The Juniper Gin Joint

by Lizzie Lovell

  ‘My wife got cancer and she died three years ago.’

  ‘Oh.’ What an idiot. What a great big, fat, silly idiot. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Thoughts flashed by so quickly, I could hardly grasp them, like catching a dream once you’ve opened your eyes. ‘I hope I didn’t come across as flippant?’

  There was a small gap where he didn’t reply which made my heart thud. I’d put my foot in it. And I should’ve known better, being well enough acquainted with loss to understand that it’s different for everyone and I shouldn’t transfer my situation on to his. Sometimes I should keep my trap shut.

  ‘No, it’s fine, don’t worry. Well, it’s not fine. It’s shit. But I try not to milk the whole widower thing. People fuss and feel sorry for me. It happened. It was horrible. But I can’t change it. I loved her. Still love her. But I’m trying to live my life now.’

  ‘Is that what the new career’s about?’

  ‘Partly, yes.’

  ‘That’s great. I mean, it’s a great job. A vocation. Those kids need some decent male role models. In this town you’re usually a Dave Barton or a Mike.’

  He laughed. There he was telling me about his dead wife and I somehow made him laugh which was, depending on which way you look at it, either good or wildly inappropriate. This was about him, not me.

  ‘Tell me about her?’ I asked tentatively, not being nosy for once, actually, simply wanting to share a moment.

  ‘OK,’ he said and I heard his intake of breath. ‘We met in Africa. Sierra Leone. She was a doctor for Médecins Sans Frontières. We lived in France for a bit. Then London. She was always here, there and everywhere. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets. But when we were together it was magical. We learnt to make the most of every moment. And when she got sick, we did the same. One of the last things she said to me, apart from Don’t forget to put out the recycling, was Live your life for me too. So that’s what I try to do. But a bit half-heartedly.’

  ‘And you never had children?’

  ‘They wouldn’t have fitted in with our nomadic lifestyle. Only I wish now we had. Then I’d have something to remind me of her.’

  ‘That’s so sad.’ I wanted to touch him but had enough sense to realize that a reassuring pat was probably not a good idea, despite the niceness of those thighs.

  ‘You wouldn’t be feeling sorry for me now, would you?’

  ‘No, definitely not. Well, maybe a bit. I know the pain of losing someone, what with Mum going last year. And I suppose you could say that very soon after that I lost a marriage. But I can’t imagine losing the love of your life.’

  ‘So Mike wasn’t the love of your life?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t. I’ve never actually had one of those, to be honest. Not like my mum and dad. It’s the marriage I’m grieving over, not the husband. It’s the life I thought I had.’

  We didn’t say much after that because by this time we’d reached the end of my road and the street lights were brighter and we were both swamped with a sudden onset of shyness that put the kibosh on any more intimate conversation.

  And now, while I’m contemplating yesterday, I’m wishing I’d said something different. I’m wishing it hadn’t been all about me, when he was telling me about him. I wish I’d said something wise and uplifting. But all I have to hand is Facebook platitudes and they’re not good enough, are they, though maybe better than nothing.

  I finish the soup and sandwich then grab my coat and gloves, all the while forcing myself to be mindful of small wonders, but I’m snapped out of any chance of Buddhist practices when there’s a knock on the door. A jaunty knock so I know it’s Carol. Dad, shooting out of nowhere, reaches the door before me and lets her in, shows her into the kitchen, the perfect host for once, concentrating on the job at hand and making her tea. He has a soft spot for Carol. Been like a father figure to her ever since her dad absconded to Dundee in 1978.

  ‘You going somewhere, Jen?’

  ‘I was about to take Bob out for a walk.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you, I’ll stay and keep your dad company.’ She settles herself in a chair and delves into her handbag for her sweeteners. ‘Is that all right, Reggie?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Dad. ‘I’ll show you around my shed after you’ve had your tea.’

  ‘Is that like showing me your etchings?’

  ‘I haven’t done an etching in my life. I can show you my collection of New Scientist magazines if you like.’

  ‘Is it big, your collection?’

  ‘Extensive. I’ve kept every issue since 1956.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ I say.

  ‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Reggie?’ she says. And I love her for taking care of my dad as if he were her own.

  ‘We will indeed be fine,’ he says. ‘I can tell you all about monkeys, Carol. Did you know they can see faces in inanimate objects?’

  ‘What, like seeing Jesus in a piece of toast?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  She winks at me.

  He’s in safe hands. Time to go.

  THERE’S A LOVELY warm breeze, our friendly south-westerly, so Bob and I walk up to the woods where he can go off the lead and I can clear the cobwebs. It’s proper autumn now, a softening light, the wind whistling through the treetops, leaves turning, falling, spinning down, and nuts underfoot. The smell of woodsmoke and the subtle mustiness of decay. A stray, lucky pheasant honks a warning as Bob hurtles past its vantage point on top of a hedge. Then into the woods. Bob is loving life, sniffing and peeing and generally hyper-excited. Mike and I used to bring the kids up here all the time. It was our go-to cheap day out. A walk in the woods and a picnic at the top with views over the River Exe, the cathedral blinking in the sun on the horizon.

  Now it’s just me and Bob.

  Which is fine.

  Completely fine.

  I whistle for Bob and he comes belting towards me, little legs galloping, ears pushed back, regaling south Devon with his high-pitched doggy yap when I put on his lead. He winches me back down the hill, showing no sign whatsoever of his age, which is ninety-eight in human years and older than my father, who has more than twenty years on him. But my father is not young. Every day he is getting older, as we all are, and I worry about him. I know how much he misses Mum. Because so do I.

  MONDAY MORNING. A pewter sky with ominously leaden clouds, a whipped-up wind and the smell of rain to come. The walk to work is not as pleasant as usual, not with the prospect of what lies ahead. By the time I reach the park, it’s drizzling. School kids are running, old biddies donning their plastic bonnets, Trampy Kev using the Dingleton Gazette as an ineffective brolly. This is now technically rain so I get a jog on. By the time I reach Clatford House I’m drenched and the last person I need to see is Dave who’s standing under the shelter of the veranda, shoulders hunched against the weather. Smoking.

  ‘Morning, Jennifer. A bit wet and breathless, are we?’

  ‘Put that fag out. It stinks.’

  He does as he’s told, which is a first.

  ‘I thought you’d given up.’

  ‘Given up?’

  ‘The cancer sticks.’

  ‘I’m a social smoker.’

  ‘Even when you’re on your own?’

  ‘But I’m not on my own, am I, Jennifer. You’re here now. Do you want one?’

  I’m tempted, but I’m not going down that road. It ends up with me drunk and getting up to no good where Dave Barton’s concerned. ‘No, thank you.’

  He ushers me in through the front door as if he owns the place. That’s him all over. Thinks he owns the town.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I stand next to him inside the entrance, dripping onto the floor.

  ‘I’m here to see your boss,’ he says.

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘We both know Jackie will see me.’

  ‘I’ll go and check.’

  ‘Don’t bother, Jennifer. I’m sure you have work to do. You open at nine, don’t you?’ He check
s his watch. ‘It’s five to.’ And with that he strides past me and climbs up the magnificent old rickety staircase to Jackie’s office. I want to follow him. I want to rugby tackle him, rip his trousers off and hoist them onto the flagpole at half-mast. Only he’d take that as a come-on so I’ll make a coffee instead. And have a moan with Carol.

  ‘He’s a tosser,’ she says, consoling.

  ‘I know. But he’s up to something. We need to be one step ahead.’

  ‘We have to find out what he’s up to before we can do that.’ She takes a good look at me. ‘You’re soaked. Go and get changed. There’s bound to be something in lost property.’

  She’s right. I’m feeling chilly now. So I have a rummage in the lost property bin in the staff room. Nothing I’d be seen dead in. In fact, it smells like death. There’s nothing for it. I put on Tish’s pirate blouse which is actually more Adam Ant than Captain Pugwash so I reckon I might just get away with it.

  By the time I’m ready and back with Carol who gives me a once-over and says, ‘Stand and deliver,’ here come Jackie and Dave. A quick meeting. The expression on Jackie’s face tells me she’s none too happy.

  ‘You look swashbuckling, Jennifer,’ he says before slickly letting himself back outside into the spitting bastard rain. I watch him offer Trampy Kev a fag which he declines. I want to kiss Kev but I know better. I’ll buy him a pasty and a cuppa later on.

  Meanwhile, Jackie, in warrior mode, shuts the front door a little fiercely, flips the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’. It’s only nine fifteen.

  ‘What’s up?’ Carol asks.

  ‘Emergency meeting,’ she says.

  Carol and I troop after Jackie into the library, the smartest room in the house, the only one to have been refurbished. Like the Captain’s Parlour next door, it has large dimensions and a high ceiling. Plus it’s big enough to accommodate a full-size snooker table with space to spare. Not that there is a snooker table. But there’s a wonderful collection of leather-bound books on curious subjects with titles such as Exotic Animals in England, Horse Medicine and How to Mix Drinks and Serve Them. It’s been done up in keeping with its Regency beginnings but with a modern twist. Farrow & Ball paint and a few Cath Kidston cushions on the window seat. The sea is busy doing its thing out there, bubbling with white-tipped waves. My stomach is doing its thing too, bubbling with nausea. What on earth is going on?

  ‘We’re closed,’ Jackie says. ‘As of now. The building is dangerous and a public liability.’ She wipes at one of her eyes. ‘Hay fever,’ she says. In October.

  ‘We can’t just close,’ says Carol, her voice reaching a pitch I didn’t think possible. ‘We’ve got a school visit this afternoon. And the memory café tomorrow.’

  Carol’s right. We’re more than a fusty museum. We’re a hub for the town. We can’t just close. ‘What’s so dangerous about the building?’

  ‘The plaster is falling off in chunks. The roof tiles are dodgy. Some of the windowpanes are loose. With winter on its way, something could fall off and flatten someone.’ She sighs a wobbly sigh. ‘Shall I go on? There’s quite a list.’ She hands round the letter that Dave dumped on her.

  Bloody Dave with his smug face, his overbearing presence, his interfering ways, his need to control. Well, he’s got a fight on his hands.

  THE RAIN HAS cleared by the time we leave the museum and head our separate ways, with a plan to meet down the Thirsty Bishop this evening for a confab.

  I spot Trampy Kev lurking outside the bakery so I dive in and buy him a steak-and-onion pasty and a cuppa. He nods in thanks and wanders off towards the bandstand, swearing enthusiastically at an over-zealous seagull.

  The sun might be shining but it’s doing nothing to cheer me up. I can’t believe this is actually happening. Maybe I should talk to Tom? He might have some ideas. But after last night, I don’t want him thinking I’m after him, the handsome widower with the nice thighs. Because he is handsome and he does have nice thighs.

  I’m almost at the front door before I notice Mike’s van in the driveway. Has he forgotten he doesn’t live here any more? And bugger, now the tears are gathering and threatening to fall.

  I let myself in quietly, hoping Mike’s in the shed with Dad so I can creep upstairs unnoticed and have a lie-down. Maybe run a bath. Maybe have a gin and tonic in the bath. For elevenses.

  ‘Jen.’

  Damn. I’ve only got one foot on the bottom stair and Mike’s appeared in the hallway.

  ‘Hi, Jen. You look, er, nice.’

  ‘What, this old thing?’ I’m still wearing the ruffly blouse.

  ‘It’s sort of Lady Di,’ he says, mesmerized by my flounces. ‘You OK? Have you been crying?’

  ‘Course not.’ I can’t let him see me cry. I will not.

  ‘Jen, come here.’

  I should go upstairs and run that bath and pour that gin but I don’t. I follow him meekly to the kitchen, let him sit me down at the table, and I watch him make me a cup of tea, just how I like it, almost like the old days. But those days have gone, quite gone, ever since he decided he’d rather make cups of tea for Melanie.

  ‘Here you go,’ Mike says. ‘Tell me what’s happened.’

  And suddenly, against my will and better judgement, he’s my husband again, for a moment, and it’s easy to open my mouth and let the words tumble out into the space that used to be filled with the noise of our children, clamouring for food, whining about homework, arguing about who got the last Rolo. I tell him about how I miss Mum. And Harry. And Lolly. I’m about to say that I even miss him, Mike, but I don’t know if that’s actually true. After all, it’s not really Mike I miss. It’s the family unit, the roast dinners and the lawnmowing. So I tell him about Dave and the work situation and how I was getting on with my life but now it’s been bloody scuppered. And I tell him my dog, who was our dog, has probably got another dog pregnant and there could be puppies galore and Dad isn’t getting any younger. And nor am I. And I’m pretty sure I’ve hit the menopause and I’ll have to get some HRT which is supposed to hold back the wrinkles and give you energy and stop the flushes.

  And he listens and he listens and he lets me pour out everything, nearly everything, without interruption, and then he says it. ‘Let me come home.’

  This is followed by a silence which holds so many possibilities. So many opportunities. So many regrets. So much bitterness and angst and bloodiness.

  ‘No. No, Mike, no.’

  I have to get outside. I can’t breathe. He wants to come home. He still thinks of this place as his home. I leave him there at the table and escape to the shed in search of some sanity.

  DAD IS LYING on the floor of the shed, doing yoga whilst talking to Bob.

  ‘Ah, Jennifer Juniper. There you are. Mike is skulking around somewhere.’

  ‘I know. I saw him.’

  ‘He wanted to talk to you about something.’

  ‘Did he tell you what it was?’

  ‘Did you know that the longest-living cells in the body are brain cells which can live an entire lifetime?’

  ‘Yes, Dad, I knew that. Did he tell you?’

  ‘Did you know that the only letter not on the Periodic Table is the letter “J”?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t aware of that.’

  ‘Did you know that Hawaii is moving towards Japan four inches every year?’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Sorry, love. What did you say?’

  ‘Can you get up a minute? Have a sit-down. You’ll get aches and pains lying down there in the draught.’ I hold out my hand and help him to his feet. He flops into the depths of his ancient and tatty armchair with an old-man moan, then hunts for his glasses. I point to his head.

  ‘Let’s have it then,’ he says.

  I sit down in the deckchair. A small pause for dramatic effect and then I say it. ‘Mike wants to move back in.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ he says. ‘Yes, he told me.’

  ‘He told you?’

  ‘I said you were highly unlike
ly to let that happen. I thought he’d gone home in a huff.’

  ‘No, he’s still here.’ Which is weird now I think of it. He knows I work Mondays. Was he going to wait all day for me to get back? What was he going to do with himself? Cook a meal? Help himself to the contents of my fridge? Use my loo?

  ‘He wasn’t funny with you?’ Dad asks.

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Shirty?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘He wasn’t funny or shirty or even shitty. Actually, I thought he was going to cry. Or beg. And then that made me realize something.’

  ‘What was that, love?’

  ‘Just how much I don’t want him back.’

  ‘Ah.’ Dad hunts in his pocket and produces a Werther’s Original. Offers it to me. I might be forty-nine but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for one of those, thank you very much. I shake my head. Dad pops it into his mouth, sucks for a bit, then thinks of something, checks his watch. The one that has all the time zones, and temperatures, and latest football scores. ‘Why are you back so early?’

  I tell him about the museum closure and he says not to worry, it won’t happen. It’ll be a mix-up. There’s no way one councillor can have that much influence.

  ‘Unless he’s crooked,’ he says as an afterthought.

  ‘We’re talking about Dave Barton here.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Yes. Well, in that case, have a word with that Tom fella.’

  ‘I suppose. I’m meeting the girls tonight at the Bishop. I could text him and see if he’ll come along.’ I let out a massive drawn-out sigh. Bob pricks up his ears, leaps onto my lap and licks my chin. ‘I’m going for a bath.’

  ‘Take a sloe gin with you.’ Dad winks. ‘There’s still a drop left.’

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’ I lean down to give his forehead a peck and take the bottle from the table next to his chair. The level has depleted somewhat. I’m turning to go when he stops me.

  ‘Did you know that there are sixty-two thousand miles of blood vessels in the human body?’ he says. ‘Laid end to end they would circle the earth two and a half times.’

  ‘Funnily enough, Dad, I didn’t know that.’