Ocean Prize (1972) Read Free Page A

himself to a drinking bout. “Okay. I’ll join you.”
    “That’s the boy.”
     
    It started in a sleazy bar not far from the docks, the first they came to. The place was full of men with the brand of ships and the sea, mingling with longshoremen in leather caps and lumber jackets; hard men with big thirsts. Wilson knew that this was only the beginning, that they would drink a few pints and move on; the night stretched ahead of them and tomorrow the ship was due to sail.
    By the time they got to the third bar they had taken the keen edge off their thirsts; they were no longer drinking to satisfy a need but to comply with a ritual.
    Charlie Wilson had never acquired a real taste for this kind of thing; he got no pleasure from this systematic progress to intoxication; to him it seemed a pointless throwing away of hard-earned money. But he went along with the others because he could see no way of avoiding it. He tried to limit his own intake, but even that was difficult; Trubshaw kept an eye on him and seemed to resent any falling behind.
    “Drink up, boy. You can take it.”
    When they reached the fifth bar Wilson was feeling sick and Trubshaw had a dangerous glint in his small, piggy eyes. He was spoiling for a fight. The others knew it, they recognised the look, but they were too drunk to care what sort of nastiness Trubshaw might stir up. They were not altogether averse to something of the kind themselves.
    Wilson was the exception. He wanted no trouble; all he wanted just then was some nice quiet place to lie down and sleep.
    He became conscious of another frothing glass of beer on the table in front of him. He tried to push it away. “No, thanks. Had enough.”
    Trubshaw’s face seemed to swim across his line of vision. “Nobody’s ’ad enough. Drink it, boy. Do you good.”
    Wilson took a pull at the beer. It tasted foul. He set the glass down, spilling beer on the table, and the room appeared to revolve, a cascade of glittering lights sailing past. He waited for the revolutions to stop, then got rather unsteadily to his feet.
    “Gotta use the drain.”
    He set a course for the men’s, made it to the door without mishap and went inside. It smelt of urine and disinfectant, the kind of smell you got in that kind of place in all the bars the world over; the only difference with this one was that it smelt worse than most, a little above the average in pungency.
    He was sick and after that he felt slightly better. He wiped his mouth on his handkerchief and went back to the others with a filthy taste on his tongue.
    Lawson was trying to roll a cigarette and the tobacco was falling into his beer. When it was finished it was about as thick as an under-nourished tapeworm. It flared up whenhe lit it and burnt his nose. He dropped it on the floor and ground it angrily under his heel.
    Moir examined Wilson with bloodshot eyes. “Ye dinna look so guid, laddie.”
    “I don’t feel so good,” Wilson said.
    “What ye need’s a dram.”
    “I don’t need a dram.”
    “Are ye bloody contradicting me, laddie?” Moir thrust his granite face towards Wilson, jaw jutting belligerently. Like Trubshaw he had taken enough to make his temper uncertain.
    “I’m telling you I don’t need a dram,” Wilson said. For two pins he would have pushed Moir’s face in. He was not feeling very friendly. He had not wanted to go drinking with the three of them in the first place. They had dragged him in and now he felt like death. To hell with them.
    Moir seemed inclined to carry the argument further but finally decided not to. He gave a grunt and withdrew his face to a more reasonable distance.
    There were four big, fair-haired men standing by the bar, drinking beer and talking loudly in some language that was certainly not English and did not sound like French either. They were laughing a great deal and the sound of their laughter drew Lawson’s attention. He turned his head and stared at the fair-haired men. Then he said very