by Paul Harris
“It can’t be that bad, surely.” I held a hand out and clumsily caressed her forearm with my knuckles, but you can tell when somebody’s about to cry and it’s a really uncomfortable feeling. But, the strangest thing of all was that Lloyd Cole & The Commotions started playing in the background. “A girl needs a gun these days….” I hadn’t heard it for years, and although I knew I should have been attending to Moke and her suicidal tendencies, I began to drift again. I couldn’t understand where it had come from. No one remembers Lloyd and his Rattlesnakes anymore. A tear trickled down her cheek and I wiped it away. Another one followed it and I ran out of tenderness. “What are you going to do?” I asked her earnestly, mentally edging nearer to the door.
“You know you said that you were going nowhere, Rod? Well, I think nowhere’s on my way. Shall we go together?”
I drew my hand away from her. The tears had stopped for a moment and she was smiling again. I soon put a stop to that. “My days of chasing rainbows have gone, Moke.”
There was another slight flicker of pain before she brightened up altogether. “Oh, you’re such a tough guy,” she laughed. “Don’t you ever feel low, Rod?”
“Only on Sundays, and only some Sundays at that, when I’ve drunk too much the day before and I wake up to a pile of broken friendships and a whole lot of horrible thoughts rushing through my head all at once. I call them suicidal Sundays, but they only last until Monday.”
She laughed again and placed her hand on mine. “And do you always wake up alone on days like that?”
“Are you prying?”
“Yes.”
“How awful would that be? You’ve had fifteen pints of flat Carling and a kebab smothered in red-hot chilli sauce. You wake up the next day with a hangover and possible food poisoning, and to top it all off there’s someone you don’t really want to be with, or even know, breathing stale Blossom Hill all over you and scrolling through the text messages on your phone.”
“Is that a yes or a no? Or was it just evasive?”
“I always wake up alone. Always.”
She puckered up her lips as if she doubted that what I was saying was completely truthful. Two young men walked in and bought a couple of bottles of Magner's. They asked for pear cider which annoyed me more than the fact that they were both engaged in telephone conversations whilst they were placing their order, breaking off only to snap the words, “pear cider” at Moke, who instantly obeyed their wishes. Bar work would never have suited me, I’d have whipped their phones out of their hands and insisted on a “please” and a “thank you”. They went and sat down in a corner, still jabbering nonsense into their mobile phones.
“Since when has pear cider been a thing?” I complained to Moke.
She shrugged wearily. “Now I remember why we split.”
I ignored her barbed comment. “Well, didn’t it used to be called perry or something? They’re just pretending that they’ve invented something new. The wankers!”
I watched the two men with undisguised contempt. They didn’t speak to one another the whole time they were there, but made a series of unintelligible phone calls. If the volume of their speech was any indication, they were calling long distance. They were sitting next to a Victorian-style radiator that seemed oddly out of place in Broomhead’s minimalist wooden box. The radiator was thickly coated with the same purple paint as the walls.
Moke began removing empty glasses from the glass washer and stacking them on shelves above the bar. “Where is Broomhead, anyway?” I asked her.
“Asleep upstairs,” she muttered.
“Makes sense, I suppose. He always liked a nap. You gonna wake him, let him know I’m here?”
“No, I’m not gonna wake him, he’s better off up there out the way.”
“I haven’t seen him for years.”
“He hasn’t changed much; he’s just more of a knob.”
“You’re so bitter, Moke. Broomhead was always a good guy.”
“Bitter?” She stopped stacking glasses and began to dust the bar. “I suppose it’s my way of combating self-loathing; the guilt; the shame. Know what I mean, Rod?” And then she finally said it. “I’m sorry.” She was staring through the window, out into the street to avoid making eye contact with me.
“It’s irrelevant to me, Moke. It’s all in my rear view now, and it should be in yours too.”
The words, “Wines & Spirits” were frosted into the pane of glass through which she’d been peering. Beyond that, a glint of sunshine was just beginning to break through the disappearing cloud cover. “I guess you’re right,” she sighed. “Do you want to meet sometime when I’m not working?”
“That’d be cool.”
The door swung open and more customers entered. They were from one of the nearby office buildings and ordered a large round. Moke and I never got around to actually making arrangements for our proposed date. One of the office workers wanted to open a tab and pay by credit card. Moke took his card and put it into an empty pint glass behind the bar, and then poked his till receipt into the glass too. He was tall, and confident enough to dispense with his jacket and his tie, even whilst his colleagues retained their formality. He bought Moke a drink and she added it to his bill. When she came back to me she seemed to have forgotten that we were arranging to meet. “What happened to your eye, anyway?” she enquired.
“I fell over.”
“Really?” She sounded as though she doubted my word. “You a bit unsteady on your feet these days then?”
The tall office worker was telling a humorous story and his group were laughing. I realised that he was their boss because they were hanging on his every word in a manner that was unnaturally attentive. The two men who had come in earlier left without saying goodbye and were still talking into their phones.
Another party of office workers entered, and, while Moke was serving them, a group of builders from the nearby construction site walked in. They were building houses on the site of a former public house. They were squeezing them into what had once been the pub car park, and turning the existing building into over-priced apartments because the facade was listed. They left a trail of mud and cement dust from the door to the bar. I wondered what Broomhead’s reaction would have been had he been there to witness it.
I finished my beer and, as Moke was now running around like a chicken with its head off, serving customers and collecting empty glasses, I gave her a little wave by way of excusing myself. “Laters, Sweetheart.”
“Soon, I hope, Rod. You got my number now, so no excuses for not staying in touch.” She shouted it over the builders’ safety helmets and luminous yellow vests.
I pushed the door open, and then paused on the threshold. “By the way, this brass push plate could do with a polish.”
She cast me an evil look through the assembled crowd of lunchtime drinkers.
“Just saying,” I smiled, and then promptly left.
Chapter Eight
Meanwhile, in Graz
Meanwhile, in Graz, the morning sunshine has been devoured by a light covering of cloud that stretches from mountain top to mountain top. Ray-Bans are pushed up onto heads instead of being worn over the eyes. Designer-label pullovers are retrieved from shopping bags and draped around shoulders in preparation for a further drop in temperature. Parasols become umbrellas, and the shadows on the flagstones fade and die.
Doctor Erasmus, who has never worn a pair of sunglasses in his life, nor, it has to be said, a designer label, is purchasing strudels from a market stall in the Hauptplatz and has every intention of returning to his hotel room later in the day and devouring them in much the same way as the clouds devour the sun and that time devours our lives.
During the course of this transaction, the Doctor converses amiably with the vendor, who freely remarks that, “The air seems eerily still, Sir, don’t you think?”
“The calm before the storm?” reflects the Doctor, the hairs inexplicably standing up on the back of his neck as he speaks.
Erasmus smiles and drops the paper parcel that the amateur meteorologist has handed to him into the broad pocket of his tweed jacket and gives it a gentle, rather affectionate, tap with his index finger. He walks among the other stalls that are gathered in the square, meticulously examining their displays of pastries and sausages, craftwork and artwork. A racing car sits stationary on a raised platform, under spotlights, and adorned with far too many energy drink logos. It sits alone and waits. Its audience is at the nearby race circuit, watching man and machinery compete in combined perfection, but will return to the town shortly in a mass of colour and feverish excitement.
For now, there is peace and calm. The local inhabitants go about their usual Saturday afternoon activities, which doesn’t appear, to the untrained eye, to amount to very much at all. They sit outside cafés and bars in quiet contemplation and restrained conversation, and the world passes them by at an unhurried pace. A cyclist peddles by with a basket full of brown paper shopping bags, the frame of his bicycle vibrating against the rough cobblestones. A small bread roll leaps from the basket and a child, clutching a toy car in his hand, attempts to kick it as it lands on the pavement. His mother grabs his arm and hurries him on.
Doctor Erasmus lingers outside a café and peers inside through the open door. It is dark inside and almost abandoned. He sees a man in a white shirt pouring beer from a tap into small glasses, one after the other. He places each glass onto a metal tray which a waitress collects before emerging with it amongst the tables and chairs in the street outside, distributing the glasses to waiting customers. As Erasmus inspects the scene with inordinate curiosity, the waitress approaches him, the empty tray still in her hand, and offers him a menu. He accepts, and she shows him to a table.
When the Doctor is comfortably seated, the waitress brings him a basket of bread rolls and a small ramekin full of large green olives smothered with herbs and garlic. He stabs one of them with a cocktail stick and plunges it into his mouth, carefully peeling its flesh from the stone with his incisors. He discards the stone, now stripped bare, on a napkin, and orders coffee; a pot of coffee. “And a generous slice of Sacher Torte, please.”
Above him, and on both sides of the street, bright green awnings hang from the walls, sheltering terraced balconies from the sun. This despite his firmly held belief that the sun seldom shines for very long in Graz. The balconies, themselves, flow over with verdant foliage. Brightly coloured paintwork stretches across the imposing gothic facades of the buildings, and ornate stone arches claw at the ground below.
The waitress brings his cake and his coffee and he begins to eat with a gentility that is not indicated by his robust appearance. He slices the chocolate cake into tiny portions and delivers each of them, with precision, to his open mouth, wiping his lips and his bristles with a purple napkin after each and every mouthful. A crumb escapes him and it rolls down his jacket. He chases it with his fingers, recovers it in his lap, and places it on the napkin with the olive stone.
After devouring the cake, Doctor Erasmus takes a tin of Café Crèmes from his pocket and lights one. He draws heavily on the miniature cigar and exhales with great satisfaction, enshrouding diners at a neighbouring table in a great cloud of smoke. They wave their hands, theatrically, at the smoke, but Erasmus is oblivious to their discomfort. He produces a roll of A4-size papers from one of his capacious inside pockets, drops them onto the table, and flattens them down with his hands. He takes a silver ball-point pen from his breast pocket and begins to write notes and remarks in the margins in tiny, evenly spaced, and very measured handwriting. He extinguishes his cigar and immediately lights another.
A tram passes by, ringing its bell. Passengers stare vacantly from the windows, their hands gripping chrome rails for stability. It halts outside the armoury and more passengers jump on to replace those who disembark. The Doctor watches everything with a child-like curiosity, as if he has never before seen pedestrians strolling aimlessly from menu to menu and from shop window to shop window.
A particular incident catches his eye and distracts him from his work for a moment; an incident that, by any of the usually applied standards, appears to be of very little concern to anybody but the leading players. A woman is scurrying and slaloming between pedestrians who are moving at a far more sedate pace than she, herself, is. Her brightly coloured shawl flaps and snags and drags her backwards. She is agitated and afraid. She glances over her shoulder. Her face is contorted with deep sorrow, and her dark complexion cannot hide the tears that drench the red-raw sockets of her eyes. A small child is clinging tightly to one of her hands. The woman pulls the little girl through the crowds as if she is pulling a cork from a bottle. When they reach the corner of the Hauptplatz, the Doctor loses sight of them. He cranes his neck a little, but not so much, and that is as much effort as he is willing to make in order to follow the pair’s progress. He does not move.
He never moves from his position, not even to visit the bathroom. He sits for three hours, reading his documents and scribbling notes. Waitresses and waiters constantly replenish his olive bowl and pour more coffee from the pot into his cup. He thanks them graciously with a warm smile and a depth of sincerity in his troubled face. He sighs contemplatively and fears that a brief expedition to London may yet be necessary.
As he lights yet another cigar with his silver lighter, he hears a screech of tyres as a speeding motorist barely makes the corner at the tram terminus, way down at the foot of Herrengasse. Rubber squeals painfully against smooth tram tracks and an engine violently growls, tearing a gaping wound in the cool serenity of Doctor Erasmus’s perfect day.
In Bratislava, Meanwhile
In Bratislava, meanwhile, Doctor Fischer is also, quite coincidentally, writing notes on sheets of paper. But not for him the cool street café lifestyle of his old friend, Erasmus. No, Doctor Fischer is bound by walls of polished oak in his draughty faculty office; a place that time seems to have passed by with as much certainty as the University refurbishment budget passed it by. He is painstakingly assessing written dissertations on topics relating to the “Vienna Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.” He marks the bottom of each sheet of paper with a hasty tick, lays it on his desk, and begins to read the next.
The slightest of sounds creates an echo in the high-ceilinged chamber. The clearing of his throat is as a thunder clap. Every utterance results in an inordinate outcry that bounces around the deeply polished surfaces. The musty odour of ancient timber evokes memories of forced visits to church, and trips to cathedrals or maritime museums. The atmosphere is charged with a grave sobriety.
The Doctor pauses amongst his papers and raises his eyes to the overly-ornate chandelier above his head. He thinks of Jarni Bosko and wonders how he is doing. He imagines that life in London is very much to the liking of his former student, as his former student still has not been in touch, as his former student, most vehemently, promised he would be. Fischer reaches for the old fashioned telephone that sits on his desk. It is, indeed, so old fashioned that it has a dial instead of buttons. During its lifetime, this telephone has shifted from being cutting edge technology to being a retrospective novelty much loved by the modern students and lauded throughout the entire campus as a museum piece.
He raises the receiver. There is a knock at his office door. He replaces the receiver without dialling a single digit and returns to his papers. There is another knock. “Come in!” bellows the Doctor quite irritably.
The door is opened and a woman enters. She is smart and well-dressed in a peach-coloured chiffon blouse. Her hair is well-groomed. The lenses of her spectacles are of such a diameter that they do not allow for blurred edges or for “things to escape her attention”. She misses nothing. “A letter, Doctor.” She smiles, the deep red of her lipstick emphasising the whiteness of her teeth. “It looks important.”
Without speaking or removing his eyes from the document that
he is currently studying, Doctor Fischer indicates that she should leave the letter on his desk. She places it next to the telephone and begins to rearrange various items of stationary on said desk, an act which clearly irritates the good doctor still further. He sighs and dramatically collects various sheets of paper together in an attempt to convey to the secretary the message that her services are no longer required and that she should remove herself from the doctor’s presence at her earliest convenience.
The secretary, possibly misinterpreting the doctor’s rather ambiguously delivered message, or, rather more likely, relishing the extreme state of irascibility unto which she is rendering him, notes that the doctor is collecting randomly selected scraps of paper together and slamming them down on his desk, and begins to do likewise. This doctor of law, this gentle man, this man of learning and of books, wears the expression of a homicidal maniac as he says, “Thank you, Miss Laska, that will be all!”
“Are you sure, Doctor Fischer?” It is clear, even to the doctor himself, that she is trying very hard not to laugh at him.
He dismisses her with a nod; a silent nod, as though his words are stuck in his throat and will not budge. He follows her over-elaborate withdrawal from his office, and the unnecessary wiggle of her hips as she opens, and then closes behind her, the door, with a look of utter contempt on his face. He peruses the envelope that she has lately deposited on his desk. It does, indeed, look important. It is in a very official looking brown envelope with a French postmark stamped on its top right-hand corner. He turns it over in his hands and takes the pearl-handled letter opener from his desk drawer.
There is yet another knock at the door. Exasperated, Doctor Fischer drops the letter onto his desk and rises from his chair, gripping the letter opener as if he is about to launch an horrific attack on an unsuspecting victim. He marches across his office, the leather soles of his English-made shoes tapping on the wooden flooring, resonating like horses hooves in a tow-path tunnel. He heaves the door open and almost tears it from its hinges.