AllFreeNovel
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‘I win and give it back to you?’
‘Aye, if yer want.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘You don’t have any cash, do yer?’
‘No.’
He grunts and moves on. I collect my drink from the bar and ask if the kitchen is still open. The barman looks at the clock on the wall. ‘I doubt it, but I can check.’
He pushes through a swing door. I glimpse Addie before it closes. A woman is talking to her, using her hands, as though signing to someone who is deaf.
The barman returns. ‘Only cold stuff. They can do you a Scotch egg.’
I have no idea what that is but decide to pass. I want to talk to Addie, but I can’t just stroll into the kitchen. A shadow falls across my table.
‘Where have you been all my life?’ asks a nasally voice.
‘For most of it I wasn’t born,’ I reply.
The man laughs. He’s twenty years older than me, with a fleshy face and gelled hair and a tattoo on his forearm of a cartoon character: Popeye the Sailor Man. I used to watch episodes after school and can remember the words to the theme song, but it didn’t make me want to eat spinach.
The man next to him is younger and undersized with a blue-yellow bruise on his cheekbone and a droopy left eye.
‘Let us buy you a drink,’ says Popeye.
‘I have one.’
He calls to the barman. ‘Fix her a cocktail, Stuey. Something she’d like.’
‘Don’t bother, Stuey,’ I say.
Already, he’s opening a fridge and taking out different juices.
The men tell me their names, but I don’t take any notice.
‘Are you visiting?’ Droopy asks.
‘Yes.’
‘How long you here for?’
‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’
‘What do you think of the place?’
‘The locals are pushy.’
‘You’re funny.’ He turns to his mate. ‘Ain’t she funny?’
They lean over me as they talk, smelling of alcohol and stale deodorant.
The barman sets a drink in front of me. It’s pink and yellow in a tall straight glass, with a layer of foam on the top.
‘Try it,’ says Droopy, popping in a straw.
‘I don’t want a drink.’
