The old devils: a novel (10 page)

All three men seemed to turn rigid for an instant, then came back to life and motion. Alun raised his glass high, Charlie waved, Peter nodded. They converged. Alun shook Peter's hand not too hard, smiling not too broadly, trying to get it right. The difficulty was, he recognized, that he had grown so used to transmitting amiability, benevolence and all those for unreal that this confrontation rather stretched him. His will was of the best: he had a rooted and sincere aversion to any trouble not of his own making.

'Don't let's think how long it's been,' he said to Peter, genuinely enough. 'Now drinks.'

While these were coming he went on, nodding at Peter's paunch, 'I don't know how you do it. I suppose it's just a matter of eating and drinking anything you like.'

'Yes, but it's the slimline tonic that turns the scale.

Actually I have managed to reduce the rate of increase of the rate of increase.'

'Nice-looking place, this,' said Alun to Charlie, his glance panning to and fro. 'They won't let me pay here, I notice.'

'Oh, you've seen Victor.'

'Yes,'
said Alun, enthusiastically this time. 'Impressive fellow, I thought. He knows his job all right. Very professional. '

Charlie seemed rather doubtful of that one, but then raised his glass. 'Here's to us all. Welcome to Wales, you poor bastard.'

The three looked one another seriously in the eye and drank with a flourish. Alun began to relax. He went on relaxing over the next drink, when they got on to politics and had a lovely time seeing who could say the most outrageous thing about the national Labour Party, the local Labour Party, the Labour-controlled county council, the trade unions, the education system, the penal system, the Health Service, the BBC, black people and youth. (Not homosexuals today.) They varied this with eulogies of President Reagan, Enoch Powell, the South African government, the Israeli hawks and whatever his name was who ran Singapore. They were very much still at it when they went down to lunch, or rather when Charlie, explaining that he was trying to keep himself down to just one meal in the evening, went and sat with the other two and prepared to drink while they had lunch. He had brought a fresh drink with him from the bar so as to ensure an even flow.

They had hardly settled in their seats before one of the long-aproned waiters went round unfolding napkins and spreading them across their destined laps. They were unexceptionably large and laundered and of linen, but they were also pale pink. Alun ostentatiously held his arms up well clear during the spreading. When it was over he put on an eager, didactic expression and said, 'This is called a napkin. Its purpose is to protect your clothing from the substantial gobbets of food that your table manners will cause to fall from your mouth or from some point on the way to your mouth, and to provide something other than your hand or sleeve with which to wipe your mouth. Explaining this to one of your understanding would take a long time and even then might not avail, so fucking well sit still and shut up.'

'Oh Christ,' said Peter immediately, his eyes on the menu. They had each been given one in the bar but none of them had looked at it. 'A bloody Welsh lunch and dinner. Well, roll on.' Looking round for someone to accuse he caught sight of Charlie.

'What's the idea?' he asked, apparently in sincere puzzlement.

'You have to do it in a way,' said Charlie. 'People are getting to expect it. We only do it on Fridays anyway, Fridays and St David's Day. And it isn't compulsory even then. Which is decent of us because it's pretty nasty, unless you happen to have a taste for chicken in honey.'

'You mean you actually get people eating that?' asked Alun.

'Not much, no. That's not really the point. Seeing it on the menu is what they like. Same with the signposts.'

'But you don't give an English translation here,' said Peter.

'Well, you see, that would rather spoil things for them.

They like to feel they understand it, or could if they paid it a bit of attention. And they probably do understand some of it, like
pys
is peas and
tarws
is taters.'

'Christ,' said Peter again, with weary disgust this time. 'We're not going to war over this, I hope. It's all fairly harmless, isn't it?'

'No it isn't. There you're wrong. It's one part, a small part but still a pan, of an immense Chinese wall of bullshit that's, I mean Offa's Dyke that's ... '

'Threatening to engulf us,' supplied Charlie. 'I know.

But I'm afraid I don't think putting a couple of dozen Welsh words on a menu lets the side down very far. Find a pass that's really worth holding and I'll join you there.'

'There never is one. That's the trouble.'

'We need more drinks,' said Alun. 'And I'd advise you to switch, Peter. I don't think that slimline tonic agrees with you.'

'Can I recommend the soup?' asked Charlie. 'I hope you've noticed it's called soup, not
cawl.
I might even have some myself. Potato and leek today, he does it quite well. Unless Peter thinks the leek is there for impure reasons.'

'All right, Charlie; said Peter.

Just as they had ordered, Victor approached the table, using a much less emphatic gait than when making his exit from the bar. 'Do forgive me, but one of your fans, Alun, requests the honour of a brief word.'

'What kind of fan?'

'Well, I don't know what you'd call her, but if it was left to me I'd say she was a young person. There, over in the corner, just turning round now.'

From what Alun could see without his glasses, which was all he was going to see of her, the fan looked perhaps rather good as well as young. 'All right, but you will see she knows I'm having a little private lunch-party.'

'I'll make sure she understands that, Alun - leave it to me.'

'You more or less have to do it,' said Alun after a moment. He felt a little embarrassed.

'Don't worry,' said Charlie.

'I mean you can always get out of it if you don't mind looking like a shit but I'm afraid I'm a bit too cowardly to do that unless I have to.'

'We understand.'

Seen closer to, the fan looked quite seriously good, and late twenties. Alun found himself signalling to Victor, who with what could have been piss-taking alacrity sent a waiter scurrying forward with a fourth chair. The fan shook hands nicely with them all and accepted a-glass of wine.

'And what can I do for you?' There was no point, Alun considered, in trying to hide his satisfaction at this turn of events.

'I'd like you to talk to my group.'

'Tell me about your group.'

It turned out to be a literary circle, thirty strong on a good night, though naturally there would be more for someone like him, twenty minutes' drive, and not worth asking about a fee. Yes, a reading would do if he preferred it.

'I'll consider it,' said Alun. 'Perhaps you'd like to drop me a line incorporating all that, care of the local BBC. Very kind of you to ask.'

'Nice to have met you.' Her voice was good too.

Charlie watched her go. 'Is that the lot?' he demanded.

'The lot? I might talk to her group if I'm feeling gracious.

What are you getting at?'

'What? A bit off I call that quite frankly.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'I mean, is that the worst you could do? You didn't even ask her for her bloody phone-number.' Charlie shook his head.

'Oh, I read you now. What I should have done was grab at her bosom. Of course.'

'Well that's how you're supposed to behave, isn't it?'

'You do me too much honour, Charlie. Age comes to us all.'

The fresh drinks arrived, whisky and gin to make up for the relative thinness of the wine. Soon afterwards the scallops arrived, and they were all right, eatable enough anyway for Alun to praise them extravagantly when Victor came to inquire. At this stage too Alun carried his point that he must be allowed to pay for the meal or would feel inhibited in his choice, and Victor gave in very gracefully and accepted a glass of the second bottle of Chablis
grand Cru.
For obvious reasons Alun made rather a thing of not knowing about wine, but any fool could have seen that this one looked and sounded good. At a suitable moment he revealed that he had done television that morning, hence, he said, his desire to get clean away afterwards and have a couple of drinks with a pal or two. He added that that was how ht: always felt after a do like that, even a little local one.

'You must have done a lot of it in London,' said Charlie.

'Yes I did, and why not? Some of the people up there, you know, bloody intellectuals, Hampstead types, they look down their noses at you if you go on the box more than once in a blue moon. Cheapening yourself. Well I'm not. I don't consider I'm cheapening myself by appearing on television. What else am I fit for? I'm just an old ham after all, so why shouldn't I perform where a few people can see me?'

'Oh, come along now, Alun, really,' said Charlie at once, and Peter said, 'No, you're not being fair to yourself.'

'You're very kind, both of you, but I've no illusions after all these years. Quite a successful ham, mind, but a ham none the less. An old fraud.' Here he paused for a space, as if wondering whether this time he had indeed been to some extent unfair to himself, then went buoyantly on, 'Anyway, forget it. Bugger it. Now who's for cheese?

And it must follow as the night the day, a glass of port.'

Charlie said yes to that instantly, and it only took Peter a moment or two to do so. Alun asked for the cheeseboard, two large vintage ports and a glass of the house red, explaining that-port had been playing him up a bit recently, and went off to the lavatory with more explanations about being an old man and envying you youngsters.

'We chimed in all right, did we?' asked Charlie. 'About the terrible injustice he was doing himself.'

'We did the best we could. Does he think we think he means that about him being a ham and a fraud? Him seeing himself in that light, that is.'

'I don't know. I doubt it. I shouldn't be surprised if he reckons that just saying that, whatever we make of it, is going to help his credibility in the future. Sort of, a fraud who's come out is more believable than a closet fraud.'

'Maybe. Anyway, he's buying us an excellent lunch.

Well, buying me one.'

'There's always that. And it may go against the grain to admit it, but one's spirits do tend to lift a degree or so at the sight of him.'

'I know what you mean. Even I know.'

Alun came hurrying back as the drinks were being handed round by a wine-waiter who came out of the same sort of drawer as the barman and was got up in a fancy jacket with clusters of grapes depicted on the lapels. The cheese was there. Charlie took a small piece of Cheddar.

'What is the vintage port?' asked Alun.

'Port is a fortified wine from Portugal,' said the waiter, having perhaps misheard slightly, 'and vintage port is made from-'

'I didn't ask for a bloody lecture on vinification, you horrible little man.' Alun laughed a certain amount as he spoke. 'Tell me the shipper and the year and then go back to your hole and pull the lid over it.'

The lad seemed more or less unabashed at this. 'Graham 1975, sir,' he said in his Ruritanian accent, and withdrew. 'It's no use just relying on respect to get good service in a restaurant,' Alun explained, still grinning. 'There has to be fear too.'

'Perhaps it slipped your mind that I'm part-owner here,' said Charlie.

'Not at all, that's why I piped up. I could see it would have been difficult for you to say anything. '

'Excuse me a moment.' Charlie got up with deliberation and made off after the wine-waiter.

Alun watched him cross the room in an all-but-straight line, then turned purposefully to Peter and looked him in the eye. 'Gives me a chance to tell you this. What happened many years ago is over and done with as far as I'm concerned. For what that may be worth. I have no unfriendly feelings towards you at all. You'll want to hear about Rhiannon's feelings from her, and forgive me if I intrude, but as far as I know they're the same. I'll never say anything more on the matter.'

'That's generous of you, Alun.' Peter had dropped his gaze. 'Thank you.'

'One moderately interesting thing did emerge from that rubbishy TV chat this morning. It occurred to me while I was yammering away that it might be fun to take a few trips round the place.'

Here Charlie came back and sat down, again in commendable style. 'Keeping staff is a hell of a problem these days,' he said. His manner was conciliatory.

'I bet it is,' said Alun warmly, and went on in the same breath, 'I was just telling Peter I was thinking of going on a jaunt or two in the next few weeks, nothing fancy, a sort of scenic pub-crawl really. With, you know, some eventual literary creation held distantly in mind. Even a poem or two if the bloody old Muse can still walk.'

Charlie and Peter looked at each other. 'It's an idea,' admitted Charlie.

'Bit miserable, running about here and there on your own. Perhaps you two would like to come along sometimes if you're at a loose end. We might get hold of old Malcolm. Make a 'party of it.'

In those few seconds the expressions of the other two had solidified, Charlie's into cheerful mistrust, Peter's into surly mistrust. The mistrust was natural enough, but out of place on this occasion. Alun liked company, he liked an audience and he liked almost any kind of excursion and that was it. For the moment at least. When he protested some of this his hearers soon started to cave in, not so much out of belief as because each calculated that any attempt at hanky-panky could be better resisted nearer the point of unveiling, and after all it had been a pretty lavish lunch. And what else had they got in their diaries?

Charlie was the first to yield. Peter held out a little longer, declaring that he would have to see, maintaining that he was supposed to be taking things easy, but he was talked out of that in no time when it was explained to him that getting out and about a bit was just what he needed. All the camaraderie that had rather faded away over the wine-waiter was restored. Animatedly they suggested places to visit, discussed them, reminisced about them. Alun ordered two more large vintage ports and another glass of the house red, which he sipped at and seemed to lose interest in. After a few minutes he called for the bill, paid, tipped largely, and departed on his way - to take the car in and have its starter fixed, he said.