Last orders at the bar.

A short story from the case studies of Dr David Hammond.

This was still a long time before David would make a career out of his interest in what might or might not be considered to be paranormal, and why people believe in such things. It is 1997, when he was still working as an industrial chemist. He and Janet had only recently made a hobby out of visiting supposedly haunted locations, but on this occasion, he had arrived at such a place entirely by chance.

Last Orders at the Bar.

David dumped the bag of pipe fittings and tools behind the driver’s seat and locked the car. Hopefully, he had everything he would need. Plumbing was not something he ever felt confident about, but even he should be able to fit some new taps.

It was Saturday morning, and he found himself in a part of Bristol he did not know well, despite having lived in the city for five years. The plumbers merchant was in an area that had once been industrial, but was now just run down. Parts of it were being redeveloped, as trendy waterfront living spread outwards from the city centre.

He had noticed the distinctive Victorian pub as he had driven from the main road into the maze of streets in the old docklands. It looked out of place, left behind by a city that had moved elsewhere.

The Mariner’s Arms.

It was still less than a year since a period of enforced idleness had made him realise that the unpredictable thoughts that passed through his mind from time to time were not a sign of impending madness, or at least he hoped they were not, and were somehow connected to places. This had evolved into a weekend hobby of visiting supposedly haunted locations around the city. Occasionally he would find something that might explain a haunted reputation, but mostly he found nothing.

One of these supposedly haunted locations was the Mariner’s Arms.

They hadn’t got round to visiting it yet, didn’t even know where it was, and now David found himself parked just around the corner on a Saturday morning, with the choice of going home to do a job he did not want to do, or to wander the short distance to the pub.

As he walked past boarded-up buildings and businesses that still somehow traded in this unwanted part of town, he tried to imagine the streets as they would have been when the docks were the very heart of Bristol. The few elegant buildings that had survived the war told of affluent shipping companies and the merchants who supplied them, all now gone, their once proud offices and warehouses neglected, awaiting redevelopment or demolition.

The Mariner’s Arms stood alone on the corner of two forgotten roads. The ground floor was a magnificent work of art, of glazed tiles in shades of rich brown and cream, with detailing in floral patterns of green that almost glowed in the summer sunshine. The two upper storeys were of red brick with sandstone features, beneath a Gothic double-gabled roof of Welsh slate. It was in immaculate condition, beautifully maintained, but David couldn’t imagine where the customers came from in this forgotten part of the city that seemed to have died.

As he approached, he could see lights inside, but the door was closed. He checked his watch, not yet opening time. He was admiring the beautifully preserved exterior, trying to peer through the patterned glass of the windows when he was startled by a voice behind him.

‘Can I help you with anything?’

It was a cheerful Geordie voice. David turned to see a man carrying shopping bags. He was tall, heavily built, with a smile only on one side of his face which gave him a quizzical appearance. A scar under one eye probably explained his lopsided expression.

‘I was just admiring the place,’ David said.

‘Have a look inside if you like,’ the man offered. ‘I’ll be opening in ten minutes anyway.’

‘Thank you,’ David said, understanding that he should follow the man around the side of the building where a plain door opened into a modern and ugly extension. David took the bags while the man found his keys. They passed into a cluttered entrance with stairs that led up to the living accommodation. The man, who was clearly the landlord and lived here, took the bags and set them down on the floor next to the bottom of the stairs, then led him through another door, past a kitchen of white tiles and stainless steel, and through another door into the main bar.

The room was pleasantly decorated, with chairs and benches of red leather and dark wood. The walls were painted white but stained yellow with years of tobacco smoke, and were covered in old photographs of the docks and people who worked there. A long mahogany bar with polished brass pumps dominated one side of the room. Everything spoke of a first-class traditional English pub.

‘I’ve heard of this place but had no idea where it was,’ David said, looking around, fascinated by the old photographs. ‘I just saw it on my way to Maxwell’s.’

‘Can I get you something?’ the landlord asked as he fussed around setting up the bar for the day. ‘I can’t serve alcohol until eleven, but I can get you a soft drink or a coffee.’

‘I’m driving anyway, so a coffee would be perfect, thank you.’

The landlord fussed about with an impressive looking coffee machine, while at the same time setting out the bar, clearly used to doing many things at once.

‘You’re not from around here,’ David said, making himself comfortable on a bar stool. ‘Somewhere near Newcastle but not Newcastle?’ he guessed.

‘A bit further north, Ashington,’ the landlord said as he set the machine hissing. ‘I’ve lived around here for fifteen years now, but still haven’t picked up the lingo.’

The conversation moved easily as David described his move from Derbyshire to take up his job as an industrial chemist. He paid for his coffee, then while the landlord disappeared to the beer cellar, he tried his best to blank out his mind, but found nothing to suggest any sort of presence in the building.

‘Did I hear this place is haunted?’ David asked when the landlord returned.

‘Hah,’ the landlord laughed politely yet dismissively. ‘Well I’ve lived here for two years, and I haven’t seen or heard anything unusual, but that is what some people say. Just a daft old story if you ask me. We’ve even had the local spook hunters here. They wanted to spend the night here, as if I have nothing better to do.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘No idea.’ The landlord came out from behind the bar and walked to the front door. ‘I have no interest in any of that nonsense.’

David wondered if these would be the same spook hunters that he would be meeting tonight? Now that visiting supposedly haunted buildings around the city had become their weekend hobby, it seemed about time they joined the local paranormal enthusiasts club. Tonight, he and Janet would go along to a modern pub to the north of the city, not far from where they lived, where this group of probable nutcases would be meeting. He would be able to tell them he had visited the Mariner’s Arms, but had found nothing there.

A small group of old boys who must have been waiting outside, wandered in as soon as the door was opened, taking up a table in the far corner. The landlord didn’t have to ask what any of them would be drinking, and he started pulling pints while at the same time setting out two boxes of dominoes on the bar. No doubt this was their routine every Saturday, possibly every day, and had been for some time.

David finished his coffee and made to leave, thanking the landlord and promising to return with Janet, and not be driving next time. It had passed a very pleasant half hour, and he still wondered how such a perfect gem of a public house could survive in what was basically an abandoned and unloved industrial estate? Clearly it did, and by the appearance of the place, it was somehow flourishing.

Fitting the new taps proved to be much easier than expected, with everything working, free from leaks, and his mess cleared away in plenty of time before their early dinner. Their meeting was at six o’clock, presumably to be finished before the pub would get busy on a Saturday night.

David was not good at meeting new people, especially the sort of oddballs who were likely to go looking for ghosts in old buildings, but they turned out to be friendly, and not at all oddballs. He and Janet soon found themselves in conversation with a couple of their own sort of age who, like Janet, worked at the university, but it being such a vast place, their paths had never knowingly crossed. There was the usual ice-breaking discussion about people and places they might have in common until that line of conversation petered out.

‘You should have these meetings at the Mariner’s Arms,’ David suggested. ‘It’s supposed to be haunted, isn’t it?’

‘Oh yes, it is definitely haunted,’ the wife said. ‘We had a trip there last year and found quite a lot of activity. No chance of having meetings there now though.’

There was obviously some reason why they couldn’t go back there. Maybe they had upset the landlord more than he had let on by asking for an all-night vigil. More likely, he just didn’t like having people saying his comfortable pub was spooky and haunted. David thought it best not to ask until he knew these people a bit better. ‘Well, I went there this morning, and I didn’t find anything.’

The husband gave David a strange look. ‘Well, you wouldn’t from outside.’

David got the feeling he was missing something unsaid, but let it pass. ‘I didn’t just have a look from outside. I went in and had a coffee while it was still quiet, but couldn’t feel anything there.’

The couple gave David an even stranger look. ‘What do you mean, you went in?’ the wife asked.

David could now tell he had definitely said the wrong thing, but could not work out what it could be. ‘I just went in. I wasn’t going to, it was still closed when I got there, so I was looking through the windows, but the landlord turned up and asked if I wanted to see inside, so I went in and had a coffee.’ He was about to say what a wonderful pub it was, but could sense something was wrong.

There was the sort of polite silence that precedes an awkward conversation. ‘That couldn’t have been the Mariner’s,’ the husband said. ‘It’s been closed for months. Being turned into a mini-supermarket or something.’

It was David’s turn to leave a confused silence while he went over various possibilities in his mind. ‘Are there two pubs called the Mariner’s Arms? I’m not from around here, so I don’t know the area well yet.’ He realised he must have made some sort of embarrassing mistake of which he was as yet unaware.

‘Must be a different one,’ the husband agreed. ‘I certainly don’t know every pub in Bristol.’

‘Well, it looks like I was looking for something in the wrong pub then.’ David looked at his lime and lemonade, almost untouched, and he was now feeling decidedly uncomfortable although he couldn’t say why. He wondered how quickly they could politely leave. ‘It’s worth a trip to see this one. An absolute beauty of a Victorian pub in the middle of an industrial estate. Well, what was once an industrial estate. It’s down near Maxwell’s, the plumbing place.’ He was going to say more, but the husband and wife combination were giving him that look again.

‘That sounds like the Mariner’s Arms,’ the husband said, ‘but I would hardly call it beautiful. It’s been going downhill for years and was in a bit of a state, and as I said, it isn’t open anymore. Last time I saw it, most of it had been demolished. They’ve kept the old front, but the rest of it has gone.’

It had turned into an uncomfortable conversation again, so David steered it away onto other places they had visited, then made their excuses and they left.

‘What on earth was all that about?’ Janet asked as they walked to the car.

‘I have no idea. I assume they must be talking about somewhere else, or I got the name of that pub wrong.’

Instead of turning left out of the car park towards home, David turned right.

‘Where are we going?’ Janet asked.

‘Where do you think? It’s still early. I’ll show you this place.’ At the back of his mind was a nagging doubt. Had he got the name of the place wrong? Had he misread something and just assumed it was the Mariner’s Arms?

At the bottom of the road, he turned left towards the city centre. The traffic became busier, the streets full of people enjoying a summer evening, gathering around the popular bars and restaurants. The crowds dwindled to nothing as they drove further on, leaving the bustling centre behind, into streets where there were no bars, just grimy buildings protected by vandalised roller-shutters. The unloved streets of the old docklands.

David indicated left towards the waterfront and saw the Mariner’s Arms in front, the distinctive twin gables of the roof pointing into the summer evening sky. It was in darkness, as if closed, then David realised he couldn’t see the lower part of the building because it was obscured by hoardings. A sign advertised ‘Tesco Local, coming soon.’

At first, David assumed he had taken a wrong turn. But no, that was impossible. This was the same building in the same place that he had visited that morning, but now it was surrounded by screens and fencing.

Derelict.

He stopped the car and simply stared in disbelief. It couldn’t possibly have changed so much in a few hours, but there it was, right in front of him. Boarded up, empty.

Surely he couldn’t have imagined the whole thing, which was the only other rational possibility. He had heard of such things as an explanation for some supposed hauntings, but that just seemed too far-fetched. Could he really have just got into his car that morning and completely imagined his visit to the pub without even going there?

He switched off the engine and got out, Janet following as he walked past the hoardings to a wire mesh security barrier that surrounded the whole site. The ugly extension through which he had entered the pub, or rather through which he imagined he had entered the pub that morning, was no more. Only the shell of the original building remained, now supported by a steel framework that extended far behind the original brick and tiled façade.

It must have been a hallucination. He had heard that this explained a lot of very realistic experiences, but never imagined such a thing could be so detailed, and last (or appear to last) for half an hour or more. Could his mind really have created this entire detailed illusion, complete with the group of old men playing dominoes, and the landlord with such an unusual face arriving with his shopping bags? It was utterly bizarre.

He looked at Janet, who was clearly waiting for some sort of explanation.

They were both startled by a burst of radio static behind them. They turned to see a security guard, tall and heavily built, with a smile only on one side of his face which gave him a quizzical appearance. A scar under one eye probably explained his lopsided expression.

‘Can I help you with anything?’ he asked in a cheerful Geordie accent.

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Other David Hammond stories on Substack:

Selected Memories

The New House

Emma’s Secret

You can read about the full collection at www.nigelcode.co.uk where you will find my research project, and my thoughts about why not everything that is claimed to be paranormal is nonsense.

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Thank you for reading.