The Last Inn Before Saturn

“It’s a daft name for a pub,” Cynthia complained. “The location is pretty uncommercial even if it has half a dozen rooms for visitors. The village is unremarkable almost any other Cornish village would be better,” she insisted.

“So you’ve told me over and over again but you agreed to give it a try, there is no point changing your mind at this point, we’re committed,” Kevin her other half said calmly.

Kevin was unswayed and so they took over the ownership of a building which had Tudor origins but had been added to by subsequent generations haphazardly. So haphazardly it was not even grade two listed and the local planners seemed unconcerned about any changes they might make. The name change to Last Inn before Saturn was undertaken fairly swiftly and a local artist prepared them a hanging sign with a picture of the night sky showing Saturn with all its rings in the foreground. Cynthia and Kevin brought with them their live at home son Dean who thought of himself as a cool mechanic. Dean was nineteen and annoyed to be moving to Cornwall, but not annoyed enough to move away from his mother’s cooking or the other benefits of living at home. The final family member was Beverley, or Bev as their seventeen year old daughter preferred to be known. She was also sulking about the move and college where she intended to study hairdressing being as far away as St Austell. A bus ride which would take over an hour was the main basis for her moans.

The estate agent said the Inn was haunted by a weeping lady wearing a long white dress. None of the family noticed any indication of her presence although the public bar was haunted by Old Arthur and his neighbour Bill who lived in a pair of cottages across the road from the Inn. They arrived at opening time every evening and left only when they were ordered to leave. Arthur lived alone but Bill dwelt with his spinster daughter Emma, who by rights should be called Emblyn. Arthur insisted she drove Bill out to the pub every night so she could get some peace from him. The inn had a nice large garden for people to drink and eat in which backed on to the fields of a local dairy farmer. There was a gorgeous view of the sea about two miles distant over the fields to the south. The kitchens in the Inn had been recently renovated and they became Cynthia’s demesne. Although the villagers muttered about the city dwellers that had taken over the Inn, they soon flocked to consume the gentrified menu which Cynthia offered. The family might be a bit odd, perhaps even naff, but Cynthia’s cooking was worth every penny they charged. So the Inn prospered and coach parties stopped by appointment to eat delicious lunches and cream teas there. Cynthia ordered local produce so she became accepted by the local farming community and even the local group of the women’s institute ate their Christmas lunch there. During the summer season their bed and breakfast rooms were fully booked with many of their visitors choosing to eat their suppers there as well.

Kevin was fascinated by astronomy and had set up a telescope in the attic of the Inn. The weeping lady did not bother him there and the Inn was far enough away from a city to not have too much ambient light, so he could study the cosmos once he had persuaded Arthur and Bill to seek their own beds. Bev was becoming an attractive buxom lass even though she regularly changed the colours of her hair and maintained a down-turned pout. Dean had found a job at a garage in Polperro and would ride his over-tuned motorcycle there five days a week. In the evenings he helped his father out behind the bar and his half-sister helped her mother in the kitchens. Kevin and Cynthia employed three local girls over the lunchtime rush and the locals were now accepting that the family were much better for the village than they had expected they would be. Kevin had long term plans to make use of one of the outbuildings and make his own beer instead of buying from other brewers. He had got all the books about how to set up a brewery and although he’d never made beer before he thought he would like to give it a try. They had made a good profit over the summer and he thought that they could risk a little of it in setting up a micro-brewery in the spring. Cynthia thought he would make a pig’s ear of it, but then again she had thought the Inn was in a bad location yet they were making a go of it.

Even Bev and Dean seemed to have attracted some local interest and were making friends. The local girls were fascinated by Dean’s natural good looks and the bad boy persona he adopted. The men and boys just lusted after Bev’s curvy body and even the strange hair colours and her refusal to smile failed to put them off. Neither youngster exactly fitted into the community but they were carving out their own niches and beginning to adjust to their new positions in society. They would be oddities but as such would stand out and have followers. In some ways that was more exciting than being just one of the gang in a big town. As winter drew on the Inn was less busy and frequently the wind at night was strong rattling the old building and creeping through cracks creating draughts which made you shiver at intervals. Kevin lit fires in the bars which smoked when the wind was in the wrong direction. He began to get to know his two most regular customers and discovered that Bill had once worked in a now defunct brewery. He was supportive of Kevin’s plans denigrating the local brewery’s best product as being like gnat’s piss. Together they plotted and planned for Kevin’s Saturn brewery to be born in the following spring.

One evening the wind was worse than ever before. Rain or sleet was lashing down and driving at a vicious angle. Few customers made it in and none of the bedrooms had occupants. The only real customers were Arthur and Bill. A lad named Jake was hanging about trying to chat up Bev who was flattered but determined not to show it. Dean had his arm round a tiny blonde who called herself Kerensa although she’d been christened Karen. She was a good girl who was seriously into Cornish nationalism and played fiddle in a local band. She was not certain that she wanted to pursue the relationship with Dean because he was not really Cornish. However the night was cruel and she did not want to drive her mini home in the storm. Kevin called time and put bar cloths over the pumps and started collecting up the empty glasses. Kevin had arranged a special covered spot outside the back door for smokers, but even Dean who chain smoked normally had not wished to face the storm. No one made a move, Jake politely asked if he could take one of the bedrooms for the night as he did not want to face driving in the weather. This avoided him having to push the decision of whether Bev was prepared to co-operate and make his day. He thought she was beginning to come around to his point of view that it was old fashioned to hold out for an engagement ring.

Karen lived nearer than Jake but thought Dean was a better option than driving. Kevin managed to get Bill and Arthur up and walking to the door. He went to open it for them and could not shut it fast enough. The wind was so strong that he could barely stand up in it. He closed and locked the door.

“I don’t think anyone can go out in that. There are beds made up and I think for once they can be on the house. Breakfast will be between seven and eight thirty. So would you all like a nightcap before we show you where you can sleep? Bill do you need to let Emma know that you won’t be coming home tonight?”

Bill used the inn’s office phone to ring his daughter and explain that he was staying in the Inn. Emma agreed that it was a filthy night and that it was wise to not even try to make the short distance across the road. They wished each other goodnight and Bill returned to the bar. Cynthia and Bev had gone upstairs to make sure the bedrooms were ready, although they had been checked that morning in case they got any passing trade. Karen was persuaded to play some music on her violin while everyone had one last drink. Then Cynthia showed her non-paying guests into rooms upstairs. Kevin finished cleaning up and locked the bars up for the night. The night was so black that there would be no stars visible in the sky that night. Everyone headed for bed and although there was some negotiating going on in the corridors before sleeping arrangements were finally settled. In the end the storm and cold encouraged cohabitation and both young couples ended up together.

It was a noisy night with things being hurled around by the wind. Crashing thunder accompanied the thrashing downpour and frenzied wind. Kevin and Cynthia found it difficult to sleep and worried that the storm would do damage to their Inn. Kevin imagined he heard some strange laughter in the noises but eventually fell asleep. Cynthia continued to hear noises banging and clanging behind the sonorous sounds of Kevin snoring. Despite the noises she eventually slept. She woke with a bump the next morning. Kevin was rubbing his eyes beside her. It looked dark through the bedroom’s closely drawn curtains, but they were used to getting up early. They washed and dressed and headed downstairs to prepare breakfast for guests and family. There were some strange noises outside but they did not really analyse them. Unlocking downstairs, Kevin went outside to see what damage the storm had done to the Inn and the surrounding countryside and the village down the road.

Kevin stood and stared. He pinched himself and it hurt. The sky around him was dark and he could see the planets more clearly than he had ever done with his telescope. Saturn itself appeared as large as a pumpkin in the sky. There was only part of the road in front of the Inn, Bill and Arthur’s cottages were nowhere to be seen. He walked around the front of the building the Inn’s carpark remained together with the family vehicles and those belonging to Karen and Jake. There was part of the woods and fencing that had belonged to his farmer neighbour. Walking through the car park he could see that the inn’s gardens and outbuildings remained. The fence behind them still existed with some of the farmer’s grassy field, a small farming shed and two of the farmer’s pedigree heifers. But behind that there was no farm, no further fields and definitely no sea. There was only the panorama of the night sky. He walked as far as he could finding that beyond the piece of land on which the Inn was built and its surrounds was bare hard rock. As he walked out onto the rock he could begin to see something glistening between the rock and the sky. They were enclosed in some kind of large transparent bubble, he wasn’t sure what material it was made of but he doubted he could get through it. Kevin headed back to the Inn wondering how to explain to its occupants what had happened.

As he reached the front door of the Inn it was clear that his family and most of his guests had already discovered the news for themselves. They were however staring at something that was being built the other side of the bubble where Bill and Arthur’s cottages had been. Especially they were staring at who or what was building whatever it was. Little grey men with huge dark eyes were crawling over something transparent which was extruded from the side of the bubble. A spaceship, at least Kevin thought it might be one, was simply parked there.

“I said it was a bad idea to call the Inn that!” Cynthia said before stomping back inside to make breakfasts.

***

The hurricane that destroyed “The Last Inn Before Saturn” made the television news as did the total destruction of the area around the former Inn. Emma was shown weeping for her lost father and a weatherman tried to explain the absolute excision of the Inn and why no bodies and debris had been discovered. The farmer claimed on his insurance for two cows, a shed, some fencing and reseeding the field. Although the insurance company said it could be considered an act of God they paid up. All those in the Inn were declared officially dead and Emma sold the cottage and went to live in a flat in Truro. Arthur apparently had a son to whom his cottage had been left, who mourned his father wishing he had visited more often but saw the cash from the cottage’s sale as a godsend. There was a memorial service for those who had died in the Inn on that fateful night and a plaque was put up in the churchyard in place of a grave.

***

By the time Kevin normally opened the Inn for lunch, everyone had become resigned to the fact that it was not a group nightmare and actually seemed to be real. They were stranded far out into space on what looked like an asteroid in a bubble of air and had been kidnapped by some aliens with a strange sense of humour. Cynthia cooked lunch for the group of humans and muttered to herself. Kevin poured himself and the men a pint. Bev and Karen hugged and emoted together and Bev offered to cut Karen’s hair. The front door was hammered on and Kevin went to unlock it. Some of the aliens marched in. Three leant against the bar and pointed to the pints of beer. Kevin gulped and began pouring beer. A train of aliens carrying supplies headed towards the kitchens where they were greeted by a screaming Cynthia.

Eventually without any words being spoken, Cynthia was persuaded to prepare the aliens’ lunch and one of the alien’s stayed to demonstrate what she should do. She cooked as instructed, unsure if they were now prisoners, slaves or what. All she knew was that they really were in the last inn before Saturn.

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