Chapter Eighteen
GEORGINA
“What the flamin’ hell is she doing here?”
“Excuse me? I could well ask the same of you. Where the eff have you been? We’ve been worried sick,” said River, clearly stunned at Georgina’s nonchalance over her recent disappearing act. “Two days and not a word from you, and now you just swan into the bar as if nothing happened.”
“Those days were mine to do with as I pleased… holiday days… or had you forgotten to check the diary? Oh, I see, you had. If you must have an explanation, I decided to decline your kind invite for a movie and stinky grub, and walked straight home after my last shift instead.”
Georgina also declined to reveal that shortly before this decision, she had slunk out the fire exit on the third floor of the hotel, shimmied down the drainpipe since the outdoors stairs were covered in ivy, moss and cardboard boxes full of who only knew what, loitered on the High Street for fifteen minutes, spotted Lennie waiting at the town’s one and only taxi rank, and swiftly traversed the street to introduce herself.
“You are unbelievable,” said River, approaching her for a hug, relief flooding his face. “I was beyond worried, and I could hardly call you on the landline. I could only guess that the fact the local rag and radio station hadn’t reported on the disappearance of a stunning twenty-nine year old brunette, meant you just wanted some time out.”
“Something like that,” she said, basking for a few seconds in his public adoration, smoothing down her hair which was much longer than Alice’s – ha; flicking it over her shoulder to signal time out from her rant was most definitely up.
“I took myself off to a boutique hotel in Bath if you must know, bit of pampering and TLC. But backtracking to my initial question, pray what is this all about?” She looked Alice up and down, recycling the words Blake had recently spat at her, eyes purposely scanning her opponent for defects, of which of course, there were none. But ha again, she was older. She would always be older than Georgina. That was match point nailed as far as she was concerned.
“Alice meet Georgina, Georgina meet Alice,” said River.
Ooh, how dare he say her name first?
“See, I really should remember you,” said Alice holding out her hand to shake Georgina’s, which remained welded to her hip, but the face doesn’t ring a bell at all. You’re Blake’s lil’ sis I understand?”
“Yes, I’m well aware of who she is but that hasn’t answered my question, babe,” Georgina ignored Alice’s question, throwing a stern look at River coupled with a counterfeit smile, relegating his former band member to the status of spectre. “And why is she waiting on tables? Am I suddenly not good enough? Did you not think to run this past me first, seeing as we were, the last time I checked anyway, a team of just two?”
“She’s quit the band – well, done a bit of a runner following in my footsteps.” They smiled a mutual smile which spoke of the places they’d been and the people they’d seen; a mutual smile which dropped a big fat bomb on Georgina’s perfectly scripted plans.
“Yeah, please don’t talk to Riv like that,” said Alice. “He’s been my Guardian Angel and rock all rolled into one these past couple of weeks, stowing me away while Lennie and the media have been hot on my trail. People like you haven’t a clue what that feels like.”
“People. Like. Me? Well excuse the rest of us for being common as muck.”
“That came out all wrong, I’m sorry, it’s not at all what I was implying. It’s just, well, it’s been stressful, listen, let’s start all over again, shall we?” Alice went in for another handshake and Georgina stood firm in her decision not to accept it.
“Talk to the hand, lady,” Georgina removed her right one from her hip and put it flat in front of her, swiftly breaking the dialogue, flung her bag across the bar and onto the floor with her left hand and then caught River by the edge of his collar, summonsing him to the backyard.
“I can’t believe you’ve hired her!” she said once she’d slammed down the latch on the bar’s back door. “She doesn’t need the money, surely? And as for not telling me she was back… and… and hiding her away… I’m not even going to ask where, because now I know who that posh totty running up and down The Guinevere’s staircase was… eugh! So she was just down the corridor from us while we were at it… I’m surprised you didn’t invite her in for a threesome.”
“Actually she does need the money,” said River, his naivety not catching on in the same way as it had with Georgina as to the hideous picture that he was painting with regards to her last few words. “Her cut in the band was significantly less than mine, less than everyone’s.”
“So? She’s not your responsibility.”
“She’s a mate. We go back years. Mates look after one another.”
“Yeah, Blake filled me in pretty well when it comes to exactly what mates do… funnily enough.”
“We’re just good friends, Georgina,” he moved closer to her, stroking her cheek, something about his words feeling like a double entendre, which, intentional or not, applied to their own relationship and she knew it. “That’s it,” he went on, “nothing more, nothing less.” And there it was again.
“Hmm, I s’pose.”
“Don’t you think that if there was some sort of magnetism between us, it would have transpired by now? Twelve years in a band, on tour all over the world, drink… mostly drink… put up in places ten times more glamorous than our kinky love nest at The Guinevere. Actually, make that former love nest… we’ve had to move out.”
A question mark of a silence hung in the air.
“You s’pose right,” he added finally. “Besides, it’s not like you and I are an item-item, now is it? We’ve always been clear about that. Nothing’s changed in that respect for me, me luvver.” He grinned at his piss poor attempt at a Somerset accent and moved in for a kiss.
Georgina obliged, quickly drawing away for effect as his hand travelled down her back.
“Well no, obviously, of course not for me either,” she said.
“And so your problem is?”
“I just don’t want her comeback to affect my brother, that’s all.”
“Oh man.” River closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Blake has to move on, yeah? For heaven’s sake, it’s not natural to hold someone who was clearly always unobtainable as your object of attention for twenty years. Especially not when you’ve been married, had a child.”
That was it. That was the straw that broke her back, the sting in the tail, the salt in the wound and just about every other cringe worthy cliché besides.
How dare he pin all of this on Blake’s ‘warped imagination’? What happened in the teenage years left you scarred, haunted; it ate away at the mind, not to mention the soul in an irretractable act of injustice. Any psychologist could tell you that.
This was all River’s fault, every last drop of it. And now she had her blossoming friendship with Zara right where she wanted it, and a band manager almost eating from the palm of her hand, Georgina would ensure the ever turning wheels of karma would be set in motion, very quickly indeed.