Chapter 7 Good August
CHAPTER SEVEN
GOOD AUGUST
HAS PROBABLY, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, EARNED A DRINK
Can he buy me a drink?
What is even happening?
But August seems so confident when he starts across the street that I’m inclined to follow.
And I hardly want to be left alone here in eighteen forty-four.
I’m in eighteen forty-four.
Really eighteen forty-four.
I don’t want to miss this. I’m shit-scared, but this is also the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.
Before I know it, I’m running after him.
It’s a busy street, people walking back and forth, lots of them milling around the entrance to the pub.
I can’t believe how many horses there are.
And the noises. No cars, of course not, but it’s only now I realise how used to that sound I am.
That constant whirring and whooshing. But instead of engines, it’s wheels on stone, and the clomp of boots, some made with wooden heels, not synthetics. The echo rings around the buildings.
I can’t smell any perfume, not a drop, like I might out at night usually.
It generally doesn’t smell as bad here as the alley did, but the scent of horse manure is ever-present.
And straw. It’s like visiting a farm, only that mixed with the scent of thousands of chimneys, lots of them burning coal judging by the acrid harshness in the back of my throat.
Then there’s the stagnant puddles, garbage, but it’s like being on holiday I guess, in that it doesn’t smell half as bad as it usually might.
August’s heading directly for the door of the pub, and the second we step inside, everyone’s staring at us, on account of our strange clothes, I suppose.
But he’s so self-assured, and he takes it all in without a flinch.
It’s the weirdest thing to watch. He’s me, I know he is, but it’s like he just doesn’t care what other people think.
I’d love to be like that. I’d love to know where he gets that from. What is the key difference between us that lets him act that way, when I’m always so nervous?
Heat floods my cheeks as we approach the bar. It’s dark in here, lit only by candles and a fireplace, so it’s even dimmer inside than out, and I’m thankful August probably can’t see my embarrassed blush when he looks back at me. I hate the way it happens all the time, so easily.
He threads his way past people, and even beyond the weirdness of brushing up against the rough brown coats and big skirts, there’s an extra layer of bizarre.
This bar is exactly the same as I remember it from my own time.
The tiles, those I’ve stared at over a few beers, haven’t changed a bit, beyond a touch of discolouration.
The pressed-copper ceiling is no different.
The bar is an identical wooden countertop.
Maybe it’s been replaced at some point, but it’s the same shape, in the same spot, the same height.
Suddenly, August’s ordering drinks… What money did they even use? Shillings and… and things? My card’s certainly not going to work. But August’s leaning over anyway, talking to a shrewd-looking man who seems increasingly displeased.
I feel like this is going to end very badly.
The barman, a mostly bald guy in a dirty and stained brown shirt, shakes his head.
August’s response confounds me. He reaches around behind his neck, unclasps a necklace I hadn’t realised he was wearing, and holds it out for the barman to inspect.
At this stage, I need to know what’s being said, so I squeeze past a couple more people, who pull back from me anyway, and lean in close to hear August’s, “It’s pure gold. A very fair exchange for a few ales.”
Is he selling his jewellery? To buy me a drink?
I catch his arm. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to. We don’t need to have a drink.”
The way he dips his head close to mine, the way he holds my eye contact, and says, “Let me do this for you. I want to have a drink with you.” It’s so disarming. His earnest tone, his… What even is that? It’s not the words he says, but the way he says them.
My cheeks are on fire now. He’s me, so I’m clearly misreading something here. But his tone was enough to make the inside of my mouth turn to wool.
I shut up and watch him barter his necklace away in exchange for two large and copper tankards of ale, one of which he pushes towards me.
After everything that’s happened so far today, it’s odd that this should be the most compelling.
To touch a cup that’s one hundred and eighty years old, but that’s also new…
to feel the moisture of beer froth on my fingers and know it’s long gone, every drop of it, now and forever, every trace of whatever type of beer this is, of the man who served it, of the people who made it, of the humans in this room…
to know this is all dust on the wind where I’m from.
It’s scary, but it’s special. There’s something almost sacred in it. A look into a world extinguished.
Except not here. Not in this reality that I never knew sat right beside my own. That was close enough to touch if… particles, did he say? If particles lined up just the right way? A long-gone existence that was right here all along, waiting for August to walk into my life and show it to me.
He’s watching me now, and I don’t know why, but I’m colouring again. This time, it’s not because I’m embarrassed by all these other people who are still looking at me. I’m just… completely overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry about today,” he says.
I can’t help but laugh. “Which bit? The stalking me and almost scaring me to death, the dropping the doppelg?nger thing on me, or the getting me lost in another time situation?”
“Um… all of that. Also your coffee. I still feel bad about that.”
“You bought me a drink to make up for it.”
“And this is the best beer you’ll ever taste.
I guarantee it.” The expectant arch of his eyebrows and the quirk at the corner of his lips suggest he really is sorry.
But also that maybe he genuinely cares whether I enjoy this.
And I think it’s the first time in years that a man’s been concerned about whether I’m happy.
That realisation hits me hard, harder than I thought it could, so I blink away the sting and take the tankard up. It’s heavy, oddly shaped and unwieldy, with its pot-belly curve and wide handle.
I’m going to drink almost two-hundred-year-old beer.
I lift it slowly, savouring the moment. It smells of coffee beans and chocolate, the froth thick and brown and promising.
And when it hits my tongue… it’s divine.
The taste is blindingly fresh. There’s a riot of flavour here.
Malt and yeast and a deeply satisfying richness that’s absent from the fizzy junk I usually drink.
August’s waiting, and I can’t hide the smile that prompts. “This is incredible.”
“I knew you’d love it.”
“Because you love it?”
“I know me quite well,” he quips.
Another chuckle ripples out of me. At all of this. It’s all too bizarre. But it’s also somehow… lovely.
He turns his back to the bar and leans an arm into mine as he surveys the room. It’s crowded, nowhere to sit. People are still looking at us, but only a few now, in a whispering, gossiping sort of way.
Their faces aren’t what I’d have expected, had I ever thought to try to expect this.
Not a hint of makeup, none of their hair done in fancy styles like it might have been for the professional portraits we see copies of in the modern era.
They’re rougher. Yellowed teeth. Wearing clothes that are probably casual for them, but seem a thousand times more dressed up than what most people wear to the local pub in my time.
Certainly more dressed up than the track pants I ran out of my house in.
I feel hideously out of place. I wouldn’t come in here in my own time wearing this, let alone the Victorian age. It feels wrong. And as I shrink from that fresh embarrassment, I realise I’m leaning hard into August.
He doesn’t seem to mind.
Maybe it is safe to touch him after all?
He’d know better than me, I guess.
Still, I shuffle an inch away from him. “Sorry,” I mumble, glancing down at the space where our arms had been touching.
He takes my meaning with a shrug that brings his shoulder back against mine. “It’s really alright. I was just being cautious. But as you can see, everything’s fine.”
Fine?
Why isn’t he remotely bothered by this? By any of this? Does this qualify as normal for him? “How many times have you been here?”
My question seems to catch him off guard. He gives me this piercing look, long-lashed and dark-eyed, like he’s sifting through my thoughts. He’s looked at me like that a lot today. Do I look at people like that?
“A few times,” he eventually replies, which isn’t especially illuminating.
How could you not know exactly how many times you’ve bought drinks at a pub in eighteen forty-four?
But then he adds, “It was terrifying the first time I came here. To the past. I took a right up that alley instead of a left, and that was a very bad idea.”
He leans in a little closer, talking by my cheek in a familiar way, like we’re old friends.
“It’s a rabbit warren of sketchy pubs and knocking shops up there.
” He tilts his head towards the door, stretching his black sweater across his chest. It looks invitingly soft.
And unnervingly expensive. Kelly was right.
He does have nice clothes. “I got into an argument, very easily, with a drunk man with one tooth. ‘Where are you from?’ he asked me. ‘London,’ I told him. ‘You ain’t from ‘round these parts,’ he informed me. And what was I to say? No, I wasn’t.
So I told him I’m from up north, then his friend pulled out a butcher’s cleaver and chased me all the way back here. ”
He’s chuckling, and there’s something contagious about it. Even if I’m shocked, not entirely sure I believe him, I’m caught up in the story. “Holy shit. Are you serious?”