Albania & the Moon
They weren't there. There was supposed to be ten to fifteen of them, a dozen at least, but here he was, on his own. The place was choc-a-bloc too.
How come they weren't there?
The sweat was dripping off him. He wasn't well. Not that there was anything wrong with him, but he wasn't well.
He gulped at the pint. He didn't want it now, though. What he should have done was take another walk around the place and, if they still weren't there, he could have nipped out for a bit of fresh air.
The wind, a calming influence. Just stand there and let it blow right through you. Cleanse the bones and clear the brains and, while we're at it, give the heart and soul a tickle too. Because this shell of his, Christ, it was carting around that much fucking rubbish. Even if he tried to tell you, to let you into the crazy world of Danny Rumble, he wouldn't know where to start. Say he got to point three on a list of ten, the unfortunate bastard who got lumbered for the loan of his ears would have his hands up in surrender.
'You need to see a doctor,' he would no doubt say.
Too late. He had already been to see one, the patronising prick. Sitting there not listening to a word, turning every now and then to grace him with that condescending smirk of his, poisoned wee lips hanging under a sweeping brush moustache. He should have punched it, the moustache, see the effect his had on the smug orifice lurking underneath.
'What is it that you think is wrong with you?' the doctor wanted to know. 'Do you think you've got cancer?'
Danny was stumped at that. He hadn't mentioned cancer, hadn't hinted at it. In actual fact, it was the old ticker that was bothering him. He was frightened of dropping dead with a heart attack. He didn't spend 24 hours a day on the subject but every now and then, it would cross his mind. He'd maybe get a twinge and when he did he would think about seeking some advice. Getting a bit of reassurance for fucks sake; what's wrong with that!
He related a few of the symptoms and, by the time he got to where he was going with the story, the doctor had made his position clear. He didn't want to know. He smiled that smile of his and swept him out of the surgery with the hirsute tip of his lip.
Danny took a gulp and looked around the pub. Nobody. Not a face he knew. One more journey starting from here, this point at the bar, checking every nook and cranny. If they're still not located then, fuck it, he was going to put a plastic bag over his head and see if some cunt noticed.
No, he wasn't. He was going down the road. He was going to switch the telly on and he was going to lie on the couch. The remote control could do the rest.
Okay. But one more sweep. He left the pint at the bar, about a quarter in it, and told the fellow not to chuck it out. He wasn't finished.
This fellow behind the bar, probably the owner or the manager at least, was an amazing piece of work. Danny had been in here before and watched him eating dinner. He wouldn't normally have watched but there was something fascinating about the show. The fellow was eating two plates of dinner at once. It was actually one plate of meat and another of vegetables, but it was more than a full load. And he ate it like he hadn't seen food for a time. He shovelled it down his throat, barely employing his teeth. A human incinerator, thought Danny. A headbanger.
First though, down to the bit at the back, the restaurant section. People eating dinner. No surprises there. No-one he knew, either. Although, given this was the third or maybe fourth time he'd poked his head in there, it was certain that people would start to recognise his face.
Fuck them! It's a pub we're talking about. A public house. So fuck the lot of them. Who did they think they were, eh? Away and fuck, he felt like shouting. Away and fuck yourself and fuck your fucking food while you're fucking at it.
Ha ha ha ha.
Fuckwits.
Out of there. Section clear? Aye aye captain.
The nuthouse beckons, he thought, the nuthouse beckons.
Now this bit, mainly bar but with a restaurant spill over. Quick scan round, left and right and back again. Handy, sometimes, he thought, if you could turn the head 360? like the wise old owl. Imagine that! It could get out of control, though. Walking into a party where everyone is standing in the kitchen birling their heads around, looking for a cheaper way of getting high. Or, a bunch of gangsters get a grip of you for intruding on their turf. Two of them hold you while the third repeatedly slaps you on the right cheek fifty or a hundred times until your neck is wound like an elastic band. Then, when it's tight enough, WALLOP! they hit you with a shovel on your other cheek, turning you into a giant drill-bit
And kids! You'd need to have a special mechanical collar attached to keep them under control or they would drive the teacher to distraction.
'Right, children, get your pencils out and face the front.'
The cheeky wee bastards would all be facing in different directions.
On reflection, a spinning head was a poor idea.
So, the situation so far: they weren't in the two main sections, which left only the snug. He decided to check the snug, a small room with a giant mirror on the wall to the right as you enter. Nope. They weren't there. Not that you could squeeze in a dozen people, anyway. You can't fit a pint in a half-pint pot.
He went back to his stool by the bar. The place where his pint had sat was now just a place. The pint had disappeared. He caught the fellow's eye and beckoned him over.
'Yes sir.'
'You didn't happen to see where that pint went, did you?'
'The one that was finished?'
'No, the one I asked you not to lift.'
'The one that was nearly finished?'
'No. The one that was sitting there, minding its own business. The one that I specifically asked you not to throw away.'
He was getting flustered. Firstly, his mates, they weren't there. His mates, know what I mean, his allies, the people on his side. And now, this pint! And where were they? Eight o'clock they had said and it was half-nine now.
Granted, he'd only been there since nine so he was an hour late but that wasn't the point. They were going to be at the pub from eight. That means you can take your time, no rush. If the arrangement had been to get there at eight and then, if it's no good, move to another pub, that was a different story. He would have been there at eight or thereabouts. But they didn't, and now they're in some other pub laughing up their cuff. Lets all play a joke on Danny. Danny Rumble-Fucking-Muggins if you were going to use the family name.
No, they weren't. They wouldn't do that. It was just the kind of day he'd had, doctors, barmen and the like.
'Money doesn't grow on fucking trees, I suppose you've heard,' he said.
The fellow looked shocked. 'I'll replace it for you,' he said.
'If you replace something that you thought had nothing in it, how am I supposed to drink it? Eh? Can you answer me that?'
'I. eh. I. eh.'
'Doesn't matter. I've had enough.'
He turned to leave. As he was fighting his way through the crowds, he felt bad. It wasn't the guy's fault. There was no need to take it out on him. He considered going back to say sorry but it was busy, it was a hassle and he'd probably just look stupid. The fellow would bat him one if he had any sense.
It was a rare good decision. The fellow behind the bar had turned and walked the other way, scratching his temple, eyebrows raised. He whistled a lonesome note.
Still sweating. A heart attack was in the post, nothing surer. If it wasn't this sweating, it was palpitations and fuck knows what else. And that's not forgetting the twinges! An irregular heartbeat the doctor had reluctantly conceded. As if he didn't know! And what medication had he been prescribed? Nothing, hee-haw, fuck all. But it was nothing to worry about, apparently. Hadn't the doctor a similar condition himself? By that stage, though, Danny hadn't been listening. He had been thinking, I'll irregular heartbeat you ya smarmy wanker, if I get my hands around your throat.
He shouldn't think like that. Medicine was a worthy profession.
Then, a brainwave! Phone them! Modern communications being what they were, they had no escape. He didn't have his phone book but he had Annie's number in his head. It rang about twenty times before going onto voicemail. It cut off halfway through a message. Fifty pee, down the drain, just like that.
He was going home. Home time. That's what time it was, in a nutshell. It was time to go home, maybe even straight to bed.
He got to the bottom of the hill and paused. There had to be a rational explanation for all of this. A tiny bubble of sense floating around that could clear things up, if only he could get the thing to fly into his ear.
He must have been in the wrong place. Fifteen people can't just disappear off the radar. But he wasn't in the wrong pub. He knew that for a fact. He had looked at the name that many times he was beginning to notice where it needed touched up with a paintbrush.
He would give it one more go. He slapped his cheeks and set off, back up the hill to the pub.
The last visit had never happened. That was the way to play it. It hadn't happened. He would enter through the door on the left instead of the one on the right. He would gain a completely different perspective. His mates would be there and he would kiss them all and shake their hands. He would lean on the mantelpiece in front of a healthy flame, sipping brandy and smoking a fat cigar, quietly drying the perspiration on his back whilst indulging in uplifting conversation.
He dabbed his face with a hanky and opened the door. A cheer and a crowd of smiling faces greeted his appearance.
What the fuck!
He turned around, walked out, then walked back in again. The same faces looked at him but some of the smiles had been replaced by looks of mild bemusement. There sure was a lot of it going around.
He had been here before, but it wasn't déjà vu. It was the snug. He was in the snug where he'd been three times that night before. Except, this time, the room wasn't tiny, with room for only a few and the mirror wasn't a mirror at all. It wasn't even a snug. It was the rest of the pub! A whole new world. one that had been open to him if only he'd opened his eyes. The only explanation was that he had approached it from the same way on each previous occasion. The door he had entered on those occasions was perpendicular to the door he had this minute entered. He must have looked over at two people, similarly dressed, sitting beside each other and concluded that it was one person and a reflection. You could only laugh. Or worry. He would laugh about it now and, if he was going to worry, that would occur later, when he couldn't get to sleep.
They had been there for ages.
'Where were you?'
When he told them they couldn't believe it, and neither could he. In the midst of a recent run of unwavering stupidity, he had surpassed himself. World record. Gold medal. Champion of Daftness. Hip Hip Hooray ya fucking dimwit!
But never mind. It made the beer taste sweeter; dear caresser of the heart and soul.
Another round already. The pints were steadily going down.
He went up to the bar. It was a couple of pints of Guinness, some strong lager and other bits and pieces. He sat the pints on the table and, just at the exact moment he
achieved an element of comfort for the first time that day, Adam interrupted. 'I think this Guinness isn't right,' he said.
'No?'
'I don't think so.'
'What's up with it?'
'I'm not sure. Taste it.'
Danny tasted it. He wasn't sure either. Guinness was always a bit like that. The first quarter to half a pint went down harshly. It could have been that.
'I can't tell,' said Danny. 'I'm on the lager.'
He returned the pint to Adam, who sipped at it, frowning. 'I'm pretty sure that's off.'
'Do you want me to take it back?'
'Do you mind? Sorry.'
As luck would have it, you know who served him. In fact, the fellow had gone out of his way to attend to him.
'Yes sir?'
'Eh...it's this pint. Apparently it's off.'
'Off?'
'So I'm told.'
'Does it taste off?'
'I don't know. It's his, over there.'
He nodded in the direction of Adam, who was laughing. Danny caught Adam's eye, before going over to confirm that the pint was, indeed, off.
'Tell him the pints are usually really nice. This one.I don't know.'
'Right.'
He turned to walk off then stopped for a moment to consider. He turned to Adam. 'Are you at the kidding?' he asked.
'Eh?'
'Nothing. You're not taking the piss, are you?'
'About the pint?'
'Yeah, the pint.'
'No. Didn't you taste it?'
'I did but. it doesn't matter.'
He went back to the bar. Adam, concerned that he wasn't being taken seriously, got up and followed him.
'I've checked, it's definitely off,' Danny told the fellow.
'Okay, no problem, I'll change it, but there hasn't been any other complaints about the Guinness tonight.'
'He says it's normally very nice. He's very complimentary.'
The fellow looked for a trace of sarcasm but Danny wasn't betrayed. He was merely passing on a message. Adam, across his shoulder, supplied the reinforcements. 'Really, I've been here a few times. The Guinness is always spot on.'
'Fine, no problem,' said the fellow. 'I'll give you a shout when it's ready.'
They sat back down at the table. You would really have expected a delivery, but he was done complaining. Even though he had started to relax, the day had taken its toll. He was already beginning to notice, with trepidation, the effects of the first few pints.
He pictured waking in a cell, freezing, stiff, saliva bubbling on his lip, setting as a crust. He was going to stick his head outside the door. If there was a full moon, he was going home.
He probably wouldn't. He was full of the best intentions.
He smiled on his way to collect the newly poured pint. He'd started so he'd finish. He would get pissed.
Fuck your full moon. Nothing against the moon. It had its uses. It was handy in its place. But so was Albania, particularly for Albanians. Good luck to them, Albania and the moon, but fuck them at the same time.
Drunk it was. The logical conclusion. He deposited his pint on the table, made to sit down then changed his mind. He might as well go to the toilet. He was standing already. He turned and caught a flash of a girl rushing to pass and tried to move out of her way. They didn't collide but, momentarily, his foot landed on top of hers. It was nothing. He lifted his foot before his weight fell on her instep. Unplanned as it was, he lost his balance, righting it by putting his hand on her shoulder. She caught his eye before closing her own, her body drifting gracefully, dramatically, softly, to the floor where it assumed a sleeping contentment that he could only vaguely remember.
No need for that. No need at all. He'd hardly touched her, but she had fallen like a spy, neutralised by a syringe.
He was dumfounded. He stood, arms splayed, awaiting an intervention; someone to pick her up and slap her brusquely about the face, either to awaken her or admonish her for her theatre.
It was all very quick but, as far as he could tell, no-one came to his aid. The man on the spot was going to have to sort things himself. He shook her gently by the shoulder. No response. Slightly harder he shook her then, more vigorously, a third time. Nothing.
'She's fucked,' he said to the table.
'What happened?'
It was Charlie, the actress. He'd been meaning to talk to her but, until now, it hadn't happened. They had a conversation starter, at least. He would save it for later.
'I don't know. I think I stood on her foot and then she collapsed.'
He slapped the girl's cheek, gently, with a confused urge not to disturb her.
'You said... collapsed?'
It was Elsa, the Scandinavian with golden ringlets dangling from her head. He had to speak to her, also, as a matter of priority. He had met her once, at someone's birthday, and fallen in love with her over a pub candle.
'Collapsed, yes, collapsed. Fell on the floor. Out for the count. Conked out. Can someone give me a hand?'
'And do what?' asked Charlie.
'I don't know, do I! Shake her, drip water on her lips, give her the kiss of life, whatever's normal in a situation like this. I'm off to phone an ambulance.'
He ran to the bar leaving the prostrate girl and a table jumping to her aid. He shouted to the fellow behind the bar who walked smartly towards him.
'Have you got a phone? I think we need an ambulance. There's a girl collapsed.'
The fellow behind the bar stood for a second, absorbing the information. There was an element of doubt creeping across his face. This cunt, he had been complaining all night. First the dregs in his pint, then the whatever it was, the Guinness, and now he was saying the punters were dropping like flies. What was his problem?
'Are you going to phone an ambulance, or are you just going to stand there looking like something out of a catalogue? She's collapsed, understand? Fucking sparko.'
The pair of them looked at the girl on the floor. There was a circle of people around her and her condition had slightly improved. She had moved and, with some assistance, was trying to sit up. As her head lolled it took her body with it and when that happened they caught her by the shoulders and tried to make her sip a glass of water.
Charlie, the actress, was pouring mineral water onto a hanky and dabbing the girl's cheeks and forehead, the corners of her mouth.
It was turning into a day and a half.
Suddenly, the fellow behind the bar shifted gear from inactive to hyper. The idea of a newspaper publishing a photograph of a dead customer, being despatched into an ambulance, induced an apoplectic outburst.
'Phone an ambulance, phone an ambulance, an ambulance, phone an ambulance will you, for Jesus sakes, there's a girl collapsed, a girl collapsed on the floor.'
The barmaid, a Portuguese, carefully collated the words she was hearing whilst, noting the urgency of her boss's manner, attempting a swift and accurate computation of their meaning.
'Collapsed?'
'Collapsed! Collapsed! Yes! Yes! Collapsed on the carpet! Nine Nine Nine! And they had been complaining about the Guinness, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they were complaining about the Guinness and one of them has gone and collapsed!'
Fainting at the door. fits behind the bar, thought Danny Rumble. I must have took a bump on the head and joined a circus. Roll up! Roll up! There's your fainting lady. Roll up! Two and six the fainting lady. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the barman. Eats two dinners and has a fit. Rarely seen performing at the same time as the fainting lady. come now, ladies and gentlemen. The famous fitting, salivating, double-dinner-eating barman. Roll up! Roll up!
'Can you just phone an ambulance. It's got nothing to do with the Guinness.'
Nothing to do with the Guinness. it's got nothing to do with the Guinness,' the barman repeated.
'Just phone.'
Something else!
Danny returned to the girl. She was trying to stand, being offered a seat.
She wanted to go. There was no need for an ambulance.
The barman was still muttering about the Guinness being off.
'Cancel the ambulance. She's come round,' said Danny.
'It's on its way just now.'
'Yeah, thanks, but she seems to have recovered.'
'Do you still want the ambulance?'
'Eh? No, we don't. Can you cancel it?'
'You don't want it?'
'No. No ambulance'.
He made to go back to his seat. There was a chap watching the incident, his profile being all that Danny could see. He turned, 'Weird, eh?' he said.
This chap was missing an ear.
Danny was startled. 'Yes mate,' he replied. 'Very.'
He was wondering if someone had slipped him a Mickey.
The girl didn't want a seat. She didn't want to get her bearings. She wanted to get out of there. A man in a suit rushed over and got her under the arm. 'She's with me,' he said.
It seemed a bit odd. The man had come from nowhere and all of a sudden he's with this girl. Where had he been the rest of the time? The girl hadn't appeared to be with anyone. The man tried to lift her.
'Come on, we'll get you home.'
The girl shrugged him off.
'She's a bit confused,' said the man. 'We'll get her some air.'
'Hold on a minute mate.'
It was Danny. There was something not quite right, although there had been something not quite right about the entire evening. All night, that something. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, whatever it was. What the fuck was it?
'Do you know this man, he asked the girl? This man here. Look at him. Do you know him?'
'No,' she said, having briefly passed her eyes over her newly found partner.
'She says she doesn't know you.'
'She does,' replied the man. 'We've had a bit of a falling out. She upset, that's all. I'll take her home.'
Danny tried to get the girl to focus on the bloke in the suit. 'This man says he knows you. Do you know him?' She was standing up. Charlie the actress was speaking to her. 'Sit down and get your bearings darling. You've just fainted. Everything's all right.'
'No, no, I have to go.'
The man took her arm and led her out the door. They shouted after her but she waved away their protests and the man closed the door behind him. Danny felt uneasy. So, what's new? But there was something particularly weird about that last piece of action, something up. He felt guilty. He shouldn't have let that happen.
He felt a pat on his shoulder. It was Adam. 'I think that calls for a whisky,' he said. 'Do you want one?'
Did he want a whisky? Not really, but he'd never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He'd have the whisky. Of course he would. He would down the fucker in one. The whisky's presence would be short lived. Following that, he could see himself having another and possibly another after that.
And then, Christ Almighty, he hardly dared to think about it.