I will never say I crave a drink—watching my father obliterate himself with alcohol and turn into the kind of man who wears cruelty like a skin and indulges violence as a habit has taught me a lesson I’ll never forget about liquor and its ability to remove any veneer of civility and control. But today, this day, I have been pushed almost to breaking point.
Both my secretaries called in sick and the temp I got sent could barely spell her own name, then the key witness in my case went missing and God knows, without him, the defence is almost impossible to make.
Not impossible, but a lot fucking harder.
How the hell didn’t I see this coming? It’s my job to be three steps ahead; I’m renowned for that.
Perhaps something of my day expresses itself in my bearing because when I approach the bar, the blonde waitress’s eyes widen and for a moment I am reminded of the ocean on the clearest day imaginable. They shimmer with shades of turquoise and aquamarine, slices of colour punctuated with a shimmering black pupil and surrounded with lashes so thick and long they are like feathers.
It’s just gone six and this place is at its busiest. Within two hours it will have thinned out, but for now there are people everywhere, lined up along the bar, leaning forward, waiting to catch the attention of one of the four staff members who circulate across the tiled floor.
Her eyes hold mine for a moment and then her gaze slides sideways, to a woman at my left.
‘What’ll it be, ma’am?’ Her Australian accent is like butter and my lips twist into a curl that I think might be described as disdainful. I don’t mean to be, only the way she ignores me has gone from amusing to annoying—particularly tonight when I really could murder a fucking Scotch.
The woman orders a cocktail and the blonde smiles in acceptance but her eyes jerk to me again and something like fascination flares inside me.
She’s young; I presume she’s a student at Trinity, working here to pay the fees.
She slices a lime, her fingers confident and deft as they squeeze it into a stainless steel container. She adds mint, then ice, a sugar liquid and finally alcohol, before placing the lid on and shaking the drink. She doesn’t look at me again, but it’s too purposeful, like she’s fighting herself to ignore me.
When the drink is mixed, she tips it into a cocktail glass, adds a straw and some garnish then delivers it to the woman. I think I vaguely recognise her—she might work in the same building as me. She’s attractive, with shining brown hair, pink lips and a dimple in her cheek when she smiles.
But it’s the blonde that has all my attention.
She finishes the transaction and then moves down the bar, away from me, choosing another customer. Still I watch her.
‘What can I get ye, Michael?’ Duncan, the owner of the bar, appears in front of me and, despite the obsessive thirst for Scotch I had when I walked in, I shake my head now, declining his service.
He shrugs and moves on to someone else.
I continue to watch her. Once, her eyes find mine and a hint of pink spreads through her cheeks. It is a simple response and yet it’s been so long since I’ve been with a woman who blushes that I’m temporarily blindsided.
She serves a guy at the end of the bar who seems to be watching her with the same kind of thoughts I’m having—his significantly less well-concealed, and finally, as though she’s being dragged through wet cement, she approaches me.
‘What’re you having?’ she asks, her eyes hovering on my lips instead of my eyes, so I smile slowly, and then panic flares in her gaze but she does look at me.
‘You’ve served me before. Don’t you remember?’
‘I serve hundreds of people in a shift,’ she says with a shrug. It’s obvious she’s lying.
‘Where are you from?’ I’m somewhat surprised by my own question. I’ve noticed her before—more than noticed her. I’ve been fascinated by her, but I’m not generally interested in chasing women. Why would I be, when they fall into my lap with satisfying regularity? Different women, rarely the same for long, never a relationship. Perhaps if I’d had a better example of marriage, of domestic happiness, I might have been eager to attempt to recreate it? Maybe to date someone, settle down, even get married. But seeing my father destroy my mother, piece by piece, has left me with very little interest in having a partner in my life—beyond sexual, or business.
‘Australia,’ she murmurs. ‘Are you ready to order? If not, I can go serve someone else while you make up your mind.’
People rarely challenge me. It’s a new experience and I can’t say if I like it or not.
‘Where in Australia?’
She expels a sigh of impatience and now it’s my turn to look at her lips. They’re beautiful. A work of art, full, and shaped like Cupid’s bow, pillowy and soft. It’s a mouth that is kind and sweet, and yet I am imagining it in ways that are far from that now.
‘Tasmania.’ She turns away from me, towards the mirror at the back of the bar, and lifts up onto the tips of her toes so she can reach the bottle of Foords. Her recollection of my drink amuses me, particularly in the face of her suggestion that she serves too many patrons to recall each person’s tipple, but then I see the way an inch or so of her midriff is exposed by the lift of her arms and I’m instantly sobered.
My body springs tight with awareness; desire flushes my system. I ignore it. Desire is an instinct and, like any other, it can be tamed.
She pours a generous measure of whiskey into a tumbler.
Without my asking, she grabs another glass and fills it with water and ice.
‘I thought you didn’t remember my drink?’ I murmur, and her eyes lift to mine.
‘Have you ever been?’
I blank a smile at her attempt to ignore my remark, but I roll with it. ‘To Tasmania? No.’
‘Australia?’
It’s the most we’ve spoken and each question spins around me like a spider’s web. I stay where I am, feet planted to the ground.
‘Yes.’
‘Where?’ She leans forward a little, despite the fact the bar is humming with customers. For a moment, time has ceased to move, people have ceased to exist.
‘The east coast. From Melbourne up to The Great Barrier Reef.’
Her smile is derisive. ‘Tasmania is the best Australia has to offer and you missed it because you bought the tourism myth.’
‘What’s the tourism myth?’ I can’t help asking, reaching into my pocket and pulling out the cash I use. When I’m drinking it’s always cash. It’s nice to have a visual reminder of what I’m spending and what’s at stake. I’m not my father—nothing like him.
‘That Sydney is about all we have to offer,’ she says with a soft smile and a roll of her eyes that is endlessly fascinating.
‘I don’t
