Your Father Sends His Love (11 page)

‘How was the flight?' I asked. He only had a small bag. A kind of businessman's overnight case. He stowed it under the shelf. I had forgotten this was something to say. A question to ask. Your mind works on such things even when you don't realize it.

‘Dreadful,' Rish said. ‘Never fly American. I say it every time, but I never listen. Seriously, you'd be better off walking. Never again. What we drinking?'

‘Independence,' I said. ‘It's quite hoppy. You try.'

I passed him my glass. He took a sip and passed back the glass. Made the appreciation face.

‘It's quite hoppy,' he said. ‘You want the same again?'

‘No,' I said. Never order the same beer twice. Even if you enjoyed the first. Even if none of the others appeal, you must try something different.

‘I'll have a Triangle,' I said. Number fourteen. The Lawnmower.

‘You got it, son.' His accent terrible. Yorkshire via New York.

The barman climbed down from the stepladder, wiped his hands on a towel. I watched Rish sample three different beers: nine, thirteen, twenty-six. You can sample up to three, no more than that: this is the unwritten rule.
I watched him take a tiny glass, give his appreciation face, move on to the next. I wished for no victor. For Rish to shake his head, the unwritten rule be damned, and ask for three more to taste. I wanted the barman to line up a sample of each beer and for Rish to begin at number one and end at twenty-seven, compile a longlist of ten, taste them again and announce a shortlist of six, then decide upon the final winner. He went for twenty-six. I had gambled on nine.

Their child caught a disease. One of those with a name that can stop the heart. It was an aggressive strain. Three months and then. This is the stuff you can't even think. Cannot comprehend. There were photographs of the funeral. They looked professionally taken. Well framed and composed. Rish emailed them to me. Rish accepted my apologies. I couldn't get the time. Didn't have the money. Would have done anything. Understand, yes? They named the boy Noah. I'd held him in the living room of my house, in a restaurant, in the beer garden of a pub. He had cried and smiled and shit and gurgled. He wore a jumper I'd bought. Red, knitted Adidas logo. Loved that jumper. One week there, one week back in England. Two weeks I knew him. I cannot remember his face, the way he felt in my arms, his weight. I can remember his smell. I can remember his skin.

After the funeral. Months after, not so long, Rosemary
and Rish split up. In an Indian restaurant she threw a chana dhal at him and said it was over. Men and women process guilt and mourning differently. He told me this on the phone. Calling from the Chelsea Holiday Inn. Drunk yes, drunk and like he was reading out from a fucking manual or something.

Rosemary moved to be with her parents upstate. Like Russian dolls, a mother retreating to her girlhood bedroom. Rish got drunk for two weeks and did something with a college girl. He told me this in shame. Calling from Chelsea Holiday Inn. Reassuring me it was okay, he was okay. He'd be home soon. Not to worry. Home soon.

Rish came back with the drinks. He sat down and looked out of the window.

‘They've got twenty-seven beers on draught,' I said. ‘But only one toilet.'

‘What's that?' he said.

‘I said they've got twenty-seven beers on draught,' I said again. ‘But only one toilet.'

‘Really?' he said.

He was forty-one. A father and a husband; neither now and both. A father and a husband looking out of a pub window at 12.17pm on a Wednesday.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘And the toilet's up those really narrow stairs.'

I pointed to the staircase.

‘You wouldn't have thought it would be allowed, would you? What with Health & Safety and all that?'

Rish looked at the stairs. I was going too quickly. One, two and three had been used up without Rish even really hearing.

‘What did you go for in the end?' I asked.

‘Conqueror,' he said. ‘Quite hoppy. You try?'

I took his glass and took a sip.

‘Yes, nice,' I said.

He nodded and looked out of the window again. Were there six or seven things to say? Seven. Four gone. Only three things left to say. The man in fatigues. Kelly's Eye. James Mason.

‘Yes,' I said. ‘It's quite hoppy, isn't it?'

‘Honestly, I mean it,' he said. ‘American really is the worst. BA, Virgin, even Delta – anyone but them.'

The stool made a wounded scraping sound as he moved it. This would be his advice for years; forever probably.
So you're going to New York? Don't fly American. Trust me.
And they would trust him because everyone trusted Rish, and when they booked flights they would remember what he'd said and pay a little more to avoid American. And they would parrot the information Rish gave –
well, a friend of mine used to live out there and he said never fly American
– and they wouldn't understand that he would never go back.

‘You grew a beard,' he said and smiled.

‘I don't like it,' I said. ‘It's a bit ginger in places.'

‘Why don't you shave it off then?'

‘Because it took commitment and now I have it, it's like a war of attrition.'

‘It suits you,' he said. ‘It looks good.'

The barman turned on the stereo. Playlist, same as always, always on random. It was Cream. ‘Sunshine of Your Love'. Rish looked out of the window and I looked out of the window with him. We saw buses and buggies and taxi-cabs and women wearing vest tops and baseball caps. There is a guitar solo on ‘Sunshine of Your Love'. Clapton plays the opening bars of ‘Blue Moon': a moon to contrast with the sunshine. I knew this. Something else to say. Eight things to say. Four down, four to go.

‘Did you know,' I said, ‘that this guitar solo is actually the opening to “Blue Moon”?'

‘Really?' he said.

‘Yes. “Blue Moon”. You can hear it clearly,' I said. ‘Listen.'

We sat in silence listening to the guitar line. Our heads in the air, as though we could catch the notes.

‘There's a beer called Blue Moon,' Rish said. ‘They serve it with a wedge of orange. It's disgusting. And it's owned by fucking Coors or something.'

‘I've had Blue Moon,' I said. ‘You're right, it's horrible, yes.'

Two men in suits came in. Pinstripes and knitted ties. I saw them in the window. Heard them. Loud voices talking about something. They interrupted their conversation to order a twenty and a number four, then resumed their loud talk. Rish finished his drink.

‘I'm going to have a Redemption next,' Rish said. Redemption is the name of the beer. Look it up. There's no irony there, that's the name of the beer he wanted.

‘I'll get them,' I said and took his glass to the bar.

‘What'll it be?' the barman said.

‘Can I try the Citra?' I said. ‘And perhaps the Big Chief?'

The sun came in thick bars through the window, then disappeared. Rish was still looking out of the window. The barman poured and set down the shots. They tasted identical. There was Kelly's Eye. There was the military man. There was James Mason. Three things left to say.

Rish nodded in thanks and sipped at his beer, pointed at the book.

‘You still treating books like shit, I see,' he said. ‘I remember you once ripped the cover of one of my books to make a roach for a joint.'

‘I never did that,' I said. ‘You accused me of that, but it was never proven.'

‘Oh, I know it was you,' Rish said. ‘I know it and you know it too.'

‘What book was it, anyway?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘I don't read any more. Can't seem to concentrate.'

From here: a million conversations. Books to get him out of the slump. Books I'd read. Books I loved and books he'd once loved. Bookshops that had opened. Bookshops that had closed. And music too. What are you listening to these days? A million conversations, but no. No.

‘Do you know what Kelly's Eye means?' I asked.

‘Like in bingo?' Rish said.

‘Yes.'

‘Something to do with Ned Kelly?'

‘I'm impressed,' I said.

‘A guess, that's all,' he said and he smiled.

‘And,' I said, not able to stop myself. ‘Did you know James Mason was born in Huddersfield?'

‘Really?' he said. ‘That's funny.'

He laughed and he said he was going to use the toilet.

The Chequers, Walthamstow, a pint of Five Points Pale, a solo drink, bags full of shopping from the supermarket and a battered book open on the table, four pints and they
know I like my beer in a straight glass, not a jug, and there's WiFi for work emails and personal emails and a text from a friend who's in town and looking for people to drink with and in the process of declining the invite an unknown number on the phone and perhaps it's an opportunity to claw back mis-sold PPI, but instead the slight pause and then his breath, his voice ragged, like shouting at the television during a football match, and his voice saying she's gone, left and gone for good this time, no chance, no chance now, and I am coming home now, flights booked and there is no chance no and there is nothing left and I need to talk to you, and only you, I need you, Noah, and you are the only person, Noah, the only one, and it will be better, it will be better the two of us together like it was, the two of us together.

There was only the old soldier. Nothing left to say, except to ask Rish what he thought about a man he'd never even seen. I watched Rish descend the staircase. I realized I could not even describe the army man. His fatigues, yes, but not how he looked. Just a few signs of his age. Enough to ask the question about him. Rish was at the foot of the staircase. There were twenty-seven beers on draught.

I looked down. I was sending a text message or email, not waiting. Not ever. Not waiting at all. I smiled. He sat
down. He took a sip of his drink and he had water blooms on the cuff of his jacket.

‘Before,' I said. ‘There was a man sitting over the other side of the bar. He was wearing full battle fatigues. Desert warfare – sand coloured and all that. But he looked too old to be army. How old can you be as a soldier?'

He shrugged and looked out of the window.

‘I read somewhere once that most soldiers don't ever kill anyone,' he said. ‘That when confronted with the idea of killing another human being they simply can't do it. There's a sort of switch that just stops them from functioning. From finishing the job. It's like there's a basic humanity, a kind of hard-wired notion of preserving the species.'

The question hung, but neither of us asked it. There was a conversation there. Something to say. A long, involved conversation. One that mattered. One of us just needed to ask: do you think you could? Do you think you could kill someone? Who would you kill? We didn't ask. Neither of us. Another time, this would have been the whole afternoon.

Rish is my oldest, closest friend. The Tap has twenty-seven beers on draught and only one toilet. Rish is the only man I trust with my life. The toilet is upstairs, too; at the top of a spiral staircase, steep and narrow. Rish is the person I love most in the world. You wouldn't
have thought it would be allowed, what with Health & Safety. Rish understands me better than I understand myself. The bingo call Kelly's Eye references the famous fugitive Ned Kelly. Rish called me first when it happened. There was a man in here in battle fatigues. Rish had a child he named after me. James Mason was born in Huddersfield. Rish has seen things that I will never see, and has felt things that I can never share.

Outside a delivery from the Camden Hells brewery was in progress. Rish watched it. I watched it too.

‘This place has twenty-seven beers on draught,' Rish said, his eyes on the kegs and casks rolling down into the cellar. ‘But only one toilet.'

‘The toilet's upstairs too,' I said. ‘Up those narrow stairs.'

‘I'm amazed it's allowed,' Rish said. ‘What with Health & Safety and all.'