Though the moments quickly die

A bar in wartime London, the Cat and the Fiddle, witnesses many different stories pass through its doors. But what does it all come down to when life ends?

A still summer night in London. A gentleman in an un-ironed uniform strolls down a dusty alley, the darkness relieved only by a flickering street lamp. His name is Jack Luciano, and his throat is parched. He lifts his head at the faint strains of a popular jazz song, coming from behind a closed door.

The door swings open at his push, and raucous laughter fills the silent air, along with the quavering notes of a saxophone. The clink of gin glasses and the strong smell of whiskey assails his nostrils, and he breaks out in a small sweat. Cigar smoke haze surrounds dancing couples, jigging in time to the beat of a double bass. Small tables with stools and lounges surrounded the room, all draped with groups of men and women dressed in stylish evening-wear and a few soldier’s uniforms.

A man with a trimmed moustache turns to face him, giving a long pull on his Cuban cigar. He kicks a stool towards the soldier, gesturing for him to take a seat. The bar-tender hovers near, taking a dusty bottle of bourbon from off the shelf. Two glasses are filled with the strong, honey-coloured liquid.

The man lowers himself gingerly onto the chair, wincing from healing bullet wounds, taking a glass and throwing it down with a satisfied sigh. The men are drinking partners, and they know each other well. Paul Salvatore twirls his moustache contentedly, sipping at his bourbon.

They talk of many things, women, politics, sport, the war, and the bourbon bottle quickly empties. Soon their words become slurred and they take a few numbers on the dance floor. Finding partners is no problem for either, they are well known at the “Cat and Fiddle” by the ladies.

But Luciano finds no happiness in either the company or the drink. Men drink for many different reasons- some drink for the taste, some for the warm feeling a good whiskey gives, some do it so they don’t feel anything at all. Luciano drinks to forget the war, to erase the horror from his sad mind.

When he’s sober, the smell of blood, the sound of cannon fire, the screams of injured men fills his head, till he is shaking and sweating, and his brown eyes wide and unblinking. And Paul understands, he was there with him, before they both came home to recover from their injuries. But some men can cope with the memories, and others don’t. The two brothers-in-arms waste the night away, drinking and singing the old songs, hopelessness a constant shadow in the corner.                             

 

The old oak door swings open again, and Betty Whitehouse with her crowd of giggling friends mince through the doorway into the already crowded bar. Several cheers ring out from the soldiers crowded around small booths, and spaces are made for the well-known girls. Soon the band picks out a popular dance, and more partners come onto the floor. The quiet air in the bar rises with the squeals of laughter and stomping feet. A blonde-haired soldier claims Betty, and soon her chocolate curls are bouncing in time to the swinging steps. They turn and stamp, laugh and clap, and the night is young and the drinks flow freely.

But she is soon exhausted by the fast beat, and takes a seat on her own and watches disapprovingly, as her friends easily lose themselves in the embraces of eager young soldiers. She hasn’t found any among the many uniforms that catch her eye- they all seem too raucous and immature. It will take a man with much more than smooth words to interest her. A man that thinks deeply about life, a man that will fascinate her.

There is someone in the chair across from her that she almost doesn’t notice, and she turns brightly to introduce herself. Betty hesitates though, when she sees the young man’s face. It is marred and grotesque, as though his features have melted down beneath the collar of his uniform. She contains her shock, takes a deep breath, and smiles warmly.

“Hello?” She says, hesitantly.

The soldier seems to jump a little, as if he was hoping to go unnoticed in the dark corner of his booth. He nervously greets her, before turning away his face a little.

She doesn’t give up, she is intrigued. After many stops and starts, they talk shyly for a long while. He doesn’t dance, but she is willing to sit. She listens quietly, and finds a breath of relief in his unassuming but interesting mind. Her night is very much different to normal, her nights are usually spent taking her intoxicated friends back to their boarding house.

 

The bar-tender’s name is Mick. Everyone knows him, he’s the sort of man that is always there, but no-one takes much notice of. A means to an end. The tap to their liquor, the door to quenching their thirst, an ornament to the bar. Mick doesn’t drink much himself, he never did, not after seeing what it did to his parents’ marriage.

He and his wife run the business well, and their three children live in somewhat security in the rooms behind the bar. His greatest ambition was to set up this bar, so he was always seen as a confident, contented man with a flourishing business. But he is not. He struggles with demons as bad as the men with marred limbs who carry with them the weighty horror of war.

Except he carries the weight of not being there. He never signed up. To some men, this was commonplace, a middle-aged man with an important business to run would easily fade into the background when recruitment officers came around. But he feels dead inside, he pretends he can see his customers muttering “coward” into their tonic and gin, imagines the black glares from battle-scarred warriors. He lives in constant fear that somehow it will catch up with him, someone will accuse him, and he will nearly die from the shame.

He considers taking his own life, and ending the pressure on his heart. But he has his family to consider, the bar would go under without him, and his wife and children would be thrown out on the streets. He had seen young children in the gutters, they don’t last long.

 

They sit at different tables, there is many people in the “Cat and Fiddle”. Betty and her new accomplice sit at a quiet booth, sharing pieces of their heart. Luciano and Salvatore drown their memories in endless glasses of bourbon, Mick stands straight and unflinching before the noose made from wine barrel ropes.

And then the whining starts. A hush falls over the smoke-hazed tables. It grows higher and higher in pitch, and a couple of soldiers stand up, shaking uncontrollably. They know what is coming, but they cannot speak, their demons are muting them.

And then,

The earth breaks apart.

It is all for nothing, all the hopes, dreams, aspirations that fill the quiet little room. Glass explodes everywhere like the shattered lives of those men and women that once drank and laughed and danced and smoked.

The bomb exploded and ripped apart the heart of the bar, obliterating everything within a one hundred metre radius.

The drinking partners never took their next sip.

The new friends stopped at their beginning.

The hopeless bar-tender’s death was stolen from him.

Author's Note

experimenting with cliff hanger tragics- what do you think??