Free Misadventures by Sylvia Smith Page B

took the cover and all the blankets off and we found him right atthe bottom of the pram. He must have had one hell of a shock and he was only two weeks old.’
    Â Â Â 
    After our redundancies I had a weekly dinner date with Pat and I met Brian, her boyfriend. He was forty-seven, divorced and the father of two adult daughters. Pat told me that Brian liked his drink. He would go to the pub after work and spend the evening downing pints of beer. He would stagger home to her and would lean on the street doorbell making it ring continuously until she answered it, despite having his own key.
    Pat told me that Brian’s boozing got him into trouble. He had been to court several times on drink-driving charges and on his last appearance he had been sentenced to one-month’s imprisonment in Pentonville and banned from driving for two years. Released from prison, he sold his car but still continued his heavy consumption of alcohol.
    Â 
    Brian suggested the three of us should go to dinner as his treat and the date was set for the following Saturday. Pat booked us in to two restaurants, one Greek and the other traditional English in case we didn’t like her first choice.
    She picked me up by car from my home in Walthamstow and drove to a pub in Hackney to collect Brian. We entered the saloon bar andheard Brian’s loud voice cracking dirty jokes with the barman and some of the customers, I saw he was having difficulty standing. Brian welcomed us and ordered a round of drinks, Pat and I choosing orange juices. After much effort we managed to drag Brian away from the bar. We returned to the car and travelled to the first restaurant with Brian sitting on the back seat telling more dirty jokes. At the end of each one he would burst into peels of laughter.
    We ordered our drinks in the Greek restaurant with Brian still talking at the top of his voice. His conversation turned into noisy complaints at the poor service and fifteen-minute delay of our order. Pat decided we should leave and move on to our next reservation.
    Returning to the car we walked through a small green just off the main road.
    I noticed Brian was lagging behind and turned to see him relieving himself over a bush in full view of the other pedestrians and the cars that sped by. Judging by the torrent of urine coming from Brian I guessed he must have swallowed at least a dozen pints of beer.
    At the second restaurant we were asked to wait in the bar until our table was free. Pat said, ‘I must go to the loo and I’ll get the drinks on the way back.’ In Pat’s absence Brian looked me over. Suddenly he reached out and squeezed my left boob and said, ‘Oh, what a lovely pair of tits.’ I was so surprised I made no comment.
    Soon we were ushered in to our seats in the crowded restaurant. Brian was quite obviously very drunk and the other diners quickly became aware of that. By this time his speech was slurred and he was almost shouting but he did manage to choose his dinner from the menu unaided.
    Despite Brian’s condition things went fairly smoothly until he spotted two black couples sitting at a table on the other side of the room. He yelled, ‘Niggers. I don’t like niggers. You dirty bastards. Why don’t you go and swing through the trees.’ Pat tried to quieten him down but he still continued with his abuse of black people. The other diners forgot their small talk and laughed as they listened to him. One of the black ladies passed our table on her way to the powder room. Brian bellowed, ‘Go home you black bitch. We don’t want you here.’ The woman ignored him completely and walked by without glancing in our direction. This state of affairs amused the other diners who sat in their chairs laughing. His racist remarks continued for the remainder of the evening and the entire restaurant became his attentive audience. Finally, Brian paid the bill and Pat suggested we leave. She helped him from his