The lassie was staring across the bar to beneath the gantry, to where all the bottles of beer were stacked, as if she was comparing all the different labels or something. Because she was feeling self-conscious. You could tell. And there was a mirror up above. She was maybe wanting to look into it to see if she could see somebody but she wasnt able to bring it off in case she wound up catching somebody else’s eye. That was probably it. He gave her a smile but she ignored it.
He didnt want to feel hurt because it would have been stupid. Not only stupid but ridiculous. She hadnt ignored him at all. She had just no seen him. But she was no seeing anybody. Which is what lassies have to do in pubs. It’s part of how they’ve got to act. He had a daughter himself and that’s exactly what he would be telling her next time he saw her. You just cannot afford to take chances, no nowadays — different to when he was young. Aye, he said, young yins nowadays, they have it that wee bit harder.
And he glanced at her but she kept her stare fixed on the bottles beneath the gantry. Which was okay really because he had said it in such a way she would be able to do exactly that, ignore him, without feeling like she was giving him an insult at the same time. That kind of point was important between the sexes, between men and women, if ever they were to manage things together. He gave her another smile and she responded. She did. Her head looked up and she nodded. That was the irony. If you’re looking for irony that’s it. Plus as well the way things operate in conversation it was really up to her to make the next move, whatever it was, it was up to her.
The woman serving behind the bar was watching him. She was rinsing the glasses out at the sink. Her head was bent over as if she was attending totally to the job in hand but she wasnt, it was obvious. Probably because she knew he was married, thinking to herself: So he’s like that is he; chatting up the young lassies, I might’ve bloody guessed, they’re all the bloody same!
And that would make you laugh because he wasnt like that at all. No even just now when he was separated, when he was away living on his own. It was a total guess on her part and she was wrong. But women like to guess about men. They get their theories. And then they get surprised when the theories dont work out. She had seen him talk to the lassie and she just assumed he was trying to chat her up. It can be bad the way folk jump in and make their assumptions about you. And apart from his age what made her so sure he was married anyway? He had gave up wearing the band of gold a while ago and she was new in the job, still feeling her way; she was still finding out about folk and as far as he was concerned what could she know? almost nothing, it was just guesswork.
The woman was wearing a ring herself but that didnt even mean she was married. As far as a lot of females are concerned a band of gold’s a handy thing to have pure and simple for the way it can ward off unwelcome attention. There again but let’s be honest, most men dont even see a ring, and even if they do, so what? they just bloody ignore it.
The woman stopped rinsing glasses now to serve an auld bloke at the far end of the bar. He said something to her and she said something back and the two of them smiled. She had a quiet style with the customers, but she could crack funny wee jokes as well, the kind you never seem to hear at first — no till after the person that’s told you has went away and you’re left standing there and suddenly you think: Aye, right enough. . This is the way it was with her. And then when you looked for her once it had dawned on you she was off and pouring the next guy’s pint, she had forgot all about it. It was actually quite annoying. Although at the same time you’ve got to appreciate about women working in a pub, how they’ve got to develop an exterior else they’ll no be able to cope. This one for example had a distracted appearance like she was always away thinking about bloody gas bills or something. Mind you that’s probably what she was thinking about. Everything’s so damn dear nowadays. He said it to the lassie. He frowned at her and added: Still and all, it wasnt that much better afore they got in, the tories.
She looked at him quite surprised. It was maybe the first time she had genuinely acknowledged he was a person. And it made him think it confirmed she was a student, but at the same time about her politics, that she was good and left-wing. He jerked his head in the direction of the woman serving behind the bar. Her there, he said, I think she’s a single parent; she looks like she goes about worried out of her skull because of the bills coming in — she’ll have a tough time of it.
The lassie raised her eyebrows just; and that was that, she dropped her gaze. In fact she looked like she was tired, she did look like she was tired. But it was a certain kind of tiredness. The kind you dont like to see in young people — lassies maybe in particular, though maybe no.
I’m forty going on fifty, he said and he smiled, forty going on fifty. Naw but what I mean is I feel like I’m fifty instead of forty. No kidding. In fact I felt like I was fifty when I was thirty! It was one of the major bones of contention between me and the wife. She used to accuse me about it, being middle-aged. She used to say I was an auld man afore my time. No very nice eh? Accusing your husband of that.
He smiled as he shook his head, swigged a mouthful of beer. Mate of mine, he said, when I turned forty, at my birthday, I was asking him what like it was, turning it I mean, forty, and what he telled me was it took him till he was past fifty to bloody get over it!
He smiled again, took his fags out for another smoke although he was trying to cut down. The lassie already was smoking. He lit one for himself. I noticed you come in, he said, the way you walked ben the lounge and then came back here, like you were looking for somebody. I’m no being nosy, it’s just an observation, I thought you were looking for somebody.
She had two brown moles on her cheek, just down from her right eye. They were funny, pretty and beautiful. It made him smile.
That was how I spoke to you, he went on, because I thought you were in looking for somebody and they hadnt showed up. I’m no meaning to be nosy, it was just I thought the way you looked, when you came in. . He finished by giving a nod then inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He was beginning to blab and it was making her uncomfortable. He wasnt saying it right, what he was meaning to say, he was coming out with it wrong, as if it was a line he was giving her, a bit of patter.
She was just no wanting to talk. That was it. You could tell it a mile away. Then at the same time she wasnt wanting to be bloody rude. It was like she maybe didnt quite know how to handle the situation, as if she was under pressure. Maybe she would have handled things better if it had been a normal day, but for some reason the day wasnt normal. Maybe something bad had happened earlier on, at one of her classes, and she was still feeling the effects, the emotional upset. He wanted to tell her no to worry. She wasnt at her classes now.