Out for a nip

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

The carriage ride was too short for any true conversation and soon we were at the pub.

It was still early enough for the crowd to be sparse and as we entered I looked around.

"Where do you prefer to sit?" I asked. We had our choice of wherever we liked, though I had a feeling Cendrillon wouldn't go for the empty table right in the middle of the room.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

My gaze skittered anxiously past a large empty table in the middle of the room. Despite my new found courage, I was glad it was relatively quiet. Most of the customers were too absorbed by their own drinks, problems and conversations to pay any heed to me, although I noticed the barmaid’s eyes had immediately alighted upon Alain.

“How about there,” I said, pointing to a table by the window. The misted glass would ensure we weren’t likely to draw to much attention from outside and the curving bench made the whole area sufficiently like a corner for me to be comfortable there. And nor was it the shadowy table against far wall.

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"Good choice," I said, patting him on the back.

I signaled to the barmaid and she almost beat us to the table.

"What can I get you, my lords?" she asked, all smiles.

I let my eyes stray over her form, not too slow, but just right. This wasn't my first pub.

"I'll have a large mug of your best ale," I said, smiling.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

I stared fixedly at the tabletop, idly tracing one of the wood scars with a fingertip as Alain and the barmaid exchanged appreciative glances with each other. It was only when the silence around seemed to grow oppressive that I realised it was my cue to do something.

Ordering. Yes. Quite. Uh.

“Wine…” I mumbled, and then, pulling myself together, but still not quite able to meet her smile, “…if you please … in fact, might as well make it a bottle. Red. A merlot if you have it.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

I handed her a more than enough coin for these drinks and a few others. She smiled even wider and I winked at her before she hurried off to fill our orders.

"She's pretty," I said, watching her rather shapely back side.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

“I hadn’t noticed,” I said, somewhat unconvincingly. And then I laughed, finding the situation absurd, delightfully absurd. “Is that we do, then?” I asked. “Ogle the barmaid and make scurrilous speculations about her preferences and inclinations. Well then.”

I leaned back, sheltered by the curving ledge of the window, my gaze sweeping the bar and its denizens. “In which case,” I went on, in the driest manner I could contrive “… I believe, in the common parlance, my friend, you are … ... well in there.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"I don't ogle," I said, looking back at Cendrillon and grinning. "Ogling is for something beyond your ability to have."

I leaned back, stretching my legs out under the table and getting comfortable.

"As for what we do, that depends. We can make scurrilous speculations, we can just talk, or we can sit quietly and get blindingly drunk. It's up to you," I told him.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

“Possibly I shall do a version of all of them as the evening progresses,” I replied.

I watched him out a corner of my eye as he settled himself at the table, as comfortable as he might have been in his own drawing room. I envied him his ease and his confidence.

“In that case then you can survey or scrutinise or inspect or whatever it is you do. And I can ogle.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

My immediate reply was cut off by the return of the bar maid with our drinks. I thanked her, smiling as her hand brushed mine. She blushed a little and hurried off to talk with another bar maid after she had left our drinks.

"What ever it is I do?" I said, chuckling. "I guess that's been one of the bigger mysteries in my life.. what is it I do, or don't do, or should do."

I took a sip of ale.

"As for the pretty girl who brought us our drinks, I speculate a fun time in bed but perhaps looking for a little too much afterward," I said, sounding the total cad.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

The barmaid had eyes only for Alain, so I poured my own wine. I suppose I was just lucky she had thought of me enough to remember my order. I took a few swallows – for courage – and was surprised to find it tolerable stuff, not that I know enough to judge beyond what tastes of nothing, what tastes like paint and what tastes pleasant.

“Too much afterwards?” I repeated, wondering if he was just trying to provoke me into a juvenile display of naiveté. “What is too much afterwards? A handful of coins, a soft hour in your arms or half your kingdom and your hand in marriage?”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"More than just an enjoyable time together, expectations of undivided affections in the future. She is looking for someone for a more permanent place in her near future," I said, letting my eyes stray to her again.

I took another sip of ale and then looked back at Cendrillon.

"But then again, what do I know, I'm just speculating," I said with a chuckle.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

“Yes but you speculate with such authority,” I said. “But, if that is truly the case you should probably stop distracting her with your big green eyes, or she’ll forget what she really wants in the heat of present desires. But when there are only glowing embers left she’ll remember well enough. And I wouldn’t want anyone so pretty to have something to regret.”

I sloshed more wine into my glass. Where was it all going?

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"Oh, what you must think of me," I said, grinning and raising an eyebrow. "That I would try and enchant her so, just to fill my own needs even knowing that I might hurt something so lovely. You must think me heartless and uncaring for anything but my own pleasure."

I drained my mug and signaled for another.

"And here I thought only my father thought such things of me, perhaps I need to care for my image more."

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

Although he was grinning at me as convivially as if we had been discussing a particularly sunny day, I wasn’t sure whether there was a shadow of something behind his words and his eyes. As a self-proclaimed master of bitterness tinged witticisms I suddenly realised I had no idea how one was supposed to respond to them.

Finally I said: “You must be teasing but I’ve only met you once so how would I know what kind of man you are? Besides, I’m sure young men with your … advantages … are almost expected to be a little careless at times.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

I took my second mug from the pretty bar maid and turned back to Cendrillon.

"My advantages?" I asked. "You mean the lucky set of circumstances that allowed me to be pleasing to women's eyes? Or perhaps you mean the experiences growing up that were so pleasant I fled my father's house the moment I was able and only returned so I could put him in the ground?"

I glanced out the window, watching the muted view of the city.

"I am only what I am, and none of me is as careless as I seem. There is enough hurt in the world without me being the cause of anymore. I do not promise things I can not give, nor seek to use someone for my own pleasure knowing it may effect them badly afterward. That is what kind of man I am."

I looked back at him.

"And you? what sort of man are you?"

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

My surprise must have flashed across my face. Perhaps it is evidence of an instinctively selfish nature but it rarely occurs to me that to see beyond the facades of seeming people erect around themselves. If people are happy and easy going and confident, I never think to ascribe my own shadows to them, as if bitterness and despair are automatically dispelled by light instead of merely thrown into a sharp relief. Ah, they are right about me. I am a fool. For someone who has read as much as I have, I am so ignorant of the hearts of others. Always I have thought in opposites … but between the light and the dark there lies grey.

“T-then, if you live as you profess to, I think you are a fine man indeed,” I said, “and should have made any father p-proud. And as for me…” I dropped my gaze to the wine glass, the stem balanced awkwardly between my long fingers as if I was in imminent danger of snapping it “…perhaps you would consider it an evasion but I don’t know what sort of man I am. I live in other people’s words. Most people say that I’m coward or a fool … sometimes I think they’re right, and sometimes not.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

By the look that crossed his face, I realized how bitter my words must have sounded. Wasn't it odd that of all the people I had spent time with since my father's death, that it was this man I hardly knew to whom my lingering hurt would bare itself.

I drained my mug in one swallow, feeling the pleasant burn as the ale moved down my throat.

"It only matters what you think, living your life for someone else's approval is the quickest way I know of to waste your time and energy. Find what makes you happy, that's what matters," I said, sighing.

I shook my head and chuckled.

"My how quickly I descended into cynicism, forgive me," I told him, smiling again. Glum is not my default position and I usually recover rather quickly. "I think we need to get busy on the blindingly drunk part of the night. I'll be right back."

I made my way to the bar, to speak to the barkeep.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

I still had the best part of half a bottle wine left so I occupied myself with that while he returned to the bar. He had left me many unanswered questions but I thought perhaps a few minutes basking in the glow of the barmaid’s eyes would help him shed his cynicism.

I twirled the liquid slowly in the glass, watching the way light skimmed the undulating surface. I have always considered myself less than the son any parents would want but what could a father find lacking in a son like Alain? I resolved to ask him when he returned.

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

I returned to the table, having secured a bottle of the very finest, and strongest liquor the bar had. I had even thought to ask for a couple of small glasses. I was past the point where ale even sounded appealing, I was ready to be drunk.

I took my seat again, setting the bottle and glasses on the table. I poured myself one and filled the other for Cendrillon.

"There," I said with a grin. "For when you realize that wine isn't going to get you anywhere close to drunk enough."

I tossed back my shot, hissing softly as the liquid fire scorched my throat.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

The liquid he had poured into a glass for me was almost completely transparent. It had nothing of the harsh aroma of cheap liquor but something rising from it made the back of my throat burn and tears prick the corners of my eyes. I was going to limit myself to wine but seeing the exuberance with which he threw back his shot and remembering the various accusations of cowardice that have recently come my way I reached out a tentative hand and drew the small glass across the table towards me. We regarded each other for a while.

Oh. What the hell.

“To your very good health,” I said, lifted the glass to my lips and swallowed. “Although,” I added, a few minutes later, when I had finished spluttering and my eyes had finished streaming, “evidently not to mine.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

I chuckled and refilled his glass, having downed my second shot already I poured my third.

"It gets better, the first one is always the hardest," I said, killing my third glassful. "Like women. After the first time it's easier cause you know where everything goes and you can concentrate on the good parts."

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

Regardless of his comment, I did considerably worse with the second glass than I had with the first because I was mid-gulp as he spoke and had to bring my handkerchief swiftly into play in order to avoid spraying liquor over a wide radius. For a while there I thought I was going to drown.

“I see,” I said, finally, as non-committal as I could. And then, cushioned into complacency by half a bottle of wine and 2.5 shots of liquor, I laughed. It wasn’t the bitter laugh I usually reserve for this subject, it was a genuine laugh because, suddenly, I found the whole business delightfully, delightfully funny. “I wouldn’t know,” I cackled, “I sort of lost heart after the first attempt.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

While he wrestled with his liquor I had managed two more and was raise the sixth to my lips when he spoke. I paused, the rim of the glass pressed against my bottom lip.

"Really?" I asked, setting the glass back on the table. I couldn't imagine stopping after my first time, but then again not everyone has such a pleasant first time. "Just the once?"

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

Mirth fled with untimely revelations and I gave a self-conscious shrug, pouring out another glass of Alain’s deadly alcohol with a hand that shook a little. “You sound so surprised. I suppose, perhaps, it is a little surprising. I just suspect I have no natural talent for the business, to say nothing of the complexities arising, so to speak, from attempting to co-ordinate something that, whatever they may say, is never the purely physical matter one might think it is…"

I realised I was babbling and made myself stop. “I just haven’t got round to it again,” I muttered.

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"Anyone who says it's purely physical isn't doing it right," I observed, tossing back the shot I had been holding. The liquor had long since stopped scorching my throat, I had no feeling left there at all.

"I'm only surprised in the way that anyone is surprised when they meet someone who doesn't enjoy something that they adore. The same way you would be with someone who said books were bothersome and a waste of time. Perhaps your willingness to try again will show up with the right person. A lot of it has to com from the right person, at the right moment, in the right situation. Just don't give up, it's worth trying again," I told him, grinning.

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

I ran an impatient hand through my hair, my fingers snarling somewhat in the tangles, noting with a certain admiration the determined way Alain was progressing through his drinks.

I gave a lopsided grin. “Oh all that right person right time, it’s complete nonsense, it’s a bloody myth. I’d quite happily settle for someone who didn’t actively despise me. Actually…” I made an emphatic gesture on the wooden table top, making it shake. Hmm. Perhaps I was a little tipsy.

“Actually I’m lying. I think the problem is that I have not so much a vague as overriding, nay crippling, preference for someone who goes beyond not actively despising me, past even gentle apathy, past even being perfectly willing to do it provided they’re permitted to close their eyes and think of Terre d’Ange … I’m a romantic, there my friend, lieth the root of the problem. Well, one of the many roots. Hence the veritable forest is that is … me.”

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

"And what makes you think I am not a romantic?" I said, grinning. And blinking. Clear vision suddenly seemed to require additional blinking. "Women don't invite me to their beds just for my smile. It takes romance and genuine interest."

I tossed back another shot.

"Your problem is that you live among your books and wait for someone to come to you. She… or he?… will not rise from the pages of your stories, you must look for romance, it is out in the world."

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

“She … she … I think. It’s hard to tell when I’m this drunk,” I said, making yet another extravagant gesture with my arms. “He … she … she … it … he … who knows. And anyway, you’re fashioned for romance whatever your opinion of your smile. I’m fashioned for other things. And you sound like my friend Jess – I take it, then, that you’ve done your searching out in the world? And for all your fine words, I'd like to point out that you're still getting very very drunk very very quickly with a scarred, pathetic failure of a man and whining about the fact your father - for some absurd reason of his own despite your manifold virtues - hated you."

I reached for my third glass. It would probably be a bad idea to drink another one in quick succession. I drank it.

[Alain de Mauvais (D)]

Suddenly I didn't need to clear my vision for it crystallized completely.

"I do not whine," I said, my voice steady. "I would think one who is so submerged in language could tell the difference between truth and complaints."

I leaned forward and rested my arms on the table.

"My father was a bastard who wanted nothing to do with me once he had managed to spill his seed into a woman and then take me from her. I grew up never knowing who my mother was and with a father who cared more for his favorite chair than for me. You think it's easy to know that no matter what you do you will never earn the love of the one person you want it from more than anything? Easy to watch your father cough his life's blood out while you sit helpless, knowing that for all your studies and travels, all the things you have seen you can't save the life of the only family you have? Do not judge me by my easy nature and choice to find light in a world that has shown me so much darkness. Happiness is not a right, it is a privilege, you would do well to seek it out."

[Cendrillon de Beauvais(D)]

It was almost possible to witness the dissipation of the soothing cloud of his intoxication. His gaze, as it snapped back to me, could have scored glass, I think. I flinched. Yes, I know, I’m a coward. But I deserved to flinch.

I folded my elbows on the table and leaned towards him. The words came in a torrent. I wondered if he had ever spoken of this so freely. Regardless, I let him. When he had finished, I was silent for a while trying to focus my intoxicant be-fogged brain. “I have a book,” I said, finally, “that’s full of sketches of the internal organs. Perhaps that sounds macabre but it’s a wondrous thing, really. The heart, you know, has a wall down the middle. They used to think it had holes in it to allow the blood and air through but now they think not. But the point is, I think, perhaps this is case between the rational and the emotional sides of us. To know a thing on an intellectual level is one thing. To feel it truly is another. The wall contains no holes.”

I paused, “Therefore when you tell me to seek happiness, I know, intellectually, it is my only hope. Emotionally, however, I am paralysed with doubt and fear. And you,” I continued, brandishing the spirits bottle at him triumphantly, “it’s the same thing for you. Because rationally you must know that it is the place of all mortals to helplessly witness all the dying world and yet still you fight the inevitable death of a man who – foolishly – never loved you and probably had no capacity for the emotion at all.”

“In fact,” I continued, in a wild surge of ardour, talking with more conviction and freedom than I thought I had ever dared previously, “in fact you should probably be, in some way, glad for his death. That sounds terrible, and I’m not suggesting you give a fete in celebration of it or anything. But what I mean to say is it’s clear to me – and I’m sure to you – that even if he had lived to be a hundred he would never have approved of you, never given you his love. Therefore, now he’s gone, does that not liberate you from a huge and oppressing obligation? Are you not now free to give it up as a bad job and concentrate on the people who will love you unreservedly for the good qualities he was so patently unable to accept?"

Speechifying complete, I fell breathlessly back against the window.