Chapter Thirty-Three
GEORGINA
“Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da,” sang Lennie. “This reminds me of The Great Escape for some reason.”
Blake scowled. Georgina frowned and held her hand out to receive the tools Lennie was passing her. Zara just carried on with her pastry, metres away in the open-plan kitchen area; rolling, dredging more flour, tossing and fastidiously patting it one side and then again the other. She had met them at the designated time in the bakery and let them through to the secret passage which led to the cocktail bar’s skittle alley. But that was only the beginning. It was impossible to calculate the tunnelling that lay ahead and how the hell were they going to complete it in just a few hours. Georgina didn’t trust an outsider though, so they’d have to somehow do the job between them, the males having the least clue about anything when it came to hammers and nails.
“So, you’re the lady who provides my weekly dietary intake of organic Cornish pasties then; I’m Blake.” She could hear her brother chatting up Zara as opposed to getting his hands dirty.
Which would be about right; it was always Georgina who’d had to plunge the toilet when he’d pitched an unsavoury loaf, or take care of the crane fly that had ‘invaded’ his bedroom, or change the light bulb, or flick the trip switch in the pitch black dark of a power cut – the utter wuss.
“It’s Zara, and it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. Georgina’s told me all about you.”
“Only the good bits, I hope,” his voice was dripping with flirtation.
Great ‘first date’ material, Blakey Boy, part of a gang chiselling out a hole in the wall under the pretence of being a victim, like some kind of modern day Tim Robbins from that prison film. Yep, as far as first impressions went, this was pretty epic.
“Less of the chat, guys.” She found herself getting narky with the banality of their conversation when she was doing all the hard grafting. “There’ll be plenty of time to get to know one another later. Pass me the chuck key, Lennie, Blake, anyone. The drill bit seems to have come loose from the drill.”
“And what does one of them look like when they’re at home?” That was Lennie. And Blake was still stuck somewhere under a hypnotist’s spell.
“Forget it. I’ll do it myself. No wonder they call it DIY. Clearly Dad passed his genes on to me and not you,” she hissed over her shoulder.
She turned to the day-old toolbox resting on the day-old workbench. Tamara’s wodge of cash gifted to Zara on the National Express coach that day had kitted them out with state of the art this, that and everything. Lennie, living up entirely to the penny pinching portrait River had painted of him, had made a swift call to Alice’s sister mere minutes after his date with Georgina in the park. Tamara had needed little convincing to fund the whole thing, and had then tracked down the National Express bound for Glastonbury, racing down the motorway in her Jag. Handy of course that one of the nannies should be in the passenger seat, able to stick the succession of purple crayoned signs up to the coach driver as they overtook him, requesting he kindly “Pull over at Reading Services, please. One of your passengers has left urgent medication at their hotel, matter of life or death!”
This contrast in sibling loyalty was nothing short of a shocker. Georgina wouldn’t have traded her council house upbringing ever, not if that was what money did to you. Yes, Maggie Thatcher may well have afforded her family the opportunity to buy their own place – well, until they lost it and then had to start all over again in the nineties – but the sudden addition of the word ‘mortgage’ to their vocabulary had never inferred they were above tribal. You looked out for one another, with the exception of your cheating mother; that’s just what you did.
She finally fitted the hammer drill with its bit to loosen the first couple of bricks in the wall, and everybody stood back to witness her handiwork – courtesy of any number of YouTube tutorials watched back-to-back over the past few weeks, that and the impressive power of a twenty-nine year old woman, heart set on revenge, bra getting tighter by the minute, already wearing leggings a size too big and one of those floaty tunic things to disguise her bump at home.
Next she took a lump hammer to knock the bricks out to make a hole that was big enough to climb through. But after ten minutes of sweat and toil, it was clear that even revenge wouldn’t provide enough momentum for her to go this part of the job alone, and so Blake took over, listening carefully as Georgina instructed him – breathless after her own efforts – as to how to hold and swing for maximum effect. Fifteen minutes later and Lennie had been dragged into the charade too.
“My time and my money, that’s all you said you wanted, Georgina.”
“Yeah well, you rather wormed your way out of the capital, time to roll your sleeves up and put some elbow grease in like the rest of us, Uncle Len.”
The irony being, despite his unwillingness, he was really rather good once he got going, the betrayal of two of his band members, which had encouraged the idleness and lack of response from the remaining ‘employees’, evidently fuelling him with the kind of focus and precision which could just as easily gather the components for a brand new group of rock wannabes. Until Georgina felt her own desire to blast the wall to smithereens take over anew, and a red faced, sweat covered Lennie was only too happy to oblige.
“You always were good at Craft Design Technology at school, George. Remember that doorbell you made us for the front door?” Blake was back chatting to Zara again now, although ever mindful of the dust getting into her pastry, she was keeping him at arm’s length.
“The one she rang on her fourth return from Benidorm… when she was ‘back for good’?” said Georgina, as she rubbed her dusty hands into the loose cotton garment that was surprisingly comfy actually. “Yeah, I definitely remember ripping it out with pliers after that.”
Georgina knew she’d stepped over the threshold of trading places then. At a metaphorical crossroads and now there was no going back. Not only had she taken on Blake’s venom, but her own was thickening too, with no antidote in sight, ready to spit at River and Alice. It was something straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy, all right. Brother and sister in love with one half of the same couple, a love that was unrequited. And she wasn’t born yesterday; it was pretty obvious where all this was going, even if the starry-eyed duo were dragging it out.
Which was why she’d revel in this power trip; even if she knew deep down inside that the bitch that was karma would get her eventually. It always evened out the odds, even to those playing Angry Entitled Stepmother, those whose cause went above ethics to snatch at the revenge that felt justified.
***
Strangely, River hadn’t been down to the skittle alley in weeks. That’s why Georgina was confident that they’d pull this off unscathed, undetected. It was quite the weirdest thing when she thought about it: just what had stopped his visits?
This past string of weeks had been nothing short of a nightmare, especially when she considered her changing shape – and the Amazon delivery guy’s crap timing when it came to signing for the parcels she thought it prudent to order in already to accommodate it. But she’d turned up to work like a horse with its blinkers on anyway, honing and perfecting those actor skills of civility; to River, to Alice, to the customers. She was punctual, efficient, in short the model employee.
There had been zero promotion to mixologist behind the bar, and she couldn’t deny that this fact alone hadn’t peeved her completely, only adding to her desire to settle the score. In fact, that lanky idiot, Lee, had seemingly been trying his hand in that department. Wasn’t it enough for him to be promoted down at the supermarket? Now here he was swiping her job title too. Okay, admittedly, this bizarre twist of events only seemed to take place once a week, River teaching him to build and construct, refine and perfect simple concoctions. But still, she was the only one in that bar who’d received any official training and it should be her stood behind it. Her looks alone would have the cash till ringing with more vigour than the bells at St John’s Church up the road. Besides, how long did a certificate take to process?
But she didn’t dare ask him, and anyway, her mind was elsewhere most days. There had been much to learn; a team to manage, tools to buy, and, just like an athlete will play a movie reel over and over in their head until they know the event like the back of their hand, Georgina had become a bit of an expert at doing the same. A fact which made her positively buzz. Ha, she was basking in a radiance far greater than even pregnancy. She’d only gone and done it, conducted a team of blithering idiots to tunnel a hole through a very thick wall with admirable precision. Did it really matter that this had taken a little over a day, that they hadn’t quite hit the jackpot on October 30th?
No, not at all, in fact it was better this way. She’d been too kind from the outset. River Jackson deserved nothing less than to have his precious bottle taken from him on the Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican Day of the Dead.
Once they’d taken stock of their achievement, they wasted no time at all in breaking into the cupboard. It couldn’t have been simpler. Blake came into his own then, he’d learned to pick locks in his early twenties, supplementing his part-time hours at the supermarket with a little petty cash from minor car theft – well, he only took cash and cards… no actual vehicles were harmed in the process. And of course, River being River, he was hardly going to go in for the most technologically advanced of security systems.
“Stand back, this is my moment,” said Georgina. She felt around the door frame for the cupboard light switch once Blake had put her kirby hair grips to good use and bust open the lock.
The others did as they were told, but despite her shifting and shuffling of paint and tools, rummaging in cardboard boxes and scavenging under the shelves, she could find nothing to fit the bill of a mysterious bottled elixir.
“Noooo!” she screamed, bringing her hands to her face and then falling into a heap on the floor. “It was here, I know it was here, the numpty’s moved it… there’s no other explanation… all this work… for nothing… for nothing!”
“I hate to point out the obvious, Georgina,” said Lennie, “but um, you kind of missed checking under those chequered blankets there.”
Georgina was Charlie Bucket.
This was her last shot at the golden ticket, the visit to the chocolate factory, the wrongs being put to rights, justice, and all things being fair in love as well as war. She peeped through the cracks of her trembling fingers, irked by the disloyalty of her emotions, and sure enough, there sat a cosy pile of tartan blankets on a shelf. My they looked guilty. How had she missed them? Was she colourblind or what?
Blake helped her to her feet and for once she didn’t shrug off another’s assistance in turn for her own independence, and besides, she was expecting now, she had to get used to this. The cupboard fell silent, and another kind of expectation shrouded the air, as she inched herself forward, slowly, hardly daring to believe her luck could truly be in, after all. She slid her hand between two of the heavy weaves, felt to the left, felt to the right and then wedged her arm in further, and there it was, the beautiful, quite unmistakable shape of a bottle.
“Quick, guys, help me separate the blankets. I think I’ve got her!”
Lennie and Blake shuffled forward, one holding the top blanket up, the other pulling the bottom blanket down, and Georgina carefully slid a bottle full of opaque liquid out of its snug hiding place, holding it gently aloft to the light bulb as if that might give them all a clue as to its contents. But there was no label, and there were no distinguishing features. It was simply a bottle containing fluid that was so clear you could literally hold the original Spanish handwritten message the other side of it, and read every word it had to say.
“Now what?” said Blake.
“Back to The Guinevere for Part Two, of course,” said Lennie, cramming the blankets back onto the shelf.
“Can Zara come too?”
Georgina looked at Lennie to gauge his response. “How much have you told her?” he said.
“I’ve not quite gone into the rest of the details.”
“No is your answer then, Blake. You’ve gotta pace yourself, lad, with the ladies; in any case, never a good idea to chase.”
But then Georgina smiled, clutching the bottle to her wonderfully full breast.
“Oh, I think we can make an exception… just this once. Tamara couldn’t get down for the occasion and it would be rather nice to even things out with another female.”
Literal translation: at last, after all these months, hell, after all these years, he’s taking an interest in another woman, somebody other than Alice! It was like she’d always convinced herself; had Alice stayed around, had River not lured her off to stardom and bright lights, she’d have become almost mundane to him, a teenage crush fading into local obscurity with an equally low-profile hubby, round mumsy hips, a sensible beige Nissan Qashqai and a golden retriever.
And then the novelty of Georgina’s realisation wore off, for it quickly became apparent that she was now the sole holder of the grudge.