The Soldier's Return by Bragg Melvyn

Author:Bragg, Melvyn [Bragg, Melvyn]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Arcade Publishing
Published: 2011-11-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

‘Bad?’

‘Bad.’

‘How bad?’

‘Still plastered, Sam. Bad night.’

Kettler was held upright by leaning hard against the wall of the Vic at the end of Water Street. His rough-skinned, stubbled face with the large purpling nose almost distracting from the pain of the piggy, bloodshot eyes looked so sorry for itself that Sam had to laugh.

‘Come on, I’ll get you one.’

‘I’m skint, Sam. Not a sausage.’

Fair warning. Sam nodded. They walked across to the Blue Bell. Kettler took his first few sips of the pint of mild – the cheapest drink -with both hands, carrying the rim of the glass prayerfully to his parched mouth. They took out a set of dominoes and began to play fives and threes, a penny a game, Kettler’s losses on the slate.

It was the middle of the day. Ellen was out working, Joe at school, the town quiet and lazing in the hot sun, no market or auctions that day, long fatalistic queues on the streets for bread and flour, just rationed, the gutters being swept by Joe Stoddart. Sam was on the two to ten shift.

They were alone in the bar and the landlord left them to it.

They were well matched in the game and when that became clear, they gave up and sat back to talk. Sam offered Kettler a cigarette and Kettler, who rarely smoked but never refused any gift, took it gratefully. He smoked rather airily, as if through a cigarette holder. He eased himself in his seat to let the wind go free. The mild was doing the business.

Kettler’s clothes fell, by a hair, the positive side of rags. He wore, he possessed, nothing that had been bought new: most had not been bought at all but handed on or rescued. His chief need of the day was a large helping of tripe from one of the seven butchers in the town. He alternated. Some of them, at the right time of day, would give it him for nothing. At the end of an afternoon, now and then, he would go to Joseph Johnston’s for a loaf of stale bread which cost him a halfpenny. He might take a slice of cheese with it if he was in funds. Funds were primarily the dole, secondarily the occasional pick and shovel employment (although he claimed a weak back and Dr Dolan would often play along with it). Most of all, though, he scrounged. Bits of easy work on market days with half a crown for his pains, ‘helping out’ here and there – taking a hound dog to the trails, keeping an eye on a pony and trap. Kettler had found many minuscule gaps in the local economy which were made for his always available and always brief attention. Then there was the occasional fiddle.

He nipped the cigarette halfway down and popped the stump behind his ear. He had pushed back his cap and the surprisingly luxuriant but greasy black hair gave him rather a dashing appearance. He could charm some of the ladies: Ellen was not one of them.

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