Chapter 9
Arthur
‘Not happening.’ Tracy points at me as soon as I step through the door of the Big Apple. I soon figured out after walking through field after field, that the only place for a lost traveller to turn in New York is the pub.
‘I’ve come to apologise.’ Putting my hands up in surrender, I’m desperate for somewhere warm to sit and a pint to nurse.
‘It’s not me you need to apologise to.’ She turns away from me to pull a pint and I stand slumped in the doorway.
‘Come on in, ducky, you don’t need to apologise to your old Auntie Babs.’ I notice Barbara for the first time as her shrill voice cuts through the bar and I cringe at the sound of it, and the way she taps the bar stool beside her, motioning for me to sit.
‘Oh hush, Barbara. The boy isn’t interested.’ Tracy comes to my rescue once again and I begin to hope that her hatred for me doesn’t run too deep stirs in me. So, with a deep breath and all the expectation of being barred, I take a few cautious steps towards her.
‘I do. I need to apologise to Beatrice, I know that. But you deserve an apology too.’ My body feels heavy at the mention of her name, and I wonder if she is still in that field cursing my name.
‘I’ve made a real arse of myself. Please can we start again?
’ I outstretch my arm across the bar to shake her hand.
She looks at it for a moment, deliberating.
‘You’re lucky that business is slow and I can’t afford to turn patrons away,’ she mumbles, not bothering to shake my hand. ‘But you need to know, wellies and overalls are banned in my pub. They stay at the door.’
I look down at myself. ‘I, er, well, I don’t have anything underneath.’ My cheeks warm as I try to keep my voice low, but I notice Barbara at the bar scan me from head to toe.
‘Not my problem.’ Tracy shrugs.
With no other choice than to try and find my way back to my grandmother’s house, I stand in the middle of the Big Apple, taking off my wellies one at a time.
Tracy watches me from her peripheral with intrigue.
This village has made me lose my mind. I’m sure of it, because for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, I find myself stripping off in front of strangers.
Once the zip of my overalls reaches my stomach, I’m grateful when Tracy’s voice interrupts me. ‘All right, Magic Mike, I get your point. As much as someone with your figure is a welcome sight in this neck of the woods, we really don’t need a striptease. You’ll give poor Barbara a heart attack.’
‘I don’t mind,’ the older lady interrupts, sliding on her glasses and resting her chin in her hands on the bar like a swooning schoolgirl.
‘Cerys,’ Tracy calls to her daughter who lounges on her phone in a booth opposite. ‘Can you take Mr Cavendish upstairs and fish out some of your dad’s old clothes please?’
‘Oh God, not that dick,’ is the teen’s only response.
‘Arthur or your father?’ Tracy replies, bemused.
‘Both.’
All I can do is stand, barefoot, with a polite smile on my face as the mother and daughter discuss my fate. I’m grateful when Cerys reluctantly does as she’s told and leads me up a back staircase to the flat above the pub.
The wallpaper is peeling down the walls of the tired space. Damp patches colour the ceiling corners in a murky brown and it’s clear that all of Tracy’s time and money go into making the pub perfect for her customers, and she pays the price at home.
‘Mind the junk,’ Cerys murmurs, as we step over a pile of laundry and sidestep around a few tools that have been abandoned halfway through a DIY project.
‘Wait there,’ she says, as she slips behind an old door and returns moments later with a cardboard box of clothes.
She digs out an old T-shirt and pair of jeans.
‘My dad had a beer gut so these probably won’t fit you. ’
‘It’s okay, I’ll grow into them,’ I reply, thanking her as I take them.
‘You can change in there.’ She points to a bathroom at the end of the hallway. ‘I’ll wait here.’
Doing as I’m told, I take the moth-eaten clothes and remove the worn-out boilersuit.
Tugging on the jeans, I wonder if everyone in this village has short legs, as the bootcuts swing around my shins and I sigh at the sight.
At least there are no paparazzi, I tell myself, hoping to regain even a smidgen of my pride.
‘You know …’ I hear a voice flow through the door and I jump, covering my chest with the T-shirt like I’ve been caught in a changing room by the PE teacher. ‘Bea is a better woman than you’ll ever be,’ Cerys continues firmly, as though the protection of the door gives her a new-found confidence.
‘I never thought I’d make a good woman anyway to be honest,’ I reply, trying to buff out the awkwardness. ‘Bone structure is too sharp …’ I tail off.
‘You know what I mean.’ She grunts. ‘She’s everything you’re not and you’d be lucky if she so much as looked at you.
Bea is everything to us in this village, and to me and Mum, so you mess with her, you mess with all of us.
You’ve had your first chance; you won’t get another.
At least not from me.’ I stand in silence listening to her rant and though I am slightly terrified of being told off by a teenage girl, something about it warms me.
‘You can let yourself out. It’s hard to get lost in this shithole,’ she says before her footsteps retreat from the door and I hear them patter rhythmically down the stairs.
Splatters of dried gloss paint ornament the old Oasis T-shirt Cerys dug out for me.
Though her father’s legs may have been short, his stomach must have been even larger than his daughter so kindly informs me, as it hangs like a nightie down my thighs.
But I can’t be fussy. The people of New York think I’m a snob enough already so if I start complaining that the clothes they’re kindly giving me off their own back are a little too ugly, they really will have a problem.
And perhaps making me look like as much of a fool as possible is simply their way of getting revenge for me being such an insufferable arse the first time we met. I wouldn’t blame them.
Finally working up the courage, I head back downstairs to allow the general public to see my new attire.
At the door, I pause for a moment. My breath is laboured, shallow, and though I know I’ve been lax with the gym at the moment, it surely can’t be my lack of stamina for the stairs.
My heart thuds loudly in my ears and my chest grows tight.
No, this feeling isn’t tiredness, it’s like a wave of exhaustion, as though my heart, my lungs, my brain can only function in slow motion.
What am I doing here? I’m in a place I don’t belong, surrounded by people I’ve already hurt, and the only thing keeping them all from chasing me away is my name, which I’ve already been told I don’t deserve.
Cerys’s words ring round in my head until it pounds.
Beatrice is better than me; all of these people are better than me, especially now I know that they too have read the stories and believed every black and white lie.
I have no handle on my own life, on my own reputation.
I have lost all control of who I am. Though I am bundled into clothes that aren’t mine, walking back into the pub now will feel as though I’m parading around naked, laying it all bare, far too vulnerable for me to handle.
Staring at the veneer, I scan each groove, chip and greasy fingerprint on the surface to try and regulate my pulse, to focus my mind.
I don’t quite know how long I’ve been stood here when Tracy opens the door and tosses a full box of crisps over herself in terror at the sight of me stood like a stone sentry in her hallway.
‘Frigging hell, Arthur! What ya doing stood there? You frit me half to death.’ She holds a hand over her chest for a moment before bending down to pick up the crisps caught as collateral. ‘What’s up? Can’t figure out the door handles in this back country?’ she jokes.
Bending down beside her, I help her to collect the crumpled packets of scampi fries, but with each one I pass to her, my hand trembles.
Tracy tries not to notice at first, then after the second bag almost misses the box with my spasms, she grasps my hand in hers and holds it tightly.
‘Oh, son.’ She sighs. ‘What’s happened?’
How do I explain to her that I was fine until I walked down her rickety staircase, and the sight of her tattered door has shot me into fight or flight?
How do I explain that I have no idea what’s happening in my body, and know even less of what’s going on in my brain?
How can I admit I have a problem at all when I have no clue what it even is?
A woman I met twenty-four hours ago can see it clearly enough to look at me with a pitiful gaze, so why can I not even understand it?
I tug my hand from hers in frustration and shove it into the pocket of her ex-husband’s jeans.
‘I’m fine,’ I say firmly, as if that’s going to miraculously make my body stop trying to give up on me.
‘Aye, I know you are,’ she says, equally firm. ‘Come on, let’s get you a pint.’
I follow her instinctively across the pub.
By now, the place has grown busy, almost rowdy, and the sound of voices hushing at my entrance only makes my knees want to give out.
The landlady shows me to a quiet corner.
Only a lone gentleman sits at a neighbouring table and he doesn’t seem to say anything, only watches as events unfold around him.
‘All right, Jimmy, you mind if Arthur comes to join you over here for a bit?’ Tracy addresses him, and as I sit down, I notice the beret on the chair beside him, the badge of some military regiment pinned on the front.
Jimmy still doesn’t speak, only looks at Tracy with bright eyes and nods with a smile.
‘You’re in safe hands with our Jim. You make yourself comfy and I’ll get you something to drink.
’ I reach for my wallet but Tracy stops me. ‘First one’s on me.’
‘No, I—’ I begin but she cuts me off.
‘You don’t even know what it is yet. Could be a Newkie Brown for all you know and you’ll hate it.’ She chuckles and walks away before I can protest.
This corner of the pub feels quieter, almost secluded, though there’s nothing separating it from the rest of the room.
Various framed photographs line the walls but the light over here is so low you can hardly make out their subjects.
Before long, I feel a little more human.
I can catch my breath again, and although it still feels as though I have the weight of Beatrice’s tractor resting on my chest, I don’t quite feel as though I’m having a medical emergency. So I guess that’s a positive.
‘Eddie! My brother! How are ya?’ Jimmy suddenly stirs in the corner and stares at me as though I’m an old friend.
‘I’m Arthur. Eddie is my dad,’ I say, outstretching my hand to shake his.
He looks to be about my father’s age, though his face shows more signs of wear.
He’s balding with grey stubble coating his face.
Wrinkles slice through almost every inch of his skin and yet none of them seem to be smile lines, though now he grins like the Cheshire cat.
But despite looking haggard, he’s well kept.
His clothes are perfectly ironed; his shoes are polished.
It is clear the beret beside him belongs to him.
‘How long’s it been, eh?’ He carries on addressing me as my father as though I never corrected him at all. ‘God, I don’t think I’ve seen you since I got back from Gulf.’ The veteran shakes his head in disbelief. ‘That must be at least ten years ago.’
The Gulf War, 1990–1991. Over thirty-five years ago. My heart sinks.
‘Yeah, mate,’ I reply, my words trembling a little. ‘It’s been too long. How’ve you been?’
‘Oh, you know me. Always surviving.’ He knocks his head with his fist a little too hard and I nod along with him.
‘I hear you’ve been getting out and about, doing all your acting and stuff.
Always knew you’d be the one that did well out of all of us.
Always the charmer. Could charm your way out of a …
a … oh I don’t know, but you always did have the gift of the gab and all that,’ he rambles and then takes a swig of his drink.
‘You seen they’ve got a photo of you up there, like you’re the bloody queen or sommat.
’ He punches me affectionately on the arm and I follow his eye.
Just as he says, there’s a framed photo of my dad hung on the wall above the bar.
It’s one of his first headshots. It’s so old that I hardly recognise him, and yet that’s probably how everyone in New York remembers him.
I don’t blame Jimmy for getting confused either.
It’s not hard to see the resemblance. Dad’s long hair is dark and curls ever so slightly on the end, just enough that it doesn’t quite reach his shoulders.
His dimples are deeply set as his grin shows off his slightly crooked teeth, the minor chip in his bottom one happily on display before the Hollywood dentists gave him the new ‘perfect’ smile.
Even his skin seems more human in that photo.
Acne scars leave a ghostly trail along his cheekbones, and a hole just above his left eyebrow suggests he once wore an eyebrow piercing that had just been slipped out for the sake of the shoot.
I run a finger along my own face, feeling the stubble that covers an old chicken pox scar, the ridges of my dimples, my slightly crooked incisors from not wearing my retainer for long enough at night.
Running a hand through my hair, I tug at its wavy ends.
I’ve always been compared to my father, in the press, in person, for good and bad, but there’s something a little more warming to be compared to the version that overlooks the Big Apple.
Before I can think of something to reply to Jimmy, Tracy returns with my drink. She places it down on the mat before me and I watch the cool condensation as it runs down the glass and soaks the cardboard. ‘Thank you.’ I sigh a satisfied sigh and offer my genuine appreciation to the landlady.
‘Everyone is welcome in my pub, just try not to be such a twat, eh?’ she adds with a friendly wink before turning away and heading back to her post behind the bar.