How does that song go? the man said.

The old barman was drying a crystal glass with a tea towel. He lifted his chin, Which one?

The man on the stool tapped his head with his knuckles. His eyes were closed to help remember but he couldn’t find the words. He shook his head and set the empty glass down. The ice hadn’t had time to melt.

The barman nodded at the glass, Another?

The man shook his head. Need to catch my flight.

Take ye medicine, a little man called from across the mottled zinc. A barfly. He was chuckling away to himself in silence.

The man swivelled round on his stool and bent to collect his rucksack and slung it over his shoulder. When he rose he stood there squinting at the flight departures across three monitors. In his vision cities and times jumbled and merged. He stood there swaying as though disturbed by some gentle wind. Throughout the bar Latin dance music played through the speakers. Raised voices and laughter from a group of men gathered round a table. When the words settled he found his flight and read to the end of the row where DELAYED flashed in red.

The man returned to his stool and dropped his bag on the floor and raised a finger and the barman nodded. The barfly cheered and began to shake and wheeze with laughter. The man watched the barman select a clean glass and he filled it with ice and he went to fetch a fresh bottle of rum. The man caught his reflection in the mirrored glass behind bottles that shone amber and gold under light from The Departure Lounge sign. He thought about how much older he looked, his tired skin and the wrinkles on his forehead like lines of ribbed sand.

Laughter from the table of men. The man turned to look. One was making all the jokes and the rest of them laughed. Their white hair and red faces. I hope I don’t end up like that, the man thought. At a table in the far corner sat a man dressed like a preacher all in black. He was tall and thin and very old with whisps of cotton white hair. He couldn’t tell if the old man was staring at him, those black eyes. Probably asleep, he thought. Perhaps he’s dead. A lilac skull wrapped in paper skin. On the table his hat and a glass and a bottle of liquor. He smiled from across the room with teeth long and yellowed.

The barman returned and opened a fresh bottle of El Presidente. He poured a generous measure of golden rum in the glass and the ice cracked and complained. Then he placed a napkin on the bar beside the man and set the glass down.

The man took a long drink. The ice slid to his lips and the rum stung his throat. He thought about the phone conversation he’d had with his wife when he’d arrived at the airport. Don’t bother going to the bar, she had said. You don’t want to be going to the toilet on the plane every minute. I know what you’re like. And don’t come home reeking of booze.

The man looked at his watch. Gone nine o’clock at night.

He took his phone from a pocket and texted his wife to say his flight was delayed at least two hours. In this dull and windowless part of the airport it was easy to forget time and place. You left one city behind and came out somewhere different. The Departure Lounge had appeared a sanctuary of warmth and colour after check-in and security and the long grey corridors and interminable escalators.

Another please, the man said.

The music increased in tempo.

You got kids?

The barman shook his head.

People come and go, the man said. And it’s terrible when they die, don’t get me wrong. But time passes and you get over it. Kids are different. All I’m saying. It’s a big responsibility. You know?

Bar shuts at eleven, the barfly said. He had shuffled across to the stool next to him and was so tight with drink he lent the man a relative sense of sobriety. Bar downstair opens late, the barfly said.

There’s another bar?

How does that song go?

Eleven o’clock had been and gone and he sat in the downstairs bar drinking rum. Here the lights were low and all the tables and chairs were filled with drinkers and a live jazz band played on a stage. Again the barfly sat across the bar now with his head in his elbows and the group of men with red faces were seated also but quiet with tiredness watching the singer. A dark-skinned woman with short hair sung into a microphone. A voice that soothed.

Cigarette smoke hung in the air in heavy blue webs. On a black and yellow flap display his flight was further delayed and there was an announcement between the music to confirm and apologise.

The man took his phone from a pocket but got no signal. He asked the barman for a phone. He looked just like the barman from upstairs, a little younger. He handed him tokens for a pay phone in the corner. The man dialled his house number. As the tone rang in his ear he spotted the Preacher. Again he sat at a table alone with his hat and his glass and a bottle of El Presidente. The Preacher stared after him. Closer now. That yellow smile. The man turned from his gaze and a voice answered in his ear and said, You got the wrong number. The same woman answered his second and third attempt. He hung up and wondered how much he’d had to drink.

He looked at his watch, gone midnight. He stifled a yawn and drank a coffee and a Guinness and another rum. His eyes were heavy, an effort to open after each blink. Glass columns of liquor. The jazz singer. Golden light from a saxophone. The Departure Lounge in blue neon. His reflection in the beer taps warped and bent sinister.

You afraid to die? the man said, to stay awake, but the barman was wiping the counter with a wet cloth and paid him no heed.

The singer sang, she sung:

I’m not afraid of dying, any time will do—

—way I see it, the barfly said. It’s black as midnight before ye born and jist the same when ye dead. He was stood next to the man and he stretched to put an arm round his shoulders and said:

Bar shuts at one. Downstair open twenty-four seven.

How does that song, the man said, through sleep. He hiccupped.

On the stage a constant fiddle. Bodies were bumping into him, dancing in the light of the fire. The place reeked of sweat and stale liquor. Screams and laughter under a cloud of pipesmoke. Lanterns lit wine coloured wallpaper and candlelight sloshed on the faces of the men with white hair.

The barman, young and handsome, bore a resemblance to the other two. He was spilling whisky into seven glasses lined up on the old oak.

What’s his problem? the man thought, when again he saw the Preacher staring from between the bodies of an amorous couple. The Preacher removed a bronze pocket watch from his suit and thumbed it open.

The man looked at his own watch but the hands were spinning. Time all nonsense now.

My flight, he said.

The barfly cupped his hands round his mouth and cried:

Black before and black after. In between only light. Life is the light!

The great fire spat embers onto the hearth. The fiddler played on.

The man used the bar to support himself and tried to stand. As he rose he slid off the stool and his legs fell from under him. He lay there heaped on the wet floorboards.

A cheer went up.

My flight, the man mumbled. Saliva threaded from his lips.

On a tilted wall mirror the green logo of El Presidente rum and into reflection came the Preacher who swept the man up into his arms with strength that belied his infinite years.

My flight, the man screamed.

O that’s long gone, the Preacher said. And he cut his way through blue smoke and bedlam with the man in his arms and out beyond the saloon doors.

The barfly was calling after him:

The night train is coming.

Then the barfly joined the throng in dance and the fiddler played on into the dark of night.

February 2021