The Third Shadow

Twenty-seven

Over the next few days I tried to get back into some kind of routine. It was difficult though when the problems kept piling up. On the Wednesday morning my bank manager merely tutted and frowned, seemed eager to have done with me as quickly as possible. I was left with no option other than phone a loan company, secure a modicum of solvency at practically triple the bank interest rates. Then, equally as seriously, the very next morning I discovered a case of bunch rot in the south eastern corner of the vineyard. I'd feared as much: a bone dry May and now June had followed a surprisingly wet March and April. Around a quarter of the subsistence loan money I'd just secured would have to be invested in fungicides. To top things off, that same evening England lost their second World Cup game too and would be taking an even earlier flight home than usual.

Money. Hope. These were both things I was running a little short on. The one commodity I had in abundance however were unsold bottles of last year's vintage...

Following my marriage break up I'd always drunk with what I'd considered admirable restraint: no more than half a bottle a day, my wine intake only occasionally supplemented by a thirst-quenching beer after a hot day's work or tot of late-night scotch. Moderation is a relative concept however, and in my need to blur the edges a little I now thought nothing  of finishing a whole bottle in a single evening, starting on a second. This was in line with increasing beer and whisky consumption either side. I wouldn't say I was falling apart at the seams exactly, nothing quite so dramatic, but the stitching was perhaps starting to loosen a little.

When Diane's call came around eight of the Friday evening, I was already two beers and half a bottle of wine down.

"I had my mothering skills tested today," she informed me.

"Oh?"

I was at my usual place under the portico, watching the pinkish glow of the  sunset gradually deepen to tangerine, the sea lent a quicksilver quality in the fading light. A little to my left, two lizards were engaged in some kind of mad dance which might have been playful, might have been a fight.

"Kevin's girlfriend went and dumped him for another boy."

"A first broken heart. Ouch!"

I remembered with Ellie it had been some lad from out Billingham way, this while she was doing her A' Levels. A clumsy beanpole of a thing, he'd studied psychology or something at York University. Only went and dropped her for some girl on his course, the sod. Poor Ellie barely set foot outside her room for all the following month, played the same album over and over again. When she finally re-emerged, Heather took her on shopping splurge up in Newcastle. It seemed to do the trick. Never mentioned the lanky idiot's name again after that.

But then, maybe Diane had been right. That the fairer sex are better at this than we men. Getting over things. Drawing a line underneath.

"Told him I'd always had her down as a sneaky little bitch," she was saying,"and that he was better off without her. After that, took him to MacDonald's, told him he could go extra large."

"They'll be giving you the 'Mum of the Year' award."

"Least I deserve," she laughed. "Anyway, he seems to have cheered up a bit now."

Despite my sarcasm, I knew full well that Kevin and Johnny were lucky to have a mother like theirs. Oh, she was a little unconventional perhaps, a straight-talker, but would rather scratch her own eyes out than see any harm befall her boys.

"It was good to see you again last week," she offered.

"You too," I replied. "Just a shame about the shepherd's pie..."