irishman 'Paddy.' But some didn't stop there. They had to go the extra mile and wheel out the old 'sheepshagger' jokes. They were just boring. You would think that in all the years people have had to think up more imaginative insults, they would be able to come up with something more original by now. But no, every night the same brainless individuals, all Burberry shirts and baseball caps, said the same brainless things.
    Even the sheepshagger brigade were bearable. Usually. They were just trying to be funny. If a Welshman doesn't have his sense of humour, he doesn't have much. It was the vindictive ones that really made him angry. The ones who, on hearing his accent, openly berated him for being a
bloody foreigner
and told him to
fuck off home and leave jobs in England to the English
. Not that any of those people would have wanted his job. Dale developed a special way of exacting revenge on those morons. Under the pretence of changing a beer barrel, he would take their glass into the cellar, whip