drank
Of all the myths which foreigners continue to harbour about England, the idea that our public houses are either very very friendly or very very unfriendly is the one in which I have most frequently found some semblance of truth. Allow me to share a few anecdotes from my own experience.
Several years ago, me and my lady friend of that time were out on a pleasant country walk when we decided to take refreshment at a little place which I had often passed but never entered. It was one of those little old buildings with thick walls and tiny windows, and though we could see little of the interior through the dimpled panes, I felt reasonably confident that this would be up to our standards.
Since it was a sunny day, my lady friend decided to go and take a seat in the garden around the back of the pub, leaving me to squeeze past a brand new Mercedes, a Porsche and a BMW Z3 simply to get to the front door. (I had yet to learn the general rule that if there are a lot of expensive cars parked outside, the pub is likely to be full of wankers inside, no matter how rich or poor the surrounding area.)
Still, it seemed pleasant enough. The ceiling was low and the fittings were old, and every inch of the walls was covered in old lithographs or photographs or cinematographs or I don’t know what, beermats and dusty musical instruments and an oar from a boat, and a framed copy of a yellowing bar menu signed by George Orwell. There was nobody seated at any of the tables, but almost every inch of the little bar itself was surrounded by regulars seated on stools. They were all men of a certain age – I would not say they were gentlemen, despite their ostentatious modes of transportation – all decked out in polo shirts and stonewashed jeans a size too small, displaying an inch or more of white sock above their clean white Reebok Classics. It occurred to me then, as it does now, that a certain kind of American would find their garb immensely appealing, and perhaps I even allowed myself a little smile, one which was instantly checked by their weary glances and a lull in their murmured conversation as I approached.
Since there was no free space at the bar, I was forced to twist sideways and insert myself between two of the regulars. This would prove to be my undoing. I asked for a pint of Guinness for myself and a Coke for my lady friend. The barmaid (the only woman in the place) went of to get the drinks. Wallet in hand, I waited.
‘You’ve just made a big mistake,’ said the man to my right. I looked at him. His polo shirt was baby blue with a little bird over the nipple. I don’t remember very much else about his appearance. Whenever I think back now to this moment, he has the face of my father, but I am entirely willing to accept this as merely the projection of repressed sexual anxiety.
‘Excuse me?’ I said, or something equally banal.
‘You just made a big mistake.’ He pointed to me, or to where I was standing, or both. ‘You’ve just interrupted our conversation.’
I could not replicate the nuance of aggression in his tone if I tried. I suppose I could have challenged him. I could have pointed out that if he and his chums weren’t taking up the whole bloody bar then there would be room elsewhere for me to get through. I could have made the point to the barmaid that perhaps the reason this pub was so bloody empty was because idle bastards like this one were making things thoroughly unpleasant for anyone else who might happen to drop by while in search of a new local. I could have said many things.
I said I was sorry. In fact, I said it several times. He said some other things which I don’t recall but I am sure they were very rude. No doubt he felt he was exercising great restraint because I was only young and did not know what I was doing. Any other man he would have thumped. I felt lucky. I moved out of the way, all the way down to the end of the bar – that distant region where the staff stack dirty glasses and crockery before they go in the dishwasher. I stood there, blushing what felt like a deep purple, while the man in the baby blue shirt went back to talking to his friend in a low and unsavory tone. Most likely they were talking about how terrible I was. He was that common type who has absolutely no conception of themselves as seen by others.
***
Another night, many years later, I was with a different lady friend in one of our favourite haunts, an old gin palace off the Shaftesbury Avenue. I don’t know if it is still there or not. It had high ceilings and handsome cut-glass designs in the windows, and we liked it because it had retained all its old trappings of high Victoriana. They had even kept the old divider between the saloon and public bar, though since we were all middle class back then, the furniture remained identical on both sides. There was also no television, so no risk of bumping into gangs of uncouth supporters of our national moronisms, but the proximity to the West End did mean that our progress in search of liquid refreshment was frequently obstructed by braying Yankee tourists and lost-looking families in search of a quiet meal.
It was very busy that night. Perhaps unwisely, we had ventured out at around seven o’clock on a Friday night, which meant that the local theaters would soon be packed to the rafters, and that everybody was in search of a meal accompanied by a handsome quantity of booze to ensure the appropriate level of relaxation which is now more or less mandatory if one wishes to wring any enjoyment at all out of our sadly-declining standards in the dramatic arts.
It being too busy to stand comfortably downstairs, we took our pints upstairs. I had never been upstairs in this pub. Ordinarily there was a sandwich board on the stairs stating that it was CLOSED FOR CLEANING, and so that night when we scaled that staircase in search of seating, we half-expected that some bustling matron figure would scurry before us to attest our progress across her spotless parquet. But as it turned out, there was nobody at all up there.
We sat at a table by the window. I could not face the thought of placing my beer glass (wet with condensate) on such a clean and thickly varnished surface, so was forced to ensure the clucking tongue of my lady friend while I dived momentarily behind the empty upstairs bar in search of a coaster. And then we sat in silence and drank for a while. She sat on the padded bench before the window while I sat opposite, as was our custom. Once or twice she spoke to me but I do not recall what she said. I suppose I was listening too intently to a raised voice downstairs, or to some distinct noise that rose up from the busy city streets below us. I am easily distracted and not the finest of conversationalists.
After I had drank perhaps half my pint, I heard footsteps climbing the stairs behind us. When the steps crossed the floor I felt I could give in to my compulsion to look around without seeming unwelcoming. It was a man alone, holding a bottle of beer, looking slightly lost. He was anonymously dressed in a suit with a loosened tie and unbuttoned collar, holding a rucksack and a raincoat in one hand, as if he had come straight from work. He sat alongside us at the next table. I thought this more than a little odd, since the room was large and full of empty tables.
‘Is this the…’ he said to me, raising his eyebrows as if to finish the sentence by sheer force of expression. I looked blankly at my lady friend.
‘Yes,’ she said. She gave me a little smile. The man looked relieved, settled back into his chair, and took a swig of beer. I did something with my eyebrows as if to ask her what on earth she was playing at. She did something with hers as if to say wait and see. I suppose we were all doing things with our eyebrows that night.
It wasn’t long before more people began to drift into the upstairs room. I went downstairs again to fetch us more drinks and found that though people had begun to leave, there were still no seats available. By the time I made it back with our drinks, seven or eight people were sitting upstairs with us. They were all men, all about the same age as the first, and all dressed in more or less the same attire. They were what you would call ‘white collar’, these people. I moved to sit alongside my lady friend on the bench seat. We held hands under the table. We felt like something was about to happen, but we were not yet sure what that thing would be.
After a few more minutes, an older man in a dark blue blazer with shiny buttons appeared at the top of the stairs. He was not carrying a drink, but once he arrived he immediately began to rearrange the furniture. The other men helped him as he cleared the tables from one corner of the room and moved the chairs so as to face this corner in a quarter-circle. He said nothing at all to anyone while he was doing this, only hummed a faint little tune which (though I cannot remember clearly enough to repeat or describe it in detail) seemed distantly familiar to me .
The older man was very tall and lean except for a little pot belly which poked comically out from between his blazer (buttoned only at the top) and sharp-creased brown suit trousers. He was quite bald, and wore glasses with such thick lenses that it was difficult to tell where he was looking at any one point. Soon the upstairs room became so full of people that there were no more seats available, and the young men in their shabby suits were forced to stand in between tables with their beer and their suitcases and their weary, anxious expressions.
And then the bald man moved into the corner he’d cleared and began to sing. He sang loud and clear over the hum of conversation from downstairs and the traffic from outside. He sang a song of deep, rounded vowels in a language I did not recognise. At once the other men turned to him if standing and got to their feet if sitting and moved slowly towards him, forming a close wall of shoulders and backs to us as we sat. They sang too. Nobody gave us a second glance or questioned our presence as their voices rose in unison with that of the older, balder man.
What is it about me that I cannot remember this music?
Somebody turned off the lights, but the glow from the street meant it wasn’t anything like a true darkness up there. I could no longer see the bald man in the blue blazer, only a series of male backs and shoulders, their voices raised only softly in song so that his rose above them like a ship carried on the waves of a strange sea. I remember that I said ‘I think we should go now,’ to my lady friend, who was by this time holding on to my arm with the lightest of a grip that was even then slipping from me.
I felt afraid. As the sounds began to rise and enfold us, I looked towards the door and the staircase. The way was blocked by suited bodies. And then I felt angry. Not only were they bothering my lady friend, they were blocking our way! These people with their voices and their language. If they wanted to come over here and sing their songs they could at least sing good English songs. For all I knew they were singing about us. Such a sound they made that their voices began to ring in my chest. The bald man in the blue blazer was smiling like a fool. I wanted to punch him in his stupid bald face. I got up to go. ‘I cannot stand this noise,’ I said to my lady friend, in what I thought was a voice loud enough to be heard over their song. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go now.’
She moved her lips so as to outline the words ‘I’m fine.’ Or at least that’s what I think she said. I couldn’t hear. I leant closer and she did it again. I’m fine. She smiled at me and craned her neck to look over the shoulders of the many besuited men. Their song was building to what you would call a dying fall as I left her, shoving my way out of the indifferent crowd and back towards the stairs and down the stairs and out of the pub into the cold night air. I did not see her again.
***
One more. Last weekend I went to a new pub across the river from my home. I was feeling good about this because it has a microbrewery and what they say is a pretty fine kitchen. My good feelings were aided by the bright, clear afternoon air. The sparkle of the winter sun playing across the water of the old river was a delight to me as I strolled across the bridge to this new pub.
Imagine my confusion when the first thing the barman said to me on entering the aforementioned establishment was: ‘Please take a seat.’ I could see myself in the mirror behind the bar. My mouth hung open. A little black square. ‘I’ll have someone come to take your order in just a moment,’ he said. He then moved back over to take a credit card payment from some silly woman with an enormous handbag. I hovered, wondering if I should not try and attract his attention again with the impetuous wave of a tightly folded five pound note, but I detected that I had somehow become invisible to him. I did as I was told.
The closest free seat was an enormous leather couch with a good view into the street, so I sat there. I sank deeply into the couch until I was quite sure that my backside was in fact lower than my ankles. I can’t reach my pint, I thought, but then I remembered that I hadn’t even got one yet. I tried to relax. I looked up. A television was on above my head, showing not sports but the BBC News. I had never seen a news channel on in a pub before. Here, people actually seemed to be watching it. There was a big boat lying on its side in the water. The other customers were mostly middle-aged couples and families. There were no grumpy old blokes propping up the bar at all – in fact, there weren’t even any barstools. And there were children everywhere.
Other things that were everywhere included large mirrors, signs from shops made new to look old, and painted reproductions of LP covers with price tags hanging from one corner. There was a bicycle with flat tires hanging from the ceiling. An oar from a boat. A touch-screen jukebox. The woman serving tables – there was only one – did not seem to have seen me, sunk into my seat and glowering across the room at the barman. I looked at the menu. I didn’t want anything to eat, but since I was now getting table service I felt I ought to order something. I picked a starter and waited. She walked back and forth several times. I made the eyes. I made all the hand signals. My eyebrows were practically touching the ceiling.
Twenty minutes later, I gave up. I went back to the bar and said ‘Excuse me,’ while she was checking her mobile phone. I ordered a drink and no food. She gave me the pint right away, her eyes up and settling on me for a half-second before rolling way back into her skull, her head and hip cocked as the beer poured. I am sure she thought she was better than me. Her boss passed by but didn’t give me a second glance. I looked up at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. At last I had become invisible. Good. That was something.
Something bumped quite hard into the back of my right heel. ‘Excuse me.’ I turned to look at who it was. It was a young man pushing a pram. Sitting in the pram was a chubby little face floating in a sea of fleece. The front wheel of the pram was an inch from my foot. There wasn’t quite enough room for it to pass between me and a large brick pillar at my back. ‘Would you mind,’ he said pointedly from behind his glasses and cardigan and fancy foreign girlfriend hanging off his arm.
I shook my head and supped my pint, shaking my head. He reached out and tapped my shoulder. I didn’t speak or move. Why don’t you just piss off. It’s your own fault for bringing that ugly little sprog in here. Prams are for outside. Any fool can see that. You with your children and your bloody sense of entitlement. You can’t just go barging through wherever you like and expect everyone else to. No. It’s not a bloody battering ram. You can fold it up at the door and leave it there. I wouldn’t come in here with a wet umbrella held over my head and expect you to just get dripped all over. You can fold it up at the door with the fucking child inside it for all I care. The thing is old enough to walk. Look at him with his great fat face. It’s because he won’t walk. What is wrong with you people. Bringing prams into a pub.
Jesus wept.
