Free Weirdo by Cathi Unsworth Page B

from a discussion he’d been half-listening to on the radio earlier. “Green industries. You know, wind farms, bio-fuels. I’m doing a sort of recce, seeing what’s feasible.”
    “Oh,” Shaun’s thick black eyebrows shot up. “Green industries, we could do with a few more of them around here.See this?” he motioned to the crutch. “Industrial accident. Local poultry producer,” he tapped the side of his nose, “in the days before Health and Safety.”
    “You something to do with that wind farm,” asked the one called Bugs, a more nasal voice, a more suspicious look on his face, “what they now put up over Scratby?”
    “That’s partly it,” said Sean, “wind power, sea power, new crops that can be farmed for bio-fuels … Area’s ripe for redevelopment, isn’t it?”
    “Could say that,” Bugs said into his pint. “Now all the oil’s run out, people don’t care too much about us no more.”
    “I just have to put in the research first, the geography, the chemistry of the soil,” Sean warmed to his theme. “Then there’s the planning for expansion, how much land would be available, how much work it could generate. Get a study written up for the department …” He could see Bugs’s face start to glaze over. “So really,” he said, not untruthfully, “I’m just nosing around.”
    “Right,” Shaun said, his smile deepening, “but what I meant was, what brought you here? To this pub? That in’t the first one visitors normally come to …”
    “Oh,” said Sean, “I just found it. They put me in The Ship Hotel, and I didn’t care much for the music there.”
    “That’s right,” Bugs nodded.
    “So I just took a walk, saw the sign for this pub and it lured me in. You got to admit, it’s unusual. Who’s Captain Swing?”
    Farman leaned over his taps. “An old legend,” he said. “’Bout two hundred years ago there was an uprising round here and he was the leader. The oiks against the toffs, you know.” He chuckled. “That’s why the pub’s named after him, ’cos most people round here think that’s what we are.”
    “He looks like Guy Fawkes,” said Sean.
    “Well,” said Farman, “no one knows what he really looked like. I had a new sign painted when I come here, Bully done it,” he nodded towards the punks at the pool table. “Owner before me changed the name to The Royal Oak and took the old sign away, put in big screen sport like every other half-arsed boozer round here, run it into the ground. We just wanted to make it like it was, didn’t we? Only that old sign was a bit corny, so Bully done a better one.”
    “You see that little old bookshop next door when you come in?” asked Shaun. “Old Mr Farrer who run it, he could tell you more. Know all the local history, he do.”
    “Thanks,” said Sean, “I might pay him a visit, then. Now, can I get you gents a drink?”
    He passed another half an hour with them, letting them tell him about themselves. Shaun had retrained on the pay-off he got from his former employer, now made a living in IT. Bugs had been unemployed since the last oil rig was dismantled.
    As he left by the side door, he nearly walked straight into the girl in the leopardskin coat who was talking on a mobile phone out there.
    “Sorry,” he said, putting out an arm to catch his balance on the wall. An almighty pain shot up his left leg, like an intravenous injection of molten lead.
    “I better go,” she said into her phone. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.” Then she turned to him. “Are you all right?”
Something about her voice
. Sean tried to bite down on the agony, as he looked at her. Thick black hair cloaked her features and the street lighting was too dim to make out very much more.
    “Yeah,” he said, dredging up the ghost of a smile. “Old war wound. Plays me up in cold weather something chronic.”
    “Right,” she said, putting her hand on his arm for the briefest of seconds. “Well, mind how you go.” She moved past him and back