Mistaken Idenity

Mistaken Identity

If you knew when Death was coming for you, you'd avoid him, of course you would. But you'd have to know what he looked like first and he's not at all as I imagined. 

I had finished university with a pretty good degree in journalism and that pushed me out of the job market because no-one would afford me. The rent needed paying so I got work where I could, in this case a little pub. It could have been worse. 

The King's Shilling mainly served lonely old men who came in for the social. Late one afternoon I was absentmindedly polishing glasses and trying to untangle a tricky bit of plot for a story I was planning, when this nondescript little man came in. I hadn't seen him before, but he didn't cause the hiatus strangers do so I presumed he was fairly regular. I was still quite new and didn’t know everyone who came in. He was dressed in a beige mac, the shoulders dark from the rain and damp trilby. He took out a large white cloth handkerchief and proceeded to wipe the mist from his specs as he ordered his drink. I drew it as I passed the time of day. He ignored the chat. "Do you know a Jim Wardle?" he asked handing over a fiver for his half of mild.

"I think that's him sitting by the jukebox," I told him as I passed over his change. He nodded, picked up his beer and wandered over to the table where the man he was looking for was sitting. Jim didn't seem particularly happy to see him but then, as it was drawing onto evening, I lost track of them in the bustle of serving, mopping and glass collecting. I certainly didn't see either of them leave.

"Have you heard?" my boss greeted me when I reported for my shift the following afternoon.

"Heard what? I asked as I hunted around for a clean apron.

"About Jim Wardle. You must know him – always sat by the jukebox and then complained about the noise."

"Oh, him. Yes."

 "He's only gone and died." My boss's name is Derek, not Subtle.

Everything stopped for a moment. "What?" 

"He's dead. Heart attack they're saying."

"When?"

"Last night. After he left here. Apparently, he got in and his wife turned on him for being late and he just sank to the floor clutching his chest.’

"Who told you?"

"Jack Creswell. He lives next door. Ma Wardle went there in a panic. She and his missus are pally like." It was a bit of a shock because it was someone I knew, but Jim was an old man who liked the beer and fags.

‘I suppose his time was up," commented my boss, philosophically, before disappearing down the cellar to change a barrel.

The wake was held in our pub, and it was all very sad until the drink took hold and then things livened up a bit.

"Eh, he would have enjoyed this, would our Jim." It was his next door neighbour. I expect he would have liked the opportunity I thought but just smiled and handed him another pint.

Jim drifted from our thoughts as folks do when the world turns, and life goes on. Then one afternoon the little gentleman came in again. He had the same beige mac, the same trilby, and ordered the same half of mild. I had him pegged as a travelling salesman and we were on his route. He passed a fiver across and asked for Ged Barnett. At that moment Ged took out a large dirty handkerchief and sneezed loudly into it. I nodded in his direction and the stranger went across to him. I watched him sit and saw a conversation start up. Then someone came to the bar, and I lost track of them.

Ged didn't appear again and when I asked was told that he'd died. I mean, he must have been a hundred and eleven if he was a day, but Derek told me he was only a lad at eighty-nine. His missus had the wake in the co-op rooms which was frowned on by Ged's drinking friends, but it didn't stop them going. 

I felt a trickle of unease when I next saw the gentleman in the bar. 

‘Is Sam Morgan in yet?" he asked as he pulled out his customary five-pound note.

I nearly dropped the glass, my hand shaking visibly. "I'm Sam," I said. He looked me up and down and then took a cool looking notebook out of his inside pocket. One side of the cover was sky blue with white fluffy clouds and the other had tongues of fire like a storm – lightning perhaps. It was totally not something I would have expected a chap like him to own. He flipped the pages and checked something written in there.

"It's not you. Samantha Morgan. Do you know her?"

"She'll be in later for the quiz." It was my boss. The gentleman nodded, picked up his change and went and sat in one of the booths.

I couldn't settle. I watched for this lady with the same name as me. I saw her enter with her partner, watched as the gentleman went to speak to her, saw her run out of the pub, heard the squeal of brakes a few moments later. I just stood open mouthed when a young man rushed in shouting about an accident, and could he have a blanket? I looked for the gentleman but couldn't see him. It was then I decided that he was Death, and he was picking up his victims in our pub. What I had thought a neat little notebook was the Book of the Dead and the cool cover depicted a lacy cloud heaven and fiery hell.

As it turned out, Sam Morgan was fine. Sam's partner organised the quiz and had forgotten the questions. Sam had run out to go and fetch them and was just in time to witness an accident. The victim was a young boy who had come off the pavement without looking. He rode his bicycle right in front of a car which had to swerve to miss him. The kid was a bit battered and bruised and Sam, in her capacity as a nurse, had taken care of him until his mum arrived. 

I still couldn't shake the notion that the gentleman was Death and watched Sam Morgan for two weeks before I got tired and stopped. It was a drunk attacked her at work, knocking her over. She banged her head on the corner of a trolley and died from the trauma. I'm sorry for Sam and her family but I might use that in one of my stories.

I didn't see the beige little man for a while after that. I was determined that I would be busy when he needed serving. Life was good at the time. I didn't want to be caught up in anything I couldn't explain. 

He did come in eventually, one day in the late summer. He was wearing the beige mac and trilby even though it was hot enough to crack flags. My boss served him and after he had gone to sit down I sidled over.

"Did he ask for anyone?"

"No. Why, should he have?"

‘It's just that whenever I've served him he's asked for someone."

"So?" 

"Well, something's happened to them shortly afterwards."

"What'd'yu mean?" 

"Old Jim Wardle, Ged Wotsisname."

"Ged Barnett."

"Yeah, him and Sam Morgan. They died." 

Wot'yu saying? He's killed them?" He looked across the room. The man in question was quietly reading one of the complimentary newspapers, his half of mild sitting squarely in front of him.

"Not him exactly. I know it, here …" I tapped my head, "…but I can't shake the feeling he's behind it." 

"Samantha was a tragedy but such things happen all the time. You've only gotta read the papers. And Jim and Ged were past their sell-by-date if you ask me. You're a daft bugger, Sam. It'll just be a coincidence. Go and clear some tables. You young'uns have too much time to think. Why when I was your age …" I didn't stop to find out what he got up to at my age but went into the lounge bar to clear glasses. It was about as far away from Death as I could be in a little pub. 

A couple of weeks later I became the entertainment. I hadn't felt too well when I got up and felt gradually worse as the day went on and by early evening the pumps were fading in and out of vision.

"Ayup, our Sam, are you alright?" It was one of the regulars.

"I don't think I am," I managed before slipping to the floor. It turned out I had appendicitis and was whisked into hospital for an emergency operation.  

Fortunately, everything went well but it was still nearly a month before I was back at work. There was a lovely bouquet of flowers on the bar when I went in.

"Goodness me, Derek, you're not going soft in your old age, are you?"

"Eh?"

"Flowers on the bar – does anyone notice?" 

"Oh them." He looked embarrassed. "They're for you. The punters all clubbed together and bought them. We thought to leave them until you came back so you could enjoy them the more." He coughed into his tea towel. "I'll get them mixers." He disappeared down the cellar in a cloud of pink cheeks and fluster. 

"Oh, by the way. I forgot to tell you, but that salesman person was asking after you," Derek told me over the clink of bottles as he made his way through the bar with a crate of ginger ale

"Which salesperson is that then?" I ask feigning nonchalance. Inside I was shaking. Hadn't I thought of the beige bespectacled man as a salesman, initially? 

"That man you thought was the harbinger of Death, yer daft twonk. He's a stationery salesman. He wondered where you were."

"You didn't tell him what I said, did you?"

"What do you take me for?" He started putting the bottles in the fridge. "He was a distant cousin of Ged's, many times removed."

"You did tell him. Oh, Derek. What will he think?"

"I didn't tell him anything. I just asked how he knew Ged … and Jim … and Sam." I turned and waited for him to continue. "Like I said, he were a cousin of Ged's. He wanted to know about the quiz night, and someone told him to ask for Sam Morgan but to be sure to get the right one."

"And Jim?"

"Dunno about Jim. Someone needed serving and I never got round to asking."

Derek's explanation mollified me somewhat, but I still watched out for the stationery salesman. I couldn't get the idea that everyone he had asked for had died soon after – and he had asked after me.

He came in about a week later and I saw him look straight at me. I snatched at the till and tore a twenty-pound note from inside. "I'm going for change," I called waving the note across the bar.

"Eh? We don't need …"

"I think we do," I called as I left, making a wide path around one of the locals in order to avoid the little beige man. 

I entered the café on the next street and ordered a coffee breaking the note. I'd put the cost of my drink in the till later. I chatted a while with the proprietor hoping that the beige man would have drunk up and gone by the time I got back. Eventually, I decided I should make a move. 

I opened the café door to the sound of sirens. The terraced streets around the pub had been built long before cars so there were stationary vehicles scattered all over the place. 

"Sounds like a car chase." As last words, these may not get ten out of ten for wit, but they were my own. My last thought was that death was very sensory. I could hear screaming behind me above the cacophony of sirens. I could smell the warm asphalt as it mingled with the tantalising aroma of the coffee I could still taste on my tongue. I felt calm now that the inevitable was happening. I could see the red car careering towards me at the speed of light. 

Then the light went out.