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CHAPTER ELEVEN
The restaurant is closed for our event, and there doesn’t seem to be a bartender on duty. I wait a few minutes, hoping one of the waiters who served our drinks will appear. No luck. There are wineglasses and a few open bottles of white on the counter. After waiting some more, I go ahead and pour a glass of wine for Amity. The beer poses a trickier problem. I can’t exactly serve myself, which would require walking around the bar. Just as an experiment, I stretch out my hand to see if I can reach the beer tap. As my fingers touch it, I hear a man say, “Try that in a real pub and you’d get kicked out.”
It’s the guy from the village, the handsome one with the mother I thought was an actor. He’s not scowling, which is a relief. He picks up a glass. “May I?”
“Sure, I’ll have the lager.” I want to apologize for my mistake this afternoon, but I don’t know how. As he hands me the beer, I say, “You’re a good son.”
He considers me for a moment, and his face softens. “She’s a good mum.”
It seems so uncomplicated the way he says it, like it’s possible to have that kind of relationship with your mother. Like she raisedhim well, with love and constancy and patience, and he’s returning the favor.
He picks up a cloth and wipes down the bar and then tucks it into the waist of his pants.
“I’m sorry about yours,” he says.
“Pardon?”
“You’re Catherine, right?”
“Cath.” No one has called me Catherine, or even Cathy, since I readWuthering Heightsin high school and forsook my namesake. Catherine Earnshaw might have been beautiful, but she was a petulant brat enmeshed in the world’s most dysfunctional, obsessive romance. I still don’t understand how my mother could have named me for her.
“Sorry. Cath. I heard about your circumstances.” His eyes are dark and serious, but he exudes warmth.
“I wasn’t aware that my circumstances were common knowledge in Willowthrop.”
“Germaine’s an old family friend.”
“And also the village gossip?”
He smiles a little and shakes his head. “I don’t think she spread it around. I was helping her with some logistics, and it came up. She means well.”
“So youarepart of the week’s activities.”
“Can’t say.”
“Can’t, as in you’re not allowed to say because you’re playing a part? Or can’t because you don’t want to?”
He looks serious now. “I can tell you one thing: that was my mother this afternoon. And she wasn’t acting.”
“I am so sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean to react so harshly. It’s just that I get a bit of a stick in these parts.”
“Meaning?”
“You know, people asking where I’m from and being shocked when I say London. The follow-up question is always ‘But where are youreallyfrom?’ As if a bloke who isn’t white can’t have a mum from Willowthrop.”
“I was sure you were part of the game.”
“Did I say I’m not?” He looks confused for a moment and then laughs. “Nah, I’m just taking the piss. I’m helping out tonight, making and serving drinks. I’ve got my own bar in town, and I’ve started a little distillery. Artisanal gin.”
“That’s a thing?” I honestly don’t know whether to believe him, but his banter is very attractive.
His face lights up. “Absolutely. Small batch, made with different aromatics.”
“I thought gin was made from juniper.” I’m impressed with myself for knowing that much.
“Juniper is the basic ingredient. But then there are other botanicals—verbena, cardamom, lemon, bay leaves. I try to source local when I can. I’ve got a batch flavored with rhubarb from my garden.” His speech has changed. He’s talking faster and with an unabashed eagerness to share.