Free Jill by Philip Larkin Page B

room was empty except for the landlord, who read the newspaper, and a tremulous old man sitting in a corner with an untouched pint of beer before him.
    “Evening, Christopher,” said the landlord, folding the paper up.
    “Good evening, Charley. Two bitters, if you please.”
    John took his with a gesture so casual that he nearly spilt it. It would never do to let Christopher think he had never drunk before, as was the case; that was something to be hoarded up till it had ripened into an anecdote. He imagined himself saying in the future: “D’you remember that time we went to the Bull, old boy. In our first term? D’you know, that was really andtruly the first time I’d ever seen the inside of a bar.…” (“Oh, come off it, old boy!”) “S’fact! My dear fellow, it’s absolutely bloody gospel! Here, after you with the—whoops! Don’t drown it.…” His voice would be rich and husked with tobacco.
    Aloud he said: “Thank you.”
    “Not busy yet, Charley.”
    “Not yet, sir.” Charley laid his hands palm downwards on the counter and watched Christopher light a fresh cigarette from the stub of an old one. “It’s the black-out. That’s what it is.”
    Christopher nodded seriously.
    “It is, I tell you. I’ve just been reading a bit in this paper”—he made a gesture as if to unfold it, but contented himself with tapping it several times—“all about the British pub Jerry can’t kill. Garrh! ’E’s killing it. ’E is! Why, at this time we’d have an ’ole barful of fellers—commercial, office chaps.…”
    John listened impatiently, but as Christopher looked interested and amused, he tried to look interested and amused also.
    “You won’t be sorry to see the lights go up again, then.”
    Charley gave a short burst of laughter and drank: John drank too. Ugh, what a vile taste. The old man in the corner parted his mouth in a grin, and, speaking as if with difficulty, said:
    “I reckon you’ll shut down—an’—an’ drink the place dry yerself!”
    It was hard to hear what he said.
    “Now that,” said Christopher, with a laugh, “is what I call taking a really unfair advantage.
    Charley grinned too, and wiped the bar down with a foul wet rag. But before he could think of an answer more men came in, and the conversation dropped. John and Christopher took further swallows of beer, John trying to decide whether he really disliked it or whether he just found it unpleasant. Then he beat desperately about his mind for something to say: he felt that unless he flung nets of words over Christopher he might escape, borne off by another unaccountable whim,perhaps to seek Eddy or Patrick. “Do—er—do the Proctors ever come in here?” he inquired with a nervous laugh. “Have you ever seen them here?”
    “I’ve never seen them anywhere,” replied Christopher, stirring. “They don’t bother about the little places much.”
    “Is this a little place?”
    “Fairly, but you see it’s early yet. They don’t come out till after Hall.”
    When Christopher blew out smoke, it was like cloudy breath—why was that?
    Suddenly realizing Christopher had finished his beer, he drank his own and ordered two more, noticing that a group of men in the corner had switched on the light over the dartboard and begun to play. His pale face, with a hanging lock of yellow hair, looked back at him excitedly from the mirror, and he wondered how soon he would begin to feel drunk.
    “I expect you managed to drink a good deal at school,” he ventured.
    As expected, Christopher looked interested at once. “I don’t know about a good deal,” he began, lifting his full glass. “It wasn’t so easy. But there were ways, you know … I remember once——”
    But before he could say more, the door swung open and Eddy Makepeace with another young man appeared, both dressed in raincoats, and after a second’s squinting in the light, made straight for Christopher.
    “There you are, you elusive bastard,” greeted