An Extra Shot

by Stephen Anthony Brotherton

  Freddie laughed.

  Derek stopped walking, turned around and looked at us. ‘I’m just trying to save you a mix-up when it’s dark and you can’t find your key.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Freddie. ‘You’re right. It is simple once you know.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, squeezing Freddie’s hand. ‘That’s really helpful.’

  Derek opened the back door. ‘I’ve chopped you some logs for the wood burner,’ he said, pointing at a wheelbarrow.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll need them,’ said Freddie. ‘Not in this heat.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Logs are good. We’ll use them.’

  Derek grinned and walked into the cottage. ‘Let me know if you need any more.’

  We stepped into the hallway, which was actually part of the lounge.

  Derek tapped his clipboard again and launched into his safety briefing, working his way down his checklist of items, most of which were backed up by laminated signs: how to change the toilet roll; how to use the space-age shower; how to use the space-age shower’s remote control, which was covered in icons, a standing woman, a sitting woman, head spray, side sprays, digital temperature; how to use the extractor fan with its piece of blowing tissue sellotaped on the end to let you know it was working; how to use the cooker, the fridge, the washing machine, the television.

  ‘Do either of you row?’ said Derek, looking up from his clipboard.

  ‘I don’t think we’ll be getting that energetic,’ said Freddie.

  ‘I row,’ I said. ‘I saw the boat on the lake. Are we okay to use it?’

  ‘I’ll need to instruct you first,’ said Derek. ‘Make sure you’re up to scratch before I issue the oars.’

  *

  Derek left us, satisfied we’d been fully inducted. I looked around the cottage and Freddie went up to the car to collect our bags. He brought my carpet bag first and two fully-loaded Sainsbury’s carrier bags. ‘What’s this?’ I said.

  ‘A few essentials,’ he said. ‘It’ll save us having to find a shop.’

  I unpacked the shopping, holding up each item as I fetched it out of the bag: Skimmed milk, gluten-free bread, cream biscuits and crumpets, a box of organic porridge oats, organic runny honey, Lurpak butter, Clipper teabags, Kenco Columbian coffee, toilet rolls, washing-up liquid, washing tablets, softener, gluten-free pasta and pesto, four bottles of Muscadet, and three Jamie Oliver wine tumblers. ‘Jesus, Freddie,’ I said. ‘We’re only here for three days. And what’s with the gluten-free?’

  ‘It’s better for you,’ he said. ‘Fewer calories. If we run out, there’s a pub a mile away that’s got good food reviews We can get a cab.’

  ‘A cab? We’re walking if it’s a mile away.’

  ‘Walking?’

  ‘That thing you do with your legs. Remember?’

  ‘I usually get cabs.’

  ‘Not if you’re with me. And I know it’s a stupid question, but why three wine tumblers?’

  ‘Just in case we break one. What do you think of the cottage?’

  I grabbed his hand and pulled him into the bedroom. ‘That bed is enormous, emperor size. And have you seen the bath?’ I pulled him into the bathroom. ‘That is the biggest bath I’ve ever seen, and pear-shaped. It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘You like it then.’

  ‘I love it.’

  ‘The couch isn’t very big though,’ he said, dropping his head and looking like the little boy who’d been given the smallest ice-cream.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll share the bed, but only because it’s so big. Come on. I want to have a closer look at the lake now clipboard man has gone.’

  ‘Why did you ask him to leave the logs? We won’t need them in this heat.’

  ‘You think I’m going to pass up the chance of having a real fire in this setting? We’ll leave the doors open.’

  *

  12.30 A.M. I could hear Freddie breathing, could sense that he was awake. He was lying right at the opposite edge of the emperor bed. I turned on my back and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about our evening. He’d cooked pasta with pesto, we’d opened a bottle of Muscadet, which he’d chilled in an ice-bag from the freezer, and we’d reminisced about Max’s, Sam the gypsy, Blackpool. After the meal, we’d taken our drinks onto the patio and stared up at a cloudless night sky and an endless universe of stars. We’d leaned back, back, back and made more and more stars come into view. I was going to ask him to lie on the grass and then I remembered it was damp. I turned on my side and faced the place in the darkness where Freddie was lying. I thought of Dad and the telescope he’d bought me when I was a little girl. He would have loved this place. Magic carpets and starry skies. I sighed, expecting Freddie to respond, but he didn’t say anything.

  And then I heard him roll over, and then, crash, he yelled.

  ‘My God,’ I said, reaching up and pulling the cord for the bedside light. ‘Are you okay? Where are you?’

  He groaned and I rolled across the bed to look over the edge.

  ‘Jesus, Freddie. What happened?’

  ‘I think I’ve broken my leg,’ he said, touching his shin.

  I got down beside him on the floor.

  ‘Careful,’ he said in a pitiful voice. ‘It really hurts.’

  There was a duck egg lump on his shin.

  ‘I banged my head as well,’ he said.

  I looked. A graze, no blood.

  ‘You’ve caught the bed frame as you rolled out,’ I said. ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Trying not to touch you,’ he said.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and he sat up, holding the back of his head. I laughed, leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘This is absurd,’ I said. ‘Only you could fall out of a bed this big.’

  *

  The next morning, I persuaded Freddie to come rowing with me. ‘Don’t we need the oars?’ he said. ‘You’ll have to convince clipboard man that you’re worthy.’

  I hadn’t thought of that. ‘How difficult can that be?’ I said.

  We walked past the log pile, up the dirt path to the eco-park entrance. I rang the front doorbell of the main house. A woman with a sparrow face and a 1970s curly perm opened the door. She was wearing a full housecoat and holding a feather duster. ‘We’re staying in the cottage,’ I said. ‘We’ve come to see Derek.’

  ‘He’s not here, love, off on one of his trips, won’t be back until this evening. Can I help? I’m Rose, his wife.’

  ‘We were hoping to use the boat. He said he’d let us have some oars.’

  ‘Can you row?’ she said.

  ‘My dad taught me,’ I said, nodding.

  She reached around the back of the door, grabbed two oars and handed them to me. ‘Can you row?’ she said to Freddie.

  Freddie shook his head.

  ‘Best leave your good lady in charge then.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  We turned and walked back down the path.

  ‘He’ll be furious,’ said Freddie. ‘I expected an exam or something.’

  ‘Remember what Rose said. We’re okay as long as I’m in charge.’

  *

  I rowed us gently around the lake, occasionally lifting the oars out of the water to manoeuvre the boat through a cluster of lily pads. Freddie lay back in the passenger side and watched the trout bubbling their way to the lake’s surface.

  ‘City boy,’ I said, kicking his foot. ‘Are you going to have a go at rowing?’

  ‘No chance,’ he said, draping his hand lazily in the water.

  ‘Probably best,’ I said. ‘I’d like us to stay afloat.’

  ‘There’s Gordon,’ he said, pointing out the biggest fish.

  ‘Gordon?’ I said.

  He shrugged and then serenaded me with all the words to Jilted John’s ‘Gordon
is a Moron’, which I realised halfway through I also knew off by heart. ‘I’d forgotten that song,’ I said.

  After about an hour, I rowed to the mooring point and held my breath while Freddie negotiated the short tension-filled step to dry land. He tied up the boat and held it steady for me. I jumped ashore and looked around. There was a man in a floppy straw hat and baggy blue walking shorts sitting on one of the wooden benches on the opposite bank. I’d seen him earlier walking around the lake, resting in between benches. I wondered where he was staying, who he was with, why he was on the bench on his own. He was looking away into the distance, staring at the four cows and their three calves on the hillside. I took Freddie’s hand and we walked up the hill towards the cottage, carrying an oar each in our free hands, using them as walking sticks to propel us forward.

  ‘Shall we open some wine when we get back?’ he said. ‘I’ve got some CDs with me as well.’

  ‘Are you trying to seduce me, Freddie?’

  He stopped walking and pulled me towards him. ‘Of course I am,’ he said.

  Freddie – August 2015

  Jo-Jo was lying on my chest, curling my grey chest hair as we watched the fire that she’d made when we came back from the lake. I was mesmerised by the yellow and blue dancing flames, the white heat spot, the world of fairy-fire-folk that I imagined inhabited a burning universe inside the log burner. We’d left the front and back door open to keep the heat down. The whole cottage smelt of charcoal. I thought about the last time Jo-Jo and I had made love, over thirty years ago.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said.

  I kissed the top of her head and hugged her closer to my body. ‘I was just thinking about the last time we slept together. I can’t remember where that was.’

  ‘Probably in my bed the night before I went off to university.’

  ‘Underneath your Starsky and Hutch posters.’

  ‘God, I’d forgotten about those.’

  I picked up our glasses of wine from the bedside table and handed one to Jo-Jo. ‘Shall I put some music on?’

  ‘What have you brought?’

  I slid out of the emperor bed, opened the wardrobe door and reached into my black Adidas holdall. I pulled out a purple CD storage wallet and handed it to Jo-Jo. ‘Take your pick. There’s over fifty CDs in there.’

  She laughed. ‘You must be one of the last people in the world to carry music around on CDs. Is there even a CD player in this cottage?’

  ‘I checked before we came,’ I said. ‘It’s part of the TV system.’

  ‘Of course you did,’ she said, handing me back the wallet. ‘I don’t mind. You choose.’

  I took the wallet and walked into the lounge, conscious of being naked and the front and back door being open. ‘This wouldn’t be a good time for Derek to arrive and take you to task about those oars,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But it is quite a nice view from where I’m lying.’

  I unzipped the wallet, pushed a CD into the player and pressed the play icon on the remote control. I walked back into the bedroom and got into bed. Jo-Jo rolled over and snuggled into my chest again. ‘I’d forgotten how cuddly you are,’ she said.

  I slid down the bed until we were face to face.

  Her expression changed, became more intense.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘I’m frightened you’ll disappear again, turn into the nervy guy from the hotel restaurant the other night.’

  Eddi Reader’s ‘Simple Soul’ album started to play.

  I kissed her and pulled her closer. ‘How’s your stamina?’ I said.

  *

  We sat up in bed and grabbed our wine glasses. Eddi Reader had reached ‘The Girl Who Fell in Love with the Moon’. ‘I thought desire was meant to diminish with age,’ said Jo-Jo.

  ‘We’ve got a lot of catching up to do,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think I can manage thirty-five years’ worth in one long weekend, Freddie.’

  ‘Simple Soul’ restarted as the CD slipped into repeat mode.

  ‘Dance with me, Jo-Jo.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want to dance with you.’

  She lifted up the duvet. ‘We’re naked.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  We walked into the lounge, put our arms around each other, me with a mile-wide grin, Jo-Jo trying to suppress a laugh. We started to sway to the music. ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ she said. ‘The front and back door are still open.’

  ‘I’ve waited a long time to ask you to dance,’ I said, closing my eyes and remembering our dance in Max’s when I’d held her for the first time. And now she was back with me, dancing to Eddi Reader. I started to think about all the wasted years, the what if and the if only, but pushed the thoughts away to suck in the memory of now, the cottage, in front of the log fire, ‘Simple Soul, Jo-Jo’s warm, bare flesh against mine.

  She reached up and touched my forehead. ‘What are you thinking about?’

  ‘Our first dance,’ I said. ‘I’m glad I asked you this time.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said, snuggling back into my chest. ‘I’m glad you’re back in my life, Freddie.’

  ‘Me too. Let’s make it forever.’

  Jo-Jo – August 2015

  I woke up in a state of panic. The fire had gone out, the room was in full darkness and, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Freddie was lying on his side, facing me, with his left arm under my neck and his right arm and right leg draped over my body, like he was afraid I was going to run away during the night. I remembered our love-making, the closeness, the gentleness, the passion. And then I remembered what he’d said just before we’d finished dancing. I didn’t know what he meant by ‘forever’ and the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me. He’d re-emerged as my Freddie, but I didn’t know anything about his life away from me, his daughter, and he’d barely asked about Jason or Amy. It felt like we were locked in a thirty-five-year-old time-bubble, but we weren’t. Life had happened for both of us and I still hadn’t told him about the clinic. I felt the panic rise again in my stomach.

  ‘Cheese and wine,’ he said. ‘Cheese and wine.’

  I couldn’t believe he still talked in his sleep.

  ‘Cabbages and beans. We need cabbages and beans.’

  I closed my eyes and snuggled into him. ‘Of course we do,’ I said. ‘We’ll get some tomorrow.’

  He turned over, releasing me from his legs and arms. I needed to talk to him, be honest with him. The last twenty-four hours had been wonderful, a reminder of how good we were together, but I didn’t want us to get carried away without me telling him the whole story.

  ‘Cabbages,’ he said.

  I shuffled over, pressed my body against his back and kissed him on the shoulder. ‘Oh, Freddie,’ I whispered.

  *

  The following day, Sunday, I decided we were going to the Junction Inn pub for lunch. ‘I’ve googled them and you’re right, they do good food.’

  ‘I’ll book the cab,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve told you, we’re walking. You said it was only a mile.’

  ‘But it is a mile, Jo-Jo. I’ll pay for the taxi.’

  ‘We’re walking, Freddie.’

  I loaded the route into my Samsung phone, Freddie put his arm around my shoulder, I put my arm around his waist and we set off up the dirt track.

  ‘We should have got a taxi,’ he said, five minutes into the walk.

  ‘It’s not far,’ I said, staring at my phone. ‘Just around the corner and up the hill.’

  ‘And then we have to walk back.’

  ‘Stop moaning. Think of all the calories you’re burning.’

  We walked up the hill and past a dormer bungalow with an open-plan front garden. There were three mature fruit trees grow
ing in the centre – the first two were apple, the last one was a pear tree. All of them were laden with fruit.

  ‘Let’s rest here a bit, Freddie.’

  ‘I thought you said it wasn’t far,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t, but I want to check something.’

  He looked at the bungalow and gave me a puzzled look. ‘What are you up to, Jo-Jo?’

  ‘When did you last go scrumping?’ I said.

  ‘We can’t do that. What if we get caught?’

  ‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’

  He hesitated, looked again at the bungalow and its trees. ‘Apples or pears?’ he said.

  ‘Both. You get the apples off the second tree, I’ll get the pears. Two of each.’

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  ‘I double dare you,’ I said, running off towards the last tree. I could hear Freddie running behind me. We reached our trees and started pulling at the fruit. There was a knock on the bungalow window. I started to run up the hill, my heart pumping adrenalin at racing-car speed. Freddie caught up with me. He was gasping for breath, but laughing at the same time. I looked behind.

  ‘Is anyone coming?’ he said.

  ‘No, I think we’re safe. Did you get them?’

  He grinned and held out his hands, an apple in each.

  ‘Me too,’ I said, showing him the pears.

  ‘God, that felt good,’ he said.

  I put all of the fruit in my bag and we carried on walking. I had to move my bag off my left shoulder so I could cosy into his body. There was no path and the road was quite narrow. We were walking against the traffic and every so often we had to go single file as a lorry or van screamed by. We came back together again as soon as it was safe, him on the outside, me on the inside. I could feel him squeezing me against him and I squeezed him back – it felt comforting.

  ‘There it is,’ I said, pointing at the white building at the top of the hill. ‘I hope they’ve got a table. Perhaps we should have booked.’

  We reached the pub, climbed the steps and walked into the lounge. It was about half full of people already tucking into their Sunday lunches. The lounge door closed behind us with a slam and the gossipy chatter died to a silence. There was a crackle of tension in the air and for a second I wanted to turn around and walk back out. Freddie grabbed my hand and we walked to the bar, everybody in the pub looking at us; some had stopped eating mid-fork to mouth. It was like the Werewolf in London film scene. I could hear the sound of my shoes from every step I made on the beer-stained carpet. I felt this desperate urge to order a Babycham, replicating the 1970s advert of the posh couple going into a working men’s club.