Page 3 of The Cocktail Bar
Chapter Two
RIVER
Two twenty-two am; that had to be a sign. If it wasn’t eleven-eleven it was two twenty-two, whenever and wherever River was, he always seemed to look at a timepiece at either of these precise moments – day or night. Now was decidedly night. He shivered and pulled his soiled denim jacket over his chest, curled as he was in the foetal position on the comfiest drinking couch in the bar.
The late afternoon’s events were a blur, namely because he’d chosen to numb their existence with one and a half cheap bottles of Prosecco. But bit by bit the scene replayed itself, making him shudder and retch, hardly helped along by Blake’s reference to the tacky innuendo cocktails he most definitely wouldn’t be serving up, as well as his audacity to label him a pop star.
Then again he had always been a lightweight when it came to the bubbles.
Thank god Lee had chosen the Drambuie though – which had only been right next to the Mexican tipple – whatever it was the mystical vessel contained. River still hadn’t the foggiest of its alcoholic composition, despite its mission nearing completion. As soon as Blake and Lee had fled, he’d hidden it in a cubbyhole in the backyard’s former skittle alley, swaddled in blankets to keep it at room temperature, then returned to the bar’s sink, studded as it was with broken glass and ethanol in all of its guises, to wash the stench of coffee liquor from his hair.
He rubbed his eyes and scoured the contents of his investment. He was as good as back to square one on the decorating front, but money was no object, he’d soon call in the professionals to set it straight. And hopefully Blake wouldn’t follow through with his threat.
“You haven’t seen the last of me by a long shot,” was his parting gesture.
“No, nor me,” Lee had put in his two pennies worth moments later, clawing at the door Blake had slammed with an almighty bang.
He couldn’t really blame him. He’d had it hard these past few years. River had heard about Blake’s parents’ on-off relationship courtesy of his own mum filling him in on the town’s gossip. And then if he was honest with himself, despite the haze of teenage marijuana-filled days when they used to cycle down to the moors and the secret hideaway under the bridge straddling the River Brue, he did recall the way he used to stare at Alice as they fell about in fits of stoned laughter. But the two of them being an item; he wasn’t sure if that part was lost somewhere in the recesses of his imagination, or a mere figment of Blake’s. Either way, it had to smart if he’d never truly moved on, seeing her date American actor after American actor; the rosebud of his indie rock band – well, former indie rock band, onceAvaloniahit the big time, Alice had never looked back at any of her vanilla college boys.
River stretched his arms wide and rose slowly, desperately trying to ignore his sore head. He tiptoed between the piles and lone shards of glass – a kid playing the don’t-step-on-the-cracks-in-the-pavement game. The floor behind the bar was surprisingly clear of Blake’s aftermath, with most of the debris having landed on the counter, making an easy pathway to The Bible. He lodged it under his arm and navigated his way back to the couch. His fingers traced the cover and the echoes of Varadero beach in Cuba beckoned, a rum so pure it rivalled even the best Haiti had to offer, a sand so white that after a spectacularly heavy session, you wondered whether you really had died and gone to heaven.
He had to get some air. The negative energy of Blake’s tirade still permeated the bar. He re-positioned the book under his arm. It was hefty and definitely not inconspicuous. But the chances of anybody loafing around town at this time of night on a Tuesday were slim to say the least, and soon he was powerwalking his way up to Bove Town and beyond, his mind and the rest of his body following his feet.
That was until his phone started to vibrate against his thigh, rudely interrupting his stride. He retrieved it from his pocket without thinking, the innocent looking number momentarily deceiving him.
“Hello?”
“It’s Lennie,” the caller said, adding a chain of heavy breaths. “Don’t hang up. I say don’t hang up. Come on, lad, we really need to talk. You can’t just leave me dangling by a thread like—”
Goddamnit.
River cut him off and shoved the phone back in his pocket. He needed to be sharper than this, one hundred per cent on the ball at all times. He’d change his number tomorrow. That would soon put paid to future conversation with his ex-manager. He was his own boss now. Besides, he’d made a promise to Mercedes. Okay, maybe only in his head, half an hour into that flight back from Guadalajara to Heathrow. But she knew he was committed, of that much he was sure.
His steps soon became meditative and purposeful again, brushing aside the internal chatter. And within an hour he was sat atop the Ancient Isle of Avalon, a solitary figure in the archway of Glastonbury Tor waiting for sunrise.
***
River woke to fingers of light dancing on his cheek and the warble and crimson flash of a pair of male robins flitting overhead in May’s cool morning air. He unpeeled the layers of his sleeping bag – he’d been crashing out at the bar during the renovations and had instinctively stuffed it into his backpack to keep him warm, wherever he should end up laying his head – but strangely he’d no recollection of drifting off to sleep.
And shit. Where had he put the book?
No sooner had the fear of a decade and a bit of lost cocktail recipes clutched at his breath, than he pulled back the hood of his sleeping bag to see he’d been using it as a pillow.
He exhaled and watched as his clouds of relief filtered through the archway like smoke from a beacon, as the Tor was sometimes used for special ceremonies. Something dug into his side and he pulled out his mobile once more from his trouser pocket, half tempted to fling it down the hillside while he was at it. There were a string of missed calls and messages from Heather, his mum, who would insist that he use her first name once he turned sixteen, as if it were some kind of spiritual coming of age ritual. He remembered to acquiesce when he could, especially when he needed a favour.
“Paps have been hanging around outside on the street all night, Riv. I don’t feel safe to leave the house. I told you I have a transcendental meditation class to teach at 11am!”
Hadn’t they anything better to do? At this rate he was going to have to live up here on this mound to avoid the madness that had become his life. He wasn’t in the limelight any more. It was high time they respected that.
He randomly opened the book, making a mental note to reimburse Heather for today’s lost earnings. The page was littered with scribbles and sketches from his discoveries in New York: The Manhattan, too obvious a choice perhaps, but it was River’s cocktail bar and he couldn’t think of a better entrée for his yet to be created menu; bold bracing Bourbon, Sweet Vermouth and a dash of Angostura bitters. A theatrical performance going off with a bang, the stage curtain lifted on a procession of liquid masterpieces. In fact, he’d put the whole thing together like this, by intuitively opening up his Bible and choosing between left page and right. Heather would definitely approve.
He knew he’d upset Blake, and Lee besides, but his quest was more important than that. He’d been entrusted in a way the unenlightened simply couldn’t understand. And anyway, he could make it up to him, if he could somehow get Blake to be one of the three, although he knew that tampering with destiny was strictly off the cards, and other than another episode of destruction, he had no idea how he would physically get him into the bar in a social capacity.
A whirr of activity snapped him out of his daydream. A black and white terrier yapped and bounded, streaking comet-like around his former sanctuary. The robins scarpered in protest. And the dog growled at the foot of River’s sleeping bag, deeply disturbed at what it had uncovered in a territory it clearly knew as its own at six am.
“Do you always have this effect on women?”
A vision of red cheeks, bobble hat, and wild brown hair came to the fore. The dog, taking its attempt at conversation as a green light, jumped on River’s lap and sniffed somewhat embarrassingly at his groin.
