by Jacob Ross
“Not a gin.”
“Well, gin is a constituent, yes.”
Before he could prolong the conversation, Donna grabbed a bottle of Rose’s Lime Cordial and caught the old woman’s eye.
“Now, you see,” said the woman, “this lovely young lady seems perfectly appraised of the situation. So perhaps she might also be able to locate a second shot of gin to go with the one you were kind enough to bring. Would you, dear?”
Gavin nodded a retreat. Donna took the glass of gin to the Gordon’s optic, added a shot, dropped in a wedge of lime and returned to where she’d left the cordial in front of the old woman.
As she poured, a slim, crumpled hand curled around the neck of the bottle. “Ssh, ssh, ssh!” said the old woman. “Easy on the Rose’s, dear.”
A sip brought a momentary stillness to her hand. The rim, pressed into the circles of rouge on her cheekbones, left grooves in her skin and a faint blush on the glass, now held out to Donna for a refill.
Donna built another gimlet, her every move chaperoned by murmurs of admonishment or approval. The old woman gave the end result a sigh of satisfaction and sat for a moment in weary euphoria before a new fluster came over her.
“I do have the means to honour this…” She let her voice trail away. She delved into her coat pocket and produced a 20p coin and a cloakroom ticket. “If you would care to set up a chit, I could –”
Another 20p and the plastic shell of a Kinder egg. Donna tried to calculate whether her share of the tips would cover the woman’s two drinks. She reached over to prevent her from going back to her pocket, but instead found herself catching two £1 coins, some silver, a muslin cloth and a ten pound note.
“Silly of me to monopolise your time without establishing my probity, dear, wasn’t it? Now, would you be very sweet and tell me your name, so I don’t have to keep calling you ‘dear’?”
Donna gathered up the change after taking the price of two gimlets. “It’s Donna.”
“Yes it is – Donna. How lovely. And you, my dear, must call me Sal. How lovely… how lovely that I can trust you, can’t I, to prepare another of your gimlets which really are excellent, dear, they really are.”
Donna made gimlets for the rest of her shift.
The next day Sal was back with another pocketful of foreign objects and the correct amount of cash to keep the cocktails pouring. If Donna was in, Sal would be served by no one else. Over the course of a week, this had taken on the status of a sacred ritual. Donna observed how The Raven manufactured its own folklore, how zones of exclusion formed around tables and bar stools, tankards and buttons on the jukebox.
Sal’s shawl never left her shoulders; it was held in place by a brooch. Four birds, either completely green or silver-bodied with green wings, sat on a leafy branch, each head facing in a different direction, beaks open in song. Donna would admire the detail, how the different greens reflected various stages of the dawn.
She had mentioned this to Sal one afternoon when the old woman seemed in a particularly jittery state, and the dance of the flame from her lighter to her cigarette threatened to veer out of control before Donna steadied her hand.
“The birds? Ah, the brooch, yes, hmm.” Her fingertips traced the edge of the brooch, then gave a dismissive flutter. “Well, honestly, it’s only a little something from John Lewis.”
The way she said it, John Lewis could have been a former suitor who used to festoon her with love trinkets. She continued to wave away imagined compliments, her eyelashes batting in anticipation of a panorama of appreciative glances. This ended when she took a heavy drag of her Berkeley and puffed out the smoke.
“Thinking of anyone in particular, Sal?”
Sal’s lips smacked on her glass. “Oh yes, dear. Yes, it could be anyone. That’s really it, you see. It could be anyone.”
She sat in silence, staring at the middle distance, occasionally blinking. Only when Donna began making another gimlet, did Sal re-emerge. She now held Donna in her gaze, the scent of Yardley’s April Violet hovering between them.
“And what about you, my dear? A young woman like you. Is there anyone in…?”
“In…? Oh, in particular?”
“Precisely, dear.” Sal’s mouth spread into a crimson grin.
Donna shook her head. “No, there’s just me.”
There was a loose ice cube glinting on the bar. Donna wiped the water around it then gathered it up with a bar towel. She watched the towel absorb the water and the cube. “I’ve got a great big house all to myself.”
“And that’s splendid. I’m so glad,” Sal said, drifting back to the middle distance, “so very glad… Oh! she’s done ever so well for herself, oh yes, a house of her own… But you see, dear…” The lines around her mouth were deeply defined. “Be careful because if you just stop where you are…” Now she was clasping Donna’s hand, “if you just stop, you might forget how to start again.”
*
Donna was polishing champagne flutes in an area of the bar that provided a chapel of rest from unwanted conversations, when Gavin approached her.
“Can I be real with you, Donna? When the eatery opens it’s really not going to be the sort of place where you can spend all day chatting up some auld tramp and plying her with gizmos or whatever… Don’t get me wrong! You’re rinsing her for the cash so there’s no complaints.”
“It’s almost like she belongs here,” Donna said.
“Ex-actly – but when we get the place sorted, your dipso mate will be brick dust, and I worry you’ll have a problem with that. Just being real.”
“I appreciate how real you are, Gavin.”
“But! A little bird tells me you don’t have to worry about rent or a mortgage on that gaffe you’re in down the road. What I’m saying: there’ll be a job for you when we reopen – hold that thought.” He caressed his Bluetooth headset and left Donna with a thumbs-up.
Sal had a mannerism: with a gimlet in one hand and a Berkeley in the other, the glass and the cigarette would be on either side of her mouth, so that moving her lips to either simply required a grimace in one direction or the other. She’d then use a free ring-finger to scratch away a globule of excess mascara from her lower lashes. The eyes themselves would be lit and flickering at these times, peering, it seemed, over a mindscape of shadows. She held this pose until she needed recharging from one hand or the other. Then she would return to a conversation Donna had forgotten from ten minutes earlier, or the day before.
“And you have no way of knowing if it’s the morning or the afternoon?”
“If? Well – it’s… two – coming up to twenty to three, Sal.”
“My word, dear, no – your appointment, you were saying – the gas board, dear, with the gas board.”
“Oh! The new boiler?”
“Hallelujah.”
“Yeah, it’s on Friday – before four, they reckon.”
“And this means what, exactly? You can’t possibly work here if you’re going to be called away at any –”
“Oh, no – no, I’m taking the day off. Now or never, really. Be getting cold again soon. Where did the summer go, eh, Sal? Time just evaporates.”
Sal’s face was again in its tobacco-gin cradle. Her eyes disappeared behind the smoke.
“Yes, that’s very true. But, you see, sometimes it petrifies… sometimes it petrifies. And you’re left with just the rocks to carry around.”
Donna unscrewed the cap of the Rose’s cordial bottle by way of an invitation for Sal to continue.
The old woman reached out her fag hand, ash spilling along its trajectory, and brushed Donna’s right cheek. “As you know, I came to motherhood very late in life.”
“I didn’t… so… where do your children…?”
“Child.” Sal’s reply was emphatic, though she still appeared to be addressing a space over Donna’s left shoulder. “A daughter.” There was a sigh. “Yes – came late, and left early. Another gimlet, Donna, if you would?”
This tim
e, when Sal’s finger moved to flick away some loose mascara, it found a speck swelling with liquid already drawing itself down the edge of her nose, leaving a trail of blue-black freckles.
The new boiler came on the Friday, which meant the radiator in the front room could at last perform a function beyond that of a slow clothes drier for underwear. Sal wasn’t in The Raven when Donna returned to work the following evening. Her stool remained empty on the Monday, and throughout that week. When Gavin closed the place down for the refit, the stool was one of the first items thrown in the skip.
In the weeks The Raven was closed, Donna stayed up most nights, kept company by news reports of natural disasters and insurmountable social problems. She worked some relief nightshifts in the bar of a hotel on the dock road and she’d go by the market on her way back to the house to stock up on fresh limes. The Raven reopened the week after Valentine’s and she settled into a perpetual graveyard shift. Unordered specials incorporating goat’s cheese were daily tipped into bins where she used to empty the ashtrays. The cigarette smell hadn’t been entirely scrubbed away and, when she lifted the bin lids, she smelt the feather touch of April Violet, a gasp of juniper.
When nights are sleepless, you quarter a lime and squeeze one wedge into a tumbler you’ve liberated from your workplace. Add ice cubes and give it a rattle round with a swizzle stick. Pour in enough gin to quieten down the ice. Unscrew the cap from a bottle of Rose’s Lime Cordial and stop yourself just before you tip the cordial into the glass. Slow down and add just a rumour of Rose’s. The lime cordial that makes it out of the bottle should be less an ingredient and more a memo, notifying the glass of the existence of liquids other than gin. Wipe around the rim of your glass with another wedge of lime and toss that in. Carry the gimlet back into the front room and repeat until morning.
One early morning, inspecting a thread of green weaving among the ice cubes, Donna noticed more of an emerald sparkle than usual. The curtains in the front room were rarely opened but a small flap had worked its way loose from its runner and sunlight was reaching through the room and into the drink. Donna set down the glass and switched off the lamp. She crossed the room, turned off the television and pulled the curtains open.
Outside, a man walked his dog back from the shop with the morning paper. Milk bottles sat on a neighbour’s doorstep. On Donna’s side of the road, a sparrow struck up its part of the dawn chorus on a tree branch whose leaves, inflamed by the sunlight, bounced balls of green light against the bird’s feathers. Another sparrow, and then a third, joined the line-up on the branch. Donna waited until, answering a sequence of calls by the other three, a fourth bird emerged through the leaves to perch on the same branch.
She placed two fingers on her lips, kissed them, and tapped them on the window. Behind her fingerprints, the four birds continued their song. Donna turned around, gathered the duvet up from the sofa, carried it upstairs to her room, and went to bed.
SAI MURRAY
PISS PALS
Damo caught a glimpse of himself as he strode past the darkened window of Woolsmiths and stepped up his swagger. Tschhhhh! Damn fine. He was late but that didn’t matter, he was worth it. Shit yeah, Matty would never be able to compete with £250 faded Marischo Narvadis – originals of course – limited edition with customised ass-rip below left buttock, revealing a purple sliver of £80 Drice Nortons. Sweet as.
“Fucking slow down, will ya!” Tameka called from down the street.
Damo slowed outside Rekordz. The window featured posters of some boy band. Although Damo knew he would always have the edge over any manufactured high street wank, he was struck by how much they looked like him. There was a difference though – a big difference – maybe not to the untrained eye. But the people that mattered knew. You couldn’t fake real style with no cheap chic.
“What’s the fucking rush; we’re already late, aren’t we?”
Breathing hard, Tameka adjusted her black Asher Pearce handbag from left shoulder to right. Damo set off as she drew up. He still had it, he was still ahead. When the high street caught up with your styles, that was when you needed to worry.
He undid a button on his Sempuriio shirt. Let the tan breathe – that’s cool, that’s allowed, not too posy in this weather. A low cut tee might have been a better option than the Sempuriio, though. A tee would have worked well – especially a Giorgius with sleeves rolled up.
He pulled the layered Morracka gem-beads up from beneath the 3-grade cotton, then carefully laid them back inside. He loved to feel them flop against his waxed pectorals and his ripped rectus abdominis. Erotic.
“Oi! I am in heels, remember!” Tameka click-clacked behind.
Damo stopped to let her catch up. She leaned a delicate hand against Krenco Caffè, careful not to get dirt on her Paschlina wrap. She adjusted the straps on her 3-inch Harpers.
Damo lapped up the show of cleavage. Yeah. Not the biggest but she did make use of what she had. Blinding. A knockout. He flashed Tameka his trademark grin and patted her arse.
“S’okay babes, don’t worry.” He looked at their reflections. “Fucking gorgeous.”
* * *
Damo scanned the room as soon as they entered the pub-restaurant. It was no place he’d choose, but this was Matty’s home turf. Old locals, a smattering of youngsters, the usual non-clubbing awkward geeks: Goths, Tuck-ins, Eco misfits. The back of Matty’s gelled three-quarter scalp (a “style” he had not altered for as long as Damo had known him) was visible in the far corner. Damo pulled Tameka forward by the waist and felt several manicured nails dig into his flesh. Damo regarded her with puzzlement.
“I need… to… pee.”
Tameka hurried off; he rubbed his forearm, tensing the flexor carpi muscles. Beneath his tribal dragon tat there might well be a set of crescent-shaped blemishes. He smiled. Feisty.
His best mate Matty was still engrossed in banter with his girl, Claire. Not an argument though. All sicky lovey-dovey.
Stay cool, Damo. Cool cool.
He strutted towards the bar pretending not to appreciate the nudges between a group of alco-pop girls. They wouldn’t often be blessed with seeing the likes of him in these parts. He could clean up in this town. They probably thought he was some celebrity. He often got that.
* * *
Four drinks crashed onto the table. Lager sloshed onto Matty’s Fenchcross polo tee. It was an old one; Damo had seen him in it before. Anger flashed across Matty’s face. Then he looked up and saw it was Damo.
“Don’t even serve Krostburg in this shithole,” Damo announced.
“Damo!” Matty pulled his arm from around Claire. He stood up to embrace Damo.
Mindful of the spill on Matty’s shirt, Damo pulled back, “Easy pal, Sempuriio, yeah.”
Matty raised an eyebrow at Claire. He wiped his tee-shirt dry, held up his hand, then punched Damo in the abs. Damo countered with two swift kidney punches, faked a jab and then pulled Matty into a headlock. Sweet citrus tickled Damo’s nostrils. Was that Assati cologne? Subtle musk, hint of menthol. Some Dravidus moisturiser as well perhaps? Well played, Matty. Matty slipped Damo’s arm and they wrestled each other into the wall. Claire tutted as they collided with the table.
“Settle down, boys.”
They disentangled and smoothed out their shirts.
“Not bad, Matty lad.” Damo slapped Matty’s abs. He tried not to sound out of breath, “Still going the gym?”
“Nar, not been for ages.”
“Yeah, me neither.” Damo pulled up a seat and swigged a gulp of lager. “Claire,” he nodded.
“Hello Damo, you alright?”
“Good babes, good. You?”
“Yes, very well thanks. We’re good.” She draped Matty’s arm across her shoulder as he sat down next to her. “So, where’s… your girlfriend?”
Damo took another swig. He looked over their shoulders and saw Tameka emerge from the lav.
“Tameka? Just coming.” He pointed with his pint and enjoyed watching t
heir expressions as they turned their heads.
He stood up when Tameka arrived.
“Y’alright, babes?” He kissed her cheek, let his hand linger on firm arse beneath silk Avanti dress as he sat her opposite Claire. Tameka had taken the opportunity to touch up her make-up. She glowed. Good girl.
“Tameka – Matty. Matty – Tameka. And this is Claire. Claire – Tameka.”
Damo caught Matty’s eye. He translated his mate’s arched brows and puckered lips: “Fucking nice one, mate, well done. Fucking babe.”
Damo returned the telepathy with a wink: “You don’t know the fucking half, mate –absolute filth!” That would do it. Satisfactory. Best possible entrance under the circumstances.
* * *
The meal went better than Damo had expected. He’d been worried about Tameka fitting in and her banter level. They never really talked about much; she didn’t often get his jokes. Claire stepped in though and the two seemed to be getting on.
Claire always made an effort to be nice to his girlfriends. He appreciated that as he knew she must feel intimidated. Claire was clever and everything, funny, but with that girl-next-door kind of look. Didn’t really make the effort. Decent tits but body-fat ratio leaning towards pudgy.
Matty would have to watch that – Claire’s arms showed early signs of turkey wobble. He looked over at Tameka’s arms. Tight. Not Madonna-muscled, but just enough cardio to keep everything toned. No excess. Claire acted almost as if she didn’t care. Damo remembered describing Claire to Tameka, and the time she spilled sticky toffee pudding on her fake M&P top. Custard, the works. When Matty pointed it out, Claire had just laughed and slurped it up, not even bothering to wipe the stain. Damo knew Tameka would never embarrass him like that. Tameka had laughed with him at that story.
While Tameka and Claire bonded, Damo leaned over to Matty.
“So, let’s get some toot, yeah?” He tapped his nostril twice. “Tams would be up for it. Go find a club, yeah?”
Matty shook his head and glanced over at Claire. “Aw nar, mate.”
“What? C’mon, mate. How long is it since we had a proper blow-out?” He kept his voice down. “She doesn’t have to come if she’s not up for it.”