Saturday Doors

Despite the fact that he constantly claims to have given up the weed, by which he means buying his own, the man-child and I open the back door of the Bay Tree to partake of a cigarette. It’s difficult to see to the other side of the porch: a wood panelled sardine tin crammed with the detritus of a dozen smokers sheltering from the rain that’s blowing in off the bay. With the exception of Hywell, who is eighty, they're all female. Hywell doesn’t smoke but he’s come out of the packed bar because he knows there’s a lot of women out here; plus a spot of impromptu cabaret. The reason for the existence of all these people is that although having a fag is a good enough excuse anyway, it’s also the perfect venue to watch the fight that’s currently taking place on the pavement outside. The brawl is between two or possibly three young women…it’s difficult to tell. It peter’s out and one of the combatants hitches up her leopard skin tights, smoothes her long hair, asks us how her face looks and calls for a pint of lager. It’s Saturday night in Swansea.

Jack has had the good sense to suggest we avoid Wine Street which will, he says, be nothing short of carnage tonight. Not a good place to take your mother and not a good place to be anyway if you haven’t perfected a Welsh accent. Away from the centre, however, Swansea pubs are great at the weekend. Last night, we were over towards Uplands where, two terraced rows up from my B & B, lies Cwmdonkin Drive; birthplace of one of the city’s favourite sons, Dylan Thomas. Mind you, the bard doesn't make an appearance on the list of local luminaries apparently personally known to our taxi driver. On a six minute journey he manages to point out where Catherine Zeta Jones held her last birthday party, tell us about her new house in Mumbles and recall the number plate of Bonnie Tyler’s vintage Bentley. That was supplemental to a few snippets on Anthony Hopkins. And of course, he says, there was Richard Burton, pointing vaguely in the direction of the glowing fires of Port Talbot.

Swansea folk drink at the weekend. Big time. Old time. Thought the working class was dead? This is a sociologist’s paradise. There is no age demarcation in this ‘ugly, lovely’ town; all ages are out for a good time and they’re loving it. The best part of forty years ago, I had a boyfriend from those distant hinterlands to which we in the stifled south refer as Up North or Another Country. Come Saturday night, following an afternoon at the rugby, he religiously donned his three piece suit in preparation for an evening’s drinking. So ok, these are not our friends in the north, and there are few suits in evidence but everyone’s dressed in their glad rags to the extent that Jack and I, even though we’re clean, tidy and modern, stand out like a couple of under-dressed English thumbs.

In particular, the women are outstanding. Most are bleached blondes sporting carrot-coloured skin: an emblem of hard spent Saturday afternoons in the tannery. Their skirts are tight and short. Their tops are, without exception, very low. The prevailing ethos seems to be ‘here come my boobs; the rest of me’ll be along later’. Tattoos are conspicuous by their absence and because of this and these ladies’ absolute intent on having a good time, there isn’t an ounce of cheapness. It’s just the Swansea style.

Back in the pub, it’s jumping. The band is in full flow bringing out anthems old and new for the pleasure of those now dancing on the tables. Another drunk falls out of the gent’s toilets, arms flailing windmill-like as he shouts, to no-one in particular, Your Sex is on Fire. He’s quickly followed by a bloke on crutches who, I’m pretty sure, wasn’t in possession of the said accoutrements when he went in. Getting to the ladies’ is a far more difficult task as the door is located directly behind the bass guitarist. I politely fight my way through the fortieth birthday party, circumnavigate the amplifier, step gingerly over the leads and arrive safely. Getting back is more troublesome as the speeches have begun. I decide to take the fire exit, brave my way round the front of the pub, side-step the band who are huddled together having a quick fag break in the force nine that’s now beating off the adjacent shoreline, and re-enter, much to Jack’s surprise, through the door that proclaims this as a venue for Thai Buffets. Well, a bit short on the old lemon grass I think as the much impressed man-child asks whether I’ve dropped the baton in the relay I seem to have undertaken.

I spot my ex-husband at the end of the bar and point him out to Jack. Bloody hell, says he, it’s R.Green as I live and die. The bloke in question, sporting the trademark gerbil under his nose, is certainly drunk enough to be identifiable as the man I once married. Of course, this is, geographically, well outside his usual radius. However, for a person whose permanent address is listed as Pokesdown Station and who was last known to be on the run in Torquay, all things are possible. Mind you, there’s a lot of doppelgangers currently haunting the Bay Tree. For a start, Jack and some bloke have been acknowledging each other with raised eyebrows in half recognition most of the night. Do you know him asks my son? I don’t live here I say to the man-child who recently spent three hours drinking to the accompaniment of the Pet Shop Boys in a bar peopled solely by Freddie Mercury look-alikes before realising that he might be in the wrong place and didn’t, in fact, know anyone.

A fifty-five year old Elvis Costello dressed in an age defining waist-coat is busily chatting up a twelve year old in what we used to call hot-pants and base-ball boots. We go back through the door for another fag. Jack is wearing his football manager’s coat and someone asks him if he works here. Are you the bouncer? Jack is pleasant and funny in his response but inadvertently gives away the fact that he’s English. Proportionately, or, depending on your perspective, disproportionately, Swansea has the highest use of heroin in the UK. All the buildings surrounding his student accommodation are half-way houses for prisoners. The man who asked the question doesn’t like Jack now. He is threatening and a lovely evening is at an end. There are a number of doors to this pub. I choose one which I think will allow us the exit least likely to be observed. In an unexpected turn of events necessitating an unspoken exchange of roles, I walk my son safely home before catching a cab onwards.