Bar None Read Online Free

charge?" Michael asks. He looks at me, then away again. Glances at Jessica. His gaze rests on Cordell.
    "None of us," Jacqueline says. "We make our decisions as a group. There are stronger ones, and . . . those of us not so strong. But we're all survivors together."
    "Yes," Michael says, looking at his hands in his lap. His fingers are entwined. "That's good to hear."
    Jessica comes in from the kitchen. "Almost ready," she says. We take our seats around the table, and I wonder whether Michael will expect one of us to say grace.
    Cordell and Jessica bring in the food, several steaming pots of vegetables and hot dog sausages with fried onions and mushrooms. The smell is mouth watering, and Michael's eyes go wide. "You really are surviving here," he says.
    "We're doing more than that," I say. I look at Cordell and he nods. "Excuse me for a few moments." I leave the dining room and breathe a sigh of relief when I'm on my own once again.
    The hallway is quiet, and now that the sun is sinking the shadows stretch out, friendly shapes that I have come to know well over the past few months. You really are surviving here , Michael said, and he is right. But I am also remembering. That is what my survival is for me, a process of recollecting and honouring, of creating my life with Ashley over and over again.
    I seem to have forgotten so much over such a short space of time, and digging for the memories makes me feel more and more guilty. I still cry, but it's at the idea of my dead wife rather than a particular thought. Walking the gardens, listening to nature, I see and hear only her final moments of pain. Everything else is shadow.
    But with a drink in my hand, things change.
    I pick up the big torch and go down into the cellar. It's as large as the footprint of the mansion, split into several rooms that are mostly filled with rotten furniture and other junk. But the first room is different, and it's the only one we use. When we congregated here it was fully stocked with dozens of ales and wines, and after that first week it played a big part in our decision to stay. There isn't much left now, but I bring up a crate of the good stuff, a selection of bottles that fills me with an ache of nostalgia and the thrill of knowing that I will soon be remembering Ashley.
    I hurry back upstairs, and as I walk into the dining room the subdued chatter ceases.
    "I do hope you're not a lager drinker," I say. Michael eyes the bottles as I place them on the table, and grins.
     
    We eat the meal, and drink, and the chat comes easily. He tells us something of where he has been and what he has seen, but for some reason that seems unimportant. As darkness falls outside we move from the dining room to the living room, and Cordell ventures to the basement for more beer. We are all drinking, though we know that supplies are running low. None of us has yet dared voice the fear of what may happen when we run out. I can barely think beyond that day, and I'm sure it is the same for everyone. Beer is our drug, our life, and for many of us our saviour.
    Michael seems unconcerned. He says that there is much more of everything. There's something about his eyes that makes me think there's a distance there, some defence—intentional or not—that means he's slightly removed from what he's saying, and how we respond.
    Once, I see his eyes turn watery. He looks down at his hands and blinks rapidly for a second or two, as if trying to dislodge a speck of grit. He blinks the tears away.
    Relaxing in one of the wide, soft chairs that make the living room our favourite place in the Manor, Michael is the centre of attention and the odd one out. He tells us about how he found the old motorbike idling by the side of the road, petrol tank half-full, and how he turned it off and spent the next six hours searching for its owner. The ditches on either side of the road were empty, as were the fields, and although he found six bodies in a farm building half a mile distant, they