In Bed With Lord Byron

me.’
    ‘But the machine . . .’ He kept looking about with frightened moon eyes. ‘It’s gone, it’s gone!’
    ‘We can get it back,’ I reassured him. ‘Now let’s stand up before we get into trouble.’
    We stood up. It must be said that we were dressed much too smartly for this place. They were all wearing everyday clothes, the men in suits, the women in coats and cloche hats. The clock on the
wall said 5.30 p.m.
    We tried to ignore the suspicious glances we were getting and took a seat in one of the booths. Was it my paranoia or had everyone gone quiet around us? All except for an old man sitting in the
next booth. He was tall, with a bald head, wrinkled as a walnut, and a face like a pixie. He was sitting alone but talking out loud, telling an anecdote in part to the passing waitress and in part
to anyone else who might be listening, his Irish accent flowing out in a colourful rasp . . .
    ‘And I said to him, I said, if you’re going to play the piano, you’ve got to get it right . . .’
    I couldn’t help noticing that the waitresses gave us a wide berth. Finally we were approached by a large woman. I had thought the flapper fashion was a rebellion for young women below the
age of thirty, but despite the fact that she looked as though she was heading for sixty, she was wearing a gorgeous black beaded dress frothing with ecru lace, her face caked with make-up.
    ‘Hello,’ she said. Was it my imagination or was her tone just a tad unfriendly? ‘What can I get you?’
    ‘I’d like a Guinness,’ said Anthony authoritatively. ‘And Lucy would like a Baileys.’
    The woman froze, tapping her pencil hard against her pad.
    ‘I’m afraid we don’t serve drinks here. Ever heard of a little something called Prohibition?’
    Anthony and I exchanged uneasy glances. Of course we had heard of Prohibition. It was the banning of alcohol in the US in the 1920s, pushed into place by fervent Christian groups.
Unsurprisingly, turning alcohol into a forbidden fruit only made more people hungry for a bite, and alcohol had never been so popular.
    ‘Oh, come on, haven’t
you
ever heard of a speakeasy? That’s a place where you serve us alcohol while we all wink and pretend to be drinking coffee,’ said Anthony,
colouring.
    I groaned silently, but Anthony’s jaw strengthened and he said firmly, ‘OK, we won’t bother drinking if you won’t serve us what we want. We’ll sit here and
talk.’
    ‘You can have coffee, if you like. That’s what everyone else is drinking. Take it or leave it, but if you’re not drinking, you can leave,’ she said smartly.
    ‘I . . .’ said Anthony.
    ‘We’ll have two coffees,’ I said hastily.
    She gave us suspicious looks and waddled off. I leant towards Anthony and hissed, ‘I think she’s suspicious of us.’
    ‘What d’you mean?’
    ‘Well – I think this
is
a speakeasy, but we’ve freaked her out. I think everyone thinks we’re Prohibition agents or something. Look at the way people are
leaving.’
    Anthony looked around and saw that I was right: everyone was downing their drinks hastily and saying their goodbyes. Then I saw that our hostess hadn’t gone to get us drinks at all. She
was now talking to a rather burly-looking bouncer and pointing at us.
    ‘. . . because the piano, I mean, the piano’s like a girl, you only have to look at the curves on the thing . . .’ the old Irishman wittered on, his voice slurring.
    The bouncer came strolling up to us and said pleasantly, ‘Excuse me – I don’t remember seeing you earlier. Can you remind me of the password again?’
    ‘Erm . . . is it . . . ?’ Anthony paused, wincing, feigning amnesia. ‘Er . . .’
    Suddenly there was a gunshot.
    It seemed to come out of nowhere. It hit one of the mirrors on the wall, which shattered and tinkled on to the floor. People screamed and either fled for the door or cowered under seats. The
jazz music came to a halt.
    Only the Irishman seemed oblivious. He wandered over towards the gents, fiddling with his zip, staggering as though drunk.
    Tap, tap, tap,
footsteps clicked down a series of steps. A man appeared. He was wearing a velour hat and his face was sharp with anger. His gun was slack by his side. He grabbed one of
the coffee cups from the table and then took a swig.
    ‘Lovely stuff,’ he said. ‘Yep, I can see this place serves the finest coffee in town. Can I ask if the proprietor could please step forward? Because I’m afraid
you’re