Free The Valkyrie by Charlotte Vassell

a
proper East End boozer and that was how Glory liked to remember it.
It was Victorian in origin and still had some of its grimy Jack the
Ripper charm. The windows were stained glass and the carpet beer
stained from shakily held glasses. There were less old men in there
these days but more young men dressed old with their ironic facial
hair and penny farthings, or whatever ludicrous retro-vintage fad
was going on that week. There were a few regulars, like Ted who
didn’t say much and Bert and Arthur who squabbled over articles in
The Daily Express, but more and more the clientele were nice boys
and girls, from nice families, who had nice jobs and edgy haircuts.
Honour had once seen a television show called Eastenders and was
convinced that the show would have to end when the cafe was taken
over by a gluten free bakery and the laundrette became a pop-up art
gallery come restaurant come performing arts venue. Geoff the
landlord couldn’t complain, he was raking it in from all these
ironic sherry drinkers, but he harked back to the good old days
when pork scratchings were eaten in earnest and you could be
casually homophobic and no one gave a shit. That night was the pub
quiz and Geoff stood near the bar in his blue polo shirt reading
out tremendously easy questions in a monotonous fashion. The girls
all had a minimum of three drinks each already on the table and
there was hardly any room for the answer sheet.
    “Right, number
eleven: who was the first black President of The United States of
America?” asked Geoff.
    “Not a clue.
Geoff why do you ask such trivial questions? When’s the round on
thermonuclear dynamics?” asked Glory with zero irony.
    “I don’t know
why they ask questions about US politicians. Their Presidents are
the least powerful people in the country. Liberty you should know
this they idolise you." Honour said to a distracted Liberty.
    “Fat lot of
good it’s done them. Val knows this kind of froth. Anyone want
another?” asked Liberty as she did the international drinking hand
signal to the group as she went to the bar. Zoë the bar maid rushed
over after spotting her opening and quickly cleared away the
empties. They were running out of shot glasses.
    “I couldn’t get
through to Val on the phone this arvo.” Honour said.
    “Val leaving us
at a time like this with this wretched pub quiz, t’was very selfish
of her.” Glory said.
    “It was George
W. Bush, wasn’t it?” said Honour.
    “Sounds like a
good enough guess to me. Bea put that down.” Glory said as Bea
wrote Obama down on the sheet.
    “Liberty’s a
bit off this evening. Normally she’d have got that question, or she
would have at least cheated by predicting Geoff reading out the
answer in an hour’s time, even though she knows I strongly
disapprove of that sort thing.” Honour said.
    Liberty came
back to the table with a round of Tequila. The Valkyries made quite
a sight to see, but gods are only ever truly seen by mortals when
they let them. To the onlookers in the pub they merely looked like
a group of stunningly attractive, overdressed girls having a good
time. It was like seeing something extraordinary out of the corner
of your eye and then dismissing what you glimpsed as a fabrication.
The questions rolled on and the drinks poured.
    ***
    “Question
number 42: who wrote Sense & Sensibility?” read Geoff.
    “Who gives a
flying fuck?” asked Glory who was beginning to get a little shouty
drunk. That wasn’t a good sign. That usually meant that some shit
was going to go down at some point in the evening.
    “Really Glory,
that’s not the spirit of things.” Honour was beginning to think
Glory’s lack of sportsmanship was, well, dishonourable to the team
and other players.
    “That wasn’t a
rhetorical question.” Glory said.
    “Calm down over
there or I will have to disqualify you. What was your team name
again?” asked Geoff, this being the sixth time he’d threatened to
disqualify their team for Glory’s