A Quiet Night Out
by David Walker
Reader's Story Spring 2025
The grey stone of the terraces reflected the moods and minds of the prim and proper wives, and their booming political husbands, and the bland and brooding youth who lived here in this lost little town, mad and proud, where time stands still, hidden away somewhere in the grim and windy Northern most reaches of Albion, where people come, but seldom, to be forgotten and to dissipate into the mist.
It was dark now, and the town, full of cobblestones and drizzle as it always was, was deserted. Only mad Seth shuffled through the back streets, alone, looking for his past. He had been looking for more years than anyone knew but, as yet, has never found it. Smoke billowed from the chimneys, as inside the grey terraces, the mouse-like women and the most un-mice-like husbands sat silently at the hearth listening to the Home service and the ticking of the grandfather clock which stood in the recess, as proud as the Sunday roast.
Somewhere, out on the moor, if you listened, you could just hear the mournful and distant howling of some creature, mythical or real. Or was it just the wind?
One night, William Arkwright, whose dirty little secret nobody knew, decided to venture out onto the moonlit moor alone to investigate. In the morning, he returned, crazed and muttering incoherently, his face torn and bloodied.
“The quiz master was, big Bessy, a ferocious woman with plus fours, a chequered waistcoat, and a voice like a Rottweiler…”
“I was attacked,” he would later report in The Goat after his sixth cider, to Noah Johnson and to whoever else would listen, “I tell you, it was Black Shuck, big as a calf with red eyes as big as saucers”.
“More like a drunken razor fight with the Teddy boys behind the Co-Operative,” said Councillor Mason, who had once been the town’s Mayor.
With that, he (Councillor Mason) went with a half pint of brown ale to sit in a corner where no one would see him but from where he could see everyone. The small open fire made a warm glow in the half-light of the timeless, comforting bar, which had had the same wallpaper and standard lamps for forty years. Nobody spoke. The door opened, letting the night in, and Jim Weasley entered, shutting the door behind him.
“You know it when you’re out there,” he announced, rubbing his hands together.
The time was exactly 7.15. The clock above the bar struck the quarter. Jim Weasley always came to the Goat at exactly the same time every night, as regular as clockwork. A seat in front of the fire with a book on Abbeys by M. R. James, and a pickled egg, a pint of bitter and that was Jim for the night.
“Tuesday night was quiz night. This was taken very seriously as the winning team would get a free jug of ale.”
The next arrival was young Tim Packer. Just released from reform school, and now, by all accounts, reformed ho ho. He had been originally sent for his custodial by way of the juvenile courts for crimes against poetry after vandalising the statue of W H Auden in the town square. He now worked doing odd gardening jobs, and he said he was 19, but everyone knew he was 17, including the landlady Big Bessy Brown, who ignored this fact and still served him a pale ale. He was tolerated by the elders of the Goat.
Today was Tuesday, and Tuesday night was quiz night. This was taken very seriously, as the winning team would get a free jug of ale. There were never more than two or three people in each team. The quiz master was big Bessy, a ferocious woman with plus fours, a chequered waistcoat, and a voice like a Rottweiler, who smoked small cigars and wore a monocle.
Just in time, the door slowly opened, and mad Seth ghosted in. He never missed quiz night. He had once been
a teacher at St. Augustus, the local school, and had retained a good general knowledge and was an expert on French trade tokens.
There were now six customers in the small snug. Mad Seth, William Arkwright, Noah Johnson, Jim Weasley, Young Tim and Councillor Beresford Mason. A busy night.
“Right then,” barked big Bessy from behind the bar, “Time for the quiz to begin. Get into your teams. We’ve got an even number. Seth, you go with William and young Tim. Jimmy, you’re with me and Noah.”
The teams set; they sat at their respective tables.
“First question,” boomed Big Bess. “Who killed Cock Robin?”
Mad Seth was the first. “The sparrow,” he said softly.
“Correct,” shouted Big Bessy loudly.
“Second question: In what year was the tomb of Tutankhamun opened?”
“1950,” blurted out William Arkwright suddenly and with confidence.
“Was it heck as like,” chastised Bessy. “Anyone”?
“1922,” said young Tim unsurely.
“Well done, lad,” said Jim. Anyone who knows in what year the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened can’t be all bad.
Outside in the cold and drizzle of the closed town, the old Quakers hall, built in 1850, reminisced with the town hall clock, which had stopped in 1947. Someone had lost the key and had forgotten to look for it. The secrets of the town’s past, engrained within the bricks and mortar of the grim architecture, were remembered by forgotten ghosts of long ago, but even the statues of the Angels and Saints that stood on the rooftop of the chapel kept the town code of silence.
Back in the little snug, a dispute had blown up over question number seven.
“I’m telling you,” William was saying, “’Who wears short shorts?’ was recorded by Cilla Black.”
“You should go to the hospital to get your head checked out,” laughed Noah, “Everyone knows it was Freddy and the Dreamers.”
“Not everyone”, said Mad Seth, “I thought it was Max Bygraves.”
“Ye Gods,” whispered Councillor Mason to himself, holding his head in his hands.
“The point goes to Noah Johnson,” announced Bessy bureaucratically.
…And so it went. They answered questions on the topography of Yorkshire, The Classics, popular culture, and the wildlife of Africa, amongst other things, none of which anyone was particularly knowledgeable about. The final score was three all, so everyone got a small glass of ale.
At around 9.30 Adge Stevens turned up with his banjo. No one knew much about him, except that he lived in a caravan on the edge of the moor, was of an indeterminate age, and kept himself to himself, but on the rare occasion he did turn up at the Goat he would always bring his banjo and he would play some country tunes. Pretty soon all present were singing together ‘You are my Sunshine’ followed up by ‘He’s in the Jailhouse now’ then ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’. The beer flowed and even Bessy, who sang bass seemed to be enjoying herself. At 10.50 she rang the bell for last orders, and locked the door. At 11.45 PC Morgan knocked officially, gained entrance, took off his helmet, and unofficially ordered a large whisky. Bessy stoked up the fire, and produced roast beef sandwiches, and pickled onions, and calm fell upon the dark deserted drizzly cobblestoned town, that was a secret sanctuary of madness, somewhere on the edge of the moors.
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