‘Bitter beer, ale; you know. Haven’t you got any?’
‘Beer, monsieur?’ The waiter’s voice rose in contempt. ‘Beer? I’m afraid you’re in the wrong district for that.’
Several men turned round, nudged one another and stared at Simpson, who blushed and said, ‘Well… a glass of wine, then.’
‘France, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria…’
Simpson tried to think. ‘A claret, please. Let’s say — a nice St Emilion.’
‘Château Le Couvent, Château Puyblanquet, Château Bellefore Belcier, Château Grand Corbin d’Espagne…’
‘Oh… I leave it to you.’
‘Bien, monsieur. And the year? Will you leave that to me too?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
The waiter swept away. Conscious that all eyes were upon him, Simpson tried to sink into his chair. Before he could compose himself, a middle-aged man from a nearby table had come over and sat down next to him. ‘Well, who are you?’ this man asked.
‘A — a traveller. From Sydney.’
‘These days that’s no excuse for not knowing your wines, friend. Some of them Rubicons and Malbecs are as firm and fully rounded as all bar the greatest Burgundies. And I found a Barossa Riesling on holiday this year that was pretty near as gay as a Kreuznacher Steinweg. You well up on the Barossas, friend?’
‘No, not really, I’m afraid.’
‘Thought not, somehow. Otherwise you wouldn’t stalk in here and screech out for beer. Ger, ought to be ashamed of yourself, you ought.’
‘I’m awfully sorry.’
‘Should hope so and all. Now, I’m an honest working man, see? I’m a drip, I am.’
‘A drip?’
‘Domestic Reactor Installation Patentee. Don’t they go in for them down under? Now you listen to me. When I come in here to meet my colleagues and crack a bottle or two after the daily round, I don’t want my palate soured by some toff yelling out about beer, especially not when we got a really elegant Gevrey Chambertin or Chambolle Musigny or something of that in front of us. It’s psychosomatic, like. Just the idea of beer’s enough to cut off some of the subtler overtones, get me?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Simpson said again. ‘I didn’t realize. But tell me: don’t you eat while you’re drinking these wines?’
‘What, and foul up the taste-buds with fat and sauces and muck? You got a nerve even mentioning food in a place like this. We’re oenophiles in here, I’ll have you know, not a bunch of pigs. Ah, here’s your claret.’ The stranger held the glass up to the light, then sniffed it delicately. ‘Right, now let’s see what you got to say about this. And get on with it.’
Simpson drank. It was the most wonderful wine he had ever known, with a strange warm after-taste that seemed to seep upwards and flood his olfactory centres. He sighed deeply. ‘Superb,’ he said at last
‘Come on, come on, we want more than that; you got to do better than that. Give us a spot of imagery, kind of style, a reference to art, that type of stuff.’
‘It’s — I don’t know — it’s the richness of summer, all the glory of… of love and lyric poetry, a whole way of life, profound and… some great procession of—’
‘Ah, you turn me up,’ the man said violently. ‘This is a 2003 Château La Bouygue, reconstituted pre-phylloxera of course. Now, light and free, not rich in association but perfectly assured without any insincerity, instrumental where the ’ois are symphonic, the gentleness of a Braque rather than the bravura of a Matisse. That’s as far as you can go with it. Love and lyric poetry indeed. I never heard such slop in my life. You aren’t fit to come in here, friend. You get off out to one of the pubs with your boss-class pals, that’s where you belong.’
Simpson threw down some coins and ran, a gust of ill-natured laughter sounding in his ears. He felt like walking the streets for the two hours in 2010 that still remained to him, but a nagging curiosity emboldened him to ask to be directed to a pub.
The place he finally made his way to was on the corner of a narrow street on the edge of Soho. It was a red-brick affair like a miniature grammar school or a suburban bank. As he approached, a bus drew up and a crowd of young people got off, chattering loudly to one another in what Simpson made out as a version of the upper-class tones current in his own time. He was more or less swept in through the front door of the pub, and had no time to puzzle out the significance of a notice above the entrance, painted by hand with what seemed deliberate inelegance, and bearing the legend: cracked up by the wallop and scoff mob.
He found himself in a large, ill-lighted and crowded room of which the main feature was a long counter that ran from end to end zigzag-wise, as if to accommodate as many as possible of the tall stools that were closely packed along it. What were evidently glass sandwich cupboards stood every couple of feet along the red plastic top. A group of people, half-crowd, half-queue, was clustered round the entrance, and Simpson mingled with them. He noticed that most of the stools were occupied by persons drinking beer or some such liquid out of pint glasses and eating rolls or sandwiches. Conversations were bawling away around him.
‘My dear, simply nobody goes to the Crown these days. Simon and I were given fresh crisps the last time we went.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me. We had some mustard that couldn’t have been more than a day old.’
‘The wallop’s first-class down at the George, and as for the scoff — the bluest piece of ham you ever saw. A really memorable thrash. I’m getting the secretary of the Mob to crack them up in the next issue of the Boozer Rag.’
‘Have you bagged stools, sir?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Sorry, mate. Have you bagged, mate?’
‘No, I’m afraid not. May I see the head potman?’
‘I’ll get him over directly, mate.’
‘Shall we start thinking about what we’re going to have? Pickled onions to start? With a glass of mild?’
‘Nuts for me. Mixed and salted.’
‘Right, that’s three onions, one nuts. And then I can recommend the cheese rolls. They know me here and always see that I get the three-day-old, with plenty of rind.’
After some time, Simpson obtained a stool and ordered a pint of bitter from the grubby barmaid.
‘Certainly, love. A fresh barrel has just come on.’
‘Oh, I’ll have mild instead, then.’
‘By all means, love, if you wish for it. Your taste is your own. And what will you have in the way of scoff, love?’
‘Oh, er — nothing to eat, thank you.’
‘If I may say so, love, with all due respect, you might perhaps do better at the wine-bar if you don’t wish for any scoff. We have standards to maintain here, love.’
‘I’m awfully sorry. What… scoff do you recommend?’
‘Our gherkins have frequently been cracked up, love. Not a dish is sold till it’s two days old.’
‘They sound delightful. One dish, please.’
‘Very good, love. With cigarette-ash garnishings, of course.’
The beer came. It was horrible. The gherkins came. Simpson took no notice of them. Dazedly he watched and listened to those around him. A kind of ritual seemed to be being enacted by a group of four immediately next to him. The two couples raised their pints in concert, intoned the word ‘Cheers’ in a liturgical manner, poured a few drops on to the front of their greasy pullovers, and sank their drinks in one swallow. Afterwards they all sighed loudly, wiped their mouths with their hands, banged the empty glasses down on the counter, and spoke in turn.
‘Lovely drop of wallop.’
‘First today.’
‘I needed that.’
‘Lays the dust.’
‘You can’t beat a decent pint.’