Is Australia Becoming a Pub With No Affordable Beer?

Oh, sure, the beer is still there. The taps are still running. The glasses are still being filled.

It is affordable beer that is becoming the problem.

It is the customers who are beginning to disappear. Some have stopped buying the second beer. Some have stopped ordering dinner.

Some are sleeping in the carpark.

And some are simply staying home.

Perhaps that is the modern Australian version of A Pub With No Beer.

A pub with beer -  but increasingly without the people who used to drink it.

Where the Mood Is Heard

The Boundary Rider had always preferred the edge of things.

At dusk, the tabby cat rode into Honktown.

The horse stopped outside the Lucky Nugget Pub. 

The Boundary Rider dismounted, tied the reins and disappeared through the pub door.

Nobody looked up.

He took a chair against the wall. From there, the whole room was visible. The Lucky Nugget was busy.

Football flickered above the bar. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed. Someone swore at the television.

For a few minutes, it looked like an ordinary Australian pub.

Then the beer arrived.

A bloke at the bar looked at the glass. Then at the price written above the taps.

He took a sip.The second beer remained unordered. At a table near the window, a couple studied the menu. Chicken parmigiana and chips. Forty-three dollars. Each. 

The woman looked at the man.The man looked at the menu.

The menu went back on the table. 

Outside, two strangers cars sat beneath the lights. Their windows were fogged. A blanket covered the back seat of one. In the other, someone was already asleep.

Nobody in the pub seemed surprised. The football continued. The glasses continued to clink. The conversation moved on.

There was a time when a pub carpark had been a place for cars that weren't used as homes. Sometimes it had been a place for a fight.

A proper Australian pub brawl could once erupt over football, politics, a woman, a parking space or nothing at all. Ten minutes later everyone would be back inside.

These days there were other considerations. There might be children sleeping in the cars.

The Boundary Rider remained in his chair. At the bar, three men were talking about work. Then housing. Then rent. One mentioned a mate sleeping in his car.

Another shook his head. “Working full time.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. The television shouted. 

The conversation changed.

At the other end of the bar, a cigarette packet appeared. The packet was turned over. The price was read. The packet disappeared again.Someone leaned across the bar and quietly asked where the cheap ones could still be found. The answer came even more quietly. A glance went towards the door. Then back again. The pub had become quieter. Not silent.

Just careful.

A joke began. Stopped. A different word was chosen. Someone laughed. Someone else looked over. The laughter faded.

Outside, a policeman stood beside the carpark. Black and white. Sharp-eyed. Head slightly cocked. He looked remarkably like a magpie.

Beside him, on the pub fence, an actual magpie watched the carpark.

Spring was coming.

Inside, the barmaid moved from table to table. She had once been able to call a regular bloke “love” without anyone needing to hold a meeting about it. Now there were words to remember. Pronouns. Boundaries. Policies. Things that had to be got right.

The old pub banter was still there. But it had acquired an invisible fence. Boundaries.  Nobody could quite see where it was. Everybody knew it was there.

The Boundary Rider sat against the wall.

A cat. A horse outside. A pub full of people. He had no drink in his paw. No opinion on his face. He simply watched.

Weimar had its cabarets. The cabaret was a strange place. Music. Satire. Sex.  Politics. Laughter.

A society watching itself in a mirror and sometimes laughing at what it saw.

The mood could change before the politicians understood it had changed.

Australia had pubs. Different country. Different history. Different circumstances.

But the pub was also a place where ordinary people talked. Not politicians. Not commentators. Not academics. Ordinary people.

The people who got up in the morning. Went to work. Paid the bills. Bought the groceries. Bought the beer.

Or decided not to.

And lately, the arithmetic had become difficult. Beer. Food. Rent. Power. Fuel. Cigarettes.

The list kept growing. The wages did not seem to grow quite as quickly.

The room was still full. Yet nobody seemed particularly cheerful.

That was the strange part.

There was no riot. No shouting. No revolution. Just a growing collection of small calculations.

A bloke looking at a menu. A woman putting it down. A second beer not ordered.

A family sleeping in a car. A joke abandoned halfway through.

Small things. Almost nothing. Until they weren't.

The Boundary Rider looked through the window.

The beer was still flowing.

The lights were still on.

The pub was still there.

But outside, people were sleeping in cars.

Perhaps a pub didn't need to run out of beer to become a pub with no beer.

Perhaps all it needed was for ordinary people to stop being able to afford to sit inside it.

The Boundary Rider rose.

Outside, the policeman still stood beneath the light. The magpie was still there. 

The cars remained in the carpark.

Inside the pub, somebody laughed again.

The Boundary Rider mounted his horse. For a moment he looked back through the window.

The Lucky Nugget glowed against the dark.

A pub.

Nothing more. And yet somewhere in that room, something had been heard. Not anger.

Not yet.

Something quieter. The sound of people beginning to wonder.

Weimar had its cabarets. Australia had its pubs. The rooms were different. The countries were different. The histories were different.

But perhaps the first sound of change was always the same.

A room full of ordinary people becoming tired of being told that everything was fine.

The Boundary Rider turned his horse towards the road.

He did not look back.

He had seen enough.

He rode on and headed back to Dusty Gulch.