by Sharon Owens
Jack looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock, and time to light the fire. Every morning, Jack would sweep out the ashes from the huge brick fireplace at the back of the room, and lay some bright white firelighters and small dry sticks in the grate. Then he would ignite the kindling with a long match and watch the flames take hold, carefully adding several clods of dark brown turf from an old wicker basket. The turf he bought weekly from a businessman in the county of Fermanagh, a man by the name of Arnold Smith. The smell of the smouldering turf gave the tavern its soul, Jack often said. Without the bright red heart of the fire and its occasional crackles and sparks, the tavern would have been nothing more than a dark and dreary little cave filled with dusty old junk. But there was a wonderful warm atmosphere when the flames were dancing merrily against the soot-black bricks, making the horse brasses sparkle on the walls. Lily's collection of multi-coloured glass bottles glowed with a million pinpricks of light when the fire was lit. The tavern seemed to come alive then, and shimmer with the secrets of centuries.
Jack lit that fire every single day of his life, even when the summer sun was threatening to dry up the water reservoirs in the Silent Valley. Even when the bar was closed on Sunday evenings they would sit by the hearth and talk about people and places they had known, and events in the past and things that might happen in the future. During the twenty years that he had been landlord there, Jack couldn't remember a time when the fireplace had been empty and cold.
Harry Frew, a rep from the brewery, who looked uncannily like Henry VIII, once said that Jack and Lily should be making a fortune, sitting as they were in their own little goldmine. A public house of such a great age should be making them many thousands of pounds a year. They should market the tavern better. That was his advice. Attract busloads of wealthy foreign tourists, triple the bar prices and start serving gourmet food. The money some city centre bars were charging for a small rustic pottery dish full of shepherd's pie was nothing short of criminal. They should hire some pretty waitresses too and kit them out with tight white blouses and short black skirts. That would get plenty of young men into the place and the young women would soon follow, in perpetual search of love and romance. He said that Jack should look into the history of the place and find out exactly who built it, and if there was anything interesting there that could be exploited. They could have a new sign made and showcase the tavern on the Internet. Maybe some producer would like to film folk groups playing in the corner beside the fire, for local television? For heaven's sake, some film director might offer a fortune to shoot movie scenes in it. Johnny Depp in a top hat! The possibilities were endless.
But Jack said he had no truck with the Internet, folk nights or anything else that might take away from the peaceful atmosphere that his loyal customers were used to. Other bars might be offering football matches on wide-screen television, live music at the weekends, and all kinds of hot and cold snacks throughout the day. But his tavern was unique because he was offering nothing at all except silence. And in 2004, silence and stillness were precious commodities in the Western world. The brewery man shook his head sadly. Some people wouldn't know how to make money if their lives depended on it, he sighed. How could Belfast ever stand shoulder to shoulder with the great cities of Europe, with this kind of small-town attitude lingering on into the new millennium?
Many times Jack had been asked to name his price and sell the bar as a going concern but he only smiled and said the big decisions were up to Lily. And Lily wanted to stay where she was. The brewery man could understand that much, at least. If he had a wife like Lily, he would do what he was told too. Lily was a very desirable woman. She had a small pale heart-shaped face and big velvety blue-green eyes, perfectly arched eyebrows and skin so smooth she didn't need to wear any make-up, even though she was thirty-eight. She had dark red lips, and long dark hair which she wore in a shining plait down her back. She was intuitive and sensitive by nature, with a graceful walk and long, thin fingers. She was often asked if she exhibited her artwork, or if she made any money out of it. And was her degree in Graphic Design or Fine Art? Some people in Belfast had curiosity in their veins instead of blood.
‘No, I don't exhibit very often,’ Lily would say casually, not wanting to reveal that she had missed her degree because of her all-consuming desire for Jack. Or that she had thrown away the chance of a good career to spend some wonderful afternoons walking with him along the River Lagan. She just liked to design Christmas cards, she would explain, if pressed.
Lily wore long flowing coats. And scarves made of unusual fabrics, decorated with intricate embroidery and feathery fringes. She had a lavender-coloured felt hat with a big purple moonstone brooch on it. She carried a small tapestry bag with leather handles that must have been an antique, and her hands were heavy with cheap glass rings and silver-coloured bracelets from India. She had an umbrella with a carved wooden handle in the shape of a horse's head, and she wore strong spicy perfume that could be detected in the air long after she had left the room. She looked like a lady in a Victorian painting and Jack adored her. That was obvious to anyone. His dark glittery eyes watched her as she moved around the bar, saying hello to the customers and setting out clean plates at the sandwich counter. More than once, Jack and Lily had been caught in a passionate embrace when they thought the bar was empty, with Jack's hands underneath Lily's blouse and with her ring-encrusted hands caressing his shaved head. They were very happy together.
They lived above the saloon in a high-ceilinged apartment that had once been an elegant dining room in the days when the tavern provided hot meals for its coach-travelling patrons. There was an ancient iron stove in the kitchen with a rail along the front for drying cloths, and Lily loved cooking on it. She often said it was the one thing she was most fond of, after Jack, of course. The stove burnt turf and wood, and the smoky aroma of it was glorious on a winter's day. Sometimes they left the little door open and sat daydreaming beside the fiery furnace, but they couldn't do that very often because of the danger of sparks catching the woodwork.
Occasionally, Jack fretted that the Fermanagh bog where he bought his turf would come under some kind of protection order. God knows they must have burnt hundreds of bags of peat in the tavern over the years. From time to time he asked his supplier about the bog's status. But Arnold Smith was always pretty touchy on the subject of legalities.
Some other countries were starting to look after their natural resources and it was only a matter of time before it would happen here in Ireland too. The Troubles had kept all that kind of thing at bay. But nowadays hardly a week went by without a hue and cry about some aspect of the environment. Governments seemed to care more about butterflies and orchids than they did about human beings. Or maybe it was simply that there was currently no shortage of human beings in the world. At any rate, he was confident that nothing would ever happen to affect the little haven he and Lily had created for themselves.
So Jack was completely stunned when a bunch of smartly dressed town planners came into the tavern at lunchtime that bleak day in November, and told him that a big developer from Dublin wanted to demolish the entire block and build a shopping mall on the site. The tavern was a beautiful building and it would be a shame to see it close, they all admitted that. But couldn't it be taken down, stone by stone, and moved somewhere else?
The spicy smell of Christmas cake had drawn them in, they said, and they were all weak with hunger. At that moment, Lily came down the stairs with a tray of sandwiches and immediately sensed that Jack was worried about something. There was a crease of concern in the middle of his forehead. She looked towards the new arrivals and, almost before she had time to formulate the thought in her mind, she knew they brought bad news.
‘These gentlemen seem to think we are about to be flattened by the bulldozers,’ said Jack to his wife and he attempted a chuckle of amusement. Such a concept was unthinkable to Jack, given that the tavern had survived intact for two hundred years. The eager faces of the men were fl
ushed with excitement as they nodded a greeting to Lily and the other drinkers sitting in the shadows. They rested their expensive briefcases on the bar counter and asked loudly for the lunch menu, hoping that roast turkey and ham with all the trimmings was top of the list. They were very disappointed indeed to discover that they could have Cheddar cheese sandwiches, or bacon and tomato sandwiches, or nothing at all. They ordered shots of whiskey instead by way of consolation, then produced their trendy mobile phones and arranged to eat in a Thai restaurant on Botanic Avenue. They checked their text messages as they waited impatiently for Jack's reaction.
‘Well? What do you make of that, now? Eh? What do you think?’ they said.
‘Nice one, lads,’ Jack stammered. ‘You had me going there. I admit, you had me going for a minute.’
‘It's as true as I'm standing here,’ said one of the men. ‘No joke. No, sir-ee.’
‘Yes, indeed. The whole city is being rejuvenated,’ said another. ‘The Phoenix rising from the ashes, if you like? About time too.’
‘Oh, yes. We've a lot of catching up to do and this is a prime retail location,’ said the first planner, downing the last of his whiskey and winking crookedly at Lily.
Lily ignored him, and reached for a clean cloth and some wet glasses from the draining board that hadn't fitted into the dishwasher. She didn't want to believe a word they said. All businessmen fancied themselves as comedians, she knew from her experience behind the bar. Given half a chance, they would tell her their awful jokes for hours on end, until her face was cramped with smiling. They were just having a bit of fun at Jack's expense, she decided.
But Jack had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that told him what the men said was true. He recalled seeing a couple of engineers in luminous jackets, taking measurements in the street several months earlier. He desperately tried to convince himself that his wonderful life was not about to crash-land.
‘Perhaps there will be a new mall somewhere around here but not on this actual site?’ he said quietly.
‘Definitely, it's Maple Street.’ They were very sure about that.
‘There must be some mistake, some misunderstanding? You see, this entire block is Victorian-Gothic,’ explained Jack in a husky voice. ‘It's part of our national heritage. And the tavern itself is a listed building. We've changed nothing here, ever.’
‘We're not jesting, Mr Beaumont,’ they replied, with great enthusiasm. ‘We've seen the proposal with our own eyes. A big, glass mall with six floors of offices above it and fountains everywhere you look, and a basement car park for eight hundred vehicles. Yes, indeed. Like something out of California.’
The colour drained from Jack's face.
‘What's the name of this developer?’ he managed to croak. Not that it mattered. If there were large sums of money on offer, would he and Lily be the only ones to refuse to sell? Would they be held responsible for the whole project being cancelled, if they did say no? What would happen when the other business-owners on Maple Street found out that the Beaumonts had ruined their early-retirement prospects? And even if they did manage to stay where they were, would the developer go ahead and build some kind of mall anyway? Could these overbearing town planners really allow the genteel character of the area to be destroyed with a modern glass-and-steel monstrosity? With a sigh, he realized that they could.
‘His name? Oh, that's a big secret, for the moment. Can't say who the guy is, I'm afraid. But all the small businesses hereabouts will be offered generous sums to relocate. I can tell you that much. If I were you, I'd bargain the price up by about twenty thousand quid and then give in gracefully. You'll make a fortune!’
Lily dropped the glass she was polishing, and it shattered into a hundred pieces on the stone floor. They all stopped talking and stared at her.
‘The tavern is not for sale,’ she said slowly. ‘Not now. Not ever.’
In bed that night she clung to Jack and wept bitterly over the proposed new plans. Even with the soft glow of the pink bedside lamps and a row of tea-lights flickering in violet-coloured glasses on the window sill, the bedroom seemed cold and frightening. Jack dug out the red fairy lights from the blanket box in the hall and strung them over the headboard in an attempt to cheer his wife a little bit. He even played a Tori Amos CD she loved (one he usually found too bleak to listen to) but it was no use. All the little things that Lily usually loved only made her more emotional tonight.
‘The nerve of some people,’ she railed. ‘Greedy grasping fat-cats. The whole world will be covered in concrete and chrome soon. Maple Street is our home.’
‘I wonder what the other traders are doing? If we're the only ones to turn down a good offer we won't be very popular around here.’ Jack's heart was in his mouth. He wondered how they were going to get out of this calamity. If the great age of the tavern were not enough to save it, what would they do with the rest of their lives? How would they cope with living in some modern out-of-town estate? With different careers and maybe different times off work during the year, and long hours spent commuting in rush-hour traffic? Come to think of it, neither one of them had ever bothered to learn to drive. There were no parking spaces within a mile of Maple Street, so there hadn't seemed much point. In other words, how would they cope with living in the real world? They'd been very cosy in their little tavern. Too cosy, perhaps? Their lives had been like a fairy tale for twenty years. The prince and the princess, living happily in their miniature sandstone castle. And now this property developer was coming like the wicked fairy, to take it all away from them.
‘We'll refuse to talk to him. We'll ignore the letters when they come,’ Lily vowed, as she rested her head on Jack's firm chest. He traced a line across her delicate shoulders with his right thumb. Lily's bare skin glowed like eggshell in the softly flickering lights. He unravelled her hair from its tight braid and spread it out over her slender back.
‘Let's just wait and see.’
‘I don't care what the other traders do. We'll brazen it out, Jack. We should sue that man for the distress he's caused us today.’
‘Lily, pet. We've got to be careful,’ said Jack. ‘Builders like this are very powerful. They have connections and contacts in high places. No doubt, the council will take his side. They love all the fuss and fanfare of a new project coming to the city.’
‘Yes, Jack. But despite all that, they can't force us to leave. Can they?’
‘I honestly don't know, my love. I'll have to ask an expert. I wonder what sort of consultation fee would they charge someone in our situation?’
‘But what will we do? Where will we go? They can't get away with this. It's not fair.’ She began to cry again.
‘They've done it before, sweetheart. And even if we do manage to stay on, assuming the design of the mall can be altered in some way, the rates will be sky-high. Once the area is full of famous high-street names the rates will quadruple. Not to mention the upheaval while the building work is going on. We might have power cuts. There might be no running water. Constant disruption for months, definitely. I'll speak to a solicitor, of course, and find out what the other businesses are doing. But I'm afraid we must prepare ourselves for the worst.’
‘Oh, to hell with the lot of them,’ Lily sobbed. ‘Why can't they just go away and build their stupid mall somewhere else? Why do these development people always want to build everything in the same place? Squeezing in more and more shops, and ruining the place with traffic? There are lots of sites all over Belfast with nothing at all on them but weeds and litter. But they just want to tear down our dear little home and build some ugly great brute of a thing instead. And fill it full of boring clothes shops. Oh, I hate them.’
‘Hush, my darling,’ said Jack gently. ‘As long as we have each other, we'll be all right. Isn't that true? Isn't that the main thing? Remember when we had nothing, in the early days? Not enough money to buy a warm coat for you? At least this time we'll have a bit of cash to start again.’
‘Yes, you're rig
ht,’ she agreed. ‘That's true. But you know we haven't much hope of finding new jobs. No qualifications to speak of. And I don't want to be stuck in some noisy factory all day long. Or behind a shop counter. I'm not just being snobbish about it. It's not that. I'll miss you so much, Jack. And as for the way house prices are going through the roof – pardon the pun – we haven't a prayer of getting anything nice, close to the city centre.’
‘Does it have to be close to town?’
‘Yes, Jack. Honestly! You know we don't drive.’
‘That's true,’ he said quietly. ‘But we can learn to drive. We'll survive. Maybe we can afford to buy some old cottage on the outskirts and fix it up? And work in a bar or restaurant close by?’
‘Maybe.’ She dried her eyes with a tissue. ‘I suppose that's what we'll have to do. Trundling along on two bicycles to work in someone else's bar. That will be you and me, this time next year. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd be leaving Maple Street.’