Samara felt a little more comfortable in The Scholar, with all the hushed talk of new bands and books, piercings glinting in the firelight, and the showing of tattoos, most of them marking virgin skin in more ways than one. The Kellys and the Vickis of the world wouldn’t be seen in such a place, what with the graffiti scrawled across the walls and the tables worn down to the grain. Samara found it homely and honest, not willing to cater to those that valued image over good conversation. The jukebox, a small unit on the wall next to the toilets, was regularly updated, constantly playing the clienteles preferred mix of Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Ash, and out of place but familiar, The Carpenters.
Samara and Lily had drunk in The Scholar almost every day since starting college, never failing to pop in for a quick drink and baskets of chips over lunchtime, sometimes getting a taste for the freedom and skipping afternoon classes to keep the fun alive. The pub offered a reassuring constant in her life: same table, same drinks, same songs, same people. It allowed for the exchange of small talk while waiting for a drink at the bar, or during those strained occasions when she reluctantly shared their booth with trespassers. The Scholar had its fair share of extroverts like any pub, and while Samara was no social butterfly, she knew enough people by name. She’d watch the drinkers turn as the door would open, everyone checking out the latest entrant, to be cheerily welcomed if known, silently dismissed if not.
“Look,” said Lily, placing her bottle on the table and depositing her coat on the bench, enclosed in the high sides of the wooden booth. Rumour was that the owner had built the seating himself out of pews from the old church. She plucked off her woollen hat and gloves, tossed them on the growing pile, and swept her nails through her short, auburn locks. “New quiz machine. You got any coins?”
Samara dumped her sketchpad on the table and enjoyed a refreshing gulp of her icy lemon drink. She dropped her coat onto the opposite bench, glad to be free of it. Her long-sleeved shirt was warm enough in the pub with the fire blazing. The chunks of wood in the hearth emitted a pop with a small shower of golden sparks, reflected in the window on an impenetrable dark background. She’d have to get the bus home at night, but that waited in the future. No need to worry about going out there just yet.
Had the girl followed her here, and stood waiting across the road, watching her in the flickering glow of the fire, hidden in the darkness? Samara conjured a different version of Vicki’s pictures. The perspective of the viewer no longer stood among the glorious summer flowers in a radiant garden, but in wisps of shadows that curled from the canvas, oozing free in an inky miasma. And the image of a smiling Vicki by the easel had been replaced. In the painting, Samara stared out of the pub window, eyes narrowed, trying to penetrate the shadows. How long would her silent companion be content to wait outside?
The door opens. Everybody turns, but only one recognises the face.
“Sam!”
“Yeah,” she replied, digging into the pocket of her black jeans. “Money. Quiz machine.”
The front door slammed open, and everyone looked to see who had entered. Everyone knew everyone.
Samara had no idea who he was. She had more pressing matters.
A tale of murder at midnight. One body found on the stairs. Six suspects.
It’s always weird monsters and doom and gloom, her father complained. But didn’t they make everything just a little bit better? Life a little more interesting?
The screen displayed another question, the timer already rapidly counting down. The small group standing around them murmured between themselves, but none providing a clear solution. Of the three possible answers the machine offered, Lily hit the middle. The card flipped, revealing a green tick.
“Yes,” she hissed, and looked back over her shoulder. “If any of you supposed geniuses know any of these, you can enlighten the rest of us, you know. My luck can only stretch so far.”
Cluedo, or at least, the quiz version. Lily’s success provided her with another roll of the dice, and their digital playing piece entered the conservatory. It allowed them to guess the murderer, no general knowledge required this time.
“It was Reverend Green with that thing that looks like a dildo,” said a guy beside Samara. “Bloody pervert Catholics!”
Lily frowned at him. “I don’t know where to start with the number of things you just got wrong. But it’s my quid, my correct answer, my guess.” Her finger poised over the screen. “It was Miss Scarlett, with the rope…because she looks like a kinky bitch.”
Samara shuffled, closed in by the bodies around her. Dropping money into the quiz machine had been like ringing a dinner bell to the bored and freeloading. They gathered around the glowing screen, eager to get involved in a game, to show off their general knowledge prowess. So far, the two girls had lost close to a fiver between them.
Why had Lily insisted on playing the damn thing? They could have finished their drinks back at the booth, without all these random people.
The guy who’d made the dildo comment lifted his pint to his lips, his elbow brushing Samara’s arm.
“Uh, sorry,” he said, noticing her lean aside.
“It’s okay,” said Samara.
It wasn’t okay. The touch came on top of his smelclass="underline" dank odour starting to win the fight against that morning’s antiperspirant, the beer on his breath. Samara turned to Lily, muttering in her ear.
“I’m going to go sit down, have a smoke.”
“You don’t want to see this game through? It’s our last pound.”
“You have plenty of intellectual back up,” said Samara. “Just make sure none of these pricks get any of the winnings.”
She pushed her way through the group, less sensitive to any touch with freedom so close. Passing the cigarette machine, she turned through a low arch and back into the front room of the pub, the bar along her left, and their booth in the corner.
Through the wide, dark windows, she caught the pale girl with the dark hair, beyond the railings that surrounded the pub, standing in the middle of the road.
Just my reflection, Samara promised herself, averting her gaze to the scuffed floorboards and quickly crossing the room to their booth. A pack of five students occupied a large round table, their empties already starting to accumulate. Samara caught wisps of cigarette smoke and intimate conversation as she passed, no one taking notice of her, no one paying attention to the girl outside. Samara chanced a glimpse through the window. The girl, now closer, watched her from between the wrought iron bars of the railings.
At her sanctuary, Samara reached down for her coat, seeking out the pack of cigarettes in the inner pocket. She stopped, noticing the addition to the drinks on the table. Neither she nor Lily drank pints.
Dale sat in the far corner of the booth, her sketchpad in his hands, idly flicking through the pages. This week, the fool had dyed his hair yellow, a spiked canary shock above the thick frames of his glasses. Lily believed that changing his hair colour each week would make him bald well before he hit thirty. Samara had no idea what he studied, if he even did. She knew he was in a band though. It was the first thing he told you in that drawn out voice of his, sounding stoned morning to night.
“I love art. Pretty dark, man…” he crooned, turning the page. “All monsters and shit, eh?”