On the House

"Another one?  Right you are, sir.  That'll be your last, I think."
	The old barman slid another beer across to the figure slumped on the barstool.  Closing time had been and gone, and the bar was empty apart from this one straggler, but the barman was reluctant to turn him out.  There was something about him that seemed... unbearably lonely.
	The stranger's clothes and appearance were obscured by the large and slightly scruffy overcoat that he wore, the hood pulled up and shielding his face.  He wasn't a large man, and had spent the evening keeping to himself, but there was an undeniable presence about him that intrigued the barman.
	The man spoke suddenly, in a voice so faint and hoarse that the question was barely intelligible.  It sounded to the barman like the voice of a body with some kind of throat cancer, but it was not his place to ask.
	"Ghosts, you say?  Sure, I believe in 'em.  This here hotel is supposed to be haunted, y'know."
	The man lifted his head slightly, although not enough to reveal his face.  Nonetheless, the barman took this as encouragement, and continued with some enthusiasm.
	"It all started back in (?), during the Depression.  I'd only been working here a few months then, and I was sure glad of the job, I can tell you.  Work was hard to get back then.  I don't s'pose you'd be old enough to remember it.
	"That was when a young couple came to stay here, Michael and Nellie Cole.  I remember Mrs Cole well - a lovely young lady, sweet natured and cheerful as you please.  Michael was totally smitten with her then, and she with him.  He brought her here because he's lost his job, didn't have the money to keep paying rent on the place they'd been living in, y'see, but Nellie - Mrs Cole - she didn't care that he couldn't support her so well any more.  No, she loved him just the same."
	The barman's audience seemed to shiver slightly, unless it was just his imagination.
	"They lived here for a little over four years, all up.  Mostly Mrs Cole would stay here while Michael went out looking for work.  He got a few jobs, just enough to keep paying the rent, but permanent work just never seemed to come his way.
	"Things were hard on Michael, but they were even harder on Nellie - Mrs Cole, that is.  I don't think she was from around here, and if she had any friends in the area then I sure never saw them come to visit.  Must've been awful lonely for her.  There ain't much for a young woman to do all by herself in a big old hotel.
	"But I'm getting off the point, aren't I?  You want to hear about ghosts.  Well, to cut a long story short, things didn't go too well for poor old Michael Cole.  Jobs were getting harder and harder for him to find, and them bills were piling up.  Dear Nellie, she stuck by him every step of the way, but I guess that just wasn't enough for him.  He started drinking.
	"I gotta admit, I gave him the occasional pint on the house, at least to begin with - I mean, I felt sorry for the man!  I sure don't know where he got the money for the rest of booze.  When I saw what was happening, I stopped giving him freebies, of course.  Hell, I even refused to serve him for a while, but he just went elsewhere and in the end I figured it was better for him to do it here, where at least I could keep an eye on him.  The way a man can go downhill so fast... I tell ya, it's frightening.
	"I don't know how she could do it, but Nellie stuck by him, even when he was so blind drunk he didn't know which way was up.  A more gentle and tol'rant girl I've never met.  And then one night after I'd helped Michael to his room, he and Nellie had the most terrible row.  Woke the whole place up, him hollering and her shrieking.  I never found out what it was they were fighting over.  George - he was the manager then - he and I came running, o' course, but we were too late.  Pushed her right out the window, Michael did.  She fell three floors on to the road.  Killed instantly, y'know."
	This time there was no doubting the shudder that passed through the stranger's body.  The barman nodded soberly.
	"I know, terrible thing to happen to a sweet young girl.  I'm guessing Michael thought so too, when he was sober enough to realise what he'd done..."
	He was about to say something else, when a muffled question startled him into brief silence.  He recovered and grinned crookedly.
	"Ah, guess I'm not so good at hiding it as I thought, huh?  Yeah, I guess you could say I loved her.  I mean, at first I just felt sorry for her, all alone in her room day after day.  So I took to visiting her, as a friend, y'know?  But things were getting worse between her and Michael, and after a while she started turning to me for more than just comfort, if you know what I mean."
	A long, reflective silence followed the barman's admission.  When he realised that he had been staring into space for some time, he blinked and looked back down, focusing on the empty glass sitting on the bar.
	"Finished, have you?  I guess you'd better be moving on, then.  It's past closing, y'know."
	Of the man's next mutter, he caught only a couple of words.
	"Well, yeah, I guess they could've been arguing about me.  I mean, sure, I've thought about it.  Michael never said anything to me about it, though.  Didn't have much of a chance.  Hanged himself in his room just a couple of days later.  He's the one who's supposed to be haunting the place."
	The stranger was standing now, he suddenly realised, startled back into the present.
	"Here, don't forget you still have to pay for..."
	He trailed off, staring into the hood, his face turning ashen.  His mouth opened, but his mind was blank as he struggled for something to say.
	"I... I guess... this one's on the house, Michael."

(c) Copyright Hespa.
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