The other bar hand was late this third evening and the rush about to begin, so I tidied things and got started. I couldn’t help looking for the girl with the antique amber brooch.
Tonight she was in early, eightish. Theatregoer? Meeting her bloke from work? She always—in NY three consecutive nights count always — placed herself away from the door. I gave her a smile. That amber Agnus Dei brooch again. I tore my eyes away and started my job, saying “Coming ride up!” and “Awl ridee” like I thought everybody else was doing. Mr Manfredi had this complex system of double invoicing, which caused me a deal of trouble. But I’d mastered it, because I’d seen what happened to waiters who didn’t. The idea in these American bars is there’s a counter where customers perch on stools, while elsewhere floor space has tables for a waitress service. It sounds a rum arrangement, but it works. A dozen tables, swing doors onto Eighth Avenue so you could glimpse those fantastically long motors everybody drives, a score of customers, and that was Manfredi’s Manhattan Style Eatery. Oh, I forgot to mention the talk—God, but Americans chat. And they do it to anyone, even though they’ve not been properly introduced, or have any reason. I’d never heard so many opinions—weather, politics, sport, traffic, the Middle East. That you might disagree counts nil. Strangely, I was starting to like it. You could say anything to anyone about anything any time. Surprising.
The chiseller proved no problem this particular evening. He was three parts sloshed and gradually slumped to a foetal posture less than three drinks and an hour after the boss had left. Josephus, our giant waiter who sang the livelong day, threw him out towards nine.
“Hey, Josephus,” I said soon after that interlude. “What time’s Mr Manfredi back?” At this social level, you start everything with Hey or Say-my-man. I was blending in.
“Doo any second, Lovejoy ma man.”
A bit odd. I remembered Fredo’s words: thirty minutes. He never missed checking the till money. I clocked the time. Two whole hours, and no sign.
But it was a normal evening otherwise. The punters came and went. I served the vodkas, learned two more drinks recipes for my armoury. People from work, offices, the shops disgorging folk into Manfredi’s. I can’t help looking at people, wondering why they’re in a nosh bar instead of home. The trouble was, three days and I’d seen nothing of America except that taxi ride from the airport, my grotty little pad with Magda plying her trade in the next room. And here.
“New Yorkers live on the hoof,” a woman’s voice explained.
“I was just wondering.” My words were out before I saw who’d spoken.
She’d finished her meal, an enormous salady thing of avocado and chicken in deep crisp-heart lettuce foliage. That’s another American thing, the meals. I’d never seen so much on a plate.
“Nobody home cooks.”
Her Agnus Dei wasn’t as ancient as some, but brooches like hers are unusual. Once, new Popes issued wax Lambs for wearing in silver discs. This wasn’t one, but could easily have been except for the amber. My chest bonged faintly the nearer I moved. Genuine antique. Norwegian? Swedish? She saw me looking. I went quickly to serve a lady’s martini in that fearsome high-gin New York formula.
“You like my brooch?” Persistent.
“The Scandinavians’ Agnus Dei pendants were usually silver. Amber’s such a Baltic thing.”
She was mid-twenties, shrouded against the autumn cool, and pale featured. Long hair, nothing spectacularly fashionable. Slight, quiet, always reading.
“You know about such things?” Her grey-blue gaze took in my lapel badge. “Lovejoy’s some kinda name.”
“It’s all I have, miss.”
She rocked with silent laughter and mouthed: Miss? I went a bit red, stepped down the counter to punish a suited gent with a treble bourbon. I’d quickly learned that Americans drink booze through shovelfuls of ice, God knows why. Even their beer has to be freezing. No, honest. It’s quite true. Go and see for yourself.
“Sorry, Lovejoy,” she said when I drifted past her end. “I’m a New Yorker. Rose Hawkins. Can you price it?”
See what I mean? Straight to essentials. In sleepy old East Anglia getting down to a valuation would take a fortnight.
“I’d need a good light. But it’ll keep you a month. Around 1800 AD.”
“That fits.”
She looked at me curiously. For a few minutes I had to hear about baseball from three geezers, regulars in for the bar telly. Baseball—an unknowable ritual resembling our women’s rounders—is as baffling as American rugby, which is all I ever hope to say about them for ever and ever. These fans kept explaining the ins and outs of the damned thing since they’d spotted my ignorance. Every religion craves converts.
“It was my great-grandmother’s,” she told me next pass.
“Don’t give me provenance, love, not without documentation. I’ve…” I caught myself.
“You’ve…?”
“I’ve heard it’s safer. Never mind what dealers and auctioneers tell you.”
“Been to the exhibition, Lovejoy?”
“Exhibition?” I was casual, doing the mystique with ice and gin for a newspaper vendor. He called every second hour.
“Antiques. It’s only two blocks, if you’re interested.”
Interested? I’d give almost anything. “I haven’t time off. I’m new here… I mean, I’m new back.”
For a second I was proud of my vernacular, shortening my adverb; or whatever it is, American fashion. She began to ask me where I was from, all that. I gave her the Californian back from England, desultory patter between hurtling orders for drinks.
Then I noticed the kitchen was being closed. Last orders for grub. Lil the elderly boss waitress was collecting the invoice chits. Ten o’clock? Only nearby Apple Jack’s stayed open later than us. No Mr Manfredi.
“Hey, Josephus,” I asked the big bloke. “Fredo back?” Dunno, man. I’m zoomin’, Lovejoy.”
“Doan look at me, honey,” Lil called.
A couple of customers gave amused advice. A lass left the kitchen, calling goodnights. The mousey-haired brooch girl stayed, said she was from some place called Greenwich Village. Like a nerk I asked politely how often she went home to visit. She seemed puzzled. I hoped it wasn’t anywhere near California. Being merely one more illegal immigrant working for the Almighty Dollar makes you edgy. Fredo had twice asked for my social security number. Not having any idea what that was, I’d told him I’d bring it in tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Outside the traffic was still hard at it, zooming to and fro. Police sirens were a standard feature, I knew by now. The first night I’d twice got up from my pit to see what was happening, but by my second night I was impervious, by today oblivious. New York’s siren song, always there.
Josephus had called closing several times. Finally the brooch made to leave, smiling.
“Goodnight, Lovejoy.”
I was wiping the counter, washing glasses, keeping an anxious eye on the door for Fredo, not knowing what to do. Delia, our cash-cheque lady, was locking up her pedestal and handing me the keys and donning her coat. I told Rose goodnight.
She left in the same door-swing as Delia. Everybody was yelling goodnights to me, people giving me keys. Josephus was singing his folksy way out. I was desperate. He declined Delia’s keys.
“Dowan tra me, Lovejoy. I’m singin’ in ma club tonight.”
“Oh, aye.” I’d forgotten. His big chance, some melody he’d written.
Which left worried me, the customers all departed, the greasy keys from the kitchen’s street entrance on the counter. And Manfredi’s Manhattan Style Eatery empty. Except for two cash registers loaded with money. Waiting. Gulp. Hurry back, Fredo.
Outside, sirens whooped. I stood there by my clean bar, wondering what to do. I went and turned off the lights in the kitchen. Only one storey, thank God, so no upstairs to worry about. I called a feeble inquiry into the Ladies’ loos, checked the Gents’ for lurking figures. I was alone.
With all that money.
Fredo’s home number? I hunted high and low. I tried the New York telephone book, my first experience. Its size took my breath away. There was a Greenwich Village actually here in New York. And a Bronx! No wonder Rose stared when I’d asked her what state she hailed from… Well, might as well look for an Italian name in a haystack. I gave up, took off my apron, stood there like a spare tool, thinking worried thoughts.
My doss house hotel was a couple of miles southwest, so no chance of popping round to ask guidance from the dozy old bloke. Magda I’d hardly glimpsed since my arrival. Lock up? Last night Fredo’d winkled out some tipsy customer with vigorous expletives and mucho muscle. Bums had to be slung out no matter what, and everybody was a threatening bum until proved otherwise. This morning I’d heard Delia telling Josephus how she’d been mugged in broad daylight, her purse stolen with its credit cards. Danger land.
I bolted the door, but its lock was electronic—tap its buttons in the right sequence or it doesn’t obey — so I achieved nothing more.
Money, though.
All American money looks alike—hundred-dollar notes look like ones, fifties look like the rest. Weird. All decimal, of course, so my trick of translating into the simpler old pre-decimal guineas, pounds, crowns, florins, shillings, tanners, threepenny joeys, pence and farthings, which everybody could understand, wouldn’t work here.
Homesick and forlorn, I made myself some coffee, putting a coin on the till for it, and sat wondering about the USA, with its enormous meals and streets all numbered in order so you couldn’t get lost and everybody so cheery and… Like Rose, for instance. So direct, so willing to smile and talk. Most odd. So unlike us. I mean, as recently as 1989 Lord Dacre threatened to resign because his Savile Club decided to allow members to talk during breakfast, the bounders.
Somebody shoved the door. I leapt a mile, bawled a terrified “Hey, go home, ya bum!” and switched lights on round the place. Silence, or what passes for silence in New York. That is, traffic, sounds of people speed-walking, talk, sirens, motor horns, occasional yells.
The bar now seemed cold and uninviting, even stark. There’s something unnerving about tidiness, isn’t there? I’m always lost when some woman comes to stay, tidies me into her pattern, washes sheets and gets grub by the clock. I like a little disorder. Manfredi’s, all prepped for the morning, was an uncomfortable oasis.
Nothing to read, so I switched the telly on for company just as a policeman pounded on the outer glass panel, frightening me to death. His silhouette seemed convincing. I went to let him in.
“What’s going on here?” he said, eyes everywhere.
“Evening, constable. I’m still waiting for Mr Manfredi.”
He gazed around. He was all dark leather pouches. The gun made me swallow a couple of times.
“New, huh?”
“Yes, constable. Barman.”
He walked about for a few moments, eyed me in what can only be called a threatening manner, strolled out without another word. I was relieved to see him go.
An hour on, I surrendered all hope and got some cold grub from the kitchen fridges. I made more coffee, though by now I was sick of the bloody stuff. The great survival trick is to avoid cinnamon. America must float on a sea of the wretched spice. They put it in rolls, things called muffins which aren’t, in tea bags, in anything edible. Midnight came and went and the telly game shows went on and on. I barricaded the front entrance with chairs and a trough filled with giant greenery, tested the windows, listened horrified to somebody fighting outside, pulled out plugs, generally lessened the electricity bill for the dark hours… except there are no dark hours in New York, that insomniac’s paradise.
A bench seat would do me. Towards two o’clock I unfastened a window, peering out. Motors still about, pedestrians, somebody falling over, neons blinking multicolour into faces, somebody running down a side street. And the grids steaming as if Hell was somewhere immediately below. I couldn’t get used to the great funnels they stick into the roadway to pipe the gases high into the air. I latched the window, baffled. Grub finished, I washed the crockery in case the kitchen people went mental in the morning, and put the lights out.
The telly I left on, sound lowered. I dozed fitfully on the bench. Three or four times during the night I roused thinking I heard people trying windows, doors, but there was no one and I slept on.