If life imitates art, then I’m in an Edward Hopper painting.
When I’m not at my desk, most of my time is spent pacing my living room, bare feet padding the laminate as I search for some sense of normalcy. Sometimes, I go out into the garden, where I walk around in the grass, deftly sidestepping the spread of violets across the narrow lawn. But mostly, I stay inside. I am the woman in “Cape Cod Morning,” in “A Woman in the Sun”; the lone man sat at the bar in “Nighthawks,” steadily drinking my way through whatever this situation actually fucking is.
My fridge is loaded up with enough beer and cider, and the odd bottle of wine, to last for a few months of this isolation. I could drink all of it, but it still wouldn’t satisfy my craving for a simple pint.
A good pint in a good pub invariably has a buoyant quality to it: that first sip, that pull of joy, cannot be recreated at home with a bottle or can and a dishwasher-etched glass. I want the trappings of the pub with it: snacks suspended vertically from a cardboard bandolier, crotchety curmudgeons, some sport I don’t care about on in the background, the occasional ’80s banger leaping from the speakers, and the physical presence of friends. I miss wood paneling and cushioned stools, and boy, do I miss my friends.
I pour myself a half of strong, still cider from a cumbersome bag-in-box into a glass from a now-unfathomably-distant brewery, and watch the bubbles rise and dance in the early-afternoon light. Then I settle into my only armchair—imagining it were leather and worn and anywhere but my own home—and dream of pubs and distant trips, and try not to think about everything I had planned for these now-empty months.
Where will I go first, when this is all done? I thumb through the options in my mind, from my local boozer to the pubs with a certain romance about them, like The Southampton Arms in Gospel Oak or The Harp in Covent Garden. Of course I’ll still rush to see my friends, and journey home to see my parents, when this half-hearted, shambolically botched lockdown eases—but the first door I’ll darken will be a pub’s.
Allowing my mind to wander conjures George Orwell’s “The Moon Under Water,” an essay from 1946 in which he describes his ideal pub. By thinking up so many inns and taverns and other watering holes when deciding on a location for my first, post-lockdown beer, I find myself borrowing the best features from each, and tucking them away into some imagined free house of my own making. Fuck your Mind Palace: I have a Mind Pub.
The rough outline of the Mind Pub is as follows: I’d take the entrance to The Salutation Inn, in Gloucestershire, replete with village flyers and other countryside paraphernalia, and attach it to the sloping mosaic floor of The Marble Arch Inn in Manchester. (Pints of cellar-cool Manchester Bitter and more-than-filling pub fare will obviously come with it.) All of that would sit beneath the majestic ceiling, ornately Victorian and draped in protective netting, of the Crown and Kettle, which, IRL, is just around the corner from The Arch. I’d nab the pies and pork-and-crackling-stuffed rolls from The Southampton Arms, and pop them on The Harp’s delightfully clustered bar—which would feature the beer selection of both pubs combined—before absentmindedly munching on a pork pie for good measure.
Of course I’d hire Alan (Al to his friends), the landlord from The Somerset Arms in my hometown. In normal life, I see him once a year, when my friends and I all pile into his pub on Christmas Eve; I’ve known him as long as I’ve been drinking. Black Sabbath would play from the rigged jukebox of the now-closed punk dive I worked in at 18, and I’d resurrect the dartboard from the shithole pub I drank in as a student, though perhaps without the £1.50 double shots of vodka to go with. Sometimes the pub would be full of the quiet murmur of a sleepy Sunday afternoon, perfect for reading books while sipping a half; sometimes it would be raucous and three-deep at the bar, with friends and regulars and oh-so-many packets of Scampi Fries.
Though I’m no stranger to pubs—some of my fondest early memories are of sipping lemonade in all manner of rural pubs—just the idea of them, the Platonic ideal of “the third place,” lately has me feeling a misty-eyed romanticism. Put simply: there is nothing in the world quite like the pub. My wonky riff on Orwell aside, the reality is that, once I can, I’d quite like to get out of my flat and meet up with friends for a pint or nine.
There will be an end to all of this, of course. I have to believe that there will. Soon I’ll load my bones into uncomfortable seats on the bus or train, and restrain myself from breaking into a sprint as soon as the pub I’ve chosen to be the pub comes into view. I dream of the moment I first set foot over the threshold, when the mingled whiff of stale beer and human contact washes over me.
Until then, I’ll keep filling one of several glasses I swiped from some unsuspecting establishment as a student, longing for the frothy head that only a draft pour can provide. I’ve asked my partner to kick me out of the living room at midnight—with 15 minutes for drinking up—but it doesn’t have the same effect: the stumble to my bed only lasts a few seconds, and there are no cheesy chips on the way.
I realize, of course, that missing the pub is far down the list of problems and worries in the face of soaring death tolls, grief, and suffering. This longing for familiarity and socializing with loved ones is coupled with a gnawing anxiety that many of my favorite pubs may not reopen their doors. As with all of this, so much remains unknown. There’s little to be done to alter the course of this pandemic other than remain at home, so that’s what I’ll do—placeholder pint in hand—and hope for the best.
