Most of the room was taken up with a bar and the requisite bottles and taps. Some 20 men clustered around the serving area and a couple of women huddled on a bench in the corner.
There was a small TV above the necessaries; eyes and minds were fixed on the game playing out a head-and-a-bit above them. Wee Mac realised it was the Winter Olympics curling final and realised he should give the watchers as much deference as anyone in a black T-shirt during an All Blacks test in the Hillcrest Tavern.
Big Al caught the barmaid's eye. "Two pints of Best," he instructed.
She drew them from the taps. Wee Mac thought about ordering a bite, looked across the bar and saw a bap curling around its ham and cheese. He thought no more about food.
Big Al paid the barmaid and headed up the couple of steps towards the side room, where they had more chance of a chat. Wee Mac picked up the glass in front of him and followed.
Before he had taken two steps, a growl from the bar curdled his innards like a Highlander's sword thrust.
"Oi. You. That's ma beer," said a large, fearsome and clearly non-negotiable Scotsman.
Wee Mac retreated quicker than Bonnie Prince Charlie.
"Sorry," he put the beer back on the scratched wooden bar.
The barmaid moved to intervene, offering Wee Mac his pint of Belhaven Best from the drip tray where the ale was still settling.
"I should have told you this was on the way ..."
The pair left the bar-room and, off the corridor, into a slightly larger side room. It had been painted green sometime in the late 1930s and no one had seen the need to redecorate since. Small knots of men sat around cheap old rickety tables on cheap old rickety spindleback chairs or church pews.
To a man they wore parkas and scarves and muttered into places where their beards might have been if they were not clean-shaven.
Wee Mac and Big Al could not pick up scraps of mutter; these men were used to having their conversation not overheard. They might have been detectives from the nearby police station. They might have been gentlemen with slightly less acquaintance of the niceties of legalities, too. The welcome was as warm as the fire turning to ash in the grate.
Big Al finished his pint and nodded towards the conveniences across the hall.
"I'm away to the jacks," he advised.
Alone, Wee Mac looked around and took in the other solo patron, a man in a winter jacket, beer at hand, scribbling in a notebook.
Big Al nodded towards him as he returned, wiping his hands.
"Another bloody reporter," he gestured.
"They're in here all the time since that twat Rankin started writing those Rebus stories."
CHECKLIST
The Oxford Bar is at 8 Young Street, Edinburgh.
Ewan McDonald visited Edinburgh with VisitScotland and Emirates.
