A neat row of bottles stood proudly on their display shelf behind the bar of Dorrily river tavern.
Locals who gossip in forever rounding circles of weather and fading memories, invariably wander towards the realm of drunken speculation as the night grows tired.
What was the actual difference between a king’s pint and a double half-pint, they’d ask; was Carrick river-gin really mixed with sewer water; how much spit was there in a glass of coward’s reprisal again?
All of these questions were, of course, only half-answered with a casual smile from the owner of the tavern, Orland Lesley
A earnest man of wrinkles and hidden jokes, Orland had owned the river tavern for what seemed like a lifetime; forever fussing over little repairs and cleaning with a hostile kind of exuberance.
So passionate in the presentation of his tavern was Orland, that it was said he had once been seen to polished a glass down into it base elements: a rumour that the good man did not ever directly deny–at least not without a slight wink beforehand.
[—]
Wiping a small mound of sand off the bar and into an ashtray, Orland walked across to the dining area to place this smoking bowl upon a nearby table. Running a towel, that was neither too damp, nor too dry, over the bar counter, he gently whistled a half remembered melody while enjoying the crisp air of yet another Sunday morning.
Ever since he could remember Orland knew that he would one day like to own a tavern, and from the first moment he walked into what would become his home, he believed it not to be circumstantial but instead a great kindness of the gods above; a blessing that seemed too beautiful to have not been a waking dream.
Lifting a sleeping patron, who snored loudly in drunken stupor, over his shoulder, Orland grew nostalgic of his early days opening the tavern as he took the patron outside.
He started with the garden, a good tavern should have a pleasant garden, he would say as he pruned the Boxley hedge lined by a small picket fence and bordering out from the verandah.
Choosing to leave his bar area dusty–as history lies within dust–Orland went on to inspect every clout driven nail within his tavern: finally deeming it ready to open, some two years after his initial purchase.
Fishermen–knew the last owner, their dads once drank here— ambled in on that first day. They settled in chairs placed and almost made for them. They became part of the decor itself, drinking stouts and ales and talking all the way to the call for last drinks.
Life returned to the public bar as beams of the afternoon sun lay across the tavern’s worn carpet, a carpet lain thick with ale and dented footprint. Voices echoed once more from the faded architraves within the smokers lounge as a local unclipped the catch of his viola case and the day danced merrily into night.
Orland was happy, from that day he was happy. Closing the doors on that first night of trade he quietly sat in the empty bar and wept, such joys should not come to us in life as the sufferings we face from then on only become doubled so.
His sleeping patron was gently placed upon a bench by the beer garden; in time the man would either wander off in search of coffee or be fetched by an all too patient wife.
Feeling a droplet of rain patter upon the ground beside him, Orland looked up to the grey clouds approaching from the west, as the winds of Winter so often conjured, and left to retrieve a forgotten umbrella from the tavern coat rack. Opening the simple umbrella and wedging its wooden handle within the crook of his patron’s arm, Orland patted the man twice on the shoulder and walked back inside to continue his morning chores.
It is all too rare in this world that a person may find the quiet nook that suits them in life so well. These people do not seek expansive goals of lofted ideals, but are instead happy to exist within themselves: content just to be alive.
He, in days long ago, thought this world to be small. A short spurt of life that wicked out almost as quickly as it embered. But today he thought of distance, a distance so unfathomable that his aging eyes could never behold it, an endless distance that the horizon will hide one hundred times over.
Atop the hill some way up the road from the tavern, there was a farm that looks out over the valley and Orland would often wondered what they see from their perch, how do they see him? Does he look happy?
Folding his favourite dish towel and hanging it upon the hook it has rested on for so many years, Orland looked across the world he had made for himself.
Yes, he decided, I think I may be happy.
J.McCray
2020
Sunday Short Stories 