The Triple Goddess (75 page)

The barkeeper was looking at him with his mouth open; in fact the whole establishment had fallen silent. The telling of a life’s story was suspended, an anecdote was put on hold, and the greatest joke on earth had been interrupted before the punch-line could be delivered. An inquiry as to whether someone was doing the rumpy-pumpy with someone else’s wife remained unasked, the request for a loan was unmade, a pass at somebody’s girlfriend while her date was in the gents was not completed, a hand was not shaken, a wink was not winked, and numerous half-empty glasses went undrained.

The servant was worried that his application for refreshment might not have been in order, and he cudgelled his brain to come up with what he might have done wrong. He found that he was beginning to perspire, which was something he was not aware that he was capable of doing even in Hell, where the temperature was regulated to 451 degrees Fahrenheit, and for a moment he longed to return to the safety and routine of the Old Rectory.

Then the individual guffawed. ‘Well, I’m jiggered!’ One by one the pub-goers joined in, until the horse brasses were jangling on the walls. Even the stuffed animals and fish that were mounted on plaques or in glass cases on the walls and shelves seemed to be amused. The squirrel chattered, the owl hooted, a pair of badgers snickered, and the carp blew bubbles. An extinct and faded bird trilled, a stoat whistled, a fox mask barked, and a number of illegal traps of various sizes slung from the ceiling, including one designed to catch poachers, opened and snapped shut.

‘I’ve never heard anything like that before,’ yelled Hob the publican—for it was he who had offered to serve the man the poison of his choosing—above the din.

Hob was not just changed but transformed since the devil lady had promoted him from yokeldom. Gone was his air of bemusement or incredulity, even amazement, at his own stupidity. He had responded keenly to the challenge of pulling as many pints as possible, none of them on the house, and parting the foolish men of the village from their money. Exchanging his dirty smock frock and breeches for a fishing jersey and corduroy trousers, he had developed the social skills necessary for the role of mine host, and a reckoning ability in keeping the accounts that was astonishing given his former wildly inaccurate assessments of how many straws he might suck in an average month. Upon request he could supply everything from racing tips to how to find the best time-shares in Tuscany, wherever that was.

Hob’s greetings when any local or regular walked in were bluff and Dickensian. “Cyril! Evening, Cyril,” he would exclaim in salutation, ignoring the casual customers who had been waiting their turns when Cyril walked in. Unprompted he would reach down Cyril’s personal pewter tankard from its hook on the ceiling, and pour him a perfect pint of beer with just the right amount of head on it; or in Lemuel’s case, double-press a large whisky from an optic. “Where’ve you been, Cyril, old man?” he would continue, applying a sly forefinger to the side of his nose and winking; “off on another of those
projects
of yours, was you?, say no more, say no more. People’ve been asking, ‘Where’s Cyril? Haven’t seen Cyril recently.’ But old Hob, whatever he knows he keeps to himself. By the way: there’s a brace of pheasants for you out the back, compliments of the you-know-who; glad you stopped in, another day and they’d have dropped off the hook. And Phyllis next door at the Bake House wants to know when Irene can pair her at bridge. How’re the kids?”

It mattered not that Cyril was a social pariah, loathed by all who had the misfortune to rub leather elbow patches with him at the bar, it was all part of the subservient ritual that was expected of Hob and it was good for business. But the manservant, as a first-time visitor to the pub, was ineligible for such treatment, demon or no demon; and when the time came what he was would not be held against him, for there were many who were not much more unpleasant than he.

‘I’ll tell you what, squire,’ said the un-dumbed Hob, entering into the spirit of things and wanting to encourage a new customer; ‘you give me twenty quid and I’ll let you know when you’ve run out or give you change. We don’t do anything on tick here. You’re not driving, are you? If you are I’ll trouble you for the keys, but if you’re in the pub car park move it first onto the Street—we get early deliveries.’ As the man forked over the note he assured Hob that he was not driving, that he had never been in a car, that he could not drive and never would. As easy as lying came to a demon, he had decided to be transparently honest this evening in hope of gaining the acceptance of the locals, if not their trust. He had read that people would confide things to strangers in public houses that they would not tell their best friends on the other side of the door.

This ironic witticism prompted another round of mirth and calls for the same of beer from the regulars who were ranged at strategic intervals along the bar so as to prevent other people from gaining the same easy access to service that they had. Instead the less fortunate had to dance behind on their toes to gain the barmen’s attention and bawl their orders; and then, with apologies, poke their arms and money through small gaps between those in the front rank, who would ignore them, apologise again to reach for their drink, spill it with one hand and pick wet change off a beer-soaked bar towel with the other.

Hob had no such difficulty as he reached through the forest of ornamental beer taps to pass the manservant a foaming pint in a straight glass, accept the note, and grasp his hand firmly with a sudsy paw. ‘Name’s Hobson, call me Hob.’

‘Good evening, Hob. Pleased to meet you.’

‘…and you, you are?’

‘Er, well, when she calls me anything polite, it’s Oi!, or Where-Are-You-Man?’

‘Welcome, Manny. Let me introduce you to a few of these…gentlemen. I use the term loosely.’

The servant met the immediate members of his audience and felt inordinately privileged when they made room for him, raised their drinks and wished him long life and happiness. Despite the impossibility of either, it was without doubt the nicest thing that anyone had ever said to him. Reciprocating the gesture and sentiment, he raised his glass and emptied it in one appreciative draught. Looking across the bar, he noted that the clock on the wall was showing the wrong time, and immediately he was at ease. This place felt just like home, which, because he had never been human, made him happy.

Impressed by Manny’s facility with a glass, each local in turn bought him a pint of beer to celebrate his provisional membership of their club. He downed them almost as quickly as he had the first, in a single swallow, and this prompted an exchange of knowing smiles as the men monitored how well he could hold his booze. It was a game they loved to play with newcomers, who with any luck had weak heads and would entertain all and sundry by passing out after they had bought the others more drinks than they had him. But the glances soon became frankly admiring: although they were still coming to terms themselves with a new ale that Hob was having delivered from Fuddle’s of Woozeley brewery, Horsekick Stout, which had an alcohol by volume strength of 8.5%, in addition to its ordinary, Hogwash Bitter, which had an ABV of 4%, alcohol in the manservant’s bloodstream caused not the slightest effect of hilarity, loud or slurred speech, or drowsiness.

The locals were impressed but disappointed, and the odds lengthened on the bets that were being taken on whether Manny would slide to the floor to join the string of mutts who, despite their owners’ promising words to their wives as they left the house clothed and booted as if for a hike on the downs, had resigned themselves to yet another day without exercise and an evening of cigarette smoke and beer fumes and deafening voices.

The conversation got louder until, suddenly, the wave of sound crested and petered out. In the embarrassed silence the manservant’s group peered into their mugs and glasses as if they had spotted a worm at the bottom. Unchristened Manny was disconcerted to realize that he was the centre of attention. It was evident to him that he had committed some kind of
faux pas
, and he cursed himself for having congratulated himself prematurely, and cast about for what it might be.

Then light dawned: it was his turn to buy a round of drinks. Mention had been made of this in the Bar Etiquette section of the information that the Help Desk at HQ had send him. Now that he was one of the lads, the time for special treatment was over. Sure enough, as soon as he had asked each person if he might have the privilege of refreshing his glass, he received an immediate and jovial reply in the affirmative.

The uncomfortable moment was over the moment that Manny’s second twenty-pound note had crossed the meridian of the bar and Hob had pincered Sir Edward Elgar’s handlebar moustache between calloused thumb and forefinger. Determined not to commit another solecism, Manny turned to apprehend a stranger who was returning from the cigarette machine to the table where he and his friends were seated, and offered to buy him a drink. The individual, startled, declined and cast a suspicious look over his shoulder as he moved on. Manny, perplexed, turned in surprise to his new friends.

The barflies tutted. ‘Don’t go starting that,’ they said; ‘you’ll have us bankrupt in no time, or in a brawl. He thought you were trying to pick him up. You’re not a nancy-boy, are you, Manny? A fruit fly?’

‘Sorry, a what?’

Came three voices, ‘A pansy. A nancy boy.’ ‘A pouffe, poofter, or woofter.’ ‘Are you light on your feet, Manny, a fairy? Or AC/DC?’

‘I had to take dancing lessons for an insertion job once. But there are no fairies where I’m from, and no fairy-tale endings.’

‘Eeeuw. He is light on his loafers. A raging queen. Backs to the wall, boys.’

‘We have lots of queens, where I come from.’

‘So you
are
queer.’

‘A bit odd, perhaps, as it might seem to you.’

‘Manny, answer the question: do you bat for the other team?’

‘Bat?’

‘Are you or are you not a bender?’

Manny tossed a mental coin. ‘Perish the thought. I’m as straight as they come.’

There were exhalations of relief all round.

Resolved to be more careful, a reinstated Manny noted that the apparently generous practice of buying drinks for the others, which in each case prompted a unanimous expression of a desire for the purchaser’s rude health and good fortune as each replenished glass left the bar with nary a slip ’twixt cup and lip, was unnecessary; for everyone put away the same quantity of beer as he would have had he been sitting on his own in a corner. All the while Hob and his staff roved up and down behind the bar and traded cheerful insults with their patrons, who had only to tilt their empty glasses over the bar for them to be refilled so that the elbow-bending might resume. The human fish in this aquatic environment never seemed in danger of being out of their element until a keg ran dry. The customers were accepting of the hiatus in the artesian flow so long as this was the reason, and their good spirits quickly revived as soon as the barrel in the cellar was replaced and connected to the pump, and normal service was resumed.

Around the bar facial expressions became ever more mobile and the hubbub increased. The smoke of innumerable cigarettes thickened and sweetened the air. When periodically each individual tripped off to “splash me boots” in the stinking urinal down the passage, his seat at the bar remained as empty and safe from occupation by another as if it were the Siege Perilous at King Arthur’s Round Table.

‘The first three are for free,’ one commented, as the manservant asked where the toilet was and excused himself—infernals had normal bladders—‘and then it’s a piss a pint. You only rent the stuff.’

When he returned he asked if the others would be ordering food. At the far end of the bar he had spotted a small group of people, not locals, who were scrutinizing a simple menu on a blackboard as if it were a thick padded-leather folio of plastic-sheathed sheets in a four-star restaurant and they were pretending that
Goujons de sole aux
pommes allumettes
was not fish and chips. His companions were scandalized by the idea and expressed strong opinions that solid sustenance in a pub only served to silt the riverine flow of beer and stem its natural passage to the sea. The man was pleased. The devil lady had used similar, earthier, words in a note that she had ordered him deliver to Hob, shortly after he was appointed as manager of the pub, telling him to keep the bill of fare as basic as possible—ploughman’s lunches and sandwiches and Cornish pasties—so as not to delay the onset of skunken drunkdom in his clientele.

‘Beer
is
food,’ said one, who appeared not to have missed a meal since birth. His midriff sagged over the barstool like ripe Camembert, so that he appeared to be squatting on the floor like a toad.

As the nodding donkeys of the beer pumps sucked the crude ale from the cellar, in the haze of smoke and conversation the insults and injuries of the outside world were in abeyance. The bar hung before the lotus-eaters like an altar; some stood at it, some leaned, some sat, but nobody showed it the disrespect of turning his back on it. Within the nonconformist tabernacle of the pub every heart was open, every desire known, and no secrets were hid, and those who for the duration had succumbed to its alchemic influence believed that, whatever it was they most longed for in life…a pot of gold, a love affair, a sultanate…their wish would be granted.

Recalling his obligation to glean information, the manservant was taken aback when his questions about his new friends’ backgrounds and personal lives were met with frowns and rebuffs. Those who replied at all deflected his probing with practised mendacity, or fobbed him off with glib sketchy details, or warned him that he was trespassing and should stick to the right of way. When he took out a notebook and scribbled a few hieroglyphs and figures, he looked up to see such thunderous looks directed at him that he immediately returned it to his pocket.