MIKE EVERLEY

The Ship of Fools

Tucked away down an intricate maze of side streets, inconspicuous except for the sweet aroma of hops emerging from behind the main entrance door angled at the side of the building and hanging on its hinges a drunken Pythagoras. The wooden sign flapping noisily in the breeze proclaims its name: The Old Cape Horner. Although to regulars it is known by its old name The Ship of Fools, or simply as The Ship.

Inside the first impression is of an ancient sailing ship. Dark stained wood surrounds you, with timber pillars stretching skyward and fretted side panels boxing in the seated areas with their plush red leather couches stretching along oaken walls.

Faded photographs hang randomly around the partitions, telling tales of tall ships with billowing white sails from a port long gone and passed into folklore. One of the ships has an oaken mermaid carved as a figurehead. She proudly presents her svelte form above the crashing waves.

A flotsam of passengers from the night sit at long tables and guard their drinks and their dusky secrets, in the dim lighting you could believe that they were from any time or age. This is their sanctum and sanctuary from the swelling tide of life. A passer-by straying inside does so at their peril as this is no haunt for the faint hearted. Here, you can almost hear the wind in the canvas, the wooden planks creaking and feel the salty spray lashing your cheeks. Only those familiar with the secrets of Davy Jones’ locker feel at home.

Old Tom stands beside the curve of the bow-shaped bar. From a distance you might fail to notice the dark red patches on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. But, moving closer they come into focus along with the slight tremble in his claw hand. When he lifts his pint glass towards his waiting blue lips, the shake intensifies and becomes more noticeable. The bartender moves a drip mat into a more suitable position to catch the drops running down the glass. Old Tom is too preoccupied with his thoughts to notice or to care.


He wasn’t always Old Tom
glued to the bar
red blotched
hand shaking
eyes glazed over
with age’s cataracts.
He had been young once
idealistic
ambitious
good looking,
according to some,
a lover of women.
Not this frail shell
hovering over his glass
watching the froth
dissolve and disappear.
Waving the world away
with a translucent hand.


As a young man he was strikingly handsome with a quick mind destined to do well. Except for that one flaw. Pride. Listening wasn’t for him. He knew best and was determined to go his own way and find his own path even if that meant making mistakes. And make them he did, by the score. But, at least, they were his mistakes.

At times though this very core of hubris worked to his advantage, particularly in the financial world. Here confidence was the key and Tom had that in spades. Good looks and confidence could take you far and, for a long time, it took Tom very far indeed. Then, like Icarus before him, his pride led him to fly too close to the sun. A metaphor of course, or is it an analogy I can never recall the difference. In time it will become clearer. But, for now, let us consider Tom in his prime.

The metal and glass structure wasn’t tall by today’s standards, but in 1980s London it was quite impressive. It housed an army of young people who had taken to wearing braces to hold their trousers up and to stabbing their colleagues in the back to gain an advantage. They were the financial arm of Thatcher’s revolution and considered society as a bad smell. Tom felt right at home.

It was on the grouse shoot in Scotland that he first met her. A team building exercise they called it. As if such a thing as a team could exist between that motley crew of cutthroats. They had arrived from London in their gas-guzzling Chelsea tractors. Abandoning their pinstripes for Barbour Classic Waxed Jackets and designer green Wellington boots. Lording it over the staff engaged to cater for their every need in the lodge, that was more like a Manor House, situated on the edge of the loch, its waters a grey pebble snuggled between bleak mountains shrouded in white mist.

They shouldered their double-barrelled shotguns while the beaters raised the grouse, which were so tame that they walked happily towards their killers in anticipation of being fed. The hedge-fund hunters blasted away merrily. The smell of cordite, blood and death hung in the air a dark cloud. They headed back towards the lodge high on adrenaline and suddenly very hungry. Their cheeks streaked dark red.

When they got back to the lodge the light was failing and the sky was streaked with purple. Inside the great hall the twelve arms of the chandelier each carried a candle bulb emitting a soft golden glow that irradiated the woman standing below.

Her red hair flowed a crimson waterfall down to the middle of her back. She wore a cream dress, belted in the middle, which spoke of pure class. Tom thought she was the proverbial pearl amid the swine. In the distance he glimpsed a female member of the caterers pouring champagne out of a muddy boot into a row of shining glasses.

“Who is she?” Tom asked one of his colleagues standing next to the buffet and helping himself to a plateful of salmon sandwiches.

“Trouble,” he answered between mouthfuls. “That’s the boss’ wife. Great to look at, but untouchable.”

But, for Tom, that made her all the more attractive and he was determined to have her. Like a beautiful butterfly he would add her to his collection. She would be unable to resist him. He moved slowly over towards her. She glanced at him quickly and then turned her head to look away. Her hair shimmered in the movement. Tom was captivated.

“Excuse me, but can I get you a drink. Or perhaps a canapé from the buffet.” Tom almost winced for making such a crass opening gambit. But, she turned and looked at him with a smile on her face and a slight reddening of her cheeks.

“A white wine would be nice,” she replied and Tom scurried away towards the makeshift bar. His fate forever sealed. His doom foretold.

At first she did all the arranging. Brushing past his desk when she wanted to meet, her perfume lingering and driving him wild with excitement. They met in a small hotel just off Oxford Street. A discreet no questions asked establishment that appeared to know her well. He suspected that she had brought previous lovers here and would bring future lovers as well. But he was too intoxicated to ask or dwell on the matter and his pride led him to believe that she would never grow tired of him. But of course she did and, like the many times before, confessed all to her husband. He forgave her, but not Tom. Not only did he lose his job, her husband made sure he would never work in the financial sector again. So began the long, lean years into decline.

The bartender himself is also worthy of note. He is a tall virile man, slightly bowed as tall men often are. A pair of fierce blue eyes stares out from his angular face. A mop of brown hair sits untidily upon his head as if unsure as to why it is there. A slightly hooked nose hangs precariously above the slit of his mouth that is as dark red as an old wound. He speaks very little, but is known to be a very good listener and keeper of secrets. His mind is a repository of strange stories that will never be repeated.

Keeper of secrets.
Repository of stories
never to be shared
or told.
Alcohol’s confessional.
Keeper of keys
to life’s kingdom
of unfathomable depths
where dark shapes
lie in wait.
Beneath your mop
of untidy hair
they swirl unspoken.
Best left unsaid.


Robert, let’s call him that although it isn’t his name, had been very different in his youth, a veritable blabbermouth with whom no gem of gossip was safe.

“That mouth of yours will bring nowt but trouble.” His mother had often warned to no avail after several relationships and a few marriages ended due to his tattletailing. But it was to no avail. Nothing was secret or safeguarded from his indiscreet lips. Until that day, of course. When it all changed.

The long, green metal snake, with its yellow darting head, wound its way into Paddington, regurgitating its passengers onto the platform. Amongst them was Robert. He was hungry. The journey had been long and tedious. As the train grew closer to the capital it became more crowded. With the buffet car closed due to staff shortages, the small cart pushed along the aisle had soon been reduced to crisps and biscuits.

The hotel in Sussex Gardens had disappointed him. It wasn’t what he had expected a big city hotel to be like. As for his room, it was more a shoebox and a dirty one at that. As for the cramped space called a shower, it looked like it needed a shower. Still he didn’t intend to stay in the room for long. After dropping off his small suitcase, he headed off in search of food… and excitement. After all, this was London. And it was his first time there.

Soho was where he headed first. However, he found it a little flat. Full of gift shops selling tourist tat. Gone were the sex shops and striptease parlours he had heard about and longed to visit. This was a new, cleaner Soho. It left him disappointed and disgruntled. London was beginning to let him down.

Then he saw them. Huddled close together under Eros’ statue. Quite appropriate, he thought, given the way they were kissing. Mrs Evan’s from two doors down back home. And that certainly wasn’t her husband. Robert’s mind raced to the inevitable conclusion. They were obviously having more fun in London than he was. If only he had someone to share this juicy bit of gossip with.

Robert toyed with the idea of following them like the shamuses on television, but his interest soon tapered off. Standing outside a restaurant while two lovebirds cosy up to each other over the menu soon loses its appeal. As the night grew on he envied them in the brightly lit restaurant across the street from where he lurked in the shadows. He watched through the large plate glass windows as they bent towards each other across the table, their hands touching gently upon the white linen tablecloth. Even a voyeur can only stand so much.

So he left them and headed back to his hotel and its lonely room. He knew that the idea of seeing them again in London was remote. But he already had enough information for his overactive imagination to work upon. What a story he would spin when back home. He couldn’t wait.

The rest of the London trip proved uneventful and to Robert boring, not too soon he was boarding the Brunswick Green metal eel for home. Thundering through emerald and golden English countryside towards the long Severn Tunnel. The trip gave him time to rehearse the story he would tell. Not all in one go. Rather spun out to intrigue and capture attention. Over the years he had honed and refined the storyteller’s art. Embellishing where necessary. After all, why let the truth spoil a good story.

Robert never discovered how Mr Evans got to hear about his wife’s affair. But it was a small community after all. Once Robert had told his sister, a group of acquaintances in the bar of the Feathers and colleagues at work, it was inevitable that soon everyone would know. Robert basked in reflected glory for several days. Asked time and again to expand upon his story. Slowly he added to it, fleshed it out in places. Adding colour he thought. Making it more real than the chance encounter it had actually been. His short trailing of the couple to a restaurant became a tribute to his long suffering as he trailed them across London to their hotel. Of course this was a hotel more like his idea of a high-class hotel than the sordid one he had stayed in. Romance and fantasy demanded a rich canvas.

The first he knew of the tragedy was early one morning when flashing blue light crept between the edges of the heavy blackout curtains in his bedroom. He crept cautiously from bed and opened the curtains just enough to peep out. A crowd of neighbours had already gathered outside the Evans’ house, jostling around the ambulance and police car. What the hell! Robert thought. He quickly dressed and went outside. This was something too good to miss.

Apparently the husband, distraught over his wife’s affair, had smothered both the children in their sleep and then cut his wife’s throat. He had always been an introverted man. Prone to holding his feelings deep inside where they swirled and grew without release. Perhaps it was this trait that had led to his wife’s affair with a man whose feelings were, although shallower, more on display. No one would now know.

The police found him sitting on the stairs. Shaking. Still holding the kitchen knife. Blood dripping from wounds on his arms where he had tried unsuccessfully to end his life, a dark red stain forming on the stair carpet next to where he sat. They placed a coat around him. Its hood hiding his bleached white face and empty eyes as they led him away. Next came the two small bodies carried on stretchers shrouded in white. Finally, Mrs Evans’ inert body lifted on its stretcher into the waiting ambulance.

Shortly after the rumours started. If only Robert had kept his mouth shut. Perhaps there was an innocent explanation. Not an affair at all, just Robert’s imagination and big mouth. People started looking at him differently, shifting their own sense of guilt onto him. Even his own mother and sister treated him differently. He began to feel ostracised at home, in the pub and at work. But, worse than any of this was his own guilt, if only, he kept thinking, if only he had kept what he had seen to himself.

Robert was eventually forced to move away to somewhere he wasn’t known. But, however far he travelled; his guilt always came with him. It was a permanent companion, a fellow traveller and a reminder that secrets were just that, not meant for public consumption. So he became what he was now, a repository of the darker aspects of human nature. A trusted keeper of what should never be known or shared.

The barman was just replenishing Old Tom’s glass when Curly Brown strode up to the bar. Curly had been as bald as badger’s arse for as far back as anyone could remember, but he insisted in telling anyone who would listen about his curly black locks when he was younger. He gave a cursory nod to Old Tom and pointed with his eyes to where his pewter tankard hung above the counter. It was etched with his name in silver against the duller grey of the metal.

Only a few of the regulars entrusted their drinking vessels this way. The number shrinking year by year as life’s tide swept them away. The barman reached for the tankard and pulled the hand pump labelled with the name of Curly’s poison. No words were exchanged in this ritual. It had always been that way.


Cider. Cider.
Pale and light
soon you’ll make me
nice and tight.
Flat and headless
fearful stuff
there’s nothing like
a pint of rough.
Free the bowels
let wind roar
made from apples
even the core.
Got the twitches
of head and hands
some say this stuff
should be banned.
Cider. Cider.
Pale and light
soon you’ll make me
nice and tight.


Curly took a sip of his drink then winked at the barman as a signal that it was acceptable. Standing next to Old Tom he was about a head and a half shorter with a wiry frame and quick, eager hazel eyes. He made no effort to talk to Old Tom, knowing from past experience that he would get no reply. Instead he turned and scanned the room for possible listeners. Satisfied he made his way to a table where a small group were huddled in a corner. The barman continued polishing a glass. Old Tom spilled some more beer onto the waiting beer mat. The evening was quietly drifting away, when Selena Grey waltzed in.

Since finding out her name came from the Greek for moon and that in mythology stood for the moon goddess, Selena had become more and more unbearable. Short and slim with flashing green eyes and long flowing hair dyed silver she had the beauty of a goddess and the arrogance to go with it. She cast a look of disdain upon Old Tom who remained oblivious of her. That was not the way goddesses should be treated, she thought to herself, in the old days he would have been tied to a stake and horsewhipped for his apathy. Still, the barman looked quite fetching this evening. Flashing him a smile from her perfectly white teeth she ordered a glass of white wine; large of course.

She hadn’t always been like this. A few nips here, some tucks there. Uplifts. Implants. The surgery had cost her parents a small fortune. But, as she had often told them, you can’t have a frumpy goddess. It’s against the rules.


    The hourglass figure
    with curves going out
                 and in
            like the tide.
         The careful hair
      always perfectly cut.
       Emerald eyes safe
     behind curved glass.
     Man made perfection
    hiding behind a perfect
           bleached smile.


Selena curled feline like upon a bar stool and stared at the bartender. Her long red nails curving around the stem of her wine glass ready and eager to pounce. She played this game often. Almost every time she came into the bar. Except that once when the world had caught her out and held a mirror to her manufactured face. She had been appalled. But, it was the way of goddesses to forget, just as it was the way of bartenders to remain immune.

Curly Brown returned to the bar and inserted himself in the space between Old Tom and Selena. Shunned by the crowd in the corner he yearned for someone to listen to his tales of misguided youth when his hair had been as black as his deeds. Old Tom merely ignored him and Selena turned her back towards him. Even the bartender appeared preoccupied and needed to be asked to refill his tankard. The Ship, it seemed, was in danger of becoming becalmed leaving its crew in the doldrums in need of a good southwesterly to fill their sails and lift their spirits.

Then through its open doors in breezed a stranger. All eyes turned towards him. A few mouths gaped wide. His shirt was a patchwork of bright colours. His coat of darkest raven black was thrown over his shoulders like a cloak. So light was he on his feet that he almost danced to the bar. Selena uncurled herself on the barstool. Curly ran his fingers through his non-existent hair. The bartender put down the cloth he was using to polish glasses. Only Old Tom remained unperturbed.

When the stranger spoke it was in a soft cultured voice with perfect diction and command of English, but with a slight trace of an undetectable accent. He ordered cognac with a splash of orange. The colours in the glass shimmering hypnotically under the lights above the bar, in harmony with the shirt he wore. It was as if he were colours and colours were him, Selena thought. Yet, when she raised her head to gaze at his face his features appeared to dissolve and distort. She started to imagine that she was looking deep inside herself instead of at him. Cool blue ice formed into a jagged icicle of arrogance that stabbed her heart. She looked away. The truth was far too painful to bear.

Under the bartender’s gaze, the colours on the strangers shirt started to reform into four rivers of red, two small streams and two wide estuaries that pooled together in a great crimson lake around the waistline. Into them flowed Robert’s hoarded guilt swelling the rivers into torrents and deepening the lake towards eternity. He could stand it no longer and looked away.

For Curly Brown the stranger’s face represented a child without hair, a laughing stock at school who would, in later years, adopt a mask of vanity to cover the despair from the childhood alopecia that sadly continued into adulthood. Curly could stand it no longer and turned away.

Old Tom did not look or acknowledge the stranger’s presence he merely stood peering into the glass held unsteadily in his hands. But the image he saw in the amber liquid was of her. Released, for the first time in many years, from pride’s prison she swam before his eyes, as beautiful as she had always been and as remote. He dropped the glass as if it were too hot to hold. It shattered on the counter and the liquid ran in streams towards the wooden floor.

The bartender tried desperately to mop the beer up with his cloth, ignoring the sharp shards of glass that threatened to pierce his skin. Curly stood back and Selena curled even tighter into a ball. The stranger did not move, the sweet hop-smelling deluge swirling around him without touching either him or his clothes, as if an invisible barrier surrounded him and kept him safe. He sipped his drink slowly as if removed from it all.

“Another, please.” He asked pleasantly when his glass was empty.

Some lines remembered from childhood drifted across Old Tom’s mind, although he couldn’t quite pin them down.

Knock, knock Harlequin
time to show your face,
sweet Columbina is waiting
for your fond embrace.

The stranger looked across at him and smiled. But said nothing. For a moment the hands on the clock behind the bar froze and the ticking stopped, afraid of breaking the deep silence that had fallen like a theatre curtain.

In the silence the stranger’s chequered shirt seemed to grow brighter as if feeding off the doubts and insecurities of the others. His face took on a mask-like quality of finest porcelain.


Caught in the moment,
                                 mid step
between raindrops.
The beating heart
                            stilled.

A water droplet
                            suspended
between tap and sink.
The second hand
                            frozen
on the bar room clock.

Outside of time a
                            pause
that cannot be measured.
A breath that can
                            never
be taken.

Then the heart
                        beats.
The droplet
                    falls
with sudden splash.
The clock hand
                                moves.
The wet step… continues.


The stranger finished his drink. Blew them all a kiss and danced away through the entrance doors and out of sight onto the street. Yet, he left behind an echo long after his departure. A remnant of his being. A ripple on their consciousnesses that was both delightful and unsettling at the same time.

According to Nietzsche, whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process they do not become a monster and if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Perhaps this nothingness filling you is worse than the monsters and needs to be hidden with pride, arrogance, vanity and guilt?

Stare into abyss
with stunted maturity
and nothing stares back.

In the end Old Tom summed it up best when he spoke for the first and last time that night.

“Well, that was a motley fellow.”

Mike Everley has been writing for many years and has had poetry, short stories and articles published in numerous publications and online. He was a member of both the NUJ and the Society of Authors before retirement. He was Seventh Quarry Press Poet of the Month for February 2026.