The Bar Part II
Some summers linger in the mind. The summer of 71 was like that - a long, sunny strand of empty beach just waiting to be filled in. It seemed that every day as I walked from home to the bar, the sun came out and lit up the streets, just so that I could enjoy the glint in the gardens, the shine of the pavement, the flash of sunlight on the windscreens of passing cars.
No school until September and Paddy Grim had lost no time in assigning me a lengthy schedule of lunchtime shifts in the lounge. I was pleased and spent my short walks calculating how much money I would have earned by the end of August. With tips, I reckoned, enough for a new record player.
But that sun came at a cost. Lunchtime trade was only good on wet days. Most punters seemed to prefer to take their sandwiches outside and forgo the pleasures of a lager or a whiskey and soda until the evening.
Still it gave me plenty of time to master the art of looking busy while doing very little, a skill I believe might come in handy should I make it to university. It also allowed me to chat with the clientele who did not let the weather interrupt their daily habits of a bottle of stout with soup and soda bread, a coffee after the cottage pie, a glass of Harp with their ham and egg.
Among those creatures of habit was the painter with the poetry book. His name turned out to be Lavery.
“Like the bar,” I said, referring to the nearby competition, Lavery’s Bar, a hangout for students from Queens University, which I imagined, since I had never been inside, might be an attractive den of iniquity. This Lavery pondered my comment for a moment, as if it might be an interesting insight and not the babbling of a teenage social ingenue.
“I suppose that we might be distant cousins,” he replied. “That being the way of it in Belfast – but I honestly don’t know them. Not my social circle.”
He asked was I regular at Lavery’s when I wasn’t working and I had to confess that at 16, I was allowed to work in a bar, but not to actually drink in one.
“Aha, an ‘O’ Level student. They are recruiting them young these days.” He stroked the wisp of his beard and asked what poets I was studying.
“Gerard Manley bloody Hopkins,” I said before I could stop myself. I had fallen out of love with the English Literature course and if the English teacher, a bored and dreary Mr Colehan was the chief culprit, then Hopkins was his closest associate. Under their twin assaults, poetry had been robbed of all its passion and verve.
“I take it then that you attend a Catholic school.” asked Lavery, who had now stopped stroking his beard and was fiddling with his coffee cup.
Alarm bells rang. As they always did at this point in every conversation with a stranger. Religion snuck in from the sidelines. A nudge and a wink - no-one ever asked directly if you were a Protestant or a Catholic. There was always a roundabout method of finding out and knowing school you went to was a classic. Education was a harder, firmer divide than what your name was or which part of the city you came from. ‘Mixed’ districts were sprouting up all over the city and places that had once been rigidly Protestant or Catholic were now less tightly so.
“Oh, no offence, my dear fellow. Mere conjecture on my part – given Manley Hopkins’ background.”
I agreed that yes – it was no surprise he was on the curriculum at our school, St Mary’s – given the fact that he had been a priest.
“And how do you find him?” asked the painter.
I wanted to say - ‘ by looking at the book – but something stopped me from making this flippant response.
“Dull, just a wee bit dull,” I said instead.
“Dull he is, indeed.” said Lavery.
I was surprised at his response. I had yet to hear any adult speak ill of a poet, or playwright, or novelist on the English curriculum. It seemed to be an act of solidarity amongst grown-ups. All agreed that because we schoolchildren detested much of what were taught, then they should defend the curriculum, and imply that we didn’t know enough about the world to have an opinion.
The painter, Lavery, didn’t bother with this nonsense.
“A witless popinjay of no great talent. No, my dear chap, you would be far better off with this,” He tapped the cover of his book, Isabelle, by Andre Gide, it said on the front. I had vaguely heard of Gide, probably because he was persona non grata in the school’s English department – something about offensive sexual content.
As if he was reading my thoughts, Lavery said, “Yes. Of course the priestly cult would not like anything by Gide – which is why I am prescribing it now. Here you go.”
And he placed the book in my hand.