Gin and Bitters

You never told me the truth. If you had, things might have turned out better.

I would like to have taken the stage, just once, to know if I could be seen away from your shadow. But you never gave me the chance. I hate you. I love you. I am bitter because of you. Angostura bitter; flushed pink and filled with gin bitter. I am cold too, two lumps of ice cold, not one more not one less. The lumps of ice chink in my glass of bitterness whenever I think about you. The sweet smell of Tanqueray pervades my mind and turns me back into the person I was then. Could you smell it too? Did I smell to you of despair?

I can flip the bar mat better than you. I remember the first evening, the piano bar, the late night J&B and the smell of cheap foreign cigarettes. I flipped and flipped and caught and caught. You flipped and dropped. No hand eye co-ordination you said. I laughed and agreed, ready to take you on, sure that I could win....at anything. Flirtiness became naughtiness became something else entirely, something unspoken and full of desire. Your breathing became shallow. I knew I had you in the palm of my hand. I placed my fingers on your chest and felt it rise and fall, pretending to pick a piece of fluff off your shirt while your eyes followed every movement, every nuance.

But you were too clever for me, too adept at the game. “The chase”, you said, “is everything.”
The first taste of bitterness in the taxi going home alone, soured my mouth. Played, like a cheap guitar with strings that split your fingers. I bled on the back seat and watched as my expectations dripped and pooled in a congealed mess on the rubber mat. Seventeen, eighteen; how old was I then? There were skyscraper heels on my feet and one got caught in a drain cover as I stepped out of the taxi. The feeling of pain and disappointment as the leather peeled away from the metal armature was far deeper than the indignation I felt over you. As the dawn rose I sat at the kitchen table and carefully glued the leather back into place. But the shoes were scarred. They would never be the same again.

How long was it then? I don’t remember. Maybe I forgot about you for a moment and continued playing life instead. If only you hadn’t been at the gig. I walked in with thirteen of my closest friends and we made our way to the front, pushing and elbowing far greater fans out of the way. See and be seen. The arrogance of youth.

Did you see me first? I’d like to think so. I’d like to think you began the hunt but the memory is blurred through gin and time and I cannot swear to it. For the purposes of my bitterness we will say that you saw me first, standing by the stage, arms akimbo, eyes wild. Yes, of course you did, and stood next to me, not touching but breathing in my ear until I turned and saw you there. I was delighted of course. Such attention in front of a crowd of friends always provides kudos, and from someone like you....well....my fate was sealed in high school history. I had to respond so that the gossip mongers had something weighty for their agenda. It would have been rude not to.
You smelled of cigarettes and whisky, intoxicatingly sexy and grown up. Your trigger was cocked, the barrel pointing in my direction.

“Drink?”

“Yeah. Screwdriver please.”

“Only kids drink Screwdrivers. Have a proper drink. Whisky?”

“OK. Whisky and coke.”

You laughed then and the gold tooth at the back of your perfectly even teeth glinted in the stage lights. I wanted to reach in and grab your bounty, shove it in my pocket and run away with it. I could have taken it out and rolled it between my fingers every day for the rest of my life. It would have been more of you than I ever possessed.
The chase was on. I ducked, you dived. Wherever I went there you were, alone or with friends, colleagues, minions. You’d spy me and come over. Always the same. “Drink?” And we’d drink and smoke and play footsie under the tables on the sticky floors of the dives we frequented. A murmur...you’d brush your lips against my ear as you revealed a piece of gossip about someone in the room. I hung on your words, dangling from a noose that would see me lifeless in the end.
After three months I knew I loved you with a passion not felt by anyone before. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s obsession was nothing to the torch I held for you. Your smile lighted my path in life and I would spend hours planning where you might be so that I could casually bump in to you and pretend it was coincidence. You knew. I knew you knew. It didn’t matter. Our chance meetings were the highlight of my late teens, my twenties. I switched from whisky and coke to straight whisky for you. I hated it but it didn’t matter. It was what you drank.

When I got a job in advertising and moved to the City I thought I wouldn’t have the time to hang out any more. But I soon learned to massage my diary to make room for you. We had lunch in Covent Garden I recall, watching the street performers juggling and walking a high wire above the crowds. “That’s me,” I said and you laughed.
You kissed me on both cheeks that afternoon. They burned red with excitement and I didn’t want to wash you off. Why did I not just ask? I know of course. It seemed to be something. It was better than nothing.
My body clock ticked. A nice young trainee accountant wished to set the timer. I let him. After all, I couldn’t wait around for you for the rest of my life, could I? I invited you to the wedding but you didn’t come. And then, six weeks afterwards you turned up at my office with a bunch of flowers and an apology.

“Why are you sorry” I said.

You answered, “Because.”

Yours were the first congratulations I received when Facebook announced my pregnancy. We went out then, to Ronnie Scott’s to hear a woman who sounded a bit like Ella. We played footsie under the table and I drank whisky even though I knew I shouldn’t. All night the voice in my head screamed questions at you while the music drowned out the sound of my need. You held my hand and said you were sorry. I cried in the taxi as the weight of my expectations crashed down upon my burgeoning belly. When I returned home, the accountant asked me what was wrong and I told him I didn’t love him. He said that it was all right, that I could learn to love him once we had a family. With enormous effort I agreed and told him he was a good man. He said he loved me enough for both of us. Just underneath the surface of my skin I was screaming.

Why didn’t you come to hospital to see my baby? Were you afraid it was too intimate a scene? Too personal, like a kiss on the lips? You wrote in the card attached to the pink carnations and I clung to your words of congratulation as though they were a marriage proposal, keeping your card on the mantelpiece long after the others had been consigned to a box.

When I left the accountant you came to my flat and helped me arrange my bits of furniture. You didn’t touch the baby. We drank gin and talked about gigs. I said I’d found a babysitter and perhaps we could see a new band playing locally. You said those days were over for you and leant out of the window to smoke. When you left I finished the gin. The next day I bought bitters to go with it.
You never told me the truth. If you had, things might have turned out better.

If I’d known you’d never leave him I could have cut my losses. But you didn’t. And knowing that I am the only one who knows who you are doesn’t help me anymore. The hunt was over long ago, the scars purple, raised and shiny. I bled for you.
My new girlfriend loves my daughter and is patient with me. At night we sit and sip gin and bitters and talk about time wasted. She has a story too......