“Drinking friends,” said Richard. “Cricket metaphors… Sorry, they're rather like your baseball metaphors in America. Endemic here, really…”
“You needn't apologize for it.”
“Everything in this blasted country has ties to the national sports. It's become part of our thinking and speech.”
“Like it hasn't happened in America?”
He shook his head and bit his lip at once, disagreeing. “Here we say at close of play, bat a brace, bat first, boundary, bowler, duck, cap, fieldsman, batsman, play a straight bat, knock for six, get one's eye in. maiden over, night watchman, off one's bat, off the mark, pitch, rot, run out, run up, sticky wicket, stump, take first knock.”
She laughed at his rendition.
He added between sips of dark beer, “For a time I played with the Marylebone Cricket Club, but I must admit, the game's become a fantastic obsession for the population here.”
“In America we've got sports metaphors all over the language map, too. We talk about bush-leaguers, rookies, getting to first base, stepping up to bat, having something on the ball, making a hit, being off base, stealing home, pinch hitting, rain checks, check swing, strike outs, curve balls, and so…” She stopped to stare into his eye and to raise her own pint to her lips. “Anything you've got in the way of problem clichds from being cricket-obsessed, we've got tenfold in the Colonies with baseball-and basketball-and football-obsessing fans. Trust me.”
“Even the police jargon uses cricket terms,” he countered. “We play in a witness or a suspect before any serious interrogation begins. As we did with the rat brothers back there today. We began with the weather, the cursed traffic, the latest on the Royal Family and the current political crisis. Then the suspect plays himself in, as it were.”
“We do the same where I come from. It's called reeling him in, from fishing expedition to having baited your hook to landing the big one.”
He challenged on another front, a smile lurking behind his countenance. “At least your government has its house in order,” he said, making her instantly laugh.
“Are you kidding?”
'To some degree, yes, but look here, our government can make a far greater muckery of statesmanship than yours any calendar day of the week.”
“A muckery? Do you mean mockery?”
“I said muckery, and I mean muckery. The British government makes a muck of everything it touches.”
“In about the same way the U.S. government makes a mess of things?”
“I hope you're not suggesting there's any room for comparison? Your American politicians might mess around, but ours muck about. They muck in places they have no business mucking. They pretend the exercise is a mental one, but we know what total mucks they are, despite the cloak of words they spew forth. They need to muck out Parliament and start over. They need to put every single one of those Parliamentarians in a muck to sweat and off their duffs. They spend their lives on the never-never. The whole business of government here has become an idle nonsense like… as in Alice's Wonderland.”
“Are you through mucking over Parliament?”
“Aye, I mean, yes.”
“What's a never-never?”
“An installment plan, and in the case of politicians, a never-never is a committee to study the problem. They have a committee to form committees. Lewis Carroll was right, you know, about us, aye.”
She laughed. She knew he felt relaxed. He used “aye” instead of yes when he relaxed, reverting back to the “sound of Bow Bells”-the easy slang of his upbringing. She liked knowing he could relax around her.
“They have a saying in Ireland: 'Will the last person leaving the country please switch off the politicians?' “
She laughed uproariously in response. She then asked, “You seem to be coping with divorce well? Copperwaite tells me it hasn't been that long.” He laughed hollowly in response, shook his head, sat up taller, and took in a deep breath. “Well, I do have a potted lecture on the subject, anyone cares to listen. Frankly, I had so many inquiries about the divorce, the children, how I was holding up, how she was holding up, that the standard talk had to be formulated, as defense. I mucked the divorce up as I mucked the marriage up, I suppose. Very parliamentary of me, really. Spent some time in therapy, and while it's now off the boil, as they say, at the time, I felt parboiled. I felt pain in my being so intense, a depression so deep, I fear going near that part of me ever again.”
She laid her hand over his. “I'm sorry. Didn't mean to open old wounds or to stick my nose in.”
“Oh, you've hardly opened any wounds, and as for being a prodnose, well, that's another term here for detectives. And since I work with the lot at the Yard, there's little hope for privacy on the issue, really.”
“But you still have wounds. A divorce is a war no one walks away from unscathed.”
He nodded, but stiffly. “Wounds remain. Tell you one thing about a divorce…”
“Yes?”
“Only one who wins is the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.”
“Threadneedle who?”
“Bank of England. It's on Threadneedle Street.” His eyes shifted. He brought her into focus and suddenly changed the subject entirely. “Copperwaite's somewhat upset with us- the two of us-but mostly me. He believes me over the moon about you, in raptures.”
She blushed and lifted the menu to cover her face, pretending hunger and thirst, but asking, “Is Copperwaite right?”
“Right? I can't say. just yet.”
She quickly returned to her menu and asked of a drink, “What's a pink gin?”
“Gin and bitters with water added. Would you care to indulge?”
“Only if you'll join me. But perhaps another beer, or a pint as you call it over here, would be wiser?”
“I'm off the ticker. Either way is fine with me. As for a pint, if a Briton asks for a pint, he means a pint of bitter. It's a unit of liquid measure, the pint in question is an Imperial pint, twenty ounces.”
“A beer in America is only sixteen ounces!”
“Half a pint is ten ounces. That may be what you want to order. It's what I carried over here for you.” He indicated the now empty glass in front of her.
“I see, I think…”
Jessica gave him a bemused smile which he took to mean “go on,” which he did. “As for whiskey or scotch, when you want a decent drink in London, you must ask for a double, but not even the bravest or thirstiest lad would dare ask a British bartender for a triple.”
She laughed loud enough to alert the tables around them. He continued on, “If you want to go easy on yourself, you might try our vintage cider. Goes down too easily, actually.”
“Really?”
“With the consistency of good sherry and at least as strong.”
Row after row of glasses in two sizes, pint and half pint, gleamed in the light just above the bar, tethered upside down on hooks like crystal bats.
“Next,” Richard continued, “you must decide between ordinary bitter and best bitter, when ordering a pint.”
“What's the difference? Which do you prefer?”
“The best, of course. It's stronger, aged longer.”
“Is that what we've had already? It was delicious.”
“Yes. So what will it be?” She settled for the pink gin. He called for two.
“So, I take it that Boulte doesn't like you. Inspector.” Already, the half pint of bitters worked to slur her words and thoughts.
“Boulte would like to make me a points man.”
“Meaning?”
“A policeman on point duty is a traffic cop.”
She asked him about his time in the military. He evaded the question, beginning a spiel on England's pubs instead, pointing about the place as he did so. “Pubs-public houses- like this one are an institution in England. Everyone in Britain has his pub. Some call it the local. Each pub has two bars, generally, the public bar and the private or saloon bar where you're apt to find a carpet on the floor and linen tablecloths on the tables. Drinks in the private room are a bit pricier, of course, but the dartboard, the billiard table, and the shove-half penny board you'll always find out here. If you want, tonight, we could do a pub crawl, that is make the rounds as you Yanks say. In fact, we could go to Clubland.”