“The lining of my guts is not as it should be,” I said. “Wouldn’t I be better off dying straightaway? I’ll die if I drink that bilge of coffee, and I’ll die if I don’t drink it …”
And I did. I couldn’t speak a word now, only I spat it out in a sweat when I was laid out. It was your coffee killed me, Joan, you old wretch. You killed me …
— And you killed me!
— And me!
— And me!
— … I won’t vote for you, Peter. You allowed a dirty heretic to insult the church in your own premises. You were a bloodless watery wimp. If that had been me …
— You were a complete crook, Peter the Publican. You charged me four bits of coins for a half one of whiskey, and I was so innocent that I didn’t know what I should pay …
— Your wife would know all about it. She finished off lots of half ones in my place. But I suppose you never knew anything about that either, until now …
— You were a crook, Peter the Publican. You were watering down the whiskey …
— I was not.
— I’m telling you, you were. Myself and Fireside Tom went into you one Friday after drawing the pension. This was before the war. Whiskey was flowing like tap water everywhere. As soon as you knew that Tom was pissed, you started on at him about women:
“Isn’t it a crying shame that you wouldn’t get married, Tom,” you said, “a man like you with a nice bit of land …”
“You never said a truer word,” Tom says. “You may as well hand over the daughter now.”
“By cripes, she’s there alright, and I’m not keeping her from you …” you says … There was a time when, Peter. Don’t deny it …
Your daughter came into the pub as luck would have it. She took a crock of jam down from the shelf. Do you think I don’t remember it? …
“That’s neither here nor there now,” you says, “She can make up her own mind …”
“Will you marry me?” Tom says, pressing up against her.
“Why wouldn’t I, Tom?” she says. “You have a nice bit of land, and a half guinea pension …”
We were a little while riding away like that, but Tom was half joking, half in earnest. Your daughter was messing around and fiddling with the tie around his neck … I’m telling you Peter, that was the day. Don’t deny it …
Your daughter went down to the kitchen. Tom went after her, to light his pipe. She kept him down there. But she was back fast enough to get another shot of whiskey for him.
“That old bollocks will be pissed soon, and then we’ll have him,” she said.
You grabbed the glass from her. You half filled it with water from the jug. Then you put whiskey in on top of that … That was the day, Peter …
Do you think I didn’t see you do it? Oh, yes, I noticed right well the jiggery-pokery that you and your daughter were up to behind the counter. Do you think I didn’t hear you muttering. Your daughter kept plying Fireside Tom with a concoction of water and whiskey right through the day. And he paid the same amount for the water as he did for the whiskey, after all that … Your daughter spent the day teasing him. She even started calling for whiskey for herself, but it was only water all the time. He’d have been killed by a lorry on the way home, only that Nell Paudeen, Jack the Lad’s wife, came in to get him … That was the day, I’m telling you, Peter. No point in denying it. You were a robber …
You robbed me too, Peter the Publican. Your daughter lured me into the parlour, pretending that she had the hots for me. She plumped herself down on my lap. A shower of smart asses came in from the Fancy City, and they were ushered down to the parlour along with me, and this eejit was standing drinks for them all evening. The following day, she was up the same tricks. But there was no smart ass from the city there that day. Instead of that, she hauled a crowd of spongers in from the corner, and into the parlour, and this eejit had to call for drinks …
— Oh, I remember it well. I twisted my ankle …
— Until I hadn’t enough that would make a tinkle on a tin. That was part of your robbery, Peter: your daughter letting on that she fancied every dog’s body that you thought had a few bob, until they were milked dry …
— You robbed me too, Peter the Publican. I was home on holidays from England. I had sixty hard-earned pounds down in my pocket. Your daughter lured me into the parlour. She sat on my lap. Something was slipped into my drink. When I woke up from my stupor I had nothing at all in the whole wide world except two shillings and a few miserable half pennies …
— You robbed me also, Peter the Publican. I had thirty-six quid which I got for three lorries of turf that evening. I dropped into you to celebrate. At half ten or eleven I was on my own in the place. You held your ground. That was another part of your slyness: pretending that you never noticed anything. Went down to the parlour with your daughter. Plonked herself on my lap. Put her arms around me and gave me a big hug. Something went wrong with my drink. When I came to I only had the change from a pound I had before, and that was in my trouser pocket …
— You robbed me as well, Peter the Publican. No wonder your daughter had a big fat dowry when she married Huckster Joan’s son. I won’t be voting for you, I will in my mebs, Peter …
— I had intended conducting this Election properly on behalf of the Pound Party. But since you lot, the Fifteen Shilling Party have brought unsavoury personal issues into the contest — things I thought would never have been imputed except by the Half Guinea Party — I will disclose certain information about your own candidate, Nora Johnny. She was a friend of mine, Nora Johnny. Despite the fact that I am against her politically, that doesn’t mean that I don’t respect her and we can’t have a pleasant relationship. That is why I really hate having to say this. It eats into me. I despise it. It disgusts me. But you lot started stirring the shit, you Fifteen Shilling crowd. Don’t blame me if I hoisted you with your own petard. You can lie in the bed you made for yourselves. Yes, I was a publican aboveground. Nobody only a filthy liar could say that it wasn’t a respectable pub. You are very proud of your joint candidate. She was better than anybody in charm, generosity, and virtue, if what you say is true. But Nora Johnny was a drunk. Do you lot know that hardly a day passed but she wasn’t in the door to me — especially on a Friday, when Fireside Tom would be here — and she’d put away four or five pints of stout in the snug behind the shop?
— It’s not true! It’s not true!
— You’re lying, Peter, you are lying …
— You’re spouting rubbish! It’s not true! …
— It is true! Not only was she drinking, she was also on the bum. I often gave her drink on tic. But she rarely paid for it …
— She never touched a drop …
— It’s a brazen lie …
— It’s not true, Peter the Publican …
— It’s all true, my Fellow Corpses! Nora Johnny was drinking on the sly! Usually when she had no other business in any other shop in the village, she’d hop along the lane, sneak down past the trees, and in through the back door. And she’d come every day of the week, and after closing time at night, and before opening in the morning.
— It’s not true! It’s not true! Not true …
— Three cheers for Nora Johnny! …
— Three cheers for the Fifteen Shilling Party!
— Nora Johnny for ever! For ever! …
— Good health to you, Peter the Publican! Give it to her up the arse! O, my God Almighty! And I never knew that the bitch was a secret toper! What else would you expect from her? Hanging around with sailors …
6.
— … The heart! The heart, God help us all! …
— … God save us all for ever! … My friends and my close relations might come, they might genuflect on my grave, warm hearts might catch fire with the explosion of light, sympathetic mouths might murmur prayers. The dead soil might reply to the live one, the dead heart might be warmed in the love of the live one, and the dead mouth might understand the pressing words of the living tongue …