Page 8 of The Cocktail Bar
“Reef,” spat River, much as he was a clandestine fan.
“Well, whatever, the point is he should have jolly well acknowledged your musical talents too. You, Alice, Bear and Alex, you were ten times better.” She stopped to smile encouragingly. “But hey, you don’t need that kind of recognition anymore. Just look at you. You’re an artist across genres now—”
“Yeah, that’s my mind made up,” River changed the subject. “We’ll open officially when the festival is over and people are looking for something to cheer themselves up with. Gut instinct tells me this is not divine timing.”
“The festival brings yin and the festival brings yang,” said Heather. “Good and bad,” her words lingered.
“What do you mean, Mum? Did you have a dodgy hash cake supper there back in the day that you forgot to tell me about?” He added a timely chuckle thinking of the many hearty specimens he himself had regrettably consumed. “I hope that’s what that bunch of eejits get for their supper anyway.”
On the other hand, those eejits had not only given him a couple of new cocktail names that he fully intended to smuggle behind the bar (every cloud), but an injection of hope… that things were finally dying down on the camouflage front. If you’d had a taste of the fame game, this ambivalent town was the best one in the world to come back to. It’s why Nicholas Cage had a house here, why Johnny Depp and the ilk were often shuffling around country houses on the outskirts, looking for somewhere to call home, somewhere to call incognito. Nobody batted an eyelid at you if you were dressed as a faery here, or a Goth with a steampunk top hat. All of this was just normal for a town called Glastonbury, where nobody stood out.
“It’s nothing, forget I mentioned it,” Heather snapped out of her trance. “Aw, River,” she skipped over to him and smothered her son in a hug, “I’m bursting with pride to call you mine. You really have got a little of me in there somewhere. This will all blow over quickly enough. People are being momentarily resentful, that’s all. They’ll soon change their tune once they hear how delicious your creations are. Just you wait and see.”
“I hope you’re right, I really do.” He let out the deepest of breaths.
Because at this rate, River couldn’t see how anybody would ever make it past page one of the menu. Let alone reach the magic of page fifty-nine. And now he’d been and promised Georgina a job, starting Monday night.
Heather bundled wool and needles in her bag, went home to get ready for her kundalini yoga class, and left him to his thoughts.
He poured himself a Pisco Sour. It was fast becoming his favourite feature of the menu, but he made a mental note to add just a hint more brandy on his next attempt. A couple of sips and soon his memories were flickering once again like fire licking at kindling, this time carrying him back to Mexico.
The final gig had been perfection; one of those seamless sets that flowed with synchronicity: song, rapturous applause, song, rapturous applause. Okay, he couldn’t pretend the way the crowd held their lighters aloft like a flock of sheep didn’t nark him right off. Alicia Keays and her ode to New York had a lot to answer for when it came to that tragic mainstream nod at enlightenment. But other than that, the gruelling weeks touring Latin America had ended on a high; a high that, try as he might, River couldn’t quite seem to find a cocktail in the city to match.
Next morning he’d pulled back the curtains to reveal a Guadalajara sunrise which further revealed Avalonia’s band members strewn across the penthouse suite of the hotel; a domino rally that had gone badly wrong. Alex, the guitarist, had evidently pulled again. River rubbed his eyes so he could focus on the local beauty whose naked thigh entrapped his Egyptian cotton-cocooned friend. Alex’s height never seemed to restrict his magnetism when it came to the ladies; it was as if his guitar was the musical equivalent to the Mercedes SLK, driven by many a pint-sized male. And just behind this aftermath of lust lay Bear (or Edward to his parents). He definitely hadn’t been as lucky. His light snores brushed over the top of the empty bottle of Jack Daniels balancing in the palm of his right hand, creating something almost Peruvian as a backdrop to the scene. Still, it made a somewhat refreshing change to see he’d traded drugs for liqueur last night. For some reason he’d never matured past chemical experimentation, unlike the others. River was finding it increasingly hard to wrap his head around that – and the fact that nobody else shared his passion for a fine cocktail.
This snapshot in time, minus Alice, who’d taken on a penthouse suite of her own as per usual, wasn’t all that different to every other session of partying after a final show. But for some reason this morning it looked more desperate than ever. In six years they’d practically be forty for crying out loud. At some point life had to get more sophisticated, reveal some kind of meaning.
He showered and dressed then beachcombed the squalor amidst the luxury for his wallet, and made for the streets, even though they were the last place he wanted to be. Mexico’s fourth largest city was strangely cleansing. True, it was a Sunday which accounted for less bodies but something else was different out here too. He felt he had a journey to take. The breeze seemed to whisper it, but coffee first.
River followed a group of locals to a café opposite the train station. Small chirpy birds covered one of the few remaining empty tables, pecking at crumbs on a thoroughly unwashed surface until he interrupted them by pulling out a chair. But he was too entranced by the conversation he was already eavesdropping in on to care.
“A que hora sale el tren por Tequila?” a voice from the neighbouring table asked of somebody in its group.
Of course, Guadalajara was practically down the road from Tequila.
Tequila!
How could he not catch the next train there and take up the opportunity for a quick mooch around? He’d buy some interesting varieties, ask the locals if they’d be happy to impart their wisdom on all things mixology, maybe visit a smallholding and get to do a bit of tasting straight from source.
“Sale a las dos,” came the reply.
Two o’clock, too late.
The waitress came and went with his order, swiftly followed by a strong shot of coffee, not a dash of milk in sight. The oozing cheese of his breakfastburritocut through the bitterness and as he sank his teeth into a most surprisingly hotjalapeño, forcing the words “leche por favor” somewhat embarrassingly into the air, he found last night’s dream sailing back to him in a strange mosaic he couldn’t piece together: a child with long, dark braids finished off with bright red bows, a row of gleaming blue and green bottles, and a small, sky blue hut.
He shook his head, unable to fathom it out, wrapped the remnants of the burrito in a napkin, stuffed it into his backpack, visited the toilets – holding his breath, pinching his nose – and then headed out of the city towards the two-lane highway.
He decided to walk to Tequila instead. It was only thirty miles away, he’d hitch a lift; the heat wasn’t so intense at this time of year. And if he couldn’t catch a ride with someone, well, he’d walk fast – and he’d spend the night there too. The band weren’t flying back to London for another couple of days. He’d earned his down time.
Two hours later and he’d barely made a dent in his journey. The sun was relentless too; something he’d grossly underestimated the power of. He resorted to sticking his thumb out and resigning himself to a very long wait. But within minutes a pickup truck had stopped. Avaquero, sombrero-clad, leaned out of the window and asked him where he was headed.
“Tequila, hombre… por favor,” River replied.
The driver nodded in agreement and opened the door to provide relief to River’s aching limbs. They drove in silence broken only by the interruption of the can of beer which he tossed to his right. River gratefully caught it and began to sip, taking in the sights of the landscape as the dark shape of the volcano on the horizon loomed ever closer.
“Vale, tienes que irte aqui, yo voy a la izquierda.” said the driver some fifteen minutes later as he pulled over into a layby.
Say what? Surely his Spanish wasn’t that bad. Had he only imagined he’d asked to be driven to Tequila? This was the middle of nowhere. The driver could have told him he’d be turning off left and couldn’t take him all the way to town.
