Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley

Author:Aliya Whiteley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

‘YOU SHOULDN’T DO that,’ he says.

I finish the last mouthful in the glass and turn it upside-down. I place it on my head. It’s an old drinking game, from another time, when there was booze to waste.

‘All gone,’ I tell Isley.

‘So I see.’

He comes to me, and sits on the stool with the cracked leather top. We’ve reversed our usual positions. I’m standing behind the bar, looking out over the dirty floor bearing the scuffle of muddy footprints, and the filled ashtrays of black-market cigarette butts, shipped over from Swansea.

‘How did it go?’ he asks me.

I shrug. If I start talking, I won’t stop.

‘I thought maybe it was a bad idea,’ he muses.

That’s true. That’s what he said to me, when I went down to the cellar this afternoon and found him sitting beside Won, the two of them holding hands. He didn’t seem guilty as he kept his grasp on her. I explained where I was going as quickly as I could, desperate to leave. She kept her eyes averted. He had frowned at me, at my explanation. Fosse is in trouble, I’d told him, and he had replied, Trouble in what way? How can you be of help? As if even the idea of it was ludicrous.

‘You tried,’ he says. ‘I think that means something.’

‘We dealt with it.’

‘So what now?’

‘Dom’ll fill in Benny Sykes. He’ll put together a team of specials and they’ll check the farm in three days’ time, to be certain they’ve gone. Then we’ll all have a bit of a clean-up before the new family arrive. That’s the plan.’

‘I mean, what now for you and Fosse?’

‘That’s not your business,’ I tell him. ‘That’s never been your business. Haven’t I been clear about that from the beginning? What makes you think that’s changed? You think because I’m drunk and you’re not that you get to find out all my secrets?’

‘Go to bed,’ he says, and I have to touch him before he turns away from me. I reach for him, hold the sleeve of his shirt, and he flinches. His fingers are curved, as if protecting his palm.

‘Have you hurt your hand?’

‘It’s fine. I caught it on a barrel.’

‘Is it bad? Let me see.’

‘Jem,’ he says. ‘Please don’t.’

‘You don’t get to tell me what to do.’

‘I never have!’

‘Is Won ever leaving?’ I ask, partially because I want to see how far I can push him, and partially because that’s what I’m thinking. My control is slipping as the brew hits harder.

But it doesn’t anger him. He leans forward, far over, and lowers his head to the bar. He hits it with his forehead: once, twice, three times. Such a human action, born of exasperation. I can’t help but smile. When he straightens up, he says, ‘I’ve been perfectly clear that I don’t like her being here either.’

‘I saw you.’

‘Saw me what?’

‘Holding her hand.’

‘Don’t put stuff on it,’ he says.

‘What stuff?’

‘Earth stuff.’

‘Earth stuff?’ The phrase tickles me. It fits, for all of this, for the people of the inn and the machinations of Dom and his cronies, for the confrontation today in the woods.

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