Page 9 of The Cocktail Bar
“Gracias,” said River, depositing himself and his bag back onto concrete before his reflexes could think to question the driver, “por nada,” he added as the truck sped off down a dirt track as opposed to straight on to the home of the agave plant.
“Great. Now what?”
Emboldened by the dregs of his beer, he continued his dusty walk, passing cacti and bottle-shaped signs of intoxicating goodness, teasing him. So close yet so far away. He stuck out his thumb again in the hope of somebody being good enough to complete his journey. He sensed his despondency glowing around him like the child in theReady Brekadverts all those years ago, warning people away from his strange red-rimmed silhouette.
After what felt like an eternity, in the very far distance on the left hand side of the road, River could just about make out achoza. As he approached, he saw the shack was sky blue and corrugated, its undulations rippling and reflecting the late afternoon sun.
He clambered ungracefully over the fence and into the bluish grey of the agave field, careful to keep his tread between the spikey rows, whose musky barrels he could almost smell on the air, if only he could get to a distillery by nightfall. But then something else caught his eye. A row of bottles glistened at the base of the shackand moments later a small child appeared. She stopped for a moment to take in his presence and then a giant beam took over her face and she beckoned to him excitedly with her arms open wide, as if he were herpapa– or some long lost uncle who’d returned from his travels around the world.
It was at this precise moment that River’s blood ran cold. She was the girl from his dream.
Without thinking he marched forward; the sparkle of the bottles rendering him moth-like. He watched as the braided child disappeared inside the small hut, overcome with a curiosity he couldn’t put words to. Moments later as he walked closer still, an elderly woman emerged from the entrance; her hand shielding the sun from her eyes as she took in River’s form, wending its way to her abode.
“It was written in the air,” she said, as he stood before her with his hand instinctively reaching out to shake hers. He was too dazed to reply but assumed this would be a culturally acceptable greeting.
“No need to carry on to Tequila. Your journey ends,” she smiled to reveal two rows of crooked teeth, “and begins right here. Come inside and let me explain.”
His head told him now was the time to do a runner, not that there was exactly anywhere to hide. His heart somehow warmed in an instant to this apparition of a female and her child.
“How do you speak such perfect English?” he said, stunned at his ability to enter into routine chitchat as he also bent to enter the tiny doorway, immediately hit by the pungent smell of ribs, chili and oregano, simmering on a tiny stove.
“Everything is connected,” said the woman.
“But, you live here in deepest Mexico. Or did you go to school, college?”
“I’m surrounded by infinite intelligence, why would I ever need to do that?”
She sat on a colourful stool, picked up a bowl and began to peel lima beans, a task she’d evidently made little progress with.
“Okaaay, this is starting to freak me out now.”
“You’re welcome to stay for supper before you head back to the city.” She ignored his confusion.
“I um… I really wanted to check out Tequila actually.”
She stopped her peeling for a few seconds, studied his face and then carried on with the job in hand.
“It’s just that, well,” he turned to look for a seat and she pointed at a similarly Aztec painted stool in the corner of the room, which he tentatively perched on, “I’ve uh… I’ve been collecting cocktail recipes from locals on my travels for a few years now, got a book full of them, and as soon as the plane touches down in London in a few days’ time – I’m uh… I’m here with my band and we played at the VFG arena last night – that’s it, man, I’m outta the music industry, time to move on to ventures new.”
He paused briefly to take in the knowing nods of the woman now standing before him. “I’ve put in a sealed bid for a rundown pub, in the town that I grew up in back home,” he continued, encouraged by her approval, “gonna refurbish it, make it pretty, turn it into a cocktail bar as it happens. Bring my inspiration back to Glastonbury, give her a new lease of life and the locals a hangout to put a smile on their faces.”
“All of this I know,” she said. “Although, I hope you have never been fooled into believing in the legend of Princess Xoctl of Mexico.” She giggled a little then paused, her finger and thumb pinching together in the air, as if plucking an invisible idea that had just flown past her. “It was thecola de gallothat really leant the cocktail its current name.”
River knew the former hearsay probably was just that: hearsay. The theories as to the provenance of a cocktail had piled up thick and fast over the years, only adding to the drink’s intrigue. But his ears pricked up now as the old woman bread crumbed yet another possible story of the cocktail’s origins.
“You probably know it already, of course, but it was the sailors arriving on the Yucatan peninsula, hundreds of years ago, here in my country… it was they who inadvertently gave your future bar its name,” she wagged her finger as if to autocorrect any other ideas that had formed in his mind over time. “One day,” she patted at her apron for effect, “a certain sailor asked for his usualdracin a bar, but the bartender couldn’t find his trusty wooden spoon to mix the liquor up with – and it had to be mixed slowly, precisely,” she took to wagging her finger again, “that was of utmost importance… so he improvised, used the root of the plant instead. And from that day forward, every sailor coming to shore would visit a bar and ask for acola de gallo, which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you translates as ‘tail of the cock’, cocktail,” she finished with a wink.
“But how can you possibly know this? That’s insane.” (River was no longer referring to the folklore but his future plans.) “I mean, I had a kind of premonition last night, a dream about a place just like this, and the glass bottles, a girl who looked just like your… yourgranddaughter?”
“That she is. You interpret my age well. And yes, the wind sent that intuition your way.”
“Ah, man, I meanlady. Will you stop talking in these riddles, please? It’s messing with my head. I’m as open-minded as it gets, it goes with the territory where I come from. But none of this makes a scrap of sense.” River’s upturned palms flew to shoulder height as if to demonstrate his confusion. “Am I like stuck in a weird parallel universe or something? What do you want from me? Why did you lead me here?”
“My name is Mercedes,” the woman finally introduced herself. “And you… you were chosen long, long ago to be a Messenger. There are many who have passed this way taking a bottle to their corners of the Earth, River. Your desire is so strong that destiny, the path you have been carving out, has come to fruition, brought you to this point. The spiritual nature of your hometown, your musical calling, your love of liqueur has made you a connoisseur. And now you are ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For this.” She picked up her bowl and set it down on her stool, walked over to a wooden shelf and then handed him a bottle containing a clear liquid.
