So this bloke walks into a pub, right? And he sees this beautiful woman sitting at the bar –
And yes, it sounds like the beginning of a joke. It isn't. If the bloke is being perfectly honest with you, he's walking into the pub because he's not in the mood for jokes. He is talking about himself in the third person because he's had enough of jokes already today. He steers clear of jokes as far as possible, lately, because every time he gets up to walk he has to lift the cruellest joke of all to lean on, to support him. Damned walking stick. It makes him feel old, because he knows that's how he looks. It makes him feel weak because he knows it's all in his head.
You'll excuse him, won't you, if he's not in the mood for jokes?
So this bloke walks into a pub, right? And he sees this beautiful woman sitting at the bar. I mean, she really is a head-turner. Completely normal, jeans and t-shirt, a warm brunette with her hair tied back, totally careless. But that's all to the good, isn't it? That means it's not just effort and make-up that make her so utterly gorgeous. Really, I don't know how else to describe it; you just don't walk past a woman like that. But this bloke is sick of jokes and knows he's a joke. He walks past rather than turn himself into a punch-line. He stops at the bar without looking for her, orders a pint and takes it clear across the room, to a table in the corner. He's next to the old-fashioned jukebox. He's not disturbed, though; this time of the day there's not much traffic, and for lack of somebody choosing them, the records play themselves.
So he gets about halfway down the pint, right? …Oh, for God's sake, I, I get about halfway down my lonely, sad little joke of a pint, me, John bloody Watson, and…
Y'know what, if this is going to turn into a shaggy dog story, I might as well fill you in on the rest. I should tell you what brought me here. Because there's always one thing, one trigger. There's one thing that makes you so sad so suddenly it's like a bullet, and you have to leave, and go and have a pint somewhere, even if you don't want to. It's always one stupid, stupid thing. Don't worry. It's funny. You'll laugh.
I lost my wallet. This in itself isn't all that funny, but bear with me. I'll get to the joke. I lost my wallet, so I had to call the bank to cancel my cards. All of that was absolutely fine. The woman on the phone was very helpful. She took care of everything right away. Then she said she'd put me through to someone who could sort me out with a replacement. Standard.
There would be a short wait. She put me on hold. Then I hobbled out of the flat as fast as the stick would allow. I cannot remember whether I hung up the phone, nor do I much care. So go on. Have a guess. What happened? Well, we're doing jokes and shaggy dog stories. Might as well do riddles too. Think about it. She put me on hold and then I bolted. Make a bloody deduction.
She put me on hold and the music started. I'm not much of a classical buff. The name of the piece is a complete mystery to me. All I knew was that I'd heard it before. In fact, I'm almost sure that at some godforsaken-four-in-the-morning I pounded my fist against an adjoining wall and demanded that it cease, immediately.
Are you laughing yet? This was the day's sick joke, so I should hope you're finding it funny.
No?
Back to the shaggy dog story then. Man runs from music, goes to pub, walks past woman, gets drink. Gets halfway down his pint and this is where I left off, I believe.
I've done very well, by the way, at not looking over my shoulder. Literally as well as figuratively. Done very well at not thinking about the music. Done very well at not looking back at the woman, perched up on a barstool, the way that pose will make the most of any little curve at all. But just thinking about that, I stop doing so well; I turn the glass so that it at least gives her reflection. The glass warps her to its own curvature. It's grotesque. I go back, instead, to what I'm doing very well at; not thinking about the way a violin can sound like it's crying, even on a terrible recording, even down a phone line, even when it's only supposed to be background noise.
Maybe that's why I'm sitting near the jukebox. After all, we know I have an overactive subconscious. My subconscious decides whether I can walk or not, Christ's sake; where I sit in the pub shouldn't prove too difficult for it. My point is, the jukebox is helping. The records don't seem to have been changed lately. Not, in fact, within the last decade. There is something comfortingly forgettable about everything I'm hearing. I know it while it's playing. The moment it ends, I forget what it even was. If only everything were so simple.
But, like I said before, there is always a trigger. Wouldn't be much of a shaggy dog story if the bloke got halfway down his pint and the story just stopped.
This time, you'll be glad to know, I'm not the one getting triggered. I'm quite content, actually. This song's alright. It's the one about the lemon tree and the blue, blue sky. I have vague memories of hearing it on the radio, not much liking it, and dismissing it completely.
The woman at the bar, however, finds no such comfort in the simple melody, the stupid lyrics.
She lasts until the first chorus. Then she slips very calmly down off her stool and walks with purpose and determination to the door, as if she's going to leave. She doesn't. She pulls the fire extinguisher off the wall, right out of its brackets. She's stronger than she looks, too; those things are heavy. She comes back then, walking with that same single-minded resolve towards me. I'm not ashamed to tell you I shift, sit a little straighter, a little closer to the wall.
But it's not me she's interested in. She lifts up the fire extinguisher in both hands and brings it down on the jukebox, shattering the glass. Then reaches through the lethal hole, plucks out the still-turning disc and fires it to the floor. It breaks in half, and into chips along its new edges.
Me, I stare. The barman bellows at her, what does she think she's doing, who does she think she is.
"Stick it on my tab," is all she has to say.
All I can say, "You're bleeding." Quite badly, actually. There's a shard of glass about the size of a piece of shortbread stuck in the side of her hand. She flinches when I reach out to take it. "I'm a doctor," I tell her. The words sound strange. They sound like a lie. Confirming it to myself, I turn to the barman, "Do you have a first-aid kit?"
He balks at that. Gets all riled up, about fixing her and who's going to fix his jukebox, and who's going to clean up that glass before the evening punters get here. But he hands it to me in the end, the green plastic case.
The woman is still standing precisely where she was. Looking down at the blood dripping off her hand, onto the pieces of black record. I lift up her hand, just trying to elevate the wound. That breaks the spell.
"I have no idea why I did that," she murmurs.
I sit her down at the table, move my drink out of the way, put her wounded hand on the table between us. "This'll need stitches. I can patch it up in the meantime, but it'll need stitches."
"I really just have no idea…"
As politely as I can, "I'm sure that's not true." I lower my voice too. That barman's afraid of her bleeding out in his pub, but he's still very angry. No sense in giving him excuses. "One music-hating, daytime-drinker to another, I'm sure that's not true."
She sighs, "What would you know about it?" After that, there's not another word from her. Not until I start to remove the glass, anyway. She winces, sharp. "Sorry. I didn't mean that." The wound isn't as deep as I'd thought. It's bleeding heavily though, and I keep my eyes and my mind on cleaning it up enough to properly examine. Because I don't' answer her, her good hand comes up and presses over mine. "Really, I'm sorry."
"So what happened, then?"
She seems only to respond to shock; goes quiet again until the sting of the disinfectant I apply. "That bleeding song. No pun intended or anything. He played that every time he came in here."
"Who?" Did I say that too quickly? I know I looked up. I know I looked up because I've just realized it's the first time I've looked her in the warm brown eyes.
She half-smiles, looks down. "Hardly matters. Record or no record, he's not coming in here again."
"But who?" I definitely shouldn't have said that. I definitely shouldn't have stopped trying to staunch the bleeding. To correct the latter, I press the heel of my hand over the wound, hard, fingers folding around her palm for grip.
All she does is shake her head, keeping her secrets. "Nobody. Nobody really. Just somebody I did a bit of work for."
I notice her forefinger starting to twitch and loosen my grip. Go back to the cleaning and soothing. From the colour of the blood and the nature of the flow, she's missed any major blood vessels. That's the kind of thing I should be thinking, concentrating on. "So what's your business then?"
"Are all doctors so nosy?"
"We're all trained to distract a patient before we go for the disinfectant again."
She winces, with anticipation this time. Calls brazenly to the barman, "Eddie, fetch us that glass over, would you?"
He glares and he grumbles, the same way he has been this entire time. Does it, though. Does exactly as she says. Fetches her gin-and-tonic to the table, where she drinks before she gives me the nod. There's more to clean this time and less blood to carry it all away. Her face creases with it, and she starts to see the value of a distraction. "I'm a researcher," she says. There's a pause before 'researcher', or maybe her breath just catches. "Freelance. I look into people and compile reports."
"Like for the news."
"Something like that. Private business, more than anything."
"Headhunting?"
"Sometimes. Anyway, it's not steady or reliable, but it's what I'm good at. These last few years there's been this one client. A real gent to work with too but… But the golden goose is dead now, so it doesn't matter if somebody takes his favourite song out of the juke, does it?"
"I suppose not." I am fixing the last of six steri-strips across the wound. That's all I'm doing. One clean press, out from the centre, both sides at once. Concentrating so terribly hard on this one thing you might learn on any standard first aid course, giving it my full attention. I can hardly hear my own voice, asking her, "Your boss, what was his name?"
She takes her clean, closed hand from me to study. Runs her thumb over the cut. Mumbling, "Contentious. Came out when he died he had a couple of them. You never do know who you're working for. They say some nasty things about him now, but… I don't know; he was always good to me."
She's not saying what I think she's saying. This is my problem, nowadays. I look for conspiracies everywhere. I look for cases now that there's no one to solve them anymore. She could be talking about anyone, any dodgy businessman in a city full of them. This 'research' she does could have no greater impact than which polished City boy gets which job, which top banker loses half his bonus in a divorce. A private eye, and the very basic kind. That's all she's saying. That's all she is.
"And your name?" I ask. She looks up, unhurried, over the rim of her glass as she drains the last of her drink. "Before I pack you off to hospital, I mean."
She doesn't answer. I get the feeling she doesn't want to. And now the irate barman, cleaning a wine glass so hard it squeals, has his chance at revenge. Seeing her reticence he points at her and bawls, "Morstan! Mary bloody Morstan and don't you forget it, for I won't."
She rolls her eyes, they go back to arguing, and somewhere in the middle of all of it I'm being stood a drink. I miss most of that. Just thinking, no, no I probably won't. Forget, I mean.
[A very drunk friend, in one message, told me he'd lost his wallet, that Jim loves 'Lemon Tree', that River Song is clearly dead, that Vesper Lynd should have been smothered in her cradle (heresy!) and that I 'have to do a Morstan before Steven does'. If you are a friend with a hangover and you don't remember any of this, it was you, Chris.]