Angel City (12 page)

‘Roy MacLean,' she said.

Yes, those were some of my names.

‘Are you gay?'

I flashed back with a lightning, witty response: ‘No, of course not.'

‘Okay, tell you what I'll do. I'll take you on as a relief because I'm short-handed tonight. If that goes all right, then we'll see, but if anybody asks, you're a relief barperson from the agency.'

‘Which agency? Just in case …'

‘If anyone asks that, come see me quick. I'm April, but I'll be in the other bar most of the evening. You'll work this one with Sam and Dave. I'll take you upstairs and get you a white shirt and bow tie – sorry, house rule. Sam'll tell you the others. I'll pay you three pounds an hour, starting at eight o'clock. Nobody leaves till the glasses are dry and cash register balances. Keep your mouth shut unless absolutely necessary and do what Sam and Dave tell you. You can have two five-minute cigarette breaks away from the bar, preferably outside. If anyone offers you a drink, say you'll have half a lager and take the right money. Don't try and screw tips and don't let me catch you drinking it.'

‘Anything else?'

‘Yeah. Don't let me find you've got any bad attitudes. I don't employ gays on gay nights. It keeps life simpler. But no interaction with the customers, okay? No lip, no toilet jokes, no references to AIDS. You know anything about AIDS?'

‘You can't catch it from beer glasses. The washing-up water is hot enough to kill the virus.'

She was impressed, I could tell.

‘That's good. Anything you need to know?'

‘I think you've covered everything.'

 

Sam and Dave turned out to be sisters.

Samantha and Davina, wouldn't you know it, and they were only filling in as barpersons because their real vocation was as a singing duo, sometimes a cappella, sometimes with their cousin Henry and his synthesizer, sometimes fronting third-rate pub jazz bands as a budget version of the Andrews Sisters. Most times unemployed and back to bar work. Professionally, they called themselves Sam and Dave, but they'd met several agents and recording managers who said they couldn't use that name. It was something to do with someone else who had got in first way back in history. I agreed it was before my time too, whatever they were talking about. I knew that, genetically, they at least had to have a brain cell between them.

In the staff room above the bar, Dave showed me the clean laundry bag, which had a selection of freshly-washed but rarely-ironed white shirts. I asked for a 15-inch collar and she gave me a 16 ½ -inch one, explaining that it got hot and sweaty later on. I said I hoped so as I let her help me button it up and she smiled encouragingly.

Sam chose a clip-on bow tie for me and offered to fit it as there wasn't a mirror. She told me it was safer than the real tie-on ones or even the ones on elastic (the pub had a comprehensive choice) in case anyone grabbed it.

‘So things can get a bit lively, can they?' I asked.

‘Sometimes,' said Sam.

‘Most times,' said Dave.

I watched as they adjusted each other's bow ties.

‘But I can rely on you two to protect me, can't I?' I gave them the full teeth smile. No cheap dental work there.

Dave shook her short blonde hair at me.

‘We were hoping you'd watch our backs, actually.'

I thought about this.

‘Do the customers get a bit aggressive?'

‘Some of them you'd think had never seen red meat,' said Sam.

Then they both giggled.

I must have looked as bemused as I felt. Dave patted me on the cheek.

‘Don't worry, we have confidence in you, Roy. It is Roy, isn't it?'

‘Yes, but what do you mean confidence? Why should ...?'

A look of genuine surprise crossed her face.

‘April didn't tell you, did she? Tuesday is
female
gay night.'

‘No, she must have forgotten to mention that.'

 

The bar began to fill to the raucous tones of L7, the all-female Californian band, in heavy mood. At least nobody was going to get up and karaoke along with them. There was no sign of the disc jockey who had been setting up. He'd set up, put on a tape and done a runner.

‘You'll have to do the rounds for dirty glasses and ashtrays,' Sam advised me.

‘You'll be safe,' Dave chipped in. ‘You've got something in your trousers.'

‘Watch it, Sis,' warned Sam. Then to me: ‘April doesn't allow us to cheek off the customers, so no lip – however much they wind you up.'

I did a quick scan of the spirits on the back bar, their prices marked on small white stickers the size of postage stamps. Beneath them were four glass-door fridges stuffed with imported lagers and bottles of white wine with the corks drawn.

‘Biggest sellers are the beers by the neck, no glass,' said Sam pushing behind me. ‘A few of the Vanilla Dykes go for white wine spritzers and the older GBs may hit the spirits later on.'

‘GBs?' I queried as she thrust a lemon, a paring knife and a saucer at me.

‘Gender Benders. Start slicing.'

I made a note to add that one to Duncan's Irish driver joke.

‘And what about– ?'

‘Customer,' hissed Dave. ‘Your end.'

At the far end of the bar was a woman nervously puffing on a cigarette. She wore a huge, chunky-knit cardigan, which could possibly have housed a small family, but apart from that, looked perfectly normal.

I approached and did the universal barman's quizzical stare.

I thought it best not to speak.

‘Southern Comfort and Malibu, please,' she said politely.

‘Ice? Lemon?' I risked.

‘Both, thank you.' She puffed out a small smokescreen.

I moved to the optics and made the drinks expertly, or so I thought, placing them in front of her with a flourish. ‘That'll be–'

I had even worked out the right price, but I never got a chance to tell her.

‘No! No!'

Even in the disco lights, she'd gone pale. Then she drew on her cigarette violently, blew smoke at me and shook her head.

Then she said, ‘No, no, no,' turned on her heels and walked away.

I sensed Sam at my side.

‘What? What did I do wrong?'

She reached over and picked up the drinks.

‘In the same glass, you idiot.'

She poured the Malibu into the Southern Comfort and took the empty glass away. Somebody shouted for a pint of lager and I turned to get that, remembering not to ask if they wanted a strawberry in it or anything. When I looked back, the full glass at the end of the bar had gone and the correct money stood in a small pile of coins.

It was going to be one hell of a learning curve.

Two and a half lager tops. Molson Dry, please. Three tonic waters, no ice, she's cold enough. Beck's. Two Sols, don't forget the lime, though he doesn't look like he knows where to put it. Two pints of lager, a dry sherry and a whisky and Lucozade. Bailey's with ice. What do you mean you haven't any Lucozade? Pils with the top off. So how much was the whisky without the Lucozade? Half a shandy. A grapeka – it's vodka and grapefruit juice, don't you know anything, you git? Quick, put a large gin in there while she's not looking. Don't you do Chardonnay? A Southern Comfort and a Malibu, please. Of course I want two glasses, you prawn!

It was going rather well. But it couldn't last.

Dave sounded the alarm in a hiss of genuine panic. ‘Phasers on stun! Watch yourself, Roy, it's Thelma and Louise.'

I had no idea what she was talking about, but I had more sense than to stop and look. Avoiding eye contact had got me through the first hour and a half, but now the disco had given way to the karaoke and a procession of volunteers were queuing up to take the microphone and sing along to k d lang. Those not interested or, let's face it, embarrassed by the amateur offerings, began to scramble for the seats as far away from the karaoke gear as possible. Two of them had found bar stools from somewhere and were staking a claim to the end of the bar where I'd had my first customer.

I risked a glance at them while bending down to clean off an ashtray with a paint brush. One was a redhead, the other a blonde with blue streaks, the same blue as you get on a shirt when a fountain pen leaks. Both had it cropped to within a half-inch of the skull except for a comma-shaped lock over the left eye. The redhead wore large round glasses with red frames and the blonde had one gold stud in her left nostril.

Nothing out of the ordinary there.

‘Better see what Iron Tits and Steel Arse want,' hissed Sam. ‘I ain't going near them. You're on your own, kid.'

‘Hey, what's ... ?'

But there was no way I would get anything out of them except a view of the back of their heads.

‘Lousy service around here,' somebody said loudly.

‘Men always give lousy service, darling, didn't you know?'

Action stations. Keep it civil.

‘Being served?'

I didn't say ‘girls', I didn't say ‘ladies'. I didn't ask the redhead if she enjoyed eating lemons whole as surely nothing else could have put that expression on her face. I wanted to keep my job.

‘Two Rollicking Balls,' said the redhead.

‘Pardon?'

‘Deaf as well,' said the blonde.

They stared at me. Somewhere behind the lasers, the karaoke microphone changed hands and another song started. It didn't help.

‘I asked for a pair of Rollicks,' said the redhead.

‘I know what you said,' I muttered quietly to myself. ‘I just don't know which language we're talking.'

Sam got me out of it. She coughed loudly and I shot a glance over my shoulder, to catch her waggling a foot at one of the cold cabinets as she tried to hand two pints over the bar without spilling. Her foot was pointing to the cooler containing the imported beers selection.

‘Two Rolling Rocks coming right up,' I announced.

‘The penny seems to have dropped,' said the redhead.

‘A-fucking-mazing,' said the blonde.

I gave them their change and looked around desperately for some other customers. Where were they when you wanted them? Watching an overweight middle-aged woman in twin set and sensible shoes doing ‘My Way'. Sinatra has a lot to answer for.

‘You should go out and collect some glasses,' Dave said with a grin.

‘Sod off.'

That would have meant asking Thelma and Louise to remove their elbows from the bar flap so I could get out. And then asking them if I could come back in. No way. Not while they had bottles in their hands. I had no intention of even looking in their direction, but it soon became clear that I had been elected as target for tonight.

‘I don't know why I ever bothered with men,' said the redhead far too loudly. ‘They are universal wastes of space.'

I edged my way up the bar looking for glasses to dry or olives to stone or anything. A woman loomed out of the light show and I was about to serve her when Dave muscled in front of me, elbowing me back down the bar.

‘The last man I had,' the redhead was saying, ‘stripped off while I was making coffee in the kitchen. I wander in, balancing a cafetiere and two mugs, and there he is, but he's still got his socks on! Would you believe it?'

‘So what did you do?' asked the blonde as if she hadn't heard it before.

‘I put the coffee down and looked at what he had on offer and said I didn't realise it was so cold in here and offered to turn the heating up.'

The blonde laughed.

‘Is that why he kept his socks on?'

‘It was the only thing he was getting on that night, I can tell you.'

More hilarity.

‘And then, then' – the redhead choked on her Rolling Rock – ‘he looks down and it starts to shrink before his very eyes! Talk about two onions stuck on a cocktail stick! And … and ... he has the nerve to say size isn't important!'

‘Who told him that?' the blonde hooted.

Another man, I thought, but kept it to myself.

‘You know Simone?' said the blonde.

‘All 16 stone of her?' the redhead giggled.

‘Yes, and 15 of them are round her arse!' The blonde gasped for breath. ‘Well, she told me – after she'd had a few – that she once picked up a man and tried to do it in a shop doorway!'

‘Go on, never!'

‘It's true. The only trouble was he was as pissed as she was and neither of them could go through the motions. She said it was like trying to put an oyster in a slot machine!'

‘Oi! Tinkerballs!'