Who Is Andrew Beattie?

He crunched the last of his cigarette with a hiss into remaining empty spot in the now brimming crystal ashtray on the bar, and loosened his grey knitted woollen tie as he sank back into the high backed leather barstool which had been his for the past two hours, and indeed as he now reminisced on and off for the past 20, or so, years. He looked around and saw the same faces that had tired somewhat over the years. The same men for 20, years, the same whores, mistresses and their ‘dates’ who never came more than once, married men of various ages with wives and children at home and lives that they hated enough to frequent this particular high class bar in Central London with its philandering businessmen drunks, seemingly always laughing at one another’s jokes whilst spending all of their money on very old and very expensive Champagne, women of the night and him. It seemed to him at that moment like theirs where the only new faces that ever arrived as he sat there over the years at his spot at the end of the bar facing the door, smoking and drinking, the same drink, doubles of whiskey, and on this occasion a 30 year old Laphroaig and more often than not a whole bottle over a long evening. He reached across the now sticky old mahogany surface of the bar to pick up a ragged looking copy of today’s Times which his most recent drinking companion of an hour ago had thoughtfully left behind for him to read.

He had drunk with this gentleman on many occasions although he didn’t know his name and didn’t care to know. He imagined this middle aged man to be writer, probably a scholar of some sort, with his smart but shabby appearance, the same green blazer and horn rimmed glasses, his long shabby hair and once expensive but now tatty shoes. He always talked about music, art and books in his rambling and often mumbling middle-class way and indeed always had a small hardback book of some variety with him in which he would scribble notes with a stubby pencil when not glugging his way through several expensive bottles of French Red. He took the glass to his lips and drained the last of the whiskey into his mouth and gulped, eyes watering as the peaty fumes immersed his face and throat burning as the last of the smoky whiskey eased its way down his throat. Maybe just one more he thought and laughed to himself.

He looked over at his green bottle, still two thirds full and behind the bar in the high mahogany cabinet and he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He couldn’t remember the last time he last looked at himself in a mirror and he pushed his hand through his greying hair, taking it back from his long brown face and then moved it over the grey stubble on his long jaw. His was the face of a Man who had lived 100 lives over, wrinkles on his forehead around his eyes and his ripe, browned skin was the only sign of his recent trip abroad to warmer climates. He stared into his eyes, grey and black and glazed, although he noted that sharpness remained despite this and the deep reddening around the lids. He looked and indeed felt tired for the first time in years. He quickly rubbed his now watery eyes and averted his gaze from the mirror and that man he no longer recognised as himself and reached into the pocket of his black rain coat on the back of the chair to his right to find his sterling silver cigarette case and lighter and threw them to the bar after lighting another of his strong American brand cigarettes for his next drink. He watched as the grey smoke swirled slowly above his head from the tip of his cigarette and clouded to make long elegant shapes in the light from the vulgar chandelier to his right. He had started to drift away in the moment, following the clouds of smoke, and hadn’t noticed that the barmaid had re-filled his glass.

She had been serving him the same drink, at the same spot since he could remember but he couldn’t recollect her saying more than two words to him at any one time, generally a polite nod on his arrival and a nod and insincere smile when he stumbled away at the end of the evening but he often undressed her down to her naked athletic frame in his mind and on many occasions considered the possibility of staying until the last person had left one evening to fuck her on the wide mahogany tables dotted around the bar or in one of the burgundy leather diner booths by the high, wooden framed and shuttered windows on the far side of the room. He would, of course, have to ask her name before hand, which of course was not going to happen although he had a vague memory of hearing it once or twice. Maybe he would come back tomorrow and would feel different, maybe tomorrow he would feel, but he very much doubted it, he remembered thinking that same thing every time he was in here over the past 20 years as he took another long draw from his glass.

He looked at his watch, 10:30, too early to go home to his empty apartment around the corner he thought and leaned across to pick up the newspaper from the bar. He squinted as he attempted to read the columns of words but soon threw the paper back down on the bar, rubbing the side of his head in an attempt to rub away the first signs of headache. He stood for a moment to stretch his tired legs, which retaliated with creaks and groans as he edged slowly from his seat and he coughed heavily upon standing into his handkerchief, the result of 40 years of chain smoking. He shook the ash from his black polished brogues which contained his swollen, blistered and aching feet, swore under his breath and returned the handkerchief to his pocket, straightening his expensive charcoal grey suit jacket before settling back down to his seat and another cigarette.

It was 11:00 before he looked again at his watch. He had spent the last 30 minutes watching a couple in the last of the booths at the far side of the room whispering in to one another ears and groping openly under the table. Despite their age, he guessed around 40; theirs, on the face of things seemed to be a new love. For one, she giggled constantly and fingered her chestnut curls, flirting constantly in between bouts of kissing and fondling. She was a real pro and if this wasn’t the same bar that he had spent the last 20 years frequenting when back in London he would assume them to be a couple but it was quite clear that this fool was currently spending thousands on a girl he never knew, his fidgeting and looking around the room when not fondling and whispering gave him away. He laughed to himself and reached to his right to check the inside pockets of his rain coat. He reached inside and felt the cold metal of his pistol against his hand, releasing a thousand memories at once in his mind before shuddering down his spine, and next to it the creased folder containing his final report, crumpled paperwork of words that he would hand over tomorrow and wash his hands of. He took out another cigarette and looked over at his glass which was full again. He allowed himself a moment of emotion and smiled to himself, he liked this place, the place of faces with no names, where he came, smoked and drank and left to return again when he was home but with no questions to greet him about his time away. He would certainly miss it although he was sure he would be back, probably tomorrow, after his final day at the office to celebrate alone with a new bottle and to get one last look at the place and maybe even after tomorrow was over he would feel different, different enough to ask her name. He shook his head, he was drunk. He re-corked the bottle, which for ease had now been placed on the bar next to his cigarette case, and put it in the pocket of his rain coat so that he could have a night cap alone at home and placed the money on the bar with a tip, and took up his lighter and cigarette case.

It was 11:30 and he stood with a groan to put on his still damp raincoat and to replace the pistol to its holster under is left arm at his seat and in full view of the people of the bar who didn’t stir and remained focused on their half empty glasses and morose conversation. No one bode him farewell as he strode across the bar and as he looked over his shoulder his barmaid was busy emptying his overflowing ashtray into today’s Times. He stumbled past the booths on the right and nodded his head, smiling contemptuously to the couple who were still in place in the last booth before the door, her hands now working under the table at his crotch and his head looking around for witnesses as soon as he heard the footsteps, sweat gathering on his brow and pulse visibly racing in his neck. He lit another cigarette as he reached the large dark blue double doors and turned his collar up before opening the door to the street and turning left into the night and towards home.

As he strode along the road he was glad of the rain beating down on his face. It was a fairly warm summer evening and although the night sky was dark and grey with cloud he was sure that the rain would lift for tomorrow and the sun would be back out. Not that it mattered, he had one more week of this, maximum, and then he would be on his way although he wasn’t quite sure where. As he was half way down the road he noted that the rain had stopped being refreshing and he quickened his pace so as to cut down the time it would take him to walk the mile trip to his empty flat. He looked the houses on either side up and down; he liked this part of London. The Georgian town houses, tall and elegant, lid dimly by the street lights and towering over the shadow-less street, continuous and uniform with their black railings along the pavement, the only difference between them being the colour of the doors although at this time of evening, his time of evening, the colours where not easily distinguishable. He picked up his pace again and looked forward to getting home so that he could light another cigarette as he tightened his raincoat and flicked the rain from the collar. The street was quiet, aside from the rattling of rain on the luxury cars around him and not a soul stirred. He looked over his shoulder and glanced back him down the road out of habit, nothing. He laughed as he reached the corner of the road; he looked forward to the day he didn’t have to check if he was being followed, the day after tomorrow, and turned again to the left and crossed to the gated park across the way which would offer some shelter against the rain for remaining half mile or so of his walk home

He crossed the road again and could see his apartment in the distance, the top floor of a town house at the end of the row, giving him an extra view into the city across the busy high street. As he crossed the road he stumbled up the kerb splashing rain onto his shoes and swore. The throbbing in his feet was relentless and he was now looking forward to ripping the top of the bottle off the whiskey with his teeth which was generally followed by his passing out in his favourite chair in his office. He was nearing the front door and so reached in his pocket and past his money clip for his key when he heard the first crack that broke the silence of the night. He dived straight towards his front door tripping on the step and barging the door with his shoulder before landing with a thud. Before he had hit the floor his hand had reached towards his pistol but remembering the whiskey in his pocket he had forsaken the need for self defence to save the bottle. He looked around quickly and laughed out loud as he noted that the crack had come from a starting car on the high street 100 yards to his left. He staggered to his feet and replaced the bottle in his coat pocket reaching down, joints creaking, into the road where his key had landed in the confusion. He laughed again as he straightened himself out and was headed back to the door when he heard the second loud crack that crunched around the buildings of the street.

He knew moments before the bottle smashed in his pocket that he had been shot. He knew before he reached his hand down to the gushing, gaping hole underneath his ribs that is was a mortal wound and that at that exact moment, shards of blazing hot metal where currently moving at high speed through his vital organs. He staggered against the railings, stopping to put his hand the wound again and then to his face to wipe the blood from his mouth. He had often thought of this moment, of what he would feel, if his life would flash before his eyes. He hit the floor hard but his body was numbed and his head swirled, his agony masked by the whiskey working through his system and ebbing out onto the pavement easing his pain. He groped for a cigarette in his pocket but his arms would not move and then he remembered the report in his pocket, his last report and laughed spitting bloody bile across his face. As he looked up to the dark grey night sky the rain beat down heavily on his face and he noted the warmness of the blood pooling around his body on the hard, cold paving slabs. He reached again for the cigarettes in his pocket but as soon as he had reached down he felt a crunching blow on his forearm pressing it hard against the ground. He spat out a line of blood into the air with the impact and swore again as it landed across his eyes.

She looked down at him, her jet black sodden and no longer wavy hair now stuck flat either side of her face. Her pale features stern and her eyes cold, a reflection of his own, dark and empty. She smiled down at him but did not speak. He spat a clot of deep purple blood on the pavement and attempted to speak but she shook her head and made a hushing noise that reminded him of the hiss of a snake, as she reached down to the pocket of his raincoat retrieving both his report and his cigarette case and then he felt her hand, cold against his beating chest where she let it linger for a moment against his soaked shirt. She placed the report in the inside pocket of her long black waxed cape and took two cigarettes from the tin, lighting them as she reached down to replace it in his pocket and to place one between his bloody trembling lips. Her eyes narrowed as she took a drag from the cigarette between her bright rouge lips, before blowing it into the dark night, the rain instantly dispelling the smoke. Even now he imagined himself fucking her as his cigarette lay limp across his mouth and he was unable to draw smoke. He looked into her lifeless eyes as she leaned towards him blowing a thin line of smoke directly into his face making his eyes burn. And then she spoke, her soft tone being replaced by a harshness he could never have imagined.

“Your government would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your 35 years of service for your country and wish you a most pleasant retirement.”

She stepped away and lingered before turning her head with a shrill laugh.

“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry. Thank you for the tip.”

She walked quickly away, replacing the hood from her cape onto her head, and across the road towards the park and into the darkness.

The warmth of the summer night and his gaping wound quickly turned cold and a million thoughts raced though his mind as his eyes shuddered and rolled back into his skull and there he lay after 35 years of service, a day from retirement, 5 feet from home, and quite dead.