More people enter the pub, workers from the refinery and a couple of regulars. I order another cider and ask for the menu. I’m hungry now. The Lobster Smack has become a gastropub since I was last here, it seems. I order the steak, rare, and a bottle of red wine to go with it. I sit back down by the window, trancelike, sipping my drink, watching the group of workers and then looking out of the window from time to time. I finish my drink just as the barmaid arrives with my steak and bottle of house red. I pour myself a glass and tuck into my steak like I haven’t eaten for a week. The steak is cooked just how I like it, tender, oozing natural juices. Halfway through my meal a group of old ladies sit down at the next table. They’re locals, probably in their seventies, maybe older. I wonder why they are here, considering the weather has taken a turn for the worse. I didn’t see or hear a car drop them off, yet they couldn’t have all walked here. It doesn’t take them long to settle and order their drinks and food. They all order steak and gin and tonics. One of the ladies, grey hair all sprayed up, dripping in gold, asks for her steak to be cooked ‘well-done’. She repeats this several times to the barmaid taking the order. As the barmaid walks away from the group, the old lady calls after her: ‘I won’t eat this thing if it’s still alive!’ Her companions laugh in a way that suggests they are all accustomed to her behaviour in public, accepting it as banter. I look at her: she’s showy-Essex, bold as brass, tough-skinned and lippy. I reckon she’s never had a steak cooked any other way.
I drink my house red, which is surprisingly pleasant, and listen to the ladies. They’re mostly discussing things they’ve read in the tabloids and stuff they’ve seen on TV the previous night. The chatter is led by the lady who insisted that her steak be well-done. It ends abruptly as soon as their food arrives. I watch as the salt is passed around, liberally shaken over their meals. They slowly begin to eat, struggling to cut the meat and to chew, some of them struggling with their knives, holding them incorrectly, others moving the food around on their plates with their forks, before they even start. Suddenly, the lady who wanted her steak well-done shouts out to the barmaid.
‘Excuse me! Excuse me!’
The barmaid dashes over immediately, smiling, although it’s obvious she’s been expecting something like this to happen, as if it’s happened on numerous occasions.
‘Yes, my love.’
‘This steak is well-done, I can’t cut through it, it’s too tough, and I can’t chew it.’
‘You asked for it well-done …’
‘But I wanted it tender as well …’
‘Have it rare next time, then it’ll be as tender as you like …’
‘I don’t want my steak like the bloomin’ French have it.’
‘A well-done steak, a really well-done one, like you asked, won’t be tender. You say this to me every time you come in here …’
‘Yes, because you always cook my steak too tough …’
‘And you always ask for it well-done … Every time, and you always come back at me with the same complaint … I’ve told you about this so many times …’
‘It’s too tough …’
‘Okay, do you want your money back?’
‘No, I want some food I can chew …’
‘You say this every time … Every time you come in here.’
‘Okay, I’ll eat it. It’s too tough, but I’ll eat it.’
such a long time
After the old ladies have gone and I’ve finished my wine I grab my rucksack and walk up to the bar.
‘Same again?’
‘No, thanks … May I speak to Mr Buchanan, please?’
‘He’s over there …’
‘Where?’
‘There, talking to that man …’
‘Oh yes, I see him. Thanks.’
Mr Buchanan is speaking to the man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt. The woman is with them too, but she’s drifted off and is staring out of the window as they talk. Mr Buchanan’s a large man, with a thick beard and small-rimmed, round glasses. I walk over to them. The man in the Dr Feelgood T-shirt stops their conversation as if some dignitary had just arrived.
‘Ah, come and join us. Although I must warn you, we’re as boring as two old fuck-ups can be …’
‘I’m sorry, I’m looking for Mr Buchanan …’
‘I know who you are …’
‘Really?’
‘You’re Rey Michaels’ lad …’
‘I’m his nephew, yes …’
‘Well, of course …’
‘Yes, well …’
‘Excuse me …’
He takes me to the other side of the bar and through a door into the back office. We sit down at his desk. He offers me a whisky, good Scottish stuff, cool as you like. I want to tell him that his actions are just like actions in films I’ve seen – the way he slouches in his chair and pulls the bottle of whisky from a drawer underneath his desk – but I don’t, instead I nod and watch him pour my drink. He hands it to me and I slouch back in my own chair just like him. The whisky burns the back of my throat, it starts a beautiful fire inside me.
‘It was sad … What Rey did … I liked him. He was a private man, kept himself to himself … You know, not that many people came to visit. I knew nothing about him, really, only the things he wanted me to know … I liked that about him, I even admired him for it. There’s so much space in this world, yet most of us feel restricted, like there’s no scope for another perspective, trapped in the moment, one to the next … With Rey, it didn’t seem like that, not to me, it seemed like he had all the space he wanted … then, you know, all this … He was a good man, I think, underneath it all …’
‘I never really … We didn’t see much of him, I guess …’
‘Whatever his problems, you know … Whatever was going on inside his head, in his life for him to do that, you know …’
‘I know … It’s hard to imagine …’
‘He would come here … He’d sit in the corner, reading a book, something about the stars and the planets, he was into all that … Sometimes