Read Temporary Kings for Free Online Page B

round after round. The Hero,
one of those old-fashioned pubs in grained pitchpine with engraved
looking-glass (what Mr Deacon used to call a ‘gin palace’), was anatomized into
half-a-dozen or more separate compartments, subtly differentiating, in the
traditional British manner, social subdivisions of its clientèle, according to
temperament or means: saloon bar: public bar: private bar: ladies’ bar: wine
bar: off-licence: possibly others too. Customers occupied in these peripheries
were all included in the Trapnel largesse, no less than those in the saloon
bar, where he had manifested himself. Swept in, too, were several birds of
passage, transients buying half-a-bottle in the off-licence. The fountains ran
with wine, more precisely with bitter and scotch. News of this boundless
munificence got round immediately, not only emptying The French-polishers’ Arms
opposite – according to Crowding, lately a serious rival to The Hero in
draining off a sediment of discontented intellectuals – but also considerably
reducing numbers in The Marquess of Sleaford round the corner, where
intellectuals were virtually unknown. Not only were these two latter pubs
practically cleared of customers, but what Crowding called a ‘thirsty concourse’
poured into The Hero from The Wheelbarrow (at the time of Bagshaw’s first
marriage, his last port of call on the way home, owing to staying open until
eleven), auxiliary drinkers from other taverns being all hospitably received by
Trapnel, if they could only get near enough to him. Crowding, telling the
story, would here shake his head.
    ‘X looked dreadfully
ill. As near the image of Death as the knob of that stick he used to carry
round, before he threw it into the Grand Union Canal. His face was even whiter.’
    Trapnel had been at
the height of his old form, talking at the top of his voice, laughing,
shouting, contradicting, laying down the law about books and writers, films and
film stars, giving prolonged imitations of Boris Karloff; in general
reconstructing in its most intrinsic aspects his own persona of years gone by.
Not only Crowding, but many others, agreed The Hero had never known such a
night. That could not go on for ever. An end had to come. Finally, inexorably,
closing time was announced. This moment always represented the peak of Crowding’s
narrative.
    ‘X walked through the
doors of The Hero like a king. There was real dignity in his stride. It was a
royal progress. Courtiers followed in his wake. You can imagine – free drinks –
there was quite a crowd by that time, some of them singing, as it might be,
chants in a patron’s praise. X stopped outside, and they all stood round. He
waited for a moment by the kerb. Everyone kept back somehow, as if they didn’t
dare be too familiar. X gazed up the street, then down it, in that proud way of
his. He must have been looking for a taxi. He hadn’t said yet where he wanted
to go. I noticed for the first time that his beard was turning grey. Suddenly
he gave a start, remembering something. He wrung his hands, rushed back, tried
to get into the pub again through the outer doors, which they were barring up.
They wouldn’t let him back. He gave a loud cry.
    ‘“I’ve forgotten my
stick. I’ve lost my stick. My death’s head stick.”
    ‘Of course they
wouldn’t let him in again after closing time. Somebody told him he hadn’t
brought a stick with him. Whoever it was couldn’t have known about the sword-stick.
X didn’t take that in for a second or two. When he did, he began to laugh. He
laughed and laughed, like one of his own impersonations of a horror film – and
it was pretty horrible too. He went on laughing for some minutes, walking
slowly back to the edge of the pavement. People close said his look was quite
frightening.
    ‘“No,” he said. “Of course
I haven’t got a stick any longer, have I? I sacrificed it. Nor a bloody novel.
I haven’t got