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‘Wrote the plays. “A handbag!” That one.’
‘Oscar Wilde?’
‘He’s yer man!’ said Minnie. ‘He was another Portora boy, wasn’t he, Ted?’
Ted was busy emptying the third of his traditional three sachets of sugar into his coffee. ‘Aye.’
‘Zelda’s nephew went there,’ said Minnie. ‘The ones in Fermanagh there.’
‘Right,’ said Israel. ‘Anyway…’
‘I’ll check with her.’
‘Fine,’ said Israel.
‘And your scones are just coming,’ said Minnie.
‘That’s grand,’ said Ted, producing a packet of cigarettes.
‘Uh-uh,’ said Minnie, wagging her finger. ‘We’ve gone no smoking.’
‘Ye have not?’ said Ted.
‘We have indeed.’
‘Since when?’
‘The weekend, just.’
‘Ach,’ said Ted. ‘That’s the political correctness.’
‘I know,’ said Minnie. ‘It’s what people want though, these days.’
‘You’ll lose custom, but.’
‘Aye.’
‘Nanny state,’ said Ted, obediently putting away his cigarettes and lighter.
‘Smoking kills,’ said Israel.
‘Aye, and so do a lot of other things,’ said Ted darkly.
‘It is a shame, really,’ said Minnie. ‘Sure, everybody used to smoke.’
Israel stared at the yellowing walls of the café as Ted and Minnie reminisced about the great smokers of the past: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Winston Churchill, Fidel Castro.
‘Beagles,’ said Israel.
‘What?’ said Minnie.
‘And Sherlock Holmes,’ added Israel.
‘Aye,’ said Ted.
‘Was he not a druggie?’ said Minnie.
‘Sam Spade,’ said Israel.
‘Never heard of him,’ said Minnie.
Sometimes Israel wished he was a gentleman detective, far away from here, with a cocaine and morphine habit, and a slightly less intelligent confidant to admire his genius. Or like Sam Spade, the blond Satan, pounding the hard streets of San Francisco, entangling with knock-out redheads and outwitting the Fat Man. Instead, here he was in Zelda’s, listening to Ted and Minnie and looking up at old Christian Aid and Trócaire posters, and the dogeared notices for the Citizens Advice Bureau, and the wilting pot plants, and the lone long-broken computer in the corner with the Blu-Tacked sign above it proclaiming the café Tumdrum’s Internet hot-spot, ‘The First and Still the Best’, and the big laminated sign over by the door featuring a man sitting slumped with his head in his hands, advertising the Samaritans: ‘Suicidal? Depressed?’
Well, actually…
He sipped at his coffee and took a couple of Nurofen. The coffee was as bad as ever. All coffee in Tumdrum came weak, and milky, and lukewarm, as though having recently passed through someone else, or a cow. Maybe he should take up smoking, late in life, as an act of flamboyance and rebellion: a smoke was a smoke, after all, but with a coffee you couldn’t always be sure. The coffee in Tumdrum was more like slurry run-off. He missed proper coffee, Israel—a nice espresso at Bar Italia just off Old Compton Street, that was one of the things he missed about London, and the coffee at Grodzinski’s, round the corner from his mum’s. He missed his friends, also, of course; and his books; and the cinema; a nice slice of lemon drizzle cake in the café at the Curzon Soho; and the theatre; and the galleries; and the restaurants; it was the little things; nothing much; just all the thriving cultural activities of one of the world’s great capital cities…
‘Just remind me,’ he said to Ted, once Minnie had gone off for the scones. ‘Why do we come here?’
‘It’s the only place there is,’ said Ted.
‘Yes,’ said Israel, amazed. ‘I know, but…it’s, like…’ He took another sip of his coffee. ‘They don’t even serve proper coffee.’
‘I think the machine’s broken,’ said Ted.
‘The machine’s always broken.’
‘Mmm.’
‘It’s that sort of chicory stuff, isn’t it,’ said Israel, licking his lips, trying to figure out what it was, the unpleasant burnt taste and the feral, sicky smell, like something someone had just brought up. ‘That’s what it is. I think it’s that…what do you call it?’
‘What?’
‘Ersatz coffee.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ted. ‘I had a cappuccino once in Belfast.’
‘What?’
‘They have coffee bars down there everywhere now. It’s like the Continent.’
‘Oh, God,’ said Israel.
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘No,’ said Israel, shaking his head. ‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘No. Just no. It’s no good, I can’t drink this,’ said Israel, drinking his coffee.
He was thinking now about Gloria: whenever he started thinking about London his thoughts turned quickly to Gloria.
Gloria was the Eros in Israel’s Piccadilly Circus, the Serpentine in his Hyde Park, the St Paul’s in his City, the Brick Lane of his East End…her dark hair cascading down over her shoulders, her piercing brown eyes, his hand in hers, their bodies entwined…
‘Scones!’ said Minnie, interrupting Israel before the point of no return, and placing a couple of enormous steaming chunks of hot scone down on the plastic gingham-look tablecloth.
‘I was wrong,’ she said.
‘Sorry?’ said Israel. ‘Wrong? About what?’
‘It’s not Zelda’s nephew at Portora.’
‘Right.’
‘It’s her other nephew.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Zelda’s other brother’s boy—Niall, the fella who’s the computer-whizz?’
‘Right,’ said Israel.
What? Who? Niall? The nephew? The other nephew? Why on earth did people in Tumdrum go on like characters in Russian novels, insisting on talking about their friends and family members as if you’d known them for years, when of course you hadn’t, you had no idea who the hell they were talking about, unless you’d lived here your whole life, which Israel hadn’t. Did Israel speak to people in Tumdrum endlessly and incessantly about his family and friends? Did he ever mention his sisters, or his cousins, including the successful ones, or his mother’s neighbours Mr and Mrs Krimholz, or the butcher, the baker and the candlestick makers of his own lovely little patch of north London? No, he did not. People in Tumdrum seemed to assume that the mere fact of living there instantly made you a local, as though you absorbed local knowledge of complex hereditary diseases and bloodlines by osmosis. I mean, how was he supposed to keep up with the progress of your mother’s sister’s urinary tract infection when he’d never even met your mother? It was a physical impossibility: he’d have had to be telepathic, and a qualified medical practitioner, and, also, he’d have to care, and he didn’t. He was not bothered. Am I bothered? Est-ce que je suis bovvered? Israel slathered a piece of scone with butter.
‘Was that the fella who used to go out with Zelda’s cousin’s husband’s sister?’ said Ted.
‘Ugh!’ said Israel.
‘What?’ said Ted.
‘That’s yer man,’ said Minnie.
‘Who?’ said Israel. ‘Who? Who are you talking about now?’
‘You know,’ said Minnie. ‘The big fella. They used to live down there at Lough Island Reevy, in Down.’
‘Hello?’ said Israel. ‘Excuse me! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Some of us were not born around here you know.’
‘No, pet,’ said Minnie pityingly, moving off to another table. ‘Never mind.’
‘God,’ said Israel.
‘Don’t,’ said Ted, wagging a finger.
‘What?’
‘You know what.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘I’ll not tell ye again,’ said Ted, who was a very vehement anti-blasphemer, unless he was doing the blaspheming.
‘Sorry,’ said Israel. ‘I’m going to have to bite the bullet, though,’ he continued, picking up his scone, trying to decide where to start.
‘Uh-huh,’ said Ted, who’d already started on his own. ‘She’s a fair junt of scone, but, isn’t she? And nice and warm.’
‘No, I mean with the job. I’m definitely going to resign.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Even if it means going back to working in the Bargain Bookstore.’
‘Good man ye are.’
‘In Thurrock.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘In Essex,’ said Israel, convincing himself. ‘I still have plenty of friends there.’
‘Mmm.’
‘A man has to have his self-respect,’ said Israel.
‘Or what does he have?’ said Ted, finishing a mouthful.
‘Exactly!’ said Israel. ‘Take this morning.’
‘Why?’ said Ted.
‘Because,’ said Israel.
‘It wasnae a bad morning,’ said Ted.
‘Wasn’t bad!’ said Israel, using the scone gavel-like on the table; the crust did not give. ‘You see! That’s it!’
‘What’s it?’
‘That’s the problem.’
‘Is it? The scone?’
‘No! This morning wasn’t bad, you said?’
‘Aye.’
‘Wasn’t bad?’
