Page 75 of The Cocktail Bar
Somehow River made it through until closing time, but trade had been light, thank God for Tuesdays. And somehow he had managed to sweep Georgina’s physique under the carpet. It was the only way, after all. He wasn’t going to confront her, and when he thought back to her promiscuity that day on the Tor – then sending his erogenous zones haywire, now filling him with the kind of nausea that was enough to have him wondering if he was some freak of nature carrying a joey in his own pouch – it would hardly surprise him to hear there had been a string of potential candidates for fatherhood since he’d given her the cold shoulder. Case closed as far as he was concerned, and surely that had to be why Terry had never aired his soon to be status as grandfather in public. He was ashamed. His daughter hadn’t the faintest idea as to who the father of her child actually was.
The rush of the cocktail had worked wonders though and he began to go through the paperwork for the weekend that had just passed, sorting out the cash and receipts, tallying up the proceeds of the pre and post carnival trading. Yet for some unfathomable reason, his figures kept falling short. In the end he resorted to good old fashioned pen and the local newspaper which lay unread on the bar.
He ordered one every week just as a café might stock the papers, not that he’d go as far as to start buying the sensationalist tabloids; he’d rather put a bullet to his head. But such an innocent regional rag would have enticed him immediately as a teen, full as it was with pictures of his friends and their various sporting victories, snippets about local bands and festivals, the wall of fame – and equally – the wall of shame that was the high schools’ and colleges’ exam results. Old habits soon had him leafing through the paper, until there on page fifteen his hand froze, and then began to shake with rage.
It was Georgina.
Unmistakably Georgina, leaning out of the top window ofhiscocktail bar, with a couple of male ‘friends’, putting money – and he didn’t need to second guess where her charitable offering had come from – down one of the collection poles, held aloft as it typically was by aPierrotclown complete with freaky black teardrop. Words failed him. Action didn’t. He downed the remainder of his second Frisky Bison, letting the liquid alcohol do its thing and hollered out her name.
Georgina waddled forth, already bearing more than a striking resemblance to a penguin doing an impersonation of Tina Turner, but River wouldn’t let himself get distracted this time. Business was business and she was about to be sacked from his. Lee watched on nervously in the background, much as his personality had had a transplant, some things never changed when it came to confrontation.
“Yes, River, did you want me?” she said through the innocence of her smile.
Lee began to edge himself over to the most distant table in the bar, sensing the sparks that were about to fly, one ear cocked out should his intervention be required. River was only too glad he was there to support him.
“What the hell do you think you’ve been playing at?”
He slammed the paper down in front of Georgina as she stood at the customers’ side of the bar, sensing immediately that she clearly hadn’t had chance to flip through her father’s edition this week.
“Man gets rescued from slurry pit on farm… that’s nice,” she said, her voice laced with fear for the first time since their paths had re-crossed, “not really sure what it’s got to do with me though.”
“Not the farmer… this,” he pointed to the photograph which framed her jubilant act of benevolence as two thugs claimed possession of her, cocktail glasses –hiscocktail glasses, probably full of beer or something equally uncouth – in hand, balancing on either side of her shoulders.
“Oh… well… you know, it was just a couple of mates, they had nowhere else to watch the parade… and since you’d decided to shut shop… and I had a key… there was no harm done though, honest.”
“I think that’s a little beside the point, don’t you?” he yelled, unable for the moment to find any further words, thankful to Lee for stumbling forward.
“I knew Jonie and me should have watched the carnival down this end of the High Street so we could have kept an eye on the premises for you, mate. I knew it… I did try to convince her, but her Aunt lives in Chilkwell Street, had put on a mammoth spread of food and everything, kind of like a family tradition. Jonie couldn’t let her down. But now I’m sorry, ‘cos I’ve been and letyoudown.”
“Course you haven’t,” said River, dismissing the very idea on the spot. “But she has.” He pointed at Georgina. “And it’s one step too far this time.”
“But we tidied up after ourselves… you have to admit, there’s not a trace of us having been here.”
“How many of you were there? Did Blake get in on the fun and games too? The cat goes away… the mice will play, huh?”
“I’m sorry, really I am. It won’t happen again.”
“Damn right it won’t.”
“You sound like you’re going to fire me.”
“Clever girl.”
“I hardly think you have the grounds to,” she snuffled and brought a timely tissue to her nose, like that might attract his pity, “over a simple misunderstanding. All you ever said to me before you went away was we weren’t to open up to the public Saturday night. That didn’t exactly cover a small private get-together with friends.”
“It’s not your bar… and these so-called friends of yours have been having a little fiddle with the takings as far as I can see. Look at this.”
River pushed the calculations under her nose. Lee took a deep breath and gave himself permission to come across now too, to bear witness, shaking his head at the chunk of missing money that was circled in red pen.
“Five hundred quid unaccounted for, did you think I wouldn’t notice, just because I’m semi-wealthy, does that make it all right?”
Georgina lowered her head.
“Here,” said Lee, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, “let me chip in to cover it. It’s the least I can do for not second guessing something like this would happen.”
“And why should you have to cover her tracks?” said River. “A couple of weeks and you’re walking down the aisle with Jonie, why should you spend the honeymoon period of your life babysitting grown women who can’t keep their fingers off other people’s property?”
“It must have been the Rigby-Chandlers who stole the money,” said Georgina, matter of fact, looking River straight in the eye. But oh how she’d have failed a lie detector test.
