Since You've Been Gone by Lisa Dyer

Author:Lisa Dyer [Dyer, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction & Literature
Publisher: Crooked Cat Publishing Ltd
Published: 2013-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

***

Malcolm Tucker was only in his late sixties but he had the face of a man who had lived more days than he cared or wanted to remember. His grey hair merged with his deeply-lined face, which was also ashen. A lifetime down the pit had left his lungs ravaged with the same disease that was slowly killing Trevor, but still he smoked, attested by the heavily-stained fingers on his right hand. He sat now in the same old wooden high-backed chair next to the double page signing-in book, used by members to vouch for guests. Hal couldn’t help but smile a little at the sight – so familiar, yet so sad in its consistency.

The Working Men’s Club had been the Friday night venue for his family when his dad wasn’t on a late shift. Cheap beer and a game of darts for his dad, vodka and coke with a game of bingo and a listen to a local band for his mum, and he would be given a bottle of coke and a bag of crisps and put in a corner to suffer the evening, which seemed to drag on for an eternity. The thick fug of smoke that seemed to be a permanent feature, would sting his eyes and the band inevitably had a man on drums that always used brushes instead of sticks. They’d play the same old middle-of-the-road music at least twenty years out of date, and middle-aged couples – the women with their hair done that afternoon in the local salon, and the men in suit trousers, their shirt worn without a tie but still with some smartness lost on today – would glide across the floor, scattered with salt to make the feet move freely.

Sometimes one or two of Hal’s mates would be there, dragged by their parents to endure the same fate. Then they could go outside on a warm summer’s evening and play in the road that ran up the side of the building, or sit on the wall and talk the kind of crap young kids find to talk about, which was usually something and nothing. If someone had had the presence of mind to plan ahead, a football might feature in their activities.

“Hal, good to see you, mate.” Malcolm held out his hand with its gnarled fingers.

Hal reached out to return the greeting and was shocked to see that Malcolm’s hand was flaccid in response. He looked down and up at the proud old man and knew that he, like countless others including Trevor, had vibration white finger brought on by constant use of pneumatic drills. Malcolm looked at his hands, turned them over and a wry smile crossed his face.

“I can still pick up me pint pot. Sort of!” He smiled in the way that old men do when they don’t want sympathy. “Go on through, ya dad’s paid.”

Hal patted him softly on the arm, then he and Michael went through the double doors and into a small bar area.

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