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Last orders
Jeffrey Bernard
Bill and Mary asked me to take over for the evening when they heard that I'd once worked as a barman and, not averse to a busman's holiday, I become guvnor of the Lamb and Flag for the night last Sunday.
Well, you'd think that running a pub in a vil
lage miles from nowhere at a weekend session would be easy enough, but then you'd
be forgetting that everyone's at it nowadays. At seven o'clock I slid back the bolts on the saloon bar door — half expecting to see myself waiting there patiently on the threshold — and then I went behind the bar to await my first customer. Suddenly I felt as though I'd always been there. Either that or I'd been to a method school of acting for months rehearsing for the moment. I was even, accidentally, dressed for the role with my blazer and suede shoes on, and what with a horrendous Doberman Pinscher at my feet eyeing me suspiciously I was ready with the dialogue that has cost so much to learn off by heart over the years. I was itching to come out with a, 'Good evening Jim, and how's Jim this evening?' or a 'Good evening and what will it be squire?' In the event it didn't turn out quite like that.
The first order came from what might be described as a coachless coach party. Two local families plus children wanting one of those ghastly orders that strains one's mental arithmetic, snobbery and patience. Two pints of lager, two halves of lager and lime, a stout, nine Coca Colas, seven packets of cheese and onion crisps, a sweet and a dry cider, a tray or two to take the stuff out into the garden and some 10p pieces for the pool table. The Doberman was sneering at me by now, but hopefully thinking I wasn't worth eating. I decided to turn my attention to the saloon bar and let old Lil the local part time cleaner look after the port and lemon brigade.
Well it was all very predictable. Within half an hour! had the local vicar. Not one of those vicars who drops the occasional 'bloody' and sups pints to let you know he's one of the lads, but a worse variety of church bore who's so sincere you think he's going to take off for heaven any minute. He was joined by the obligatory homesick American airman and then, just to make it a jolly threesome, old Fred the local character came in. Fred started to go on about what a terrible thing it was to run a pub since 'You're bloody tied to the place seven days and seven nights a week,' and because, `No booger appreciates how hard it is behind the bar,' and it occurred to me that those who'd hate to have a pub because of the ties practically live in the damned places.
We then had a discourse on Scotland's poor showing in the World Cup, growing tomatoes out of grow bags, the disgusting behaviour of the younger generation and just who the hell do they think they are and then, when it was my turn to play hospitable host and get a round in, we took a trip down memory lane to the days when you could get an ounce of shag for thruppence and watch Jack Hobbs thumping hell out of the Australians. The fact that they thought I was old enough to have seen Hobbs just shows how the evening was ageing me. I let them get on with it and turned my attention to the middle classes who were now arriving en masse to be re-topped up with gin and tonics and Bell's and Teacher's.
It was then that my previous experience as a barman came back to me. I'd forgotten just how rude the majority of people are. The local successful, ex-public-schoolboy farmer came in, snapped his fingers and said, `Bell's.' Somehow you don't expect Americans to say please, but it doesn't half grate when Englishmen omit the word. Then the local superiority complex and his wife came in and he was as bad. He said, `Two pints.' I said, `Two pints of what?' Now I know why publicans keep Alsatians and Dobermans. They're for the day when guvnors everywhere will unite, rise up and kill the customer.
I went on helping myself to the free booze that Bill and Mary said I could have and I wondered whether I dare risk barring the vicar for boring the customers. I gave him two short measures instead while Fred told me how to gbt the best results when growing lettuces and how Admiral's Launch was going `to piss the Derby'. By closing time I don't think there was a person in the pub or the world that I like with the possible exception of Fred who was spending his old age pension as though he was expecting to snuff it that night. The American airman was almost falling asleep at the bar and moaning softly about the State of Virginia he'd be seeing in forty-six days time and the vicar was smiling at everyone pretending to be a kind and wonderful human being. At eleven o'clock Mary drove me home. As she deposited me at my cottage she asked me whether I'd like to do another session at the pub. I told her not until they pull the church down, burn the squire's farm down and blow up the American airbase. Fred I would go into the jungle with — if there was a pub in it.
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