The Free Lunch
 

Many miles down the Coomstock Road, far from any other habitation, two cyclists stopped in pouring rain at an unexpected & welcome apparition--a small inn whose neon sign tinted the falling drops with the heart-quickening words FREE LUNCH in yellow letters and, below, in Bacchic purple: FREE WINE. Minutes later, two India rubber capes hung dripping in the hall & two youths sat by a peat fire in a crudely furnished dining room, steam rising from their clothes. They were attended by a crookbacked corduroy-clad waiter, almost toothless, with vigorous tufts of snowy hair sprouting from his nose & ear holes. In a quavering brogue, he assured the sceptical lads that there were no strings attached, they were guests of the management & could eat & drink here, gratis. Not only that, but the repast they were invited to partake of would, he guaranteed, nourish & refresh them as never before. The chef was a magus, a miracle-worker, & possibly an angel of the principality class. The boys exchanged glances at this hyperbole--how credulous the peasantry in these remote provinces could be! The waiter filled their glasses, bowed clumsily & withdrew.

At eighteen, tall & blanched like an etiolated shoot, Unic is the younger of the two cyclists.  His mother is dead, killed three years ago in the coup which ousted his father from his gangster fiefdom in the Balkans. Since then father & son have lived in penurious exile in Dublin. His father, once famous for his powers of oratory, now lies mute in bed in a room with the curtains drawn, his needs provided for by a small retinue of fellow exiles.
         The other, Edward, is short & dark. He's an unemployed hod-carrier from Humberside on what he reasons may be his last holiday. He's bald after a recent course of chemotherapy. Cynical even before his cancer had been diagnosed, his cynicism has metastasised, as it were, & his whole being is now riddled with black nihilism. Three days ago, he & Unic, strangers, had met at a Hike 'n' Bike Youth Hostel. The next night, following their forcible ejection from a bar, they were mugged by yokels & left penniless. Returning before dawn to pitch a car battery through the bar's plate glass, they didn't rest before putting forty miles between themselves & what Edward, indulging his taste for spoonerisms, called the cream of the sign. These adventures had forged a bond that was further cemented when it emerged that both boys packed ragged copies of "Les Fleurs du Mal" in their haversacks. They were brothers, in word, in deed, & in steed: both favoured fixed wheels over gears & both rode lightweight track bikes--not the conventional choice for such rough terrain & inclement weather.
--Credulous peasants! Edward sneered as they whizzed past a roadside shrine hung with votive offerings.
--Seeing is believing! Unic had said.  But was it?
         Silently, Edward had reversed the aphorism. If believing was seeing, he thought, they were both stone blind.

Now Edward pushed his chair back from the table, caught a burp in his hand & inhaled its aroma through his nose, savouring the olfactory ghost of the meal heíd just enjoyed. The waiter had not been exaggerating. The most edifying experience of Edward's life, the free lunch had freed him. He felt new-born, lighter-than-air, too happy to speak. He tried to catch his friend's eye, but, on his third helping, there was still a chop on Unic's plate & he was in private communion with it, staring at it so intently that Edward gave up. Instead, he reviewed what he had just consumed. Six, no, seven chops, bones & all, a hill of mashed potatoes irrigated with golden rivulets of butter, three helpings of braised broccoli, candied carrots, parsnips, roasted onions & cobs of sweetcorn, all washed down with draught after draught of a rich dark wine like fluent rubies. What was it that had swept over him as the first forkful of mashed potato dissolved on his tongue? He had no name for it. The meal seemed to connect him with some vast source of energy, like the sun. With each successive mouthful the healing glory of it had burned brighter so that now, having mopped up the last motes of that incomparable gravy, Edward knew he was cured, his body purged of all trace of malignancy & his mind of misanthropy ditto.

Through the window, he was not surprised to see the sun was shining. Unic's head was still bowed over his plate, though now the chop was gone. Behind him, the waiter spoke:--May I clear, sir?
         Edward's friend blinked & came to. He shook himself like a wet dog, leapt to attention, clicked his heels, embraced the waiter &, on tiptoes, kissed the startled rustic on both cheeks while gushing fulsomely about the lunch--surely the work of a host of seraphim rather than a lone principality. The waiter acknowledged the praise with a bow, a tactful "I told you so" implicit in his look. As the table was cleared, Unic babbled happily to Edward:
--There was a window in my chop through which I witnessed the settling of many old scores, the resurrection of my mother to life, & the restoration to my father of his faculties & his estate! I tell you, man, Iím certain everything I saw in my chop was literally real & true & that my reunited family will shortly be returning from exile in triumph...
         He paused, & his beatific countenance grew suddenly grave. There was a hum in his head. Not the tinnitus he was sometimes prey to, more like the drone from a hive might sound to a long lost but now homecoming bee. Edward heard it too.
--Mon semblable! the word burst from Edward's lips as he clasped his companion's hand.
--Mon frère! Unic said with matching fervour.

The waiter shuffled up to them with their capes. The boys apologized. They were without the means even to leave a tip. The waiter assured them that, for himself, as for the chef & the management, if the meal had given pleasure then that was recompense enough. Pleasure? Oh yes, the boys confirmed. Yet, if it was not asking too much, it would not be perfect until they could render some service in return. Theyíd noticed that there had been no dessert. The closure they now craved was to perform some useful chore. Anything.
         The waiter wavered. Well, he allowed, there was one task which he hadn't yet had time to see to & which would have to be dealt with before night fell. A simple enough matter. But, if the boys weren't pressed, some extra hands would be...handy.

They follow him through a door at the back of the establishment into a courtyard where the toilets are & beyond them to a squat cinderblock bunker with a low door & no windows. The waiter stands to one side & the boys stoop to enter. Inside it's pitch black & the air is hot & wet with the sweet fetor of rotting grass. The old man wheezes as he comes in behind them.
--Bear with me now, gentlemen, he says, it always takes a minute to find the switch...
         They hear the susurrus of his hand exploring the surface of the wall the frayed corduroy at his cuffs catching on barbs of cinder, & then theyíre sensible of another sound, coming out of the dark. It's the hum again, its source is here. Impossible to mistake for mere noise, there's an intention behind it, & as it develops & swells the hum becomes the summons the boys have been waiting for, as it has been waiting for them.
          There's the click of a switch & then they see.