World Travel Guide Online

Cambridge: Leaving the Eagle

Thomas

I settled nicely into bar work at the Eagle pub in Cambridge. The work wasn’t flash, but I really enjoyed working with the other people there. My friendship with Noel grew, and more frequently, we found ourselves spending a day off seeing a movie or visiting a pub together. I developed a close friendship with Thomas too and countless evenings were spent at Ray’s coffee shop discussing life’s little problems.

The pub was busy every lunchtime and evening every single day. Then it got twice as busy on Friday and Saturday nights. These were the most exhausting days, but they weren’t boring. I got into a pleasant routine of serving the drinks, walking around the pub collecting glasses and socialising with the patrons and fellow bar tenders. I particularly enjoyed running the small RAF bar during weekdays because I worked there alone and could imagine that I owned my very own small pub. The patrons that used this room of the pub were usually regulars so the hardest part of the job was trying to remember what their drink of choice was.

But the time had arrived for me to leave the Eagle, because I was about to commence my travels in Turkey and the Greek Islands.

One morning, I was about to seek out Arnold the manager to inform him of my plans, when by coincidence he came up to the bar and gestured for me to follow him. I felt perplexed as I trailed behind him outside the pub. Had he already heard from one of the bartenders that I was leaving? Was he about to throw me out of the pub now? When we were standing on the footpath outside the front entrance he turned and said to me, “What do you see that is wrong out here, Dave?”

I looked at him blankly and then glanced around me. Everything seemed as normal as when I had been here half an hour ago sweeping the path. I shrugged my shoulders and said I couldn’t see it.

His face clouded and I recognised the danger signs of a temper tantrum coming on. “Well, have another look, buddy.”

As I looked again I began to feel nervous. I realised that I was possibly about to be the unfortunate recipient of one of Arnold’s legendary tantrums. And it wasn’t happening in the privacy of my own pub, it was out on the public footpath in broad daylight as people strode past.

“You stuffed up, Dave, you really stuffed up.”

I really started to wonder if I was about to be fired instead of going through the process of resigning. “Errr, what did I do?”

“Look at the ground, buddy and tell me what you see.”

I looked and replied, “umm I see the footpath.”

“And what else do you see?”

“Err nothing; I just see the footpath, made of concrete.”

“And what else?” he shouted.

“Well nothing, just the footpath! Just the footpath and that cigarette butt.”

His eyes took on a triumphant gleam. “That’s bloody right, a cigarette butt. And not just one, three!” He pointed to each of them in turn.

I was starting to realise what this crazy, pathetic, fat man was going on about.

He pointed at the ground again. “Just half an hour ago I asked you to sweep this footpath and you came and did a rudimentary job. This footpath has to be spotless. When people walk here, they associate the footpath with the Eagle and the Eagle is Greene King’s flagship pub. What do you think people think when they walk past and see a filthy footpath?”

I felt like a school boy as I said what he needed to hear. “They think the pub is also dirty.”

The Eagle courtyard

The triumphant look returned to his face. “That’s right! They thing the pub must be a dirty, stinking hell hole not worth buying a drink in. And we don’t want that, we want them to come into our spotless pub and buy lots of drinks! So when you are sweeping the footpath next time, please do a proper job and not the half assed job that you did this morning. Thank you!”

The matter appeared to be closed and he was about to head back into the pub, but I couldn’t resist, I just had to be a smart ass. I used to do it all the time as a school student, and I would do it now godammit!

“But Arnold, maybe someone has dropped all those cigarette butts on the ground in the last half hour, since I swept it.”

Arnold turned and regarded me, his moustache quivering with barely concealed rage. But then he did a thing I didn’t think he would deem to do. He dropped to his hands and knees and began pawing around on the ground. I came to the realisation that there were a few sheep missing from Arnold’s top paddock. He held up a butt from on the ground. “Take a look at that, Dave. Does that look like a freshly smoked cigarette butt? Does it?! No, it looks more like one that was smoked LAST WEEK!!”

As Arnold continued to paw around on the footpath on his hands and knees, his round arse up in the air, exclaiming at the amount of dirt he could see ‘down here’, I decided that enough was enough.

“Arnold, I regret to inform you that I am resigning. I have plans to travel through Turkey and Greece with my girlfriend. I will be finishing this Friday.”

My boss stopped pawing around, straightened and looked me squarely in the eye, his moustache twitching furiously. I thought he was going to punch me so I cowered away from him. But all he said was his customary phrase; “alright then.” He then pointed at the ground. “But you still have to clean up the cigarette butts and dirt off the footpath today.” He silently returned inside and that was the last conversation I ever had with him.

Friday was my last day and all too soon it came along. I was nervous, really nervous. For Ricky and Al (the two dangerous bouncers of the pub) were at their worst, or best depending how you looked at it, when a bartender had his last day. They took great pride in thinking up wonderful surprises for the hapless worker. Past surprises included dressing a young Irish guy in a pink frock and putting lipstick all over his face; and chaining one poor fellow up to an outside table and pouring cold gravy all over him. I had heard worse stories, however, such as stripping people down to their underwear and putting live maggots down their pants. But I dismissed these as wildly inaccurate stories with no absolutely basis of truth. I was worried though, as I couldn’t even claim fellow citizenship with Ricky and Al. I was a foreigner, and they had the most fun of all with Aussies.

The final day’s work was bittersweet. I realised I had enjoyed my brief time in the Eagle as all the bartenders treated me nicely and excitedly asked me about my travel plans. But my thoughts were tinged with worry. Several of the bartenders who having their day off were all coming in to have a final drink with me. Although I felt popular, I couldn’t help but shake off the suspicion that some of them were only coming in to see what Ricky and Al would do to me.

At 5pm Ricky and Al arrived for their evening shift of bouncing. I avoided them as long as possible, but at one point I finished serving a customer to see Ricky leaning on the bar with his elbows, grinning. When our eyes met, he started to sing. “Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, you’ll come a Waltzing Matilda with me”. He walked away with a sinister laugh, saying “see you later on, Dave”. I contemplated calling my parents to tell them that I loved them, but they would not see their son again. But I told myself no, Ricky and Al were using the traditional tactics that torturers used, they were softening up their victim.

I was to have one more adventure before my last shift ended and I faced my nemeses Ricky and Al. One of the kegs needed changing and I volunteered to do it as I didn’t know when in my life I would be changing a keg again. In a rare moment of joviality, Richard the manager decided to accompany me. We walked outside to the cellar entrance and were just about to open the door when Richard stopped suddenly. “What’s that noise?” he asked.

I listened carefully and after filtering out the noise of conversation and laughter, I heard a swishing noise from below, rather like a small stream rushing with water. I shrugged my shoulders and moved to open the doors but Richard looked at me with wide eyes, and with uncharacteristic fear, whispered “Oh shit.” I looked at him perplexed and then opened the doors. I looked down with curiosity to see a stream rushing along at the bottom of the stairs. An amber stream. A beer stream, in fact. I called out in excitement and was just about to ask why there was a stream made of beer in the cellar when I noticed Richard rocking back and forth with his hands on his face saying “Shit, shit, shit, he’s going to kill me.” We climbed down the stairs and waded though the cellar. I’d like to say the beer was up to my chest and we had to swim through the beer (I mean, what a story that would be!), but in reality it was running over our shoes. I asked Richard what on earth had happened.

He replied, “I don’t know what exactly happened, but the last keg I changed is no longer connected to it hose line, and the beer is now at our feet. And Arnold is going to kill me.” All the fight had gone out of him. I had never seen him like this before and I felt sorry for him.

“Well, it’s not as bad as it first seemed,” I said as an empty crate floated silently by us. “We could clean all this up in no time at all.” The level of beer rose above my shoe line and into my socks.

Richard looked energised by my hopeful statement. “Yes, you are right, Dave. Let’s get two mops and we’ll mop together like we’ve never mopped before. Together we will get though this!” I looked at him with earnest solidarity, twinged with the feeling in the back of my head that he may be hinting that the cause of this accident was now both our faults. His arms and shoulders swayed from side to side as he purposefully waded though the amber delight and picked up our weapons. We grinned at each other and I felt like hugging him in mateship. Then we heard a sound above us. We looked up in dread as the cellar door slowly creaked open. A fat man with beady eyes and twitchy moustache peered into the gloom. “Oy Richard, you down there?” It was Arnold. “Can you change the IPA keg; I thought you had already changed it earlier.”

“Yeah sure mate, no worries, I’ll see you up there, OK?” Richard replied shakily.

There was a pause and we both silently prayed that Arnold would be happy with the response and leave. We heard him stand up again, and start to close the cellar door. We both breathed a sigh of relief. But then the door opened again with a loud clang and Arnold came clopping down the stairs. “Oh and another thing Richard, I was wondering…” He stopped on the bottom step and looked at us in amazement. We looked back at him, mops in one hand and with beer swirling around our ankles.

“WHAT THE BLIMEY HELL HAPPENED HERE!” Arnold bellowed.

Richard had the look someone would have just before they were executed. He whispered to me with resignation in his voice. “Just go Dave, just go”. I wondered if I would see him again or if he’d be buried down here in the cellar. I silently wished him all the best and avoided eye contact with Arnold as I silently fled up the stairs. Muffled shouting commenced as I closed the cellar door and went back inside.

Later that evening after the shift had ended; someone commented that they hadn’t seen Arnold for a while. Almost at the same time, Andre commented that he had heard a whole lot of bangs and crashes coming from the cellar, rather like kegs being thrown against the wall. I sat on my seat silently. And next to me sat Richard, with his eyes downcast. He looked at Andre and murmured, “There was a little accident earlier which Arnold didn’t take too well, that is all.”

In all the excitement I had forgotten about two oversized men whose purpose in life was to make sweet, innocent Aussie bartender’s lives a living hell. Barely had Richard whispered those last words and I had taken a sip of my beer when I felt hands grab me from behind. I looked around in puzzlement, even as Al pinned me to my chair while Ricky quickly wrapped a roll of cling wrap around my body and the chair. He didn’t spare any, using up the whole roll, until I found myself tightly bound to the chair with my arms completely pinned in. I noticed with a small amount of satisfaction that the top of my trousers were also bound, so there was little chance they would be removed. Through my fear, I dryly pondered how many times again in my life I would have to feel relief that my pants couldn’t come off.

I looked around me. Fellow friends looked upon me with concern, but what was that, a barely concealed grin from Thomas? And Noel as well? I didn’t have long to think about it as Ricky’s face appeared in front of me. In a loud voice, he exclaimed, “What’s that, Waltzing Matilda? You love to wear your Aussie green and gold colours so proudly?” I noticed that Ricky conveniently held a can of green spray paint. And at his side, Al had a nice gold can. Ricky leant in close to me and whispered, “Keep your eyes closed, OK Dave.” I nodded in fear and confusion at his tender, almost loving words. Continuing in his loud voice to the assembled crowd, he then said, “Well let me help you then.” With that I closed my eyes as they performed their green and gold artwork on my face, all to good natured laughter and jeers.

I opened my eyes at the end the spraying, hoping that it was all over. But of course it wasn’t. “And what’s that you say, you really miss the sunshine in Australia? Well here’s a timely reminder of what the sun can do.” Suddenly my back felt like it was incredibly sunburnt. I wondered what sort of trickery this was when Ricky laughed his sinister laugh again and showed me the bottle of Tabasco sauce he had just poured down my shirt. My friends winced in sympathy and there were oohs and aahs all around. I was feeling quite uncomfortable when Al walked up to me, having just returned from the kitchens. In his hands was a big plate of cold spaghetti bolognaise. He smiled at me almost apologetically as he slowly lifted it above my head and gently poured it all over me. The oohs turned to laughter again as it plopped down my hair and body.

It felt quite sticky and messy, although I did note with satisfaction that the spaghetti soaked up some of the Tabasco sauce and cooled my back somewhat. And then it was over. Just as quickly as it had begun. As they unwrapped me from my prisoners chair I asked Ricky what spaghetti bolognaise had to do with being an Aussie. He laughed good naturedly and said, “Nothing whatsoever, there was just some left over in the fridge and we didn’t want it to go to waste.” Why of course, what a considerate and polite bouncer he was! They had once again managed to push the boundaries but not quite cross them. I felt uncomfortable, sticky and hot, but after I had cleaned myself up I decided that I had got through my farewell quite well in the end.

Andy and Krusty

The celebrations continued well into the night. My fellow bartenders didn’t need much of an excuse to have a night’s worth of revelry. I felt enormously joyful that night, not only because I had survived my farewell night’s proceedings, with barely a maggot in sight, let alone the absence of my pants, but I had made some good friends in one of the most wonderful cities (the best in my opinion) in England. The night ended with solemn farewells and a couple of well placed pats on the back – right where the Tabasco sauce had burnt my skin raw. The next morning, I felt quite fuzzy headed and shaky as I farewelled Noel at the train station to return to London. Then I boarded the plane to Istanbul to meet up with Nadia for the next phase of my trip.