The Bugle Inn
The email simply said;
There’s been a fire everything’s ruined, the Bugle Inn is closed until further notice.
When Amber Taylor read this in her pristine London office, the memory of dusky rooms, dimly lit, framed with dark wood, threadbare fading carpets and dull rust coloured stools and chairs with long dead people and gone places peering out of mismatched charity shop frames upon the peeling magnolia walls. Her memory of a tiled fireplace and shelves upon shelves of battered books, , her Pub, ruined.
Immediately she cancelled her business trip and booked a week off, taking the next train half way across the country to see the damage for herself and ascertain what could be done.
It was clear when she arrived with boarded windows, bolted and blackened doors that the damage was worse than imagined, so much had changed from the place in her memory, not that she hadn’t seen it in these twenty years but because her mind refused to change it.
Irma answered the door, her face hadn’t change much in those twenty years when once she was part of the daydreaming group who sat in the corner of the pub drinking and dawdling until after the last orders bell had long since sounded, now the place was hers, or what was left of it . Her face now troubled, blighted with a fear which had never characterized its gentle smile.
‘Irma, it’s been so long I came as soon as I heard.’
During the embrace Amber felt the tell-tale shake and shudder which pre-empted tears.
‘Can I come in?’
The door opened further and the familiar space dilapidated though it had been unfolded before her, a blackened shell.
‘Sit Irma.’
And from force of an old habit she walked straight behind the old bar pulling up the pre loosened floorboard where the latest in a long line of reserve bottle’s had been placed by the last member of the group to visit The Bugle.
‘Oooh a single malt, a good distillery too. All glasses were shattered or blackened so she brought some tea cups and saucers which she’d spotted on the side draining, they’d do.
Here get this down you and tell me what happened.’
A grateful look as the two chinked the ersatz glasses
‘Some yobs came in drank, and … got rowdy, I, I stopped serving them and they got aggressive. One tried to punch me but old Alf, you remember him, stopped them and turfed them out but they came back later, sneaking in the back and torched the placed as I was counting up, thank god for melted ice and a hose. Next day I got a brick through the window… I, I don’t feel safe here anymore.’
Another knock sounded at the door. Irma flinched. Amber lay her hand on her arm;
‘Have another drink, I’ll get that. Do you really think the yobs would knock?’
The door opened and Amber was faced with more of the Pub’s history a tall early Greying man wearing an almost permanent lopsided grin, behind him stood a petite woman wearing both a satchel and an air of practicality.
‘Edwyn! Leah! You came!’
Edwyn embraced her. ‘You sounded the muster and we’ve answered the call. Patrick’s parking the car. Irma we’ve brought gifts. A mop and Bucket, oh I see you’ve got the reserve stuff out, splendid, we’ve brought the next reserve for laying out. Port from our travels. we’ll get this place tidied up tomorrow. Look it’s only eight, lets close the place like we used to.’
They all kissed Irma pulling the cleaner chairs over to the tables Amber was placing together.
‘A prohibition tea party, did anyone bring cake? Where’s the china?’ Leah pulled all she could find off the draining board and produced a packet of biscuits from her bag.
‘Will this do?’ No one would refuse biscuits.
Patrick walked in through the door, now wide open. Irma felt unafraid of the darkness outside.
The old crew were all here together. Amber, Leah, Irma, Edwyn and Patrick all sat in their old spot as though twenty years of change had not befallen them.
Leah spoke while serving the ‘tea’
‘Never you worry Irma, this place doesn’t need to rise again, it’s not dead. We’ll tidy her up and leave you happy. That’s what this place always did. How many broken hearts have we pickled in the gin how many sorrows washed away in whisky and celebrations with a cheeky Champagne.’
Irma brightened.
‘I tell you what. On reopening night there’ll be Champagne on the house.’
Patrick smiled into his cup. ‘We’ll hold you to that you know.’
Edwyn interjected. ‘Aye, for the moment let’s pretend the place isn’t sooty or that we haven’t all been together like this in five years let’s pretend we’re eighteen on the cusp of life and let’s just daydream.
To Irma and the Bugle Inn!’
‘CHEERS’