Chapter Thirty-Four
RIVER
River and Alice flew over to surprise the travel group in Prague, mainly because River had no intention of tempting fate by opening the bar on carnival night.
“But it’s the perfect time to be trading,” Alice had said when he’d first run the idea of the much needed mini-break past her. “We’d easily fill up the top floor with customers at long last, besides, Lee could probably get the time off to help us cope with the extra demand now he’s learned the Martini and Piña Colada basics with you for that bar he’s had installed. Jonie was telling me all about it – where is he getting all this money from by the way? First he’s funding the drinks and nibbles at the cat sanctuary’s opening, even the Rigby-Chandlers were put out about that… funny as it was, then he’s whisking Jonie off on a cruise around the Med; he’s updated the car, they’ve got a wedding to pay for, I’m guessing a honeymoon too—”
“Some people are just better at saving than others, I guess.”
River had blatantly ignored her questioning over his decision not to open up that Saturday, equally keen not to blow Lee’s cover. He’d only just told Jonie about his win during said boating around the Mediterranean, was keen to keep his secret closely guarded for as long as he could to the outside world.
Still, what was notable was the way Alice was changing. Not so long ago in the band and she’d have felt entitled to all of life’s little trappings, and whilst her prying into Lee’s finances might have come across as nosey to an outsider, it was as sure a sign as any of her descent from noblesse to ordinariness. Not that she could ever be ordinary if she tried. But it boded well for the kind of grounded life he was keen to live, preferably always with her by his side.
And in a funny kind of way it felt terrible not to be sharing Lee’s Lotto windfall with Alice. Despite that incredible evening in the caravan weeks ago, they’d sat down at the kitchen table as two responsible adults the very next morning, agreeing to take things slowly by officially dating – regardless of the inescapable fact they were already cohabiting – with all the movies and dinners and takeaways and beachy Weston-Super-Mare style strolls that entailed; sex, for the moment, frustratingly on hold. So far, so good; they’d stuck to Alice’s principles. But their relationship felt all the more authentic for it, he had to admit it.
“But I haven’t seen a live carnival here for so many years,” Alice had continued that day in the bar when he’d sprung the idea of a zip trip to Prague to surprise everyone upon her, “imagine how cool it would be to watch it out the top window… and to be able to drop coins for charity into those long pole collection thingys that the people in fancy dress carry up and down the High Street.”
“It’s a recipe for disaster, a Jägermeister bomb waiting to explode.”
River shook his head, genuinely surprised at the way she’d glossed over her childhood memories of the really quite terrifying faces of some of the town folk dressed as clowns – and other creations he couldn’t always put a name to – but also genuinely reluctant to upset her. He knew all too well the truth behind his reasoning. Plus the fact, Lee wouldn’t be able to get the time off just like that. The supermarket would be heaving. It would be all systems go in every retail outlet within a ten mile radius of Glastonbury’s epicentre: this was the second prime weekend in the year for shoplifting, the festival aside.
He couldn’t help but smile though at the journey his friendship with Lee had taken. It was the most curious of things. Just at the beginning of this year they were sworn enemies, well, at least sworn token enemies, it was clear with whom the real hatred lay, and now they’d become such good friends that not only had Lee officially asked River to be Best Man at his nuptials which were just around the corner, River had also approached Lee with a proposition of his own. But that was something he wasn’t quite ready to tell Alice about, not just yet, anyway. Amazingly, neither she nor Georgina had questioned his recent disappearance on ‘business’ last Wednesday and Thursday.
It certainly felt like life really was falling into place, those unaccounted jigsaw pieces fitting into their rightful abode. He no longer had to sweat it out worrying over the bottle, secure as it would be, quite literally under wraps – at least until the call he was waiting for came in, and depending of course upon that call’s revelation. Until then, there it would stay, beneath the cosy tartan. Georgina had calmed down of late too, and whilst River still hadn’t managed to find a reason to eject her from the bar and truly wondered what he’d ever seen in her, at least he had regained enough trust to let her manage it while they were away in Prague – with the exception of its definite closure on carnival Saturday.
She’d seemed genuinely thrilled at the prospect when he’d put it forward. He’d hired a mixologist from Newquay for three nights and everything, putting him up at The Guinevere and paying him well for his time. Lee was going to step in as well, at least to partner up with Georgina on the service front, but only for the three nights which fell either side of the actual carnival – a feast for the senses in every sense of the word, taking place as it did every year at the end of November. All in all, he was confident he’d left things in very safe hands.
“But we’re off to Prague… as tourists this time! It’s gonna be so much more fun than watching a bunch of tractors and sweat-drenched X-Factor hopefuls singing and dancing on neon light bulb studded floats. We can do that any year, but there will only ever be one inaugural travel group visit to the Prague Christmas market,” he’d reminded her.
“True,” she’d said. “I am looking forward to it, I promise, I can practically sniff the mulled wine in the air, and I’m especially curious as to how Terry is going to get on with all that driving.”
They both laughed at that.
The travel group had decided, during one of its many get-togethers in The Cocktail Bar, to hire a mini bus and drive all the way to the Czech Republic’s capital, that way they’d have more room for their goodies and could fit in more countries en-route, ticking the boxes on all of their club requirements. Nobody had been more relieved than Terry, as he’d never set foot on a plane.
***
“Are you absolutely sure this is the same boat hotel they’re staying in?”
Alice quizzed River as the silent and melancholic Czech taxi driver pulled over to the quay and pointed at the fare on his screen, a couple of weeks later. It made a refreshing change from the incessant dialogue and munching they’d become all too acquainted with courtesy of one Hayley, who’d more than become their personal chauffeur since the summer, taking them here, there and everywhere at discount rates in return for guaranteed pole position as chief taxi driver for The Cocktail Bar – even if she too would be a recipient of their Cilla Black style shenanigans later.
Fare paid, soon they found themselves inside the boat, heading up the short queue for check in, where River also found himself the recipient of a surprise of his own: resorting to having to use his C list past to help secure what would normally be top secret information.
“But I really shouldn’t be revealing the dining plans of fellow guests, Sir,” said the male receptionist, whose name badge with its Dutch flag told them his name was Piet.
“Would you do it for a signed CD then? A signed Avalonia CD?”
“I haven’t a clue who Avalonia are, and no, it’s against company rules to disclose this kind of information.” He threw in a string of tuts to make that extra clear.
“But what’s stopping me as a guest from knocking on all the doors in the hotel and finding them that way?” said River, his voice desperately trying to shroud his irritation. “This is my mum we’re talking about—”
“Our friends besides,” added Alice, removing her shades and propping them up on her head so her curls fell enticingly over her face and it was all River could do not to sweep them away, or attempt to nuzzle them as they swayed to and fro. “Surely you wouldn’t begrudge them our company tonight?”
He’d always swore that he’d never be one of those sickeningly sweet men who refer to their partner with a pet name, or adopt childlike habits in the bedroom, lest he lose his dignity completely. But Alice had him hook, line and sinker and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it if he tried.
And then he felt a little justified, having taken in the come-hither smile of the designer-stubbled ‘Piet’. It wasn’t just River after all.
“On this occasion, I suppose I could overlook that conformity,” Piet replied, gazing solely at Alice, “In return for your signature on one of those CDs.”
River delved, overenthusiastically into his suitcase’s thin outer pocket, his large hand straining, mimicking a duck webbed foot until he finally fished out a spare CD. He handed it to Alice. “You’re in luck,” he told Piet, whose eyes remained permanently fixed on their new object of desire.
“Pen?”
Alice challenged him, unperturbed by such public sleaze. Piet opened the drawer beneath the desk, still unable to break out of his trance. “The travel group have made a booking for a restaurant called ‘Nejen Vepřové a Knedlíky’ this evening. This loosely translates as ‘Not only Pork and Dumplings’, in case you are interested. It is geographically located near the castle across the Charles Bridge,” Piet said, with all the automation of a robot, as if he had always known this would be a part of their check-in drill.
“Thank you,” said Alice. “We got there eventually… and um,” the intensity of his gaze was starting to wear a little thin now, clearly knocking her confidence, “would you be able to add us to this reservation… as well as um… as well as kindly booking us a separate taxi, for an hour later… please?”
“Why of course, Madam… and Sir,” Piet finally snapped out of it. “That would be my pleasure, and thank you again for the CD. I look forward to playing it… very, very soon indeed. Yes, very soon indeed.” He held it close to his chest and River could feel Piet’s eyes burning his back as they wheeled their cases to the antiquated looking lifts which would apparently take them to the penthouse suite on the upper deck.
They squeezed themselves inside, River suddenly regretting the garlic croutons he’d unnecessarily sprinkled on his budget airline soup at 38,000 feet a couple of hours prior to their current jigsaw puzzle of a conundrum – although, the way they’d equally been squashed together on that flight had hardly afforded them that many extra inches than their latest dilemma.
“You push yours into your corner first then wedge yourself up against it, and I’ll just have to sit on mine and curl into a very small ball in my corner,” said Alice. “And please God, nobody else attempt to join us or I think I might die.”
River craned his neck awkwardly to press the button to their floor, the doors shut, the mechanics creaked ominously, and finally there was upward movement. Just for a little while anyway. Seconds later the lift stopped with a rather abrupt clunk.
“Holy shit! What did you do?” Alice shrieked. Her eyes were wild and terrified, bouncing back at him through the mirrored glass. “We should have stayed home and opened the bar, I knew it. Never mind that Jägermeister bomb you referred to, this is like drinking Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon, quite literally.”
“But I did press the right button, floor three we’re on… I swear I hit the right one,” River said cringing at his bleary reflection as it steamed up the mirrored glass, and wanting but not daring, to smile at the fabulous way mixology jargon had started to creep into Alice’s vocabulary.
Before either of them could further process the horror that was, or search for the alarm button, a familiar voice came through the loudspeaker, though curiously it was quiet as a mouse.
“Sit tight. This always happens when there are two in a lift. I will just go to the technical room to hoist you back down. Then one of you must take the stairs.”
“I think we’ll both be taking the stairs, mate!”
“Bloody hell, I need that mulled wine and I need it now,” screamed Alice.
***
“Oh,” said Alice minutes later. “I thought we’d booked two singles.”
“I’ll behave if you will,” said River with a wink, secretly delighted at the rather snug double bed Alice was flinging her case on, practically unzipping it mid-air such was her enthusiasm for catching the Christmas market before dinner, as well as generally exiting the hotel.
“You know how important my rules are to me and now you’re just making them a mockery.” She stopped her unpacking suddenly and fell in a frazzled heap on the bed. He couldn’t blame her. The early start, the entrapment in the lift and now the let-down that was a poo brown hued room dubbed a penthouse, had put him in a sour mood himself.
“Let’s just make the best of this,” he said, sitting beside her on the hideous seventies inspired duvet complete with its giant moths perched on sunflowers. “This was a last minute decision anyway, so I take full responsibility for the current balls up. Next time you are in charge, and we’ll go wherever you like, promise. In any case, this trip was simply to surprise our friends and family, to feel proud of what we’ve both helped a bunch of people who previously didn’t get out much, to achieve.”
“You make them sound like they’ve never left Somerset.”
“Well in Terry and Hayley’s cases, that couldn’t be more accurate.”
“She did drive us down to Dover.”
“Yeah but only with the lure of a four times mark up on the fare… plus two service station stops for a snack both on the way there and on the way back.”
Alice was all smiles again. “Ohemgee, her head’s going to be positively spinning at all the Czech dumplings and sweet pastries in the markets. I can hardly wait myself.”
“Well then, let’s take a quick tour of the erm… hotel… boat… whatever it markets itself as, and get going.”
They hugged and Alice walked over to the massive window to draw back the curtain linings and drink in the view.
“Actually, River, furnishings aside, it’s pretty damn impressive. Just look at this.”
He crossed the epically large room; that was the curious thing, in terms of space they were practically inhabiting a palace; it was just a shame the décor hadn’t caught up with the modern world, and put his hand around her waist, in awe of the beauty in front of him, as well as the beauty beside him. He slid the sheer glass double doors wide open so they could step out onto their own personal balcony and enjoy it even more. The water twinkled, dappled here and there, reflecting sunbeams in other spots as the light hit its surface, a barge tugged with the grace of a swan to the right of them, its cargo headed for who knew where, canoeists hugged the Vltava’s outer banks, canary yellow and populated with bobbing heads, the bridges of Prague hung elegantly over the river like strings of pearls as far as the eye could see, the castle overseeing all of this in its top hat Gothic grandeur. And music floated from one of the lower decks. It sounded suspiciously like banjo music, which hardly went hand in hand with the distinctly wintery climate or the city’s architecture.
“Banjo Boy, it’s gotta be,” said River.
“Well, he is here with the group after all, and I must admit, I’m wondering how Cassandra is keeping him so entertained, shall we say, twenty-four-seven.” Alice folded her arms and took to jogging lightly on the spot in a bid to warm up.
“If he’s down below then the others are sure to be floating about too.”
“Ha, and hopefully not in the literal sense,” said Alice.
“Perhaps she’s getting ready to go out and he’s sat at one of the cafés on the lower decks, passing the time,” River continued. “In other words, let’s get ourselves out of here now and head for the market, before they spot us.”
His words were a click of the fingers, transporting Alice into ultimate city break mode. She skipped around the room like a character out of a Disney movie gathering scarf, coat, gloves and ear warmers.
“Let’s do this. I’m so pumped! I think it’s just the novelty of being free, no ulterior motive for being here – surprise aside. We’re on holiday, a real holiday, a holiday without the constant fear of the snail trail of the media… sorry, I, erm, the last thing I wanted to do was hark back to the vaycays of my last relationship. But you know what I mean.”
“Hey, this is me, Al. If this is it now, you and me… possibly… hopefully, for ever and ever, then I don’t want you walking on eggshells. We’re always going to let the odd thing slip out when it comes to the past,” irritatingly, Georgina sprang to mind, “and if you can’t be you around me and I can’t be me around you, then none of this is going anywhere.”
He held his arms out wide, inviting her in for a tender embrace, ever hopeful that this shiny and new, carefree mood would carry its sentiment into an equally carefree evening. It was time. They were almost entering a brand new year, after all. And he had plans for the both of them, plans he couldn’t keep to himself for much longer. It wasn’t that a certain kind of intimacy was a prerequisite to his future announcement, rather that he couldn’t help but feel Alice was holding part of herself back from him, out of protection maybe, or some similar kind of self-deprivation to the way she would frequently refrain from partaking in calorific food perhaps, some unnecessary trace of guilt for winning his heart over and above the infatuation of Georgina? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something wasn’t right.
Still, it made no odds because the only thing he did know was she was right.
The One.
It was crazy really that it had taken them both so long to see it.
They left the room, gingerly, it had to be said, River taking Alice by the hand and leading the way along the hideous transcendentally-carpeted corridor to the stairs. Once back down on the ground floor the passageway looked safe, remarkably so given the increased volume of the banjo strumming, whose chords seem to bounce off the tread of what appeared to be a very freshly laid carpet, another seventies creation, this time in buttercup yellow.
“Oh no! It’s Cassandra and friends—”
Alice almost hyperventilated, an over-excitable child in one mammoth game of hide-and-seek.
“Quick, shunt yourself up against the wall next to me.” River had already transformed himself into Flat Stanley. “We’ve come too far to let them see us now.” He pulled her closer to him and they held their breath against the side of a rather expensive looking grandfather clock, conveniently lining the corridor.
Cassandra and her groupies marched past, giggling, intoxicated in the kind of glee that only a girls’ holiday among ladies of a certain age, can manufacture.
River chanced a peep around the edge of the highly polished heirloom to see them walk through the inner part of the hotel’s café and out onto the deck beyond, presumably to take custody of Cassandra’s lover, chaperoning him en-masse for today’s pre-planned excursion, whatever that entailed. One of these days he would find out Banjo Boy’s name.
“The coast is as clear as it’s ever going to be,” he whispered to Alice behind him, “after three, yeah?”
“One, two, three,” they counted together and then sprinted, past Piet and his second daze of the day, and out onto the quayside.
***
A remarkably short stroll later – short because they’d absolutely pegged the distance from the boat to Prague’s infamous Wenceslas Square, hardly daring look over their shoulders – and they were in what could only be described as utopia. To look at Alice in that moment was to regard a Victorian doll in one of those cute snowstorm globes, the old-fashioned beauties with rosy cheeks and cascades of curls, wearing Santa-red muffs on their wrists, elegantly cast out before them with traditional intent as they skate the vast perimeter of the ice rink. Indeed the only thing that was missing was the snow.
“I’m in love,” said Alice, “in love with life, in love with Prague, in love with you.”
“I can’t even,” River wanted so badly to reciprocate those words but the crowd had grown thick now and so he linked his arm in hers, leading them to somewhere, anywhere for a little privacy. “I can’t even begin to tell you—”
“Look, mulled wine!”
She dragged him back into the cheery throng and he knew then that the moment had decidedly passed but that was fine because he didn’t actually want to tell her what she’d told him, in some kind of pathetically whimsical ‘me too, babe’ half-hearted effort of a retort – what she’d only just gone and flipping well told him… that she loved him! He’d find his own moment sure enough.
And talking of moments, this was another time capsule of absolute enchantment – once Alice had weaved them both through the dawdlers and gawpers with their precariously balanced hot toddies, anyway. Quaint little market stalls stood proudly, exhibiting their handmade wares, and draped in the most promising of red, the red of all his childhood Christmases parcelled together with a giant satin bow. Heather may not have celebrated many conventional English traditions, but unlike Halloween, she always made an exception at Yuletide, so River didn’t feel completely left out compared to his friends. Being here, totally enveloped in this festive spirit, it was to be a boy again, to catch the scent of cinnamon and clove on the air, then emanating from the old-fashioned Aga and the (spelt flour) Christmas cookies Heather used to bake, now from the vapour trail of the mulled wine the stall holder was gently ladling into two cups.
“Here,” said Alice. “Get this down you.”
She passed him a cup and he knew immediately this baby of a punch was going on the special Christmas menu. They were soon planning to throw an end of year party, to thank all the locals for their support over the past few months, and a River-style twist on mulled wine was going to be a must. He tentatively began to sip, almost burning his mouth at the sudden intrusion behind them.
“Well, well, well, fancy bumping into you two lovebirds here,” said a woman’s voice, snapping him immediately out of his creative daydream. She looked remarkably like Hayley, holding aloft several slithers of the juiciest looking ham in one hand and a trdelnik pastry in the other, reminding River that he himself hadn’t eaten in hours. His heart thudded, first through the short sharp shock of being caught red-handed, second with utter disappointment.
“You haven’t seen us!” said Alice, almost choking on her drink.
“And you haven’t seen the half of this yet, you wanna get on down to Old Town Square, guys. That’s where the real buzz is. Flippin’ heck, the Christmas tree is summit else. What are you two even doing here, anyway? Who’s looking after the bar? It’s carnival weekend, are you mad?”
“I could ask the same of you,” said River. “Think of all the money you could be making.”
“Tsk,” said Hayley, in-between her sampling, “I never operate over the carnival weekend, oh no Siree, not since the year Burnham-on-Sea’s entry of a float broke down halfway up the High Street and Muggins here ended up having to jump start the bleedin’ tractor.”
“Gosh,” said Alice. “That would be enough to put you off.”
“Anyway,” said Hayley, “three’s a crowd and I’m beginning to feel like a strawberry.”
“Don’t you mean gooseberry?” River corrected her.
“I think I know the rumblings of my own stomach better than you, River Jackson. Jahodový Řez, says that wooden sign over yonder.” Hayley pointed to a traditionally painted sign which could have been written in Japanese, for all of River’s linguistic capabilities.
He shrugged his shoulders at Alice as she continued to down the fragrant magic with somewhat shaky hands.
“Czech Strawberry cake,” said Hayley. “Oh my days, I’m glad one of us did our culinary homework prior to coming over here, like.”
“Oh yeah, that… Czech Strawberry cake, of course… heard loads about it,” he lied.
“Laters!”
Hayley had somehow finished her various collections of morsels already, as well as the unexpected conversation, and was beginning to walk, very briskly, in the direction of the stall she had pointed to.
“Hey, Hayley, wait up, just a minute,” River called after her. “Not a word to the others, please… we’re here to surprise them.”
But she was already a speck in the crowd.
“Well… that went well,” said Alice, eyes glazing over from lack of food and sudden consumption of alcohol. She looked dreamy, ethereal, but despite the devil of temptation perched on River’s shoulder, he was categorically not going to take advantage of that.
“I guess we ought to Czech out – geddit? – the Old Town Square then.” River paused for a laugh, met only by the kind of face one pulls a propos a Bruce Forsyth gag.
“River Jackson, tipsy I may be, but that was the corniest thing that has ever flown out of your mouth. If you’re trying to impress me… to build things up to a dirty weekend of pure unadulterated sex, you’re going to have to try a helluva lot harder than that.”
***
Czech folk music greeted them as they were led through the foyer of the restaurant by an elderly waiter. River began to feel nervous, transferring his irrational fear to Alice through the energy centre of his hand which she squeezed gently to reassure him.
“Are you alright?”
“Yeah, course,” he replied, clearing his throat.
It wasn’t so much that he was about to potentially give his mum a heart attack, rather that he’d built his hopes up high for tonight, and now he was wondering if he’d taken things too far, like the architects who’d designed Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, when frankly the Burj Al Arab had sufficed. He’d even snuck off to ask Piet to scatter rose petals on the bed while they were out – this whilst Alice was blissfully unaware and taking a tepid bath. It was probably the most ludicrous and potentially risky request anyone could make, Piet evidently having become completely smitten with the love of River’s life, and totally spooking him out when on arrival in reception, Avalonia’s one and only love song, ‘And Then My Eyes Found You,’ from the recently gifted album, blasted out as the latest arrivals checked in, but he wanted things to be perfect.
“Guess who?”
River was back in the present, blindfolding Heather’s eyes moments later with a napkin, and Terry was almost spitting out his goulash.
“Woop woop,” said Cassandra. “Oh heavens above, what a wondrous thing to do. Well, I always said magic follows this man wherever he goes, but now it seems that very magic is here at our table.”
All this before Heather had even stabbed a guess at the person who was letting her veggie dumplings get cold. Much as he’d warmed to Cassandra in recent weeks, why couldn’t she just keep a lid on it, show some decorum?
“Ha,” added Hayley, “I’ve had to keep schtum all afternoon after bumping into Riv and Al down in Wenceslas Square, now the secret’s out at last and I can breathe a sigh of relief, the number of times I’ve almost let the cat out the—”
“Well, cheers for that, Hayley. I might as well uncover this now then, hadn’t I?”
River released his grip on the napkin, thoroughly pissed off at the lack of discretion. Then again, going by the growing collection of empty wine bottles, clearly this lot had been knocking back the glasses for a couple of hours already.
“River? No… I don’t believe it!”
Heather was practically shaking, somehow only catching up with the revelations of the others once she’d laid eyes on the boy for herself. “Oh, the pair of you,” she looked around for Alice now as well, and pulled them both in for a hug, “this is just amazing… oh, what a day we’ve had.” She turned to her right to squeeze Terry’s hand, happy tears in her eyes. “And we’ve only just arrived as well… this is all just so exciting. It had been too long since I’d visited another land, Stonehenge and Avebury aside… way too long.”
“Hey, you’re not wrong there… and this is just the beginning,” said Terry, raising his glass to prompt another toast from everybody at the table. “The ‘ole globe sure is our oyster now.”
“Am I missing something? What is this significant other thing that’s happened today?” River said with an expectant smile. He could already tell what was coming.
Banjo Boy began to pat his instrument, sat as usual, protectively in his lap, to signal some kind of a build-up to a public announcement. The pat became the hard beat of a drum and soon he couldn’t resist leaving the table to try his luck with the Czech musicians at the restaurant’s entrance, who had little choice but to accept him – just for one song, which admittedly, he did a pretty decent job of providing a strangely haunting melody to.
“What a day it’s been, as I was saying,” cried Heather again as the musicians finally called it a day and began to pack up their instruments. “Terry’s only asked me to move in with him… permanently, on the Charles Bridge.”
“The… did you just say on the Charles Bridge?”
His question was met with a round of hearty giggles.
“She doesn’t mean I’m gonna knock up bricks and mortar on the bridge, River. No, course not. Plus the fact, I’m a man in demand these days, soon to brighten up all of your television sets… Nicholas Knowles eat your heart out.”
Terry’s index finger scanned the guests at the table then, as if it might find the traitor, the one who had always secretly had the DIY SOS front man geek crush but was too embarrassed to admit it.
“She means when we get back to Glastonbury, we’re going to shack up together permanently, your mother and I. Well, I can hardly kick out Blake and George – mind you, I’d probably be doing them the biggest favour if I did, so we’re going to pool our resources together, love, aren’t we?”
He paused briefly to look lovingly into Heather’s eyes, and despite the genuine sentiment, River almost had to clutch at his stomach, as would have Georgina, had she not been serving up trays of heady mixers right now. “Because actually, there is a little bit more to tell you about this TV show I’m appearing in right now where we’re filming the stately home improvements at the Rigby-Chandlers—”
“Sounds fascinating,” said River, pulling up a spare seat for himself and Alice, figuring that any story emanating from Terry after wine, and now the slivovic which the waiter threatened to uncork, was going to be akin to a reading straight out of War and Peace – but also, that they couldn’t hover behind Heather for ever and a day, making her strain her neck this way and that.
“I’m only flippin’ well earning more than I’ve done,” Terry broke off momentarily to switch to a whisper now, suspicion washing over his face at the sight of the waiter and his huddle of shot glasses, “in a bloomin’ decade,” he added, eyebrows tall as skyscrapers, head nodding affirmatively.
“Well that’s brilliant, Terry,” said Alice encouragingly.
“And there’s more,” Terry rubbed his hands together. “Please don’t think me greedy… and only God above knows how this has come about, ‘cos stuff like this never happens to a run of the mill kind of Joe Bloggs like me… but they really are tipping me to be a bit of a future Somerset celeb, like.”
River couldn’t help but smirk inwardly at this little nugget. How Terry would scoff at his own hand in all of this; at his unknown link to Mexico, and the gratitude a little woman with wonky teeth living in a shack in an agave field so deserved for the way she had personally seen to it that lives would be changed.
“Gosh, never mind River and me giving people autographs.” Alice quite unnecessarily forced River to imagine Piet snooping around their room now, a vision he was keen to entrench in drink before he arrived at the sniffing at her underwear part. “It sounds like you’ll be doing that soon enough. But if I may say so myself, hasn’t your luck changed since you’ve started visiting the cocktail bar?”
“He’s worked hard all his life and when opportunity knocks at our age, you really do have to grab it,” said Heather.
“Here, here,” echoed Hayley.
“Our sentiments exactly.” Cassandra raised her slivovic in a toast to Terry, for the drink had now made its merry way around the table. “I must echo Alice’s words though, there’s something about the tall, handsome, bearded, pony-tailed hunk of a mixologist sat beside her… well surely you’ve all noticed it?”
River swallowed down his fear at having been sussed out as Cassandra got to her feet now, her little thimble of potency undulating left and right.
“Sorry we’re late!”
River had to do a double take, a double take of sheer relief but a double take nonetheless. Lady Rigby-Chandler was only rushing over to join them all in an outfit straight out of Dynasty; shoulders wide as plane wings, pearls layered heavily around her neck as if she’d been scooped off a seabed. She turned to click for her tortoise-like husband and as if by magic, Lord Rigby-Chandler began to scuttle a little faster in their direction too.
The group became silent.
“Now,” said Terry, “be friendly one and all… that was the part I was rather trying to get to… but as usual, my tangents stopped me in my tracks. Lord and Lady R-C, Rigby-Chandler, I mean, Rigby-Chandler…” He bowed down low to the aristocrats who stood wide-eyed and expectant at the head of the table, so low it was a wonder he didn’t set fire to his few remaining sprigs of hair on the Gothic candelabra. “M’lady and his lordship… well, they wanted to come over to Prague as well. They’ve sort of taken to the idea of the travel group in recent weeks, you see, as per my relaying of the trip’s details whilst they’ve been overseeing my plastering above their drawing room fire place.”
Lord Rigby-Chandler removed his bowler hat to signal his agreement.
“Um, well, let’s all make them feel welcome then.”
Alice jumped to her feet, helped herself to a couple of chairs from another table, prompting everybody to bunch up together to make room for their unexpected guests. Cassandra panned the restaurant for the dregs of her now forgotten conversation and resigned herself to her own chair.
***
“You’re off the hook, River, and I can only apologise, I’ve been a snob of the first order,” said Lady Rigby-Chandler halfway into her first glass of wine.
River pinched himself behind the screen of the lace tablecloth; sure he’d wake up from this kaleidoscopic dream any minute. Even Mercedes couldn’t have made this shit up.
“So,” he mustered up a smile, “this means you’re going to stop threatening to grass me up to the local papers… for things I haven’t even done?”
“Yes, yes… as well as to start paying for our drinks. We’ve behaved quite monstrously, with myself taking the lead… it’s just… it’s just…” She shook her head then and drew in her top lip, presumably to prevent the bottom one from wobbling. “Just between you and me,” she turned to look at River with glassy eyes, “our castle was starting to resemble more of an Abbey Ruins than a stately home. The place was dilapidated, ceilings caving in, more damp and mould and rot than an episode of that frightful excuse for light television entertainment, Coronation Street. That’s when we applied to feature in one of those programmes, out of desperation, we’d become charity. Terry has been a godsend. Yes, he’s awfully common, but it’s that delicious contrast between us and him, him and us, which is going to save our house, transforming it into its former glory—”
“Breathing new life into the saddest and darkest of corners,” Mercedes’ voice seemed to cut in then with her reminder.
“Opening it back up to the public, fuelling their aspirations and filling our coffers, just like the good old days. I couldn’t be more grateful if I tried.” Lady Rigby-Chandler retained control.
River knocked back his second slivovic, letting the fermented plum burn his throat, and preferably his voice box too while it was at it. Because what could he say to that? He might still semi-loathe the very blue blood of these silver-spooned idiots, but essentially, Lady Rigby-Chandler was showering him with the very evidence that he craved, the proof that his task had been worth it, that he wasn’t simply enriching the lives of three random customers in his cocktail bar… but a whole world beyond it.
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.
Isn’t that what Mercedes had predicted?