Chapter 18 George
George
It might be busy outside the bar, but inside it’s dead. There’s no one else here in this dark wooden interior, apart from one woman – dressed in an odd summer/winter mix of vest and woollen hat – already at the counter. When a young, tattooed barmaid appears, George nods towards the other customer.
‘You go,’ the woman says, looking along a row of taps with gaudy labels. ‘I’m still deciding.’
George gives her a thumbs up. ‘What’s your finest whisky?
’ he asks the barmaid. She stretches on her tiptoes for a bottle on the top shelf and places it on the bar.
‘I’ll have four doubles please, no ice. Plus, a bottle of that’ – pointing towards the empty wine bottle he holds – ‘and four pints of that’ – nodding at a tap that reads Pacific IPA.
‘Pay day, is it?’ the woman queuing next to him says.
‘Something like that.’ George turns away from her and hands out the square whisky glasses to his friends.
Elis sniffs with caution, like the glass might contain something poisonous. ‘What is it?’
George rolls whisky around the sides of his glass. ‘It’s Macallan. Single malt scotch. Aged thirty years’ – he moves in between Miles and Reubyn – ‘just how I like my friends. It’s not the very best, but it’s as good as you’ll get this far from Scotland.’
‘I’m not really a fan of whisky,’ Elis says.
‘Wait until you try this one.’
‘Are these doubles?’
George rolls his eyes. ‘Something you need to know about us lot: we don’t do single measures.’ He raises his glass. ‘Why settle for a taste of the fruit, am I right?’
This is met with a roar from Miles and Reubyn, and the three of them tip the whisky down their throats in a single movement.
George blinks rapidly, his body electrified by the liquor, and looks, watery-eyed, at Elis, who appears confused, still cradling a full glass.
Elis smiles awkwardly and takes a sip, grimacing at the taste.
Why settle for a taste of the fruit – it’s fast becoming the motto of this trip.
Elis doesn’t understand the reference, of course – one would only know it if one went to Holvine.
It was an unofficial mantra at school. O’Mara, their head of sixth, was obsessed with high-style oratory and would invent these little rhetorical phrases and idioms. This particular line he had delivered in a speech at the Letters to Our Future Selves ceremony.
As the name suggested, the event involved pupils from the lower sixth opening the missives they had written to themselves six years prior and then comparing their ambitions then and now.
George laughed at the trivial goals set by his younger self: make a cricket century, see the Pyramids, some nonsense about designing video games.
In the time that had passed, his aspirations had become more rational and bound to well-trodden routes into financial services and politics – the big-boy stuff that came with the big rewards.
If Holvine was good for anything, it was that it sharpened one’s focus on what was important before it became too late.
People who went to lesser schools spent their lives squandering opportunities through fear and applying for crappy jobs with CVs that promised they work well as part of a team.
A Holviner would never spout that tosh; they didn’t work well in teams, they ran the teams. They’re leaders.
They didn’t become local councillors, they became parliamentary ministers.
They’re bankers, not accountants. They didn’t do am-dram – they went to Hollywood.
When O’Mara gathered them all together at the ceremony, he signed off with the line that, for various reasons, they’d never forget: why settle for a taste of the fruit, when you can have the whole vine?
Whole vine . . . Holvine, get it? It received a few groans, as was often the case with O’Mara’s wordplay, but without that it wouldn’t have been so memorable.
And O’Mara knew that a message of this importance needed to stick in the memory.
It was about grabbing the most out of life, not settling for any half measures or putting limitations on oneself or being second-best – prosperity comes when one takes full advantage of life’s bounty.
Of course, such a lesson doesn’t get through to all.
So much of the wisdom emanating from Holvine was lost on Miles – or, even worse, ungratefully rejected.
Miles is lucky he has his good looks to fall back on, because he is completely lacking in natural ambition.
After the Letters to Our Future Selves ceremony, Miles immediately took to parroting the phrase, initially as a way of mocking O’Mara, and then, after a while, it began to take on a life of its own.
It got adopted ironically by the boys as a way of offering encouragement, especially during drinking games or any activity that required a modicum of bravery.
Instead of down that glass of wine, it was why settle for a taste of the fruit?
And instead of you need to hit two more reps on the bench press, it was have the whole vine.
When you’re at school together for long hours, you develop many of these privately shared sayings and in-jokes.
If one is an outsider, one can’t just gain access to all of that, no matter how much one might want to – that stuff is as exclusive as the gates to Holvine itself.
And that’s why George can’t be bothered to try to explain the meaning of the phrase to Elis – because even if he did, he wouldn’t understand.
Finally, Elis finishes his whisky and his chest lurches forward in a dry heave.
Miles takes his pint off the bar and takes a sip. He points to the exit. ‘Shall we?’
‘Wait.’ George thuds his glass on to the bar like a gavel. ‘You all saw how well I was getting on with Jessie, just then. Don’t do anything to ruin my chances with her, all right? You might want to keep your distance.’
‘Seriously?’ Elis’s face is still creased in disgust from the whisky. He gapes at Miles. ‘Is he for real?’
Miles grimaces. ‘I think he might be, yes.’
‘Look,’ George says. ‘I don’t want to sound uncouth, but I can assure you that Jessie has already begun to imagine her future with a tall dark Englishman – me. And I’m not going to stand idly by if you come in and attempt to deprive her of the chance to realise that dream.’
George looks at Elis, waiting for him to protest. But he doesn’t; instead, he slides his hands slowly down his face, pulling at his cheeks to expose the deep tangle of veins along the base of his eye sockets.
‘Okay, then,’ George says.
Miles tuts and shakes his head. ‘Another thing,’ he says.
‘Can we please not mention the whole, you know what.’ Miles grimaces, and they all know what he’s referring to.
‘It’s not about misleading anyone. I’d just like to get through at least one night without explaining it all, and to be treated like a normal person. You know?’
The other three nod in agreement.
‘Yeah, of course,’ Elis says.
‘Absolutely fair enough,’ George adds. ‘In all honesty, I don’t think it would help anyone to be bringing that up. Anything else?’
They look at each other. Elis mutters something inaudible.
‘Good,’ George says. He grins broadly and extends an arm towards the door. ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends. And stay away from Jessie. Jessie is mine.’
George hears a theatrical sigh and turns to find Polly has snuck up behind him. She has her arms folded in that semi-serious contemptuous manner of hers.
She gives him a withering smile. ‘Have you ever thought about taking a break from being a complete prick, for literally one minute?’
George grins. ‘Oh, look, the fun police is here. What’s the charge? Are you worried I might steal her heart?’
Polly groans and rolls her eyes. The others head for the exit, and she turns to follow.
Before she has a chance to leave, George reaches out and grabs Polly loosely by the arm. ‘Hey, wait. I’ve been meaning to ask you something.’
She stops and looks at him blankly.
George steps close to Polly and lowers his voice. ‘What’s your take on Elis?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I hardly know the man. And I just wondered what you thought of him.’
‘I think he seems really nice, actually. He’s been super-supportive of Miles.’
‘So I gather. And what’s his motive behind that?’
Polly raises her upper lip, exposing her teeth. ‘Not everyone requires a motive to do something nice, George.’
‘Don’t they?’
Polly shakes her head and walks off, and George stands and watches her for a moment, considering just how wrong she is about that.
All actions require a motive. Even well-intentioned ones.
And people choose not to reveal their motives for a variety of reasons, good and bad.
It might be through kindness or tact, deception or shame.
George is normally pretty good at instinctively realising what those reasons are.
He’s accustomed to concealing his own. But there’s one motivating factor that he can’t quite fathom in all of this: why, exactly, has Miles chosen to bring Elis along with him on this trip?