Page 21 of The Cocktail Bar
“See that’s a question that always has me torn.” He smiled becomingly. “With so many worthy authors in the world, how can we possibly choo—”
“For me it’s quite simple, anything about cats, starring cats, cats walking past in the background, a hint of a feline title; an author with cat in their name, matters not a jot,” she said.
“Okay… I see you’re fond of… err… cats then?”
“Fond of them, she’s stark raving bonkers about them, twenty-six of the things in her house and the surrounding fields, at last count any rate,” said her friend, looping her arm in Jane Austen’s and pulling her back to the table. “Come along now, dear, we’re waiting for you to get proceedings started. Everybody’s champing at the bit to share their reviews onA Street Cat Named Bob.”
“You do attract them,” said Georgina, propping herself most foxily across the bar, almost making him jump.
“Yeah, well, let’s just hope this group grows significantly to dilute the madness,” said River, distracting himself from her provocative pose with the realisation that he’d not checked in on Alice for twenty-four hours.
She was still staying at his mum’s, apart from the first couple of nights after her arrival, when he’d managed to dampen Georgina and her appetite, sneaking Alice into his penthouse, trading his relative luxury for an unplanned return to his now loud and tie-dye print bedecked bedroom, courtesy of Heather’s makeover idea. The hotel would only have a larger room available as of the weekend, so Heather had kindly agreed to Alice’s temporary move into River’s back bedroom. He was sure she was glad of the company anyway. Since The Lennie Thing, something she had declined to talk about whenever he brought the subject up, she either seemed to want to constantly surround herself with other people, or throw herself into her latest definition of art.
“Listen, can you manage here for ten minutes? I’ll be back… quick call to make, that’s all.”
“Yeah, course,” she said. “I’ll go see what the bookworms would like to drink.”
He patted himself down to check he had his mobile, wandered halfway down to the double gates of the backyard, a quick pit stop at the skittle alley to check up on the bottle in the cupboard, careful to look over his shoulder in case Georgina should be anywhere in sight. But there it lay, reassuringly so, just as it had every time he had thought to look in on it, snuggled beneath the heavy tartan blankets he’d taken from Heather’s ottoman. He peeped his head to the left and right outside the rickety door, and then left once again as would a child learning the Green Cross Code, exited the alley and paced confidently to the back gates, his eyes now surveying the car park for passers-by instead. The town’s market may have finished at midday but he couldn’t get too lax about anything when Lennie – and heck, even Bear and Alex – could be on the prowl. And then there was the press. A lone C-list band member sailing off into the sunset was one thing, he could already sense his five minutes of fame fading into delicious obscurity. But two members, male and female, the latter heroin to the camera’s lens, that made for a very different scenario indeed; the juiciest of stories, Sambuca to Lennie’s fury.
The truth was he had two obligations now: The Holy Grail and Alice.
