Shopping for Cigarettes

Sunday seemed to be one those midsummer mornings. A cerulean sky and a collective lament, “I drank too much last night.” Such a phrase could be heard confided to the supermarket cashier and cursed while cutting grass. A refrain echoed whilst hoovering hallways or hunched over household bills. Words repeated with the donning of cricket whites and the preparing of teas. Repented by almost absent fathers.

“I drank too much last,” confessed Andy Macmillan.

“We all drank too much last night,” confirmed his wife, Sarah.

“Not me,” parried Zoe Wheeler, “it must have been the prawns.”

Dr John Wheeler opened a second bottle of wine.

Cumulus clouds unfurled from the horizon. A scene redolent of a Pissarro or a Sisley, as the four old university friends sat shaded in the Macmillans’ garden. Leavened with an air of recently mown lawns and honeysuckle. Enhanced by the cool, buttery, white Burgundy. The fridge was stocked with the promise of a BBQ. An afternoon walk to watch cricket on the green beckoned. The kids were away at camp. It was a fine morning.

All appeared well. Sarah and Zoe discussed a prospective Christmas cruise, as the husbands sat in intimate silence. Indeed, an indiscreet inquiry from either man could scuttle the marriage of the other. But both knew better. Both had mellowed. Fat on the proceeds of the City, Andy had taken early retirement. “Me Too” had dampened John’s extra curricular activities, though he stubbornly maintained a fatalistic resistance to the conventions of middle-class life. With such thoughts not entirely unconscious, John rose to extinguish his Marlboro Red and kiss his wife. “I’m going out to buy some cigarettes.”

A walk to the shops should have been a forty-five minutes round trip, an hour given the heat. Time for just the one. A thirst quencher. Two at tops. He’d left his phone on the patio table, but Zoe and the Macmillans knew better than to call after him. Indulging their friend’s desire to be unreachable for the morning would conceivably make him a more agreeable afternoon companion. For despite his responsibilities as a father, husband and lecturer, John had always been fond of what the French term dérive – known more prosaically as drifting. A promiscuity tempered by an almost pathological bent.

John drifted from the sixth form to university, because “it was the done thing”. And an escape from his parents’ moldering marriage. Fixated on his studies, family and old friends were soon abstracted. With first-class marks and the offer of a scholarship, John then drifted into postgraduate research and academia. An accident that sustained, and truth be told accelerated, his taste for books and the bottle. After a one-night stand with a student – four months long – John found himself living with Zoe. Perhaps marriage was easier than breaking up. Not dissimilar from John drifting into the pub, on account of the doors being open. It was five minutes past twelve.

“You’re late,” the barman chided.

“Dinner at the Macmillans’ last night,” John apologized.

“Still on speaking terms?”

“Best make it a single.”

“Flying visit?”

“I’m buying cigarettes.”

“Out on license?”

“Fuck it. I’ll have a double. Please.”

John stood silently at the bar, acknowledging fellow regulars – Gary the Grab, Mick the Fish and Parallel Pete – but anxious to avoid distraction and any involvement with rounds. He had Zoe to consider. That he’d stop off for an hour, maybe two, was understood. Unspoken and often denied. One of the compromises of marriage. Familial and professional responsibilities erected no barrier to a man enjoying a lunchtime drink with friends. Gazing at his glass, John was almost surprised to find it empty.

“Same again?”

“Similar.”

“Yes, Dr Wheeler.”

“I’ll get that,” hailed a voice across the bar.

“No. Thanks. I’m having this one, then going.”

“Already done.”

“Cheers, Gary.”

“Cheers. Where’s the boss today?”

“We had dinner at the Macmillans’ last night. Stopped over. Zoe’s advising Sarah on how best to spend Andy’s pay-off.”

“He’s not joining you?”

“When have you known him not to take a taxi?”

“Cheers, John.”

“Cheers.”

Removing his blazer, John topped up his glass with tonic water. An act of prolongation. Two weeks of unbridled sun had infused the Victorian brickwork with a heat intensified by the kitchen. The pub was not unbusy, especially for a village boozer on the fringes of a university town at the height of midsummer. Families and walkers filed in for Sunday lunch – roast potatoes, boiled veg, gravy, in this weather? – and to take advantage of the beer garden. Inside remained the preserve of locals. Some lost. Not all wanting to be found.

“Dr Wheeler?”

Any displeasure at the intrusion evaporated as John turned to face his enquirer, “It’s Jenny, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Dr Wheeler. I like graduated this summer. And I’m totally thinking of taking your class for my Masters. Like your class on the American novel.”

“OK, good. Call me John.”

“OK, Dr Wheeler, I mean, John.”

“How may I be of assistance?”

“Sorry to interrupt.” The barman handed John a large gin and tonic. “That’s on Mick.”

“Oh, thanks. Cheers Mick. Continue, please.”

“Well, the thing is, I’m like stuck here all summer. And I thought I’d kinda maybe take the time …”

Affecting interest, John tried to concentrate on Jenny’s face as she discoursed upon her proposed thesis.

“… I’m like totally passionate …”

Despite his surprise, not quite astonishment, that such a student was awarded an upper-second class degree in English literature – let alone considering postgraduate study – John’s attention was not entirely feigned.

“… like totally reinforcing structural sexism …”

Indeed. Had a male student importuned in such a fashion, the conversation would have been curtailed ten minutes ago with a curt offer to discuss the matter during office hours. A polite reminder that Sunday was the day for family and friends.

“… women are totally totally objectified …”

Nodding in agreement, John restrained from reaching out as Jenny leaned towards him. Those slender sun-polished legs, not too close together, nicely enhanced by the whiteness of cut-off denims. Short shorts. Very short. Her lovely lithe legs hanging playfully from the barstool. Adolescent chic.

Attempting to focus on Jenny’s eyes, John concluded the chat with an invitation to talk over her dissertation one evening later in the week. As she returned to the beer garden, he thanked providence that he’d only consumed two, no three, drinks since lunchtime.

“My round.”

“You’re a bastard, Pete.”

John stayed at the pub a little longer than intended. None the worse for wear, to a casual onlooker at least. The only evidence that the good doctor had a tad more to drink than usual, for this time of the day, was a shoot of heartburn. Whiskey’s parting shot.

Less charitable observers may prefer the charge that the lunchtime consumption of Jameson is reckless. Such self-righteousness fails to heed John’s consideration for his wife and friends, preparing a BBQ in his absence. He wasn’t the type of person to linger at the pub all afternoon. But leaving the premises, without buying a round, would have been ill-mannered. Shorts were the only logical solution. That his three confreres reciprocated with tequila, was outside of John’s control.

Buoyed by the sun and the memory of Jenny’s legs – pubescent, solicitous, adulterous – John strolled down the road in his resolute search for cigarettes. It was a fine day. Perfect for a prolonged walk, to burn-off the minor indulgence of noon. Such a circuitous route – while adding twenty minutes, perhaps longer, to his journey – avoided the possibility of kidnap. Gary and Mick would be at the Crown by now.

#

Pausing to light his remaining Marlboro Red, John admired the view. Before him, a pale horse cantered through the parched yellow fields; a second horse following close behind. Beyond the bottle green birch trees, still at a distance, the bubbling clouds pledged thunder. A welcome relief. Andy would postpone the BBQ to watch the cricket. John could meet his wife and friends at the pavilion bar.“Johnny!”

A Mercedes S-Class silver Cabriolet pulled-up beside him.

“Ah, Bullshit Bill. Curb crawling?”

“What are you doing out during licensed hours?”

“Buying cigarettes. What about you? Driving? In this weather?”

“Kevin Mason’s hosting his annual summer bash. Won’t be able to walk later. Coming?”

“Fuck that. All that Pimms and a picnic pretentious bollocks. As for his wife …”

“Come on! Free booze.”

“No. I’m late as it is already.”

“Come on! Just half an hour.”

“I can’t. I’m meeting Zoe and the Macmillans, to catch the last couple of overs.”

“Come on! Everyone will be there.”

“I shouldn’t. I have a planning committee in the morning.”

“Come on! Kevin’s little Katie … She’s not so little any more.”

“You’re terrible.”

“She’ll have her girlfriends round.”

“Outrageous.”

“There’s a swimming pool.”

“I suppose Kev does fix a potent pink gin.”

“Hop in!”

The two middle aged men arrived at the Masons in coltish spirit. Traversing the cherry tree walkway, their gait disclosed a hint of fraying sobriety.

“On reflection, Bill, perhaps we shouldn’t have popped into the Crown.”

“That’s your fault: you were certain they sold cigarettes.”

“But ‘twas you who insisted on buying a second round.”

An ivy-clad mock Jacobethan pile overlooked the sun soaked grounds: a lawn littered with yew topiary, Grecian urns and ersatz Neoclassical statues; corralled by double herbaceous borders, copper beech and acer. The Chelsea sundial plinth and Buckhurst Park shell fountain confirmed suspicions of new money. Tuxedoed waiters adding ornamentation to an air of absent taste, ferrying champagne from cellar to gazebo to evening-attired guest. All to the tune of supermarket jazz.

“Yes please.” John relieved an attendant of two flutes, draining the contents of one glass in a single draught. Bill remained empty handed.

“This way.” Bill ushered John towards an Etruscan garden house. “Kev keeps his private stock up there. Away from the hoi polloi.”

Weaving through the crowds, not stopping to exchange pleasantries, their advance was arrested by the host’s wife.

“John! I’m so glad you’re here.” Offering two vocal air-kisses, Belinda continued to gush: “Oh John. I was so disappointed when Zoe said you couldn’t make it.”

Grateful that Belinda’s circumference allowed a safe distance and a fortuitous avoidance of facial contact, John replied: “We already had plans. I bumped into Bill when out buying cigarettes.”

“Well, whatever the reason, you sir have just made my day. I’m so glad you stopped by.”

Belinda seemed to expand with every breath. In every direction.

“You and Zoe simply must come over for dinner, some time soon.”

The matriarch’s low-cut dress failed either to flatter or divert attention from the contours of her burgeoning panniculus.

“As you know, Katie should be staying on at Roedean.”

Imagine that sat on your face. In orgasm. The heart failing as her clotted arteries relinquished the Herculean endeavor. Would you suffocate rather quickly or starve over an extended period? Would the boys down the Crown note your absence and form a search party? And the smell. The air thick with putrefaction as the men charged with disposal of the corpses, resplendent in their high-vis bibs, negotiated labyrinthine local planning regulations to remove the roof. What would the local papers report?

“And she just loves English lit.” Belinda continued, “Between you and me, her headmistress thinks she’s Oxbridge material.”

Poor Katie. No wonder she’s on a permanent diet.

“Well John, I was thinking if you’d have the time – ”

“Private tuition?” John interrupted. “She babysits for us once a week. If she stayed overnight, I could coach her in the mornings.”

“Oh John, would you? You’re such a darling.”

Free from Belinda’s orbit, John and Bill resumed their journey to the garden house. “God. She’s fucking awful, isn’t she?”

“Appalling.”

Kevin waved at their approach. The still air carried the sound of laughter and the splashing of water from behind the shelterbelt of mature Wellingtonias.

“Do you think Katie’s adopted?” inquired Bill.

John attempted to exorcise all ectopic thought. The alcohol was not helping, as desire danced with morality in the perennial struggle for salience. Hostage to her. Katie. His childminder and tormentor. Nectarine, nubile and narcotic. Her honey-brown body: the ghostly reminder of a bikini adorning her tan.

“Afternoon chaps,” welcomed Katie’s father.

Without pausing to return Kevin’s greeting, John snatched a bottle of vodka from the table and poured himself a double that was more of a triple.

“Not started already, John?”

“Were you born a cunt, Kev, or did you attend finishing school?”

And pause. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 –

“Time of the month, John?”

Shit comeback.

“Feeling a little sultry.”

“You must have been handbagged?”

“Belinda’s certainly redoubtable.”

“Are you saying my wife’s fat?” smiled Kevin.

“No, not redoubled, you stupid fuck. Redoubtable. From the Old French ‘re’, expressing intensive force, and ‘douter’, to doubt. She’s formidable. Forward.”

“Expansive,” chimed in Bill.

“Yes, very,” agreed John. “Very chatty.”

“You don’t need to tell me,” replied Kevin. “I think she breathes through her ears.”

“Must give good head.”

“Thank you, William.” And with the idea of Kevin and Belinda at it, any reverie concerning Katie was not so much eclipsed, but evacuated, to the dim recesses of John’s mind. Chiding himself for entertaining such an obscenity, the jolt to earth almost served to remind John of the task at hand. “Does anyone have a cigarette to spare?”

#

Time proved as elusive as sobriety with the passing of the pink gin. John drank four or five of these high octane cocktails, to the aggravation of his heartburn, his host arguably too liberal with the spiced rum. A subterranean irritation intensified, inching towards the surface, impelled by a lack of nicotine and the perpetual rounds of “so what do you do?” and “where do you live?” By around four or five o’clock – was that the time? – John’s reply was emphatic: “None of your fucking business.” Bill offered to drive him to the shop on the way home. There was a distinct, not smothered, rumble of thunder.

John refilled his glass and pissed on a rosebush, ready to retire. His continual requests for cigarettes rebuffed with the same apprehension reserved for an admission of anthrax. All the while the queue to the porta cabin toilets unfolded and rattled, like an epileptic snake, in the wait for Colombia’s finest – how middle fucking class. Seeing John’s anxiety, Wavey Dave, Kev’s solicitor, took pity and rolled him a joint for later.

Just one more drink. John had had enough. Whether it was the sight of the morbidly obese Mrs Mason engorged on meringue, or her delectable daughter Katie’s absenteeism, John couldn’t say, but it was clearly time to leave. The band, murdering a swing version of “Hey Jude”, spurred on his exit. A singular departure. Bill took a tumble, toppling Belinda’s prized delphiniums, whilst striving to locate his car and required minor medical attention. None of John’s affair.

Failing to find the swimming pool, eager to avoid company of any sort, John struck out where no path lay. Out into the woods. Devoured by a secret pining as he wandered the dark myrtle grove. There in the middle court, a vast shadowy elm spread its aged trunk and branches. Stopping to rest, ganja was sunken and false dreams thronged – clinging beneath every frond. Rising folds of clouds, girded with sable waves, towered fold above fold in a surging maze of circling spires. The firmament growled angrily, cursing under its breath, while the wind rose and rustled the foliage abruptly, dying into a silence of dislocation. Everything looked as though it had been varnished. In a flash of lightening a damp smell filled the air as the limp leaves waited for rain and the trees crouched, humped in silence.

Then spoke the thunder.

Fifteen, maybe twenty, minutes passed before the wind folded its pinions. With the tempest tamed, the persuasive force of the air – a sudden freshness and moisture, of hot stones cooling under falling water – pressed John onwards.

Unsure of his whereabouts, confused by the grunts of rutting deer, he sought the hunting lodge as a marker. Not one of those establishments, with boutique bedrooms, catering for corporate clients in plus fours and other celebrations; where costumed entertainers served ‘authentic’ Tudor fayre and a choice of over 1,000 gins to guests decrying Chardonnay whilst demanding Chablis. No doubt this fate awaits, but today these premises were still used for lodging guns, storing ammunition and hanging game. Park wardens rested here overnight during the deer culling season. Loaned the key in exchange for a bottle of single malt, John eloped to this rendezvous with Lily – it may have been Sophie? – one of his grad students, last summer. Or was it the summer before that?

Smoking a joint wasn’t the best of ideas, on reflection. Dampened by the storm John felt a fire in his bones, as if a net had been spread for his feet. Eyes wide open and senses shut. After stumbling over something – a rock? a tree stump? his left foot? – he struggled to maintain his sea legs. Two more steps and he gave up the ghost, the ground rising suddenly to meet him.

#

A low sun and a sore ankle greeted John’s renewed consciousness. A bolt of blood to the brain, as he jerked upright, persuaded him to remain at this modest elevation. Checking himself for wounds, and relieved to find no lacerations or lesions, John was soon disconcerted to discover his hipflask empty. Rising precariously, he tied his blazer around his waist to mask his sodden trouser seat and embarrassed inner thigh. He decided against returning to the Masons’. Not without a jacket.

Feeling a tad smudged, John oriented himself to the sound of traffic and limped on towards the main road. Foster’s service station wasn’t far away. Marlboro Reds would guarantee his safe passage home. Back there he could telephone Katie – no, Zoe – from the landline. With luck she’d still be BBQing at the Macmillans. She’d understand, he’d been worse. John remembered Zoe’s tale of circumnavigating the county trying to find him one evening. Blind terror awoke him, face down in a pizza, on his wife’s return. A couple of minutes elapsed before the realization dawned that the lenses of his reading glasses were smeared with BBQ sauce.

With claims to reality reassembling, John contrived a strategy for sobriety and headed for Foster’s. After acquiring cigarettes he’d go home for a shower – a cold one at that – a change of clothing, and spend the rest of the evening with his wife and friends. Zoe and the Macmillans: John couldn’t recall with any clarity drinking wine that morning. Just a vague recollection of freshly cut grass and everyone saying they had drunk too much last night. His stomach grumbled as he eyed a bramble ripe with blackberries.

Had he eaten? Solids would help to line the stomach. Nothing too filling, nothing substantial like a sandwich. Perhaps some soup. He didn’t usually think about food when drinking. A positive sign. Proof that he hadn’t been drinking enough. How could he be if he was thinking of food? If he could just have a drink, a smoke, a shower and a chat with Zoe, then the day could still be salvaged.

Hobbling the quarter or so mile up the road, John happened upon an oak aloft a carpet of copper colored leaves; the early slough of a hot summer, possibly a canker, hastened by the force of the storm. Below, in a puddle, a chick convulsed impotently amidst shell fragments. Such an unusual, yet somehow familiar, sight infused him with melancholy, stiffening his resolve to return home. At least he could smoke soon. But on arrival at the petrol station, John’s optimism evaporated as he was unwelcomed by a paint-peeled canopy overhanging a derelict forecourt of rusting pumps. Shuttered windows, tarnished with graffiti, contributed to the shambling air of abandonment. He seemed to remember old Mr Foster worrying about something. It could have been the opening of a Tesco nearby, but the memory was unclear. John’s Sisyphean labor was destined for continuance. Onward, unsteady, into the village to pick up cigarettes.

#

Had you been in the vicinity that Sunday, driving home from an afternoon out, you may have been startled by a disheveled figure staggering out onto the road. You would have seen him halting the traffic with the old-fashioned gesticulations of a constable. Should you have ventured for an early evening stroll, you’d be excused for thinking twice before stopping to assist this chaotic creature with muddied knees and flammable breath. Did you suppose an unfortunate had escaped his guardian, as he waved grandiloquently with his handkerchief at the passing cars? Were you haunted later by shame, for laughing along with the kids jeering “dipso” and “Tourettes” from the municipal playground?

The uniform grey semi-detached housing reminded John why he avoided this side of the village. Only the street names – Beech Tree Avenue, Larchwood Drive, Sunny Bank Lane – hinted at an arcadia now buried beneath the asphalt. The dividend of a New Jerusalem, hijacked by buy-to-let landlords. Where privet hedges once jealously guarded proudly manicured lawns, overgrowth now ruled the day, untidy, with weeds and despoiled by dubiously stained mattresses, dumped broken toys and and discarded washing machines alongside other defunct white goods. Contemplating his surroundings, John faltered for another fifty yards recalling – maybe a little too loudly – his great uncle’s saying, “Where there’s muck, there’s brass!” With that, he fell through the door of the The Anchor.

“Steady as you go, granddad.”

Shaven heads with St George tattooed arms, glued to pints of Stella – and that was just the women – received John’s entrance with a hush. His weakness for the fairer sex aside, he wasn’t that drunk. Not now. Not ever.

“Less of your lip, cheeky fucker,” John chided the barman.

Helping John to a seat, Frank reminded him “You don’t want to get barred from here too.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Look here, Johnny.”

“I’m looking.”

“I’m in no mood for an argument,” replied Frank.

Neither was John. A sliver of sobriety, resurrected in Darwinian deference to self-preservation, directed his eyes at the barman’s bulging biceps – each inflated as if in homage to the Hindenburg. John could almost hear the saloon bar lament, “Oh the humanity,” were he to come crashing down in flames under Frank’s abrupt correction.

Thankfully, Frank was supportive of continued flight. “I can see you’ve had a long day.” He continued, “Settle down and I’ll bring you over a glass of shiraz.”

“Fuck you, I’ll have a large G & T,” John didn’t retort. If Frank could appear any more masculine, he’d be swinging from the trees. John thanked the barman as he delivered the wine. Using both hands to pick up the goblet, he raised the glass erratically to his lips, half of its contents drained in a swallow.

“Sure you don’t want a straw?”

“It’s the cold, Frank.”

“Well, I don’t know if it’s the drink or the dementia, but as you can see, the fire is on.”

John looked right towards the hearth. Logs crackled in the grate. Why was the fire alight this time of year? Returning to his wine, John emptied the glass. The deep peppery fruit, goading his gustatory organ, secondary to the ramifying sensation of submergence. An experience not unlike that of an injection mold, as the slight weight behind the forehead descended to his chest and branched out along the nerves from fingertips to feet.

“Another wine?”

Nodding in the affirmative, John wondered how the staff knew his name and that he drank shiraz? And which other pub had he been barred from? Not the Crown? He hadn’t been that bad with Bill at lunchtime? Had he? He’d admit to have been knocking it back a bit lately, but he struggled to recollect The Anchor being on his list of manoeuvers. Zoe and the crew would sooner stay off the sauce than drink in this dump. As for the girls, surely he wouldn’t bring a student here for an illicit assignation? Were John’s powers of recall malfunctioning or had he so drilled them in the suppression of unwelcome truths that he had vandalized his perception of reality? Feeling unrested, he necked his shiraz during the time it took Frank to pour Talisker for the two of them.

“Those are on me, Johnny, then you’ll be on your way.”

“Don’t worry, bar steward, I’m fine. I’m fine.” John wobbled to his feet and over to the counter. “I’m decanting. But first of all, a toast to you and your lady friends at the bar.” Holding his empty wine glass aloft he cautioned, “Though I hope you all will note, in triplicate, that I have fastidiously refrained from consuming spirits until this very moment. And by this moment I do not mean a turning effect, or the magnitude of such impact, occasioned by a force acting at a distance rather. Or maybe I do? No, what I’m attempting to intimate is that at this moment, that is, the period of time that I have been here in The Anch –”

“It’ll be closing time at this rate,” sighed Frank.

“– Is testament,” John picked up the thread, “not just to your inhospitality or the presence of Weird Sisters – get them a short too – but proof against any rumors circulating that I may harbor even the slightest drinking prob –”

“Get on with it!” came a cry from the corner of the bar.

John raised the tumbler to his lips. “Rest assured, I’ll be sticking to beer from tomorrow. Not bitter, no. It’s too warm for ale. Summer is the season for cider or a cool and crisp lager. Not your Euro fizz or Australian piss water, mind you, but –”

“Mine’s a Stella,” someone shouted.

“ – Whiskey,” John resumed his soliloquy, magnetized by the power of his own faux-Shakesperian oratory. “From the Gaelic ‘uisge beatha’ or ‘usquebaugh’, the water of life. Smell that ladies. Bask if you will for a moment in its components, complex, fresh and fragrant. Unlike you.” His left hand reached for balance on a barstool as he continued, “Savor the smokiness. Earthy, pungent to the palette, don’t you think? Taste it, relish it. Sweet pear, perhaps some apple peel and a hint of honey. Nectar of the gods. And a spray of sea water. Oysters, yes oyst –”

“Are you auditioning for the Long Goodbye?” heckled another.

“No, just oysters. The food of love. Think Aphrodite and Katie. Or, in your case, kippers and the creature from the black lagoon.” John extended his drinking arm to his audience. “To whisky. The beginning of the end, but a damn good end indeed. Adieu, and hopefully, not au revoir.”

As John limped out of The Anchor to the sound of applause – a slow handclap? – a roosting flock of fieldfares danced across the violet mantled sky.

#

Day leached into night, substance into shade and the windows and streetlamps burned. John buttoned his blazer and tightened his belt by a notch, speculating on the possibility that, during the interval of an afternoon, he had lost some weight along with his memory. He had forgotten to bum tobacco in the pub and it was likely the shop would be closed by now. Despite this setback, John’s zeal to acquire cigarettes remained undiminished. Fortunately, he was not entirely unfamiliar with the insalubrious surroundings of the housing estate. At least half of the homes in this part of the village were student rentals.

John recognized Monique’s house from the large acer dominating the garden. Since his previous visit – last week? last month? – the remaining emerald leaves had ignited in a blaze of scorched orange and crimson. Were these autumnal impressions a result of the drought, a form of blight, perhaps some manifestation of global warming, or did such perceptions suggest an apparition of alcoholic hallucinosis or some other form of brain fever? Never one to dawdle over complex and ultimately pointless queries, he rapped the door knocker.

After waiting for – what seemed to him – a polite interlude, John tapped a little louder. The neighbors, twitching at the curtains opposite, were bemused as to why a strange man was banging on the door relentlessly. On the cusp of a third assault, John heard the sound of footsteps descending. A petite young woman, her china doll fragility amplified by the too-large towel swaddling her hair, answered the door.

“Jonathan,” exclaimed Monique. “What are you doing here?”

“Selfing my death to drink.”

Appearing relieved that no bystanders were at hand to witness her partially made-up face, or John, she hissed, “Get in here.”

“A pleasure to see you two.”

Seeing him admire the pert products of the cold evident through her dressing gown, Monique crossed her arms and demanded, “What do you want?”

“I was just passing by.”

“Story of your life. Well?”

“It’s been a while,” replied John as he crumpled onto the sofa.

“A while, Johnathan, a while? It’s been over a year!”

‘‘‘For better than never is late; never to succeed would be too long a period.’ The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale. Now I’m here, I don’t suppose you have any smokes?”

“You forget Chaucer’s next line. ‘Even if you prowl far and wide, you shall never find your object. You are as bold as blind Bayard the horse, who blunders forth and thinks of no peril.’ That shit doesn’t work on me anymore. And no, I’ve quit,” spat Monique, arms now on hips.

“Touché.” John couldn’t help but smile as her bathrobe loosened to reveal the swell of superlatively juvenile breasts; their form complemented by the coil of the cord accentuating her svelte waist and a short hem freeing unblemished – almost underdeveloped – sylphlike legs.

“Don’t stare,” snapped Monique, clutching the lapels of her gown demurely. “You’ve no right to even be looking. Anyway, you stink. When did you last shower?”

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose; she reminded him of his first time, twenty-five years ago, at a campsite just outside Fréjus.

“Are you listening?”

“Christine?” She was French too. If only she would answer yes then it might mean he was seventeen again, with his future before him and all his injudicious errors as yet undone. What did she say?

“For fuck’s sake Johnathan, that’s just the trouble.”

Aroused from his fugue he replied, “Come on Monique. We had fun didn’t we?” John stopped himself from reaching out to caress her knee. An almost imperceptible stiffening of her body told him she didn’t want to be touched.

“You and your bloody women. You had fun, I’ll grant you that. Look. I never expected you to leave Zoe. At first it was almost romantic, thinking of myself as your mistress. And I knew there were others like Lily and Sophie. I could handle that. But should I even so much as look at a man, you’d turn. Especially if, no, when you’d been drinking. Which is all the bloody time, Jonathan.”

“Well, you can see a train when it’s coming. I don’t suppose – ”

“Absolutely not. No way,” interrupted Monique. “Christ, I think you’ve had enough already. Jesus, looks like you can barely stand up let alone get it up.”

John would have blushed, were it not for the beetroot latticework indelibly emblazoned upon his face. “I’m – ”

“Don’t Johnathan. Just don’t. I should have broken it off when you were obviously seeing that girl from our class. What was her name? Jenny?”

“You know what I’m like,” John grinned, the greens of his teeth all too visible.

“Yes, sadly I do.” As if to provide an exclamation point, to further expound on her thesis, she continued. “And I heard the rumors about the babysitter too. I should have known. That time when Zoe was away at a conference. Looking back … I can see it all now. Christ. How old was she?”

“I don’t –”

“Shut up, I haven’t finished yet. Don’t you think about the consequences? The impact your behavior has on other people? I’m a teaching assistant at the local primary now. No wonder your boys are having difficulties. Will you ever grow up, you selfish bastard? Just get out.”

Monique slammed the door behind him. Was John drinking so much that his brain had ossified, his talent for dissembling and deceit leading him to forget he had ditched Monique, slept with Jenny, gone rogue with Katie, and that his boys were struggling at school?

#

Beneath the star-sifted shade, guided by the moon’s deceiving rays, John meandered out of the estate onto the village green, vigilant to the soft crunch of frost. He paused to collect the remnants of his thoughts, conscious of both reason in retreat and his primitive mind walking on alone. Gazing upwards confirmed his disquiet and trepidation. Why should he seem to see Andromeda, Cetus and Orion? What cosmic aberration had transposed the constellations of midsummer? He needed a drink to restore his equanimity.

The Fox was quieter than John expected. Regulars usually jostled for service at this hour, ordering one for the road and a chaser, in a vain and frenetic attempt to postpone tomorrow. Given the time of year, he assumed most of the locals and students were on holiday, skint or saving money. Aside from a few couples dining – they don’t, do they? usually serve food this late? – only two other people propped up the public bar, and they swiftly made their way into the saloon on seeing John.

“Shiraz, the usual thanks.”

“175 or 250ml?”

“Bottle please. Where’s Derek tonight?”

“Derek? He left ages ago.”

“Oh, I see. I’m sure Derek served me last week, must be me. I’m John, by the way,” he said outstretching his arm.

“Yes, I’ve heard about you,” responded Tom, not returning the handshake.

John seized the base and neck of the bottle and poured out the wine fitfully. Cataracts of deep purple cascaded over the side of the glass to form rivulets running along the mahogany and onto his trousers.

“Do you want a cloth, John, or will you lick the counter clean?”

“Sorry about that. Parkinson’s.”

John drank fiercely, to the outrage of his esophagus, ruminating on the interrogation ahead. With the kids away, he assumed a bespoke bollocking. There would be no tears, screams or Greek dancing at yet another day ruined. No banishment to a hotel. If only there was a dog, a faithful companion, for there to be no dinner in.

“A category ‘A’ reprimand, none the less.” John heard the words shouted. A few seconds elapsed before he identified the sound of his own voice.

Looking embarrassed, the barman disengaged by affecting to clean the shelves. John refilled his glass and visualized Zoe as his keys failed to find the lock. Gone were the days of incessant spiteful and surgical incursions onto vulnerable territory, of primeval visitations into the past to resurrect and desecrate memories long entombed.

“Fucking bitch!” echoed a voice throughout the pub.

“Come come, John. There are other people here,” chastised Tom, gently. “Here, I’ll top up your glass.”

Perhaps for the first time since John embarked upon this masochistic hunt for cigarettes, his thoughts centered upon his wife sexually. He felt his cock hang heavy with the cogitation of Zoe sitting in his armchair, Persian-eyed under the glare of the side lamp. A bottle of his favorite Margaux open, near empty.

“She might be in her thirties now, but she still cuts a cracking figure,” John caught himself saying, a little too vociferously.

“I’m not telling you again,” warned Tom.

John remained enmeshed in his fantasy, oblivious to the discomfort he was fomenting. A reverie of Zoe pouting coquettishly in the clichéd little red dress which, despite having delivered two children, complimented her toned physique oh so well: her legs crossed alluringly and unfairly high to expose the tops of her stockings, an outfit reserved in recent years for anniversaries and admonishment.

“I’ll speak to you when you’re sober,” John banged the counter, his glass and (empty) bottle trampolining onto the tiles behind the bar with the beautiful tinkling of a dropped chandelier.

“As if, as if! As if I’m not sober now. Perish the thought. Not at this very minute I’m not, no. But I shall soon be obliged.”

“Right, that’s it.” Tom walked from behind the counter.

“Vodka,” said John, nonplussed. What had he said? Such concerns were irrelevant. Only vodka would suffice. Neither a severe nor a momentous vodka. “No, Mr Tom,” he muttered, “vodka, single, sans glaçons.”

“I’m not serving you. And I don’t just mean for now, if you’re not careful.”

“Now? But what has this precise juncture got to do with a minute ago, when I walked in here, or earlier this afternoon? And what right – ”

“Home time, mate. Come back when you’re sober,” instructed Tom, propping the front door open with a fire extinguisher.

“What bloody right has you or her got to assume it, eh?” asserted John, somewhat disembodied. “That I’m not sober now, or perhaps, even worse, far, far, worse, the malign insinuation that in a day or two I will be sober? How very dare you.”

Tom placed his arms reassuringly on John’s shoulders.

“Take your fucking hands off me, who do you think you are?” yelled John, sliding off the barstool onto his feet. Finding no balance, he lurched forward diagonally and ricocheted off the door jamb onto the floor.

“Jesus, no wonder she left you,” whispered Tom as he returned John to the perpendicular, ushering him outside. Over in the saloon bar, Kev and Bill sighed with relief.

#

John veered down the road cursing the ubiquity of social media. He had never been one for Facebook or Twitter. Had Zoe’s anger at his behavior led her to inform all and sundry that she had packed her bags, in the vain hope the message would reach him? Was the whole village gossiping that Zoe had walked out? Would she be at her mum’s or sister’s? He crossed the road, indisposed to face the crowd at the Crown.

Turning into the home stretch, John felt his kidneys pulse in tandem with his heartbeat. Surveying the remains of the day, he realized he had achieved nothing but heartburn and an inflamed ankle; he had not even managed to acquire cigarettes. There was a time when returning home with a black eye and a dose requiring antibiotics were the minimum accoutrements of a good night out. Previous excursions had lasted whole weekends: town, taster menus, Le Beaujolais and Ronnie Scott’s, followed by a boozy breakfast in that French café on Old Compton Street before starting all over again. Even his wife had tagged along on some of those adventures. God, how he missed those intoxicating days, of Zoe in her youth invoking lines of Turner and Graves, stealing his speech and soul away. Telling of her love while half asleep, in the dark hours, with half-words whispered low: as the earth turned in her winter sleep and puts out grass and flowers, despite the snow.

It was snowing by the time John reached home, a patina of white crystallizing on the pavement, the frosted air replete with wood smoke and the sweet smell of flowering daphnes. Drowning vertigo in stark delirium, almost beyond the threshold of comprehension, he was heartened to see the lounge lights glowing and two cars parked in his driveway. His mood lifted by the sound of laughter and soft music. John even thought he could hear the playful antics of children. Were Matthew and Max back from camp? With the weather taking an inclement turn, and John being untraceable, had Zoe and the Macmillans transferred the party home? Had Tom been winding him up in The Fox in revenge for his boorish behavior?

On approaching his front door, he discerned a distinctly unrecognizable voice, “Charles? Charles dear. Call 101, that tramp’s hanging around outside again.”

John began to cry.