Читать книгу Christmas at the Gin Shack - Catherine Miller, Catherine Miller - Страница 11

Chapter Three

Weeks went by too quickly in Olive’s opinion. With so much going on in her life these days, she wanted to be able to slow down time. There wasn’t much chance of that happening, though. She hadn’t even had time to start trying out recipes for the Christmas cocktail competition and they were going to start previewing them on the weekly menu soon.

It was rather exciting because it meant that, this Sunday, Olive wouldn’t be the only one turning up with a thermos flask. Tony was also bringing one to showcase the first Christmas cocktail they’d be featuring at the Gin Shack. It was nice not to be the only one having to do homework during the week.

‘What is it then?’ Olive asked when they were all gathered. She was impatient to know, especially as she had agreed to come up with one of the recipes. Several other members of the Gin Shack crew had also volunteered, but rather than share their ideas with each other, they were all being very secretive over the matter. Anyone would think they were in competition with each other, which Olive wondered if, really, they were. Even if just a little.

Olive was worried that, by not confiding in each other, they would all end up coming up with pretty much the same ideas. Her own light-bulb moment was hopefully something a bit different, but she would need to carry out some experiments to check it wasn’t completely rank.

‘This is Paul’s recipe. Don’t tell him I’ve let you have a preview. He’ll think there’s cheating going on.’

‘You do know there’s no competition going on between us?’ Olive needed the point clarified.

‘Not officially, but the customers are going to be choosing a winning cocktail, so I think whoever creates the winning recipe that ends up representing the Gin Shack will win gloating rights for a long time to come,’ Tony said.

‘What’s your recipe, Richard?’ Surely Olive’s son wouldn’t be keeping his concept a secret.

‘That would be telling. No trying to get ahead of the game, Mum.’

Olive definitely wasn’t ahead of the game. If anything, she was behind it if the others already had their cocktail creations in hand.

‘This is the chocolate-orange cocktail,’ Tony said. ‘Paul said the flavour always reminds him of Christmas as he always cracks one open as a treat.’

The drink did taste like the classic segmented chocolate and, for Olive, it worked. The annoying thing was that Tony wasn’t letting on about what all the ingredients were, or how it would be presented. She was sure there was chocolate Baileys, but she wasn’t quite able to identify the flavour of gin or what the other ingredients were. She was sure she’d be able to with more chance to taste the drink, but Tony was restricting her intake and they needed to pack up, ready to head down for their weekly picnic.

‘Orange-blossom gin?’ Olive put in another guess.

‘My lips are sealed.’

It was frustrating, but at least the idea she had wasn’t in any way similar.

‘I’m going to go ahead if that’s okay with you two? It’s been such a busy week, Esme and I haven’t had much chance to touch base.’

‘You go ahead. I’ll walk with Mum,’ Richard said.

It made Olive sound like a dotty old dear who wasn’t able to manage by herself. She was a gazillion times slower than these young sprats, though, especially when Tony jogged off, demonstrating how practically the whole world was younger and fitter than her. Aging really was a bugger at times.

‘What’s going to be in your cocktail then, Mum?’

‘Like I’m going to tell you.’ Olive found herself grinning. This cocktail competition was going to be fun.

Rather than a standoff silence as they ambled along the promenade, they both took to playing a game of guess the ingredients for the sample they’d just tried.

This was one of the best things to have emerged from the opening of the Gin Shack: the renewed relationship Olive had with her son. They’d spent far too many years treading on eggshells around each other and it was nice to have a new sense of being comfortable in each other’s presence.

Before, Richard had always been too busy for her. His London-based lawyer business took up most of his time and she’d become an inconvenience in his life. But the opening of the Gin Shack had made both of them realise that family time was important, however fractured the past may have caused the present to be. They could never bring the rest of the family back, but they had each other – mother and son – and it was important to hang on to that in whatever way possible.

These days Richard no longer worked like a dog and actually took his weekends off like any normal person would. He ventured down on a Friday and was helping Tony out at the Gin Shack on the busier Friday and Saturday evenings. Olive would get to see him when they weren’t too busy and then, on a Sunday, they had their gin-tasting ritual followed by all of the beach-hut residents getting together for a Sunday picnic feast.

The beach-hut neighbours took it in turns to cook a meal, with each of them contributing something in terms of sustenance. Today it was pulled pork on the menu. Esme had perfected the recipe and it was one of Olive’s favourite meals.

There was a mishmash of tables from each of the huts gathered together to provide a dining area, and the troops were gathering with pasta, salads and all sorts of treats to go with the main dish. Olive and Richard had the easy task of providing bread rolls this week. On the whole they were offered the easier-to supply ingredients, which, given that neither of them had access to a kitchen locally, was probably for the best.

Olive greedily filled her plate with everything that was on offer. There was something so special about these Sunday afternoons. Since the opening of the Gin Shack, she didn’t see her neighbours here in the leisurely coming-and-going way of old. Most of the time she would see them at the bar rather than down on the sands. So it was nice that they kept this up, keeping their sense of community spirit strong. Along with Richard and Olive, there was Skylar and her seven-year-old son, Lucas, in the next-door hut, and Richard would often spend time with Lucas, making extravagant castles in the sand. There was Paul the fisherman, who still said very little in the way of conversation, but when he did, it was always worth hearing. Tony and Esme were basking in deckchairs, although there wasn’t much sun about to be basking in. Their three boys, TJ and the twins, were playing a game of cricket as they so often did, and Mark and Lily, the lovely couple on the end of the row, were being a bit gooey-eyed and romantic with each other. Next to them (although not with their own beach hut to boast of) were Randy and Veronica who always tagged along, giving fair competition in the most gooey-eyed couple category. Along with Olive, Randy and Veronica completed the Oakley West trio made famous by the media when the Gin Shack had opened. They had hit the headlines for escaping from their rest home at every given opportunity to form the secret club that soon became public news. Nowadays, Olive occasionally felt like a bit of a gooseberry since the pair had become a couple. But they were all pretty good at finding a middle ground between spending time together as friends and allowing the couple all the alone time they might require.

Everyone here was as different from each other as it was possible to be, and yet, there were friendships that would last through many a season. Indeed, through many a storm, as had already proven to be the case.

Perhaps that was why the lazy lounging of a Sunday afternoon was so pleasurable. Everyone came without any expectations or agenda. Here, they were most at ease with each other and the world had a tranquil glow when they were together at the beach. It was a shame they couldn’t manage it more often, but the bar was a going concern now. It was providing an income for the Salter family and everyone wanted to support that. It was, after all, possibly the most exciting thing to have ever happened in Westbrook Bay and its appeal hadn’t faded yet. Not for any of them. Hopefully it never would.

Olive’s eyes were clearly bigger than her belly as she struggled to work her way through the plate of food she’d helped herself to. Cramming another mouthful of pulled pork-filled baguette into her gob, she relaxed on her seat, taking in the scene. It was as blissful as could be.

Everyone was merrily munching, too busy filling their faces for chat. It was only Tony who wasn’t eating, clearly too tired from long hours at the Gin Shack. He was leaning back on his deckchair with his sunhat covering his face.

It was a shame because Olive liked nattering with Tony on a Sunday. The business took up so much of his time that they didn’t get the chance to chat the way they had during his brief period of unemployment.

Richard was too busy chomping away at his food to talk, and more engaged with keeping an eye on Lucas than wanting to make conversation with his dear old mother.

Too stuffed to carry on eating, Olive decided to relax a bit more on her deckchair, allowing her stomach to stretch out. If she was lucky, if she rested, she might find her second wind to enjoy the rest of her plateful. The pulled pork was too yummy to want it to go to waste.

There was comfort in listening to the sea. In the way it could drown out the thoughts that sometimes overcrowded the mind. Olive’s mind was calmer these days, now her son was in her life more. There were still the shadows, but the present-day was more apparent and she herself more content than she’d ever been. Today it was the stupid crafted arse that was troubling her. If there was anything she didn’t like in life, it was bullying and viciousness. However harmless a manifestation the craft-style-graffiti had taken, it still stunk of both. It was possibly the most passive-aggressive form of insult she’d ever come across. It had obviously been planned and meant with intent, and Olive was certain this would not be the end of it. Whoever had placed that sign would be back to cause trouble again. The only questions left were: why had they and why would they even bother? But so far there’d been nothing more, so it was hard to put a finger on why it was still bothering her. She certainly seemed more concerned than anyone else.

There was a new pitch in the air. Above the sound of the waves and the boys playing cricket. It was such a unique sound there was nothing to compare it to. It was somewhere between the sound of snoring and the slurpy noise the bath plug makes when the last of the water exits.

It was the death rattle.

Olive sat up immediately, unable to fathom why she was hearing the sound. Maybe it was an echo. A memory. She’d worked at the hospice for many years until her retirement. She’d lost count of the number of people she’d observed as they passed away. She remembered the last lady she’d been with when she’d died. The family lived an hour away and had opted not to stay overnight. Typically, when the time came, it was during the night and too quick for the family to be by her side. As it was Olive’s last shift, she’d volunteered to stay with the lady to make sure she was comfortable in those final hours. It was more like minutes, and Olive had held that lady’s hand while the warmth remained, but life did not. Her death rattle had been short and sharp, those gasps where the body was grasping for air, but the heart had weakened too much to help the lungs in their battle.

That noise didn’t belong here. Olive glanced over at Randy and Veronica, wondering if the sound of old codgers snogging might create a similar sound effect. Fortunately, despite their obvious affection for each other, they’d not started French-kissing like teenagers at every given opportunity, but there was always a chance they would.

They hadn’t. Instead, like pretty much everyone else, they were busy enjoying the feast on offer today.

Olive told herself she must be imagining things. There were plenty of odd noises to be heard here. Even the seagulls could squawk in a way that made it seem like there was a mass bird strangulation occurring. Maybe they were having a spat over a chip.

And then there it was again.

The rasp. So distinct. So clear. A sound that etched on a soul if heard. That throaty gathering of air that was barely doing its job of keeping the person alive.

Without thinking, Olive moved quicker than she had in the longest time. She knew exactly where the sound was coming from and it was so entirely out of place.

She was old. She should be making that noise. It should be her. Or Randy. Or Veronica. Not Tony. They were so much closer to death than he was. He was barely in his fifties. He had teenage children. He’d started a new career with the Gin Shack. This wasn’t his time.

With two quick manoeuvres, she batted away the hat that had everyone else thinking he was snoring, and did something she’d never had to do before in her life. Whereas previously she’d only had to hold a hand to make sure someone wasn’t taking their final journey alone, this time, there was no way she was letting life exit without a fight.

So, despite its being nearly twenty years since she’d left the NHS, and having never performed it on an actual person, Olive found it within herself to pummel Tony’s chest like life itself depended on it. Because it really did.

And, with every compression, Olive willed it to be the other way round. It should be her trying to die on them in spectacular fashion. Not Tony. It was way too early for Tony.