A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen
- Автор: Бруен Кен
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Busted Flush Press
- ISBN: 978-0-9767157-2-6
- Жанр: Триллеры
Электронная книга - «A Fifth of Bruen: Early Fiction of Ken Bruen». Краткое содержание книги:
“You’d know about discipline, wouldn’t you, Neville?”
“I’m not saying it’s entirely fair, but I must now give you a month’s notice. I will, of course, provide a reference.”
“Well, Neville, you’d like to change the world, am I right?”
“One tries.”
“Thing is... you’re not even capable of changing your mind. Stick your reference up yer tight ass. I’m outta here. You know why you’re firing me?” Neville stood, all flustered dignity. “That’s quite enough, Mr. Ford.” Ford yanked the still shiny wedding band from his finger and bounced it on the desk.
“Give that to your literary sister, amigo. Tell her it’s a family heirloom.” It didn’t take long to clear his desk. The phone rang. His cockney friend Bill said, “So Ford, aren’t you talking to me any more?”
“Oh, I’m talking to you, Bill, I’m just not talking to you very much.”
He put the phone down... and Bill. The staff stood awkwardly a moment and, as he prepared to leave, they all sat and busied themselves. “A sitting ovation,” he thought.
At his flat, he could hear the sad piano of Gershwin. Amanda was spray foaming the carpet.
“Don’t put your feet there,” she said.
He planted both feet where she’s indicated.
“Sit down,” he said.
“I’m far too busy for nonsense this morning, Mister, so allow me to continue.”
Ford rummaged through his work files for five minutes and didn’t look up.
“Ah, Amanda, there you are.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I have some bad news to convey.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Ahem... Alas, I regret you haven’t proved to be the fettle for which I had hoped.”
“Have you lost your senses? Fettle?”
“If I might continue, the business of the chicken, your conduct was not entirely professional. I’m not casting aspersions on your compassion. Your talents may lie in another discipline.”
Amanda just looked at him and he continued. “I’m not saying it’s entirely fair, but I must now give you a moment’s notice. I will of course provide a reference.”
“Are you telling me I have to leave our home?”
“That’s quite enough, Mrs Ford.”
He went to the kitchen and began to make coffee. Amanda stood amid the spray-foam. She didn’t remove her ring, shiny as it was.
As Ford sat, he listed all the reasons he shouldn’t go to the pub:
1. Daytime drinking
2. No job
3. Self-pity
4. Money
5. Hangovers
This list was good and he liked it a lot. Jumping up quickly he knew he’d have to run if he was to beat the lunch-time crowd.
Amanda said, “Athol Fuggard. I must make a sincere effort to read him.”
Ford didn’t really think a South African was the comfort she needed right now. They weren’t noted for it. The White Lion was a new pub for him. It was empty save for a few pensioners munching crisps and bickering over pension rights. Or was it the other way round? A big man behind the bar was cleaning glasses. His dominant feature was a riot of pure wavy, white hair. A broken nose took away from a tough, turn-down mouth. Beer had swollen his gut but a force came from him. The forearms were huge. He looked at Ford with neutral, blue eyes. The radio was playing loudly.
“Radio bother you?”
“No, sir, I like the wireless.”
“Sir, is it? Don’t hear much manners these days. Irish are yah? Wireless. Haven’t heard that much either.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My mother was from Mayo. The bad bitch.”
“The county? Or your... er —?”
The man smiled, “Not from Mayo, are you?”
“No, sir.”
“Good lad, what can I get you?”
“A pint of Guinness.”
As he prepared the drink in the Irish fashion, Barbara Streisand came over the radio. “Send In the Clowns.” Ford mad a supreme offer to block out the lyrics but he heard it. Clearly and loaded, “I’ve come to feel about you what it is you felt about me.” That past tense. It gutted him every single time. He thought too how it is the dead are forever confined to a single tense... And further thought he wished he didn’t. He ordered another pint and said, “Something for yourself?”
“Aye, I’ll charge you for a coffee. I’m Jack.”
“Ford.”
They shook hands self-consciously. Jack put a coffee on the counter and from beneath produced a bottle of Courvoisier Four Star. He dolloped a large measure into the cup. A healthy sip was taken.
“Ah, Jaysus, I’m lit!”
All lit up, thought Ford.
“Do you like music, son?”
“The whine kind.”
“Come again.”
“Music you can whine to.”
“Gotcha! The Irish connection. Not so much what you can sing to as cry along with.”
He then moved up and down doing bar things. A hive of activity punctuated by coffee pit stops. Ford had so wanted to tell Grace about “The Way We Were”. Streisand plays a radical student who falls in love with Redford’s young writer character. A passionate love follows, then break-up. The movie’s end, Redford’s now a successful commercial writer without belief. He’s emerging from a hotel with a bimbo on his arm. Streisand bumps into him. A look. Full of loss and might-have-beens. She puts her gloved hand on his face and her palm rests on his cheek. Then they separate. The moment to tell Grace this just never presented itself. Wasn’t too likely he’d get to tell her now. The awful thing was the very sound of her name was a kick. He loved and loathed it. What’s in a name, he’d thought, and back bounced the answer, “All you know of heaven and hell.” A vicious truth.
Jack settled for a moment and lit a Gauloise.
“I’ve never been to France, but every time I smoke one of these babes I reckon I’ll go tomorrow. What do you make of that?”
“Well, I dunno. I smoke Marlboros sometimes, but I’ve no desire to sit tough on a horse.”
“Gotcha! Makes you wonder what Silk Cutters dream about.”
Ford didn’t wonder and cared not at all. Amanda touted the Silk Cut argument and that basically was that. Jack sighed, “I’m well bollixed, you know.”
Did he mean well endowed? An advertisement perhaps. Or was he simply knackered? No reply was conceivable.
“What line of work are you in, Ford?”
“Looking.”
“Gotcha! What’s the previous?”
“Well, I thought I’d social work till an opening occurred as a waiter.” Jack liked that.
“You’re alright. What do you know about cocktails?”
“They’re expensive?”
“That too. Know how to make them?”
“I know how to drink them.”
“Sure, you’re half way there. That’s the hard part. What about ghetto blasters?”
“What about them? I don’t know how to make them. I hate them.”
“Right answer. So, want to be a barman?”
“Here?”
“Yes, Five nights a week, mornings free.”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure am.”
“Okay, then. Thank you.”
“A few questions. Are you honest?”
“Mostly.”
“Married?”
“Not any more.”
“A nod to the wise old son. Don’t let on about that to Stella, my missus. She’s big on marriage.”
Ford thought about this and felt Jack’s own extremely irritating reply as appropriate. Cheeky perhaps, to use it, but there you go. He said, “Gotcha!”
“Gotcha! It’s cash in hand, we’ll not get confused with P45s and all of that.”
A man breezed in, semi-respectable. He ordered a large gin and asked, “How far is the tube station?”