Page 28 of The Cocktail Bar

But before she could read any further, the saline was embarrassingly trickling.

“Oh, come here, love,” said Terry, wrapping his daughter in his arms. “I am beyond proud of you for helping hold the fort together, you know that, and as for this,” he took the paper from her hand and pulled out his old and sellotaped together NHS glasses from the top pocket of his boiler suit to skim read the rest of it, “this is proof of the pudding of your worth. You’re off to London, darling, the Big Smoke… somewhere your Pops hasn’t ever been, that’s for sure. From one generation to the next, you see, things are moving on.”

She buried her head in his paint-fumed chest mortified at the scene she had created, as well as the fact the entire bar was now au-fait with the alarming fact that at twenty-nine, she still hadn’t visited the capital of her own country. This was so not like her; she was categorically not one for empathy and cupcakes. She wasn’t sure what had come over her but she would not, could not, let her guard down like this again.

“Stay for a drink. Go on, Terry. It’s the very first travel group meet-up here tonight, an idea I believe that was instigated by your very own daughter to help rustle up more custom.”

She winced at Heather’s appalling chat-up line.

“Get on, then,” her dad replied. “Just for the one mind, I’ve gotta be up early for work tomorrow morning.”

Their toe-curling chat gave Georgina the chance to come to her senses and she straightened herself up with a sniffle: “I’ll just nip to the powder room, sort out my face, and take a deep breath or two. But thank you, River. Thank you so much for putting all of your trust in me.” Oh, the irony of that remark, as she felt this prissy little girlie façade fade and the real Georgina kick back into gear.

Backyard and cupboard: never had two unassuming words been more alluring. She wasn’t sure when and she wasn’t sure how, but she was sure – prestigious mixology course and sugar-coated pleasantries aside – she would soon get to find out exactly what they were all about.