Sometimes in life, you've waited too long. Do you carry on waiting?

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I was halfway through my pint when he came into the bar.

 

I was planning to finish up and head home, but something about him made me put my glass back on the table. 

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His movements seemed nervous and unsure, and he appeared to be looking for something. It was a sunny day and the bar was busy and loud.

 

The garden outside was full of people drinking cider and chatting cheerfully.

 

I loved the bar on days like that.

 

You could hide in the sound of the inane banter, the clinking glasses and plates being cleared. No one noticed you as they tried to battle their way through the crowd to fill their glasses or find their friends.

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He stood still at the back of the bustling room for a minute or so, just looking around, unnoticed it seemed, by everyone but me.

 

He must have been in his sixties, immaculately dressed in a dark blue suit with a neat white beard that came down to the middle of his chest. The beard and suit looked kind of at odds with each other. Besides, it was far too hot to be wearing a suit like that.

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He was very thin, and his movements were calm and unassuming. It was his stillness that made him stand out somehow, that and his pale blue eyes.

 

His age, the odd attire and that peculiar beard couldn’t distract from his eyes, which looked far younger and more hopeful than the rest of him. They looked kind, but despite their kindness, there was something a little sad about them.

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I carried on drinking my pint, slowly now, wondering what he would do next.

 

Eventually, he moved over to the bar, and stood there patiently. While everyone else was jostling for space, he just stood there, completely still. He was concentrating on something in his hands, something he was turning over and over with an effort that said he didn’t want to catch eyes with anybody.

 

I couldn’t make out what it was.

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When he eventually got to the bar, he was standing quite near to me, no further away than you are now.

 

He held his place well given his thin frame. It was only then I noticed the barmaid.

 

I’d been busy looking at the badges on the ales, wondering whether to stay for another or leave, and trying to decide between the one with the comedy name and the busty cartoon wench, or my usual London Pride.

 

The barmaid was in her early twenties, and wore her short black hair in pigtails, held back by little clips with pink roses on them.

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‘What can I get you?’ She asked, without looking up at the man.

 

She was wiping spilt cider from around the brass pumps on the bar with a look of agitation that silently, but quite deliberately demonstrated to anyone who may care to notice, the often unappreciated effort that went into her job.

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‘Excuse me’, he said, though he had already got her attention. ‘What time does it start?’

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His voice was soft and nervous. I strained my ears to block out the other noise I had found so comforting, and tried to listen. 

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‘What can I get you?’ The barmaid said again looking up this time, obviously not having heard his question.

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‘Excuse me’ he said again. She was looking right at him now. ‘What time does it start?’

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The barmaid paused with the cloth in her hands, confused, and looked him straight in the eyes for the first time. She looked a little startled by the honesty in them. The defensive grip on the cloth loosened, and she started talking in a tone much softer than before.

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‘What time does what start? I’m not sure what you mean’. She said, slowly looking down at the man’s suit and up into his earnest eyes again.

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Suddenly his gaze shot downward in a movement that wasn’t quite quick enough for embarrassment, but was closer to a well protected or long established secrecy, his other movements unchanged. He looked down at the object in his hands.

 

I leaned in a little to take a look, and saw it was a harmonica. It was beautifully polished silver with a gold plated mouthpiece. He held it gently in his thin, papery hands. His skin was almost translucent, and the instrument was clearly very old, but something about the way he held it was comforting, and made me feel I was strangely safe. 

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‘Oh’ he said. ‘I mean the music’. ‘The…’ 

 

He trailed off, and for a while he looked at the harmonica in silence. 

 

‘The Jazz Festival’.

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The barmaid looked blank, but didn’t take her eyes off the man. She had now, despite the bustle of the bar, also become completely still.

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He averted his gaze from the instrument and looked up hopefully at the barmaid.

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‘I thought it might be out in the garden’ the man said, then he stopped.

 

Now he looked embarrassed, and returned to studying the harmonica he was holding. His hands suddenly looked incredibly delicate with age.

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‘I’m very sorry sir’ she said, but paused, as if surprised the term had come out of her mouth. It wasn’t the kind of bar where you would refer to anyone as sir.

 

Punters were waving twenties over the bar now, leaning in the pools of cider that had again collected around the pumps.

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After a moment, she continued

 

‘I don’t know what you mean. Maybe you are thinking of another pub, we don’t have any jazz on here’.

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The man looked back up at the barmaids face, a little panicked, and began turning the harmonica quicker in his hands, without taking his eyes off her.

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‘But he told me it was here’ he said, looking the barmaid straight in the eyes. ‘That it was always here, that it was always today’. His whole body stiffened.

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The barmaid struggled for something to say. She fumbled awkwardly with the cloth that she had until now forgotten she held in her hands.

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‘Well maybe it’s at one of the other pubs in the area… but I know most of the folk round here, and I’ve not heard anyone talk about anything like that’.

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‘But he told me it was here, that it was today’, he said again, speaking quickly for the first time. He looked down again and was silent.

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The barmaid looked a little uneasy, and when I looked at the man, now studying his hands intently, there was something incredibly sad about his eyes. Maybe not quite sad, just lost. He searched the surface of the harmonica again, then put it back in his pocket and looked up.

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‘Maybe it’s later’ he said, his voice less hurried now. ‘Can I stay here for a while and wait? You don’t mind do you?’

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The question threw the barmaid, and she stepped back very slightly.

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‘Well of course, it’s a pub after all’. Suddenly she looked ashamed by how abruptly she had answered.

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‘I mean, can I get you a drink?’ she recovered, her tone soft again.

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‘Yes. Yes please. I’ll have a lime and soda water please, just a small one’ the man said.

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He stood still while she poured it, but his eyes were darting around the bar. Searching for someone. As she passed the drink over, she hesitated without resting it on the bar. 

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‘Why don’t you call him?’ she said before placing the drink very gently in the spot she had cleaned so vigorously moments earlier.

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‘Oh’. The man blushed slightly. ‘I couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t…’

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He paused.

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‘He invited me so many times, but that was so long ago, and I should have come sooner, but…’

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He stopped.

 

‘I couldn’t do that’. His stance appeared strangely wilted.

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He reached into his pocket to pay for the drink.

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‘Don’t worry, the barmaid said, shaking her head slowly. ‘It’s on the house’.

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The man straightened up a little, his sad eyes suddenly hugely grateful. He blushed slightly, and the rosy glow looked odd on his thin, papery cheeks. He didn’t look down this time.

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‘Well, thank you’. He looked like he didn’t know what to do next. He looked around the bar once again.

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‘Maybe I’ll just sit outside’, he said. ‘And listen’. ‘If the festival is nearby, maybe I’ll hear something’.

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‘Good idea’, said the barmaid.

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I had finished my drink, and was planning to go home, but I ordered another, and moved to a seat in the window, so I could see where the man had gone.

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He sat at the back of the garden, apart from the crowd. He barely touched his drink while I sat and sipped at mine.

 

No one noticed him, back there in the shade. They carried on chatting cheerfully, getting louder as the sun started to set and the cider and the heat took their desired effect. I wondered, as the rest of the crowd got drunker, louder, if the man could hear over the noise. I didn’t suppose it really mattered.

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By the time I finished my drink it was dusk and I had to go home to my wife. I looked around for the barmaid, but didn’t see her. I guessed she must have finished her shift.

 

I put on my coat, and as I left, I looked back into the garden. The man was still sitting there, hardly moving, his blue suit looked black now.

 

But there he sat, very still, listening. Still listening.