There is, for some reason, something especially grim about pubs near stations, a very particular kind of grubbiness, a special kind of pallor to the pork pies.
Worse than the pork pies, though, are the sandwiches. There is a feeling which persists in England that making a sandwich interesting, attractive, or in any way pleasant to eat is something sinful that only foreigners do.
Make ‘em dry, is the instruction buried somewhere in the collective national consciousness, make ‘em rubbery. If you have to keep the buggers fresh, do it by washing ‘em once a week.
It is by eating sandwiches in pubs on Saturday lunchtimes that the British seek to atone for whatever their national sins have been. They’re not altogether clear what those sins are, and don’t want to know either. Sins are not the sort of things one wants to know about. But whatever their sins are they are amply atoned for by the sandwiches they make themselves eat.
If there is anything worse than the sandwiches, it is the sausages which sit next to them. Joyless tubes, full of gristle, floating in a sea of something hot and sad, stuck with a plastic pin in the shape of a chef’s hat: a memorial, one feels, for some chef who hated the world, and died, forgotten and alone among his cats on a back stair in Stepney.
The sausages are for the ones who know what their sins are and wish to atone for something specific.
There must be somewhere better, said Arthur.
No time, said Fenny, glancing at her watch. My train leaves in half an hour.
They sat at a small wobbly table. On it were some dirty glasses, and some soggy beermats with jokes printed on them. Arthur got Fenny a tomato juice, and himself a pint of yellow water with gas in it. And a couple of sausages. He didn’t know why. He bought them for something to do while the gas settled in his glass.
The barman dunked Arthur’s change in a pool of beer on the bar, for which Arthur thanked him.
All right, said Fenny, glancing at her watch, tell me what it is you have to tell me.
She sounded, as well she might, extremely sceptical, and Arthur’s heart sank. Hardly, he felt, the most conductive setting to try to explain to her as she sat there, suddenly cool and defensive, that in a sort of out-of-body dream he had had a telepathic sense that the mental breakdown she had suffered had been connected with the fact that, appearances to the contrary nonwithstanding, the Earth had been demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, something which he alone on Earth knew anything about, having virtually witnessed it from a Vogon spaceship, and that furthermore both his body and soul ached for her unbearably and he needed to got to bed with her as soon as was humanly possible.
Fenny, he started.
I wonder if you’d like to buy some tickets for our raffle? It’s just a little one.
He glanced up sharply.
To raise money for Anjie who’s retiring.
What?
And needs a kidney machine.
He was being leant over by a rather stiffly slim middle-aged woman with a prim knitted suit and a prim little perm, and a prim little smile that probably got licked by prim little dogs a lot.
She was holding out a small book of cloakroom tickets and a collecting tin.
Only ten pence each, she said, so you could probably even buy two. Without breaking the bank! She gave a tinkly little laugh and then a curiously long sigh. Saying Without breaking the bank had obviously given her more pleasure than anything since some GIs had been billeted on her in the war.
Er, yes, all right, said Arthur, hurriedly digging in his pocket and producing a couple of coins.
With infuriating slowness, and prim theatricality, if there was such a thing, the woman tore off two tickets and handed them to Arthur.
I do hope you win, she said with a smile that suddenly snapped together like a piece of advanced origami, the prizes are so nice.
Yes, thank you, said Arthur, pocketing the tickets rather brusquely and glancing at his watch.
He turned towards Fenny.