Jun 30 2022 19 mins 10
He was sitting in one of the booths at the Conqueror, tending a pint, something golden and silty, alone, his phone facedown on the sticky table, his gaze fixed on some invisible object in the middle distance. The door swung to behind me, shutting out an afternoon of implacably overcast sky, of unrelenting drizzle: I brushed the water from my hair and looked around, surveyed the almost-empty room, assessed my options, which appeared good. At that point, of course, I didn’t know his name, but I knew enough to know that once I knew it, everything else would follow. Such recognition is instantaneous. This is how it works.
I decided his name was Mark.
I watched him from a stool as the barman poured my shandy. When it’s time to do it, it isn’t wise to drink too much. But you need a drink, a pint, to look the part: protective colouration. A pack of peanuts, something to do with your hands. Before the cigarette ban, a smoke—cigarettes were excellent props. Nowadays a phone, apps to flick between, a newsfeed to load and refresh. I keep an eye on the news. Too much alcohol, you make mistakes.
I let my gaze linger until Mark felt it, looked away as he looked up, glanced back to catch his eye. I could see the sadness in those eyes. He had blue eyes, the eyes of a clear day, the sky of someone else’s childhood. My own eyes are grey. The sky outside was the colour of my eyes—perhaps that was a good sign. Mark did not have the look of a man expecting company.
I thanked the barman, who nodded as I paid, picking up the coins from the bar one at a time. I took my drink and crossed the floor, brushed Mark’s booth as I passed it on my way to the jukebox, felt him shift in his seat and look up at me before his gaze resettled in the middle distance.
In that dull interregnum between early evening and the dead late afternoon, the pub fell silent except for the odd creak of a chair, the sniff of the barman, a muffled cough: one of those moments of languor and inertia you think might never end. A fake stag head, antlered, stared from the wall, shocked to discover itself both dead and unreal. Through the frosted windows the afternoon light was on the turn. Some music, I thought, remembering music, might improve the mood. In an hour or so the after-work crowd would arrive. I had time to settle my nerves.
I flicked through CDs, scanned the lists of songs. My memory for certain things—someone’s body odour, the look in their eyes, the precise sensation of being drunk on the evening of the new millennium, twenty-something years ago, in another body, another life—is very sharp. For other things, minutiae, cultural detail, it is not so good. This can make smalltalk tricky, but I have strategies: I have learned to pass.
The band names meant nothing to me, the song titles less. I sipped my drink and found myself alarmed by sudden uncertainty. Hesitation is never good. My stomach rumbled. I have learned to ride such moments out. I drank again, a deeper gulp, as if I liked the taste, enjoyed it, then pressed some buttons at random. The mechanism cranked into gear. I like to operate a mechanism: I love a jukebox, more for its mode of operation than the music it emits. A guitar chord that meant less than nothing to me began to play.
I took a seat in the centre of the room, facing the door, facing Mark’s lonely booth. The barman leant on his bar and prodded at his phone. I stared for a while at the back of Mark’s head and wondered if he could feel my gaze.
Suddenly he drank, set his glass down, rubbed his eyes, then stood. He was very tall. For a moment he appeared dizzy. The barman looked up.
“Same again?”
“Thanks.”
I stared into the middle distance as he turned to look at me. In that same moment, the door swung open, bringing cold wet air and the laughter of women, a trio in colourful raincoats entering, surveying the space, assessing it, deciding it would do,
I decided his name was Mark.
I watched him from a stool as the barman poured my shandy. When it’s time to do it, it isn’t wise to drink too much. But you need a drink, a pint, to look the part: protective colouration. A pack of peanuts, something to do with your hands. Before the cigarette ban, a smoke—cigarettes were excellent props. Nowadays a phone, apps to flick between, a newsfeed to load and refresh. I keep an eye on the news. Too much alcohol, you make mistakes.
I let my gaze linger until Mark felt it, looked away as he looked up, glanced back to catch his eye. I could see the sadness in those eyes. He had blue eyes, the eyes of a clear day, the sky of someone else’s childhood. My own eyes are grey. The sky outside was the colour of my eyes—perhaps that was a good sign. Mark did not have the look of a man expecting company.
I thanked the barman, who nodded as I paid, picking up the coins from the bar one at a time. I took my drink and crossed the floor, brushed Mark’s booth as I passed it on my way to the jukebox, felt him shift in his seat and look up at me before his gaze resettled in the middle distance.
In that dull interregnum between early evening and the dead late afternoon, the pub fell silent except for the odd creak of a chair, the sniff of the barman, a muffled cough: one of those moments of languor and inertia you think might never end. A fake stag head, antlered, stared from the wall, shocked to discover itself both dead and unreal. Through the frosted windows the afternoon light was on the turn. Some music, I thought, remembering music, might improve the mood. In an hour or so the after-work crowd would arrive. I had time to settle my nerves.
I flicked through CDs, scanned the lists of songs. My memory for certain things—someone’s body odour, the look in their eyes, the precise sensation of being drunk on the evening of the new millennium, twenty-something years ago, in another body, another life—is very sharp. For other things, minutiae, cultural detail, it is not so good. This can make smalltalk tricky, but I have strategies: I have learned to pass.
The band names meant nothing to me, the song titles less. I sipped my drink and found myself alarmed by sudden uncertainty. Hesitation is never good. My stomach rumbled. I have learned to ride such moments out. I drank again, a deeper gulp, as if I liked the taste, enjoyed it, then pressed some buttons at random. The mechanism cranked into gear. I like to operate a mechanism: I love a jukebox, more for its mode of operation than the music it emits. A guitar chord that meant less than nothing to me began to play.
I took a seat in the centre of the room, facing the door, facing Mark’s lonely booth. The barman leant on his bar and prodded at his phone. I stared for a while at the back of Mark’s head and wondered if he could feel my gaze.
Suddenly he drank, set his glass down, rubbed his eyes, then stood. He was very tall. For a moment he appeared dizzy. The barman looked up.
“Same again?”
“Thanks.”
I stared into the middle distance as he turned to look at me. In that same moment, the door swung open, bringing cold wet air and the laughter of women, a trio in colourful raincoats entering, surveying the space, assessing it, deciding it would do,
