The Waiting Room
This story could have been oh so true.
It was inspired by a silly Saturday morning, a new motorbike and a girl in a red sports car.
There was a lorry, I was overtaking the sports car and yes, there was a lane.
If there hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be writing this now.
And, as for the barman – well, there is this strange pub that I know…..
Joe sat alone in the bar and waited.
Far off, in the distance, he could hear a car approaching; its un-muffled pipes singing a song of hell. There was still time left though, time left but nothing left to do.
He had been riding since dawn. With neither destination nor schedule he was happy to be alone on the road, free at last.
The last few months had been hell, a drunken hell, filled with misery and pain. But it was over. He had survived and he was grateful that those days were behind him and all in the past.
His fall had come when Susan had left him. He had always been a heavy drinker but, with his enforced solitude, he had seemed to lose control. Going over and over in his mind, all the things that he had said or hadn’t said, he drank more and more until the days seemed to pass in a drunken blur.
Finally, he lost his job, which was maybe what he had wanted all along. Now he was free to drink even more. He awoke in the mornings with a craving that was only satisfied by the evening’s oblivion. Days turned into weeks, weeks passed into months and he drank the time away.
He stopped just before the money ran out. Waking, one morning, to find blood stained vomit on the carpet and a cigarette burn in the sofa, he had resolved to get his life in order.
For the next few weeks he had acted like a man possessed. He sold the car, the stereo, all his possessions. He bought a bike and gave notice on the flat. He stopped drinking and, finally, he was free.
In control at last, he rode down to Cornwall where once, many years ago, he had been happy.
And now, once more, he was happy again. He loved the Cornish countryside; the little lanes twisting their way through lush farmland and secret woods. He loved the silent creeks and the pounding beaches and the long straight roads that led across the moors.
But most of all, he loved his bike. Her slightly dumpy looks belied her willingness to please and previous suspension mods had given her a sure-footedness on the road that he wouldn’t have believed possible. He hadn’t intended to buy a Harley but, when he saw the black Sportster stood all alone in the showroom, he just couldn’t help himself.
The guy in the shop had been dubious, as if he hadn’t wanted to part with her.
“Not really your sort of bike, Joe”, he had said, trying to steer Joe towards a low mileage Fireblade.
“You were always more into fast bikes, I seem to remember. Not to sure how you’ll get along with this one.”
But Joe had stuck to his instincts. He paid cash for the bike and rode her away.
And his instincts had turned out to be right. Over the next few weeks he and the bike had formed some sort of partnership, almost like a marriage, each becoming part of the other. Just like it had once been between Susan and him, he thought, although he thought of Susan less and less these days.
He turned left, left down a road that he had never been down before. The lane turned gently to the right before straitening out and running softly beside a swelling creek.
Joe throttled back, content to poodle along slowly in top; he had no special place to go and all the time in the world to get there.
He let the bike find it’s own way; over a humpback bridge and through a little wood, the slow rhythmic boom of the exhausts echoing off the granite hedges that lined the road.
It was on the other side of the wood that he saw her. Or, at least, it was her car that he saw first. Red and chrome, glinting like rubies and diamonds in the late morning sun. Joe wound back the throttle and the bike surged forward. Before long he had caught up.
The car was a Triumph Spitfire, old but in great shape, as if she was owned by someone who really cared.
The girl driving the Triumph was a blond, her long hair streamed in the wind behind her. She put her foot down and the car pulled ahead. Joe waited until the road straightened and then dropped a gear and overtook.
For mile over mile, car and bike played cat and mouse, each one overtaking the other when the opportunity arose. The girl drove with such skill that Joe felt, deep inside, in a place that had been empty for a long time, that he needed to know more about her.
He pulled alongside the car. But, rather than overtaking, he kept position as the two of them hammered down the twisty lane – car and bike in perfect formation.
Joe looked down into the car. The girl was wearing a short skirt – impossibly short; Joe could see the lushness of her thighs as she struggled to keep the car on line.
She looked up at him at last. She was older than he had expected, but beautiful. Her red, inviting lips smiled at him. Her eyes were shielded by black, old-fashioned sunglasses.
Joe smiled back but the girl glanced away at the road ahead and then, in that last moment, back at him – panic written across her face.
Joe looked up, up at the road, up at the lorry that now filled his vision.
Unconciously, he pulled the bike to the right, knowing that it was too late, screaming, “No, no!”
He could smell the lorry now; he could see the shock on the lorry driver’s face; he could see the end coming. Not wishing to see any more, he closed his eyes and waited for the pain.
But the pain never came. Joe found himself alone on a narrow lane that ran, straight, through patchwork fields all bounded by drystone walls.
It was getting dark. Far off, in the distance, Joe could see the twinkle of lights, indicating a town or a village. He must have been riding for hours but he could remember nothing.
“Shock”, he guessed. “Must have blanked it out.”
Before it seemed possible, Joe arrived at the village. He pulled up alongside the church and killed the engine. The village was deserted. The few shops in the high street were closed and dark. The only place that showed any sign of life at all was the pub. And, although he hadn’t had a drink for weeks, it was an easy decision for Joe to make.
He walked into the pub. It was empty apart from a baran who stood tall and cadaverous behind the bar.
The barman placed a glass of beer on the bar in front of Joe.
“A pint, sir”.
Joe picked up the glass and swigged it greedily. He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was. He felt woozy. All of a sudden he felt the events of the day catch up with him.
He looked up at the barman.
“You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”
The barman just smiled and wandered down tot he other end of the bar. Joe looked around. The place seemed somehow familiar although Joe knew that he had never been there before.
The barman came back and stood in front of Joe.
“Ready for another one, sir”, He asked in a studied accent that seemed out of place in a small Cornish village pub.
To his astonishment, Joe found that he had finished his first pint.
“Yes please”, he said. “Same again”.
The barman was already pouring the drink.
“Oh, we only have one type of ale here, sir” he said, and then added, “Don’t worry. You’ll not have long to wait.”
And, with that, the barman glided off to the other end of the bar again.
Joe pondered on what the barman had just said. His mind filled with uncharitable thoughts about small villages, way off the beaten track, with only a restricted gene pool to play with. These thoughts were pushed to the back of his mind as the door swung open, letting in a gust of icy air.
Joe looked round. A short, stocky man wearing blue overalls walked in unsteadily. He looked somehow familiar to Joe.
Following behind him was a tall, pretty woman with long golden hair and bright red lipstick. She too looked familiar in a strange and worrying way.
The man came and sat at the bar, on Joe’s left. The woman on Joe’s right. Joe felt a sense of unease – ’somethings not quite right, here’, he thought.
And then the man started talked and Joe knew that it was so.
“It were your fault”, he said, staring at Joe. “Urs too, but she weren’t overtaking, it were you.”
“Doctor always told me to watch me heart; always told me to avoid excitement. He’d have done better to warn me about hooligans on noisy motorbikes instead.”
Joe’s head reeled. He tried to talk but nothing came out.
Then the girl started speaking. She spoke in a rich, cultured voice that told of affluence and education and holiday in the sun.
“My husband’s back from Saudi tomorrow. The car was a present from him. He’ll be expecting me to pick him up at the airport. He’ll be expecting me in the car. And now I’m here.”
The man in the overalls butted in.
“I watched ur die, you know. I watched ur bleed to death by the side of the road, all the time crying to urself, she were.”
The girl started sobbing quietly but said nothing.
Joe suddenly realised where he had seen them before. The short man in the overalls had been behind the wheel of a lorry, panic written across his face.
And the girl, the girl had been driving a red sports car and she had smiled at him. She wasn’t smiling now.
“Where am I?” Joe blurted out. “What is this place.”
The girl leaned across Joe and said to the man in the blue overalls,
“He doesn’t know, you know. He has no idea.”
Joe could smell her perfume.
The man replied.
“Some shock he’ll have when he find outs then, won’t he – serve the bugger right.”
“What don’t I know?”, Joe demanded. “Where am I, what is this place. What’s going on?”
It was the barman who answered. He had silently glided from the other end of the bar and was serving two pints to the man and the girl.
“This place has been many things and has been called many names over the years, sir. At the moment, as you may have seen from the sign outside, it is called ‘The Waiting Room’. It was so named by a previous barman. I like the name, it seems apt, and so I have never bothered to change it.”
“Now sir, would you like another beer before you go, my master is nearly ready.”
Joe stuttered, “No, what, what master. Where am I going?”
Once again, the barman spoke in his measured tone.
“My master is the one who’ll come and get you, sir. He’s a kind and gentle man, so they tell me. Although, it has to be said, there are some that say he can be a beast of a man, with a temper that burns like an eternal fire.”
“It is my master who will decide what is to be done with you, sir. My master and him alone.”
And, with that, the barman placed a third pint of beer on the bar in front of Joe and glided away.
“Done with me?” Joe asked, nervously now.
“An eternity of pain”, the lorry driver muttered in a voice that didn’t seem to be his own.
“Redemption for the penitent”, said the girl, although her lips didn’t seem to move.
“A thousand deaths to those that cause death”, countered the man.
“Pray man. It’s not too late”, the girl offered.
“Blessed are the meek”, intoned the barman in a voice that came from far away.
“For they shall inherit”, grunted the lorry driver.
“The world.” The girl sang.
Joe looked at the lorry driver. He scowled back. He then looked at the girl. She smiled at him again, just as she had when she’d been in the car.
But, now, there was pity in the smile.
“It won’t be long now,” She said gently. “Be brave.”
All of a sudden, the cash register crashed into life, although the barman was at the other end of the bar.
And, although Joe had not yet paid for a drink, he wasn’t suprised to see that the display showed, not the price of the beer but, instead, his name.
Outside, the church bell started ringing a demented chime.
Joe looked from side to side. The girl and the man had edged well away from him.
And, in the far off distance, Joe could hear the sound of a car. A big, big car. Getting closed. Traveling impossibly fast; it’s unmuffled exhaust singing a merry song of hell.
And then finally, it was there. And Joe heard footsteps outside approaching.
And suddenly Joe realised that it was all over. He wanted to scream out and ask for more time. But he knew that it would do no good.
And somehow, with that knowledge, there came a kind of fragile peace.
He thought back over the events of the day, over the last few weeks, the good time and the times before that. Susan, his parents, a brother he had not seen for years. All these thoughts flashed through his mind.
He tried to weigh up his life, the good and the bad and to try and make some sense of it. But really, it was pointless and, anyway, there wasn’t time.
And so he picked up his pint and waited. All the time wondering. Wondering and watching the door.
All the best
