The Juniper Gin Joint

Lizzie Lovell

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781760632694
• eBook ISBN:
  9781760639860
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

When life gives you lemons, make gin and tonic! It's been a tough year for empty-nester Jen in her seaside Devon town; her kids have left for pastures new and her husband's left for another woman. Home alone with her eccentric home-brewing father and a Jack Russell, she is just getting her life back on track when her job at the local museum is threatened by her first love and nemesis, Councillor David Barton, who intends to sell the beautiful old building to a pub chain. But help is at hand from her colleagues: Jackie, a former Greenham Common warrior; Tish, a flamboyant historian; and Carol, mega-flirt. Plus newcomer and former campaigner, Tom. Who happens to be a widower. And quite sexy. And also the owner of a Jack Russell. The key to saving the day and putting the town back on the tourist map could lie just within reach—when reaching for a cold gin and tonic, that is. Mother's Ruin to some, gin is the making of Jen when she comes together with her friends and family to save the museum and open an artisan distillery in the basement. With its debauched local history of smuggling, can gin be the town's savior and bring love back into Jen's life?

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON in late September, a sniff of autumn in the air, a change in the light. Sunday afternoons used to be about the roast dinner and the lawn, me cooking, Mike mowing. Now it’s all veggie sausages, joss sticks, and rapper dudes banging on about stuff I don’t even understand. The joys of living with an eighteen-year-old. Only not for much longer.

‘Come on, Lauren, get a move on!’ I have to yell to be heard above the ‘music’ pounding from her bedroom.

No response.

Just the shoutiness of DJ Nobber, or whatever this one’s called.

Back upstairs then, for the sixty-fourth time today. It doesn’t feel like two ticks since I was trudging up these very same stairs to settle her of an evening, what with her colic and Harry’s toddler gymnastics. I could’ve done with a Stannah Stairlift. Which isn’t such a bad idea now I come to think of it. Not for me. I’m only a few months off fifty. (I have to whisper this number, even in my head.) It’s Dad I’m worried about. He’s doddery on his legs and I’d hate for him to have another fall.

I take a deep breath, steady myself, prepare to enter Lauren’s room.

‘Get a move on, Lolly.’

‘Calm down, Mother. We’ve got ages yet.’ She’s on her hands and knees, searching for something: DNA? A murder weapon? A dead body? It’s hard to tell with all her crapaphernalia. Meanwhile, Bob, our creaky old Jack Russell, is languishing on his back in a patch of sunshine on Lauren’s unmade bed, oblivious to the fact that his number-one fan is about to abandon him.

‘I don’t want to get caught in the rush-hour traf—’

‘It’s Plymouth we’re going to, Mum, not Manhattan.’

Plymouth most definitely isn’t Manhattan, but it’s got a university and that’s where I’m taking my daughter. If she ever gets her bloody act together.

‘How much more of that stuff are you bringing? My poor old Polo’s already crammed.’

‘Stop stressing,’ she says, using the voice that makes me stressed. She gets up off her knees, her search forgotten, in order to survey her room, hands on hips, hair in plaits, dirt on cheeks, like she’s Pippi Longstocking. ‘There’s just this suitcase. And my sleeping bag. And that lamp. And those Yankee candles I got for Christmas… and… oh, yeah, this box.’ She nudges the box with her foot. There’s a hole in her sock and a glittery toenail pokes through.

‘You really need a box of cuddly toys?’

‘I might get lonely.’ She slumps onto the bed and pulls Bob towards her, nuzzling her freckled nose into his neck.

‘Plymouth’s barely an hour away.’ I’m doing my best to be a model of calm but sometimes, right now, it’s not easy. ‘Why don’t you just take Mrs Pink?’

Mrs Pink, the one-eyed bunny with grubby fur and worn-out ears. She’s always been top toy. Goes everywhere with Lauren. School residentials, sleepovers, festivals. Now she’s going to be a frigging fresher.

‘But Mrs Pink needs Tinky Winky. They’re best friends, remember.’

I take a deep breath. I want to say in a very firm voice, Lauren, you are eighteen years old, about to embark on a chemistry degree, not infant school. But I can’t. ‘Just bring Mrs Pink and Tinky Winky. The others can stay here and guard your bedroom from the Bogeyman.’

This does the trick. I go on to say she won’t be allowed smelly candles because the powers that be don’t want drunk students setting fire to the halls of residence.

‘You sound upset, Mum. Are you going to miss me?’

‘Course I am, Lolly, but you’re going to have the best time. I’m so jealous. Me and your dad never got further than Dingleton Comp. You’ve done us proud.’

‘Where is Dad, anyway?’

‘No idea. He said he’d be here to wave you off.’

‘He’s probably busy with her.’

I want to agree. I want to say yes, he’s probably having some afternoon delight with your chemistry teacher, Miss Melanie Barton. Yes, he’s probably right at this moment showing her his Bunsen burner. But, no. I am the sensible parent. And Lauren’s the last of our babies to leave the nest. Harry’s been gone a whole year, bartending his way across Canada. I’ve adjusted to his being away, to his random middle-of-the-night messages, the occasional FaceTime. But this is my little girl.

It’s only Plymouth.

‘Let me grab Granddad from the shed. We’re leaving in ten. At the latest. Text your father.’

She follows me downstairs, Mrs Pink under one arm, a wriggling Bob under the other, texting her father with her wizard fingers. The fingers that can turn magnesium into gold dust and Snapchat in the dark.

Mike pings back his apologies. Says Melanie needs some emotional support because her cat’s gone AWOL. I feel like texting him to say I’ve kidnapped her bastard cat and it’s currently boiling away to a pulp on my stove. But I like cats. And I’m the grown-up.

‘Never mind, Lolly. He’ll pop down and see you when he’s on the road. He’s in Plymouth a lot.’

I release Bob from her grip and shoo him out to the garden for a wee. He can’t half bark for a little dog.

Lolly stays put, at the bottom of the stairs, pouting. She’s five years old again, standing in her Mulan PJs, sucking her thumb, Mrs Pink’s ears nestled one against each side of her nose, waiting for her daddy to come home from work. ‘Where’s Granddad?’ she asks, wiping away a rogue tear.

Here he is, Granddad, wandering out of the kitchen into the hallway like he’s forgotten something, or is maybe looking for it. He’s not got dementia. He’s always been scatty. But now that he’s spotted Lauren, a smile spreads over his wizened face and he looks his seventy-four years and yet he’s also my dad from when I was a little girl, the spark in his cornflower-blue eyes still fizzing away with awe and wonder.

‘Here she is,’ he says. ‘The brain of Britain.’

‘Granddad. Don’t,’ she half-heartedly protests. ‘It’s only a degree.’ She blushes but she loves it. Laps it up and milks it for all it’s worth.

He hands her a bottle of his home-made damson wine. ‘This’ll make you friends and influence them.’

‘Thanks,’ she says.

‘It’s stronger than that cider you drink.’

‘You’re a legend.’

‘I certainly hope so.’

She kisses him and he slips a wad of cash into her hand. ‘A little something to help you on your way.’ He winks. ‘It’ll buy you a snakebite and a packet of condoms.’

‘Dad!’ He is so embarrassing sometimes.

He shrugs.

She stashes the notes in the back pocket of her ultra-skinny ripped jeans that remind me of the venetian blinds we had in the front room back in the day.

‘We don’t want any surprises. Not till you’ve graduated and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.’

Sexual-health advice from my father to my daughter. What next? I must sigh or look pained as he says, ‘Get a move on, Lollipop. Your mother’s hit that time of life where she’s likely to explode at any given moment.’ He hugs her. She hugs him back, tight, so tight she might fracture one of his ribs.

‘Don’t go losing that money,’ I tell her, heading back up to her room. ‘You can buy a heck of a lot of condoms with fifty quid.’

Dad does his Sid James laugh.

I can’t see my daughter’s face from here but I know it’ll be the colour of that damson wine.

AFTER SEVERAL MORE trips up and down those bloody stairs, and after much faffing and flapping, after she’s said her emotional goodbyes to the dog, to her grandfather and to all the rooms and bits of furniture, we get going, Dad and Bob waving us off until we can no longer see them even though they’re standing in the middle of the road.

‘Bye, House,’ Lauren whispers. ‘Bye, Road. Bye, Park. Bye, Library. Bye, Museum. Bye, Train Station. Bye, Sea—’

‘Why don’t you put on a CD, Lolly?’

She tuts, like I’ve suggested she winds up a gramophone, then connects her phone to my car stereo.

Despite DJ Nobber blasting my ears, despite Mrs Pink and Tinky Winky making it tricky to see out the back window, and despite the fact that I keep bashing the lamp with my hand every time I go for a gear change, we’ve done it. Me and Dad. We’ve got Lauren on her way. Our little girl’s all grown up.

‘What’s a “snakebite”, Mum?’ she asks, fingers flying over her phone as she Instagrams every moment of our epic journey down the A38. ‘How can you buy a snakebite?’

God, I feel old. God,

THREE HOURS LATER and I’m driving back up the A38, alone in an empty car. All that’s left of my daughter is the smell of ylang-ylang and a Quavers packet screwed into a ball on her seat. At least I can listen to the radio. Leif Garrett is singing ‘I was Made for Dancin’’, a proper tune. I used to have a life-size poster of the gorgeous one, blew kisses at him from my bed, before I even knew what a proper kiss was. That happened a few years later, school leavers’ disco, July 1984.

Now I’m officially an empty-nester, Harry and Lauren off on adventures, and while I’m pleased for them, proud of them, this isn’t how I imagined my future panning out. Thought we were doing all right, me and Mike, not bad for a couple with just a handful of O levels and CSEs between them. We were on course, two relatively functioning children, a semi-detached house with off-road parking, permanent jobs, three more years to pay off the mortgage, and a cruise booked. I never expected to be driving home to my dad in a rattling old ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter Twenty-Seven