Chapter 3 Chapter 2: The Apostrophe
wrinkle a river valley etched by some forgotten worry or burst of laughter. He gestured with a gnarled, veined hand, his voice a low, gravelly rumble directed at the patient barmaid. “...and I told the foreman, I said, ‘Lad, that beam ain’t right. You mark my words…’” he was saying, retelling a story she, and likely the polished wood of the stool itself, had heard a dozen times before. A half-empty pint of mack, its creamy head long collapsed into a brown island, sat sweating on a sodden coaster before him.
A jarring contrast to this quiet theatre was the trio of half-drunk sports fans at a high-top table. They were a burst of grating noise, their loud, easy laughter punching through the ambient silence. Swaddled in Lamp dieball shirts, they argued with the fervent, sloppy passion of the inebriated, replaying a pivotal goal from that afternoon, their conversation a tangle of statistics, curses, and the clinking of glasses as bets were settled and victories re-lived.
Near the door, as if positioned for a quick escape back into the real world, sat a couple of Nates in crumpled business ware. Their ties were loosened into sad, silken nooses around their necks, and their jackets were slung over the empty chairs beside them like discarded second skins. They weren’t talking, just staring into the amber depths of their glasses, their postures slumped in a shared, silent understanding of the first morning, that was already creeping towards them. Their communion was one of pure, exhausted resignation.
And presiding over this entire tiny ecosystem was Silver, the barmaid. She was a study in efficient motion, moving with a dancer’s grace, a fluid economy that suggested a past life in ballet or athletics. Her attire for tonight, a short, tight-fitting pink skirt and a cream-coloured wool crop top, was a stark contrast to the bar’s muted tones, leaving little to the imagination and drawing glances she had long learned to acknowledge and dismiss. Her friendliness felt genuine, not merely transactional; she seemed intelligent, alert, maybe a postgraduate student from the local university earning her keep. But it was a warmth tempered by a gentle, professional weariness. She listened to the old Nate’s well-worn story with a slight, knowing smile, refilled the suits’ pints with a silent nod before they could ask, and tolerated the dieball Nates’ boisterousness with a placid patience. Tonight, she was the keeper of this tiny kingdom, the silent guardian of its inhabitants until last call finally sent them all scattering back into the damp night.
I was hunched over my own drink, a cheap mee-ka and jo, just listening to the drunk old Nate’s droning stories, when the equilibrium shifted. One of the three dieball Nates detached himself from his pack and ambled over. He was handsome in a conventional, well-scrubbed way, maybe twenty-two, like me? No, older. Twenty-four, twenty-five perhaps, having completed the mandatory national service that gave all Nates a certain hardened, adult edge. As he drew closer, his step betrayed a slight stumble; definitely drunk, then. He had a warm, almost infectious smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Hey Silver, three more over here,” he announced, his voice too loud for the short distance, “and whatever the Polli wants.” As he said it, he brushed deliberately against my side, a calculated, intimate contact in the non-crowded room. He then turned the full force of his smile on me. “Hi, I’m Tony.” He held out his hand. Foolishly, I went to shake it, but he bypassed my grip, took my fingers with a surprising gentleness, and bowed his head to brush his lips against my knuckles. A hot flush of embarrassment crawled up my neck as his friends hooted with amusement.
“I’m Nanda,” I said, the word falling from my lips like a clumsy stone. It sounded alien, a name that didn’t fit the person in this situation.
“Pleased to meet you, Nanda,” Tony said, his voice a purr. But his grip on my hand tightened from a courtly gesture to a firm pull. He was half-dragging, half-guiding me off the bar stool. “You have to meet my friends.” My feet stumbled to keep up, my mind a split-second behind my body. What was I doing? Why was I allowing this? I had no answer. It wasn’t attraction. It was a vortex of boredom, a spark of self-destructiveness, and the pathetic, undeniable lure of a free drink, a transaction where the currency was my presence. He deposited me on the empty side of a four-person booth opposite his two friends, who regarded me with bleary, appraising interest. Tony then went back to pay and collect the drinks, leaving me stranded, a curious specimen delivered to their table. I wrapped my arms around myself, the cold from outside suddenly replaced by a different kind of chill.
The booth shifted as Tony slid back in, his weight sinking the vinyl cushion and hemming me against the wall. He brought with him the sharp, sweet smell of meeka and the damp chill of the bar’s air. Before I could even take the first sip of my drink, a syrupy, neon-green concoction, his hand was already a heavy, possessive weight on my leg.
“You’re cold, sweetie,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble. His fingers, rough and warm, began a slow, deliberate stroke further up my thigh, a claim staked on unfamiliar territory.
They were fun, these Nates, loud, boisterous, and brimming with the kind of easy confidence that comes from a lifetime of never being questioned. They were full of cheap von-jar and their own vibrant, uncomplicated lives, and for a few hazy hours, they built a bubble around me. Inside it, the person I was, the one who had just left Joel’s apartment with a hollow ache where my pride should be, simply ceased to exist. They laughed at my jokes, their eyes lingered on me, and they made me feel seen. Special. I clung to that feeling, drinking it down like an antidote, and by the time the lights flickered for last call, the thought of being alone was a terrifying void. Leaving with them felt like the only logical, warm next step, if this is what it takes to get my Trembling I will sleep with the whole world.