![]() ![]() She didn’t seem surprised that I’d read her books. I wasn’t sure whether “there” meant the bar or the hotel. I found out the next night that she sometimes slept there. There was a string of pearls involved, a bracelet, and quite good-looking shoes. There was an elderly woman inside the coat, disheveled but in quite an orderly way. The overcoat sat up and pondered the drink. “Don’t worry about the drinks,” she whispered. “I just put them on Van Morrison’s tab.” The girl poured it a large glass of gin with one chunk of ice and brought it over. ![]() Morrison? Could you sign your fucking tab?” ![]() What … do you mind my asking? What do you talk about? It was empty, aside from a pretty girl tending the bar and what looked like an overcoat someone had left in a booth. I looked around and decided to go down to the always-open bar in the basement. ![]() I went up to my room, but better sense prevailed, and I came back to the lobby a few minutes later. He radiated a deep and hard-won solitude, and it looked like he was in the mood to kick someone’s cat. I came back late, two or two thirty in the morning, and there was Van Morrison in the lobby, sitting on a low stool and staring at a coffee table. I was in London in November of 1978, staying at the Portobello Hotel, famous for having a twenty-four-hour bar in its basement. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |