Death - alcohol

However, they were sufficiently observant to be vaguely worried by the tall dark figure standing by the bar and drinking his way through its entire contents.

Lonely, dedicated drinkers always generate a mental field which insures complete privacy, but this particular one was radiating a kind of fatalistic gloom that was slowly emptying the bar. This didn’t worry the barman, because the lonely figure was engaged in a very expensive experiment.

Every drinking place throughout the multiverse has them—those shelves of weirdly-shaped, sticky bottles that not only contain exotically-named liquid, which is often blue or green, but also odds and ends that bottles of real drink would never stoop to contain, such as whole fruits, bits of twig and, in extreme cases, small drowned lizards. No-one knows why barmen stock so many, since they all taste like treacle dissolved in turpentine. It has been speculated that they dream of a day when someone will walk in off the street unbidden and ask for a glass of Peach Corniche with A Hint Of Mint and overnight the place will become somewhere To Be Seen At.

The stranger was working his way along the row.

WHAT IS THAT GREEN ONE?

The landlord peered at the label.

“It says it’s Melon Brandy,” he said doubtfully. “It says it’s bottled by some monks to an ancient recipe,” he added.

I WILL TRY IT.

The man looked sideways at the empty glasses on the counter, some of them still containing bits of fruit salad, cherries on a stick and small paper umbrellas.

“Are you sure you haven’t had enough?” he said. It worried him vaguely that he couldn’t seem to make out the stranger’s face.

The glass, with its drink crystallizing out on the sides, disappeared into the hood and came out again empty.

NO. WHAT IS THE YELLOW ONE WITH THE WASPS IN IT?

“Spring Cordial, it says. Yes?”

YES. AND THEN THE BLUE ONE WITH THE GOLD FLECKS.

“Er. Old Overcoat?”

YES. AND THEN THE SECOND ROW.

“Which one did you have in mind?”

ALL OF THEM.

The stranger remained bolt upright, the glasses with their burdens of syrup and assorted vegetation disappearing into the hood on a production line basis.

This is it, the landlord thought, this is style, this is where I buy a red jacket and maybe put some monkey nuts and a few gherkins on the counter, get a few mirrors around the place, replace the sawdust. He picked up a beer-soaked cloth and gave the woodwork a few enthusiastic wipes, spreading the drips from the cordial glasses into a rainbow smear that took the varnish off. The last of the usual customers put on his hat and staggered out, muttering to himself.

“I DON’T SEE THE POINT, the stranger said.

“Sorry?”

WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN?

“How many drinks have you had?”

FORTY-SEVEN.

“Just about anything, then,” said the barman and, because he knew his job and knew what was expected of him when people drank alone in the small hours, he started to polish a glass with the slops cloth and said, “Your lady thrown you out, has she?”

***

Mort p126-127