by Paul Harris
Frank and Joanne had found an empty table in the corner. They were often the first to arrive when we arranged to meet at this venue. Frank loved it here and always drank the bitter. It occurred to me that they were the only couple I knew that could sit, contently, in a pub together without others around to shore up the conversation and keep the petty niggles at bay. I brought three drinks over to their table and joined them. They were planning a romantic summer holiday to the Canaries and I felt a complete lemon, sitting there listening to them discussing what swimwear they ought to purchase. Frank could be a bit of a tart when he let his guard down.
I got up, went to the jukebox, put a pound in, and decided to stay there. Frank’s table began to slowly fill up as the others arrived. Everybody seemed to be out in couples; even Mike had a girl with him. They came in two at a time as if they were boarding the Ark. After each new arrival, I received a hearty hand shake and a kiss on the cheek, and a cross-examination over why I was standing alone, and an entreaty to come join them at the table. I told them that I was standing guard over the jukebox and they left me to it. That’s what me and Broomhead did in this pub; we stood guard over the jukebox so that only people who looked okay could use it; only the music that we liked got played.
Broomhead never missed a Friday night out with us and I was beginning to wonder where he was when I saw him come through the door and creep through the haze of smoke towards me. I smiled at him but his face remained expressionless. He didn’t even see me; he walked straight past without acknowledging my presence. I called out to him above the crowd but he couldn’t hear me.
Frank was behind me tugging at my shirt. “Why don’t you come and sit down, Rod?”
“What up with Bob? He walked straight past me.”
“That weren’t Broomhead. Come and sit down.”
“Who was it then?”
“How would I know who it was?” yelled Frank, irritably, in my ear, “It was some other geezer.”
“Looked like him to me.”
“You’re losing it,” he muttered, under his breath, but I distinctly heard him.
“Where is he, anyway? Anyone know? Anyone care?”
“Come and sit down.”
“I ain’t sitting there all night chatting shit about holidays and mortgages and four-by-fucking-fours.”
Frank shrugged and went back to his conversation, which, it turned out, had moved on to decorating his spare room, and what colour emulsion he was going to get from Homebase.
“You’re boring tonight, Frank!”
“And you’re pissed again tonight, Rod!”
“Yeah,” I yelled, defiantly, whilst staggering two paces backwards. “What’s new?”
There were people everywhere, squashed tight against each other, squashed tight against the bar, squashed tight against me, shoving me this way and that way. There were little figures and larger figures, slower figures and faster figures, drifting in the smoke. Some of them laughed at me, mostly they ignored me, but I could hear them whispering about me every time I turned my back. The air hissed with their malevolent gossip. I finished another pint, staggered some more, and looked for Marriott but couldn’t find him. I felt abandoned.
Joanne brought me a Scotch over. I picked the ice cubes out of it with my fingers and tossed them on the floor. She laid a hand on my elbow as I knocked it back in one go. “Why don’t you come and join us, Rod?” she asked, sweetly, “You look so fed up standing here all on your own. Come and sit with me.” She looked especially nice tonight and smelled nice too. I wondered, to myself, what she tasted like. I cast a glance in Frank’s direction and thought better of it.
“I was just waiting for Broomhead,” I explained, “he’ll be here soon, I should think.”
I smiled, reassuringly, but her expression remained one of concern. “Well, if you’re sure,” she said and then smiled the most wonderful smile, so touching and so full of impassioned concern. She weaved her way back to Frank, and I glanced at him, once more, with unrestrained envy. The glance, involuntarily, became a full blown stare and, suddenly, I became aware of voices calling out to me from a different direction. I turned my gaze from Frank to follow the voices, just as he was becoming justifiably agitated by my overbearing attention.
These voices buzzed and bounced, merrily, in the haze. They addressed themselves to me, and only me; they drew me on, through the crowds of happy faces, but remained out of reach, always out of reach. As I began to wonder whether the voices were even real, my search was vindicated. About twenty feet away from where I stood, there sat Moke with her back to me. She was sitting at a table with a noisy crowd of people, none of whom I recognised. I pushed through the throng and made my way over to her; one by one, they reluctantly let me through. Smoke drifted into my eyes and I could feel salt slightly smarting the inside of my lids. As I got closer to her, my heart was beating like a jackhammer, and my head was pounding as if ready to explode.
I tapped her on the shoulder and she disappeared; she’d got to her feet and walked right out of my mind; right on out of the haze. I was face to face with a very pretty young girl who looked no older than school age. She smiled up at me, uneasily. A young bloke with coiffured blond hair and massive gold rings in each of his ears, leant over their table towards me. “What’s the problem, pal?”
I was confused and must have looked like the stereotypical rabbit caught in the headlights. I couldn’t quite tell whether he was making a genuine enquiry and was concerned about my welfare or whether he was just giving it large. I couldn’t understand where Moke had gone. I was puzzled as to why she would call me over and then not be there when I arrived. I didn’t understand why she would do that. I didn’t understand where Broomhead was. I didn’t understand a lot of things, but mostly, I didn’t understand whether this geezer was fronting me up or not. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him, and then someone grabbed me from behind and I span around with both fists clenched and half an eye on the empty cider bottle that was standing on the table in front of the girl, just within my reach.
“Alright, Rod?” It was a couple of the Scottish lads down from Willesden, wearing big broad grins all over their faces. “Where’s your beer. Want one?”
“Scotch,” I heard myself slur, “I’m paying homage to the Scottish nation tonight.” They liked that, and they dragged me off to the bar.
“I like your style,” said Mo, with a voice like a Range Rover ploughing along a gravel track.
“Aye,” said Kenny, with a rare wry smile, “we’ll make it three; three large ones.”
Peculiarly, we went back a couple of years, the three of us. I’d been out down their manor a few times with Frank, Broomhead, Oscar and Mike. We’d met during a bit of a fracas in their local and, although we’d been on opposing sides during it, we all ended up at Mo’s flat with lines of Charlie and cans of McEwan’s Export. They even gave me a plaster for one of my knuckles. Kenny was the larger of the two; a giant with a face like a bag of potatoes. He put an arm around me and dragged me, effortlessly, over to the end of the bar, where Mo was just getting served. “So how are you, Rod?” he asked, “Seriously, like?”
“Good as gold,” I lied.
“Been at it again?”
“How do you mean?” I asked, glancing over at Frank and the others. I still couldn’t see any sign of Broomhead.
“Fighting again, eh?”
“Not really; ages ago; last week. How’d you hear?”
Kenny laughed. “How’d I hear? It’s written in your face there.” He prodded my cheek with one of his big sausage fingers.
I winced but tried not to show it. “Nah, that’s not it. No one gets that close to me,” I winked, but winking in a dark and smoky atmosphere is pointless. “Did it at work. Pallet of bricks caught me.”
“Nasty,” remarked Mo as he handed me a glass of whisky, “Still hoddying then?”
I sipped. “What else can I do?”
“Same with us all, Rod,” sighed Kenny, “same wi
th us all.”
As they spoke, I peered past them into the haze, and everywhere I looked, I saw Moke; in every corner; behind every shadow; behind every voice. She poured herself from every glass of alcohol I swallowed.
“So, where’s your lass?” asked Mo.
I shrugged nonchalantly.
“Like that, eh?”
“Don’t matter. Know what I mean?”
“That’s the spirit, Rod,” said Kenny.
The occasional glance over at Frank, surrounded by his cohorts, brought to mind a dinner party that was once held to celebrate Sol’s twenty-first birthday. Like Frank, Sol also thirsted for attention and to be the centre of his Universe. He sat at the head of the table, surrounded by bottles of wine, condiments, and his fawning admirers, and me. I sat there, picking my teeth, spitting mouthfuls of wine back into my glass, and sneering at Sol’s feeble jests and the general company’s soporific small talk.
Sol’s sister, Ringlet, was there that night. She was only seventeen at the time, but she turned up with a man in a suit who said that he worked in the City. Although only a couple of years older than us, he was a man and we were still boys; because he wore a suit when he went out for dinner, had a proper job, and said the right things. He talked about cars and employment prospects and the Dow Jones index, while we jabbered on about pop music and shagging.
I slouched in my seat and settled back to admire Ringlet’s bone structure and the way that she talked; and she could talk; and talk; and talk. I examined, with awe, the way that her jaw bones rattled away without so much as a pause for breath. She would raise her head slightly and, unsteadily, gulp air through her nostrils as she spoke so that she wouldn’t lose her dominant position in the conversation; any conversation. She participated in multiple conversations, simultaneously, her head sailing to and fro as if spectating on the Centre Court. Nobody’s conversation, however inane, was immune from her patronage.
She was petite and extremely pretty and, throughout the entire evening, didn’t notice me once. I was a dark, pagan marauder from the North and she was a pale and delicate lady ensconced in a tower of ivory.
I fought my way through a three course meal of pasta, spaghetti, and yet more pasta, with a politely fabricated smile of contentment on my wine-flushed face. I had never seen a gathering of so many aunties and uncles and cousins and second cousins and third cousins and, as an entity, they pinned me to a silent contemplation of my knife and fork throughout the duration of that trial by family anecdote.
That night, and for one night only, Sol had been the king of the castle, and Ringlet had been a princess. Now, Frank and Joanne were the king and queen.
“The King is dead; long live the King!” I announced, raising my glass above my head.
Kenny slapped me, heartily, on the back. “You back with us then, Rod?” he enquired, and they both laughed.
“I was miles away.”
“We know.”
“I need to get out of here.”
“Well, let’s go,” prompted Mo.
“I don’t just mean this pub, I mean everything.”
“We all feel like that sometimes, Rod. Just take it easy.”
We left just before last orders and walked along Chalk Farm Road to the cab office. The wind tore at the hotdog stands outside the Roundhouse, and lashed and rattled the corrugated iron sheeting that lined the wasteland and the derelict shop fronts; a veil of graffiti splattered rust, shrouding decaying Victorian brickwork.
Each of us gave a start, clenched our fists, and turned as one, to see an empty Special Brew can spin along the curbside, clattering and whistling until it dropped into a pothole and out of earshot. We were bent against the elements as we walked side by side, collars turned up and our hands thrust deep in our pockets. All notion of conversation was killed by the howling storm. It was dark and somehow surreal, as if Armageddon had finally arrived. The empty roads glistened and shined, neon signs flickered and buzzed above our heads, and discarded takeaway wrappers danced in the wind.
As we approached Chalk Farm Underground Station, there was a little drunken man laying into his woman. She was standing in a shop doorway screaming expletives at him and he was slapping her around the face. He was drunker than we were and was staggering wildly all over the street. When she fell to her knees and began entreating him and tugging at his trousers, he gave her a couple of pathetic little punches to the back of her head.
We marched straight up to them with rain drops dripping off our noses. “Oi!” I was there first. “Pack it in, pal!”
He stopped punching her and turned his attention to me. She looked up from the floor, tears streaming across a face that was muddied by displaced eyeliner, as if she were outraged by the impertinence of my intrusion. “Mind yer own fucking business!” he growled.
“Take her home and give her a good hiding indoors then,” I reasoned.
He poked his finger into my chest. It was a shabby worn-out red thing. “See me?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“See me, do ye? I’m frem Glasgee, see!” he announced in broad Drumchapel as if it would mean something to me. He continued to make similar proclamations but I barely understood a word of it.
“You getting any of this?” I asked Kenny.
“Aye, roughly translated: he thinks he’s a bit tasty.”
“Really?” I asked, with mock astonishment.
“Afraid so,” confirmed Mo, “The poor old sod.”
The man had stopped ranting at me, but only for a brief moment. He seemed confused, a little dazed, out of breath, lost for words, but only for a brief moment. All five foot six of him stood there, staring at the three of us with his huge bullfrog eyes. “You wan’ another one o’ them, ye wee Sassenach?” he offered as he poked the scabs on the side of my face with his ragged finger tips. I didn’t like that at all; in fact, it made my eyes water. “Cos I’ll give ye one,” he promised.
“That right?” I breathed in his face.
“Aye,” he breathed right back at me.
I stepped forward to do him some damage but Kenny tugged at my sleeve with his left hand and pulled me away. He swung with his right and the man went down as if he’d been hit by a cannonball. His legs went first and the rest of him crumpled into a heap. “It’s an internal affair,” muttered Kenny, with an air of sentimentality, as the Scotsman’s head thudded against the base of a lamp post. He rolled over in a dramatic finale, drenched in rainwater.
The moment he stopped wriggling, the woman sprang to her feet and went berserk. “You’ve fucking killed him, you have!” she screamed, “You’ve gone and killed him!” She launched herself at Kenny, shrieking all sorts of things at him that were hardly recognisable as actual words.
I asked Mo what she was saying. “Haven’t got the foggiest,” he replied, and yet he appeared to be highly amused by it all.
Kenny tore the woman’s talons out of his face and shoved her away. She staggered backwards and tripped over the old man. They lay, quite still, huddled on the pavement together. As we walked away, we could hear him snoring.
The wind had subsided slightly by the time Frank and Joanne caught up with us on their way to the taxi rank, but Joanne’s skirt still fluttered prettily around her knees like butterflies around a flower. I arranged to share a cab home with them.
“Did you see that old couple back there?” Frank asked.
“No,” said Kenny, dabbing his nose with a dirty handkerchief.
“They’re just lying in the road together, out of their trees.”
“Might be you and Jo in a few years,” I quipped. Frank wasn’t at all keen on that suggestion but Joanne laughed. I think she was just being kind to me. They sat in the back of the car, holding hands like lovestruck teenagers all the way home. I sat in the front, staring straight ahead. “Did Broomhead turn up in the end?” I asked.
“No!” replied Frank, abruptly.
“I wonder what happened to him. He never misses a Friday session.”
&n
bsp; Neither of them said anything.
They dropped me outside my flat and wouldn’t accept any money towards the fare. I slowly climbed the steps, alone, up to the front door and let myself in. Inside, it was silent and empty; bare and dark like a dead man’s place. I turned the light on and waited for Moke to come out of the bathroom, drying her hair, and telling me that it had all been a great misunderstanding; but she didn’t. I splashed cold water on my face and chewed toothpaste to clear the raw taste of tobacco from my throat. Perhaps she’d be lying in bed, waiting for me. I’d sober up and everything would be okay again. I drew the quilt back and the bed was empty; emptier than it had ever been.
I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in the mirror as I took my shirt off. I struck a forlorn figure, blue tattoos, ugly and twisted, making no sense to me at all now. I heard a baby crying in the night and it touched a nerve; it seemed to bring the shutters down. My legs buckled beneath me with exhaustion; tired of life, willing it all to end. I knelt, helplessly, on the cold parquet floor, resting my forehead on the side of the bed as if I was praying, and, perhaps, I was. I cradled my face in my hands and began to weep. I knelt there for hours, until it was light, listening to the voices of children from far off places, and sobbing quietly in my empty world.
Chapter Twelve
Hungerford Bridge
I reached Trafalgar Square as the night bus skipped past me and disappeared down Pall Mall. I’d been ordered “up West” for a night out, to cheer me up, and to drag me from my ever-swelling pool of self-pity. Instead of waiting for the inevitably convoluted arrangements to unfold, I had come alone. It was a mistake, a huge error of judgement; I’d forgotten how unforgivingly lonely it is standing in a pub alone, especially in the West End, where nobody pays any attention to anybody anyway, unless they’re beautiful, and I’m not.
My head was aching with the force of all the nonsense rolling around inside it. The swirling rush of the traffic caused my eyes to water. I stood amongst drunken students who cavorted and giggled, and hurled chips at one another as they drank Chardonnay from the bottle. They embraced and groped through layers of denim, and fell in love for the first time. This was not my world; I was an alien here. I abandoned the hour long wait for the next bus, and wandered off in no particular direction.