The Juniper Gin Joint

by Lizzie Lovell

  ‘I wondered if we could use them, if I can find them.’

  ‘If you can find them, you can use them.’ She pauses while we wait for the catch. ‘As long as I get a bottle off each batch you make.’

  ‘Of course,’ Dad says.

  ‘Anything else?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, yes, there is one thing.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘The copper still.’

  ‘Ah,’ she says, as if she wasn’t expecting this when clearly she was. ‘You’re after my copper still?’

  ‘Yes, I am. We are.’ And he goes on to explain the hoo-ha over the museum, our recently hatched plan.

  ‘That Councillor Barton’s a nasty piece of work,’ she says. ‘You can have the still. It’s out in the barn somewhere. Not been used in years. You’d better fetch it before my grandson sees it, though. He doesn’t know it’s there but once he’s got a sniff he’ll be wanting to do his own distilling and you’ll have competition on your hands. I’ll get Luke, the farmhand, to help you shift it.’ And she produces an iPhone from her apron pocket and texts like Lauren.

  Five minutes later a scruffy man comes in the front door, wearing muddy wellies and an Exeter City beanie hat. I’m expecting it to be Luke, the farmhand, but it’s somebody else. Trampy Kev?

  ‘Hello, Ma.’ He takes off his boots on the doormat and walks over in his woolly socks to drop a kiss amongst his ma’s halo of fuzzy grey curls.

  ‘I’m glad to see ’ee, Kevin,’ she says. ‘These good people here need a hand and when you’ve done that, you can have a bath and I’ll make you something to eat.’

  WE’RE IN THE barn watching Luke uncover the copper still which has been hiding under a hairy blanket and a significant number of cobwebs, tucked away in a forgotten corner behind tortuous-looking farm machinery laid to rest in some kind of junk graveyard. Farmers never get rid of anything, however rusted or tarnished. Every object can have a second, third or fourth use.

  ‘You little beauty.’ Dad rubs his hand over the belly of the still. ‘Let’s get her outside where we can take a proper look.’

  Between us, Luke, Kev, Dad and me, we carry the still and its accompanying pipes and tubes, heaving and puffing, out into the daylight. We lay the pieces down and stand in a circle around the collection of seemingly random bits, some of which don’t even look like copper.

  ‘It’s covered in that green stuff, Dad.’

  ‘Patina,’ he confirms. ‘It protects the copper.’

  ‘Course,’ I say. ‘Like Truro Cathedral.’

  ‘And the Statue of Liberty.’

  ‘And the Planetarium.’

  Kev and Luke look from one to the other of us in what might be confusion. I’m about to say something to Kev, to acknowledge him, that I see him all the time, that I bought him a pasty and a cuppa, that he’s Mrs Bates’s son and I never knew, when the woman herself dodders over and, leaning on her stick, lets out a deep sigh that must completely empty her tiny lungs. ‘Her ’as a name, you know.’

  ‘Who?’ Dad asks.

  ‘The still,’ she says, as if it’s obvious. ‘They always have names. Usually a maid’s name.’

  ‘How brilliant,’ I say. ‘Like a boat.’

  ‘Just like a boat,’ she agrees.

  ‘But it carries booze, not fish,’ Dad says. ‘What’s she called?’

  ‘Violet,’ Mrs Bates says, again as if we should know this. ‘After my dear old mother who I was named for.’

  ‘Charming,’ Dad says. ‘A proper Devon name.’

  ‘Dingleton was famous for its violets,’ she muses. ‘Before the war, all the farms around these parts grew ’em. Even here. Carpets of blue everywhere and a scent straight from heaven.’ Her misty eyes gaze backwards to a time gone by. A time before holiday parks and wi-fi and Ant and Dec. ‘I was Dingleton Violet Queen one year.’

  ‘Like Carnival Queen?’ An image of Carol as a teen busting out of her princess dress flits through my head.

  ‘Like that, yes. There was an annual Violet Ball where I was chosen and then we led the procession through town. I wore a pretty frock made by my gran and I sat on a float that was decorated with violets. The crowds could smell us before they could see us.’ She nods at Kev, her son. ‘Just like some I could mention. Help shift this lot into this young lady’s car and then get your bath.’

  This young lady pulls down the back seats of the Polo and somehow, between us, we squeeze in Violet and her accessories. Dad and I say our thanks to Old Woman Bates and take our leave, with a promise to keep her up to date on progress. Just before I get in the driver’s seat, she gives me her mobile number, written with a neat schoolgirl’s hand on a scrap of paper. The back of a betting slip. ‘Call me any time,’ she says. ‘Whatever time I’ve got left, you’re welcome to it.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Your mum was a lovely lady. You must miss her.’

  ‘I do, Mrs Bates. Very much.’

  ‘I won’t lie and say you’ll get over it. I still miss my dear ma. But the loss’ll ease.’ Her eyes are kind and mine well up. ‘How’s your father?’

  I look at my father, who’s talking to a hen.

  ‘He’s all right. He misses her too.’

  ‘Well, them was married a long time.’

  ‘Nearly fifty years.’

  ‘He’s lucky to have you, my lover,’ she says. ‘Not every child can manage to live with a parent.’

  I know she means Kev. It must be hard for her to watch him live the life he does, dipping in and out, neither here nor there.

  She pats my cheek with her tiny hand and makes her way back across the farmyard, skirting the milk churns and plastic crates, stopping to share a few words with my father before disappearing indoors.

  Dad opens the gate for me once again to drive through, then forces it shut behind him. We bump off back down the track, the car lower than before with its new cargo on board. At the middle of one of the larger puddles, the car slows and I rev the engine, really rev it, Dad telling me to put my pedal to the metal but this doesn’t help. We’re stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere with a massive copper still called Violet for company.

  ‘I’ll get out and push,’ he says.

  ‘No, you won’t. I will.’

  Dad doesn’t object. We both get out and assess the situation. He makes the noise that mechanics and plumbers make when they evaluate a job. A sort of whistle-sigh that strikes fear into me. He thinks I have no chance. Well, I’ll prove him wrong. I have superhuman strength when required. I indicate the driver’s seat and he gets in obediently and starts up the engine. I put my shoulder to the boot and proper push with all my might. The wheels spin and the engine cuts out.

  But help is at hand. Here come Kev and Luke. Kev hands me a bottle of his mother’s gin. ‘Ma wanted you to have this. Don’t drink it on an empty stomach.’

  I thank him profusely and pop it in the boot and then, without saying a word, the two men position themselves one on each side of me and, on my count of three, we push. Within moments, the car is out and free and Dad is off with a whoop and a yee-hah. I think he might’ve forgotten about me and it’s a pig of a long walk home so I yell a thanks and leg it, squelchily, after my father.

  ‘DAD!’

  FOUR O’CLOCK AND I’ve showered, changed into clean clothes, and readied the tea things on the kitchen table. The kettle’s filled, the pot warmed, and Dad’s fruit cake sliced and arranged on one of Mum’s seventies Hornsea pottery plates, the ones that could probably survive a nuclear fallout. It’s silly getting sentimental over a plate but the familiar groovy pattern always transports me back to childhood, when I had nothing to worry about other than making sure I didn’t miss Grange Hill and that I had enough Hubba Bubba to get me through the weekend.

  First to arrive is Jackie, punctual as ever, which is comforting and reassuring in a life-goes-on kind of way. Next up is Tish, wearing a gauzy shift like she’s Josephine Bonaparte, her wild hair tamed into a chignon. The dress is completely inappro
priate for autumn except she has a fur stole around her shoulders. ‘Vintage,’ she says, noticing Jackie eyeing it up suspiciously. ‘It doesn’t count.’ She sits down with a dismissive gesture of her hand as if we can completely ignore the dead fox at the table, its cold hard eye staring at Bob and making him retreat to the safety of his basket.

  Then Tom turns up, clutching a bunch of carnations.

  ‘You managed to get away from school OK?’

  ‘I went in extra early this morning to sort out tomorrow’s lessons.’

  ‘How very organized.’

  ‘You have to be one step ahead of that lot,’ he says, pretending to wipe away the sweat from his brow. ‘These are for you.’

  We’re in the kitchen now and he hands me the carnations, which makes me blush, especially when I see the raised-eyebrow exchange between Jackie and Tish.

  ‘A little something to cheer you up,’ he says.

  ‘Cheer me up?’ I query.

  ‘You know, what with the museum situation.’

  ‘Right,’ I say, awkward but touched. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.’ Tish sniffs one of the flowers, shuts her eyes dreamily.

  There’s a moment when we contemplate these words but then the doorbell goes again and Dad shepherds in Carol who allows him to disengage her from the snugly fitting denim jacket that she’s wearing, before sitting herself down on the chair next to Tom’s, which was actually supposed to be my seat but she wasn’t to know that.

  While I have the chance, I give the assembled guests the update on Dale and Harry. They make the right replies, not one of them in the slightest bit surprised, so I know I can summon my son and his lover and all will be good.

  Once I’ve sat down myself, every chair around the table is taken: Jackie, Tish, Carol. Dale, Harry, Tom. Dad and me. I wonder if we should appoint a chairperson like an official meeting but I don’t have to wonder for long as Jackie is setting up a PowerPoint presentation and distributing handouts. Nobody objects. In fact, everyone’s relieved to dodge this onerous task, especially as we know how much Jackie thrives on it. Not that she’s bossy. She’s just the type of person who gets excited if she so much as steps inside a Ryman’s. A stationery fetishist if ever there was one. Tish also has a notebook, leather bound and beautiful and I almost expect her to brandish a quill. But she manages with a fountain pen. The rest of us have to make do with the stack of Dad’s football coupons and stolen biros arranged in one of Lauren’s pencil-pot holders she made at primary school. A ragu jar papier-mâchéd with cut-out Teletubbies. I miss her. But no time for day-dreaming. Introductions are needed, then it’s down to business. We have quite an agenda to work through.

  1. Auction

  2. Finances

  3. Fundraising/grant applications

  4. Setting up a co-operative

  5. Social media campaign

  6. AOB

  TWO HOURS AFTER we have discussed points 1 to 5, having consumed three pots of tea, two packets of Hobnobs, and a half-ton of Kettle Chips, we have a plan of action. But now that we’ve reached Any Other Business, and the sun is past the yardarm, I feel the need to produce the bottle of Bates’s gin which miraculously survived the bumpy journey home from Donker Farm.

  ‘I suggest we take a comfort break and then I have a proposition for you,’ I tell them.

  All eyes turn to me but I’m giving away nothing. Not just yet.

  ‘Five minutes?’

  They agree and there’s the sound of chair legs scraping against my floor tiles. Tish pops outside with Bob for some ‘fresh air’. Dad is red in the face and I suggest he removes his jumper which Carol volunteers to help him with. Dale and Harry talk to Tom about Canada. Jackie goes to the loo. I gather eight tumblers which I fill with ice, Sicilian lemonade tonic, and a shot of Old Woman Bates’s magic. If nothing else persuades them, this will.

  ‘Blistering barnacles,’ Tish exclaims.

  ‘Not bad at all.’ Dale has another sip.

  ‘That’ll put hairs on your chest.’ Dad hiccups.

  ‘Proper job.’ Carol gives a thumbs-up.

  ‘Impressive.’ Jackie makes notes.

  ‘Awesome.’ Harry does a fist-pump.

  ‘Very, very, very nice.’ Tom smiles the twinkliest of twinkly smiles.

  ONCE THE GLASSES have been drained and I’ve asked them to guess what botanicals they think Mrs Bates has used – it seems Carol has a nose – I pitch my idea of us starting up a small-batch handcrafted micro-distillery and opening a gin bar in Clatford House. They look bemused for a moment, like they’re wondering who I am and if the real Jennifer has been kidnapped and replaced with a clone, or possibly a clown. But when I tell them what Dad and I have discovered, about the Plymouth Distillery, and Old Woman Bates, and the wealth of knowledge we can draw on, that this isn’t a mad punt, it’s surprisingly easy. Especially when the wild-card Canadian chips in.

  ‘Harry told you I’m a mixologist, right?’

  Carol asks what that is.

  ‘It’s kind of like a glorified bartender, but with some differences,’ Dale explains in his mild Canadian manner, carries on when he sees our expectant faces. ‘A mixologist designs seasonal cocktails, makes recipes. This might mean preparing house-made syrups, tinctures, bitters, infusions, every ingredient you need behind the bar, and then the bartender would use these to make drinks for the customer, which is where his or her job begins.’

  ‘I’m just a humble bartender,’ Harry says.

  ‘So a mixologist is like the puppet-master?’ Dad asks. ‘Or the man behind the curtains?’

  ‘Kind of.’ Dale considers this. ‘But the roles can get blurred. I do my work behind the scenes before the bar opens, but when the customers arrive I become a bartender. Anyways, I’ve been training up Harry.’

  I look at my son and see the admiration and love in his eyes. He’s not my little lad any more.

  ‘What Dale didn’t mention,’ he says, oblivious to his mother’s bleeding heart, ‘is that his parents own not only the bar where we worked, but a whole chain of them across British Columbia.’

  ‘Like a certain pub chain that Dave Barton wants to lure to the town?’ Tish asks.

  ‘Nothing like it.’ Harry shakes his head. ‘Dale’s bars have an individual feel, so you’d never know that they were connected, other than that they’re the place to get the best drink.’

  ‘Have you always worked for your parents?’ Jackie asks.

  ‘Always. Since I was a kid when I’d help run errands. And full time since I left college.’

  ‘What did you do at college?’

  ‘Business studies.’

  Dad beams.

  ‘I’d be happy to help, is all I’m saying,’ Dale goes on. ‘In any way I can.’

  And I take my chance here, listening to this man who seems to very much know where he’s going in life. I need to see where Harry figures in all this. ‘Are you planning on sticking around?’

  ‘With Harry?’

  I know I’m blushing and I know I’m pissing off Harry. I also realize there’s a better time and place for this question but I power on through. ‘I actually meant are you planning on staying for a while in the UK? Do you have visas and everything? And right, OK, now you mention it, I did wonder if Harry was part of this move or whether it was something you always wanted to do?’

  ‘Mum.’

  Dale puts his hand on Harry’s hand. ‘A bit of both, I guess,’ he says, a small shrug to his broad shoulders. ‘It would be awesome to spend some time in the UK. My family emigrated from the West Country in the fifties so it would be nice to get to know my heritage a little.’

  ‘You never know what you might find,’ Tish says. ‘There could be all sorts your family wanted to escape from.’ She winks at him.

  ‘Incest and sheep rustling?’

  ‘So you do know it down here then?’

  I ignore my father’s attempt at humour and seize the day. ‘Right, then. Th
oughts, everyone? Is this a harebrained idea?’

  ‘The best ideas are hare-brained,’ Carol says.

  ‘But what about the museum?’ Jackie asks. I knew she’d be concerned, being the most measured of our group, but she’s also the one whose opinion I respect most, whose judgement should be listened to.

  ‘That all comes back to Clatford House and our chances of buying it,’ I go on. ‘What if we could combine it all, the museum, the distillery and the bar?’

  ‘How would we fit all that under one roof?’ Jackie’s brain is whirring overtime.

  ‘I’m not talking about producing as much gin as Gordon’s or Plymouth so there’d be the space in Clatford House. The distillery could be in one room. We could do tours, even. And the bar in another room. And the rest could be for the museum.’

  ‘But there’s renovations. There’s no way we could do all that.’

  ‘Maybe not at first. We could use Dad’s shed for the gin to start with, couldn’t we, Dad?’

  He nods enthusiastically.

  ‘So we’d concentrate on the bar for now and obviously the museum. But we’d have to make it very specific to Dingleton, concentrate on what’s made the town the place it is.’

  ‘And what is that?’ Dale asks.

  ‘Smugglers, pirates, royalty, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.’

  ‘Who’s he?’ Dale asks.

  ‘The second-greatest Briton as voted for by the public in 2002 on the Beeb,’ Dad says. ‘As championed by Jeremy Clarkson.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A rude, sexist, spoilt pig.’ Carol’s never been a fan of grease monkeys.

  ‘So why did he make it to second position?’ Dale’s very confused and I can see the gulf in our cultures is wider than first imagined.

  ‘No, not Clarkson,’ Dad says. ‘IKB was a genius. He revolutionized public transport and modern engineering – he built railways and bridges and steamships. The world would be a different place without him. And Dingleton wouldn’t even be on the map.’