Before she goes into the pub, the barmaid known as Golden Delicious pats the apple tree outside for luck. Its bark is black, its branches bare, but the tree has become a kind of talisman in the mind of Delicious. Silly, really. Like a piece of wood could protect her!
     Entering the pub in her pleather boots, Delicious shouts, ‘Evening, Terry!’
     Terry raises a hand, but he doesn’t smile or speak. Instead, he eyes the feathers in the golden hair of Golden Delicious. They are real feathers from a real magpie; Delicious has no qualms about pinching the feathers of a bird well known for its thieving. Terry doesn’t say anything. He’ll wait, Delicious thinks, until he has a bigger audience. There is a little red heart tattooed on Terry’s chest which he showed Delicious one night. Delicious doesn’t like thinking about that night, and she reckons Terry doesn’t, either.
     The pub soon gets busy. After four hours on her feet, Delicious regrets her pleather boots. It is clear that Terry is not going to suggest she take a break; Delicious waits for a lull, then asks.
     ‘Be quick,’ Terry says. He avoids eye contact as if Delicious could turn him to stone. ‘I mean, I don’t like to be the bad guy…’ He shakes his head, then goes back to pulling pints. Foam slops onto the floor.
     Delicious heads to the back room. The microwave is very powerful and deflates her pasty within seconds. Delicious blows on it, but the filling is molten. She looks around while she waits for it to cool. There isn’t much in the room besides the microwave, just a mini fridge, a kettle, and a salmon-coloured couch. Some days Delicious comes in to find a pillow, and a bowl of soggy cereal.
     After she’s eaten, Delicious goes back out front, wiping the crumbs from her breasts. Terry nods at the feathers.
     ‘You might want to take those out, love. We serve food in here.’
     Another barmaid, who is pouring a glass of wine, looks over and laughs. ‘Oh, Terry! I don’t think a packet of dry roasted counts. You look,’ she tells Delicious, ‘delicious.’
     The crowd thins out until it is only the regulars and in one of the corner booths, a man and a woman – presumably a couple – who seem to be having problems. The woman keeps staring at the man over the rim of her wine glass. She stares, looks away, stares again. She’s on the verge of tears. The man is losing his hair and, Delicious thinks, his nerve. He keeps playing with a beer mat. Delicious notices that there is only one wine glass on the table and the bottle is nearly empty. Eventually, the woman picks up her bag and leaves. She looks agitated. She drops her bag as she nears the exit and scrambles to pick it up. The man stays where he is and continues to stroke the beer mat.
     Looking around, Delicious can’t see Terry anywhere. She tells the other barmaid, ‘I’m just going to check on a customer.’
     Outside, the rain has eased. Delicious can’t see the crying woman. The night air is cool, and the apple tree, glistening. Delicious can see stars caught in the uppermost branches. If she tilts her head, she can join the stars up to make patterns, in spite of the streetlight.
     The sound of whimpering startles Delicious. She walks round the thick, hollow trunk of the apple tree to find the crying woman on the other side.
     Delicious says, ‘Oh, babe.’  
     Between gulps of air, the woman says, ‘I. shouldn’t. have. come.’ Mascara marks her face.
     Delicious asks if she’d like a taxi. The woman nods. She can’t seem to stop.
     Delicious says, ‘Let me get you a tissue.’ She reaches into her pocket and takes out one of the pub serviettes. Then she has a thought. ‘Hold on a minute.’
     The woman, using her fingers to wipe away snot, stares as Delicious takes out a biro and writes on the serviette.
     Delicious writes and writes.
     ‘I should…’ the woman keeps saying. She fidgets, looks around.
     ‘Just hang on, babe. Hang on a sec.’ Delicious is in the flow. Phrases appear fully formed in her mind, as if someone is feeding them to her. When she is done, she says, ‘I’ve written you something. I think it’ll be better if I read it. That okay?’
     The woman is surprised into saying, ‘Yes?’  
     Delicious reads:
     ‘Do not go out at dusk with sadness,
     Nor stay in and obey its tyranny.
     Arrive at it with feathers, and ice, and lips.
     Rouge it up a bit!
     The night expects some theatre.
     Lift your spirits – don’t mix ’em – and remember,’ here Delicious locks eyes with the woman, ‘Better me and you,’ here, she cups her face, ‘better me and you and the Milky Way, than you and the sofa alone.’
     ‘Babe,’ Delicious says. ‘Do you hear what I’m saying to you, babe?’
     The woman tells Delicious she is so kind, so kind, but she doesn’t take the serviette. The taxi arrives, whisks her away. Delicious, a little disappointed, folds the poem up and stows it away in her pocket. 
     Back inside the pub, Terry is seething. All the anger is broiling up in his veins, especially the one on his forehead.
     ‘You’re taking the piss, aren’t you?’ 
     ‘I’m sorry,’ Delicious says, ‘but there was this woman-’
     ‘It’s always bloody something with you.’
     Terry hisses through his teeth that Delicious is here to do a job in case she didn’t realise.
Delicious says, ‘Fuck you.’ 
     There is a beat, and then another, then Terry says, ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.’
     He’s turning away, giving Delicious the chance to carry on as they were. Delicious reaches for the biro and serviette in her pocket. She writes in black, shaky letters.
     ‘Terry?’
     She holds the serviette up. Terry’s eyes widen.

 

*

 

Back when he took over as manager, Terry pictured sun-dappled afternoons and happy punters. By his side, there’d be a woman. Maybe one day, the two of them would buy the pub. Terry can’t see the woman’s face clearly in his mind, but she’s a looker, and kind, too. Cos not all of them are, let’s face it. Some of them are all take, take, take. They might look all lovely and soft on the outside, but their core is rotten. They want to control you. Terry needs a woman he can trust with his tender heart; that’s why he got the tattoo. To remind himself that, in spite of being fucked over so many times, deep down he is still a romantic.
     But since Golden Delicious resigned, the face of Terry’s dream woman keeps morphing into the face of his former barmaid. He plays over that night in his mind. She’d let him kiss her. She’d said he was an attractive man. Terry is learning to ignore his hunger; it is a pitstop to pain. The memory of Delicious pulling away. Removing his hands from her breasts. Her breasts, like the golden apples after which she was named… Terry rolls over and buries his face in the horrible, pink couch. 
     In the weeks that follow, the apple tree out front begins acting strangely. It’s been dead for ages. Nothing left to give. Then suddenly…
     First come the buds, small and white. Punters remark.
     ‘Unseasonal!’ they say.
     Next come the flowers, as if it were spring. Long stamens bleeding pink. The huge blossoms make the perfect backdrop for a wedding photograph, and couples come from all over, all lining up for their own shot of Eden. The sight of so many brides is eerie, mist creeping over ivory shoes… 
     It should be great for business. Terry, one staff member down thanks to Delicious – blonde bitch – should be rushed off his feet. The problem is, people aren’t coming into the pub. They’re just taking selfies with the tree. Terry keeps the doors open, he even steps out a couple of times to try and tempt people in, but they ignore him. Too wrapped up in their phones, only interested in how many likes their filtered version of love will get. Terry could swear that the tree is mocking him, the twisted, ugly trunk with its fucking pink…crown. Couples have carved their names into the bark, inside wobbly hearts. This winds Terry up so much that he strikes the tree. A band of blood appears on his finger where a ring might be.
     Worse still, Terry’s loyal customers keep asking where Delicious is, that funny girl with her feathers. Terry tells them that she’s gone off to retrain as a life coach, would you believe! It’s laughable. It’s also a pain in Terry’s arse having to tell this tale time and again.  
     Anyway, the blossom doesn’t last long. It bursts and dots the ground like confetti.
     Next comes the fruit. 
     Little green apples that swell, then darken.
     ‘Funny!’ Punters say. ‘Could have sworn it was Autumn!’ 
     Now giant, ruby specimens, the apples are ripe for the plucking. Terry decides to capitalise on this and sets about brewing a special house cider. He uses the apple mill he ordered online to chop and chew the apples into a pulp – once he’s scrubbed them clean of bird muck. He adds a cultured yeast to speed up the fermentation, eager to see the surface of the liquid clear and the sediment clog at the bottom. It makes Terry feel a bit like an alchemist. He finds himself enjoying the process. This is exactly what he needed – a project. Something to bring him back to himself.
     After just a few days, the sweet fragrance is enough to tempt Terry to try the cider. He knows it can take weeks or months for cider to become palatable, but maybe there’s something in the fast-fruiting tree that’s readied the produce early. Terry dunks a glass into the golden-brown liquid and drinks.  
     It’s like no cider he’s ever tasted. It’s…
     Delicious.
     Terry can feel himself fizzing with excitement and sets about bottling it up. He writes on the chalkboard outside in swirling letters:
     Now serving Bouborough Blossom! Special brew cider made with famous Apple Tree apples.
     He prices the drink at £4.95, then rubs out the chalk and writes, £6.50
     This could really be the start of something, Terry thinks. High rents have threatened the pub for years; perhaps a new product will mean it can compete with those trendy breweries down the road.
     Terry can see the headlines:
     Local hero saves pub!
     Appily ever after for entrepreneur!
     Golden Delicious will be sorry.
     Now, Terry is not one for the Internet, but he does his best, posting pictures of the tree and one of himself with a pint of Blossom in hand. Terry does not like his gummy smile and so keeps his mouth closed. The result means he looks strained, and older than he thought, but it doesn’t matter – the picture gets over one hundred likes and a few days later, a group of young people with bullrings and wonky haircuts rock up at the Old Apple Tree. So long as they are willing to splash the cash, Terry couldn’t give a fig what these kids look like. 
     The Bouborough Blossom is ready. Pints of yellow gold. Terry reckons it’ll outsell Brimscombe cider in time. Except when the first customer tastes it – a lad with a coffee-stain moustache – he pulls a face. 
     ‘That is wrong. Sorry, mate, but I really think that tastes off?’
     Terry takes the glass and swills it. He’s fuming, but he knows the power these keyboard warriors have, and it’ll do business no favours if he kicks off now. The lad probably just can’t handle a real drink. Terry knocks the glass back. The liquid turns to piss in his mouth. It tastes so acrid that he is forced to spit it back out. In his cupped hand, the liquid pools along with a live, wriggling worm. 
     Following this unfortunate incident, Terry tips out the rest of the cider and wipes all trace of it from the chalkboard and the worldwide web. Meanwhile, the apples still on the tree moulder and thud to the ground. The postman receives a black eye. Imagine, people say, if it had happened to a child! But what’s behind it all? The Echo speculates, Acid in the soil. Oestrogen in the water.
     Classic, Terry thinks! It would be the female hormone, wouldn’t it?

Charlotte Newman is an alumnus of the London Library Emerging Writers Programme. Her fiction has been published in titles including Popshot Quarterly, The London Magazine, and Litro and several of her stories were long-listed for the Reflex Press prizes. Charlotte has an MA in Creative Writing from the Royal Holloway. 'Golden Delicious' is taken from a collection of short stories inspired by the myths behind the zodiac.

​

Of the story featured here, Charlotte says:

​

‘Golden Delicious is one of my ugliest tales! It is about creative juices and rotting apples – while the tree feeds the barmaid's poetic imagination, manager Terry poisons his own well. The story was in part inspired by the Greek goddess, Nemesis, and a misunderstanding of the Thomas Hardy poem, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.’