Page 63 of The Cocktail Bar
Chapter Thirty-Two
ALICE
“Did you just hear that?” Alice said loudly, grabbing at the corner of her thin duvet and pressing it against her body to cover her modesty – just about; damn she should have slept in her pyjamas, but it was one of those hot and sticky, unsuspecting Indian monsoon nights, and who expected a visitor at this hour?
She jumped out of bed with a start and fumbled for the light switch, heaving the bedding behind her.
“Hmm?” said River, eyes not quite with the world, so that she wasn’t altogether sure if he was in fact, sleepwalking. He reached out for her instinctively as he emerged from his own bedroom and they met in the middle in the caravan’s kitchen.
“Stop it, Riv!” she said with a laugh as he moved in for a cheeky embrace, but she was too high on that very unique kind of lust that only comes with love to be able to censor its opaque translation. “I’ve told you before I can’t just jump into bed with you like that… even despite my promiscuity at lunchtime. It was risqué, I know, and perhaps I shouldn’t have encouraged you, but I want to take things slowly, to get it right this time.”
To be the absolute opposite of Georgina.
“I’m sure it’s just your rather excitable imagination,” he teased again, eyes very much open now and drinking all of her in, so much so that when she took in the size of his erection through his boxer shorts, she couldn’t deny that she too wasn’t just a little bit tempted to break her draconic self-imposed rules.
“I’ll go see anyway,” she said, stealing her eyes away from his groin before he had chance to register their interest. “Maybe it’s Blossom clawing at the door again.” Aunt Sheba’s cat was treating the caravan as her second home of late. Alice was sure Sheba would highly disapprove of the second helpings she was clandestinely feeding her, but Blossom had the loyalty of a dog, the most irresistible little face.
“Probably… that cat’s eating us out of house and bloody home,” said River, evidently more than a little miffed he’d been spurned after the tease of the foreplay she’d given him that lunchtime.
But she had to be sure. Sure thathewas sure more than anything else. It wouldn’t do him any harm to serve his apprenticeship, for both of them to truly get to know one another’s domestic habits, to decide if they really could tolerate the dirty socks thrown on the floor, the toilet seat that was never put down, the dirty crockery piled up in the sink, the post cocktail snoring, oh, and her badly cooked eggs.
Alice trailed the quilt behind her and made for the door, as if she were trying out her wedding dress for the very first time. Mummy would definitely approve of the Princess Diana-esque length, a little less though if that were sweeping the floor in any kind of nuptials involving River, who paced the short length of the caravan to the left of her, no doubt trying in vain to get everything back under control down below.
Alice turned the key, just about able to make out the silhouette of a woman. Perhaps it was Sheba? The frosted glass made it impossible to pinpoint the figure’s facial features and so she opened the door cautiously, taking a couple of steps back as she peered into the darkness, fear now coursing her veins. Why hadn’t she let River deal with this? Admittedly, she wasn’t one for sexism in the twenty-first century, and she’d more than hedged her bets taking taxis alone and walking back to hotels in strange lands, usually just to defy Lennie who would insist that he accompany Cinderella after the ball. But there was no need to carry on like that now.
She froze to see she had opened the door to Georgina instead of a cat. And at that very same moment, River, evidently to satisfy his own agenda, re-appeared in the kitchen and began to wrap his arms protectively around Alice’s waist. But she was too stunned; too half-asleep herself to protest as she wished to, despite being all too aware she was painting the ultimate portrait of Man Snatcher.
“Well, well, well, isn’t this nice and cosy?”
“It’s not what it looks like,” said Alice defensively.
“It is what it looks like,” said River.
“One of you get your story straight, why don’t you? Just good friends, hey, Riv? Wasn’t that the lie you sold me?” If looks could have killed, River would be taking his last breath about now.
Alice freed herself from his arms, frustrated at River’s totally unnecessary knee jerk reaction – which only served to make matters far worse than they needed to be – as well as the unbelievably chilly air which nipped angrily at her décolletage screaming out Somerset’s brief summer’s end. Just as well too, caravan life, as much as she was grateful for it, was beginning to feel more like being holed up in a greenhouse.
She walked to the kettle, took it to the sink and filled it slowly with water, letting the tap’s trickle soothe her momentarily, leaving the two of them to battle this out alone. After all of this, the last thing she wanted was to be caught back up in a ménage a trois. If that was what he’d lured her back to, she may as well be plucking berries from bushes and filling up baskets. If nothing else that storyline was predictable.
“What the frick are you doing here? It’s half past one in the morning,” snapped River behind her, still guarding the door.
“I left something here so I came back to get it.”
“Not at this unsociable hour you don’t.” Alice turned to see River’s arms were folded now in defiance.
“You didn’t used to find one-thirty unsociable… or two-thirty… or three, as I recall.”
River said nothing. As comebacks went it was a pretty good quip, Alice had to grant Georgina that much.
She sighed deeply instead, flicked the switch down on the kettle, reached for three mugs from the cupboard, threw a tea bag into each of them, and began to walk back to her bedroom, like that might also help to erase the succession of images Georgina had just unhelpfully conjured up.
And then she changed her mind.
“Do you know what?” she said, her words directing her back to the kitchen, where she pushed past River and his cruddy attempt at imitating a bodyguard. “Wearegoing to resolve this situation here and now tonight, the three of us, like grown adults, even if that does take until the dawn flipping chorus. I for one have had enough of this. Georgina, come in, you’ll catch your death out there. Take a seat, have a drink and then take whatever it is you’ve left behind—”
“Big hint: it’s not me,” spat River, his eyes wide with disbelief at her audacity.
“Hilarious.” Georgina pushed past him and parked herself onto a seat at the kitchen table as she’d been instructed.
