LADY ANN'S FOLLY: Chapter Twelve - Part Sixteen

Ann spent the evening tending the bar again at the Dog & Pony.

It was a depressing and humiliating experience that only improved when Burt turned up but even that was awful because that highpoint was still depressingly low. Burt was the person she used to be. He was the person she hadn’t wanted to lower herself to being again. Now she was at his level or maybe even lower. She was only a woman. And she couldn’t talk to him anyway. She was far too busy for that. He sat with Jeb near the back wall, drinking quietly.

She went back and forth with pints of ale. She tended the bar and cleaned up messes. She fetched things from the cellar for her new father. The hours of labour wore her down, but not as much as hearing her clodhopper accent when she spoke. It still wasn’t entirely settled in but it was much further along than it had been when she turned into Ann in the first place. She couldn’t understand why that would be.

Some Blacklake miners were gathered round a table near the door. They were raucously drunk and quite unpleasant. Ann had done her best to avoid them so far, minimising her contact but they called out to her now. “Ere Mavis! Get over here! We’re runnin out’ve beer!”

Ann made eye contact with Burt. He was watching her over the top of his glass and he seemed as tense as she did.

She made her way over and took their order, trying to ignore the lascivious stares and chuckles. There were four of them. One of them was a beefy, nasty looking foreman with a ragged scar crossing his milky left eye and running down to the edge of his mouth. He kept staring at her, grinning widely like he knew he could have her if he wanted to; that maybe he intended to. Ann didn’t look at him. She went back to the bar and started pouring the drinks, aware of how she was living Mavis’s life now as though it were her own, without any choice in the matter.

In his corner, Burt watched the miners nudge one another with their elbows, laughing and building in confidence. He didn’t like the way they were acting. He set his drink down, ignoring Jeb’s chatter across from him.

Ann filled up all four drinks and took them back across, struggling to carry them all with the jostling she got on the way over.

“You’re a mighty pretty little thing darling,” said the foreman. “You shouldn’t be workin in no bar. You should be back at my place cleanin me out every night.”

The other three men laughed riotously.

Ann gave a curt smile and tried to ignore him, starting to set the drinks down.

“Let’s ave a look at what you got under there, eh?” said the foreman, reaching for her skirts.

“Stop it!” snapped Ann, pulling away.

“Don’t be shy sweetheart,” said the foreman. “I won’t do nothin you won’t like.” He whipped up her skirts even higher, his mates laughing. “Why don’t you take a seat on my lap and I’ll show ye why it takes a miner to be a real man.”

“Hey!” cried Ann, wrenching away and upsetting their table in the process. The beers flew up, spilling over all of them and the foreman roared in anger.

“What do ye think you’re doin ye stupid tart!?” He went to snatch at her wrist and Ann yelped, pulling back, but suddenly Burt was there, his hand on the foreman’s arm.

The foreman squared off against him. Both men were as tall as one another but the foreman was broader.

“I’ll thank ye to keep yer hands off er,” said Burt, “if it ain’t too much trouble.”

The foreman glared at him as Ann shrank back, but the moment was broken when the landlord emerged from the back and bellowed, “Mavis! Get over ere now!”

Ann looked his way then back at Burt.

The mine foreman stepped back, extricating himself. Burt looked guiltily at the landlord and stepped away too.

“Mavis! Ere! Now!”

Ann’s shoulders slumped and she walked toward the bar. The pub was silent. Everyone was watching her.

“What do ye think ye’re doin, ye clumsy great heifer?” said her new father. “Eh? What do ye think ye’re doin breakin our glasses? You think we’ve got money to chuck away?”

“But they were messing with me,” she said, gesturing back toward the miners.

“I don’t care what they was doin! Glasses got broke. That’s your responsibility! You should know better!”

“But it wasn’t my fault,” she said, tears coming to her eyes.

The landlord grabbed her by the back of the neck, pulling her closer. “Of course it was! One of the reasons I keep you around is cause you get the blokes in. You should manage em better! That’s all y’er good for!”  

Ann glared back at him, hating the way he was talking down to her but all too aware of what might happen if she stood up to him. The tears filled her eyes but she said nothing. She averted her gaze submissively instead, hating herself for doing so.

“Get over there and clean it up then get out’ve my sight. I don’t want to see you no more tonight. I’m liable to kick yer face in.”

He glared at her for an extended period then released her hair, making Ann wince and yelp.

She loitered for a moment, the reality of this sinking in, then she walked back over to the miners’ table and set it aright.

The miner’s chuckled at her and her cheeks flushed. She used her apron to wipe the table down then got on her knees and started picking up the broken glass. The miners watched her, smirking. The foreman sat with his legs spread just in front of her head, giving her the same look as he had before. If anything it looked even more smug now.

Ann gathered up all the broken glass, feeling wretched, then carried it out of the way.

“Well pour them more beers,” said her father nastily. “I’ll dock ye for the price of them.”

Ann said nothing to resist. She couldn’t. She did exactly what he told her to, filling four more pints and carrying them back to the miners’ table.

There were chuckles all over the pub now. People were watching her and loving the dressing down she had had. Burt was nowhere to be seen. She set the glasses down on the table, avoiding the gaze of the foreman and then walked to the back of the pub. The landlord blanked her completely and she went into the back corridor.

As soon as she was out of sight she started sobbing silently.

This was her life now. It was her life.

She didn’t have any money to get to Nockton Vale to retrieve the pendant or her real body. She was stuck in this horrible form until the true Mavis returned. But she knew how unlikely it was that that would happen soon. She knew how certain it was that she would lose herself to her new persona in the meantime.

She hadn’t been able to understand how her voice had changed so much so quickly but something occurred to her now that was so stark that it took the form of certainty in her mind in an instant.

Before she had swapped places with Mavis she had held the pendant and made a wish. She had wished that the changes effected by the pendant worked faster.

It was so clear to her now that this had come true.

The effects of the pendant on her and anyone else it changed would not take weeks and weeks to unfold anymore. It would be far faster than that.

By the time Mavis returned she would have become Ann Neville completely and Ann herself would be a perfect simulacrum of the bawdy barmaid. It would be far too late to get back.

She stood there in the darkness, gripping her chest tightly, crying and crying, then she slowly made her way up the stairs to her bedroom.

She wanted to die. That was all. She wanted this all to be over.

She had acted with such folly; so rashly. She had thought she could control the effects of the pendant. Now she realised it was impossible to do that. There was never going to be any going back.

She was going to remain Mavis forever.

She pushed open her bedroom door and stepped inside.

Burt was in there waiting.

She looked at him feeling a deep weariness, but he gave her a little smile and Ann found some tiny hope in it.

“I’m sorry you got told off luv,” said Burt. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do no more to help.”

Ann entered the room fully. She said nothing.

Burt was seated on her bed. He stood and came toward her.

“Luv? Are you alright?”

Ann went to him. She pressed herself against his chest and shivered in relief when he closed his strong arms about her.

“Just hold me Burt, please,” she said. “Hold me and tell me you love me.”