5

The Greyhound was not a village pub. It was a roadhouse that had been built in the thirties. The exterior had an ele­phantine streamlining. From the car park in front it looked like an Egyptian temple that had been designed to travel at several hundred miles an hour.

Inside it had been modernised. There was unstained wood and creeping plants.

We went in just after six o’clock. The bar was empty.

The manager knew where we were from. He served us and then ignored us.

Jim had a pint of mild. I had a lemonade. We went and sat in a corner.

‘When I was in Australia I never had a decent drink. They’ve no idea. The pubs out there are no good at all. They’re more like public lavatories than pubs. You just get in and do your drinking and get out. They close at six o’clock!’ He moved his leg out from under the table to show me his foot. ‘I bought these shoes in Australia. What do you think to them?’

‘They’re very nice.’

‘It’s a long way to go for a pair of shoes!’ He laughed. He took a long drink of his beer. Then he said, ‘You know, a young lad like you ought not to be stuck in that hospital. You want to get yourself out of it and see a bit of the world. My trouble was that I didn’t get out to Australia until it was too late. I was over fifty when I went out. That was too late. I should have gone when I was a young man. You want to get things done while you’re young. You want to get yourself overseas or get yourself to a college or something. You’re wasting your time in that hospital. There’s nothing wrong with you. You know—’ He stopped. Then he said, ‘If you went away, I wouldn’t have anybody to talk to. You won’t go away, will you, Roy?’

I was embarrassed. I said, ‘I don’t know.’

He looked at me intently. I looked back into his blue eyes for an instant. I had to look away.

He said, ‘You’ve made all the difference for me. It’s been different since you came.’

I looked at my glass.

Then he was saying, ‘I’m an old daft-head. Here I am going on like this. You must think I’m as balmy as I’m supposed to be!’ He laughed and slapped his hand on his knee.

He drank his beer and looked about him. After a while he said, ‘What do you think to this place, Roy?’

‘It’s all right.’

‘You’re not much struck?’

‘It’s all right. I think it’s rather nice.’

‘They’re all like this nowadays. They get so they’re more for women than for men. Everything’s for women nowadays. There was a time when they had spittoons in pubs. That was before my time. Would you like that?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘No, I don’t think I would either. Filthy. Tell me, Roy, what would you like the world to be like if you could make it yourself? Imagine you could have everything just as you wanted it.’

‘I don’t know what I’d do.’

‘You should have some idea. What would you like out of life?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘When I was your age I was full of ideas. I suppose I used to spend most of my time dreaming. When you get older you can’t get dreams—if you do, you soon find yourself doing things wrong. You get in a mess.’ He stopped. ‘How old would you say I am?’ he asked.

I felt sure that he must be in his sixties. I said, ‘About fifty-six.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll be sixty next. And what have I to show for sixty years of trailing about? Bed and board in a nut-house.’ He took a drink of his beer. ‘Once, when I was a lad, I fell in the Albert Dock. I should have drowned.’

He had two pints of mild and I had two lemonades. When other customers began to come into the pub we came away.

We walked back to the hospital. It was a gentle, summer evening­.

I was glad that my father would never be in circumstances like Jim’s. My father had had some success. He owned a fish-and-chip shop and he had Mrs Wilson. A man had to have a woman. Mrs Wilson could not marry my father because she was a Catholic. Even though her husband had run away, she could not marry my father. It was ridiculous. But she seemed quite happy playing hide-and-seek.