The Good Somalian

“No of course I didn"t.” Father McConnachie looked shocked that I'd even asked.

I looked at him, then picked a tankard from one of the hooks overhead and gave it a rinse.

“I couldn't pull over. They were moving. I phoned from the church. There might have been some blood. I couldn't really tell. The street light being smashed didn't help. I was on the other side of the road. Besides, you don't stop there, after dark, do you?”

He took a long slug of cider. He never had drunk Guinness and, though he claimed Irish antecedents, he'd never once had a whiskey either. Not in The Jericho. I finished polishing the tankard. It was a Friday evening. Too late in the year for someone to be lying at the side of a road, wherever that road led. I took another tankard from the row hanging above my head. Swapping the duster for a wet rag I cleaned the inside.

“The police said they'd get someone out there as soon as they could. Even they don't like that end of town.”

The priest finished his drink and made to leave,

“Evening service. Confessionals. It'll be three old ladies and a tramp. I might come back later, might need another.” He laughed and left the Saloon Bar.

Ruddy-Face Matt came in. I finished polishing the tankard and said,

“What'll it be?”

“What's the guest beer?”

It was Doom Bar, so that's what I poured him. Most likely it wouldn't taste so great out of a pewter tankard. Maybe it helped him feel like he was a regular and that this was his "local". Matt: own company, Rotary Club, on the Anglican parish church committee, all three of whose business he probably discussed more than he should have in my pub.

He took a long draught of his ale, as he often termed it. This part of town was where solicitors, bank managers and people who could afford to buy houses near good schools lived. A little bit of Middle England attached to the urban sprawl. Matt thought some of UKIP's ideas had been good but had voted Conservative in spite of this. He'd once explained to some lost hiker that feudalism had had its good points. Matt didn't realise that he'd never have risen above serf status in Merrie Olde England.

"You'll never guess."

“No, you're right, I won't.”

I didn't treat all of my customers like this. Only a favoured few.

“Just come from a meeting up at the office.”

Ruddy-Face Matt's extruded plastics business had one-and-a-half units on the Jerusalem Industrial Estate. He'd explained to me what that actually meant one winter Wednesday, but I had made sure I didn't listen. That's not hard for most pub landlords. That night I kept listening.

“On the estate. I passed someone lying in the gutter. Couldn't stop, doing 50, I'd have been miles past and had to turn the Merc round.”

“Or just stop the car and jog back, maybe dial 999 from your mobile?”

“Leave eighty grand's worth of car unattended, there?”

I shrugged.

“I phoned from just outside”, he jerked his head towards the heavy door to the street. “Why can't you get a signal in here?”

“I expect it's because they put the mast on the estate, instead of nearby. Remember the campaign in the Klaxon. Got a mention in the Daily Mail, didn't it?”

Ruddy-Face spluttered and splashed a mouthful of beer on the bar. I wiped it down with a cloth which I threw in the bin.

"Ah… yes. I believe it did.”

He made a more decorous end of the rest of his pint. “Just fill it, don't bother with all that cleaning rigmarole.”

He knew, as I did, that it was illegal to sell beer and serve it in old fashioned tankards. I didn't tell the people from Weights and Measures and neither did anyone else. As for Health and Safety, well, I had CCTV footage from the camera over the bar which showed a Mr Greene of said department drinking out of the one which hung two hooks along from where Ruddy-Face's did.

"And one of those tagine thingies… can I get one of those tonight?"

"The cook's not in."

"Why? Been found out has he? Have you?" Ruddy-Face sniggered.

“What do you mean?”

“You know, I mean. Tagine… that's Moroccan, isn't it?

"Mo is from Peckham, He's as English as Del Trotter."

"Still, he's one of them.”

“His parents are Somali British. They were born in Peckham too.”

“Hasn't phoned though, has he?”

I pointed at the telephone set at the end of the bar.

“It's still connected, Might be the last bakelite phone connected to BT in the Shires.”

'He phoned? Really?”

“Yeah. He did. He's at the side of the road with an old lady. Or he was. She'd been mugged. Mo saw two cars drive past before he got there.”

I shouldn't have expected him to colour-up with shame... But he might at least have looked uncomfortable.

“Anyway… can I get a tagine later.”

I shook my head, I didn't think Mo would get home tonight. Not in this town.