PERSPECTIVE UKNORTH
People and their profiles: dukes, archbishops, actors, writers, monks, oddbods, the garish, the gregarious - here they are in single file, chosen by chance, by inclination, or by necessity ... and all reflecting, one hopes, the essential, but indefinable, spark that makes one human being interesting to many. Geoffrey Mather
In search of decent conversation
A FRIEND does not like arriving in pubs at opening time, which is 5.30, so we left it quite late, strolled quietly over the road and arrived decently, not even out of breath, at 5.31. We were approached by two gentlemen, one in a black homburg.
"Excuse me," said the one in the homburg, "but you look intelligent : When a white man has quarter Negro blood is that a quantrain? "
" I think it is," said my friend, who did not know.
" That's what I say," the man replied. " I have no doubt it is in my Roget's Thesaurus, which I bought for 10 shillings from a stall and which is at home. Now,"he went on,"is Shelley buried next to Keats ? " " He could be," I said. " Grantchester, oh Grantchester."
"That's Shelley," he said.
" No, I replied. "Rupert Brooke."" And never ask for whom the bell tolls; it toils for thee," he said. " That's John Donne.' "Correct," I said. " It is in the flyleaf of For Whom the Bell Tolls."
" Hemingway," he said.
"Let's slide off to another bar where we can chat on our own," said my friend, whispering. We did.
"Now," he said, "did I ever tell you about the kangaroo that used to drink in a pub I know? Big fellow, he was; never paid his round. He belted a chap around the head one night, giving him a cut nose and lacerations."
"You can't explain that kind of thing at home," I said. " I mean, you can't say you were just standing there, giving no offence, when a kangaroo attacked you."
"That's true," he said.
"I also knew a fellow and a dog that used to drink together all night then stagger off home. Trouble was, the dog was nasty in drink and the fellow had to watch for its teeth. It used to grab his legs. When they got home he dissolved an aspirin in its bowl and it would flop out. It never bought a round either."
"Funny you should say that," said a fellow standing two yards away, "but have you ever seen a drunken duck? They go like this "- and he waddled in a circle slapping his feet against the floor. Neither of us had seen a drunken duck.
" I used to drink with a chimp at Belle Vue," I said. " It drank pints and went to the gents with us, though sometimes it didn't bother. It was a devil for drink and pinched my gin if I turned away. It fell in love with my wife's leg and chased her."
My friend walked away, several yards, and leaned against a wall; his shoulders heaving. There were tears in his eyes.
" My dog is a Cairn terrier," I said when he returned "- about 18 inches long and 13 stone. When we got it we put it in a box in the kitchen and it kicked its box against the door until we let it out. Then it leapt into bed, tugging the clothes over it, and lay there, just like us, its head on a pillow.
"It has been there, more or less, ever since, though it comes downstairs at ten to eight every morning because it thinks the letter box is throwing things at the house. All my mail is confetti."
"Does it drink? " said my friend.
" No," I replied, "it is teetotal." " That's a mercy," he said.
" It can hardly jump on the bed at all now," I said. "It is 12 years old. I wait until it leaps then help it up from behind, pretending not to notice. You can hurt their feelings. If we go to bed after 11 o'clock it sits there, one ear down, grumbling, and sometimes it goes on its own."
"These drunken ducks," said the other fellow. "are amazing, padding about on those big feet and lurching."
We bade him goodnight and went back to the first bar. The gentleman in the homburg and his companion had gone.
"It's a pity when a couple of chaps can't have a serious conversation without being interrupted all the time," said my friend.(Adapted from a Daily Express column, 1970, and printed here in memory of Peter Thomas (pictured), the friend referred to above. He died in 1984 and was a Daily Mirror executive in Manchester before becoming Associate Editor of the Daily Express there. The first pub referred to is the Land o' Cakes in Great Ancoats Street, Manchester, once a favourite drinking place for journalists. The second, I can't remember. The drinker with the drunken duck theory was Reg Powell, of Daily Express Publicity department. He once fell down the steps at the railway station, boarded his train for Lytham St Annes, and asked the conductor for some first aid. The conductor said he could not dispense first aid from a train for an injury incurred outside it. The station first-aid was required. Reg Powell, resigned to his fate, bled as he continued to Lytham.)
Geoffrey Mather © 2004
21 March, 2007