“And what do you call that?” asks Lillian rolling her whole head downwards to look at the drink. Her hair falls like a grass skirt.
“A gin and tonic,” says Amy.
Lillian rolls her head back to the upright, her messy hair parts naturally over her face, and she stares Amy down. “I could piss more gin than that, luv.”
Amy pulls a face. Her arms both extend into the air. Her fingers make twinkle, twinkle hand movements. She grabs the gin bottle and unscrews the cap, the barman had long since left it on the bar. “Tell me when to say stop.”
Amy pours a little, then she stops.
“I didn’t say stop,” says Lillian.
Amy’s hand, clutching the gin bottle, shakes up into the air again. Amy looks like she is aiming for the rim of Lillian’s glass, she shakily pours some more liquid.
“Keep going,” coos Lillian.
“Jesus wept, you’ll be sideways if you drink that,” says Amy.
“I’ve got a driver,” says Lillian. “Besides, I’ve got my eye on the pool boy, where I am staying, and I need to build a little false bra…v…aaar…do.”
“It’s only Carl for me,” says Amy. “It has only ever been Carl.”
“Darling, I have been hearing that for one hundred and twenty five years,” says Lillian. “It’s over, darling, he doesn’t know who you are?”
“You know its true.”
“Yes, good for you,” says Lillian. “You can have the monogamy badge pined to your surgical gown as you are bent over like the rest of us to get our bums wiped… at the end. At your god’s pearly gates. Well done.” Lillian nods her head and smiles ironically. Or at least, she thinks it is ironic, that is what she is aiming for, as her grandson Simon, the one who speaks very nicely, and is interested in fashion, taught her recently. You say one thing, but you mean the other. She isn’t at all sure if she’s got it right, it seems like a somewhat esoteric idea, much ado about nothing really. Irony is really a distinction about nothing, after all, one so many people are so passionate about.
“And there’s no way Carl can help me now,” slurs Amy in a somewhat flat tone.
“It’d be like trying to get the jelly back into the bowl.”
“And he always was,” says Amy. “Workman-like.”
“But he is still yours,” says Lillian. Her mouth is dry.
Amy takes smiles, at least initially.
“What’s left,” says Lillian.
The smile disappears from Amy’s face.
“Do you have water, dear?” asks Lillian.
“Yes,” says Amy. But she doesn’t move a muscle.
“Weeeeeeell?” says Lillian. She jiggles an empty water glass in mid air.
“Well what?” asks Amy passed Lillian, some what bozz-eyed around the room.
“Could I have some,” says Lillian in a dry, husky voice. “Water.”
Amy looks over at Lillian, seemingly focusing on Lillian for the first time. “Ah… yes, water,” says Amy. “Of course. Water.”
Amy fills a glass on a tray with water from the big glass water jug on the bar, next to the gin.
A good looking young man in a suit comes and sits next to them at the bar.
Lillian sips her water.
Amy turns to the young man. “Do you have mummy issues?”
“I’m sorry,” says the young man.
“Nothing more for you young lady,” says Lillian. “Grand ma issues,” Lillian purrs.
“They all have mummy issues, so they say.”
“You’re a fine looking young man,” says Lillian. “You all grow up so fast though now, how am I to know if you are of age?”
“It’s a bar, they wouldn’t let me in otherwise,” says the young man, clearly bemused.
“Good point,” says Amy.
Lillian gets off her bar stool and takes a step towards the young man. Lillian billows her kaftan arm around the young man’s shoulder. “Oh yes, you are a fine looking young man, now aren’t you,” purrs Lillian. “What would your name be?”
“Scott.”
“Ah Scott…” She turns to Amy.
“1986, the Mediterranean,” says Amy.
“Ah yes, you were an American,” coo’s Lillian. “As the warm blue seas of the Mediterranean lapped the pristine sands, you taught me how everything was bigger and better from the USA.”
“I did?” Scott looks slightly repulsed at the thought, if the truth is to be told.
“With your mouth,” says Lillian triumphantly.
Scott winces and looks as though he is trying with all his might not to picture what that scenario might look like, feel like… oh, too late, like suddenly being bitten by a shark. Scott visibly jumps. “Ah.” Somebody just walked over his grave.
“You have very nice thighs, Scott.”
“Lillian!” Amy looks away.
Scott jumps again as the palm of Lillian’s hand rubs against his thigh.
“Hey look lady, I just came in here for a quiet drink.”
“Me too, ducky, me too.”
“I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be touching me,” exclaims Scott. “There!” His voice goes up to a very high pitch. “Please don’t move you hand any further.”
“What’s wrong darling,” purrs Lillian. “Aren’t you man enough?”
“No! Just no!” says Scott with a desperate tone in his voice. “This is some really fucked up shit.” He get’s out of his seat. “I don’t know if this is some sort of candid camera situation,” he looks around. “But I can’t see any cameras.” He stops and looks around and absolutely nothing happens. Silence. Scott looks at Amy. Scott looks at Lillian. Lillian gushes. “I really fucken don’t know what just fucken happened?”
Scott turns and leaves the bar.
Lillian slumps down on the stool next to Amy, she slides along the bar towards her friend. “Old age ain’t no place for sissies, Aim.”
Amy would naturally say, “No, Lillian, I’m doing the Bette Davis part.”
“Oh, all right then,” says Lillian. “My father warned me about men and booze… but he never said anything about women and cocaine.”
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