“Right,” says The Baron in encouragement, and he tries to get up – but maybe too quickly, as his brain slops against his skull and nearly falls out his ear, and with his legs tied together by his dropped trousers, he almost trips over. “Woooah,” he moans. “Go easy.” A minute to regain balance, then he bends down to pull his trousers and boxers up – but his mind somersaults forward, and he has to reach a hand out to the cold tile wall to steady himself. He waits, gets his breath back, then stumbles over to the sink, gripping its edge for support. He looks at himself in the mirror. Then his forehead lands hard and heavy against it.
“Yes,” The Baron groans. “Am in a bad way.”
The sound of the tap running, then the electric buzz of his toothbrush, turn out to be reassuring, and The Baron's starting to feel a little better as he trudges up to the sitting room – “Shit!” – then over to the bedroom – “Fuck!” – then back to the toilet – “Bollocks!” – but his wallet is nowhere to be seen.
And in the toilet The Baron stands swaying some time, like he's just been coffed one on the head, as he waits for a coherent thought. And when finally one comes, he remembers how the night before, a stranger got a bit too cute as he meandered down Oxford Street from the H.H. in search of the night bus.
“'avin' a good night?” the stranger asked, and The Baron just beamed to himself in private, happy reverie. The stranger put his arm round his shoulder to steady him, and they walked like that for fifty yards or so. The Baron had a friend for the night! a brother in arms! a fellow knight of the late night and long drinks!
And he smiles as he recalls their shared moment together! And curses when he realises it was the kind of friend who had a hand in his fleece pocket.
*
There's an atmosphere of expectation, like before a football game, like every night.
“Two pints guys?” red-headed Rosalin enquires.
“That's very kind of you,” The Baron replies, beaming.
“Actually it'll just be the one thanks.”
“For God's sake Simon! This isn't funny!”
“Well I was just coming in for a quick one, and then I see you tagging along behind.”
“I was wondering if you'd sub me,” The Baron pleads. “Just to the weekend.”
Simon looks up, then around and about, anywhere but at The Baron. “Ok,” he says finally, “I'll lend you,” and a half pint disappears down his gullet. “I will – if you get me another one.” And then he finishes his, smacking his lips to show it wasn't unpleasant.
“For fuck's sake!” The Baron cries. “I had my wallet nicked last night!”
Simon sighs like a disappointed uncle and The Baron gives him the full story:
“...I mean if he'd asked nicely, I'd have happily handed over the cash, maybe asked if he needed my wallet as well – if I was feeling generous. I bet he'd have said no. He gets the cash, I keep my wallet and cards – everyone's a winner! A mugger only has to ask politely. It's not like people are in any sort of state to put up a fight at two in the morning.”
Simon waits for him to finish. “So how much you talking then?”
“Oh not much. Anyway, it's not about the money. It's the wallet! It was made of real leather! It was a present from Masha!”
“Well maybe you should ask her for some cash then,” says Simon, circling the rim of his empty glass with his finger.
“Look – Sy – this could be the last you ever see of me. I've got a three-month audit starting next week. In Woking!”
“Baron, realistically, how am I going to celebrate if I spend all my cash on you?”
“I'm telling you! This could be the end. Ten long years of drinking together!”
“Well,” Simon looks down at his empty glass, “like I said, you get me a pint and I'll have a think about it.”
Which isn't good news. If Simon was willing to lend, he'd have had a hand in his pocket by now. And The Baron starts to get the shakes: his cards won't be in the post till the following week, which means going penniless till Friday, then free board and lodging at his parents' over the weekend. Which is not good news at all: since The Baron, being Woking-bound, has plans to see off London in style.
So he searches everywhere for someone who'll stand him Simon's pint – but there's not a generous soul in the house. And he's on the point of giving up and turning in, when up comes his friend from the night before.
“Excuse me!” The Baron hails him.
“What d'you want?”
“Ummm. Last night. You took my wallet.”
“Eh?” The guy's got pale skin and doe eyes: definitely the mugger.
“You took my wallet. You hugged me and took my wallet. On Oxford St.”
The mugger looks tired and battle-hardened, like he might have just got back from the Gulf.
“I'm saying, you've got my wallet!” And here The Baron's raising his voice.
The mugger just looks blankly back. In fact, he barely looks like he's breathing. Apart from his neck, which has swelled up the thickness of a pillar-box – and turned about the same colour.
The Baron changes tack. “Actually, maybe you could just get me a pint, and we call it quits?”
“Listen,” the mugger growls. “If you want any trouble, it's out here.” And he wafts a thick thumb under The Baron's nose, which he directs towards the H.H.'s swinging doors. Whereupon The Baron's Adam's Apple, never knowingly witnessed in public before, performs a handsome pirouette, with some saying he momentarily becomes woman, since he looks to have swallowed it whole.
There's only Simon, standing close by, hears him say, “Wrong person – I think.” And the wings of his suit jacket all a-flutter, The Baron dodges past Simon, Big Jim the landlord and the rest of the H.H. crew, and clatters three steps at a time down to the safety of the basement gents.
He takes his seat at the cubicle at the end. There's some graffiti on the door, but the overall loo is clean enough and the toilet roll dispenser looks in good nick. He drops his trousers. His buttocks feel cool and comfortable here. A pleasant place to pass the time, he reflects: the mugger will push off soon enough, and by then, Big Jim might be in the mood to give him a free half.
An hour or so passes. Then Simon calls over, down for a slash:
“Baron, you still in there?”
“Yep,” The Baron croaks.
“Steve's still up there by the way.”
“Who?”
“Steve – the mugger bloke.”
The Baron violently wrests several sheets of paper from the dispenser. “I think I'll lie low for a bit Simon,” he says. “I'm a bit short of liquids, but otherwise coping well.”
A few other folk come down, some going about their business quietly, others chivvying mainly about what and how much they've drunk. “Pussy!” roars one, and The Baron covers his head with his hands. “Pussy hiding in the toilets!”
It's the mugger and The Baron hoists up his trousers and looks around the roofs of his cubicle. “Pussy!” the mugger goes again. The Baron places him by the urinals. “I know where you are pussy!” He's definitely moved though, maybe to the next door cubicle, and The Baron's knees involuntarily close. Then the urinals flush and it's all quiet in the H.H. gents.
The Baron sits still for some time, listening out for a mugger-like noise – a cough, a scraping, the sharpening of knives... but there's nothing to be heard – which is the noise a mugger makes, so The Baron thinks, according to best practice in the trade. And so he gets down on his knees and checks under the door for any sight of a criminal shoe – but he can only see a few feet from the cubicle, a few feet of empty floor. So he gets up and onto the toilet seat, and using the cistern as a hand-hold, raises himself up, and as he does, spies eight podgy fingers curl over the tops of the partition beside, blanching as their grip tightens on the plastic board. The soles of The Baron's shoes slap fast against the floor, and he crouches for cover behind the toilet, holding the seat up like a shield. Then Simon's round face appears over the top of the flat.
“Looking good,” he says, grinning like a teenage voyeur.
“Fuck me Simon! You scared the living shit out of me!”
“I thought you might like this,” says Simon, holding aloft a pint of ale.
The Baron stands up and brings it to his bosom. “He still there?”
“Steve? Oh, yeah, I'll come and tell you when he's gone,” Simon says, already heading out. “Lucky for some,” thinks The Baron as he returns to the porcelain throne, pint in hand. The beer is refreshing, its dark, metallic taste suggesting otherworldly origins, soothing and medicinal like these are holy waters drawn from the centre of the earth. A rich smile breaks across his lips.
“Oh well,” he reflects, “there may be no better place to call time.”
And he looks in his pockets for a pen to mark the occasion on the back of the toilet door. But he never had one in the first place, and while he's checking again to make sure, he's starting to think about a second pint. And before long a second pint is all he can think about. Which is more complicated than it ought to be, what with the mugger still lurking. But then he is The Baron, he considers, and the H.H. is his manor.! He has the right to drink upstairs at the bar. In fact, he has the right to drink wherever it pleaseth him no matter what the mugger has to says about it! The Baron's a free man, and a free man who deserves another pint – especially since he's going to be stuck in Woking for three months.
So he pulls up his boxers and trousers, and unlocks the cubicle door, then steps slowly out into the basement gents, looking to right and left. The mugger's not there. He could be up at the bar though, and The Baron considers whether he shouldn't go back to his kennel. Then, catching his grey reflection in the mirrors above the sinks, his eyes set deep and dark and back in his skull, he reflects: “Do I really care about a mugger? I can take a pounding! I'm a physical wreck as it is!”
And so he climbs up the stairs, chin up, back straight, eyes purposeful, wending his way past Big Jim and Bill and the rest of the H.H., till he spots Simon standing at the bar, pint in hand, laughing heartily, sharing a joke with with the mugger himself.
“The phoenix has risen!” Simon announces, red-faced and raises his glass.
The mugger turns round and pulls a big fat terrifying grin. The Baron is already half-way back to the toilets before Simon calls:
“Hey, wait up! We found your wallet!” And The Baron stops dead. “They had it at Lara's. You were there last night. With Steve here. Someone handed it in!”
The Baron turns round, ashen-faced. “I thought that's what happened,” he mutters.
“Mate, have a pint,” says Steve the mugger, placing one in The Baron's outstretched paw. And then he hands over the wallet, which he's gone round to Lara's to collect himself, and The Baron's heart leaps with joy: everything's still there! He's already cancelled the cards, but nothing matters so long as he has his wallet back, and especially his pocket money, his five pretty little tenners, safe and sound and snugly tucked in.
And they celebrate that night, moving straight to the shorts, with The Baron feting Steve the friendly mugger, and Steve hailing The Baron's courage – and all and sundry join in the festivities, especially once Simon starts buying rounds.
*
At about eleven, The Baron heads off early. Or at least that's what everyone in the H.H. thinks.
A little after closing time, Ajani, the pub cleaner, goes downstairs to do the toilets. Singing Yoruba songs, he does one cubicle, then the next, and when he gets to the third, finds the door only opens half-way, banging short against something inside.
Peering behind the door, he finds The Baron fast asleep, head to one side, hands resting on the toilet seat between his legs. In one of his limp, upturned hands, lies a fat leather wallet, that Ajani – who has an eye for leather goods – recognises as being of the highest quality, and quite fat. He moves close and flat against the door, curls his arm around it, and reaches across. He can just touch the wallet and no more.
The Baron and the Porcelain Throne by Peter Browning was read by Paul Clarke at the Liars' League Decline & Fall event on Tuesday 8 September 2009 at The Wheatsheaf in London.
Peter Browning used to live in London but now lives in Oxford.
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