by Isabella May
“I um, I don’t think this is a good idea. Like, what about Blake?”
River forced the memory of the navy and red shell-suited keepy-uppy obsessed Take That fan into his head, willing it to stay put. But the football bounced off, and the George of yesteryear faded fast. There was just no escaping the fact that 2017’s version of Georgina was a vision and a temptress all at once. He knew he shouldn’t. This was the ultimate treason but god he was so horny he didn’t care. And he realised, somehow rolling back the months in his mind as she parted his lips with her tongue and pressed her body urgently against him, that he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gotten laid. The thrill of getting caught in the act by an early morning passer-by only added to his hunger, but she’d catch her death like this. Spring or not, this was Somerset.
He unzipped the side of his sleeping bag, inviting her in. They fumbled and twisted, slipped and slid, and before common sense got a look in, he was deep inside her, groaning and bucking in pleasure.
“Still want to try that Blue Lagoon?” he found himself whispering into her ear.
“I want you to line up every cocktail on the bar, she stopped to softly bite his lip, “so I can drink it dry before you strip naked and take me… over and over.”
“And over?” he said with a suggestive smile, their eyes locking so that phase two was inevitable.
“But… mmm,” she panted as he grinded, hands possessing her backside, “I get the feeling my favourite tipple will be the Screaming Orgasm.” She kissed him greedily, as if unleashing the pent-up lust of a starved adolescence and the fantasy of bedding a rock star.
“You’ve got yourself a job,” he said, coming up for air, blinking Blake and his warning away, as well as Georgina’s cringe worthy suggestion that he’d serve up anything so seedy and classless. “Just so happens I’m looking for bar staff… and I think you’ll find I pay rather well.”
Chapter Three
GEORGINA
It couldn’t have been simpler. She wouldn’t deny that she hadn’t enjoyed herself. He was definitely as experienced as she’d hoped, and his willingness to bend so easily to her spontaneous behaviour had certainly helped turn her on.
But then Georgina would do anything for her boys; her dad and Blake were her world.
Of course there was the not so small matter of pre-empting Blake finding out about the sudden career change. But it turned out that was nothing but a minor kink to which she could turn her expert hand at manipulation.
“You are not working for him in that bell-end of a bar. For crying out loud, George, have some dignity.”
“Blake, can’t you see, I’m doing this for you. What’s that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer? I just know I can get you something out of this; a long overdue upper hand to make up for his betrayal.” She paused and transported herself and her steaming coffee mug to the window for effect. “Think of all the dirty secrets I can extract about his rock star days,” she said gazing trance-like at the earthy mounds where her dad had sewn his cauliflowers in haste before summer made a mockery of his efforts. Her father’s depression had notably eased since the promise of eau de sweet pea, backyard barbecues and Georgina’s shabby apple crumble. Things were on the up now for all of them. She could sense it.
And if nothing else, River was paying her more (significantly more) than all her odd jobs put together, meaning she could wave sweet farewell to bathing oldies and their unsavoury bits, her clothes stinking of hideous wet dog fur, and an organic café full of shitty ‘cultured’ tourists and their yawn worthy complaints, backchat and measly tips.
She turned to her brother who had just finished his night shift stacking shelves at the local supermarket, and by all accounts looked ready to drop into an early grave.
“Please. Just trust me on this, I’m almost thirty. I know what I’m getting myself into. River wouldn’t dare try anything on with me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Blake’s laugh was a snort. He grabbed the TV guide from the nest of tables, positioned himself along the length of the sofa and started flicking through its pages.
“Course he wouldn’t. He’s hardly going to be interested in a local after all the international beauties he’s bedded. You wouldn’t as much as get a look in. No offence, Sis.”
I wouldn’t be so certain about that.
“No, of course not,” she said, smirking to herself as she caught the image of the Tor rising in the top left hand window pane, high above the rooftops. She took a sip of strong coffee, enjoying the bitterness and heat as she replayed her role of dominatrix last week. “None taken, Bro.”
If there was one thing nowadays that was rocket fuel to Georgina and her aspirations, particularly when it came to getting the attention of the opposite sex, it was her family’s reluctance to acknowledge her metamorphosis from Ugly Duckling to Elegant Swan. In Blake’s eyes, in her dad’s eyes, she was still climbing trees and knocking a football about in the garden. And if she wasn’t still doing that she was scurrying into Blake’s bedroom to steal his Bristol City football stickers for her ‘secret’ album, or hashing out a riff on his drum kit before he was back from footie practise, before it was mobbed by the bailiffs that fateful year when both her parents had lost their jobs and they’d had to start all over again.
Not that she’d particularly want either of them to be cooing over her physique; flawless skin, or choice of attire for a Friday night pub crawl – that would be freaky. But still. It would be nice, just for once, if they could get with the times, open their eyes to the sexy creature who’d blossomed before them, stop insinuating she was nothing but gamine.
And then there was the envelope. Obviously Blake hadn’t a clue about that either. In truth neither had Georgina, for she’d only loosely translated the letter inside.
Last Wednesday’s shenanigans had evidently left River a little jaded. When Georgina had spied the rectangular manila shape falling from his cocktail book as they’d finally stood to descend the Tor’s symmetrical terraces, and had wasted no time stuffing it into the back pocket of her jeans, remarkably, he hadn’t noticed a thing.
“Damn,” she’d said as she’d opened it carefully with a cheese knife once she was sure she had the house to herself. “I should have known it was too good to be true.”
She’d guessed it contained money, or something juicy and confidential about the band, in return for which OK Magazine or The Daily Mail would reward her handsomely.
She’d stared at the senseless Spanish words; that much she could tell about their etymology. Probably some hippie-dippy saying, like you get on those pathetically whimsical memes doing the rounds on Facebook; or the artificial ‘Dance like nobody’s watching’ style tableaus adorning just about every home in the UK. Even her former boss at the café had fallen prey to them. Well, at least she wouldn’t have to stare at ‘I cook with wine…’ the word ‘organic’ added to it in red marker pen ‘… sometimes I even add it to the food,’ anymore as she offloaded empties in the kitchen. All hail one W.C Fields for that cruddy attempt at humour.
But she was also smart enough to realise this was no Spanish shopping list of cocktail ingredients. Chances were it was a couple of lines of highly inconsequential nothingness. That’s why it took her so long to get the note translated. But then one day indifference could distract her no longer and she headed online to the Google Translate site. She was well aware of the pitfalls of not doing things the old-fashioned way with the aid of a dictionary, but she was also switched on enough to fill in the missing gaps, to spot any words whose context was questionable.
“Remember not to tamper with fate. You are entrusted with the destiny of this bottle, with the blessing of the Toltex Indians. Let the three Chosen Ones come to you. Do not chase them. And then watch the magic unfold. Ten drops exactly. No more, no less. Repeat as and when a new destination calls.”
She bit down hard on her lip in excitement, so hard she almost drew blood.
�
�There’s a little bit more to this coming back and setting up a cocktail bar gig than meets the eye, it would seem,” she gasped, her eyes bulging out of their sockets as she frantically scribbled the copy down, stashing the original paper and its English meaning into the note compartment of her purse.
So now the million dollar question was: How to dig deeper, and more specifically, without River noticing?
Although, when it came to the latter, he’d already more than proven himself a prize-winning numpty. She’d just have to get good – very good – at encouraging him to let his guard down. She’d build up the trust and then bingo… she could really root around. But for now not a word would she utter to Blake. It would only complicate things. No point in him rushing in all guns blazing, patience had never been his strong point. She’d be the one searching for this elusive bottle, and she’d be searching for it alone.
Chapter Four
RIVER
“What am I trying to prove, Mum?”
It had been a week since the local paper’s photographer, Cath Deacon, had unceremoniously burst onto the re-decorated premises. Her sneaky shot of River’s infamous self, dry shaking a Pisco Sour in its new role as cocktail bartender gracing the front page for all and sundry to debate its sheer arrogance at “attempting to spice up a former working men’s pub with Mai Tais and Moscow Mules.” The matching headline: Fallen Rock Star Returns to cause a Rumble, making it very clear where the local media’s loyalties lay. But the sneaky jobs worth hadn’t stopped there. Oh no. Taking in the empty tables and chairs, she’d gone on a full blown front page rampage detailing his apparent failure in the business world, selective hearing filtering out River’s plain English reminder that it was still a couple of weeks before he officially opened the bar.
“That you’re following your heart, not giving a rip about the naysayers,” said Heather.
She flung her yarn out across the length of the floor, revealing a psychedelic rainbow-hued ‘red carpet’, hardly luring in the kind of punters River wished to attract. She nudged her specs higher up the ridge of her nose, took a deep breath and began counting stitches in a manner which suggested she had always known this would be par for the course.
“Maybe I should have stuck with what I knew, fizzled out into obscurity like an Adam Ant or a Sting—”
“Don’t you go knocking Sting; he’s still going strong, bless his chakras. You’ve got to have a loyalty to Sting somewhere in your heart.” She stopped stitching briefly, eyes fixed high above on the mock gold of the elaborate coving. “Remember the day he filmed the If I Ever Lose my Faith in you video up on Glastonbury Tor? Oh, was your Aunt Sheba’s tarot reading ever right. She predicted I’d be entranced by a tall blonde stranger on a mound that very week. And what do you know; next day there I was following the film crew – you on my coattails, but still…”
A group of hippies peered into the doorway, pondered the offerings of the blackboard and gingerly climbed the steps, purple and green dreadlocks swinging like pendulums in perfect timing with the light jazz playing behind the bar.
“Heather, not now, looks like we’ve got our first customers—”
“Nah, you’re alright,” said the tallest in a loud voice, popping hope like a pin to a balloon. “Was just thinking,” he scratched his tangled head, “didn’t this used to be a pub? Run by some geezer who could get discounted weed?”
“It was the Ring O’Bells formerly, yes,” said River. “Slightly more refined these days,” he added under his breath as his hands transferred their frustration to the shiny steel cocktail shaker. “As for the hash supplies, I really wouldn’t know about that. Can I tempt you to a Tom Collins while you’re here? We’re ten minutes into Happy Hour. Not that I advertise it. Looks cheap, attracts the teenagers.”
“Defo not a Tom, mate. I’m thinking he might have been a Pete though. Yeah, that’s right, he was… and as for his last name, I ain’t got the foggiest. Swift transaction then we was always quick to get out of here, like… in case the pigs should be hovering.”
“How about a Daiquiri then, I’ve just blended up a fresh batch of watermelon.”
“You’re beginning to sound a little desperate, mate. I’ve already told you, we’re not here for your fancy shit with umbrellas… although I might have made an exception if you were serving up an Avalon Amber or a Tor in the Mist.”
River was speechless, Heather not so.
“Scarper and hop it,” she yelled uncharacteristically, pointing yarn needles as if she were a water dowser, an additional string to her bohemian bow which totally wouldn’t have surprised. “Do you have any idea how much work my son’s put into this place?”
“Well, dudes and dudettes,” Head Hippie ignored her and turned back to his gang, “it’s high time,” he paused for a laugh, which his entourage echoed back at him, “we tracked down the Lurve Bus and headed on down to Sir Michael of Eavis’s fest. Hash cakes for supper!”
“Fine, your loss, and don’t bother coming back,” said River.
Glastonbury bloody Festival. That was about right.
River had forgotten it started at the weekend, unbelievable really when he considered how many Junes he’d spent there himself. Especially the June that had changed his and Alice’s lives; the June when Blake and Lee would go one way to watch Fat Boy Slim’s much coveted ‘final performance before retirement’ in the navy and custard striped circus tent, the June when River and Alice would opt for the earthiness of The Levellers on the pyramid stage, the June when they were destined to meet two complete strangers from London in the crowd… strangers from London who soon became friends, friends who soon became band mates.
The June when Blake would return at ten to midnight only to find River and Alice entwined in his very own tent.
River stopped his vigorous shaking, bringing himself and his regrets back to the present: to trade or not to trade?
Anyone in their business-savvy mind would have assumed this was the best week in the year for making money if you were a local establishment. Except Pilton, the village where the festival actually took place was several miles away, luring potential punters like the Pied Piper. So that all that remained in the town were The Miffed, who had either been unable to obtain tickets and were mightily pissed off, or The Troublemakers, who – November’s carnival aside – patiently stored their pent-up testosterone for seven months, ready to let loose on The Outsiders. Both groups screamed Blake. And that was not good.
“Maybe we should close this week, Heather?”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“I just sense trouble on the horizon, you know, all these non-locals,” River stuck his two index fingers either side of his head for emphasis and wiggled them up and down, “invading the town.”
“Are you sure you’re not still harbouring a grudge because the big Mr Michael Eavis CBE never invited you and Avalonia to play at Glastonbury… not even on one of the fringe stages?” Heather picked at her yarn, head cocked to one side.
“Of course I’m not, no. I got over that like years ago.” River flicked at an ice shaving as if he were playing his favourite childhood game of Tiddlywinks.
“I’m glad to hear it, love. Anger is a bitter swine of a pill,” she said, making a concertina of her work and then resting it and needles on top of the nearest table to the bar. “Not that I’ve ever condoned the lack of an invitation, mind you. If he could give the time of day to that other local band… what are they called, Reeves...?” she furrowed her brow.
“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 peop
le 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.