AFTERNOONS

Afternoons - how do you get through them? Not summer ones - they're all right - you've got those long evenings to come - though the evenings can be a problem in themselves, that sense of infinity with nothing to fill it. No, I'm talking about afternoons in autumn and winter. Grey. Shapeless. Not enough time, but also always too much. A bit like the middle of life. You know where you are by now. You know where you're going - though you don't necessarily want to admit it. A change of direction, you think, would be fun - but is there enough time to get somewhere else before your journey simply stops?

In the morning, you work hard, with a sense of purpose. By lunchtime, you've accomplished something. But you dread going back to the office after lunch, because you've realised how you should have done it, and if you go back and change it all, as your conscience is telling you to, then you'll be left with more to do tomorrow than you had at the start of today, and, as always, with one day less to do it. Would you rather have it complete or correct?

That's where the people come from that you see in pubs in the afternoons. They're the ones who want the day to be over. They want to get to the end of their journey without travelling there. Some of them, no doubt, are 'talking business'. Others are hiding. From whom? Oh, mostly themselves. If ever you were going to meet your ghostly double, it would be in a deserted pub in the afternoon - he'd come out of the gents, and you'd spot him in the mirror just as he was going out of the door, and you'd wonder what mischief he was off to do in your place, and you'd have another drink and resolve not to worry about it.

Once upon a time, all these pubs were down side-streets. They had back ways in and out. They didn't actually break the licensing laws. They had ways round them. Special licences. Small enamel plaques: for the accommodation of persons attending the market. The market long since suspended or prohibited or moved. The permission never revoked. Forgotten pubs, dear to the hearts of their regulars who stumbled in there by chance many years ago and, like visitors to Fairyland, have never been able to escape. Nor wanted to.

Of course, everything is changing nowadays. Fast. You feel like an actor in front of a back-projection. Behind you, everything is speeding away. You know you're motionless. You're not fooled by appearances. Others are. They see you being left behind. But you know it's an illusion. What's happening? Oh, they're just demolishing your world around you, taking away all the certainties. That used to be the electricity showroom. That's where I saw my first television ever, my first video-recorder. And now? It's a pub. Themed, probably. And that was the gas showroom. And now? It's a pub. And that was a furniture shop. And now? It's a pub. What about the little gents outfitters? What about the knitting shop? What about the toyshop, with the electric trainset, going through a hilly landscape (you have to have tunnels!) that they covered with snow every Christmas? Oh, that's a building society - or else a charity shop. That's where they've gone, the sweet-shops and the paper-shops and the tobacconists and the model-shops and the music-shops and the record-shops and the flower-shops and the book-shops - all turned into building societies and charity shops, and sometimes a take-away. And the pubs in the side-streets have all been demolished to make delivery bays for the shopping malls - dead-end appendices for those intestines of retailing.

Every time I walk down the main street, there's another one of these giant pubs - aimed at the young, I always think, to judge by the clientèle and the language of the special offers. There are, admittedly, half-lit spaces at the back for the likes of me, but to get there you have to run the gauntlet of the spotlights round the bar, and the gaggle of giggling young women in platforms. Easier, mostly, just to look in from outside, and partake in your imagination. I'm good at that. I've had the practice.

This particular afternoon, though, I spotted someone I thought I knew. From way back. From way, way back. I wasn't sure, though, so I made that half-gesture, you know the one, the one you can turn into scratching your head if it transpires that you've made a mistake. And the person I thought I'd recognised started raising his arm in the same kind of way. It must have looked as though we were signalling to each other in semaphore. And then we were both suddenly sure at the same time, and we committed ourselves, and we looked like a couple of railway guards signalling a train to pull out.

The door was stiff - modern workmanship - but Ted - that was his name - gave a tug from his side, and I was in. I looked round. From outside, it had seemed to be still in the process of construction, step-ladders, trestles, paste-tables - and the decor had struck me as that embarrassingly feeble attempt to recreate genuine olde-worlde scruffiness that passes for 'character'. Now I was inside, it looked real. The ceiling was low and bumpy and smoke-stained. The wooden chairs had never seen polyurethane in their lives. The table was deal, real old-fashioned deal, its grain worn away into ridge-and-furrow like a piece of mediaeval strip-farming. I began to feel at home. It was quiet, too. I noticed the absence of several noises: there was no air-conditioning, no one-armed bandit flashing and humming, no muzak, no constant swish from the automatic glass-washers, no ping of the microwave, no hiss from the gas of the fake coal-fire. I took the tension out of my shoulders and sat down beside Ted.

'On me,' he said. 'How long have you been - er - ?'

Well, of course I had no idea what he was going to say, but I'd not seen him since university, and he was bound to be talking about some important life-change, and I didn't really want to go into either of my marriages, so I just assumed he meant here, in this town, doing this job, so I said, 'Ten years', and he said, 'Don't be daft! I've only been here five! I'd be bound to have seen you before now!' Well, I didn't really understand the logic of that, but he'd put a pint down in front of me, so I decided to have a sip or two while I thought it through. Oooohhhh! It was good! I'd never tasted anything like it in my life - which, as you'll see when we get to the end of my story, was hardly surprising. It gave Ted time to rephrase his question. Never the most direct of people, Ted.

'When did it - er - happen?' he said.

'It's good, this,' I said, still stumped for an answer.

'It has to be,' said Ted, 'there's nothing else.'

'Mmmm,' I agreed.

'Come on,' said Ted, leaning across the table, 'don't be coy - there's no secrets here - you know that - just tell me how and when you died.'

Well, if the beer or whatever it was hadn't been so good, I'd have spluttered it all over the place. As it was, I just rolled it round my mouth and had a good satisfying swallow. Then I took another swig, because I felt I needed it, under the circumstances. And that was when I noticed that my glass was full again. You didn't need to be an optimist here.

'It's a long story,' I said, getting to my feet, having decided to take the usual way out of embarrassing situations. 'I just need to - er - '

'You'll find you don't,' said Ted, 'but at first you may feel that way - '

I didn't just feel that way. I was absolutely positive. It was one of the things that convinced me I shouldn't be where I now realised I was, since I lacked the major qualification for being there - and was quite glad that I did. Of course, I had no idea where the gents was - but it's always at the back somewhere, at the vanishing point of the perspective. As I made my way past all the quiet and friendly drinkers, trying not to be conspicuous for fear someone might recognise me, I wondered how many of them I actually recognised. A face here and a face there seemed vaguely familiar, but I did my best not to catch their eyes, and I succeeded. A lot of them were reading newspapers - mostly the sports pages - and I was surprised at first to notice that the dates on the papers varied wildly - some far in the future - some far in the past - though on further reflection it seemed logical. This was, after all, a place out of time. Considering they were all - er - you know what - they looked very well on it. Pleasing, though, to discover that most of the people I knew were still in the - er - same condition as myself.

Then I spotted my Dad and my Grandad. Playing darts, of course.

'Good to see you,' said my Dad. 'Er - well, you know what I mean.' I did. 'Don't ask how many up it is - billions - but we've got the time, after all. Trouble is, we need a double to start.' He passed me a dart, and it dropped straight through my hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. 'Oh dear,' said my Grandad, and the pair of them made a kind of two-man circle round me, the way they do on the rugby field when someone's changing their shorts.

'The beer-glass didn't do that,' I said.

'It wouldn't,' said my Dad.

'It tasted good,' I said.

'It has to,' said my Grandad.

'It's all there is,' said my Dad. 'How much did you have, son?'

'Half a pint,' I said. He drew in a breath through his teeth and blew it out again.

'Is that bad?' I asked.

'All depends,' he said. 'It means it'll be longer than it would otherwise have been before you come and join us. But we'll have a good long time together anyway, so what does that matter?' And he smiled.

'Where's Mum?' I asked.

'Shopping,' he said, and pointed to a window I'd not noticed before. It looked out on to on of those malls, and there was my Mum, gawping at clothes in one of the shop windows.

'And Gran?' I said.

He pointed to another window, beside the first. There was Gran, in her garden, where she liked to be, on her knees, weeding a flowerbed.

'And when does she expect you both back?' I asked, and the pair of them giggled like small boys. Then they remembered the gravity of the situation.

'We've got to get you out of here,' said my Grandad, 'before one of the senior staff notices. Otherwise, there might be trouble.'

'Especially if they find out you've had a drink. It's a members only licence, you see,' said my Dad. They began shepherding me towards the back of the establishment, with many glances over their shoulders.

'How d'you think he got in?' said my Grandad.

'Somebody didn't shut the door properly, I imagine,' said my Dad. 'Here you are, son. Take care. I would shake your hand, but I don't think it'd work.' We were stopped in front of a door marked Emergency Exit. What, I wondered, would the emergency have to be that necessitated its use? My Dad pushed down the bar that was the handle, and while the pair of them averted their eyes, I slipped out.

I was in one of those blank alleyways that run down the outsides of shopping malls. A mugger's paradise, if they led anywhere. But, like so much in modern life, they don't, so nobody uses them, and consequently they're safe, like most dead-ends. In fact, I was only ten yards from the main street, and the brand-new pub that I thought I had entered - what - ten minutes ago? It was still being fitted out. The windows were whitewashed. The interior was dark and devoid of people. I didn't try the door.

So what effect did my experience have on me? Well, it changed my attitude towards afternoons. I tend to go back to work more promptly after lunch now - unless I've made an appointment to meet somebody I know in a place with which I'm familiar. And sometimes - but only sometimes - I wonder whether I should have drunk more - or less - that afternoon.

20th December 2000 4.30pm - 8.30p.m.