Ash

I tried out a new pub the other day. I was sitting at the bar with two other guys. One of them was Hugo Myatt who played the Dungeon Master in 'Knightmare'. It was definitely him. He sat in the corner and didn't say much, though. The other fellow was next to me, on another bar stool. His clothes looked really crumpled like they'd been washed but not pressed. The two of us and the barman were engaged in a sparse conversation of discrete, trailing phrases ventured between sips - which suited me just fine. The barman was telling us how he was running low on space for casks as he'd got a load of compressed-air cylinders out back. He'd been caught out by speculation in the property boom. He had successfully 'flipped' a few off-plan flats and had been trying to get even more leveraged exposure by buying the blocks of air over the top of sites which were going to be built on. Off-off-plan, I guess you'd call it. Trouble was, he'd borrowed all that money and now the value of the air was less than he'd paid for it, so he got it compressed and stuck it out in the back yard for the time being.

Well anyway, a little while later, the guy next to me got up to use the toilets. "Don't forget the sieve" the barman reminded him, handing over a metal sieve which he'd pulled out from under the bar. The guy nodded in gratitude and lolloped off to the crappers. When he got back, he saw that I'd got him a fresh pint in - sitting on the bar, ready for him. "Thanks, mate," he smiled, and hauled himself up on to his stool next to mine.

He took a long, comforting draught of his foaming nutty-brown ale, looked me meaningfully in the eyes, and began to confide:

"I was in here yesterday, mate, sat right where I am now, talking to you - 'cept it was another geezer where you are. That's when she came in. At three o'clock, it was. I heard the door open and then the rhythmic swish-clack of her steps in high-heels slightly too big for her." He paused. "Ooh, I didn't know about those heels then."

The man took another calming sip and confided some more:

"She had a broad northern accent - I don't know exactly where from - just northern. 'Arrarght boys,' she said. We both turned on our stools to see who had addressed us and there she stood. She had on a thick fur coat and her hair was tied back so severely it seemed to prevent her top lip from closing properly when she spoke so she appeared as though with a permanent, disdainful sneer.

"She wobbled over to the stool next to us and ordered drinks for the three of us. We thanked her with raised glasses. 'S'arrarght, boys,' she said, 's'my pleasure.' She downed her measure in one go, then faced us and said 'whoever's got the darkest nuggets can 'ave me.'"

The man reached for his drink but cancelled the movement, and looked to the floor, shaking his head with a slight laugh.

"So, the next thing I remember is waking up this morning. I think I was 'rohypnoled' - I really do. Everything after that drink is missing. I woke up on a floor. I was lying on my back, naked. I looked up and there she was, above me, sitting on her sofa. Her feet were resting on me. I could see her white, half-shaven calves foreshortened in exaggerated perspective rising up to her knees. She was grinding cigarette ash into my chest with the heel of one of her bright green translucent plastic slingbacks."

He paused again. I heard his voice quaver as though his heart was beating too heavily in his throat to deliver stilly his story.

"The ash," he whispered, "that ash, those slingbacks..." and he looked deeply into his pint, way down into its distant depths.

"Ah, anyway... I... er... started to get up. She noticed my regained consciousness and her eyes flicked down momentarily to me. 'Aarrarght,' she said, absently, before her gaze fixed back on the television which was playing 'The Jeremy Kyle Show'. Outside, I heard a little dog start to bark. 'Shurroop, Bollok,' she shouted, scattering more ash on me from her cigarette.

"I, well I panicked. I was confused. I sprang up. Desperately, I looked for my clothes. 'Clothes are in t'washer,' she said, observing my rummaging. I rushed to the washing machine and stopped it mid-cycle, letting out soapy water on to the kitchen floor and dragging on my clothes, still soaking and heavy, before running... slopping away."

The man picked up his pint then placed it back down without taking a drink. His eyes had become dark tunnels. Tears were forming. He reached out a hand and grasped my forearm. "It's funny," he said, "the crazy thing is my nuggets aren't even that dusky. If anything, they're pale... white... blanched like birch-bark..." He stopped and looked up to me again. "You don't understand, do you?" he continued. "You don't see what I'm saying, here." He looked up at the clock on the wall. His voice was breaking. "I've come back for more. I want more. Those slingbacks... the ash... I want..." He trailed off.

Deeply uneased, and without taking my eyes away from him, I gently lifted his hand off my arm, slid carefully off my bar stool, and backed away towards the door. Reaching behind me, unable to look away from him, I fumbled for the door handle. As I found it, I felt it immediately move away from my grasp as someone simultaneously opened it from the outside.

"Aarrarght"

There sounded the chinkle of dropped coins hitting the floor as they fell from my hand, slackened with dread.