Gith by Chris Else Read Free Book Online Page B

maybe
eight metres long, with three sets of beer pumps and the spirit
bottles up behind. To the right, round the corner in the small
leg of the L, was the pool table.
    There was nothing fancy about the back bar. The floor was
grey lino. The walls were painted cream, bare except for a few
old posters for long-gone events. The tables were made of
black tubes of metal with off-white Formica tops. They were
waist high and there were a few stools of matching height with
brown padded vinyl seats. The drink was beer, Tui for choice,
in plastic jugs, although now and again somebody would have
a go at the top shelf. It was a place where you could come in
your working clothes, a bit sweaty, and no one would care. It
was a place for blokes, pretty much. There were one or two
sheilas but they may as well have been blokes, the way they
talked. From six o'clock it was just about chocker, especially
later in the week: a mixture of blokes on their way home from
wherever they worked, and farmers who had come in at the
end of the day to catch up with one another.
    I was never a regular at the Arms. Two or three times a
month was about my lot. It was partly because I'm not that
sociable and partly because I never really liked leaving Gith
alone. The pub wasn't her sort of scene. It was too noisy and
the effort of talking always pissed her off. She didn't mind me
going though. Even so, having her push me out of the house
like that made me feel a bit weird, like I was being made to
do something I didn't want to do.
    It was a warm night for Te Kohuna, and standing round
the door of the back bar was the usual clutch of smokers, glass
in one hand and fag in the other. I stopped for a word or two
but the smoke got to me pretty quick and I soon went inside.
The place was even fuller than usual. There were a few faces
you didn't normally see, even that late in the week. I figured it
was because the cops were in town. All the nosy buggers had
come down from the hills to find out what was going on.
    I bought myself a jug and looked for a table to join. My
usual school was Tom Kittering, Mark Morgan and Monty
Praguer. Tom and Mark were there most nights, like
Monty. I was never sure why I hung out with them. I liked
Monty well enough, and Tom was all right, except for the fact
that he spat when he talked, but Mark was a bit of a loudmouth,
and dirty-minded — a real pain in the arse at times.
I guess it was just habit that I went with them, or maybe we
were all misfits in our own different ways.
    That evening I spotted them up under the TV screen
and headed off towards them. Then I stopped. Gray Tackett
was with them. I wasn't sure I wanted a session of little digs
about the Tacketts and the McUrrans. But before I could join
someone else, Monty spotted me and waved me over.
    'Gidday,' I said, squeezing in beside him.
    'That girl of yours is a genius,' he said.
    'Give it a decent run before you say that,' I told him.
    'I did. I've been to Basingstoke and back since I left you.
Went like a bloody dream.'
    'What did she do?' Gray asked.
    'Fixed the wastegate on the turbo,' I said.
    'Is that all?' Gray sounded like anybody could have done
it.
    'Must be weird living with someone who's dumb,' Tom
said.
    Monty turned to him. 'She's not dumb. She's smart as a
tack.'
    'No, I mean not talking.' Tom's an odd-looking bloke, tall
and thin, with not much hair and teeth like an old ewe. It was
hard to take him seriously and usually I didn't.
    'Sounds pretty bloody good to me,' Mark said. 'Living with
a silent woman.'
    Gray laughed but Tom didn't.
    'Why's she like that, though?'
    'Brain injury.' I tapped the side of my head. 'Apparently
there's something up about here that controls the talking. It
got pretty much wiped out in her case.'
    'Say,' Mark said, 'is there a waiting list for that? Can I get
the missus on it?'
    Gray laughed and so did Monty, which surprised me a bit.
There was a time when he was right into all the anti-woman
jokes, but since his wife shot through