One Glass Is Never Enough

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  She saw Sarah’s eyes flit anxiously to the clock but she still leant over and squeezed Gaynor’s arm. “I thought you’d decided you didn’t really want any.”

  “I have. Well, I sort of had. I’m not sure I’d be any good with a baby. Which is just as well since I can’t anyway. But I don’t want her to have one…”

  “But she was bound to want to, wasn’t she?” said Sarah, reasonably. “How old is she – twenty-seven?”

  “And I’m going to be a bloody grandmother at thirty-eight!”

  “Only a step-one. It doesn’t count. Is there really no chance of you getting pregnant?”

  “I don’t know – I’m due to see the gynae bloke this afternoon, funnily enough.” She picked up her mug and put it down again. “Bloody hilarious in fact. Perhaps I’ll cancel. Do Claire’s jobs instead. I don’t think Victor wants one any more, anyway. Not with me. You should have heard him last night…”

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps Victor was upset by Danny. You really ought to have a word with that man,” she went on evenly. “Anyone watching would think you were having an affair.”

  “Well, we’re not!”

  “Have you told him that?”

  She felt better after she’d showered and got some make-up on, or as better as was possible with a thumping head and chronic dehydration. Sarah gave her a mint. “Don’t breathe anywhere near the magistrates, will you?” she said with a grimace. “You smell like an old drip tray.”

  The hearing for the full licence was that morning. Only Sarah and Claire would be licensees but Gaynor wanted to watch. She knew it was just a rubber stamp – they’d already opened, after all, and as Claire said, who would mind them selling the odd gin and tonic as well as wine? But Greens Wine Bar felt like the only good thing in her life right now and she wanted to be there for the official seal of approval.

  “What time have we got to be there?”

  “It starts at ten. GET DRESSED!” Sarah rubbed vigorously at her damp hair, as she bellowed down the flat’s hallway at Charlie. She groaned as she glanced in the mirror. “Look at the state of me, and I don’t know what I’ve done with the bloody dryer.”

  Gaynor pulled Bel on to her lap. “Shall I do yours, sweetheart?” she asked the little girl as she began to plait her hair. Sarah’s still stood out in a bush. “Comb it flat,” suggested Gaynor hopefully. “It’ll look all right.”

  “Mr Darling wants us there by nine-thirty.” Sarah turned to the clock despairingly. “I’m never going to make it now. You get over there and tell Claire I’m on my way.”

  “OK.” Gaynor fastened a pink scrunchy round the end of Bel’s braid and gave her a kiss. “Be good for Mummy, eh,” she said, getting to her feet as Charlie came back in still trouser-less. “I’ll leave you to it then,” she said hastily to Sarah, whose expression indicated a court appearance for infanticide rather than licensing. “I’ll save you a good seat and get the popcorn in.”

  “It’ll be boring,” warned Sarah.

  “I can take it!”

  Anything, Gaynor thought, was better than going home.

  Sarah tried to remember what it was like to have a life like Gaynor’s where you just rose, showered, dressed, picked up your handbag and left, without the daily battle over the last portion of Frosties, the fruitless search for matching socks, the dull thud of one child’s head being pulverised by another.

  The boys, after a final session of rolling on the floor, were in school uniform, at last but Bel still had no shoes on. “Can I have pony wallpaper in my bedroom?” she asked angelically.

  Sarah forced a smile. “I’m sure you can. Charlie and Luke have to choose their decorations too.” She gave her hair a last comb, finished putting on her lipstick and looked at her watch. “Come on now, boys. We’re already late for school and I’ve got to get Bel to Grandma’s.”

  Charlie scowled. “I don’t want to share a room with him. I want to go back to our house.”

  Luke gave a belch. “I don’t want to sleep near you either, you muppet.”

  Sarah handed Charlie his lunch-box, fighting to keep her voice calm. “You know we can’t do that, darling. It’s been sold.”

  Charlie dropped the box. It thumped on to the floor, springing open, depositing a cling-filmed sandwich, crisps and chocolate. An apple rolled away into the doorway. Charlie kept his eyes fixed defiantly on his mother.

  “I want Dad back.”

  Claire was thinking about her father too. She’d tried not to care when her brother Neill had brought the news that Dad was ‘too busy’ to come to the party. She was still trying now. It was, after all, to be expected.

  It was a perfect summer morning. The tide was in and glittery small waves foamed white against the sand while fishing boats bobbed against the jetty in fetching postcard manner. She watched her two Airedales, Henry and Wooster, charge ahead of her along Viking Bay, bounding excitedly for the bits of driftwood she lobbed them, shaking themselves at the water’s edge. The breeze blew Claire’s hair across her face. Up on the jetty, the harbour master waved.

  Neill’s friends thought they were mad to live in Broadstairs.

  “You’ve got to be joking, mate” – Seb was the most vocal – “living all the way down there – arse end of England!”

  Seb and his cronies found the two-hour commute to work a cause for great amusement and derision. Sometimes Jamie got tired and dispirited too, and said perhaps they should think about moving closer to town. But Claire, watching Henry and Wooster chasing the waves, knew she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Especially now.

  She’d done all the moving she ever needed to do, she thought, recalling the endless pubs of her childhood. Her father was always looking for the next challenge. The next broken-down nicotine-stained dump to transform into a humming haven of warmth and noise. Before they moved again.

  “Don’t you get fed up with it?” Claire had once asked her mother. “Don’t you want to settle?”

  And her mother had smiled that placid, accepting, I’monly-the-little-woman smile that always set Claire’s teeth on edge. “Well, sometimes I think…” she’d begun vaguely, pushing back her wispy hair, leaving the sentence unfinished as she always did if a subject were contentious, and going straight to “You know what your father’s like…”

  Claire did. He’d raised his thick eyebrows when she’d told him she was buying Greens. Given a small amused shake of his head. “Good luck to you, girl,” he’d said. But later, after they’d all had lunch, when Claire’s mother was bustling about clearing plates and dishes, he’d taken Jamie aside and begun to give advice. Telling him about profit margins and stock levels and the importance of knowing who your customers were.

  “I’m the one who’s buying it,” Claire had said furiously. “It’s going to be mine. Jamie will still have his job.”

  Jamie worked in a Japanese clearing bank in the city. Seb, Neill’s friend, was one of his workmates. That was how she’d met him. He’d been white with fatigue and hangover after a heavy night celebrating Neill’s birthday in the pubs and clubs of Southend before coming back to breakfast in The Three Crowns, the family’s inn, where Claire’s mother had sprung dutifully from bed at 6 a.m. to provide egg, sausage and bacon.

  “Do you like working here?” he’d asked Claire later as she laid up tables for lunch, and she’d smiled at him. It was the first time anyone had enquired.

  She remembered her father’s face when, two years later, after The Three Crowns had been swapped for the Anglers Arms in Broadstairs and her father’s interest in that small seaside town had already waned, she’d told him she was staying on. “I’m twenty-three, Dad, I don’t want to work for my parents for ever.” She and Jamie had bought a house together. She’d had a series of jobs locally before becoming assistant manager of the Grand Hotel, and then, within a short space of time, became Manager, when the previous job-holder dropped to the floor with a coronary while trying to placate an irate guest whose breakfast hadn’t been up
to scratch.

  It was on a bright morning like this that she’d first noticed Greens was for sale. She’d walked down past with the dogs and stopped and pressed her face against the window. There were three or four dirty pint pots on the bar and an empty Bacardi bottle. On the table nearest the bay, an ashtray was filled with dog ends. She’d looked at the peeling brown paint longingly as the dogs strained frantically at the leashes in her hand. She wanted it so much it hurt.

  It would have gone on hurting if fate hadn’t delivered Sarah to the hotel kitchen, needing to make extra money by doing some evening shifts as chef. Sarah had worked for Claire’s family before – when they ran the Anglers Arms. Claire remembered how good she’d been – even her ultra-critical father had been impressed. Sarah had salvaged enough money from the wreckage of her marriage to afford a small house, Claire could talk the project up at the bank but still they needed more. Then Sarah produced Gaynor.

  Claire whistled for the dogs. She knew lots of people would think her mad going into business with two women she didn’t know well but Sarah was a fantastic cook and Gaynor looked the part. Between them they’d stumped up the necessaries. Gaynor had done bugger-all in the frantic run-up to the opening, save overseeing the upholstery and choosing the blinds, but she’d certainly pulled in the crowds on the night. Though she drank too much. And Sarah had those children. Claire shuddered. Why anyone would want a baby growing inside them when they could just buy a dog was beyond her.

  She clipped the leads back on to the Airedales’ collars and started back up Harbour Street, through the narrow flint arch and up the slope. Near the top she stopped outside Greens once more and put her face to the glass again. Saw the gleaming pumps and polished tables. Stepping over the road, she surveyed the fresh green paint and hanging baskets. The illuminated hanging sign that would stand out from the top of the road as you looked down the hill was still to go up, but it was all looking good. She looked critically at the olive lettering across the front. Maybe one more bunch of grapes there…

  But it was theirs. Mine, she thought as she walked on. She was going to build it up beyond all expectation. Make it a huge success. Show them all. Especially her father…

  It was a minute to nine as Sarah braked sharply on the zigzag lines outside the St Katherine’s Primary School gates. Late again, despite her best intentions. It wasn’t really Gaynor’s fault. Yes, she’d turned up unexpectedly but there’d still been the usual skirmishes involving lost PE kit and trying to communicate via Luke’s newly-acquired Neanderthal grunting and Charlie’s downright belligerence. She made a point now of walking her second son right into the playground and kissing him. He wiped his cheek in disgust. “Ugh, lipstick!”

  Two other mothers hurried past with their heads down. Why was it when – just for once – she was wearing a skirt and jacket with make-up on, nobody gave her a second glance, yet when she turned up in her pyjamas with her hair unwashed, trying to skulk in the car and just tip Charlie on to the pavement, everyone was queuing up to speak to her?

  “Hi!” she called brightly to Roderick, chair of governors, father of four immaculate and brilliant children, dapper as ever in his suit and black umbrella, who generally regarded her with repulsion. “Lovely morning!”

  He looked curiously from her to the leaden sky, evidently not recognising her.

  “Hello there.” She tried again with Fiona-perfect-hair – who sported the full foundation and blusher ensemble with matching accessories even when waving the children off on a four a.m. school trip – hoping the woman would notice her own attempt-at-coiffured locks.

  Fiona cringed beneath the jacket she was holding over her head, not even looking at Sarah, as she cried, “Must dash!”

  So must they all. Sarah looked at her watch. She’d failed Mr Darling on the nine-thirty front but had followed his enjoinder to dress smartly. Which had clearly been aimed only at her, as Claire had been power-suited in crisp black and white at the time, hair twisted up on top of her head, glasses on for the serious look, while Gaynor had dripped with her customary jewellery and glittery heels. It was her own stained tracksuit bottoms he’d been looking at.

  So here she was, done up to the nines trying to look every inch the cool business woman. The rain was hammering down on her windscreen as she pulled up outside her mother’s.

  “Quickly!” she said to Bel. “There’s Grandma at the door.” But Bel’s mouth had gone into a square. “I’ve left Rosie!”

  “Never mind, you’ll see her later.” Sarah’s heart sank as the child went rigid and folded her arms. “I want her now!” she wailed.

  “Why didn’t you remember her, then?”

  “She’s only four.” Her mother had appeared on the pavement in a headscarf. “No wonder she needs some security after…”

  “Yes, OK!” Sarah snapped, watching her mother’s lips clamp together. “Look, I’m going to be late.” She attempted to haul Bel out of the back seat, feeling the rain drumming down on to the back of her neck. “Rosie will be fine, darling. You’ve got lots of other toys at Grandma’s…”

  “I want Rosie!” Bel screamed.

  “It wouldn’t take long just to pop back…” Her mother had pushed past her and was halfway in the car and patting Bel’s leg. “Sshh, darling, Mummy will fetch her…”

  “I can’t. There’s no time.” Sarah scowled at her mother. She was behind enough already without going back to collect a bald, smelly rag-doll with one leg hanging off. “Get out of the car right now, Isobel...”

  “Just let her calm down first.” Her mother patted on, apparently oblivious to the rain soaking into her back.

  It was flattening Sarah’s hair, running in streams down her face, no doubt taking most of her make-up with it. She wiped at her cheeks as her mother, never one to let a little weather deter her from a crisis with a grandchild, wedged herself more firmly into the car and cooed. “Shall we make fairy cakes, poppet?”

  Sarah looked at her watch. “Mum, please!”

  The minutes were ticking past. Bel upped the volume of her cries as Sarah, finally managing to elbow Granny aside, dragged the child out by the arms, carried her through the downpour and deposited her on the doorstep. “I’m sorry, darling.” She kissed the top of the sobbing head. “I’ve got to go.”

  Her mother sighed. “I’ve got my patchwork circle at three, remember.”

  “I’ll be back by then.”

  Somehow. As well as the list of jobs awaiting her at the wine bar, she had to go shopping, iron Charlie’s cub uniform, clear up the kitchen, buy Luke the cricket helmet he’d told her this morning he needed for tomorrow…

  But right now she had to get the hell over to Margate. Which was only a few short miles away especially if you cut up through St Peters and on to the long straight road past the hospital. Here she could put her foot down and be there in minutes. Unless… Sarah swore loudly. She slowed abruptly to twenty miles an hour looking despairingly at the traffic in front of her. After all the weeks of trying to buy the wine bar, the hours she’d sat up late swotting up on the drinking laws to get her certificate, the trials and tribulations they’d had raising the money they needed, now everything could be delayed because there was a dead body on the road.

  She tugged anxiously at her hair. The inevitable funeral procession – undertaking was Thanet’s second largest service industry – was still a mile from the turning to the crematorium. Sarah looked at the snake of cars and sighed. Was there really any need for fourteen different drivers to miss appointments? Once you were in your box, what difference would it make if someone slid past at more than five miles an hour?

  The car in front was driven by an old boy in a hat. No chance of him overtaking, then, even if he wasn’t following a hearse.

  She stretched out a hand and scrabbled in her handbag on the front seat, confirming what she feared. Her mobile was still at home on the kitchen table. Probably no credit on it, anyway. She could feel Claire’s disapproval. Perhaps even her doubts. Her t
hinking that, even on a day as important as this, she, Sarah, new business partner extraordinaire, was late again.

  But at least Gaynor would be there. Dizzy she might be, but Gaynor could explain.

  3. Mavrodaphne

  Deceptively sweet with overtones of plum.

  Gaynor, sitting at the back of the magistrates court, imagined her husband’s face appearing above the dark wood panelling of the dock.

  Victor Warrington, you are charged with an act of gross unfaithfulness with person or persons unknown. Evidence for the prosecution:

  Putting the phone down rapidly when your wife enters the room.

  Staying away overnight even more than usual.

  Being in possession of a receipt from a nightclub when you say you hate them.

  Having a generally shifty air when questioned.

  Gaynor thought about what she’d found. She’d wanted to show Sarah but there was no time this morning. Sarah had said they’d have a coffee afterwards, before Gaynor’s hospital appointment with the consultant.

  Sarah would probably try to explain it away, but how could she?

  I would like to draw the court’s attention to exhibit one. A shirt worn by the accused clearly showing…

  “Where’s she got to?” Claire shifted irritably beside her.

  “She was just dropping the kids off and then coming straight over.”

  “She’d better be here soon. If we’re next…”

  “I’ll ask!” Dumping her bag on the floor, Gaynor stood up, swung past two red-faced men in tight suits and approached the usher.

  “Greens Wine Bar?” she enquired. “Are we next?”

  He jerked a hand at her and nodded towards the bench, black cape flapping. “QUIET!” he mouthed, frowning.

  Gaynor went and sat back down. “Did PC Whitehouse say anything?” she whispered to Claire, looking fondly at the policeman sitting at the front of the court. Mmmm . What was it about uniform?

  Getting out her make-up bag, Gaynor began to apply another coat of mascara, forcing thoughts of her traitorous husband aside and allowing herself a delicious moment of picturing the PC standing over her, loosening his tie with hands shaking with lust… “Damn!” she said out loud, as the ensuing tremor caused her to poke herself in the eye.