Sker House (9 page)

Chapter 7:

Another Round

Only after Lucy had gone back to their room did Dale realize how weird she was acting. Even more weird than usual. He'd stopped trying to figure out what went on inside her head, or the head of any other female for that matter, a long time ago. But there was definitely something up with her tonight. Whoever said that men were from Mars and women were from Venus had a good point. He speculated that maybe it was Lucy's 'time of the month'. Or maybe it was just prior to her 'time of the month'. Or just after. Whichever the dangerous part was. Who could keep up? When you added up all the potentially sensitive times in the menstrual cycle, it didn't leave much of a safe window. Too many girls used it as an excuse to behave irrationally without fear of reprisals. It was nature's get-out clause.

Oh, you have to let me get away with it, its not my fault, I'm having my period, you should be more sympathetic.

Yeah, right.

Laying aside the second empty bowl of strawberries and cream, Dale took a deep breath. He didn't think there was any more room left in his stomach for another crumb. Even if it was free. But he wasn't ready to go to bed just yet. He seriously doubted Lucy's announcement that she was hitting the sack had been any kind of invitation. Why did he need a moody girl, anyway? There was a bar and an eccentric barman that kept giving him freebies. That was more than enough to keep him occupied. As a sign of goodwill, he picked up the dirty dishes from the table and took them back to the bar where a grinning Machen waited expectantly.

As Dale approached, he noticed Izzy working at a furious pace wiping down surfaces. She must have somewhere else to be tonight, he thought. Then again, didn't everybody have somewhere else to be when they were at work? “Any chance of another pint 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 out his little chief, which was usually quite sweaty by that time, and rub it on the rim of their glass. Then he would fill it with their chosen brew, and hand it over to them with a big smile. Only the truly stupid upset those in charge of their food and drink. That's just common sense.

Turning on his heels, Dale went back to the bar for a second pint, this one full of whatever Old Rolly was drinking. Luckily, Machen knew what it was. After a moment's thought, he reconsidered and told the landlord to pull one for himself too. Machen obliged, his face lighting up. The transaction complete, Dale carried Old Rolly's drink over to where the old man sat and put it on the table in front of him. “This is for you, sir.”

Old Rolly's nostrils flared and a pair of piercing blue eyes flicked up at Dale from beneath overgrown eyebrows, the same shade of speckled white as his long unkempt mane of hair and beard. For a moment he looked wary. Then, just as the silence was heading into uncomfortable territory, the old man's wrinkled, withered face crumpled into a wide smile. “Thank you, son.”

Judging by how grateful he was, it must have been a long time since anyone had bought Old Rolly a drink. Not wanting to impose any further, Dale then did a slow walking tour of the bar, looking at the ornaments and various decorations that hung on the walls. He stopped at the dusty framed picture that he had seen Lucy looking at so intently. The photograph showed a group of men standing in front of a small boat. Dale peered closer. It was called
Edward, Prince of Wales
. The inscription beneath the photograph said:
Mumbles RNLI, 1947.

RNLI? Royal Navy Lifeboat Institution? Dale didn't know how he knew that, but he did. One of those useless scraps of information your brain gets hold of and never gives up, storing it away in some deep, dark recess until such a time as it comes in useful.

“You like that photograph, son?” It was Old Rolly, speaking from his seat. Calm and deep, his voice resonated around the four walls.

Without turning around Dale replied, “I don't know about liking it, but its certainly interesting. Who are those men?”

There was a pause that lasted so long Dale began to think that Old Rolly had already grown bored of their budding conversation and nipped it in the bud. When the old man spoke again, he completely ignored the question and instead asked one of his own. “Do you read books, boy?”

Dale was taken aback, “Erm, yes.”

“Which kind?”

Dale took a swig of his beer, “I read text books for uni, you know, books about journalistic theory, media models, public relations and all that stuff. And I when I have time I read novels. Contemporary fiction, mostly. I like Tony Parsons and Nick Hornby, 'man books' Lucy calls them. My favourite writer of all time is Stephen King. The Master.”

“The horror writer?”

“Well, that's a bit unfair. He writes in lots of genres; fantasy, crime, thriller, noir. Horror is just one of them.” It crossed Dale's mind that he should return the question and ask Old Rolly what kind of books
he
read, but he sensed that the old man didn't really want to have a conversation about books. This was leading somewhere else.

“Do you know what you are looking at there?”

“I know its an old picture of some men and a boat, but I don't know the significance of it if that's what you mean.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than dreamt of in your philosophy.”

It took Dale a few moments to place the quote. English literature wasn't his strong point. “Is that from Hamlet?”

“Indeed it is. Top marks. Do you understand what the phrase means?”

“I think so. Truth is stranger than fiction, right?”

“Exactly. And not only stranger, but more terrifying than you could ever imagine. What you are looking at there is a painful reminder, a slice of real life horror. And I don't mean vampires and werewolves and all that other make-believe Hollywood stuff.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean, there have been enough real-life horrors around here without delving into the realms of fantasy and science fiction. Are you familiar with the Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster? I hear you and your friend are here to write a story. If you want to write a
real
story you should write one about the heroes that died that night.”

Now Dale thought about it, the Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster did sound familiar, but he couldn't remember specifics. In the end, he was forced to concede ignorance. “What's the Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster?”

“It was April of 1947 when the Great Storm struck,” Old Rolly began. “One of the worst we've ever had. The Samtampa was a Liberty ship left over from the war, heading through the Bristol Channel to Newport from Middlesbrough when she was blown onto rocks. The lifeboat in the photograph was launched on a rescue mission. But the waves were so big that they capsized the Samtampa
causing it to fall onto the smaller lifeboat, smashing it to pieces. There wasn't one single survivor from either ship. Altogether, forty-seven people lost their lives. The picture you are looking at is of the very crew that died, taken only a few weeks before the disaster. If you look closely, you can see death in their eyes.”

The old man's words echoing around his head, Dale found himself peering closer at the old framed photograph. Looking at a picture of dead people is an unsettling experience at the best of times. “Where did it happen? Mumbles?”

“Mumbles? Christ, no. It's called the Mumbles Lifeboat Disaster because that was where the lifeboat came from. It happened on the Black Rocks of Sker Point. You can see the rocks plain-as-day from out there on the beach. I remember that night as if it were yesterday.”

“You were there?”

“Yes. I was just a boy, but I'll never forget what I saw. I remember standing out there on the beach, watching everything unfold. Not that you could see much. Pitch black, it was. You could only make things out in the lightning flashes. The rain was hitting so hard it stung your face. Most of the locals came out. In the days of the wreckers, they would have been waiting for cargo to get washed ashore so they could claim it for themselves. But on this night, people were just... watching. Wishing there was something more they could do. We watched as the boats were ripped apart and the men disappeared beneath the waves. The worst thing was feeling so helpless. Do you know what killed all those men?”

“I guess they drowned,” Dale said. It seemed logical.

“Oh, they drowned alright. You see, the Samtampa was carrying a cargo of crude oil. When it struck the rocks the holding tanks ruptured, spilling it all out into the sea. By the time the lifeboat got there the water was thick with the stuff. It floats on the surface, you know. So when the lifeboat went down the crew couldn't swim in it and choked to death.” There was a pause. Dale wondered if he should try to fill it, but then Old Rolly continued. “Looking back it seems kind of ghoulish to say we just stood there watching. Like when you see a car accident and deliberately slow down so you can get a closer look. Why do we do that?”

Dale shook his head. He'd thought about that himself. He used to think pure blood lust fed the compulsion to rubberneck, and maybe it's true of some people. They want to see severed limbs, mangled corpses, bodies and hot metal twisted together. Others genuinely want to help, but don't know how. But maybe the highest percentage of people are just thankful that it didn't happen to them.

“There was nothing else we could do,” Old Rolly continued. “A few of us had boats, little dinghy's mostly, but if we had tried to use them, we would have perished too. A full-scale search and rescue was launched the next morning after the storm had passed, but by then it was too late and the beach was strewn with bodies and wreckage.”

Dale sensed Old Rolly had been carrying this burden with him for a long time, and was glad of the opportunity to finally unload. He tore himself away from the photograph, suddenly feeling like a ghoul himself, took his beer and went to sit with his new friend. He noticed the newspaper on the table was almost a week old. Finally, he said, “You don't have anything to be sorry about. Like you say, there was nothing you could have done.”

“But all those people. Their families. What it did to them. All that grief and sadness. It leaves a mark, you know. Not just on people, but on places.”

“What do you mean by that?”