had to do. When we arrived at the Bottle and Glass, a pub that was plain and boxy by London standards, with uncarpeted floors and wooden benches, Eric read about the beer challenge, and studied the names of those who had succeeded. To be immortalized on the Bottle’s walls all you had to do was drink one pint each of the pub’s ten draft beers, in the order in which they were lined up behind the bar, in the space of five hours. They monitored your toilet visits to make sure you didn’t throw up. Eric told me it didn’t sound particularly hard. I had thought the same thing, and brought it up to Stuart, the bartender, the previous week. He said the combination of beers, from porters to bitters to pilsners and ciders, was a rough ride and was much harder than it looked. He’d seen many a beefy guy give up, or throw up, before the end.
“I’m doing it,” Eric said, to both me and that day’s bartender, an older woman I hadn’t seen before.
“Seriously? Eric?” I said as the bartender said, “Right, luv,” and produced a sign-in sheet. “Print your name here where it says ‘start,’ along with the time, and I’ll initial it. When you’ve finished your tenth pint, all you’ve got to do is walk back up to this bar, sign your name at the end, then the rest is up to you. Most of them lose their last few pints in the toilet.”
I complained a little more, just for show, but I knew Eric wouldn’t change his mind. The first beer was a Fuller’s ESB, and I joined him. We took our pints to a corner table. “I’m on vacation,” he said, then took a long swallow.
“I don’t want you to be sick the whole time you’re here.”
“I won’t be. Ten pints in five hours. Not a problem.”
I stayed for about three and a half hours. It was clear that Eric was determined to finish the challenge, but he was on his seventh pint, a porter, and drinking it fairly slowly. “I’m more full than anything,” he said, but his words, from jet lag and from beer, were thick-sounding in his mouth.
“Let’s call it quits,” I said. “I’m sick of sitting in this pub.”
“I’m not going to come this far, and then quit.” He looked around. Some of the locals who had showed up around quitting time had taken notice of Eric’s attempt to make it onto the wall. I knew that Eric would keep going no matter what.
“Then I’m leaving. I’m starving, and I don’t want to keep eating crisps. I’ll get take-out Indian food and have it at the flat.”
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
“Don’t be sorry. Have fun. Try not to puke at the bar, and I’ll see you in a couple of hours. You know how to get back?”
“Just down the street, right?”
I left. It was dusk, the bloated sky a dark purple, and there was a fine mist in the air. I walked straight to the corner Indian restaurant that I’d been to many times. I ordered a rogan josh and a chicken korma, plus a Coke to drink while I waited for the food. “No nuts in the rogan josh?” I asked as the owner rung up my order. I knew the answer but I wanted to be on record as asking.
“No nuts in the rogan josh but, yes, cashews in the chicken korma.”
“Right, I know. Thanks.”
I took the bags of food back to the flat. I left them on the small wooden table in the kitchen and went into the bedroom to look through Eric’s suitcase. He’d brought several changes of clothes, One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, and a running outfit. His two EpiPens were in a plastic sandwich bag in an interior zippered pocket. He should have had one of them with him—I’d told him that a hundred times—but I knew that he wouldn’t. His nut allergy was fatal, but it was vanity that kept him from taking the pens around with him. “What am I supposed to do, Kintner, wear them in a fanny pack?” He convinced himself that he would never eat anything in public that would remotely have the chance of having nuts in it. I took the EpiPens and shoved them under the mattress, then went back to the kitchen. I was hungry and ate some of the Indian food directly from the containers before dumping the chicken korma into a wide