The Umbrella Man, Part 3

"You're not going in are you, mummy?"

"No," she said. "We'll watch from outside." There was a big plate-glass window along the front of the pub, and although it was a bit steamy on the inside, we could see through it very well if we went close. We stood huddled together outside the pub window. I was clutching my mother's arm. The big raindrops were making a loud noise on our umbrella.

"There he is," I said. "Over there." The room we were looking into was full of people and cigarette smoke, and our little man was in the middle of it all. He was now without his hat and coat, and he was edging his way through the crowd towards the bar. When he reached it, he placed both hands on the bar itself and spoke to the barman. I saw his lips moving as he gave his order. The barman turned away from him for a few seconds and came back with a smallish tumbler filled to the brim with light brown liquid. The little man placed a pound note on the counter.

"That's my pound!" my mother hissed. "By golly, he's got a nerve!"

"What's in the glass?" I asked.

"Whisky," my mother said. "Neat whisky." The barman didn't give him any change from the pound.

"That must be a treble whisky," my mummy said.

"What's a treble?" I asked.

"Three times the normal measure," she answered. The little man picked up the glass and put it to his lips. He tilted it gently. Then he tilted it higher... and higher... and higher... and very soon all the whisky had disappeared down his throat in one long pour. "That's a jolly expensive drink," I said. "It's ridiculous!" my mummy said. "Fancy paying a pound for something to swallow in one go!"

"It cost him more than a pound," I said. "It cost him a twenty-pound silk umbrella."

"So it did," my mother said. "He must be mad."

                                                       Continue…

My mother said that it was time to go, but in that moment, through the window I saw the old man starting to cry silently, and I said, “Mom, he’s crying! Poor man,” and my mom replied, “He’s old, and he probably has many to regret about.” I couldn’t believe my mother being so cold, I mean, she has his silken umbrella and it only costed a pound! And he could do whatever he wanted with it…

I was looking through the window when my mother repeated, “Let’s go, it is getting dark and colder.”

The last time I saw were two men in black carrying him towards a door in there.

Two days after that, looking the news at TV, my mother and I became paralyzed when the news anchor talked about the disappearance of an old man… It was, the umbrella man.