by Jonathan Coe
He led Thomas upstairs. The Britannia was two-storeyed, and the upper floor contained a large reception room for private parties, together with a smaller bar or Exhibitors’ Club. These rooms were carpeted in black and orange, with fixed seating as well as armchairs in black leather. There not being much to see here, Mr Carter took Thomas out onto the projecting upper deck, with its planking in naval fashion, its hand rails, lifebuoys and shaded verandah. From here you could view the whole of the terrace below, soon to be thronged with visitors, strolling between James Gardner’s British Government pavilion and the Industries pavilion, or sitting at tables beneath the brightly coloured sun umbrellas. Beyond, amid the trees, was the ornamental lake, and at its far end a great steel mast pointing proudly but irrelevantly towards the sky.
Mr Carter walked towards the railing at the edge of the verandah and leaned against it, looking out over the lake. Thomas spent a moment or two inspecting the carpentry on the supporting pillars, then joined him.
‘This is going to be some shindig, isn’t it?’ said Carter, gazing across the lake and through the trees on the other side, where more trucks and lorries could be seen trundling backwards and forwards along the Avenue des Trembles. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.’ He turned to Thomas. ‘Cigarette?’
‘Very decent of you, old man.’ They lit up, sharing a match. ‘People are starting to say they’re bad for you, you know.’
‘Oh, they’ll say that about anything. Rotten spoilsports, the lot of them. So . . .’ (he inhaled deeply, and gave Thomas a more appraising glance than he had given before) ‘the COI are sending you over to keep an eye on this place, are they?’
‘Something along those lines,’ said Thomas. ‘I dare say there’s no need. Probably a colossal waste of time and money.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Mr Carter. ‘Have you met mine host?’
‘Mr Rossiter, the landlord? Not yet. I was rather hoping to meet him today.’
‘You can. He’s down in the cellar. We’ll go down in a tick.’
‘Anything I should know about him?’
‘I wouldn’t want to spoil your first impression. So, how did they manage to single you out for this mission – if you don’t mind my asking? Six months in Belgium. Did you draw lots in the office, and end up with the short straw?’
‘It’s not that bad, is it?’
Mr Carter reflected for a moment. ‘Oh, of course, it could be worse. I’ve been with the Council nearly ten years and had some pretty hairy postings. Amman. Bergen. All sorts of places. The worst you can say about the Belgians is that they tend to be on the eccentric side.’
‘Eccentric?’
‘Surrealism is the norm here, old man,. They pretty much invented it. And the next six months are going to be wackier than most.’
‘Ah yes. Anneke – the hostess – was saying something about that. Putting the Americans and the Russians right next to each other. She said it was a Belgian joke.’
‘Hmm,’ said Mr Carter, stubbing his cigarette out on the balcony rail. ‘I wonder what the punchline will be. One thing’s certain – both those pavilions are going to be crawling with spies. Come on, then, let’s go and meet the Wing Commander.’
With this enigmatic comment, he led Thomas back down to the ground floor and then towards a wide trapdoor which was standing open in one of the recesses behind the bar. From here a set of wooden steps led down to a capacious, brightly lit cellar. The two men clattered down the steps and found themselves confronted by many long rows of metal stillions, all awaiting the arrival of beer barrels. In front of one of them, a confused argument was taking place. A tall, swarthy man, very sweaty in his short-sleeved white flannel shirt, was protesting in French; opposite him, with his back towards Thomas, stood a stouter, shorter man with his hands on his hips. The back of his neck showed red and angry above the line of his stiff white collar.
Thomas knew enough about pub management to be able to follow the argument. The tall French-speaking man was from the company which had been responsible for providing the stillions and the other man was complaining about the automatic tilting system that had been installed with them. He said that the action was jerky and was liable to set the beer swaying in the barrels. If this happened, the beer would be cloudy when it was pulled up through the pipes into the bar. Why not tilt the barrels with simple wooden scotches instead, he wanted to know. The French-speaking man said that this was a very old-fashioned method. The other man didn’t seem to understand his answer. Eventually the French-speaking man gave up the attempt to explain his position and walked away up the wooden steps, muttering to himself and making an angry, dismissive gesture before disappearing altogether.
It was only then that the landlord of the Britannia noticed his two visitors.
‘Good afternoon, gents,’ he said, warily. ‘Er . . . bonsoir, mes amis. Comment . . . I mean, what can I do for you?’
‘Carter,’ said Mr Carter with a bland smile, holding out his hand. ‘From the British Council. We met yesterday.’
‘Ah, yes! I do recall,’ said the landlord – who clearly didn’t.
‘This is Mr Foley,’ said Mr Carter. ‘I was telling you about him. He’s going to be working here as well.’
‘Ah, capital!’ said the landlord, shaking Thomas by the hand. ‘Rossiter’s the name. Terence Rossiter. Aha!’ He took Thomas’s tie between thumb and forefinger of one hand, and drew it towards him for a closer inspection. ‘Now this I recognize. Radley College, isn’t it? Or is it Marlborough? Tell me it’s a school tie, anyway, and I’m not making a complete chump of myself.’
‘It is a school tie, yes. Leatherhead Grammar.’
‘Ah. My mistake. Grammar-school boy, eh? Well, stands to reason, what would an old Radleian be doing working in a pub? Come upstairs, gents, I’ll see what we’ve got on hand to slake your thirst.’
They sat at one of the glass-topped tables in the first-floor saloon, and Mr Rossiter fetched three pint bottles of pale ale, apologizing for the lack of beer on draught. Whitbread had created a special new brew for the Expo – a strong, dark bitter known inevitably as Britannia – but they were still awaiting delivery of the first barrels.
‘It won’t be here until a week before we open,’ Mr Rossiter explained. ‘I’d hoped to get the tilting issue resolved before that, but I have no idea what that Froggy fellow was on about, to be honest. It doesn’t half complicate things when you find yourself dealing with a whole lot of foreigners.’
‘I think he was saying,’ Thomas ventured, ‘that he considered your suggestion of wooden stocks to be rather old-fashioned.’
‘Old-fashioned, is it? Well, it was good enough for the Duke’s Head in Abingdon, which was my domain for eleven years after the War, with no complaints from the customers, thank you very much.’
He drank deeply from his pint glass, an action which caused a good deal of foam to cling to each end of his gingery moustache. This moustache, Thomas could not help thinking, was a most impressive creation: it sprung out at a perfect horizontal, and each half must have been getting on for two inches long. Its extremities were quite free-standing, having no contact with Mr Rossiter’s face at all. The face itself was ruddy, marked with innumerable networks of tiny red veins. The nose was purple. It was tempting to draw the conclusion that Mr Rossiter’s vocation as a landlord was well chosen, if constant proximity to liquor was his object.
‘The fact is,’ Mr Rossiter continued, ‘that these Belgian types don’t know their arses from their elbows, if you ask me – not about beer, and not about anything else. I know what I’m talking about. I almost lost a leg at El Alamein and spent two years of the War in a hospital sort of place near Tonbridge. There were a couple of Belgians in there with me for a few months and I can tell you now, they were the queerest, craziest types I ever encountered. Mad as coots, the pair of them.’
&
nbsp; ‘Part of the purpose of this fair, as I understand it,’ said Mr Carter, ‘is that the peoples of the different nations will be living alongside each other for a period of time, and thereby coming to understand their differences, and similarities, and perhaps reaching a greater understanding –’
‘Well, that’s poppycock,’ said Mr Rossiter. ‘No offence intended, but there you have it. I’m a plain-speaking man, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. I dare say that what you propose is fine in theory – but it won’t work out like that, I can tell you. Six months from now we’re all going to be packing up with no better understanding of each other than when we started. On the other hand, if the people in charge want to chuck away a few million setting up this crazy fair, good luck to them. I’m quite happy to lend a hand in exchange for a decent cut.’
Mr Carter shot a rather embarrassed glance in Thomas’s direction.
‘Of course, you know the capacity in which Mr Foley will be working here . . .’
‘He can start behind the bar. At the moment the only other person engaged to work here is my niece, Ruthie. I’ve told the brewery many times that we’re going to be short-staffed and I’m pleased to hear that they’ve finally taken some notice.’
‘I don’t think you quite understand,’ said Mr Carter. ‘Mr Foley is not a barman. He works for the COI.’
‘The what?’
‘The Central Office of Information.’
Mr Rossiter looked from one man to the other.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘The fact is,’ Thomas began, speaking in as reasonable tone as he could, ‘that this very fine pub, besides having an existence . . . in its own right, as it were, is also part of the British exhibit at the fair. And so, my superiors thought it was appropriate – I think this was all explained to you in a letter – that someone from the COI should be in residence here, for the duration, to . . . to –’
‘To keep an eye on me, I suppose,’ said Mr Rossiter, finishing the sentence phlegmatically.
‘That wouldn’t be my way of putting it,’ said Thomas. It sounded lame even to him.
‘So you’re not here to help at all? You’re just going to be snooping around and looking over my shoulder?’
‘My father was a publican,’ said Thomas. ‘I know a good deal about it. I shall be happy to help you out in a practical capacity, whenever you need it.’
Mr Rossiter was not convinced, and was not happy. Grudgingly, after his two guests had taken a few more sips of their beer, he showed them over the rest of the premises: the kitchens, in particular, where the Britannia’s restaurant manager, Mr Daintry, would be preparing his menu of ‘traditional English fare’ (Thomas caught Mr Carter’s eye as this phrase was mentioned, and saw him make the sign of the cross). After that, the landlord protested that he had work to be getting on with, and disappeared once again into the cellar: to brood, no doubt, on the intractability of the Belgians when it came to stillions, wooden stocks and tilting arrangements.
‘Rum sort of cove,’ said Thomas, as they left the pub and began to stroll towards the boundary of the British site.
‘I did warn you. But I think he’ll be all right. You’d better keep on eye on his tippling, that’s all. He’s the sort who might be too pie-eyed to stand up by nine o’clock, if you’re not careful. And remember – no British licensing laws here. So he’ll be able to go at it for twelve hours at a time.’
The rest of the day passed quickly. Mr Carter took Thomas to the British Council offices in central Brussels, where they had lunch in the staff restaurant. They discussed plans for a small party to celebrate the opening of the Britannia, on the second evening of the Expo itself.
The car which came to return him to the airport contained no hostess, and Thomas was obliged to conclude that he would not see Anneke again that day; until, when they pulled up forty-five minutes ahead of his flight, he found her waiting for him outside the departures hall. By now, any hint of that brittle professionalism with which she had first greeted him had vanished. As they said their broken goodbyes, she swayed slightly from side to side in an almost girlish manner, her hands behind her back, sometimes lowering her gaze as if she did not trust herself to look him too often directly in the eye. Her eyes were green, he noticed, pale green with a hint of amber, and her smile was wide, bright and flawless. The only thing about her that was less than perfect, in fact, was the way she was obliged to dress. Stumblingly, just before they parted, he tried to say something to this effect.
‘I hope we will be meeting a few more times during the Expo,’ Anneke said.
‘Yes,’ Thomas answered. ‘Yes, I’d like to see you again.’ It didn’t seem enough, so he added: ‘Perhaps without your uniform on.’
Anneke’s cheeks flushed crimson.
‘I meant –’ Thomas stammered, ‘– I meant that I’d like to see you in ordinary clothes.’
‘Yes.’ Anneke tried to laugh, but she was still blushing. ‘I know what you meant.’
There was a long final pause, before she said, ‘You’re going to miss your flight,’ and then a long, fervent, final handshake before Thomas broke away and hurried inside. He glanced back at her one more time. She waved.
Calloway’s Corn Cushions
Over the next few weeks, Thomas’s error, perhaps, was to make his excitement at the prospect of leaving for Brussels just a little too obvious. It should have been no surprise that Sylvia began to resent him for it; and her previous cheerful, resigned tolerance of their imminent separation began to harden into something more tight-lipped and melancholy.
On the Saturday morning of the weekend before his departure, Thomas was propelled by one of Baby Gill’s more vigorous bouts of screaming out of the house and along the street in the direction of Jackson’s the chemist, in search of yet more of the gripe water for which she seemed to have developed an insatiable need. There was a sizeable queue at the counter and, resigning himself to a wait of at least ten minutes, he was not best pleased to find that the customer in front was Norman Sparks, one of his next-door neighbours. Mr Sparks, a bachelor, shared his home with his sister and was, in Thomas’s eyes, a crashing bore of the first water. Shortly after their arrival in the neighbourhood, Thomas and Sylvia had been invited round to the Sparks’ for dinner: an experiment which had not been repeated, for it had been a long and arduous evening. Mr Sparks’s sister, Judith, was a sickly woman of about thirty who barely said a word to anybody (including her brother) and retired to bed shortly after nine o’clock, even before pudding had been served. As soon as she had gone, her brother proceeded to describe to his guests, in the most intrusively intimate detail, the nature of his invalid sister’s many ailments, which between them, he lamented, kept her more or less bedbound for most of the day. The tactless, bantering way in which he handled the subject had confirmed Thomas’s already growing dislike of his new acquaintance; a dislike further strengthened by the feeling that Sparks had spent much of the meal regarding his wife with what could only be described as a leer. Since then, all the same, he had kept up a reasonably polite front towards his neighbour. By nature, Thomas was not inclined towards antagonism. He would mutter a civil, ‘Morning, Sparks,’ if ever they passed in the street, and indulged him with the occasional idle chat across the back garden fence in sunny weather. None the less, he had not forgotten those hungry glances thrown in Sylvia’s direction over the dinner table.
‘Morning, Sparks,’ he said to him now. ‘How’s that poor sister of yours keeping?’
‘Oh, no better, no worse,’ Mr Sparks replied, with his accustomed breeziness. ‘Bed sores – that’s the latest thing. Big red ones. All over her b-t-m. I’ve been rubbing cream on them every day for the last two weeks.’
Thomas stared at him. ‘Really,’ he said, as flatly as he could. He was acutely conscious that every customer in the crowded shop was being made privy to this dialogue, and felt that a swift change of su
bject was called for. ‘Still, you’re looking well, at least. No troubles of your own, on the health front, I assume?’
‘Spoken too soon,’ said Mr Sparks, shaking his head with a rueful smile. ‘Corns. I’m a martyr to them. It’s my feet, you see. The awkward size of my feet.’
Thomas glanced down. There was nothing unusual about his neighbour’s feet, so far as he could see.
‘You astonish me,’ he remarked.
‘I’m a three-quarter size,’ Mr Sparks elaborated. ‘Eight and a halves are too small. Size nines are too big. There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m a unique specimen.’ There was a note of quiet pride in this conclusion.
‘So they either rub, or pinch, I suppose,’ said Thomas, sympathetically.
‘They rub, or they pinch. Precisely. I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.’
‘Can’t you get a pair made specially?’ Thomas asked – in response to which, Mr Sparks burst out laughing.
‘D’you think I’m made of money, old man? I couldn’t afford anything like that. Not possibly. Why, I can barely keep me and Judy going as it is. No, those little beauties’ – he pointed at a shelf behind the counter, where there was a pile of little boxes bearing the label Calloway’s Corn Cushions – ‘those are my only salvation.’ Suddenly it was Sparks’s turn to be served, and with a lamentable attempt at a flirtatious smile for the girl on Saturday-morning duty, he said: ‘A packet of Mr Calloway’s finest, please, my lovely. And another tube of that wretched ointment – for the relief of the tender nether quarters of the unfortunate Miss Sparks, if you would.’
After this, to Thomas’s annoyance, Sparks waited for him outside the chemist’s shop, with the clear design of their walking back together. A further conversation was inevitable: Thomas managed to steer it gently away from Miss Sparks’s physical complaints and towards the less distasteful subject of football. Then, when they reached the gate of his own little front garden, a further misfortune presented itself: Sylvia was outside, trowelling the soil in their tiny flower bed, getting ready to plant a few rows of bulbs. She straightened up when she saw them, a hand on her aching back, and said: ‘Good morning, Mr Sparks. I put the kettle on only two minutes ago. Would you care to join us for a cup of tea?’
