“Silly girl?” Harry moved over to the bar to join the woman. The others in the bar started moving too. “What silly girl?”
“Jessica. She’s just some ditsy teenager that works for me. She went wondering off into the snow when the power went off.”
“We should go look for her then,” Harry insisted.
Kath sighed. “Don’t bother wasting your time. Peter Pole went after her, so she’ll be fine. I’m sure they bumped into each other out there and that’s what startled her.”
“You sure she’ll be okay?” Steph asked. “We should check to make sure.”
Kath’s response was abrupt. “If she needed help there would have been more than one scream, wouldn’t there?”
“Guess that makes sense,” said Lucas, taking the top off a newly defrosted beer with his back teeth. “I say we top that fire up and get ourselves warm under the blankets. It’s cold enough to freeze beer in here after all.”
“Good idea,” said Old Graham, already making his way back to the fire. The rest of them took suit and gathered around him. They spread their blankets into a line and got under them side by side, tucked in like sardines.
Steph brought over a crate of bottled beer and placed it by the fire to keep it from freezing. Harry passed a recently thawed one to their new arrival, Kath, and she took it gladly. “My saviour,” she said, sipping the beer. “After the day I’ve had I could see myself becoming quite the alcoholic just to cope.” The comment brought a stiff silence and Harry wondered if it was because of the comments that Damien had made about him ten minutes earlier. “Did I say something wrong?” Kath asked. “It was just a joke.”
Despite Harry being certain that Damien would have used the opportunity to revisit their earlier animosity, nobody said anything. For some reason the lad stayed quiet and drank his beer.
“So,” Steph asked, “what exactly have you been through tonight then, Kath?”
“God, if only you knew. The whole world has gone crazy tonight. The electricity went out, my phone stopped working, and at one point I was worried I was going to freeze to death. Thank heavens you’re still open, because I don’t know how on earth I would have gotten home.”
“Your phone isn’t working?” said Damien.
Kath shook her head. “No, it doesn’t work at all. The landline either.”
“Mine stopped working too. Weird.”
“Guess the power affects the towers, or whatever you call ‘em,” said Old Graham.
“Maybe,” said Nigel, “but don’t the landlines work even when the powers out?”
Harry nodded in the dark and rubbed at the smooth lump growing on his forehead. “I think you’re right. Don’t they work off static signals?”
Lucas laughed. “Any telephone technicians in the house? Anybody?”
“What’s your point?” Harry asked.
“My point is that none of us really know how the phone lines work and maybe they do rely on power the same way everything else does.”
“That’s right,” said Nigel. “Didn’t they go digital or something a time back?”
From the middle of the group, Steph cracked open another beer. Her words were beginning to slur slightly as she spoke. “Don’t suppose it matters. Stuck here not knowing all the same. This is the worst weather I think this country’s ever had, so it doesn’t surprise me that everything’s gone down the shitter. Not like we have a Government that actually knows its arse from its earlobe, is it?”
Kath chuckled. “Tell me about it!”
“Now, now, Ladies,” Lucas put both hands up. “A pub is no place for politics. You can go to a stuffy wine bar for the likes of that. A good old-fashioned boozer like this is meant for people to forget their troubles in the world, inept Governments included.”
Steph laughed. “Aha! So you think the government is inept as well.”
“Sweetheart,” he said. “I think they’re all inept – and trust me, I’ve seen a few. I always say that Religion and Politics are just clever ways to make un-content people content with their un-contentedness.”
Old Graham snorted. “Good one.”
Kath turned to Lucas, disapproval on her face. “I take it you’re a none-believer of God then, erm…”
“Lucas, my dear woman. You can call me Lucas. To answer your question: yes, absolutely I believe in the Almighty Father. I never condemned Him now did I? I condemned the eejits that try to run things in his name.”
After a moment’s thought, Kath seemed to accept this. “Well, perhaps I can agree with you there.”
“Well,” Harry joined in. “What’s your Almighty Father’s plan for tonight? Besides freezing us all to death that is.”
“Do I detect a heathen?” asked Lucas sarcastically.
Harry swigged his beer. “That would be your opinion. I’d just say I’m realistic.”
“Why don’t you believe?” Steph asked him. She sounded genuinely interested.
“Because if I believed that there was someone responsible for all the things that have happened in my life then I would be so consumed with rage that I don’t think I’d be able to go on living.”
Damien laughed. “Is that because you’re a gay alcoholic?”
Harry wanted to get angry and shut Damien’s smart mouth altogether, but he suddenly felt very tired. Maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was something deeper inside of him that was just giving up. His heart felt weary.
“You’ve lost someone, haven’t you?” asked Lucas.
Harry turned in the Irishman’s direction. “What?”
“The only time a man gives up hope like you have is when they’ve lost a lover…or a child.” Lucas started nodding as if he’d found the answer to his own question. “Was it a boy or a girl?”
“It,” Harry spat, “was a boy. Toby.”