The Sister(121)

‘They'd have sent the dogs out first.’ He bowled his one arm forward, re-enacting the releasing of the dogs, the thickly braided sinews of his forearm rippled as his hand opened.

‘Oh, no, come on, Bryn. You can’t know that!’

He shook a huge fist at the interrupter. ‘Yes, I can. Shut your mouth while I’m telling it to you, will you. What would be the point of the dogs, if you wouldn’t send them out first?’

Someone else agreed with him. ‘Oh, he’s right about that, what would be the point?’

‘And then, when he comes right in – after he’s done away with the dogs – they know they’re in trouble, right?’

While the group of men drunkenly thought it through, Bryn repeated himself. ‘They know they’re in trouble all right!’ An unintelligible murmur of agreement rose from the group. All nodded eagerly, waiting for the next dramatization.

‘One of them grabs a baseball bat.’ The men hung on his every word. ‘And he grabs it off him, uses their own baseball bat against them before shoving it up their arses!’

In the brief silence, as they paused on the moment, Owen, who up until now had kept quiet, made a remark. ‘I bet they were glad he didn’t pick up a frying pan!’

The pub erupted with laughter. Bryn looked exasperated, covering his face with his hand.

When the laughter subsided, eager to take up centre stage once more, Bryn said, ‘I don’t know about you lot, but if he were to walk in here right now, I'd be the first to shake his hand!’

The murmurs of agreement were almost as enthusiastic as the laughter at Owen’s frying pan observation.

Someone noticed the rough looking stranger at the bar behind Bryn. He was holding an almost empty glass. All eyes stared in his direction. The small group fell eerily silent. Bryn, sensing something amiss, turned to follow the direction of their gaze. His eyes settled directly on the man. Dead silence fanned out through the rest of the pub.

The man steadily returned his stare. He was alone, but showed no sign of being intimidated. Lost for words, for once, and in a drunken muddle, Bryn exclaimed, ‘It wasn’t you, was it, boyo?’ The bar remained silent as a small crowd drew in around the two men, waiting for the stranger’s response.

The stranger took in the crowd and half smiled. His hand slowly extended for Bryn to shake. The whole pub held its breath.

The one-armed man took it. A farm labourer used to using his surviving arm for everything any normal man could do; his arm was at least twice as strong as a normal labourer’s, but with a handgrip much stronger and out of all proportion to that. Discounting the likelihood the man was the actual vigilante, Bryn turned to the small crowd. His facial expression beaming as if to say: Are you all watching this?

Bryn put the grip on the stranger’s hand; confident his freak strength would cause the other to buckle up in pain. Rope-like veins stood out among the sinews. The other man was older, but bigger, as wide as a door. His gnarled hands had knuckles that looked full of arthritis. He accepted Bryn’s grip, and held firm as he finished the last of his glass with his free hand. Putting the glass down, not taking his eyes off the one-armed man for a second, he squeezed back. A look of surprise flashed in Bryn’s eyes. The bones of his hand squashed together, he gritted his teeth to hide the pain; his grin fixed on the verge of becoming a grimace. He maintained eye contact.

A flicker, a narrowing, a dilation of the pupils, something barely perceptible passed between the two men. Recognition. Knowledge. The stronger gave way to the weaker. After all, what value was there in defeating a one-armed man?

The man released him.

Bryn had saved face. He held the stranger’s hand aloft alongside his own. ‘A draw!’ he cried. Releasing the stranger’s hand, Bryn shook his own, flexing the stiffened bones, clenching and unclenching his fist. Then he remarked with a humour more befitting Owen, ‘If I didn’t know better, I'd say you were a one-armed man, too!’ Grinning, Bryn, said, ‘Tell you what, let me buy you a drink, boyo?’

The man lit a cigarette, tilted his head back and blew a plume of smoke at the ceiling. ‘Another time, maybe.’

‘Now, Bryn, give him an arm wrestle!’ Owen wrapped an arm around Bryn, and pulled him in close, so that they faced the stranger together, square on. ‘I’ll have my money on my, boyo, here!’

‘Sorry, fellas, I got to go. You boys have a drink on me,’ he said and put two twenty pound notes on the bar. As the door closed behind him, Owen broke the silence, voicing what they were all thinking, ‘You don’t think that really was him do you?’

Bryn rubbed his aching hand against his chin, thoughtfully. ‘You know what, boyo. I think it definitely could have been someone like him.’





Two miles down the road the stranger pulled in to offer a hitchhiker a lift. The girl was in her twenties, raven-haired with a heart-shaped, friendly face.

She was relieved to see he was an older man. She’d never have gotten in with a younger man. They couldn’t be trusted.

Once inside the car she noticed the boiler suit he was wearing. ‘Just finished work?’ she said.

‘No,’ he replied, activating the car’s central locking system, ‘actually, I’m just about to start.’





Chapter 105