Page 31 of The Cocktail Bar
Chapter Fifteen
GEORGINA
“And pray tell me what in the hell is this?”
Georgina froze initially at the photograph stuck to the fridge with the Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch souvenir magnet. She was going to have to think, and she was going to have to think epically fast.
A glossy snap of herself and River in the rain-spattered front window of The Cocktail Bar stared back at her accusatorially; his arms around her waist, indicating she was very much his possession, her ridiculously short skirt almost showing her knicker line as she slid that stupid book club night poster higher up the window pane.
“Look, I was going to tell you sooner, I promise.” Her heart pounded in disbelief that she’d been found out. “I just didn’t want you jumping to the wrong conclusion, Blakey,” she continued without turning to face her brother, whose presence loomed larger than life in the doorway behind her.
“Do not Blakey me, and I have asked you a question, to which I expect a bloody fantastical answer. What are you playing at? You’re showing the family up… and with him of all people, he who hath screwed up my life!”
“Oh give me some credit, will you.” She turned ready to fight fire with fire, if that’s what it was going to take. “I have, as it happens, reason to believe he is up to no good again, no good for his customers this time, no good for this town. But what did I tell you about the enemy, Blake? Keep your friends close and your enemies even clo—”
“So you take that as carte blanche to jump in his bed!”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then what is it like? Because from where I’m standing, your options look rather limited, shall we say?”
“I need a key, okay… a key to access a certain something. And if I can’t get a key, then I need to do something else, something drastic, somethingmassive… to get him found out… all of which obviously requires an intimate knowledge of his daily life, movements, and his complete and utter trust. Then… once the job is done, and he’s paid me –us– for his silence, he is out of this town, out of our lives… everything can get back to normal. Justice prevailed.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t see me,” Blake seemed unnaturally satisfied, calm in an instant. “I was crouching behind a car boot on the opposite side of the street. Perfect shot, don’t you think? Maybe I’m in the wrong profession?”
And with that he disappeared upstairs.
Georgina exhaled deeply. What a sneak.
And yet part of her admired him for it. There was no mistaking they were siblings through and through.
She ripped the photo into tiny pieces, binned it and berated that small part of herself whose heart pined for River’s touch. They’d been damned fools with that little charade. Clearly anybody could have been watching – even in bad weather. And why couldn’t it have been the media who’d spotted them? Now that kind of coverage could have done her all sorts of favours… leading to a stint onBig BrotherorGoggleboxperhaps. Oh, make no bones about it, she loathed these ridiculous lowlife shows, but you had to be cold, business-like about the opportunity to make a quick fortune. In and out, five minutes of fame, blending neatly back into mainstream obscurity but living a lavish life as the claim-to-fame-fix for the locals. What could be better for a girl’s self-esteem? That magical feeling of turning out the lights one by one, just like on Paddy McGuiness’s hellish show, all of the local men wanting a piece of Gorgeous Georgina, none of them succeeding.
And it turned out ‘Gorgeous Georgina’ was more than a smooth operator in the bedroom, or just with men. Women too, whom she had long kept at arm’s length thanks to her mother abusing her trust, were equally easy to manipulate.
For weeks now she’d been calling into Zara’s bakery, a couple of Cornish Pasties to take home for Dad and Blake’s tea/breakfast (organic of course, she was getting good at playing the Earth Mama game); a piece of carrot cake here, a pumpernickel bread there (yuk, she would not be making the mistake of buying that loaf of dried corrugated cardboard again), and Zara was almost in her pocket. Georgina was also supplying her with free cocktails on a Friday, smuggled over the backyard wall whenever River was meticulously building an operatic creation. That seemed to suit Zara well; she could waltz down her own backyard after she’d got everything ready for her early morning bakers, sip at her leisure and return the empty glass. Any trace of guilt Georgina momentarily felt for coaxing this unlikely friendship into bloom evaporated in a haze when she thought of all the pounds she was saving her, and all the moments of pure Caribbean-tinged relaxation she was providing her – with the exception of the deckchair, that was Zara’s own accessory.
Then one August evening after the bombardment of the book club brigade, when River suggested she go back to the penthouse early, for an evening of movies and takeaway because he was too exhausted for anything else, Georgina knew it was time to up the tempo. One: because something was clearly on his mind, and two: because if she procrastinated any longer, she’d start going down Lover’s Lane, a destination she was not prepared to travel to, despite the fact he’d recently started referring to their bedroom antics as ‘making love’, despite the fact every time she heard those words fly out of his mouth, it made her belly all warm and gooey inside.
“Hey Zed,” she’d greeted Zara, who was sorting out stale baguettes to drop off at one of the homeless charities nearby.
“Georgina, how’s it going? You look cream crackered, that’s gotta be a good thing, right? You’re certainly getting more customers than you were when we first met not so many moons ago!”
“Am I ever, and I shouldn’t complain, but my feet are ever-so-slightly killing me. I only wish River would put on a PJ and slippers themed night.”
“Well, why don’t you run it past him? He seems open to the weird and the whacky… talking of which, Heather was in here earlier buying me out of root ginger biscuits for the second time in a fortnight.”
“Oh don’t, the woman’s obsessed with that spice.”
“But not as obsessed it seems as she is with your dad.” Zara flashed Georgina a toothy grin. “A baker is like a taxi driver… or even a receptionist, you know. Oh yes, we hear all the little and not so little secrets of our customers, they all come voluntarily spilling out when there’s no-one in earshot. There’s something about the sight of cake,” she ran her hands along the bakery counter, “the smell of fresh bread besides, that makes grown men and women forget themselves, think of us as their Agony Aunts,” she laughed.
“Well you’ve got to spill the pinto beans now,” said Georgina, wishing she hadn’t made mention of those hideous ‘legumes’ Zara took it upon herself to unnecessarily stuff in her chocolate cakes. “Come on, talk about a carrot cake dangle.”
“All right, all right, all I know is she is ‘simply too busy to bake the weekly root ginger grounders’.” They both sniggered.
“That makes sense. Dad is claiming to be taking on more work to pay for this Prague Christmas market trip thingy organised by the travel group – I invented that idea.” She smiled at her own intelligence. “But now you’re telling me this, I’m half wondering if he’s doing something else with those extra hours he claims to be working instead.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we are talking about another type of spice, going on the look of lurve in her eyes, at any rate.”
