Shadows in the Rain

Ian Ayris

‘The Three Tunns’ is an old man’s pub. And Len Munch is an old man. No. Not old. More . . . empty. Empty as a knockin’ shop on Christmas Day; a side-street in the rain; The Tunns every night of the fuckin’ week.

Len climbs onto a bar-stool, unbuttons his coat with bent fingers.

‘Pint, Len?’

Pete. Pete the bar tender. Pete the bastard. Every man’s friend. Smilin’ his greasy smiles and wrappin’ shattered lives in beer and sludge. And they thank him for it. Fuck me, they even pay him for it.

Len nods without lookin’ and shakes the rain off his shoulders.

‘Another bad one, Len?’ Pete says. ‘The weather.’

Len meets Pete’s eyes.

‘Shit everywhere, Pete,’ he says. ‘Shit everywhere.’

Pete lands a pint of Tanglefoot in front of Len. Good stuff. Light and crispy with a clean aftertaste.

‘That'll be two-eighty, please, Len.’

Len fumbles in his pocket and hands over a fiver, and Pete’s back a minute later with the change.

Change. Coins. Bits and pieces. Burnt offerings. Pieces of shit.

Len takes it without a word.

There used to be a jukebox in The Tunns. Years ago. And before that, they had a proper stage and everything. All set up for live bands in a room off the main bar, it was. The Three Tunns was the place to be. A stagin’ post for local talent on the way up, or in Len’s case, the high point of a miserable fuckin’ life.

Len had been a Tommy Silvers impersonator all through the seventies. Tommy Silvers was a local boy made good. Got his first break at The Tunns. Had a couple of big hits in the early seventies, and then some proper shit albums. But he was popular. Country Glam Rock, that’s what he called himself. I mean, he weren’t Elvis or nothing but he was all right. He was an entertainer. And people like that. There was even a little plastic Action Man type doll of him. A Johnny Cash lookie-likey in platform shoes and a painted face.

That’s what Tommy Silvers was - a lookie-likey with a painted face. He weren’t the real deal at all. Not by a long fuckin’ shot.

By seventy-nine he was all washed up. Literally. Got dragged out the sea at Yarmouth. He’d been doin’ a gig on a boat when the news broke about him and the drugged up Alsatian in the gimp mask. The cucumber gettin’ dragged out Tommy's arse in the early hours of the mornin’ at A & E was the clincher, if it even fuckin’ needed one. Seems young Tommy had some strange habits, you know. That was it for Tommy. Whole boat went after him when they found out.