by Stuart Evers
The Tap is a renovated Portland stone lodge south of Euston railway station. It has a squared horseshoe bar with space only for stools and standing, the twenty-seven beers named and numbered on a chalkboard above. When ordering use the name of the beer, or part thereof, never the number. Remember: you are served better if you ask for a recommendation. There are tables upstairs, but they are too close to the single, solitary toilet. The Tap has twenty-seven beers on draught and only one toilet.
As I walked in there were four things to say. Four. There was a man behind the bar and a man sitting on a stool to his right. He was finishing a pint of dark, almost black beer. He wore battle fatigues. Sand camouflage – Iraq, Afghanistan, those kinds of places – heavy, polished boots. He wore a wedding ring; in front of him a newspaper open at the gossip pages. His hair was grey, his stubble dashed with white, wrinkles like knife marks on clay. Too old for the army. Surely too old. Too old to be a ground trooper. To fight. Surely.
‘Another?’ the barman asked.
‘No,’ the army man said. The army man stood and picked up his old kitbag: smile, smile, smile. He walked past me, walked straight past me without acknowledgement. Like the changing of the guard, of the watch. An old kitbag, an open newspaper, an empty beer glass. A fifth thing to say. Yes.
‘When I got here there was a man wearing battle fatigues. Full battle fatigues, but he looked much too old to be a soldier. How old do you reckon you have to be before you have to stop fighting?’ Five things to say. The last one a question. A conversation starter. Good.
Above the bar, numbers fifteen to twenty-three had no corresponding beer. Chalk ghosts of percentage signs and names and prices were smudged on the slate. Remember: you are served better if you ask for a recommendation.
‘What can I get you, mate?’ the barman asked.
‘What would you recommend?’
The barman was young. Bearded, friendly faced. There was nothing to say about him. He turned to the chalkboard, put a hand to his beard, looked at the empty spaces where beers fifteen to twenty-three should have been. Whichever beer the barstaff recommend, they always say it’s quite hoppy. Hops are in fashion. Rish had told me this. He’d pointed this out years ago. Five things to say. Five.
‘Well, how about Independence?’ the barman said. ‘It’s quite hoppy.’
He served me a taster in a shot glass: all head, a liquid hit at the end. I nodded in appreciation, the way Rish had shown me. The barman poured me a full glass. I wondered what number Independence would be when it was eventually slated. I guessed twenty-one. For some reason I thought: 21, Kelly’s Eye. The bingo call. But Kelly’s Eye is one. Twenty-one is Key of the Door. I thanked the barman and paid. Five things to say.
Sitting at a stool by the window, I looked up Kelly’s Eye on my telephone. Its derivation. Military slang; possibly a reference to Ned Kelly. This is good trivia. Nice fit with the army man, too. A continuation. Five things to say. No, six. Twenty-seven beers and only one toilet; the toilet is up narrow stairs; you wouldn’t have thought it would be allowed; the man in battle fatigues; Kelly’s Eye. And the beer. Yes, the beer. The Independence. Quite hoppy. Yes.
Outside, a delivery from the Five Points brewery was in progress. It was around 12.15pm and I had six things to say. Behind me the barman was on a stepladder, writing the names of the beers in chalk. Good, steady hand. I watched each one with interest until Independence came in at nineteen. There is no bingo call for nineteen. I discovered this from the Kelly’s Eye page. No bingo call for nineteen, but there is for fourteen. The Lawnmower. This is good trivia. Fourteen is the lawnmower because lawnmowers have a fourteen-inch blade. This is not something to say. Too much bingo trivia. Six things to say. Six.
Waiting should never be advertised. Even to those for whom you are waiting. Ideally, the arrival of a companion should occur when one is so immersed in something else that one jolts when he or she says hello. I thought this exactly in those words. It sounded pompous. I thought it again, as spoken by James Mason. I looked up James Mason on my telephone. He was born in Huddersfield. This was glorious: Rish would be delighted. There is nothing better than an unexpected Yorkshireman. This is something to say. Seven things to say. Seven.
I took out a book to read. Do not read a newspaper, it looks like waiting. Crosswords doubly so. There was a bookmark: a train ticket. I read three sentences from the centre of the right-hand page, went forward three sentences, back three sentences, but nothing looked familiar. I tried the left-hand page. Nothing there either. I flicked forward and back. Nothing seemed familiar. I find that with reading. I am a skipper. A jumper. I lack concentration.
The book’s spine was cracked, its cover torn; there were ink smudges on the page ends. He may well comment on it. I see you still can’t take care of a book. Yes. You always make them look like something smuggled out from a Bangkok prison. Give him something to talk about first. Clever. I set it down on the shelf under the window next to my pint glass. I couldn’t mention it, though; it would seem forced. Still, seven things to say.
From the window seat I watched the exit and entrance to Euston bus terminus, beyond that, the railway station. People walked past and no one looked like Rish.
New York City, midtown in late-February, a bar called the Ginger Man, sauerkraut and sausages, Victory Pilsner, afternoon drinks with the promise of an evening over on the Upper East Side with friends of Rosemary, sounds like a euphemism and in some ways it is, the look on Rish’s face and in his eyes, below a haircut, subtly fashionable, the strong accent still, Whitby, Dracula country, and a new way of ending a meal with a dab of a napkin to the mouth, three guys walking through the door, proper Jews, forelocks and everything, Rish talking about some jerk at work, his rhyming words, and the Jews ordering their beers from the menu, hundreds on draught, and the barman serving the drinks in frosted mugs and Rish smiling, his teeth not yet American, and saying he’s got something to tell me, and I already know what he’s going to tell me because I arrived the night before and Rosemary elegantly dodged wine with dinner, and through that smile, its wattage, he tells me the news, his news, and we embrace in the post-work rush and the server takes our order for more expensive beer and we toast the unborn, may your first child be a masculine child, Luca Brasi, and Rosemary arrives soon afterwards, work suit and heels you can hear and she looks older – perhaps it’s the pregnancy – and she says to me don’t say it and I say what? and she says you know, and I say what? and she says don’t say it and all I can think to say is Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary’s Baby, Rosemary’s Baby, but I say nothing and when she goes to the toilet – there are hundreds of toilets at the Ginger Man, this is America and there would never just be one toilet – I realize I’ve never seen the film Rosemary’s Baby, and don’t really know what it’s about, and Rosemary comes back and we toast her health with the Virgin Mary that the waitress has brought over and Rosemary’s accent is perfect, screen-goddess American, and Rish’s accent is Yorkshire, ee-by-gum Yorkshire and my accent is all over the place and I am drunk from the Victory Pilsner and there are three of them and one of me and New York’s a-go-go and every drink tastes nice, and they talk about the apartment they will move to, their parents – her parents, let’s be quite clear about this – helping them get somewhere bigger than the shoe-box apartment they rent above a Brazilian restaurant in Chelsea, and we are clinking glasses and may their first child be a masculine child, Luca Brasi, and there are three of them and one of me, three of them and one of me.
His reflection in the window. Twenty-seven beers and one toilet; the toilet is up narrow stairs; you wouldn’t have thought it would be allowed; a man in battle fatigues; Kelly’s Eye; James Mason. And the beer. Twenty-seven different kinds. And his reflection in the window. He put his hand on my shoulder. I turned and smiled and stood and we embraced for a moment longer than necessary or normal, then a moment more than that, then a moment more. Then we broke.
Rish had lost a little weight from his face. He was red-eye
d and his skin was flawed with squeezed spots. He smelled of the same aftershave he always wore. There was grey at his temples. Standard issue, stress related.
‘How was the flight?’ I asked. He only had a small bag. A kind of businessman’s overnight case. He stowed it under the shelf. I had forgotten this was something to say. A question to ask. Your mind works on such things even when you don’t realize it.
‘Dreadful,’ Rish said. ‘Never fly American. I say it every time, but I never listen. Seriously, you’d be better off walking. Never again. What we drinking?’
‘Independence,’ I said. ‘It’s quite hoppy. You try.’
I passed him my glass. He took a sip and passed back the glass. Made the appreciation face.
‘It’s quite hoppy,’ he said. ‘You want the same again?’
‘No,’ I said. Never order the same beer twice. Even if you enjoyed the first. Even if none of the others appeal, you must try something different.
‘I’ll have a Triangle,’ I said. Number fourteen. The Lawnmower.
‘You got it, son.’ His accent terrible. Yorkshire via New York.
The barman climbed down from the stepladder, wiped his hands on a towel. I watched Rish sample three different beers: nine, thirteen, twenty-six. You can sample up to three, no more than that: this is the unwritten rule. I watched him take a tiny glass, give his appreciation face, move on to the next. I wished for no victor. For Rish to shake his head, the unwritten rule be damned, and ask for three more to taste. I wanted the barman to line up a sample of each beer and for Rish to begin at number one and end at twenty-seven, compile a longlist of ten, taste them again and announce a shortlist of six, then decide upon the final winner. He went for twenty-six. I had gambled on nine.
Their child caught a disease. One of those with a name that can stop the heart. It was an aggressive strain. Three months and then. This is the stuff you can’t even think. Cannot comprehend. There were photographs of the funeral. They looked professionally taken. Well framed and composed. Rish emailed them to me. Rish accepted my apologies. I couldn’t get the time. Didn’t have the money. Would have done anything. Understand, yes? They named the boy Noah. I’d held him in the living room of my house, in a restaurant, in the beer garden of a pub. He had cried and smiled and shit and gurgled. He wore a jumper I’d bought. Red, knitted Adidas logo. Loved that jumper. One week there, one week back in England. Two weeks I knew him. I cannot remember his face, the way he felt in my arms, his weight. I can remember his smell. I can remember his skin.
After the funeral. Months after, not so long, Rosemary and Rish split up. In an Indian restaurant she threw a chana dhal at him and said it was over. Men and women process guilt and mourning differently. He told me this on the phone. Calling from the Chelsea Holiday Inn. Drunk yes, drunk and like he was reading out from a fucking manual or something.
Rosemary moved to be with her parents upstate. Like Russian dolls, a mother retreating to her girlhood bedroom. Rish got drunk for two weeks and did something with a college girl. He told me this in shame. Calling from Chelsea Holiday Inn. Reassuring me it was okay, he was okay. He’d be home soon. Not to worry. Home soon.
Rish came back with the drinks. He sat down and looked out of the window.
‘They’ve got twenty-seven beers on draught,’ I said. ‘But only one toilet.’
‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘I said they’ve got twenty-seven beers on draught,’ I said again. ‘But only one toilet.’
‘Really?’ he said.
He was forty-one. A father and a husband; neither now and both. A father and a husband looking out of a pub window at 12.17pm on a Wednesday.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And the toilet’s up those really narrow stairs.’
I pointed to the staircase.
‘You wouldn’t have thought it would be allowed, would you? What with Health & Safety and all that?’
Rish looked at the stairs. I was going too quickly. One, two and three had been used up without Rish even really hearing.
‘What did you go for in the end?’ I asked.
‘Conqueror,’ he said. ‘Quite hoppy. You try?’
I took his glass and took a sip.
‘Yes, nice,’ I said.
He nodded and looked out of the window again. Were there six or seven things to say? Seven. Four gone. Only three things left to say. The man in fatigues. Kelly’s Eye. James Mason.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s quite hoppy, isn’t it?’
‘Honestly, I mean it,’ he said. ‘American really is the worst. BA, Virgin, even Delta – anyone but them.’
The stool made a wounded scraping sound as he moved it. This would be his advice for years; forever probably. So you’re going to New York? Don’t fly American. Trust me. And they would trust him because everyone trusted Rish, and when they booked flights they would remember what he’d said and pay a little more to avoid American. And they would parrot the information Rish gave – well, a friend of mine used to live out there and he said never fly American – and they wouldn’t understand that he would never go back.
‘You grew a beard,’ he said and smiled.
‘I don’t like it,’ I said. ‘It’s a bit ginger in places.’
‘Why don’t you shave it off then?’
‘Because it took commitment and now I have it, it’s like a war of attrition.’
‘It suits you,’ he said. ‘It looks good.’
The barman turned on the stereo. Playlist, same as always, always on random. It was Cream. ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Rish looked out of the window and I looked out of the window with him. We saw buses and buggies and taxi-cabs and women wearing vest tops and baseball caps. There is a guitar solo on ‘Sunshine of Your Love’. Clapton plays the opening bars of ‘Blue Moon’: a moon to contrast with the sunshine. I knew this. Something else to say. Eight things to say. Four down, four to go.
‘Did you know,’ I said, ‘that this guitar solo is actually the opening to “Blue Moon”?’
‘Really?’ he said.
‘Yes. “Blue Moon”. You can hear it clearly,’ I said. ‘Listen.’
We sat in silence listening to the guitar line. Our heads in the air, as though we could catch the notes.
‘There’s a beer called Blue Moon,’ Rish said. ‘They serve it with a wedge of orange. It’s disgusting. And it’s owned by fucking Coors or something.’
‘I’ve had Blue Moon,’ I said. ‘You’re right, it’s horrible, yes.’
Two men in suits came in. Pinstripes and knitted ties. I saw them in the window. Heard them. Loud voices talking about something. They interrupted their conversation to order a twenty and a number four, then resumed their loud talk. Rish finished his drink.
‘I’m going to have a Redemption next,’ Rish said. Redemption is the name of the beer. Look it up. There’s no irony there, that’s the name of the beer he wanted.
‘I’ll get them,’ I said and took his glass to the bar.
‘What’ll it be?’ the barman said.
‘Can I try the Citra?’ I said. ‘And perhaps the Big Chief?’
The sun came in thick bars through the window, then disappeared. Rish was still looking out of the window. The barman poured and set down the shots. They tasted identical. There was Kelly’s Eye. There was the military man. There was James Mason. Three things left to say.
Rish nodded in thanks and sipped at his beer, pointed at the book.
‘You still treating books like shit, I see,’ he said. ‘I remember you once ripped the cover of one of my books to make a roach for a joint.’
‘I never did that,’ I said. ‘You accused me of that, but it was never proven.’
‘Oh, I know it was you,’ Rish said. ‘I know it and you know it too.’
‘What book was it, anyway?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t read any more. Can’t seem to concentrate.’
From here: a million conversations. Books to get him out of the slump. Books I’d re
ad. Books I loved and books he’d once loved. Bookshops that had opened. Bookshops that had closed. And music too. What are you listening to these days? A million conversations, but no. No.
‘Do you know what Kelly’s Eye means?’ I asked.
‘Like in bingo?’ Rish said.
‘Yes.’
‘Something to do with Ned Kelly?’
‘I’m impressed,’ I said.
‘A guess, that’s all,’ he said and he smiled.
‘And,’ I said, not able to stop myself. ‘Did you know James Mason was born in Huddersfield?’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘That’s funny.’
He laughed and he said he was going to use the toilet.
The Chequers, Walthamstow, a pint of Five Points Pale, a solo drink, bags full of shopping from the supermarket and a battered book open on the table, four pints and they know I like my beer in a straight glass, not a jug, and there’s WiFi for work emails and personal emails and a text from a friend who’s in town and looking for people to drink with and in the process of declining the invite an unknown number on the phone and perhaps it’s an opportunity to claw back mis-sold PPI, but instead the slight pause and then his breath, his voice ragged, like shouting at the television during a football match, and his voice saying she’s gone, left and gone for good this time, no chance, no chance now, and I am coming home now, flights booked and there is no chance no and there is nothing left and I need to talk to you, and only you, I need you, Noah, and you are the only person, Noah, the only one, and it will be better, it will be better the two of us together like it was, the two of us together.
There was only the old soldier. Nothing left to say, except to ask Rish what he thought about a man he’d never even seen. I watched Rish descend the staircase. I realized I could not even describe the army man. His fatigues, yes, but not how he looked. Just a few signs of his age. Enough to ask the question about him. Rish was at the foot of the staircase. There were twenty-seven beers on draught.
