Sixteen Horses by Greg Buchanan (readict TXT) 📕

middle-aged stranger talked quietly on his phone with his wife. He’d been denied disability allowance. It was going to be OK, though. They’d make it work. They’d find a way. A few tables away, five balding men huddled in the corner, laughing uproariously at some shared joke about Argentina. Old couples lined the brick wall like waxworks. The pub was surprisingly full, given the weather.

Alec hesitated, a little defensive. ‘People don’t talk to me the same way they talk to you. That’s all.’

‘What people?’

‘People here. I don’t know.’

‘And in what way do they talk to you?’

‘They’re . . . quiet. They stare a lot, they don’t care if I notice, they just stare at me. They don’t seem to want to know me or want me to be around. I don’t know if it’s my job or the way I talk or . . .’

‘Why do you care if people like you?’

‘Because . . . I don’t know.’ Alec screwed up his face. ‘That’s what we’re supposed to want, right?’

George laughed and finished his drink, calling over for another one. ‘Not enough time in life to worry about anything like that. You need some perspective, that’s all.’

‘I just don’t like to be judged.’

They talked about the case for a while, about the witness, about the possible involvement of two people. Eventually the conversation turned to their boss.

More officers had left the department a few weeks earlier – Alec had barely known them, but to George they had been old friends, old partners all.

‘Harry did what he had to do, didn’t he?’

George shook his head. ‘No one has to do a thing they don’t want to do.’

‘They’ll be OK.’

‘Will we be OK, when they kick us out?’

Alec shook his head, putting his glass down on the table. ‘They can’t.’

‘Why can’t they?’

‘We barely have anyone left – how could—’

‘We barely had anyone before,’ said George.

‘I didn’t come here to be . . .’

‘Be what?’

‘Pessimistic,’ Alec said, and George laughed.

‘You just spent ten minutes talking about how nobody likes you.’

Alec frowned.

‘You’re going to come into work one day and kill us all, aren’t you?’

‘What the fuck kind of thing is that to say?’

‘You’re like a postman.’ George laughed again. ‘You’re like that guy . . . what was his name? Lived off the coast, didn’t he?’

But Alec didn’t smile. ‘He wasn’t a postman. And that’s not funny. You shouldn’t—’

George put his finger to his lips, looking around, mock shushing him. ‘No one’s listening. Don’t worry.’ He drank some of his drink, and his smile had changed, somehow.

And they moved on to other topics.

Old cases – cases like that – no one talked about them, but on nights like these.

Nights where you forgot what you were supposed to be.

Where you had nothing else to do.

Where you wondered if people liked you.

They came back to the question, before the end.

Before George left, he decided to give his partner some advice after all.

He decided to tell him the secret of all life.

‘Try to help others. Focus on the happiness of other people, not just your own. Not just on what you think is right and proper. That’ll stop all,’ he said, gesturing to Alec’s head, and then his own, ‘this.’

Alec scoffed. ‘That’s selfish.’

‘How is it selfish? Why else did you become a police officer?’

‘If I try to get people to like me by helping them, then I’m just doing it to—’

‘No, no, no.’ George pulled on his coat. ‘You do it right? You won’t even care if people like you. It won’t be important to you. Their happiness will be yours.’ He looked down at the empty glasses on the table, their mouth-prints almost like lipstick. Alec remained where he was. ‘Just relax, OK?’

‘Because that’s always a helpful thing to say . . .’

‘Didn’t your dad teach you any of this stuff?’

Alec didn’t answer this. He just looked at his drink.

George sighed. ‘You be you, then.’

‘I will.’ Alec drank more of his drink, and his friend lingered. ‘I’ll just finish this,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll go.’

George sighed.

‘I’ll be fine, really . . .’

‘No, you won’t.’

‘Goodnight, George.’

After hesitating, the other man left, sighing again. Alec sat there for a while longer, staring at his drink before suddenly downing the rest and going to the bar for another.

‘Whisky, please,’ he said, leaning on the wood.

The bartender nodded, a little bored, maybe. ‘Double or single, mate?’

‘Double.’ Alec waited for a moment as the bartender took the bottle and poured. He stared into the mirror ahead of him.

He blinked, pained, and reached into his pocket for some paracetamol.

He turned. He couldn’t bear sitting down, not now. He looked through the dirty window at the beer garden, the false bamboo fences adorned with fairy lights.

He needed fresh air, even if it was raining.

He needed to get out of here.

He went outside, his passage marked by the jingle of doorbells. It took him a few moments, a few sips, to realize he wasn’t alone.

The woman was leaning against one of the wooden posts at the edge of the garden, still protected from the downpour by the awning above. She wore a dark red sweater with black floral patterns like ink blots. Blue jeans ran into brown boots. She was staring intently at her phone. She hadn’t looked up. On the table near her was a small plastic folder full of paper, a notebook, and a drink on top to hold them down from the growing wind, a purple coat hanging from the back of a chair.

Her dark hair was rain-speckled, partially illuminated by the glow. She was biting her lip a little, agitated, thinking about whatever was on the screen. And suddenly her mouth curled at whatever message she had been sent, and Alec smiled too, and the woman looked up to see him.

Shit. Alec looked away, focusing on his drink.

He went inside and paused. He looked back.

He put his drink down on the table and left. He pulled on his coat as he went through the door.

Alec took the long way back by the seafront. He’d had too much to drink, he knew. He