Six of the Best

by Michael White

  Todd and I exchanged a look. Charlie had told us more than once about things that people had left behind in the bar. I suppose you would expect newspapers, umbrellas and that kind of stuff, but he also kept us amused on more than one occasion with his tales of lost spectacles, false teeth, and one time, a trumpet still in its case believe it or not!

  “Well that’s that then” said Pete. No-one else has been in since we came in. It must belong to one of them.”

  “What the bloody hell are we going to do with it?” asked Todd, and we all looked at each other like a gang of schoolboys trying to make our minds up who was up for a bit of apple scrumping or the like.

  “We could always sell it” said Charlie, and when we all looked at him as if he was suggesting we should get in Todd’s van outside and go and rob the crown jewels.

  “Just saying” said Charlie, and Todd snorted.

  Charlie shrugged and carried on drying glasses behind the bar. One thing always confused me, did that. At that time of night, early doors and all, the saloon was closed until seven and we were the only people in the place. Pete could hardly be said to be emptying glasses at a record pace, and Todd and I only usually had a few. Yet Charlie always seemed to be drying glasses. I think I decided back then that he wasn’t drying them as such, just polishing them. One thing you could always say about the Salt House was that you always got a clean glass. Not only that but you could also see your reflection in the glass when you held it up to the light, if you had a mind to.

  “We need to give it back” Todd nodded, “It’s a pricey coat is that, and though I’m sure that they’re not short of a bob or two it would be wrong to keep it . We need to give it back.”

  “Problem there.” I had said, “First of all we don’t which one of them it belongs to, and secondly we don’t know where they have gone.”

  “They may come back for it.” said Pete, taking a longer sip of his pint than I’d even seen him do. At that rate he may have just been in danger of having to buy another one!

  “Well, I’ve never seen them in here before, and believe you me I’d notice” muttered Todd, and he started to look through the outside pockets to see if there was anything inside them that may identify whose coat it was.

  “Nor me,” said Charlie, and let’s be honest. He was in the pub a lot more than we were, to be fair. So we had to take his word on it.

  Todd carried on searching the pockets but they were empty.

  “Try the inside pockets” said Charlie as he continued to polish the glasses, and this Todd did, eventually pulling out a small folded piece of paper.

  “Ah-ha”. he said and waved it at the three of us.

  Todd opened the piece of paper up. It was folded neatly up in quarters, I seem to recall, as if it was important to someone, and he opened it up and spread it out on the bar. We all gathered round to have a gander.

  “Looks like a kids drawing,” said Todd, and it surely did. It was a picture. Obviously drawn by a kid. As I said, I have three of my own so I could tell that whoever’s kid had drawn this was quite young. It seemed to show a little girl in a boat in what seemed to be the sky with big stars like diamonds and the Moon, the sun. That kind of stuff. Didn’t make much sense to me at all, and yet it was also sweet in a kid’s drawing kind of way. Written across the top of it were the words, “Lucy with diamond eyes” and in the picture she did have them too. Little coloured eyes, just a bit like diamonds.

  “Well that’s made my mind up” said Todd, “we need to give it back for sure, now!”

  “We still don’t know who the coat belongs to or where they are now, though” said Pete, and as Todd carefully folded and put the piece of paper back into the inside pocket we turned back to the bar, the coat sitting on its own empty stool by the side of us. For a few minutes we were silent as if by agreement we were trying to will them back to pick up the coat, or for inspiration to hit us as we attempted to decide what to with it.

  Todd suddenly sat bolt upright. Only a few minutes had passed, and truth be told, I had no idea what to do with the bloody coat. It was a right old thing, and was in danger of becoming a real millstone about our necks, if you see what I mean.

  “They’ll be at that recording studio round the corner” said Todd, his face splitting into an ear to ear grin.

  Course, we knew that the average musician coming in to the boozer had changed a bit over the last few months. Their bloody hair had got longer for sure! So it stood to reason that that was where they had gone. It was only round the corner, and all! That just had to be where they had gone.

  “Sounds right to me.” said Charlie, laying off his polishing of the glasses for a minute, “But what now? We can’t just bowl up with a coat saying we want to speak to one of the Beatles - they’d laugh us out of the pace!”

  “That’s if we get in in the first place!” said Pete, frowning.

  “Bloody right” said Todd, and I’m not giving this away to some geezer on the door. It would probably never be seen again.”

  “True, I thought out loud, “So what do we do now?”

  “We’ll ring them up.” said Todd, “We probably won’t be able to get to speak to them personally but hopefully we can get a message to one of them!”

  “Good idea!” I said, and Todd headed to the public phone and grabbed the phone directory before returning to the bar and thumping it onto the bar in front of him. Now those were the days when a phone directory was a phone directory. They seem much smaller these days, and believe you me, this thing was huge. Todd started to thumb through it, muttering to himself as he did so.

  “Now what’s the bloody place called?” he wondered, turning the pages, “that’s right - Abbey Road Studio - now - abbey priory school, abbey road - here we go, Abbey road! Got it!”

  Todd tore the page out of the directory.

  “Here - hang on a bit - that’s pubs property is that” shouted Charlie, but Todd told him to give it a rest, and he did for once. Who would have thought it? I think he was as caught up in what had happened as much as we three were, to be honest. Todd fished a couple of coins out of his pocket, took the page he’d torn out of the directory and went to the phone. Now, bear in mind that this happened quite some time ago, and even at the time we could only hear one side of the conversation anyway, but I think that this pretty much is how the conversation went. I seem to recall now, thinking back on it that Todd almost seemed to grow a few inches as he settled down to make the call. Right impressed, we were, that’s for sure - believe you me, Todd did us all proud that day! This is pretty much how it went:

  “Hello... yes, Abbey road Recording Studio? Yes. I’m the manager of the Salt House public house just around the corner from you...” Charlie looked quietly surprised by that bit, as if he should have been the one making the call but I don’t think he had it in him, to be honest. Besides, this was Todd’s baby and I don’t think he stood a chance of Todd allowing him to do it! “Yes - the Salt House - that’s right, nice pint of mild, thanks very much. Anyway, I’m just calling to say that you have the Beatles in at the moment. Yes, I know you can’t confirm or deny that but I think they are there because they have just been in my pub. Yes, really!“

  Charlie raised his eyebrows at that bit.

  “Anyway, one of them has left their coat in here and if you could let them know that we’ll hang on to it until they collect it or get someone to pick it up that will be fine. Yeah. Nice coat. Sort of grey - ish. Cashmere. No, we won’t pop it round, if it’s alright with you. Thanks. Yes. The Beatles. Thanks again. Yes. that’s the phone number. Goodnight”. Todd came off the phone. “Sorted.” he said, grinning. “Said they’d let them know. If they were there, that is. Which apparently they weren’t at liberty to discuss.”

  I patted Todd on the back as he returned to bar.

  “Nice one, pal.”

  “Bloody hell” said Pete, “bit like that Man from Uncle, isn’t it?” and we all had a little chuckle at that.

  “Do you think they wil
l tell them?” asked Charlie, and he was polishing again.

  “No idea” said Todd, “but they sounded genuine enough. Besides, we’ve done our bit now.”

  “True.” said Todd, looking at the coat parked on the stool besides him.

  “So what do we do with it now?”

  “Put it in the back behind the bar and I’ll give it to them if they come in?” suggested Charlie half-heartedly. We all knew that Todd wouldn‘t bite on that one. All three of us, probably! We were in for the death now, and there was no way we were letting that coat get into Charlie’s hands!

  “No way” said Todd, though all three of us more or less chimed in at the same time in agreement. Not going to happen.

  “They may not be in tonight to get it though, “Charlie said, “May not even be in at all. Hardly short of a few quid now, are they? What’s a coat to the likes of one of them?”

  “They’re scousers “laughed Pete, “they’ll be back.”

  “And there’s no way I’m leaving that coat here” said Todd, and picking his crossword up he took the coat off the stool and made his way to the pub door.

  “I’ll put this in my van just for now. It’ll be safe as houses in there. All me tools are in there, aren’t they? Safe as houses as I say”

  Charlie started to polish the glasses just a bit more vigorously.

  “Technically that coat’s pub property” he murmured, and Todd paused slightly - but only slightly - on his way out.

  “Bollocks “ was all he said, and with that opened the door and stepped out to put the coat in his van.

  “Just saying” muttered Charlie, and started replenishing the salted peanuts behind the bar.

  Made perfect sense to me, did that. A definite plan. Todd’s van was like bloody Fort Knox, and if they didn’t turn up tonight for it we at least knew that Charlie didn’t have his hands on it, so the chances of it getting back to its rightful owner were just a little bit higher, if Charlie had nowt to do with it in the first place! So we waited for Todd to come back, and after a little while he came back having stashed the coat securely in the van. Todd remembered he needed the loo pretty urgently and off he went. We all sat down to wait.

  As it turned out we didn’t have long to wait at all.

  I’d just followed Todd back from the gents when the public phone began to ring. All three of us jumped out of our bloody skins, I can tell you, and I swear that Charlie nearly dropped the glass he was polishing. Todd got up from his stool like a bleeding rocket, straight over to the phone, picked up the receiver.

  “Salt House” we heard him say, and again, we only had half of the conversation to go on.

  “Yeah. Cashmere coat. Salt House pub. You were in earlier, I think”

  Then Todd stood straight up, as if he was on military parade or something. Makes me right laugh thinking back on it, it does.

  “Yes, Mr McCartney. Erm.... Paul... yes, no problem at all - would have done it for anyone. Yes, he can come and get it now. Really, No bother whatsoever. Thank you. Goodnight.” Todd looked as if he had been hit by a truck. He turned white. I swear on his way back to the bar he seemed to sway just a bit. “Another pint, Charlie, “ he said, plonking himself down on the stool. “I’ve just spoken to Paul McCartney. It looks like we have his coat. He’s sending someone over for it. Says thank you very much.” Then I swear Todd nearly downed his pint in one great big swig.

  “Bugger me” I said, Only Paul bloody McCartney. The missus is never going to believe this one, that’s for sure.” And so we sat and waited for the coat which Todd had by now retrieved from his van to be collected. Bit of a daft idea putting it in the van in the first place, to be honest, though it did keep it out of Charlie’s hands!

  Then something happened that had never happened before. Pete stood from his stool and said to Charlie,

  “I’ll have another pint please, Charlie.”

  Then I thought I was going to bleeding faint.

  What seemed like an age passed, but was probably only about half an hour, when the door opened and in walked the biggest geezer I have ever seen in my life. Must have been six and a half feet tall, if I’m not mistaken. He was huge. Stocky too. Huge bear of a man, he was, but at the same time he wore these huge thick glasses, like the bottoms of milk bottles they were. Kind of thick frame on them, bit like that actor bloke - what’s his name? Michael Caine, that’s it - bit like the ones he wore. Gave an odd kind of impression that here was a bloke who meant business, but at the same time he had an air of a kid about him. Bloody scary, truth be told.

  He stooped slightly as he came through the door, clocked all four of us in the bar and smiled broadly. This somehow made him look just a little bit more scary, somehow...

  “Aright lads” he said in a thick Scouse accent. “Apparently you’ve got Paul’s coat. He’s sent me to get it for him.”

  “Yes, Paul left it over there” said Todd, picking it up off the stool, and he even pointed. The bloke looked at where he was pointing as well..

  “Name’s Mal.” he said, as if we knew who he was. “Mal Evans. but you can call me Mal. This the coat, then?” Todd passed it over, and Mal took it from him, shaking Todd’s hand at the same time.

  “Thanks very much” he said, and proceeded to pat the pockets of the coat until he found the slip of paper in the inside pocket which he briefly glanced at and then put it back into the pocket. If anyone else had done this the overall impression would be that of someone who is trying to do something on the qt, but hadn’t quite pulled it off. He looked back at us after having completed this task as if he was surprised that we were still there.

  “It’s no problem at all,” said Todd (Who, it seemed had turned into our unofficial spokesman.)

  Mal smiled broadly, and I got the impression then that although this was a man who you wouldn’t argue with, he was also a decent man. He had kindness in him despite his size and looks.

  “Paul will be made up to get it back - nice coat” and he held it up for us all to see as if we had never seen it before.

  “It is.” said Pete, and Mal nodded to him.

  “Right, I’ll be off - best get this back to him. Paul said to thank you again for returning the coat and to have a drink on him.” and with that Mal slapped a ten pound note on the bar. A bloody ten pound note! Jesus! that was more than half a week's wages to me then - we were all completely dumbfounded.

  “Erm... thanks very much - but there’s no need...”

  “Nah. “said Mal, “very kind. I’ll be seeing you.” and with that he left the bar. The room seemed oddly quiet, as if somehow his absence made the bar just that little bit bigger.

  “Jesus.” said Charlie, “He was a big ‘un”

  “Too right!” said Pete, and we all turned to the crisp ten pound note on the bar.

  Needless to say it was a pretty late night we had that night. Even Pete, bless him, managed to finish six pints and several packets of peanuts. Possibly some of them little crackers too. I have to admit though I’m really not sure. It was as much of a haze then as it is now, years later. Needless to say, when I turned up hours later to a burnt tea and a missus who more or less chased me up the path with a rolling pin, the story about Paul McCartney’s coat cut no ice whatsoever...

  Which doesn’t mean to say that over the years I haven’t had the occasional free pint off the back of that tale. Actually, quite a few over the years, I would imagine. But it is a good tale, and often repeated! When I look back on it now it seems almost like it happened to someone else, and of course now old Todd has gone there’s just me Pete and Charlie left to tell it. Course, some of the Beatles are gone now too. Even poor old Mal - big as was - was shot dead in America by the police because they couldn’t tell the difference between a bloody air rifle and a real gun. Too quick off the mark those guys. Mind you, if I’d seen Mal even without an air gun I’d have been on my guard too! Well, until he spoke that is, and he had a something about him. It was one of them things that is hard to explain in words,
but if I was forced to do that I would say he had a kind of “fairness” about him. That’s all. Just a fairness.

  Nevertheless, to tell the truth it’s been years since I’ve seen either Pete or Charlie, so I may be the only one left now. Funny that, isn’t it, how you can lose track of people over the years. Not me and Todd though. We always seemed to find time to keep in touch, even though it may have only been a Christmas card as the years passed by. Eventually I changed jobs and moved to the other side of London and fell out of touch with the lads at the pub, but Todd and I always seemed to find time to tell each other if we moved house or changed jobs.

  Years passed. Then came the phone call. I was off work that day but the missus answered the phone and called me from the hall to say it was for me - Todd’s wife, Annie. Odd that, I never really knew her name before that call. I’m sure Todd would have called her by her name, but I’d never met her before so I suppose I’d simply forgotten it.

  So I spoke to Annie, and it wasn’t good news. Todd was in The Royal Marsden. Cancer. Poor old bastard didn’t have long left. I didn’t even know he was ill. Mind you, I wouldn’t. This was 1992 and I hadn’t seen him for about five years when we’d had a right old knees up in a pub sort of half way between where we both lived now. Just two old boys having a laugh and a good few pints, telling all the old stories, remembering people we both knew then. Paul McCartney's coat. I thanked her for letting me know and she said that he wanted to see me and I’d be best making it sooner rather than later. I said I’d visit the next day.

  Now to some people the Royal Marsden is an imposing building for all sorts of reasons, but from the outside to me it always reminds me of an old fashioned school, what with all them railings and row upon row of large windows. So when I arrived the next day to see Todd my head was full of thoughts. The good old days and so on. I think now I was just trying to put it out of my head that Todd was in there, and that by all accounts he wouldn’t be coming back out.