The Delegates’ Choice. Ian Sansom

Portora boy, wasn’t he?’

      ‘What?’ said Israel.

      ‘In Enniskillen there,’ said Minnie. ‘The school, sure. That’s where he went to school, wasn’t it?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Israel. ‘Samuel Beckett?’

      ‘Sure he did,’ said Minnie. ‘What was that play he did?’

      ‘Waiting for Godot?’ said Israel.

      ‘Was it?’ said Minnie. ‘It wasn’t Educating Rita?’

      ‘Riverdance,’ said Ted. ‘Most popular Irish show of all time.’

      ‘That’s not a play,’ said Israel wearily.

      ‘Aye, you’re a theatre critic now, are ye?’ ‘Och,’ said Minnie. ‘And who was the other fella?’

      ‘What?’ said Israel.

      ‘That went to school there, at Portora?’

      ‘No, you’ve got me,’ said Israel. ‘No idea.’

      ‘Ach, sure ye know. The homosexualist.’

      ‘You’ve lost me, Minnie, sorry.’

      ‘Wrote the plays. “A handbag!” That one.’

      ‘Oscar Wilde?’

      ‘He’s yer man!’ said Minnie. ‘He was another Portora boy, wasn’t he, Ted?’

      Ted was busy emptying the third of his traditional three sachets of sugar into his coffee. ‘Aye.’

      ‘Zelda’s nephew went there,’ said Minnie. ‘The ones in Fermanagh there.’

      ‘Right,’ said Israel. ‘Anyway…’

      ‘I’ll check with her.’

      ‘Fine,’ said Israel.

      ‘And your scones are just coming,’ said Minnie.

      ‘That’s grand,’ said Ted, producing a packet of cigarettes.

      ‘Uh-uh,’ said Minnie, wagging her finger. ‘We’ve gone no smoking.’

      ‘Ye have not?’ said Ted.

      ‘We have indeed.’

      ‘Since when?’

      ‘The weekend, just.’

      ‘Ach,’ said Ted. ‘That’s the political correctness.’

      ‘I know,’ said Minnie. ‘It’s what people want though, these days.’

      ‘You’ll lose custom, but.’

      ‘Aye.’

      ‘Nanny state,’ said Ted, obediently putting away his cigarettes and lighter.

      ‘Smoking kills,’ said Israel.

      ‘Aye, and so do a lot of other things,’ said Ted darkly.

      ‘It is a shame, really,’ said Minnie. ‘Sure, everybody used to smoke.’

      Israel stared at the yellowing walls of the café as Ted and Minnie reminisced about the great smokers of the past: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, Winston Churchill, Fidel Castro.

      ‘Beagles,’ said Israel.

      ‘What?’ said Minnie.

      ‘And Sherlock Holmes,’ added Israel.

      ‘Aye,’ said Ted.

      ‘Was he not a druggie?’ said Minnie.

      ‘Sam Spade,’ said Israel.

      ‘Never heard of him,’ said Minnie.

      Sometimes Israel wished he was a gentleman detective, far away from here, with a cocaine and morphine habit, and a slightly less intelligent confidant to admire his genius. Or like Sam Spade, the blond Satan, pounding the hard streets of San Francisco, entangling with knock-out redheads and outwitting the Fat Man. Instead, here he was in Zelda’s, listening to Ted and Minnie and looking up at old Christian Aid and Trócaire posters, and the dogeared notices for the Citizens Advice Bureau, and the wilting pot plants, and the lone long-broken computer in the corner with the Blu-Tacked sign above it proclaiming the café Tumdrum’s Internet hot-spot, ‘The First and Still the Best’, and the big laminated sign over by the door featuring a man sitting slumped with his head in his hands, advertising the Samaritans: ‘Suicidal? Depressed?’

      Well, actually…

      He sipped at his coffee and took a couple of Nurofen. The coffee was as bad as ever. All coffee in Tumdrum came weak, and milky, and lukewarm, as though having recently passed through someone else, or a cow. Maybe he should take up smoking, late in life, as an act of flamboyance and rebellion: a smoke was a smoke, after all, but with a coffee you couldn’t always be sure. The coffee in Tumdrum was more like slurry run-off. He missed proper coffee, Israel—a nice espresso at Bar Italia just off Old Compton Street, that was one of the things he missed about London, and the coffee at Grodzinski’s, round the corner from his mum’s. He missed his friends, also, of course; and his books; and the cinema; a nice slice of lemon drizzle cake in the café at the Curzon Soho; and the theatre; and the galleries; and the restaurants; it was the little things; nothing much; just all the thriving cultural activities of one of the world’s great capital cities…

      ‘Just remind me,’ he said to Ted, once Minnie had gone off for the scones. ‘Why do we come here?’

      ‘It’s the only place there is,’ said Ted.

      ‘Yes,’ said Israel, amazed. ‘I know, but…it’s, like…’ He took another sip of his coffee. ‘They don’t even serve proper coffee.’

      ‘I think the machine’s broken,’ said Ted.

      ‘The machine’s always broken.’

      ‘Mmm.’

      ‘It’s that sort of chicory stuff, isn’t it,’ said Israel, licking his lips, trying to figure out what it was, the unpleasant burnt taste and the feral, sicky smell, like something someone had just brought up. ‘That’s what it is. I think it’s that…what do you call it?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Ersatz coffee.’

      ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Ted. ‘I had a cappuccino once in Belfast.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘They have coffee bars down there everywhere now. It’s like the Continent.’

      ‘Oh, God,’ said Israel.

      ‘What?’ said Ted.

      ‘No,’ said Israel, shaking his head. ‘No.’

      ‘No what?’

      ‘No. Just no. It’s no good, I can’t drink this,’ said Israel, drinking his coffee.

      He was thinking now about Gloria: whenever he started thinking about London his thoughts turned quickly to Gloria.

      Gloria was the Eros in Israel’s Piccadilly Circus, the Serpentine in his Hyde Park, the St Paul’s in his City, the Brick Lane of his East End…her dark hair cascading down over her shoulders, her piercing brown eyes, his hand in hers, their bodies entwined…

      ‘Scones!’ said Minnie, interrupting Israel before the point of no return, and placing a couple of enormous steaming chunks of hot scone down on the plastic gingham-look tablecloth.

      ‘I was wrong,’ she said.

      ‘Sorry?’ said Israel. ‘Wrong? About what?’

      ‘It’s not Zelda’s nephew at Portora.’

      ‘Right.’

      ‘It’s