After ten years of living within a hundred yards of it, and setting a novel largely within its walls, but never once setting foot inside, I just walk straight in. As simple as that. It smells exactly as I expected. Like a pub. Exactly like a pub. Yeasty, old meny, beery. I had been intending to sit at the bar, like in the book, but all the seats are taken. It’s definitely busier than I had imagined. I had never imagined it being busy. There’s hardly even room to stand and order a drink, so I stand at the corner between two drinkers. The drinkers are filling out a ‘bonus ball’ sort of raffle/sweepstake thing. They’ve all chosen their numbers and paid their two pounds. “There’s only one number left,” says one of the drinkers, addressing me, “why don’t you take it?” “OK,” I say, “how does it work?” The drinker explains how it works and I agree to take the last number. I pay the money and give them my name (my real name) and I’m in. Just like that. “I’ve never won a raffle before,” I say familiarly, like I fit right in. “Maybe this is your lucky night,” says one of the drinkers, a grey-haired, slightly drink-damaged man with a friendly glint in his eye. “Yeah,” I say, “it could be. You never know.” The grey-haired drinker eyes me with a friendly smile. “And where’s your better half: Eve?” he says with a chuckle. “She’s at home with the kids,” I reply, assuming the role of a male chauvinist with ease, or maybe I really am a male chauvinist after all. Maybe in this environment I would be, at least. It certainly is a predominantly male environment. I got that right. I ask for a ginger beer, meaning non-alcoholic, but the barmaid serves me Crabbie’s (alcoholic). I don’t quibble. I haven’t come here to quibble. But then I haven’t come here to drink either. I’ve come here for personal reasons. To prove something to myself. To close a circle. To see what it’s really like. To face the truth and compare it with my fiction. I won’t drink the Crabbie’s. I consider standing there at the bar with the other drinkers, but ultimately decide against it. I’ve done really well getting this far and I don’t want to push it. Go easy on yourself, I think. I sit at a nearby table, where I can observe without being part of the action. I text S__. “Guess where I am,” I text. He doesn’t text back straight away, so I tell him, “The new moon!” I text. “For real this time!” I sit at my table writing in my notebook. One of the drinkers smiles at me as she goes out for a smoke and I smile back. There’s a kind of fug of chatter and pub noise, which is pierced by the barmaid exclaiming, “I’ve just got a coin with the king’s head on it!” This is greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos from the assembled drinkers. “Can I have it?” says one of them, a middle-aged man who seems to have been roused momentarily from the edge of consciousness. “You should keep it,” advises the grey-haired drinker. “That’s worth money.”
