Across the road, another hole in the wall for thirsty travellers. A whitewashed facade, yellow flowers in hanging baskets and dense frosted glass windows making it impossible for the passer-by to peer into the gloom within. A couple of white chairs on the pavement for good measure, comfort for devotees of nicotine and tar. Above the gilt lettered crimson sign that spans the width of the building’s exterior sits the heraldic arms of the worshipful company of coopers, established 1422. The clown remembers the year, the old king victorious at Meaux, holding aloft the bastard’s head. Henry’s premature death at Vincennes just months later and his ague and pox riddled body embalmed and brought in solemn procession to Westminster where his infant son was sworn in as king. At the time, this was still forest and road; no Kilburn to speak of, just the priory and a few cottages. Shield: on a chevron sable between three annulets or, a royne between two broad axes azure, thereon three lilies argent. Crest: a demi heathcock, winged, or, helm and mantling double argent. Motto: Love as Brethren. The pub a twentieth century whimsy opening in the last year of the old century under the name Prince of Wales in honour of the future king. No barrel makers drank here, but in former times, the clown watched men shape casks over steam in the sheds behind the Red Lion. Workers fitting hoops with an adze and smoothing them with a topping plane, a chiv perfecting the curved ends of the staves ready for a croze to cut grooves for the caskhead. He saw men apply hoops and smooth the insides with a roundshave, hammering rivets on an anvil. An intricate business, the coopers working mechanically; dowelling stocks boring holes in the heads, a swift shaving the sides of the caskhead and a bow saw cutting it to size. He watched the man with a heading knife shape the edges to fit the groove, a hammer and driver fixing hoops into their final positions. A forgotten craft; barrels now cast from aluminium in a purpose built 1600m2 facility in the shadow of the Europoort that shits them out like pellets, eight thousand a day.
Michael Whelan and Nolan Finnegan smoke on the pavement outside the pub. Whelan wearing the fine head of hair that is the badge of the alcoholic male and a suit jacket to prove he’s decent; large pink ears flat against his breeze block head. Finnegan in woolly hat and glasses, long black puffer keeping the breeze out. Whelan looking into the middle distance drawing hot smoke through a Marlboro Light, Finnegan clutching a half-finished pint of Strongbow and swaying slightly. Both at mass at the Sacred Heart earlier as they missed it yesterday. Barely a handful of the faithful scattered in the temple on Quex Road. Whelan in a sombre mood that he can’t quite explain. Finnegan waiting patiently beside him, occasionally sipping from his glass.
“A terrible business. Brutal. The things they did to yerman.”
Whelan who’s taken a few beatings reflecting on cords embedded with flint and bone, tearing into human flesh.
“Cunts didn’t hold back in them days. No boy. Rip a fella’s back off.”
Whelan taking a last toke on his firestick.
“Jaysus. That would have been a long walk now. I’ve carried a fella on the shoulders more than once, deadweight he is, and the cunt would have weighed more than that.”
Finnegan nodding. Whelan always right; that’s why he followed him all the way from Drumree to build Brent Cross and stayed. Whelan throws his butt onto the pavement and the two men return to their stools in the otherwise empty bar and drink to the poor fucker, Christ, solemnly, and in silence.