his nose and squinted into the murk, thinking to detect some movement amid the impenetrable fog. “Everything going all right?” he called gaily.
“Yes, fine, fine,” came a strangled voice. “Think I’ve got the measure of it technique- wise.”
“Good,” said Neville. Quietly closing the door, he collapsed into a convulsion of laughter. Wiping the tears from his eyes he returned to the saloon bar, where he found himself confronted by two young ladies of the Page Three variety, who stood looking disdainful and ill at ease. They were clad in only the scantiest of costumes and looked like escapees from some gay nineties Chicago brothel.
“You the guvnor?” said one of these lovelies, giving Neville the old fisheye. “Only we’ve been ’anging about ’ere, ain’t we?”
Neville pulled back his shoulders and thrust out his pigeon chest. “Good evening,” said he in his finest Ronald Coleman. “You are, I trust, the two young ladies sent by the brewery to assist in the proceedings?”
“You what?” said one.
“To help behind the bar?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And may I ask your names?”
“I’m Sandra,” said Sandra.
“I’m Mandy,” said her companion.
“Neville,” said Neville, extending his hand.
Sandra tittered. Mandy said, “It’s a bit of a dump ’ere, ain’t it?”
Neville returned his unshaken hand to its pocket. “You didn’t come through the streets in those costumes did you?”
“Nah,” said Mandy, “we come in the car, didn’t we?”
“And you are, I trust, acquainted with the running of a bar?”
Sandra yawned and began to polish her nails. Mandy said, “We’ve worked in all the top clubs, we’re ’ostesses, ain’t we?”
Neville was fascinated to note that the two beauties seemed unable to form a single sentence which did not terminate in a question mark. “Well then, I’ll leave you in charge while I go up and get changed.”
“We can manage, can’t we?” said Mandy.
The cowboy suit hung behind the bedroom door in its plastic covering. With great care Neville lifted it down and laid it upon the bed. Carefully parting the plastic he pressed his nose to the fabric of the suit, savouring the bittersweet smell of the dry cleaner’s craft.
Gently he put his thumbs to the pearl buttons and removed the jacket from the hanger. He sighed deeply, and with the reverence a priest accords to his ornamentum he slipped into the jacket. The material was crisp and pure, the sleeves crackled slightly as he eased his arms into them and the starched cuffs clamped about his wrists like loving manacles. Without further hesitation the part-time barman climbed into the trousers, clipped on the gun belt and tilted the hat on to his head at a rakish angle. Pinning the glittering badge of office carefully to his breast he stepped to the pitted glass of the wardrobe mirror to view the total effect.
It was, to say the least, stunning. The dazzling white of the suit made the naturally anaemic Neville appear almost suntanned. The stetson, covering his bald patch and accentuating his dark sideburns, made his face seem ruggedly handsome, the bulge of the gunbelt gave an added contour to his narrow hips and the cut of the trousers brought certain parts of his anatomy into an unexpected and quite astonishing prominence.
“Mighty fine,” said Neville, easing his thumbs beneath the belt buckle and adopting a stance not unknown to the late and legendary “Duke” himself. But there was something missing, some final touch. He looked down, and caught sight of his carpet slippers, of course, the cowboy boots. A sudden sick feeling began to take hold of his stomach, he did not remember having seen any boots when the suit arrived. In fact, there were none.
Neville let out a despairing groan and slumped on to his bed, a broken man. The image in the mirror crumpled away and with it Neville’s dreams; a cowboy in carpet slippers? A tear entered Neville’s good eye and crept down his cheek.
It was seven thirty. The bar was still deserted. The two hostesses were huddled at a corner of the counter, sipping shandy and discussing the sex lives of their contemporaries in hushed and confidential tones. The gaudily dressed bar had become a gloomy and haunted place. Once in a while a passer-by would cast a brief shadow upon the etched glass of the saloon bar door, conversation would cease and the two beauties would look up in wary expectation.
Neville descended the stairs upon tiptoe. The Page Three girls saw Neville’s slippers before they saw Neville. They should have laughed, nudged one another, pointed and giggled and possibly on any other occasion they would have done just that, but as the part-time barman reached the foot of the stairs he had about him such an air of desperate tragedy that the two girls were moved beyond words.
Neville squinted around the empty bar. “Hasn’t anybody been in?” he asked.
Mandy shook her powdered head. Sandra said, “Nah.”
“You look dead good,” said Mandy. “Suits you.”
“Like that bloke in them films you look,” said Sandra.
Neville smiled weakly. “Thanks,” he said. Just then the sound of a muffled explosion issued from the direction of the patio. The yard door burst open and down the short corridor staggered the blackened figure of Young Master Robert. He was accompanied by a gust of evil-smelling black smoke which made his entrance not unlike that of the Demon Prince in popular panto.
As he lurched towards the bar counter Neville stepped nimbly aside to avoid soiling his suit. The two Page Three beauties stood dumb with astonishment. Young Master Robert stumbled behind the bar. Tearing the whisky bottle from its optic he snatched up a half-pint mug and filled it to the brim.
“Two bloody hours,” he screeched in a tortured voice, “two bloody hours puffing and blowing and fanning the bloody thing! Then I see it, then I bloody see it!”
“You do?” said Neville.
“The vents man, where are the bloody vents?”
Neville shrugged. He had no idea.
“I’ll tell you where the bloody vents are, I’ll bloody tell you!” The line of Neville’s mouth was beginning to curl itself into an awful lopsided smirk. With great difficulty he controlled it. “On the top, that’s where the bloody vents are!”
Neville said, “Surely that can’t be right.”
“Can’t be right? I’ll say it can’t be bloody right, some bastard has built the barbeque upside down!”
Neville clamped his hand over his mouth. Young Master Robert raised the half-pint pot in a charred fist and poured the whisky down his throat.
“What shall we do then?” asked Neville fighting a losing battle against hilarity. “Call it off, eh?”
“Call it off? Not on your bloody life, no, I’ve fixed it, fixed it proper I bloody have, gave it what it bloody needed. Proper Molotov cocktail, got vents now it has, I’ll tell you.”
“Oh good,” said Neville, “no damage done then.”
Young Master Robert turned on the part-time barman a bitter glance. “I warn you,” he stammered, “I bloody warn you!” It was then that he realized the bar was empty. “Here!” he said. “Where is everybody?”
Neville moved uneasily in his chaps. The young master fixed him with a manic stare. Mandy watched his fingers tightening about the handle of the half-pint pot. She stepped between the two men. “Come on Bobby,” she said, “let’s ’ave a look at them burns, can’t ’ave you getting an infection can we?” With a comforting but firm hand she led the blackened barbequeist away to the ladies.
Neville could contain himself no longer. He clutched at his stomach, rolled his eyes and fell into
