Time Ladies and Gentlemen

Saturday nights were slow. During the day the city was dead except for tourists, and they all shuffled off to the West End the Tower of London closed. The clientele was almost exclusively fae this late into the evening, with the noticeable exception of Amanda Gordon. She was behaving herself, Bob noted with approval. Power to her elbow in her fight for fae rights, but she was standing by her word in not bothering the regulars. She sat at the bar, smiling a greeting at people who came to the bar, even though she was universally ignored.

He hadn't been counting the white wines she'd had, but he recognised the slow plod of the occasional drinker who had lived through one of those days. He started washing out the glasses, holding them on the whirling mop before drying them on the tea-towel. Eager sales reps regularly tried to extol the virtues of fully automated glass-washing machines, but there was something about a barman polishing glasses on a tea towel. Besides, it gave him something to do instead of hovering over patrons.

"Bad day?" he asked, holding up a glass and inspecting it in the lights.

Amanda shrugged. "About par for the course." She wasn't slurring her words, but long experience told Bob that was because she was concentrating on her diction.

"What's your handicap?"

"What?"

"Par. Course. Handicap. Golfing humour."

She frowned. "You play golf?"

"God, no. You're the one who started it."

She sat back, her frown deepening. "What are you talking about?"

"How about I pour you a virgin gin and tonic and you tell me why par for the course is such a wet Wednesday?"

"I don't like gin."

Bob hooked a tall glass from the shelf above the bar and grabbed a bottle of tonic from the fridge. He filled the glass in front of her. "That's why it's a virgin gin and tonic. Ice and a slice?"

She shook her head and pulled the glass towards her. "Am I costing you too much in wine then?"

"Not at all. Besides there's way more margin on soft drinks. So why the long face? Don't the fae want to be saved?"

She stared at him, and for a moment he thought he'd found the line he shouldn't have stepped over, but then she shrugged and took a sip of her drink.

"It's just so, I don't know, so hard, right? Like, I always knew it would be, but you'd think there would be at least some progress. You know, some little victory. Something. Not -- " She waved her glass, slopping a little on the counter. " -- Not just, I don't know. Not nothing."

Bob wiped the spill with the towel. "You don't have to carry it all on your shoulders, you know."

She put her glass on the bar with exaggerated care then stabbed at the counter with her finger. "That's just it. Yes I do. Because it's all my fault, right?"

"Really?"

"No." She waved her hands in front of her face. "Not mine. Not me per se. But my family, see? My dad."

"Seriously? He was a hero. Kids learn about him in school."

"Yeah? But look around. Look at this country. Look at the East End. Look at what it's come to. Yeah okay, you get an elf girl in the pop charts, you get some fae leader feted by the government because he's an Uncle Tom, but for most of them? Discovery was the worst thing that happened to them. Even in England, never mind what they did to them in Russia, in Latin America. I loved him, my dad, I really did. And he did what he did for all the best reasons. A lot of the races, they were dying out, you know? But sometimes I think it might have been better if they'd stayed the hidden folk.." She looked around the bar. "I know I shouldn't say that, but even the fae say it, a lot of them."

She suddenly straightened up, switched on a brittle smile and took a deep breath. "But enough of that. I chose this, so bully for me. What's your story, Morning Glory? Why the pub?"

"Me? I'm too stupid to work in I.T., not stupid enough to be a soldier, too honest for politics and too nice to be a copper. How else can I earn a crust?"

"No, I meant here. This bar. Why a fae bar?"

"The rent's cheap, and this is my old stamping ground, sort of."

"You're a Cockney? Really?"

"Ha! No. I wasn't born within the sound of Bow bells, but my Granddad was born and raised a few streets from here. His dad was a proud veteran of the Battle of Cable Street too."

Amanda shook her head. "Is that another joke I don't understand?"

"You never heard of the Battle of Cable Street? What do they teach in schools nowadays? So, okay, this part of the East End, it's always been a ghetto of one sort or another, right? First the Huguenots, then the Irish. In my granddad's time it was the Jews. So anyway, a little bit before the Second World War Mosely sent his Blackshirts through the east end on a fascist parade. Through the most Jewish part of London.

"Well, the locals were having none of that. Not just locals, either. Trade unions, socialists, communists, Labour party members, basically anyone who wasn't a fascist. A big barney and they were sent home in short order with a bloody nose. And then the actual war started and suddenly it wasn't fashionable to be a Nazi."

"You're Jewish?"

"On my mother's side. Of course, by that time the Jews had all moved out into the suburbs and the Bangladeshi moved in. You can still find a few curry houses in Brick Lane. And now, the fae."

Amanda smiled. "So you're a champion of the oppressed too."

"Ha, right. Dream on. No, I'm just a stroppy git who bets on the underdog. And takes money from any side who can afford a drink. Talking of which -- " Bob walked over to the ship's bell fixed to the rear wall. He rang it and called out, "Time, Ladies and Gentlemen, please!" Dawn threw towels over the beer pumps while Bob switched off the main lights.

Amanda took a long swig of her tonic water and slid off the stool.

"Where do you live?" asked Bob.

"Excuse me?"

"It's late. How are you getting home?"

"The tube. I'm perfectly capable of getting to Stepney by myself, thank you very much."

Bob held up his hands. "I know, I know. But I'm getting a cab for Dawn and she lives that way." He shrugged. "Seems only sensible to share, right?"

Amanda stared at him, suspicion on her face. "Okay then," she said at last. "If she's going that way anyway."

"Cool. Finish your drink and we'll lock up."

Bob sauntered over to Dawn. "I think you should have a cab tonight," he said in a low voice.

"Okay. I was thinking of asking for one anyway. The town's been a bit iffy lately."

"Amanda's had a few drinks, so she'll share with you. Oh, and for tonight you live near Stepney."

"What? Shadwell's nowhere near Stepney."

"Yeah, but she's perfectly capable of taking the tube half-cut, thank you very much, unless you're already going that way."

Dawn shook her head. "You're a sweetheart, you know that?" She patted his cheek. "It won't get you in her knickers though."

"How very dare you!" Bob replied in mock outrage. "It'll only be ten minutes out of your way. Call the cab for ten minutes and I'll chase the punters out."

Bob lifted the bar flap and walked around to the public side of the bar.

"Boys and girls, I love you all dearly but you got to go home now. It doesn't have to be your own home but you have to leave." He toured the tables, picking up empty glasses and lining them up on the counter.

"Bye, bye. Thank you. Bye. I've had your money, now go away. Thank you."

"Does he get punched much, talking to customers like that?" Amanda asked Dawn as she passed by.

"Not as often as you'd think. He calls it his roguish charm and we just humour him. Ten minutes for the cab, okay?"

In the corner sat an old woman. She wasn't a regular, and Bob hadn't spoken to her. She'd not come to the counter, but several fae had bought her drinks through the evening, sitting with her for a few minutes at a time. She sat hunched over an empty glass, staring at it as though it were a TV set.

"Come on, darling," said Bob. "Time's been called. Can I call you a cab?"

She looked up into his face. He was amazed at the number of wrinkles and creases in her face. It was impossible to guess what she had looked like when she was younger. She shook her head and struggled to rise. Bob held out his hand and she grabbed it in a vicious grip. She gasped, and for a moment he wondered if she were suffering a coronary.

"Leave," she hissed.

"That's right, Mum. You got to leave. Sorry."

"No." She twisted his wrist with surprising strength, turning his hand palm upwards. "You." She stabbed at his palm. "See? Here. You should leave."

"Yeah, well, I will do. Just as soon as everyone else has. Is there anyone can see you home?"

She pulled herself to her feet, stared at his face and shook her head. "Don't listen. Stupid."

"Mistress?" An elf stepped forward and nodded, almost bowing.

The old woman released her grip on Bob and transferred her hold to the elf. "He should leave," she told her new escort.

"Shall I call her a cab?" Bob asked.

The elf half turned and shook his head. "We have her."

Bob closed the doors after them and leant with his back against them. "Leave the glasses, Dawn," he said. "I don't know about you ladies, but I'm knackered."