The Anvil Bar

Submitted by: Ronan Donnelly

 
The Anvil Bar sits in the quiet countryside of West Cork. It is squat and drab. A two story, square and dull blue money pit that has claimed multiple hopefuls.

They come and go with dreams of bingo tournaments, pub-quizzes and curry nights.
‘Turning it around’… ‘realising its potential’… ‘a fixer-upper with room to grow’.
The Anvil Bar chews them up and spits them out.

Emma, a potential publican, opens the greying plastic door and steps into the bar, followed closely by the letting agent.

On the left is the main bar. Two taps, Murphy’s and Coor’s Light, break the eye on an otherwise flat counter. Behind, empty shelves and bar signs hang limply and alone, testament to the bar’s chequered past and its uncertain future. The stained carpet, a dull and heavily patterned red, is soft under-foot. The boards beneath creak lightly under step as she walks through the room.

Dust covers the bar-top, blanketing notched wood and permanent stains. She moves and opens the curtain nearest the bar. Light blinds the dark room. Dust particles float en masse in the thick air, invisible before but now chokingly prevalent.

The room’s musk: a smell of dust blended with stale booze and firewood, with hints of bleach and damp.

The babbling letting agent is drowned out by the warning signs burning in Emma’s head. His words are charming but rehearsed. Does he really mean them?

She moves behind the bar. The soft carpeted flooring giving way to cold grit. Here she enters a world of function and sterility, the realm of service. Though a somewhat usable space, its neglect is evident in dirty beer lines and unclean fruit containers. The floor needs a deck scrub, and the fridges smell of stagnant water.

She sighs and turns to the room. She imagines a full bar, with punters laughing and pints flowing. It is bright and busy, warm, and loud. Men drink pints and watch the horses, as the women in their lives chat and drink gin and tonics. Children, donned in the local GAA attire, bound about full of Fanta and Goujons. Plates of food fly from the kitchen in the arms of waitresses who’s smiles are warm and genuine. At night, trad musicians wail their melodies and euphoria grips the room.

The Letting agent says something about untapped growth and breaks Emma’s vision. Replacing it is a far grimmer vista. The room from behind the bar seems even smaller than it did before and despite the light trying to penetrate, it seems dark and stale.

An open fireplace dominates the back wall opposite the bar, its open mouth clogged with soot. Its unkempt state a reflection of the place at large, its choked screams a warning sign. A Dart board hangs beside it. Emma walks over to it, placing small stools back in formation around small round tables as she goes.

The board’s cork is heavily perforated by many tiny holes. A small container hangs from the board, filled with odd bits of darts and flights. She picks out a green dart, the best of the lot with only part of its flight missing.

Stepping back to the designated 7 feet 9.25 inches in measured strides, Emma halts and moves her weight to her front. Her eye finds the line of the flight and then refocuses to the board. Her elbow poised with power, bent and ready to be sprung. She is still. The babbling letting agent finally has nothing to say.

Whip, thud. Bullseye.

“I’ll take it.”

Sometimes a decision should be left to chance; reason and thought can only get in the way of a good thing.

By Ronan Donnelly

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