Read by Lin Sagovsky
The Cutter’s Inn, County of Bristol, 1844
Winter trees reach with long dark fingers into an unresponsive sky as the figure strikes a match, bringing the hungry flame to the paper’s edge. Clouds mask the moon as they did a year ago, and no reflection in the inky waters mirrors the man’s face, shaggy brows knitted in concentration. The canal carves its quiet way through the night, secrets flowing through each of the 105 locks linking this backwater to the smog and skulduggery of London. Despite the December drizzle, the paper catches, words scorched in a tongue of flame.
Turning his back on the list of regrets, words turned to ash in a watery grave, he hurries back along the barge-lined canal-path to the comforting light cast from the inn. As a drunk staggers out and retches, the man slips inside. Using the old bar-rag, he wipes the rain from his face and hair, setting hands and mind back to his work.
*
The Cutter’s Inn offers refuge for those accustomed to sawdust floors, stained brown from years of spilt beer and muddy boots; oil lamps choke the air. Eyes and brows smoke-dark, the landlord observes a stranger enter, shaking himself like a wet dog on the threshold. With a determined tread, the newcomer paces to the roaring fire, hangs up his dripping cloak as if he’s been here many a time before and the peg’s his own. Standing, steaming slightly, he surveys the inn, its master pulling a pint of ale. The landlord’s large hands are used to the rhythmic motion, bearing down as the ale flows, gaze never leaving the young stranger’s face.
This place has seen better days. Waterway haulage isn’t what it was: the new railway, like an uncoiled snake, rattles and hisses in its cloak of steam into the future, leaving the sauntering canal-boats in its wake. And the Cutter’s Inn serves the last of the traders: dogged souls bound to the canal and boats and horses with chains no upstart railway can sever. Stragglers to be sure, and tonight they raise a glass to the old year, gasping its last.
“A pint of your best,” the stranger says, wiping rain from his brow, “and a jar for each man here,” he adds, placing a fat leather purse on the counter.
Loosened by the prospect of free drink, tongues which might have snapped with scorn soften. Talk turns to the year’s trade. Bert, skipper of his faithful barge the Kingfisher of Avon, is first to wheeze his reflections through yellow teeth.
“I miss the pies of last New Year: thick crust and gravy; big chunks of steak and kidney, generous to the last was old Fran.” He leans back in his chair, tipping deeper into his recollections. “Many a night, when the horse stopped pulling, well-nigh frozen to the spot, ‘twas only the thought of Fran’s pies kept me going.”
The others murmur assent and the landlord, still delivering the free ale to each table, slams the tankard down before him. Ale sloshes, dripping into the sawdust below. If Bert was about to speak further of Fran, the Cutter’s cook, the landlord’s hovering figure is enough to halt his tongue.
“To your good health Samuel,” another man with even fewer teeth says somewhat grudgingly, “may your New Year be prosperous.”
“Damn the New Year, and all she may bring!” exclaims the dark-browed publican, making his way back to the bar, wiping large hands on his waist-apron before thrusting the last pint of ale at the waiting stranger.
The stranger takes a long pull. “So, there’s little to celebrate in these parts?”
“Well, we’re the last men standing.” Bert lets out a tragic laugh, waving a weathered hand at the rest of the Cutter’s crew. “And every year the railway takes more. Many a young man’s left these parts, called by the coal-guzzling monster.”
The stranger sips his beer thoughtfully. “And why are they so keen to leave, your young men?”
“Fed up with trawling the canals at an old nag’s pace! Freezing their arses off in all weathers!” Bert exclaims, his drink sloshing as he waves at the canal, wending its way in the dark outside. “Come more rain than shine, you’ll find us out there; the only comfort’s a pint in the Cutter at the end of a hard day’s haulage!”
“There certainly seems to be little other comfort,” says the stranger. “Where’s all the womenfolk? Have none of you wives, or sweethearts?” He laughs confidently, and if a few men join him they quickly fall silent, as Samuel sends an empty beer-barrel crashing through the cellar-hatch into the darkness below.
Red-faced and sweating, he turns back to face the stranger.
“You’re not from round these parts, or you’d have heard what happened a year ago. How our womenfolk scattered like lambs.”
An expectant hush grows, broken only by the snap of a breaking log in the hearth or the hiss of damp air expiring.
“Last year to the day, a wolf stole a lamb – sure as I stand here. Yes, a wolf, that’s what I calls the man who took my daughter, Beth.”
The stranger shifts his weight while the publican looses his tale.
“I searched for hours in the canal. Searched, till the feeling had gone. I still feel the chill in my bones, but not my heart, not there: that beats hot, even now, for justice.”
“You never found her then, your daughter?” the stranger asks, offering no word of condolence.
“What does it look like?” spits the publican, waving at the men who stare fixedly into their tankards. “Do you see her? See any womenfolk here? Her disappearance scared them clear away, even Fran, like lambs before the wolf I say.”
Old Bert starts a strange keening sound, and his toothless mate helps him up from the table.
“Night Samuel,” he says, tipping his flat cap. “Think this New Year I’ll see in from my bed.” He picks up his coat and Bert’s. “Till the next jar at the end of another hard day’s haulage!” And they both shuffle to the door and leave.
Others quickly follow, until only the stranger remains. Moving from table to table, the publican ignores the stranger, tipping dregs into sawdust, stacking empty glasses.
“Think I’ll turn in for the night. Little point staying up. I know what this New Year will bring: more flaming misfortune, more trains on more tracks, luring my customers away.”
He begins to extinguish the lamps at each table, lowering the wicks until the flames gutter and die. Shadows mass, the only light cast by embers in the hearth and the one remaining lamp in the publican’s hand.
“Leave it,” the stranger says, turning from the fire, unfolding something between his fingers.
He shakes out a piece of paper. The bottom third is charred, and looks as if it has only recently dried from a soaking; but even in the flickering half-light it is possible to make out words etched on the paper’s blackened side.
“Where’d you get that from?” Samuel rasps, staring at the tattered sheet. He falls into the chair opposite, shadows from the fire’s dying light darkening his face.
“To answer that, I must tell you why I’m here.” The stranger takes the oil lamp from the publican’s quivering hand. “The Cutter’s Inn is the last place I’ve wanted to be, these last twelve months. I vowed I’d never come here again.” The stranger pauses, staring into the fire, a man searching for something. “But these last weeks, I’ve heard her voice — just as clearly as you have. Up through the waters it’s come. The locks can’t stop it, can’t hold it back: her beautiful voice, Beth’s. To answer her call is why I’ve come.”
“Beth’s call?” The voice is thin, as though it’s just escaped the hangman. “Who are you?”
“Still don’t know me, Samuel?” and he holds the lantern closer to his face. “You knew me back then, by name if not by sight: the Railway Man, posted by the Company to recruit young men.”
Awful recognition flickers in the landlord’s face.
“You heard Beth speak of the life she wanted in London: gowns and supper-parties, on the arm of her dashing young entrepreneur; me. For yes, I won her heart, just as surely as I won the signatures of the men who left to join the railway.”
“No more,” Samuel pleads, but the Railway Man continues.
“We planned our escape in secret, of course. She knew you and your moribund ways would never permit her to go. Last New Year’s Eve was the night we settled upon; we’d take a canal-boat one last time and she’d be free. But luck was against me. At the stable, I found my mare was lame. I cursed my misfortune and ran instead, knowing my feet could never match a horse’s pace.
“As I neared our meeting-place, I realised immediately I was too late. On the canal-path I heard two voices raised, hers and one I know only now,” he stares at the slumped man, “to be yours. I won’t remind you of her pleas, your words of rage. Then her awful cries, a blow, a splash and the roar of my heart.”
The publican’s head drops onto his chest, but hands at his throat force him to meet eyes which flame.
“You talk of the icy plunge, searching the canal. I only saw your back as you ran – coward! It was I who tore into the water and searched. And yes, there is a chill to that water; and yes, the passion in a wronged heart never cools.”
“You wronged me!” The landlord wrestles the hands off and grabs for the Railway Man, who rams the tabletop into his chest, pinning him to the wall. The publican’s breath comes in heaving gasps.
“If she met her end that night, the hand that killed her was more yours than mine; the hand that lured her away from where she belonged: here, with her father!”
“I knew that was the tale you’d tell.” The Railway Man glowers over him. “And yes, I overheard the next day: how your beloved daughter had slipped from the towpath, half-deranged with love; following her beau to London, only to miss her footing on the icy path. How you’d searched to no avail. I listened, and knew it would be your word against mine, and who would dare dispute yours? But now I have this to add weight to my words.”
He brandishes the paper and begins to read.
New Year’s Resolutions, Samuel Dredge – 1844
As a year of regret passes, I commit to flame and water the recollection of a moment’s sin and 12 months of purgatory thereafter. Beth, child, know this: I wished to stop you, to halt your flight. I didn’t mean for yours to be a watery grave, my hand the one that sent you there.
Read this and be at peace. Leave off your calling, shaking your wet skirts at my door. Be at rest, for even without your hauntings I will suffer, damned on this earth, till ashes to ashes, dust to dust, I rightly turn.
Desperately, Samuel flings back the table and lunges for the paper, but the young man outpaces him. In three long strides he’s at the bar, reaching up, ringing the Inn’s bell. Back and forth, hand grasping the worn rope, beating the iron clapper against the ringing brass, summoning to the Cutter’s Inn the constables who have been waiting, hiding in the barges outside.
The sweetest bells echo across the midnight sky as Samuel Dredge is handcuffed and led away. Ringing in a New Year, who steps in skirts, waterlogged and heavy, but with a head held high, for justice has been summoned, and served, at last.
(c) Rebecca Miles, 2024
Rebecca Miles spends her days scaling the chalkface as an IB teacher and her evenings as a student of The Novel Studio, working hard as the dark deepens to bring her dystopian book into the light. You can find her published stories in EggplusFrog, t’ART and Reedsy.
Apart from her voicework in various media, Lin Sagovsky acts in theatre, film, and TV, & also helps non-actors become better communicators, on Zoom & in person. Recently that’s meant writing & directing a customised play for a major insurance company; helping a university lecturer to impart enthusiasm as well as expertise; & running workshops for am-drammers of all ages who want to learn acting techniques from a pro.
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