Mrs. God Read Online Free PDF Page B

mistaken,” he said. “It’s a kind of foundation. Every year they invite someone—you’d have to say it’s a kind of honor.”
    â€œFunny kind of honor.” The barman gave Standish his change. “American, he was. Like yourself, sir.” He turned away. “Take a seat, sir. The food will be out directly.”
    Standish carried the heavy glass to a table in the second rank and sat down. He examined the beer. It was calmer now. A thin layer of foam lay on its top like scum. The spinning brown things had dissolved into the murk. He sipped cautiously. Over a strong clear bite of alcohol rode a sharp deep tang more that of whiskey than of beer. It was like drinking some primitive tribal medicine. Standish felt a healthy, cheering distance between himself and the standards of Zenith. He took a longer swallow and told himself he was getting to like this stuff.
    â€œThat’s strong, that is, the Director’s,” said a female voice behind him, and Standish jerked his hand in surprise and soaked his cuff with beer.
    â€œBeggin’ your pardon,” the girl said, smiling at Standish’s sudden consternation. She was a pretty blonde in her late teens or early twenties with wide, rather blank eyes of an almost transparent pale blue. She wore a red woolen sweater covered by a stained, bulging white apron that for some reason reminded Standish of a nurse’s uniform. He noticed that she was very pregnant before he saw that she was carrying a plate with a large wedge of cheese and the heel of a loaf of French bread. “Your food.”
    â€œI’m sorry, but that isn’t what I ordered,” Standish said.
    â€œOf course you ordered it,” she said, all her amusement gone in an instant. “You’re the only bloody customer in the place, d’you think I could make a mistake like that with but the one order?”
    â€œWait. This is cheese and—”
    â€œPloughman’s lunch, that is. With pickles and chutney.” She thrust it before him so that he could see the two puddles of sauce, brown and yellow, beside the wedge of cheese.
    She set the plate roughly on the table and rapped a knife and a fork down beside it. “Wouldn’t you call that right?” A glance at him. “He came into the kitchen and said, ‘Ploughman’s lunch, pickle and chutney,’ and I said, ‘Wants both, does he?’ because I’d looked out the window and seen you making for the pub and I knew you were a Yank by your clothes and the way you walked, just like a Yank it was, you needn’t think I’m ignorant just because I live in Huckstall and work in a pub, I’m educated better far than your great ignorant American girls, I’ve two A levels and two O levels, and my husband owns this pub, you should see the envy on their faces when we go home, you should see—”
    About midway through this astonishing speech Standish became aware of the meaning of the rigid expression on the barman’s face: Not this, not again . The girl was breathing hard, and she placed one hand on her chest.
    â€œEnough,” the barman said from behind Standish.
    The girl glared down at Standish and turned away to move quickly through the empty tables, tugging at the tie of the apron as she went. She dropped the apron at the door and pushed through to the outside.
    Standish looked up in amazement at the barman. He was wiping his hands on a white towel, and he looked back down at Standish with a stony rigidity.
    â€œClosing time, sir,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’ll be leaving now. Time.”
    â€œBut I haven’t even—”
    â€œYour money will be refunded, sir.” He took a crumpled wad of bills from his pocket, found four single pound notes, and set them down on Standish’s table, where they immediately wilted in a puddle of spilled beer.
    â€œOh, come on,” Standish said. “I could