There is one point that saddens me about our club and that is the factions. Now there have always been factions about, and the dimmest of us can see that birds of a feather flock and all that. I speak of more hardy lots that have a certain rigidity, with a tinge of turpitude, which I have always found unsettling vis-à-vis club life — the sort of chaps who, when hearing of world hunger, would be inclined to say, “Hard cheese, old boy.” Take, for instance, the well-dressed lawyer faction, softly laughing in their slippery way about the latest unpleasant but expensive divorce case that has relegated a hapless former husband to an inexpensive boarding house on a dirt road up-Island somewhere. Or the highly rewarding defence of a well-known criminal who cried that the police looked at him harshly, thus spoiling his nap time, and so earned his freedom. All meaty stuff to be shared in their corner over drinks.
Then there’s the ecclesiastical bunch now drinking much less blinding wine than is found in Island parishes. This group worries quietly that soon its members will outnumber the congregations in most churches, and those that are left keep asking the most awkward questions about Deuteronomy, Leviticus and such. There are the usual noisy pols and deputy ministers still celebrating their recent large and controversial raises, wondering if they dare double the carbon tax after the last brouhaha. They seem happy and content.
The one faction I am worried about is the suddenly gently weeping stockbrokers. They have formed a sort of horseshoe seating arrangement with their backs toward the rest of the mems, presumably so we cannot see their faces. It is unnatural for these chaps not to be racing about our midst, slapping unsuspecting backs, sending olives and nectar flying, as they shout about derivatives and paper-backed this and that. There is one we call “Sure-Bet Harry,” who, it is estimated, has sunk at least 10 assistant deputy min-isters’ pensions into a mine in the Arctic somewhere; it turns out there is no access to it as the ice bridge has melted. Ergo, no minerals can be got at. These now- beggared public servants will rent you shoes at the Island Bowling Alley and Bar. The stockbrokers just are not the same these days, and it is pathetic to see them, without their large cars, reduced to unicycles and roller skates. Consequently, the bar is not doing the business it once did.
One last faction deserves mention: the very moist bicycle group. This is made up primarily of retired businessmen and pols, who, after some 35 years of never missing the blue-plate special lunch, have been informed by the medical community to either get their affairs in order or start exercising like mad. The eye-popping result for tourists and residents alike is flying wings of very pink, beaming light heavyweights pedalling madly about the nervous city. One has not seen anything in life until one is faced with a 320-pound ex-president of a bank with no express interest in avoiding a collision, his blue, veiny legs akimbo on a curve. Several of our justly famous street people have gone up lampposts like alarmed bears when faced by this sight. One poor chap had the bad luck to be bending to the pavement for a discarded cigarette and was sent hurtling through the front window of a tattoo parlour, ending up with a partial butterfly drawing on his ear. We at the club, their destination, have the grim task of listening to this dripping horde discuss the joys of their newfound sport ad infinitum. However, we have a sneaking suspicion that their haste to get here was predicated on a late lunch and a large one.
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