“Custom?” queried the clockwork barman. “On such a night as this?”
The hinges creaked a little more; some rain blew into the bar.
“Who is there?” called Tinto. “Welcome, friend.”
The door, a smidgen open, opened a smidgen more. The brown button eye of a furry face peeped into Tinto’s Bar.
“Howdy doody,” called the barman. “Don’t be shy, now. Hospitality awaits you here. That and beer and any seat that suits you.”
Smidgen, smidgen, smidgen went the door and then all-open-up.
And then … and then …
Tinto peered and had he been able Tinto would have gawped. And had his face been capable of any expression other than that which was painted upon it, there is just no telling exactly what this expression might have become. Tinto’s voice, however, was capable of all manner of expression and the words that now issued through the grille in his chest did so in what can only be described as an awed whisper. And those words were …
“Eddie, Eddie Bear – is that really you?”
A sodden teddy stood in the doorway, a sodden and dejected-looking teddy. It put its paws to its plump tummy parts and gave them a squeeze, eliciting a dismal groan from its growler and dripping raindrops onto Tinto’s floor.
“It is you,” said Tinto. “It really is.”
Eddie Bear did shakings of himself. “I couldn’t borrow a bar-cloth, could I?” he asked.
Tinto’s head revolved upon his tin-plate shoulders. “You,” he said, and his voice rose in volume and in octave also. “You! Here! In my bar! You!”
“Me,” said Eddie. “Might I have a beer?”
“You!” Tinto’s head now bobbed up and down, his arms rose and his dextrous fingers formed themselves into fists.
“I’ll go,” said Eddie. “I understand.”
“Yes, you … yes, you.”
Eddie turned to take his leave. Turned in such a sorrowful, forlorn and dejected manner, with such a drooping of the head and sinking of the shoulders, that Tinto, whose fists were now beating a rapid tattoo upon the highly polished bar counter, felt something come over him that was nothing less than pity.
“No,” said Tinto, his fists unfisting. “No, Eddie, please don’t go.”
Eddie turned and gazed at the barman through one brown button eye and one blue. “I can stay?” he asked. “Can I really?”
Tinto’s head now bobbed from side to side. “But you –”
“Were mayor,” said Eddie. “Yes, I know and I’m sorry.”
“And you were –”
“Modified by the Toymaker. Hands with fingers and opposable thumbs, I know.” Eddie regarded his paws and sighed a heartfelt sigh.
“And –”
“Eyes,” said Eddie, mournfully, “blue glass eyes with eyelids. All gone now. I’m just plain Eddie Bear.”
Tinto said nothing, but beckoned. Eddie crossed the floor towards the bar counter, leaving behind him little paw-shaped puddles.
“Sit down, then,” said Tinto. “Have a beer and tell me all about it.”
“Could you make it something stronger than beer, please?” Eddie asked, climbing with difficulty onto what had once been his favourite barstool. “I’m soaked all the way through and whatever I drink is going to get watered down.”
“I’ve got a bottle of Old Golly-Wobbler,” said Tinto. “It’s pretty strong stuff – even the gollies are afeared of it, and you know how those bad boys like to put it away.”
“Make it a treble then, please,” said Eddie.
Tinto, who had been reaching up for the bottle, which stood upon a glass shelf between the Old Kitty-Fiddler and the Donkey Punch (a great favourite with male ballet-dancing dolls), hesitated. Tinto’s head revolved towards Eddie. “You do have money?” he asked.
Eddie shook his sodden head and made the face of despair.
“Thought not,” said Tinto. “Then you’re only getting a quadruple measure.” For Tinto had trouble with maths.
“That will be fine, then.” And the corners of Eddie’s mouth rose a little. But not any more than that.
Tinto decanted a measure of Old Golly-Wobbler, which might well have been a quadruple, into the dazzling glass that had so recently afforded him a small degree of pleasure because he knew where he was with it, and pushed the glass across the bar top towards the bedraggled bear. The bedraggled bear took it up between his trembling paws and tossed it away down his throat.
“Much thanks, Tinto,” said he. And Tinto poured another.
“It wasn’t my fault,” said Eddie, when further Golly-Wobblers were gone and a rather warm feeling was growing in his tummy parts. “I tried my best, I really did. I tried as hard as.”[2]
“And that’s where you went wrong,” said Tinto, decanting a glass of five-year-old oil for himself and emptying it into his grille. “No one wanted change, Eddie. Folk hate change and they came to hate you for trying to bring it about.”
“But things needed changing, still need changing.”
“No they don’t,” said Tinto, and he shook his head vigorously. A nut or screw inside came loose and rattled all about. “And now you’ve given me a headache,” said Tinto. “When will all this madness end?”
“Pour me another drink,” said Eddie.
“And you’ll pay me? That would make a change. And a pleasant one, too, I’m thinking.”
“Things do need changing,” Eddie said. “Toy City is a wretched dystopia, Tinto, you know that.”
“I don’t,” said Tinto. “What does dystopia mean?”
Eddie told him.
“Well, I’ll drink to that,” said Tinto.
“And so it needs changing.”
“Doesn’t,” said Tinto. “Certainly it’s grim. Certainly toys don’t get a fair deal. But if we didn’t have something to complain about, then what would we have to complain about?”
Eddie Bear put his paws to his head. “I saved this city,” said he, “saved it from the Toymaker’s evil twin. He would have wiped every one of us out if it hadn’t been for me.”
“And your friend, Jack,” said Tinto.
“Yes, Jack,” said Eddie. And he made a wistful face. “I wonder whatever became of Jack. He travelled into the world of men –”
“The world of men?” said Tinto. “A world populated entirely by meatheads? There’s no such world. That’s a myth, Eddie. A fantasy.”
“It isn’t,” said Eddie, making imploring “more-drink-please” gestures with his paws. “There is a world beyond this one. Jack met a man who came from there. And that’s where Jack went.”
“Didn’t,” said Tinto, and he poured another drink for Eddie.
“Did too,” said Eddie.
“Didn’t,” said Tinto. “A little bird told me that he changed his mind, decided it was more fun to stay in the city with his girlfriend – that Jill from Madame Goose’s bawdy house.” Tinto made the sacred sign of the spanner over the portion of his chest where his heart, had he possessed one, would have been, out of respect for the late Madame Goose who had come to an untimely end. “That Jack hung around with that Jill for a while, but she soon spent all his money and he was reduced to working as a griddle chef in a Nadine’s Diner.”
“He never was,” said Eddie.
“True as I’m standing here before you, large as life and twice as special. She left him, of course.”
“And a little bird told you this?”
“A robin. His name was Tom.”
“I don’t believe a word of it.” Eddie downed his latest drink and began to fidget about on his barstool.
“Don’t do it,” said Tinto.
“What?” said Eddie.
“What you’re about to do.”
“And what am I about to do?”
“Try to balance on your head on that barstool.”
“I wasn’t,” said Eddie.
“You were,” said Tinto. “I know you well enough, Eddie. I know you’re all filled up with sawdust and that when you drink, the drink soaks down to your legs and so you stand on your head so the drink goes there instead. And then you get drunk and silly and I have to throw you out.”
Eddie shrugged and sighed. “My legs are now rather drunk,” he confessed. “But Jack, still in Toy City? I can’t believe it.”
2
As Eddie was unable to do corroborative nouns, Tinto would never know just how hard Eddie had tried, although given the sincerity of the bear’s tone, the clockwork barman could only surmise that it had been very hard indeed.