Upstairs in what was called the cocktail bar there was more of the same: sepia photographs of archaic worthies on the mauve-papered walls and a barman in a striped waistcoat with brass buttons, and not only that. In fact he looked like the sort of girl who might be cast as Toby Belch in a women's-college production of _Twelfth Night__. An older man on the other side of the counter was talking seriously to him, a man with very neat wavy grey hair, a slim figure and uncommonly white whites to his eyes, and in other ways showing himself to be no exception to a rule of Alun's that men over fifty who took care of themselves were not to be trusted. This one was readily placeable as Victor Norris and he turned and so introduced himself with impressive speed, going on with more of the same to order Alun a drink. Then he did a buttering-up job on Alun that was a good deal more efficient than might have been expected in a restaurant in a provincial town, even a Welsh one. When it seemed to be over Alun said, 'Expecting Char1ie in, are you?'
Victor scratched the side of his neck, bending his hand back to do so further than some men might, and glanced at the grandfather clock that clunked near by. 'If he's coming he should be here any minute.'
'He told me he usually turns up midday.'
'Yes, he feels at home here. Which is nice for everyone.'
'I should have thought he felt at home in most places with a licence.'
'M'm.' Victor smiled with closed lips. 'Of course he is very outgoing. But behind that, oh dear, there's a very different kind of person. You wouldn't - you haven't seen that.'
'What haven't I seen?' asked Alun, who had found himself beginning to come round fast after the soft-soap session. 'I have known him for quite a few years, actually.'
'Oh, indeed you have, he often speaks of you. But that poor man my brother is vulnerable to all sorts of pressures and more than a lot of people he needs a settled, undisturbed kind of existence. I dare say you think that sounds silly but it's true.'
'Really.'
'Yes really.' At this point Victor took a silent message from somebody in the doorway, doubtless the friend one heard about, and in a flash his manner changed from faint menace all the way back to full warmth. 'No rest for the wicked. Super to have met you - Alun. Oh you are lunching?: Do you like scallops?'
When Alun had said truthfully that he did, Victor held his hand out palm foremost, interdicting further speech, and strode rather mannishly away. Back at the bar Alun got another drink but had his money refused, and his respect for Victor' went up another notch. Time was getting on, however. He looked round as he had downstairs: more tradesmen and housewives, a fairly unselfconscious sample. Just as he was starting to contemplate listlessly a solo lunch with perhaps bits of Victor thrown in, Charlie appeared. He was followed by someone who at first looked to Alun like an incredibly offensive but all too believable caricature of Peter Thomas aged about eighty-five and weighing half a ton. At a second glance he saw that it was Peter Thomas.
All three men seemed to turn rigid for an instant, then came back to life and motion. Alun raised his glass high, Charlie waved, Peter nodded. They converged. Alun shook Peter's hand not too hard, smiling not too broadly, trying to get it right. The difficulty was, he recognized, that he had grown so used to transmitting amiability, benevolence and all those for unreal that this confrontation rather stretched him. His will was of the best: he had a rooted and sincere aversion to any trouble not of his own making.
'Don't let's think how long it's been,' he said to Peter, genuinely enough. 'Now drinks.' While these were coming he went on, nodding at Peter's paunch, 'I don't know how you do it. I suppose it's just a matter of eating and drinking anything you like.'
'Yes, but it's the slimline tonic that turns the scale.
Actually I have managed to reduce the rate of increase of the rate of increase.'
'Nice-looking place, this,' said Alun to Charlie, his glance panning to and fro. 'They won't let me pay here, I notice.'
'Oh, you've seen Victor.'
'_Yes__,' said Alun, enthusiastically this time. 'Impressive fellow, I thought. He knows his job all right. Very professional. '
Charlie seemed rather doubtful of that one, but then raised his glass. 'Here's to us all. Welcome to Wales, you poor bastard.'
The three looked one another seriously in the eye and drank with a flourish. Alun began to relax. He went on relaxing over the next drink, when they got on to politics and had a lovely time seeing who could say the most outrageous thing about the national Labour Party, the local Labour Party, the Labour-controlled county council, the trade unions, the education system, the penal system, the Health Service, the BBC, black people and youth. (Not homosexuals today.) They varied this with eulogies of President Reagan, Enoch Powell, the South African government, the Israeli hawks and whatever his name was who ran Singapore. They were very much still at it when they went down to lunch, or rather when Charlie, explaining that he was trying to keep himself down to just one meal in the evening, went and sat with the other two and prepared to drink while they had lunch. He had brought a fresh drink with him from the bar so as to ensure an even flow.
They had hardly settled in their seats before one of the long-aproned waiters went round unfolding napkins and spreading them across their destined laps. They were unexceptionably large and laundered and of linen, but they were also pale pink. Alun ostentatiously held his arms up well clear during the spreading. When it was over he put on an eager, didactic expression and said, 'This is called a napkin. Its purpose is to protect your clothing from the substantial gobbets of food that your table manners will cause to fall from your mouth or from some point on the way to your mouth, and to provide something other than your hand or sleeve with which to wipe your mouth. Explaining this to one of your understanding would take a long time and even then might not avail, so fucking well sit still and shut up.'
'Oh Christ,' said Peter immediately, his eyes on the menu. They had each been given one in the bar but none of them had looked at it. 'A bloody Welsh lunch and dinner. Well, roll on.' Looking round for someone to accuse he caught sight of Charlie. 'What's the idea?' he asked, apparently in sincere puzzlement.
'You have to do it in a way,' said Charlie. 'People are getting to expect it. We only do it on Fridays anyway, Fridays and St David's Day. And it isn't compulsory even then. Which is decent of us because it's pretty nasty, unless you happen to have a taste for chicken in honey.'
'You mean you actually get people eating that?' asked Alun.
