Chapter Four
RIVER
“What am I trying to prove, Mum?”
It had been a week since the local paper’s photographer, Cath Deacon, had unceremoniously burst onto the re-decorated premises. Her sneaky shot of River’s infamous self, dry shaking a Pisco Sour in its new role as cocktail bartender gracing the front page for all and sundry to debate its sheer arrogance at “attempting to spice up a former working men’s pub with Mai Tais and Moscow Mules.” The matching headline: Fallen Rock Star Returns to cause a Rumble, making it very clear where the local media’s loyalties lay. But the sneaky jobs worth hadn’t stopped there. Oh no. Taking in the empty tables and chairs, she’d gone on a full blown front page rampage detailing his apparent failure in the business world, selective hearing filtering out River’s plain English reminder that it was still a couple of weeks before he officially opened the bar.
“That you’re following your heart, not giving a rip about the naysayers,” said Heather.
She flung her yarn out across the length of the floor, revealing a psychedelic rainbow-hued ‘red carpet’, hardly luring in the kind of punters River wished to attract. She nudged her specs higher up the ridge of her nose, took a deep breath and began counting stitches in a manner which suggested she had always known this would be par for the course.
“Maybe I should have stuck with what I knew, fizzled out into obscurity like an Adam Ant or a Sting—”
“Don’t you go knocking Sting; he’s still going strong, bless his chakras. You’ve got to have a loyalty to Sting somewhere in your heart.” She stopped stitching briefly, eyes fixed high above on the mock gold of the elaborate coving. “Remember the day he filmed the If I Ever Lose my Faith in you video up on Glastonbury Tor? Oh, was your Aunt Sheba’s tarot reading ever right. She predicted I’d be entranced by a tall blonde stranger on a mound that very week. And what do you know; next day there I was following the film crew – you on my coattails, but still…”
A group of hippies peered into the doorway, pondered the offerings of the blackboard and gingerly climbed the steps, purple and green dreadlocks swinging like pendulums in perfect timing with the light jazz playing behind the bar.
“Heather, not now, looks like we’ve got our first customers—”
“Nah, you’re alright,” said the tallest in a loud voice, popping hope like a pin to a balloon. “Was just thinking,” he scratched his tangled head, “didn’t this used to be a pub? Run by some geezer who could get discounted weed?”
“It was the Ring O’Bells formerly, yes,” said River. “Slightly more refined these days,” he added under his breath as his hands transferred their frustration to the shiny steel cocktail shaker. “As for the hash supplies, I really wouldn’t know about that. Can I tempt you to a Tom Collins while you’re here? We’re ten minutes into Happy Hour. Not that I advertise it. Looks cheap, attracts the teenagers.”
“Defo not a Tom, mate. I’m thinking he might have been a Pete though. Yeah, that’s right, he was… and as for his last name, I ain’t got the foggiest. Swift transaction then we was always quick to get out of here, like… in case the pigs should be hovering.”
“How about a Daiquiri then, I’ve just blended up a fresh batch of watermelon.”
“You’re beginning to sound a little desperate, mate. I’ve already told you, we’re not here for your fancy shit with umbrellas… although I might have made an exception if you were serving up an Avalon Amber or a Tor in the Mist.”
River was speechless, Heather not so.
“Scarper and hop it,” she yelled uncharacteristically, pointing yarn needles as if she were a water dowser, an additional string to her bohemian bow which totally wouldn’t have surprised. “Do you have any idea how much work my son’s put into this place?”
“Well, dudes and dudettes,” Head Hippie ignored her and turned back to his gang, “it’s high time,” he paused for a laugh, which his entourage echoed back at him, “we tracked down the Lurve Bus and headed on down to Sir Michael of Eavis’s fest. Hash cakes for supper!”
“Fine, your loss, and don’t bother coming back,” said River.
Glastonbury bloody Festival. That was about right.
River had forgotten it started at the weekend, unbelievable really when he considered how many Junes he’d spent there himself. Especially the June that had changed his and Alice’s lives; the June when Blake and Lee would go one way to watch Fat Boy Slim’s much coveted ‘final performance before retirement’ in the navy and custard striped circus tent, the June when River and Alice would opt for the earthiness of The Levellers on the pyramid stage, the June when they were destined to meet two complete strangers from London in the crowd… strangers from London who soon became friends, friends who soon became band mates.
The June when Blake would return at ten to midnight only to find River and Alice entwined in his very own tent.
River stopped his vigorous shaking, bringing himself and his regrets back to the present: to trade or not to trade?
Anyone in their business-savvy mind would have assumed this was the best week in the year for making money if you were a local establishment. Except Pilton, the village where the festival actually took place was several miles away, luring potential punters like the Pied Piper. So that all that remained in the town were The Miffed, who had either been unable to obtain tickets and were mightily pissed off, or The Troublemakers, who – November’s carnival aside – patiently stored their pent-up testosterone for seven months, ready to let loose on The Outsiders. Both groups screamed Blake. And that was not good.
“Maybe we should close this week, Heather?”
“And why would you want to do that?”
“I just sense trouble on the horizon, you know, all these non-locals,” River stuck his two index fingers either side of his head for emphasis and wiggled them up and down, “invading the town.”
“Are you sure you’re not still harbouring a grudge because the big Mr Michael Eavis CBE never invited you and Avalonia to play at Glastonbury… not even on one of the fringe stages?” Heather picked at her yarn, head cocked to one side.
“Of course I’m not, no. I got over that like years ago.” River flicked at an ice shaving as if he were playing his favourite childhood game of Tiddlywinks.
“I’m glad to hear it, love. Anger is a bitter swine of a pill,” she said, making a concertina of her work and then resting it and needles on top of the nearest table to the bar. “Not that I’ve ever condoned the lack of an invitation, mind you. If he could give the time of day to that other local band… what are they called, Reeves...?” she furrowed her brow.
“Reef,” spat River, much as he was a clandestine fan.
“Well, whatever, the point is he should have jolly well acknowledged your musical talents too. You, Alice, Bear and Alex, you were ten times better.” She stopped to smile encouragingly. “But hey, you don’t need that kind of recognition anymore. Just look at you. You’re an artist across genres now—”
“Yeah, that’s my mind made up,” River changed the subject. “We’ll open officially when the festival is over and people are looking for something to cheer themselves up with. Gut instinct tells me this is not divine timing.”
“The festival brings yin and the festival brings yang,” said Heather. “Good and bad,” her words lingered.
“What do you mean, Mum? Did you have a dodgy hash cake supper there back in the day that you forgot to tell me about?” He added a timely chuckle thinking of the many hearty specimens he himself had regrettably consumed. “I hope that’s what that bunch of eejits get for their supper anyway.”
On the other hand, those eejits had not only given him a couple of new cocktail names that he fully intended to smuggle behind the bar (every cloud), but an injection of hope… that things were finally dying down on the camouflage front. If you’d had a taste of the fame game, this ambivalent town was the best one in the world to come back to. It’s why Nicholas Cage had a house here, why Johnny Depp and the ilk were often shuffling around country houses on the outskirts, looking for somewhere to call home, somewhere to call incognito. Nobody batted an eyelid at you if you were dressed as a faery here, or a Goth with a steampunk top hat. All of this was just normal for a town called Glastonbury, where nobody stood out.
“It’s nothing, forget I mentioned it,” Heather snapped out of her trance. “Aw, River,” she skipped over to him and smothered her son in a hug, “I’m bursting with pride to call you mine. You really have got a little of me in there somewhere. This will all blow over quickly enough. People are being momentarily resentful, that’s all. They’ll soon change their tune once they hear how delicious your creations are. Just you wait and see.”
“I hope you’re right, I really do.” He let out the deepest of breaths.
Because at this rate, River couldn’t see how anybody would ever make it past page one of the menu. Let alone reach the magic of page fifty-nine. And now he’d been and promised Georgina a job, starting Monday night.
Heather bundled wool and needles in her bag, went home to get ready for her kundalini yoga class, and left him to his thoughts.
He poured himself a Pisco Sour. It was fast becoming his favourite feature of the menu, but he made a mental note to add just a hint more brandy on his next attempt. A couple of sips and soon his memories were flickering once again like fire licking at kindling, this time carrying him back to Mexico.
The final gig had been perfection; one of those seamless sets that flowed with synchronicity: song, rapturous applause, song, rapturous applause. Okay, he couldn’t pretend the way the crowd held their lighters aloft like a flock of sheep didn’t nark him right off. Alicia Keays and her ode to New York had a lot to answer for when it came to that tragic mainstream nod at enlightenment. But other than that, the gruelling weeks touring Latin America had ended on a high; a high that, try as he might, River couldn’t quite seem to find a cocktail in the city to match.
Next morning he’d pulled back the curtains to reveal a Guadalajara sunrise which further revealed Avalonia’s band members strewn across the penthouse suite of the hotel; a domino rally that had gone badly wrong. Alex, the guitarist, had evidently pulled again. River rubbed his eyes so he could focus on the local beauty whose naked thigh entrapped his Egyptian cotton-cocooned friend. Alex’s height never seemed to restrict his magnetism when it came to the ladies; it was as if his guitar was the musical equivalent to the Mercedes SLK, driven by many a pint-sized male. And just behind this aftermath of lust lay Bear (or Edward to his parents). He definitely hadn’t been as lucky. His light snores brushed over the top of the empty bottle of Jack Daniels balancing in the palm of his right hand, creating something almost Peruvian as a backdrop to the scene. Still, it made a somewhat refreshing change to see he’d traded drugs for liqueur last night. For some reason he’d never matured past chemical experimentation, unlike the others. River was finding it increasingly hard to wrap his head around that – and the fact that nobody else shared his passion for a fine cocktail.
This snapshot in time, minus Alice, who’d taken on a penthouse suite of her own as per usual, wasn’t all that different to every other session of partying after a final show. But for some reason this morning it looked more desperate than ever. In six years they’d practically be forty for crying out loud. At some point life had to get more sophisticated, reveal some kind of meaning.
He showered and dressed then beachcombed the squalor amidst the luxury for his wallet, and made for the streets, even though they were the last place he wanted to be. Mexico’s fourth largest city was strangely cleansing. True, it was a Sunday which accounted for less bodies but something else was different out here too. He felt he had a journey to take. The breeze seemed to whisper it, but coffee first.
River followed a group of locals to a café opposite the train station. Small chirpy birds covered one of the few remaining empty tables, pecking at crumbs on a thoroughly unwashed surface until he interrupted them by pulling out a chair. But he was too entranced by the conversation he was already eavesdropping in on to care.
“A que hora sale el tren por Tequila?” a voice from the neighbouring table asked of somebody in its group.
Of course, Guadalajara was practically down the road from Tequila.
Tequila!
How could he not catch the next train there and take up the opportunity for a quick mooch around? He’d buy some interesting varieties, ask the locals if they’d be happy to impart their wisdom on all things mixology, maybe visit a smallholding and get to do a bit of tasting straight from source.
“Sale a las dos,” came the reply.
Two o’clock, too late.
The waitress came and went with his order, swiftly followed by a strong shot of coffee, not a dash of milk in sight. The oozing cheese of his breakfast burrito cut through the bitterness and as he sank his teeth into a most surprisingly hot jalapeño, forcing the words “leche por favor” somewhat embarrassingly into the air, he found last night’s dream sailing back to him in a strange mosaic he couldn’t piece together: a child with long, dark braids finished off with bright red bows, a row of gleaming blue and green bottles, and a small, sky blue hut.
He shook his head, unable to fathom it out, wrapped the remnants of the burrito in a napkin, stuffed it into his backpack, visited the toilets – holding his breath, pinching his nose – and then headed out of the city towards the two-lane highway.
He decided to walk to Tequila instead. It was only thirty miles away, he’d hitch a lift; the heat wasn’t so intense at this time of year. And if he couldn’t catch a ride with someone, well, he’d walk fast – and he’d spend the night there too. The band weren’t flying back to London for another couple of days. He’d earned his down time.
Two hours later and he’d barely made a dent in his journey. The sun was relentless too; something he’d grossly underestimated the power of. He resorted to sticking his thumb out and resigning himself to a very long wait. But within minutes a pickup truck had stopped. A vaquero, sombrero-clad, leaned out of the window and asked him where he was headed.
“Tequila, hombre… por favor,” River replied.
The driver nodded in agreement and opened the door to provide relief to River’s aching limbs. They drove in silence broken only by the interruption of the can of beer which he tossed to his right. River gratefully caught it and began to sip, taking in the sights of the landscape as the dark shape of the volcano on the horizon loomed ever closer.
“Vale, tienes que irte aqui, yo voy a la izquierda.” said the driver some fifteen minutes later as he pulled over into a layby.
Say what? Surely his Spanish wasn’t that bad. Had he only imagined he’d asked to be driven to Tequila? This was the middle of nowhere. The driver could have told him he’d be turning off left and couldn’t take him all the way to town.
“Gracias,” said River, depositing himself and his bag back onto concrete before his reflexes could think to question the driver, “por nada,” he added as the truck sped off down a dirt track as opposed to straight on to the home of the agave plant.
“Great. Now what?”
Emboldened by the dregs of his beer, he continued his dusty walk, passing cacti and bottle-shaped signs of intoxicating goodness, teasing him. So close yet so far away. He stuck out his thumb again in the hope of somebody being good enough to complete his journey. He sensed his despondency glowing around him like the child in the Ready Brek adverts all those years ago, warning people away from his strange red-rimmed silhouette.
After what felt like an eternity, in the very far distance on the left hand side of the road, River could just about make out a choza. As he approached, he saw the shack was sky blue and corrugated, its undulations rippling and reflecting the late afternoon sun.
He clambered ungracefully over the fence and into the bluish grey of the agave field, careful to keep his tread between the spikey rows, whose musky barrels he could almost smell on the air, if only he could get to a distillery by nightfall. But then something else caught his eye. A row of bottles glistened at the base of the shack and moments later a small child appeared. She stopped for a moment to take in his presence and then a giant beam took over her face and she beckoned to him excitedly with her arms open wide, as if he were her papa – or some long lost uncle who’d returned from his travels around the world.
It was at this precise moment that River’s blood ran cold. She was the girl from his dream.
Without thinking he marched forward; the sparkle of the bottles rendering him moth-like. He watched as the braided child disappeared inside the small hut, overcome with a curiosity he couldn’t put words to. Moments later as he walked closer still, an elderly woman emerged from the entrance; her hand shielding the sun from her eyes as she took in River’s form, wending its way to her abode.
“It was written in the air,” she said, as he stood before her with his hand instinctively reaching out to shake hers. He was too dazed to reply but assumed this would be a culturally acceptable greeting.
“No need to carry on to Tequila. Your journey ends,” she smiled to reveal two rows of crooked teeth, “and begins right here. Come inside and let me explain.”
His head told him now was the time to do a runner, not that there was exactly anywhere to hide. His heart somehow warmed in an instant to this apparition of a female and her child.
“How do you speak such perfect English?” he said, stunned at his ability to enter into routine chitchat as he also bent to enter the tiny doorway, immediately hit by the pungent smell of ribs, chili and oregano, simmering on a tiny stove.
“Everything is connected,” said the woman.
“But, you live here in deepest Mexico. Or did you go to school, college?”
“I’m surrounded by infinite intelligence, why would I ever need to do that?”
She sat on a colourful stool, picked up a bowl and began to peel lima beans, a task she’d evidently made little progress with.
“Okaaay, this is starting to freak me out now.”
“You’re welcome to stay for supper before you head back to the city.” She ignored his confusion.
“I um… I really wanted to check out Tequila actually.”
She stopped her peeling for a few seconds, studied his face and then carried on with the job in hand.
“It’s just that, well,” he turned to look for a seat and she pointed at a similarly Aztec painted stool in the corner of the room, which he tentatively perched on, “I’ve uh… I’ve been collecting cocktail recipes from locals on my travels for a few years now, got a book full of them, and as soon as the plane touches down in London in a few days’ time – I’m uh… I’m here with my band and we played at the VFG arena last night – that’s it, man, I’m outta the music industry, time to move on to ventures new.”
He paused briefly to take in the knowing nods of the woman now standing before him. “I’ve put in a sealed bid for a rundown pub, in the town that I grew up in back home,” he continued, encouraged by her approval, “gonna refurbish it, make it pretty, turn it into a cocktail bar as it happens. Bring my inspiration back to Glastonbury, give her a new lease of life and the locals a hangout to put a smile on their faces.”
“All of this I know,” she said. “Although, I hope you have never been fooled into believing in the legend of Princess Xoctl of Mexico.” She giggled a little then paused, her finger and thumb pinching together in the air, as if plucking an invisible idea that had just flown past her. “It was the cola de gallo that really leant the cocktail its current name.”
River knew the former hearsay probably was just that: hearsay. The theories as to the provenance of a cocktail had piled up thick and fast over the years, only adding to the drink’s intrigue. But his ears pricked up now as the old woman bread crumbed yet another possible story of the cocktail’s origins.
“You probably know it already, of course, but it was the sailors arriving on the Yucatan peninsula, hundreds of years ago, here in my country… it was they who inadvertently gave your future bar its name,” she wagged her finger as if to autocorrect any other ideas that had formed in his mind over time. “One day,” she patted at her apron for effect, “a certain sailor asked for his usual drac in a bar, but the bartender couldn’t find his trusty wooden spoon to mix the liquor up with – and it had to be mixed slowly, precisely,” she took to wagging her finger again, “that was of utmost importance… so he improvised, used the root of the plant instead. And from that day forward, every sailor coming to shore would visit a bar and ask for a cola de gallo, which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you translates as ‘tail of the cock’, cocktail,” she finished with a wink.
“But how can you possibly know this? That’s insane.” (River was no longer referring to the folklore but his future plans.) “I mean, I had a kind of premonition last night, a dream about a place just like this, and the glass bottles, a girl who looked just like your… your granddaughter?”
“That she is. You interpret my age well. And yes, the wind sent that intuition your way.”
“Ah, man, I mean lady. Will you stop talking in these riddles, please? It’s messing with my head. I’m as open-minded as it gets, it goes with the territory where I come from. But none of this makes a scrap of sense.” River’s upturned palms flew to shoulder height as if to demonstrate his confusion. “Am I like stuck in a weird parallel universe or something? What do you want from me? Why did you lead me here?”
“My name is Mercedes,” the woman finally introduced herself. “And you… you were chosen long, long ago to be a Messenger. There are many who have passed this way taking a bottle to their corners of the Earth, River. Your desire is so strong that destiny, the path you have been carving out, has come to fruition, brought you to this point. The spiritual nature of your hometown, your musical calling, your love of liqueur has made you a connoisseur. And now you are ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“For this.” She picked up her bowl and set it down on her stool, walked over to a wooden shelf and then handed him a bottle containing a clear liquid.
“What is this? Mezcal?”
“Para todo mal, Mezcal, y para todo bien, tambien,” she said and started laughing as if enjoying a private joke with herself. “This is no kind of Tequila, River. It’s a very special tonic… a tonic without a name.”
“Woah there, let’s back up a minute. Are you saying… are you honestly saying… you want me to take this back to my bar and serve it up to… to paying customers, without any idea of its composition? Do you think I’ve totally lost the plot? I can’t do that.”
“Then that is your choice and I respect you for it. However, think for a minute, my child: why did you wake up with such a longing and pull to trek this very road this morning? Why did you hitch a lift which just happened to appear the moment you required a set of wheels… wheels which took you as far as my choza pequeña? The universe delivered you to me. This was always meant to be. And now, if you decide to accept the mission, if you decide to commit, then the lives of three people will change, for the better, forever. And that’s just in your first bar.”
“Okay. You’ve lost me completely now. How’s that going to change the world?”
“Never underestimate the power of three. It’s a magic number. The ripples of joy this chosen trio will generate is going to envelope your town – and beyond – in something never seen before. Magic catches like that, it’s wildfire,” her eyes became lanterns, as if to convince him, “breathing new life into the saddest and darkest of corners.”
“Can’t I have a glass of this… this whatever-it-is… or a shot of something, anything? Maybe that will stop me feeling like I’m having an out of body experience.”
River couldn’t believe he was even half going along with this claptrap. It was as if his actual self was watching a duplicated version of him from afar on one of those old-fashioned film projectors, powerless to intervene and talk some sense.
“Well of course, my child, you had only to ask. But it will have no effect on you,” she tutted at the very idea, “why you are just The Messenger, remember.”
“All the same, if you’re expecting me to even contemplate serving it to this trio of customers, as you put it… a mixologist does have ethics, you know.”
“You’ve heard of the genie in the bottle, no?” said Mercedes as she fulfilled his request, pouring a trickle of the clear liquid into a shot glass, as well as a small measure of local Tequila in another.
“From Aladdin you mean?”
“Yes, the genie from the fairy tale.”
“Keep talking.”
“Well, just ten drops of this will have the same effect.”
River questioned his sanity again as he cautiously brought the thimble to his lips, swirled it, sniffed it and poured a little onto the tip of his tongue.
“But it’s completely tasteless.”
“Except unlike the genie granting only three wishes,” Mercedes continued with her story, “this magic potion will grant three people endless wishes. But only wishes for good; therein lies the beauty. The genie couldn’t say no to anything… a bit like The Law of Attraction that everybody is raving about these days, even though it’s as ancient as gravity,” her chuckle spoke a thousand words, all leaning toward the naivety of ninety-nine per cent of humanity. “This liquid on the other hand, is discerning; blessed by a deity during the time of the Toltex Indians. Its composition has remained a secret, even to me.” She raised her brow and the deep furrows of her wrinkles became the crests of ragged waves.
“Right,” River screwed up his face as if trying to wake himself from a nightmare. “Okay,” he opened his eyes again to see that it hadn’t worked, and Mercedes was once again tending to her beans. “So, I have never met you before… and I am supposed to just go with this legend, burying my head in the sand that actually, it might be a bottle of poison with which you are really intending to wipe out the UK’s population?”
“Oh, River, you really aren’t an easy nuez to crack,” Mercedes almost spat out her words as she abandoned her beans once again, putting him in mind of a Flamenco dancer about to take to the stage to display her duende at the unnecessary struggle he was inflicting upon her.
She picked up the bottle and returned it to him as if it were now his responsibility regardless, and walked out of the hut clutching an intricately patterned fan which she flapped fiercely, unable to hide her exasperation.
The child eyed River curiously.
“What?” he said. “Que? What am I supposed to make of all of this? It’s a bit far-fetched, grant me that much.”
She smiled and continued to play with her spinning top.
He slammed back his Tequila, basking in its purity, negating the need for salt and a lime wedge to temper the burn; a tick in the box as far as helping to convince him the mystery bottle might be kosher after all, and stood to join Mercedes outside in the field, the elixir tucked under his arm.
“It’s hard for me, you know,” she said with her back to him as he stepped outside the hut. She continued staring off into the mountainous hinterland and he slowly joined her, two strangers they may have been, yet he was already beginning to feel as if he’d somehow known her a lifetime – perhaps just a very different lifetime. “I never asked to be entrusted with this. But that’s what my family signed up for all those centuries ago. We have our supply, we pass it down the generations, and when the time is right, we set the intention; we call in a Messenger and off goes a bottle to another part of the world. Today it’s you. Tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, it’s another. It’s just the design. Slowly but surely,” she turned now to face him, her face pure and somehow loving, “when humanity has reached a certain level of understanding, evil will be wiped out, non-existent, leaving only good. Until then, a few people here, a few people there will have the ability to scatter non-stop joy.”
“And what’s in all of this for me, if I’m not one of the three?”
“You will return to find the missing pieces to your own puzzle.”
“But nothing’s missing from my life,” he said, kicking lightly at the dusty ground. “I’ve already decided to take a new direction with the bar… the one bar… I’m not sure why you’re referring to it as ‘my first’ as if I’m the Donald bloody Trump of the brewery industry.” He waved his hands like that might help reassure her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to use the expletive there, but don’t presume to know more about me than I do about myself.”
“Take the bottle… and this,” she clung to her convictions, handing him a pale brown envelope which he hadn’t previously noticed folded into her apron strings, “but don’t open it until you are much closer to your home and you’ve made your final decision.” She held her arms out wide to embrace him firmly. “Felix, my nephew, is waiting. He will take you back to the city now.”
She pointed to a pickup truck which looked suspiciously like the same one that had so ungracefully deposited River in the middle of nowhere.
“Goodbye, River and good luck… que sera, sera,” she said with the trace of a laugh. And with that she turned, walked back to the entrance of the shack, gave him one final wave and disappeared inside.
He was glued to the spot for several seconds, until a loud horn from the highway made its intentions clear and River found himself with little option but to head over to it. Halfway to the fence he was certain that if he turned to look at the little blue hut, it would evaporate into a hot mist, a mirage in the desert, fuzzing at the edges until it was but a dot on the horizon. But there it stood, real as could be. The truck sounded its horn again, and River pivoted, then marched quickly, careful not to shake the contents of the bottle as Felix and his giant cigar became clearer and clearer. Felix nodded at him as he rounded the bonnet of the vehicle to climb into the passenger side, and didn’t stop nodding until River lodged his backpack in-between his feet, hugging the bottle to his chest.
“Cual es tu hotel, hombre?”
“The new five star place in the centro, El Paraiso,” said River, thinking that surely Felix should intuitively know.
He started to ponder the so-called piece of his life puzzle that was ‘missing’ as his chauffeur drove silently, puffing great rings of smoke out of the window and into the sultry air, the bi-polar and chilled out opposite of his previous bout of impatience, until Felix flicked on the stereo and hummed along lightly to the mariachi music which soon filled the cabin, lulling River into a light but much needed sleep.
Forty-two minutes later and the city’s traffic jerked him awake with a start. Felix switched off the stereo and pulled over to the side of the road.
“El hotel esta al fin del calle,” he said.
River had never seen the street of his hotel from this perspective before, but took Felix’s word for it that he’d reached his final destination. He thanked his driver, a little more gratefully this time, jumped down from the top step of the cabin, and held his hand aloft for a brief and silent farewell, as he knew was now the norm. But then Felix took him by surprise.
“Una cosa más,” he said, before adding his sudden grasp of the English language, “just one more thing…”
“Yes?” said River. “What is it?”
“Belief is everything.”
“What do you mean?”
But Felix’s foot was already on the throttle. River could only watch, fascinated, as he did a masterful three point turn – for which the stream of traffic obediently, biblically, parted – and returned to wherever it was that he’d first come from, knowing full well that just like Mercedes, he would never see him again.
***
“Where the heck have you been? You missed this afternoon’s interview with the local press and the others have had to go on and film that drinks commercial I was telling you about without you.”
Lennie was waiting for River as he entered reception, shades strapped to his brooding face, New York Yankees cap concealing his dusting of a Mr Whippy hairdo as he paced manically with his mobile attached to his ear. “You can forget all about your cut, was a tidy little number you’d have pocketed for it, too.”
“Sorry, it won’t happen again.” River made for the elevator, avoiding eye contact with his manager, swinging his backpack around to his chest as if he were protecting a baby in a sling, double checking he really had placed the bottle and envelope inside, impressed with himself for his short but sweet and un-scripted double entendre.
“Make sure you’re back down here by eight sharp. We’ve got a taxi booked and a reservation for dinner at Taberna Frederico with no less than the stars of one of Mexico’s most famous sitcoms. And for god’s sake take a shower and blitz yourself with aftershave… got more dust on you than the Sahara… you never know who you might get to bring back for dessert if you play your cards right,” Lennie yelled after him.
With the lift to himself, River wasted no time in pressing the button to his floor, but then, taking in the poster of the hotel cocktail bar and the promise of a half-decent Martini, he thought better of playing his boss’s game and opted for floor twenty-two instead.
***
River stared down at the wonder of the city sprawling out before him, seated at the thin glass bar with its panoramic view that seemed to extend to the very heart of Tequila itself. Pushing the influence of Heather’s eccentricities aside, and his childhood upbringing on the ley lines of a mystical town, as bizarre as the afternoon had been, somehow it had also made perfect sense. And he was even more reassured when he acknowledged the fact that he was still physically standing, feeling absolutely fine, that the liquid must have been all that Mercedes promised it was and more.
The Martini mellowed him into blissful oblivion as to the evening’s pre-requisite and pre-scripted ‘it goes with the territory’ duties. Lennie could swivel quite frankly, the others too – even Alice. He was done with the industry and its schmoozing.
Lack of food sent the alcohol straight to his head but he ordered a fresh Martini anyway, whittling away an hour, or two, who knew, who cared? Lennie’s agenda just didn’t bother him anymore. They’d filmed the stupid thumbs-up-to-aspartame soft drinks ad without him earlier that afternoon, and they could carry on producing records without him too. Christ, they’d hardly be the first band to change its line-up, some with more success than others admittedly, but the remainder of Avalonia were definitely no Atomic Kitten.
The punch of his first sip sent him into a world of his own once again, following the zigzags, curves and bends of the city’s streets, scanning the skyscrapers, grand colonial buildings illuminated in all their glory, as well as the leafy green parks. He let his two favourite V’s do their liquid thing, warming the hunger pangs of his stomach, as he nibbled away at the small bowl of peanuts for added effect. Once he was sure the others had left for dinner, he’d take himself out there and get lost in Guadalajara’s legendary street markets, feasting on the equally legendary Tortas Ahogadas as he bumbled along the wide boulevards with nothing but his thoughts about this exciting new fork in his own road for company. Yes, a ‘drowned sandwich’ full of fire and salsa would be a fitting tribute to the end of his music career.
He knocked back the last of his drink, rustled around in his wallet for some pesos, counting them out and adding a few extra coins for a tip, looked up to catch the eye of the waiter, but found himself catching the belligerent eye of Lennie instead, hands upon hips, trademark baseball cap pulled down, but shades removed, undoubtedly his nod at etiquette, since he was being mindful of his surroundings. River’s pulse quickened and his eyes quickly scoured the room for a second exit point.
Phew, his luck was in.
Just to the left side of the toilets, at the opposite end of the room to where Lennie was imitating the statue of a dictator, he could either make a very sharp escape, his flagship shot at official independence… or toe Lennie’s managerial line, lapping up the evening’s formalities one last time. Another exotic woman whose face would fade into a distant memory the moment room service banged on his door with coffee and croissants… and she fled before her naked size eight frame gave in to yet more temptation.
He signalled to the waiter to take his money as Lennie paced forward, swung his backpack onto his shoulder, and ran faster than he’d ever done in his life.