Peg teached me.
Worse teachers, he thought, and flicked his cigarette away.
Ginny said, You love Peg?
Course I do.
You her boyfriend?
It’s complicated, Ginny.
Because you went away?
Not just that.
You look sad, she said.
Yeah.
Feet cold, Uly—
I bet they are. Come on, up we go Gin Gin. Let’s go get you warm.
Carry my bread.
Course, he said. Hey?
Ginny turned.
Thanks for the chat.
Anytime Uly. I’m always ears.
He laughed and pulled her close.
It was a week before the big melt. A regulars’ night, with the same old faces shuffling in for prime position around the fire. They were getting bold and brought sandwiches with them, and Mrs Lovell snuck in a roast dinner under foil. They absorbed the heat like lizards and left everyone else shivering under coats. Col couldn’t wait for them to die.
In the snug, a couple of coppers were lording it, keeping the language clean. Col was on the long pull, generous measures to encourage a lock-in, a ploy to shift the stack of liver sausage sandwiches stinking up the counter.
Piano Pete was warming up with a bit of Beethoven. He’d spent all afternoon playing for a beginners’ tap class full of two left feet. Those classes were the septic boil of his wasted life. Pete could’ve gone to the Royal Academy, everyone knew that. He moved seamlessly on to Wagner, a sure sign that his evening was turning bitter.
Jig it up, Pete, said Col, recognising the shift in mood. And Pete swung into swing and the pub went from dry to thirst.
The upbeat shift in musical choice affected everyone but most notably Claude. He launched himself into an aeronautical display of rare aptitude and his final demonstration of complex asymmetric hovering brought raucous applause from the usually less than impressed drinking clientele.
That bird’s showing off, said Old Cress. That bird’s in love.
Talking out of your arse, said Col.
But Cressy knew his birds. And Claude ended up in front of the mirror, rubbing himself vigorously against a bottle of rum.
Disgustin’， said Col.
What’s he doing? said Ginny.
Bringing relief to his swollen cloaca, said Cress.
That’s a word you don’t hear often, said Ulysses.
Do you have to? said Col.
By eleven, the lock-in had become official and the coppers had buggered off with a couple of quid in their pockets. It was a man-against-the-elements kind of night, and Ulysses went down to the cellar to fetch a box of candles.
Piano Pete was sitting in the corner making a considerable dent in a bottle of whisky.
All right, Pete?
Not bad, Temps. You?
Not bad. You want me to say I don’t know where you are?
If you don’t mind, Temps. Suddenly lost me confidence.
Ulysses smiled. He liked Pete. Always had. Pete was as elusive as they came. Might’ve been rich or might’ve been poor. Might’ve been brought up in a castle or under a bridge. Pete had been a conscientious objector and had done a bit of time. Pete was bruised but Pete was kind.
Here you go, Pete, said Ulysses and he covered him with a regulation army blanket. He placed a lit candle next to him.
I’ll be up in a minute, said Pete.
Stay where you are, said Ulysses.
Bless you, said Pete.
Upstairs, Ulysses set candles on saucers, one on each table. He turned off the lights, and the old ones complained about the power cut, but Ulysses ignored them. He placed a record that Cress had given him on the turntable. Cress had said, I reckon this might be a bit of all right. You know – something special, and he was right. The woman sang in Italian and her voice took him back to a painting and another country and another version of himself. Col came out of the snug into the bar ridiculing the woman’s voice. He was full of impersonations that evening, and he pitched his voice high and tremulous. It’s what Col did when he didn’t understand something – he made it ridiculous and brought it down to an acceptable level; crotch height, usually, so he could piss on it. Peg was a bit like that, and he should have seen it coming, but he’d become daft and a bit moony on account of the music and the candlelight and the soft fall of snow against the windows.
Peg had been drinking up a storm, and there was an edge to her, something cruel in her eyes. On nights like these, beauty made her uncomfortable, as if there was only room for hers. She waved him over and when he sat down, she immediately started talking about Eddie. Told him what she planned to do when Eddie came to get her. I was everything to that man, and he was everything to me. She was in full-on goad mode. Ulysses drank his beer and ignored her. And then she nudged him and said, You ever meet anyone? He thought about the question, the two roads that led away from it, the yes or no that would attract pity or scorn. He said he did actually. And he talked easily about Evelyn. And there’s Peggy laughing at him now, nudging him, all older woman this and that, and he said it’s not like that, it was about who she was and what she said and what she knew. And Ulysses knew he shouldn’t have done it, but he did it anyway because the music offered a skylight to another dawn. He said stuff about art and paintings and Italy, things that Evelyn had told him, things he’d often thought about in the conflicting sounds of night.