By Charlotte Bell
The bathroom is locked. A printed-out sign, taped messily on the door, says LADIES TOILET, PLEASE ASK FOR THE KEY AT THE BAR. It’s decorated with an off-brand emoji sporting enormous lashes and lips. Alice and I stare at it, dumbfounded.
“Should we go back to the bar…?”
“No,” Alice says, pausing before dragging me into the men’s. We cram into its single cubicle, triple-checking the door is properly locked behind us. The cramped quarters leave foreheads at the risk of being bashed by beer cans, but at least there’s not the usual blue lighting common in our native UK. Other than the lack of toilet paper, it’s suspiciously normal.
“We have to leave,” Alice says firmly.
“What? No, please! One more drink.”
“You said that after the last one. Char, this is so weird. He’s so weird.”
He is the middle-aged Irishman we have agreed to meet up with tonight. Not a decision we’d eagerly explain to our mothers, but in our defence, we were bored. After 3 nights shunting about Malta’s tourist trap bars, overpriced beach clubs, and top-rated restaurants, we were itching to try and find something a bit below the surface to make our just-finished-the-degree trip feel cultural. A mutual friend recommended his mutual friend (he’s class the message introduced he’s a complete alcoholic, you guys will get on well) and so we found ourselves stumbling through dark residential streets to a set meeting point.
VATO BAR AND CONFECTIONERY is a literal hole in the wall with a clear desire not to be detected. There is no loud music or signs advertising drinks deals, no neon lights or outdoor seating. The entrance is an old train sliding door that I struggle to open at first. A group of three men smoking notice this and laugh.
“You guys know Sean?” One of them calls to us in an Irish accent. This must be our man. We walk over, and introduce ourselves. He — Rian — does the same by enveloping us in big bear hugs. He then promptly turns back to the group he was talking to like nothing happened. Alice and I look at each other in confusion before quickly excusing ourselves to get a drink.
Inside, we realise we’re overdressed and overly young and therefore stick out immediately as we trot in with our heeled boots and heavy makeup. The handful of drinkers sat around the bar are in simple jeans and t-shirts, none of them looking a day under 35. The back wall is covered in the flags of the United Kingdom, fairy lights, the hanging remains of soft toys won in claw machines. Enormous wooden shelves cover the entire length of the bar, stocked with bottles ofwine, spirits, and snacks. I squint. The bottom shelf is packed with Echo Falls ‘wine’. The top shelf has Grey Goose vodka and Glenfiddich whiskey. All of them have little cut-out labels slapped on them, carefully inked price tags.
A hand clasps our shoulders.
“They don’t do draught here, girls, you need to go in the fridge,”
Rian says, pointing behind us. Sure enough, an innocent enough drinks fridge is stocked to the brim with regular multipack cans of beer from all over the globe. Bavaria, Belgium, there’s Budweiser and BrewDog and about a hundred other things I have never seen before. The same cut-out labels are stuck on the front of each row, all cheap cheap cheap.
Alice turns to Rian to ask him about this, but he’s already gone again, halfway across the bar, talking to a couple in their 40s. This happens a lot — everyone in the bar seems to be going through a constant high school reunion. We awkwardly buy our cans. The bartender sizes us up.
“Do you girls want a glass? Ice?” It’s hard to pretend this is somewhere fancy when just behind his head is more Snus than you would see at a year 11 disco, bright pricing stickers accompanying them. He empties my German beer can into a Tenants glass.
“Might as well, eh?” Alice sighs, before we awkwardly edge back to Rian, who is outside again.
The original group of three men are smoking again, and we quickly light up and join them. A clipper lighter has been tied to a piece of string and clumsily hammered into the wall. It’s definitely a bar that knows its clients.
Rian introduces his friends, whose names I immediately forget.
“I met them on film sets, you know?” he says, flicking the cig and starting to roll another . Sean had told us this, in his brief character assessment. Rian worked an assortment of crew roles on film sets, and had moved to Malta with a girlfriend who then immediately broke up with him. In his heartbreak, he realised the booze was cheaper and the sun was hotter, so decided to stay. It’s good we were told this beforehand because it’s impossible to get a conversation that lasts more than three sentences and is coherent from him.
“Film, ey?” I ask. The pre-drinking at our hotel has given me the confidence to try lead a conversation for once.
“Not me!” One of his friends yells. I think his name started with A.
“I’m just enough of a retard to be able to hang out with him,” he says before immediately pulling his arms up in an offensive parody of someone with cerebral palsy. The group bursts out into laughter while Alice and I stare in shock.
“Enough of that now,“ Rian says, and then says a sentence that is completely incomprehensible.
He mugs to Alice, waiting for laughter. I look at my glass, which is suddenly nearly empty. Time is starting to move strangely. A, who looks to be in his 40s, hits an honest to god T-Pose.“We had a bit of an adventure trying to find this place…” I try again at conversation.”
Sorry, I forgot to say the bit when I asked?” Rian says, bursting out in laughter. He mugs again at Alice. He seems to do this whenever he thinks he’s made a good punchline.
“I care,” A says. “What brings you to Malta?”
“Oh, you know,” Alice says, launching into our memorised story of young adults treating themselves after a perilous summer of full-time work. One of the other men, whose arm is in a cast and has been silent so far, pipes up:
“But what brings you here?”
We pause. We don’t have a good answer. Why are two girls spending their limited time on holiday tiptoeing around an off-the-road dive bar? It feels like the setup to a stranger danger PSA.
Rian says something that might have been a joke, but he’s too busy laughing before the punchline reaches my ears. He wipes away a fake tear and goes to get another drink. Alice and
I tail him like a pair of dogs with separation anxiety.
By the time we reach the bar with round two, he’s already danced off to talk /to another pair of drinkers. It’s hard to get a pin on him — I get the sense they’re all here every night.
Alice is giving me wide eyes. I ignore her to instead try again at drunken social competency, striking up a conversation with the bartender.
“How long’s this bar been open?”
“1961.”
“Really?” I laugh, thinking he’s joking. How can a bar that sells cans and cigarettes keep the lights on for that long?
“Really. And he’s been working here every day since,” a random man jabs at the bartender from his solo drinking spot. The bartender tells him to fuck off with a happy smile. They clearly know each other. The solo drinker turns to us:
“You are like the first girls to come here in decades.” I look over his shoulder to where Rian is talking to an older woman who is half slumped over the bar and clearly no longer counts in their eyes. A has joined him, and when we make eye contact, he dabs.
“Char,“ Alice whispers.
“We need to go to the bathroom. Now.“
You should never underestimate the importance of the check-in in the ladies’ toilet. It can make or break the night. The best conversations in the world happen drunk in the ladies. I nod and reluctantly tear myself away from the bar and follow Alice through the dimly lit side room to the bathroom.This is how we ended up crammed into the only male toilet cubicle in a dive bar in Malta at 10pm.
