Best Served Cold.

1

BEST SERVED COLD.2

I was home on leave and about to have the pint that I’d been fantasising about for the last six months. That’s one of the things you do in the desert, you fantasise about stuff. I’m not on about a luscious, palm covered oasis, like in the old black and white films about the French foreign legion, but real things. A cheerful smile on a child’s face, your missus seductively attired and sprawled across a heart shaped bed, your new car gleaming in the sunlight. For me it was a pint.3

So, there I was, stood in front of the hallowed portals of the White Hart pub. Above the doorway was the little plaque, still naming Cyril and Jean as the licensees. I liked Cyril. He used to think of himself as a bit of a ladies man, but if the truth be known he couldn’t pull a bird in a blind nymphomaniac’s holiday camp. Poor old Jean was the trophy wife, although well past her sell by date and like all good trophies she had been put on a shelf and forgotten about. Still, the thought of seeing them again warmed my heart. So, in I went.4

As soon as I stepped inside the sound of excited chatter, the thick haze of cigarette smoke and the wafted aroma of Bank’s bitter hit me all at once. Paradise! I closed my eyes and lost myself for a moment. Don’t get me wrong, I had had a drink since the war ended; I’d seen the underside of a table in the NAAFI bar a few times since getting back. But this was different. Here there wasn’t the same aggressive desperation that you get when you’re in a room with a bunch of pissed up guardsmen who are fighting, setting fire to their pubic hair or competing with each other to see who can get the most coins under their foreskins. No, the pub was special, homely, sedate and now, I was back. 5

I walked over to the bar and ordered a pint of best. Cyril winked at me as he poured.6

‘All right, lad?’7

‘Not bad,’ I answered. ‘How’s Jean? She alright?’ I was pleased to be back, but I wasn’t going to break down and cry, like a girl.8

‘Yes, I’m afraid she’s still here.’ he grinned.’ No, put your money away, lad. This one’s on us.’9

‘Cheers Cyril, you’re a diamond.’10

I wandered over to the booth by the door and sparked up. I could see some of the regulars glance at me as I was sitting there. Most of them knew my folks. Some of them smiled and nodded, but others just looked away. No one seemed to want to come over and talk. It didn’t really bother me too much; if they had spoken it would only have been the same stupid questions, ‘What was is like?’ ‘Did you get gassed?’ and ‘Did you kill anyone?’ Just then the door burst open and in walked my childhood nemesis.11

At first he didn’t notice me. He walked over to the bar and ordered a drink. For a split second I was nine again. My hands started to shake, my leg started to bounce under the table and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck go cold. Then he turned around and looked at me.12

I was surprised when he immediately looked away, and took a swig of his pint. In 13

that instant my hands went still, my leg stopped bouncing and I became calm. Yes, you bastard! You remember who I am, don’t you.14

I could recall one time, as if it was yesterday. I was about nine or ten and it was 15

the summer holidays. I was out on my bike, a second hand Raleigh Chopper; hand painted burgundy by my dad, brush strokes an’ all. I was by the gate of one of the 16

fields at the back of my estate. The kids in the area used to call the field ‘the donkeys’, thinking about it now, there was only ever one donkey in there. Anyway, as usual, the lone beast of burden was as far away from the gate as he could get and he was ignoring all my best attempts to call him over. Suddenly, I heard some loud voices behind me and I turned around.17

‘Oi, four eyes!’18

Riding towards me was my nemesis and three of his mates, on their bikes. All of them were about three or four years older than me.19

‘Oi, specky four eyes!’20

I rammed my choppers gear stick into first and started to ride. I was so bloody scared that my foot kept slipping off the pedal. Then my adrenalin must have kicked in because I started to get faster.21

‘Oi, ginger nut, come here!’22

I turned the corner into my street and saw my front door. Safety at last, I thought. But then something heavy banged my back wheel and I fell off. Actually, I think I went over the handlebars. The bastard had kicked my back wheel, which had sent the bike into the kerb and catapulted me onto the pavement. The three of them rode off laughing, just before my dad opened the front door to see me in a heap of blood, snot and chopper tyres. 23

Well, that was then and this is now and here, in front of me, a good foot and a half shorter than me and six or so stone lighter than me, is the guy who gave me nightmares all those years ago.24

After a while he couldn’t hide the fact that he knew me and smiled, which made him look more like he’d just shat himself.25

I stood up, stubbed my fag out in the ashtray, picked up my pint and walked over to him. 26

You really are a puny little runt, aren’t you?27

‘Hello, Ryan.’ 28

‘Alright, mate,’ he answered. ‘Back from the Gulf then?’29

I just want to smash you in the face.30

‘Yes, looks like it.’31

‘What was it like out there?’32

You tosser.33

‘Hot.’34

‘Yes, I suppose it was,’ he said. ‘D’you want another one?’35

‘Cheers, a best’ll do.’36

He turned around and called Cyril over. While he waited I could have sworn he was a bit paler than when he first came in. Cyril picked my glass up and started to pump the handle. As the glass filled he glanced at me, over Ryan’s shoulder, and winked.37

‘Here you are, mate. Get that down you.’ 38

I hate you.39

‘Cheers.’ I took a long swig.40

‘So, did you kill anyone out there?’41

It was a war, you Muppet.42

‘No.’ I lied.43

Ryan drained the last of his pint and put the empty glass on the bar.44

‘D’you you remember when we were kids?’ he said after a few pregnant moments.45

‘Which part?’46

‘Well, I was a bit of a bully, weren’t I?’47

‘I‘d forgotten, to be honest.’48

‘When you do remember, I just want you to know that I didn’t mean anything by it.’49

That was a shit apology and I still think you’re a wanker.50

‘Don’t worry about it.’51

Just then he stuck his hand out. I paused long enough for him to think I wasn’t going to take it. Then I shook his hand. He turned around and left. I went up to the bar to get another.52

‘Oh, has Ryan gone?’ Cyril asked as he poured.53

‘Yes…He has.’54

A few days later I was back in Germany with my battalion. When I rang my mum, to give her to give her the obligatory ‘I got back alright mum’ call, she asked me if I remembered Ryan. 55

‘He was the lad who used to live at the end of the street, when you were growing up.’ she said. ‘Do you remember him?’56

‘Why?’57

She told me that some lout had written wanker across his car bonnet, with brake fluid and put dog poo, as she called it, on his door handles.58

‘That’s not very nice.’ I said to her.59

What is it they say? Time heals all wounds…Not all of them. 60

THE END.61

By Andy O’Halloran. ’09.62