Beer in the Snooker Club (Serpent's Tail Classics) Read online

  ‘We met her on a bus one day and she asked us to tea. Her Steve had never met the “natives” it seems. Incidentally, did he ever walk in the streets of Suez?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  I explained about his advice to us and learnt that he had never set his foot outside the camp. Vincent knew through Shirley, his sister.

  ‘He was repeating barracks talk,’ he said.

  ‘What makes a man like Steve wear a uniform and point his gun at wogs and such like?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, he’s a moron. I suppose you’re going to tell me the Egyptian soldier isn’t a moron too?’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘the Egyptian soldier hasn’t got a nice house with a fireplace and books around it, and a girl friend with high heels, and money to buy beer with, and “civilization” to sacrifice for an army life.’

  ‘That’s exactly what Steve is being told he is fighting for. He believes his home is being threatened.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Vincent. You know very well he doesn’t know what he’s fighting for; he just feels proud wearing an army uniform and fighting for the queen and showing the “savages” how mighty he is.’

  ‘I suppose Steve Ward is the only one knows why Steve Ward is fighting.’

  ‘Let’s ask him,’ I suggested.

  I looked at them at the other table. Font and Edna were wearing the expression of duty being carried out. Every now and then they looked at Mrs Ward and smiled. Steve, always polite and attentive, was passing his cigarettes around. Edna and Shirley said a few words to each other now and then. Mrs Ward seemed to be the only one enjoying herself with her glass of Guinness in front of her and her son and future daughter-in-law looking after her.

  ‘Steve and I were at school together,’ Vincent said. ‘He knows I consider him a moron and he considers me yellow and a traitor. I did all I could to get out of the army. I pretended I was half deaf.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you. I was following a correspondence course for television engineering and had a good job in sight. If the army had paid me fifteen pounds a week I would have worn any uniform they wished and pointed my gun in any direction they asked me to.’

  If we now went and asked Steve why he fought, I was thinking, an entirely new world of characters and voices and tempers and words would be created right there in the pub. I felt a desire to participate and to watch. But the sight of Mrs Ward sitting happily drinking her beer decided me not to spoil her evening. Vincent agreed, but told me she usually left for home much earlier than the rest. I said we should go and sit with them. Vincent hesitated for a while. Shirley had made him promise not to annoy Steve. But after a while we abandoned the chess game and he came with me.

  I apologized for having left them, explaining that my passion for chess was so consuming, the sight of a chessboard all but drove me frantic. I was sarcastic. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. I knew I wanted to lose my temper and expose something or other, but what exactly, I didn’t know. Perhaps I was unconsciously admitting and being disgusted by an element of insincerity in the occasion: after all, what made Edna and Font and me go to Mrs Ward’s and accept her hospitality, and be bored, if there wasn’t something self-reflecting in our behaviour? Worst of all, perhaps, was the knowledge that when we left them and went home, we would say how ‘nice’ it was to have been to Mrs Ward’s. Mrs Ward was nice of course, but the three of us were being bored. Why, then pretend it was being enjoyable? Or even interesting? It was not only that we were pretending to each other, we were also trying to fool ourselves. I say this now, but at the time I had no idea why I felt unsatisfied and ready to provoke unconventional behaviour in myself and everyone else.

  Mrs Ward left after a while. We thanked her again for having asked us to tea, and Font insisted on seeing her home. Edna was being cold towards me, but I had reached that stage of insobriety which magnifies self-confidence to a degree of smugness. I turned to Shirley and, without in the least meaning to, I whispered that she was the most attractive girl I had seen for a long time, then immediately I ignored her again. This, I thought, was the most skilful opening; awakening a woman’s interest and then ignoring her, and letting her pursue for a while, if only out of sheer curiosity. How it came about that I, certainly inexperienced in the complicated relationship between man and woman should have evolved such theories on courtship, I don’t know. There must be a certain instinct in man, more developed in some than in others, which prompts him to act in the most suitable way.

  Font returned and I started talking to him. Edna and Vincent seemed to have taken to each other and were carried away by their conversation. Steve must have had a weak bladder because he kept popping downstairs.

  ‘Hello, Fonty Wonty,’ I said. ‘Here we are, drinking pints of beer in the land of Billy Bunter, and Vincent is William Brown grown up and the landlord is Winnie the Pooh turned publican and on this very table Sir Roger de Coverley wrote his elegant stupidities. Aren’t you happy?’

  ‘What’s happening to you, Ram?’ he said. ‘You’re changing so fast I’m beginning not to recognize you.’

  ‘I’m only having a good time, Font. Excuse me while I proceed to do so.’ I turned to Shirley whose gloves had fallen down, picked them up, and told her there was a very precious flower in Egypt, of which the smell of her hair reminded me.

  ‘You’re very naughty,’ she said.

  ‘Naughty?’ I pretended to be angry. ‘You are a very beautiful woman,’ I said, ‘and you know it. I realize you are engaged to someone else, but you must remember I am not a sophisticated European and so cannot hide my emotions. Since you are beautiful, it is natural for me to admire you and to be incapable of pretending you are just any woman.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘I did not mean to hurt your feelings.’ I turned to Font, acting hurt.

  ‘Jesus, Font; I’m enjoying myself.’ I took all the empty glasses and came back with a round of drinks. We were all drinking beer, but I brought Shirley a sherry instead.

  ‘How did you know I like sherry?’ she asked. I didn’t answer and turned to Font.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, Font?’ I asked. ‘You are the one who’s acting strange. Why aren’t you enjoying yourself? Why aren’t you full to the brim with your own silent ecstasy? Why aren’t you in love? Why aren’t you overflowing with happiness?’

  ‘Don’t force yourself too much, Ram.’

  ‘Jesus, Font. Do you remember that day before the summer holidays at the university, and telling me what a horrid thing it was to go to Alexandria and do over and over again what we had been doing for years and years? And yet, here we are in London, but you are silent and miserable.’

  ‘I am not miserable,’ he said. ‘I am enjoying myself in my own way; although I never knew up to now how different my way is from yours.’

  I drank my beer. Was I enjoying myself? The questions I was beginning to ask myself would kill me, I thought. Why couldn’t I do what I was doing without all this judging? Why couldn’t I just be what I was only a few weeks earlier in Egypt?

  ‘Are you angry?’ Shirley asked me.

  I looked at her and suddenly caught her hand under the table and held it tight in mine. Of course I was enjoying myself. Steve went downstairs for about the twentieth time. He didn’t look very happy, although of course he didn’t know what was going on between Shirley and me.

  ‘Well,’ Vincent said, ‘shall we ask him?’

  ‘If you wish,’ I said.

  ‘What is it?’ Shirley asked me. I squeezed her hand and told her we were going to ask Steve how many wogs he had killed.

  ‘Vincent,’ she shouted, ‘leave Steve alone.’ He laughed.

  ‘Edna,’ she said, ‘please ask Vincent not to be horrible to Steve.’

  ‘Of course he won’t,’ Edna said. ‘And anyway I am sure Steve can look after himself.’

  ‘But he can’t,’ Shirley said. ‘He gets all worked up and he’ll spend days on end telling me
my brother is not fit to be an Englishman.’ We all laughed.

  Steve came back and pulled a chair near Shirley, who quickly took her hand away from mine. I watched him clumsily putting his arm round Shirley, and the matter-of-fact way she allowed him to do so. I felt sure she didn’t love him.

  ‘What was the beer like, in Suez?’ I asked Steve. After all we had been to his house, and it would be unfair to gang up against him. As it was, however, he was more or less responsible for what happened.

  ‘We drank the beer the wogs drank there; all right once you get used to it.’

  ‘How did you like the wogs, Stevey boy?’ Vincent asked.

  ‘Shut up, Vince,’ Shirley said; and she turned to Steve. ‘Can’t you see you’re being rude, using that word?’

  ‘Oo’s being rude?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled.

  ‘I don’t think Edna, Font and Ram like being called wogs at all,’ Shirley told him.

  ‘Blimey,’ he shouted, ‘I haven’t called them anything of the sort.’

  ‘No, of course you haven’t,’ Edna said quickly, ‘Shirley is only pulling your leg. Come on; let’s drink this one up and let me buy the next round.’

  ‘Your leg’s not being pulled,’ Vincent said, ‘but you keep putting your foot in it.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Steve shouted. ‘What has a filthy wog got to do with these people here?’

  ‘You’ve put your other foot in it now,’ Vincent screamed.

  ‘Steve,’ Shirley said, ‘I know you’re a fathead, but I didn’t know you were that big a fathead. When you say “wogs” you mean Egyptians in general. Edna, Font and Ram are Egyptians.’

  The truth suddenly dawned upon him. I felt sorry for him.

  ‘Blimey,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive at all … I …’ The three of us outdid each other in reassuring him.

  ‘What I say is,’ he said, ‘we’re all human beings.’

  ‘That’s right,’ we said.

  ‘There is no difference between one man and another,’ he said.

  ‘All except between you and me,’ Vincent said, but we decided to ignore Vincent.

  ‘Mind you,’ Steve said, ‘I can tell you who’s brewing up all the trouble there.’

  ‘Do tell us,’ Vincent said.

  ‘It’s them ruddy Jews,’ he said.

  Vincent’s laughter echoed all over the pub. ‘You’ve put your very head in it this time,’ he managed to ejaculate in between fits of guffaws.

  Font whispered we should explain Edna was not my sister, since Vincent already knew.

  ‘Edna is Jewish,’ I told Shirley.

  ‘Edna is Jewish,’ Shirley told Steve.

  ‘How are the Jews causing all the trouble there?’ Edna asked Steve.

  ‘Look, I didn’t know you were a Jewess,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget we fought the last war for you.’

  It was my turn to laugh.

  ‘No, no,’ Font said in his intense way. ‘The Jews were being persecuted long before you declared war.’ He went on to talk about Munich and all that.

  ‘Oh shut up, Font,’ I said.

  ‘Why should he shut up?’ Edna asked quietly.

  ‘Do you think Steve is going to be convinced of what is true and what is not?’ I asked her. ‘Don’t you know the history of the First World War and how Lenin published the secret reasons for the war and yet millions of Steves went on slaughtering each other for “Honour” and for decorations and didn’t care two hoots whether it was for the oil they were doing it? Haven’t you read Sassoon and Robert Graves?’

  ‘Let’s talk of something else,’ Shirley said.

  ‘Be quiet, Shirley,’ Vincent told her. Then he turned to Edna and said: ‘I’ve fed that girl books the way a mother does her child milk. Spoons and shovels full of books. And then she takes up with this moron because “he’s steady and hard-working”,’ he mimicked. ‘Makes me want to spit.’

  ‘I’m a darned sight better than you,’ Steve shouted and stood up threateningly. I stood up too, and told Steve to sit down and let’s have a drink and not quarrel.

  ‘Go to hell you … wog,’ he said. I sat down and Shirley jumped up.

  ‘If you don’t apologize this very instant, I’ll have nothing more to do with you,’ she shouted.

  ‘That’s right,’ he screamed, ‘you take sides with these wogs and Jews and that yellow brother of yours.’

  I went down to the toilet, and after relieving myself I just idled for a while, looking at myself in the mirror and thinking of nothing in particular.

  Steve had gone when I returned. As soon as I sat down Shirley’s hand slid into mine.

  ‘Let’s go and call Steve back,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Shirley said, caressing my hand.

  Our hands were under the table and I was hoping no one was noticing what was going on. I wondered what Edna would do if she discovered this; and then wondered what I would do if I discovered Edna and Vincent were holding hands. Nothing, I thought. I was lost in these possibilities when I noticed we were all nearly drunk. We were sitting bleary eyed in silence.

  ‘Let’s go and dance,’ I suggested. ‘Let’s drink some more and have more fights and reach a real climax as the Hemingway people in Spain do. Come on, Edna, let’s live.’

  ‘All right,’ she said and pulled us all up. We lost our stupor. Vincent owned an old Austin car, and went to fetch it.

  ‘Ring up Brenda Dungate,’ I told Font. ‘She might come with us.’

  He brightened at the prospect and we looked for her number together. I heard him speak to Dr Dungate first and ask him whether he might take Brenda out dancing. Brenda came to the telephone and Font said we’d pick her up in twenty minutes.

  ‘Font,’ I said, ‘let’s nip to the public bar and have a quick one together.’

  As we stood at the bar drinking half pints, I realized for the first time how very fond of Font I was. It struck me that we had always been together since childhood and that we were closer to each other than to anyone else. There was no reason to think of it just then except, perhaps, that I felt I was drifting away from him. But why was I drifting away? I knew something was happening to me, but what, I couldn’t tell.

  ‘What’s the matter with me, Font?’

  ‘You’re becoming phoney, Ram.’

  ‘But that’s what I don’t know. When I left you all and played chess with Vincent, I was thinking you and Edna were being phoney because you were pretending to be enjoying yourselves, and that I was not being phoney because I preferred to play chess and did so. Then I drank a bit and delivered a tirade against the English to Vincent; but it was all pretence because I was enjoying myself. Then I started making love to Shirley for no reason at all, except, perhaps, for ego’s sake. Jesus, I’m even using a word like “ego”. And then I enjoyed seeing us making a fool of Steve, although in actual fact I was sorry for him and bore him no grudge whatsoever.’

  ‘You’re becoming self-centred, Ram.’

  ‘We never talked of “self-centredness” or “phoniness” when we were in Egypt. These words are beginning to play a part in our life which they never did hitherto.’ And then I split into two again, and one part watched me speak to Font, and heard me say ‘hitherto’. Why that word ‘hitherto’ caused the split I don’t know. I had forgotten my fear of drifting away from Font. I hardly listened to him as he spoke.

  We picked up Brenda and went to a dance. I think it was in Hampstead Town Hall. There were chairs all round the hall, and somehow we all lost each other; Vincent with Edna, Font with Brenda and Shirley with me. To start with I enjoyed the actual dancing, but after a while it was only a matter of holding a new body close to mine and kissing its ears and hearing it pant. We drank some more and acted like lovers. There was not going to be any ‘Hemingway’ climax after all. I felt like going to bed. I found Edna and told her I was taking Shirley home, then going to bed.

  We had a coffee first in an espresso bar. Shirley sat under a red lig
ht. She looked very young and wholesome under that colour. We spoke in subdued, friendly voices and talked about each other. The lust of the dance hall had evaporated and left a residue of friendliness and ease in each other’s company. She asked me about Edna and I told her she was a very good friend to Font and me. She spoke to me about her life at home and about Steve and about Vincent. Her father had been a drunkard. Her mother had taken the two children away, only to fall in love with Paddy, a young Irishman. Paddy was a chronic non-worker, and they had gone through some hard times. Vincent had always been very intelligent and Paddy, who was a bit of a thinker in his way, had encouraged him to study and was hoping to see him through university. However, the war came, and Paddy was thrown in and out of prisons for refusing to join the British Army. Vincent’s hope had vanished. But all the same he managed to study television engineering at night school and had landed a good job. Vincent had tried hard to elevate his sister to his own standard of education; but somehow she was content to become a typist. They had known Steve since childhood. He was an honest, straightforward person and, because her home was sometimes unpleasant with fights between Vincent and Paddy, she had let herself drift into getting engaged to Steve.

  I was content, sitting there listening to her. What was it, I wondered, that I liked about Vincent and Shirley? With them I forgot I was Egyptian and they English and I a stranger in their midst. No matter how hard the Dungates tried, they were never to make me feel we were one and the same. Sitting with Shirley that evening, I returned to my old self and was nothing else but Ram who was born in Cairo and who liked to read and to drink. I felt at ease – Shirley and Vincent were a bit of Font to me. She asked me if I were in love with Edna.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  We walked, hand in hand, to where she lived in St John’s Wood. We talked easily and I told her I was sorry about what happened to Steve and confessed I was indirectly responsible. We came to some street-lamps lying on the pavement, waiting to be erected, and Shirley walked along one of them, balancing herself and catching my hand now and then for support.

  ‘I love my brother very much,’ she said, ‘and I know what he says about Steve is true. He will be a good husband but it will be boring living with him. Vince tells me he’ll always remind me I’m being bored.’ She jumped off the lamp-post and said: ‘I know you were just flirting with me in the pub, but I was excited all the same, and I never once felt excited with Steve.’