Page 54 of The Cocktail Bar
Chapter Twenty-Eight
RIVER
“Oh my God, you won’t believe what’s happened!”
River, bogged down with sterilising his worktops before bar opening time, inventing a plausible excuse not to open Cassandra’s cattery, as well as the mild depression that was already taking hold over Alice, had long forgotten to look out for the latest signs of improvement in Lee’s life.
“What’s up? Traffic jam on the High Street because my mum and Dawn Brierley are doing another of their peace marches?”
“No, no, no, nothing like that, are you going to listen, or not? This is crazy, absolutely bat shit crazy.” Lee paced the length of the bar and back again as would a soldier outside Buckingham Palace. “But I’m telling you, it’s true. I don’t know how, or why, and I’m not about to put it down to that blessed cocktail… but on the other hand maybe it actually—”
River stopped his circular scrubbing motions. It was working. It really was working. Mercedes was right. His intuition to trust her, no matter how out of his head that made him feel, was right. Lee didn’t have to say anything. He could feel it. This new energy that surrounded him was palpable. River might not have been able to detect auras and weird things like that, much to Heather’s dismay, but he could feel Lee’s vibration, raised up several notches, inexplicable, wonderful and mesmerising all at once.
“You had me at hello,” said River, throwing his cloths into the sink and then seizing the bar’s edge as if he were about to play a little Mozart to heighten the drama of the moment. “I’m listening.”
“So,” said Lee, seated now, swivelling round and round on the bar stool, as impatient as a child in an old-fashioned sweet shop waiting for his quarter of Rhubarb and Custards to be weighed and bagged up. “Jonie proposed to me last night.”
River, speechless at first, slowly began to jump up and down, and then before he knew it he was fist pumping, too, in that pathetic ‘Get In’ way that all modern footballers seem to have to sign contracts to do the very moment a camera pans into their line of vision.
“Hey, congratulations, mate.” He finally stopped moving and found some words. “Let me fix you up a little something on the house to celebrate. Although, I suppose you’re obliged to ask Blake to be Best Man—”
“Pff, I’ve not got that far in the planning. But yeah… do crack open a bottle, I’m gonna need at least two of something strong before I leave here and make a decision. Couldn’t you bend the rules to three cocktails though… pretty please, just for me, seeing’s I’m an old friend and all?”
“You’re a current friend as much as an old one and you damn well know the answer to that already. But what do you mean, make a decision? What’s to think about? It’s a no-brainer, surely? She’s a lovely girl and you’re smitten with her, sail off into the sunset and enjoy your happily ever after, how many of us get the chance?”
He cursed himself quietly for letting his head swim with Alice all over again.
“No, I don’t mean Jonie. Of course I said yes, didn’t flinch to hesitate. Was even starting to dream up scenarios of me asking her myself. But I’m glad she beat me to it, I’d have been my usual car crash of a nervous wreck unable to get my words out. In the end she asked me going down on one knee in the fruit and veg aisle.”
“Romantic. That’s um, well, it’s original.”
“See, that’s what I love about her. She’s one of a kind, my Jonie, and that aisle means everything to us. It’s where she first asked me out, after two days of flirting when we were reducing the prices of the corn on the cobs.”
“Nice.”
“What I mean is… this.”
Lee looked this way and that over each shoulder, before slowly, with very measured actions, producing something that looked uncannily like a lottery ticket.
“I kid you not… I’ve only gone and won the weekend’s jackpot.”
“What?” River almost toppled backwards.
“Yeah,” Lee frowned. “All six numbers, been playing every Saturday since I was old enough and finally me numbers came up. So that’s it now, destiny ruined by a dumb piece of paper.”
“H…h…h…how so?”
River’s language struggled to make it out as a stuttered whisper now. This sudden news was unbelievable; things were happening for Lee dizzyingly fast, River could barely register the latest revelation. First a gargantuan promotion, then a proposal and now a mammoth lottery win, all in the space of a couple of weeks.
“Magic catches like that, it’s wildfire,” Mercedes whispered from nowhere, so that River was forced to examine Lee’s face to see if he’d heard her too – apparently, fortunately, not.
“Just shy of two point five million, that’s my share. According to the bloke I spoke with on the phone at HQ anyway. There were only two of us that hit it last week, me and some other poor unsuspecting sod. Why did I bother playing? Now I’ve got a meeting with him and some otherLottoofficial, plus a financial advisor. They lay all this stuff on and give you a chat and some tips as to how to deal with the queue of scroungers you can expect to attract, not to mention the likes of the red-topped papers poking their noses in.”
Lee sighed, right fist supporting his out-turned bottom lip, just like he used to during those hot, sticky GCSE exams in the school gym when he evidently hadn’t a clue what was being asked of him.
Huh, like he’d ever needed that shiny string of A-C grades anyway.
“I mean, who really and truly stops to think through the impact this kind of money is going to have on their life?” Lee continued. “Nah, instead we just blindly put our two quid on, week in week out, oblivious to the catastrophe we’re inviting to happen. But I want this marriage to be built on a stronger foundation… and now this has come along and just swiped that away from me in a heartbeat. There’s always charity I s’pose… but the chances are, any donation I make in this gossip crazy town, will soon become public… and then Jonie will up and leave me because I gave all our money away to a donkey sanctuary.”
