TWIST OF LEMON
“All you need is your own place … and a cat called Norman.”
Jack was eavesdropping on two women seated behind him … Norman … why Norman?
The pub was full and he worried about the delay in getting served again … if … and when, Melanie arrived. Jack was forty-three years old, five foot eight with a slight stoop.
A pot belly was building but he felt powerless against its march out and onward.
He had brown thinning hair and daily distress at recession. Soft brown eyes were his redeeming feature. They almost compensated for his poor nose and poorer mouth. He was doing what he did best, worrying.
Melanie arrived, looking carefree and careless.
A petite blonde with blue eyes, she was dressed now in jail sentence outfit. Short black mini, black boots, white cling sweater and midi leather coat.
“God,” he thought, “I worship her, I’ll light candles to her.”
“Hello,” he thought, “I worship her, I’ll light candles to her.”
“Hello,” he said.
“Oh hello.”
She had the knack of always sounding as if she’d never met him.
“What will you have?”
“A vermouth
and perhaps … yes.
a lightly tossed salad … mm … m
Some French bread, check it’s fresh
and
a twist of lemon in the drink.”
His heart
s
a
n
k.
The barman was an animal and a very busy one. They’d already traded glares. A tossed salad!
“Coming up,” he said.
It took fifteen minutes before he got the barman’s attention.
“We don’t got no turned salad.”
“Tossed, that’s tossed salad.”
“You winding me up Guv?… we got salad sandwiches and we got burgers … we got other customers too. So, you wanna get yer skates on or wot?”
“Am … fine, a salad sandwich then, a large scotch and a vermouth, please”
He couldn’t, he just couldn’t ask for the lemon twisted or otherwise. The order was slapped down with no change from the ten pound note. Jack offered it for some soul in purgatory and fought his way back to Melanie.
She’d let his seat go and was chatting to the occupant, a navvy. In donkey jacket and vicious work boots, a hard-ass. Jack sighed and put the sandwich down, like an offering. He tried to slip the vermouth next to it.
“WHAT’S THIS THEN?” she screeched … she and the navvy eyed the sandwich.
“It’s all they’d left … am … darling.”
The navvy sniggered at the endearment. Jack wished for a bundle of things.
a) She’d lower her voice.
b) He didn’t feel the suicidal compulsion to call her affectionately.
c) He was in South America.
“That’s all they had love … the am … the tossed salad wasn’t available.”
Jack took a lethal belt of the scotch, chocked and felt his face burn.
“Toss the sandwich more like,” said the navvy.
Melanie removed the cellophane and delicately lifted the bread. Very dead lettuce hid slyly against the light. The navy roared,
“Lettuce pray for the recently departed.”
Melanie pushed the sandwich away and glared at the vermouth.
“Didn’t they have any lemon then?”
Jack finished his drink. He and Melanie had separated three months ago. This was to have been an attempt at reconciliation. Was it on himself or was it going down the toilet.
“Sweetheart,” he croaked, “could we mebbe go some place else.”
She stood and gave him an icy look.
“Go!… the only place I’m go-ing is back to work,” and swept out before he could reply.
“Bye honey bunch,” he whispered.
The loud voices of the crowd beat against his heart. A guffaw from the navvy as he headed away. Jack took the seat and quoted H. L. Mencken,
“Love is what makes a goddess out of an ordinary girl.”
He wanted to cry
to cry out.
Instead, he lifted the sandwich and began to chew. A piece of limp lettuce floated to his lap.
“Not bad,” he said … not bad at all. A single tear slipped down his cheek and splashed gently in the un-touched vermouth.
He sipped that and added,
“She’s right you know, it definitely needs something, it needs a bitterness right enough … I’ll call her later, she’d appreciate a call … I will, I’ll do that … that’s the best thing …”