Page 84 of The Cocktail Bar
“Oh yeah… back for round two are we? Some people never learn, do they?”
A thunder that was unmistakably Hayley’s threatened to take down not so much Blake but the entire bar as well. But River wasn’t about to let her play Wonder Woman today. Blake and his sister werehisexcess baggage and if they’d chosen to set the scene here, he was more than prepared to deal with it.
“Dohisbest? Doourbest, I think you’ll find… oh yes, there have been any number of us involved in this little Operation dubbed ‘Payback’,” yelled Georgina, fire crackling in her eyes as she attempted to woo the crowd. “How’s about this then ladies and gents, will this do you?”
She opened her coat to reveal not just another layer swaddling her rotund stomach, but a bottle; River’s bottle, strapped to her side with a belt. She yanked it free and held it up high as if she were in a courtroom defending her brother: “River Jackson here… the town’s beloved former indie swooner… he’s only been contaminating your drinks.”
River knew it was crucial to keep his cool now despite the inevitable shockwave of this image. Somehow he had to keep hold of Mercedes’ assurance; somehow this was all going to blow over in moments.
He hoped.
Voices chirped and gasps rang out around the room. Alice looked to her love for an answer, he couldn’t give her one. Heather looked downright ashamed taking him right back to the teenage time when he’d furtively added dope to her vegan brownies, getting all of her kundalini yoga class completely off their heads. Everybody else just merged into one single being, reeling at the way he had let them all down. And Georgina began to open her mouth to carry on, at which point those former chirps and gasps became loud ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and ‘did you justseethats?’ – with a whole range of colourful expletives thrown into the mix besides.
In the slowest of motion, her bump – or more precisely, the expandable, flesh-coloured stage prop that had been posing as her pregnancy all this time – slipped down her maternity trousers and fell in a heap on the floor, circling her feet.
The bar was engulfed in the kind of silence that only sudden shock can provide.
River was a Punch and Judy puppet, minus the helping hand, gulping at air like the oxygen might convert to words, offering up some kind of sense to put to this diabolical scene from the Callous Crocodile. But out of his mouth came nothing.
It had been Georgina all along. She was a schemer and a liar, an evil, ridiculous piece of work. Even Blake raised his eyebrows then, began to step back from his poisonous sister and her latest ludicrous scam.
“Georgina Hopkins!” Terry burst out, almost on the verge of tears, “I think I could just about disown you for this.”
But then in a moment seemingly more choreographed than pro-wrestling, Lennie burst into the bar before anybody else could even think to add their two pennies worth.
“Sorry I’m late, guys,” he fell about, coughing, spluttering and panting all at once. “It was…” he just couldn’t seem to get his words out, laughter consuming him now, giant exuberant guffaws, the annoyance that is a private joke the recipient refuses to share, yet refuses to stop cackling at either.
“I say it was… it was water!”
“You say what?” said Georgina.
“Could it ever have been anything else?” He started up again with his ghastly noise. “He’s a River… and he’s been serving you all up water.”
No wonder it had been tasteless when River had asked Mercedes for a little. His mouth remained agape, unable to process what he thought he had just heard Lennie declare. And how didheknow anyway? He’d never even met Georgina.
“Give me that flaming lab report.” Georgina yanked it from his hand, pregnancy bump still framing her matching cranberry-red high heels, showing her up as her own unmistakable piece of evidence. “You’ve got to be lying out of your giant backside, fat use you’ve been to me since day one.”
“Now, now, I rather think that’s a little uncalled for, darling. It has been my absolute pleasure to double cross you.” He handed her over a piece of paper as would a gentleman. “Why else do you think I jumped at the chance to get involved? As soon as I twigged I might be River’s daddy; that was it, everything changed. See, the real reason I came back to try and patch things up, Son—”
“Do not… call me… that word,” said River. “You have absolutely zero proof.”
“You’re right there, of course you are. Call it a sixth sense though, your mother and I… you might want to cover your ears at this point,” Lennie advised Terry, whose iron grip had positioned itself either side of Heather and Aunt Sheba, “well, it was a one-nighter, Glasto summer of eighty-three if I recall correctly. I’m not going to insist we do a test on you and me though, like we did with the bottle. I can feel it in my bones: I’m your father for sure, why else would you have such a love of music? I’m here if you want me… always… you’ve only to knock at my—”
“That’s enough,” snapped River. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Everybody’s eyes naturally returned to Georgina now as she studied the document, her own eyes glossed over in denial.
“Composition breakdown – H20,” she read aloud, all her previously put-on decorum a thing of the very distant past. “It can’t be… you’ve rigged it… I knew I should have taken care of that part myself.”
“Too greedy, love, weren’t you… That’s why I had to call in Tamara, get an injection of cash to meet your demands.”
“Tamara, as in my sister?” shouted Alice, unable to disguise her contempt.
“Yes, Alice, and I’m sorry by the way, for hounding you as well… especially now I know my true relationship with my former lead singer—”
“Oh, I am not your anything, quit while you’re ahead, Lennie,” River pitched in.
“As I was saying, now I know the true nature of our relationship,” Lennie continued unfazed, directing his words between River and Alice, “you have my solemn vow that I will leave you alone, the both of you… you make a jolly good couple by the way… especially seeing’s you make that tart,” he swivelled to point to Georgina, who unbelievably had the nerve to still be standing there with the stage prop at her feet, hand now diva-like on hip, “green with envy.”
