The bar itself had two taps serving draught SKOL and Bass Special, a collection box for the RNLI and a till that regularly became stuck and had to be prised open with a screwdriver. Kite had served behind it for at least two years, retreating into the back office on the rare occasions that a police officer or employee of Customs and Excise visited the hotel. Otherwise his mother confidently told any guests who enquired about Lachlan’s age that he was twenty years old and looking forward to a career in hospitality.
‘How are you doing there, young man?’ said Michael Strawson. He had managed to get to the bar and order another tumbler of Laphroaig in the time it had taken Kite to walk down the back stairs, throw out the rubbish, talk to his mother in the office and switch shifts with Paolo.
‘Mr Strawson,’ he said. ‘Everything OK upstairs?’
‘Everything is A-OK.’
There were seven other guests in the bar: an elderly couple sitting silently together looking out over the moonlit lawn and the silvery sea; two laughing pals in their fifties who looked and sounded as though they were probably Irishmen over on the ferry from Larne; a Frenchman and his elegantly coiffured wife, both in their late thirties and wearing tweed; and Strawson himself, looking for all the world like a famous American country and western singer whose name Kite could not for the life of him remember.
‘Are you staying here for the Easter weekend?’ he asked.
Kenny Rogers. That was it. Strawson looked like a slightly larger, more dishevelled version of Kenny Rogers. Kite immediately starting hearing ‘Islands in the Stream’ in his head and turned up the volume on the Richard Clayderman album playing in the bar to clear the earworm.
‘That’s right. Leaving Monday. You’re here for the spring break, am I correct? Your mother told me you go to Alford College. That’s quite a school. How do you enjoy it?’
Kite picked the second of the two questions and told Strawson that he was coming to the end of his time at Alford, revising for A levels over the Easter holidays, and hoping to go to Edinburgh University in September to study Russian and French.
‘A ty govorish’ po Russki?’
Kite’s knowledge of Russian extended to ‘yes’ and ‘no’, to ‘glasnost’ and ‘perestroika’, but he knew that Strawson had asked him if he spoke the language and replied: ‘Nyet. But they start from scratch, and students get a year studying in the Soviet Union, so hopefully I’ll pick it up quite quickly.’
‘Mais votre français est courant?’
Kite was knackered from the long journey and had been hoping for a quiet shift in the bar. He assumed that Strawson was trying to show off his knowledge of both languages, so he humoured the American by saying that his French was not fluent, but good enough to understand most conversations:
‘Mon français n’est pas couramment, mais je peux comprendre la plupart des conversations.’
‘Very good, very impressive,’ the American replied. ‘So you get a good education down there at Alford? I heard it was all strange customs and ancient traditions. Secret handshakes, that kind of thing.’
‘There’s a bit of that.’ One of the Irishmen came to the bar and ordered two pints of SKOL. Kite poured them as he continued his conversation with Strawson. ‘There are definitely some strange customs.’
‘Such as?’
He put the first of the two pints on the bar. He was thirsty and would have given a lung for a cold, hair-of-the-dog pint of lager, a Marlboro Red and a night in front of the television. When backs were turned at the hotel, Kite sometimes poured himself a heart-starting shot of vodka or knocked back a quick glass of wine. Strawson was standing in the way of that. It felt as though he was going to sit on his bar stool until two in the morning firing questions at him.
‘So there’s a thing called “capping”,’ he replied, on the assumption that Strawson would get a kick out of the story.
‘And what’s that?’
‘If you’re walking down the street and a beak – that what’s we call a teacher – is coming towards you, you’re meant to raise your right hand and kind of salute him by touching the rim of a non-existent hat on your head.’
‘Say what?’
Kite handed the Irishman the second of the two pints and gave him change from a five-pound note.
‘It dates back to the old days when Alfordians wore top hats. Some teachers don’t care, but others are a little power-crazed and insist on it.’ Kite wiped spilled lager from the counter and threw the wet cloth into the sink beneath the bar. ‘It’s funny, when I first went there five years ago and came back here to the hotel, I started capping the guests. My mum kept asking me if I was pretending to be a soldier.’
Strawson reacted delightedly to the story and asked Kite to pour him another inch of Laphroaig. Kite did so, added the whisky to Strawson’s bill, then walked around the bar, returning shortly afterwards with a tray of empty glasses and dirty ashtrays which he set down in the passage leading to the back office. It occurred to him that exactly twenty-four hours earlier he had been doing shots of vodka in Borscht & Tears with Des and Xavier, who were doubtless spending the night at home watching videos and eating pizzas cooked for them by their mothers or private maids. Xavier was due to fly to Geneva the next day for a fortnight’s skiing in Verbier; Des’s parents had
