My relationship with alcohol must have begun in the womb. I remember a very lit fag hanging out of the corner of my mother’s mouth as she changed my younger brother’s nappy once (I think there’s even pictorial proof somewhere) so I’m assuming, in those halcyon days of the sixties where the medical profession hadn’t considered either form of recreational habit a ‘drug’ as such, that she might also have continued drinking during both our nine-month tenancies.
We had a lovely, plump-fronted, very glossy, walnut drinks cabinet in our living room at home. Even now, just remembering how the two front doors being opened (at the same time using both hands) delivered such a heady waft of alcohol-imbued wood is enough to catapult me back to Christmasses, Birthdays or any-other-days where it automatically followed that—once open—the adults would smile more, laugh a little and relax a lot; our very own Pandora’s box.
And aren’t we guided by these innate, formative lessons? I absolutely connected the pink-cheeked mother—as opposed to the pinch-lipped, pale-faced one—with cheerfulness, Christmasness and, yes, the drinks cabinet doors having been opened at some point. So for me this veritable theatre of varying-sized bottles containing different-hued liquids (where also resided a tempting jar of cocktail cherries in juice and an assortment of plastic fancy-headed sticks with which to impale them which is making me salivate just writing this) meant happiness. We’d seen the proof.
Add to this the fact those adults—especially if the liquid interior had made it onto a fancy-doylied covered tray on TOP of the drinks cabinet for the duration of the festive season—made it perfectly clear that this stuff was only to be imbibed by special grown-up humans at special times of the year meant that the cabinet was further embroidered with magic-dust. Even Unicorns weren’t allowed. God, we wanted it so badly. But because we knew we couldn’t have it (and yet often teased by a sherry-dipped finger in secret) until we were much, much taller, it became a kind of goal; dare I say Grail?
In our double-figure years, my brother and I were sometimes allowed a watered-down (again, schooner) of something alcoholic, which, after sipping, we’d screw up our faces and say how disgusting it was; another five or so years and we’d be doing the same with some Benson and Hedges until we’d perfected a way of smoking which didn’t accompany heaving. No, we didn’t like it, and yet we still loved the way it altered our parents’ personalities. They became friendly, more responsive, they’d urge us to join them in a game of darts in the sunlounge, or play Newmarket (with borrowed pennies) with them at the table; sometimes we were even allowed to listen to the racy lyrics of the Benny Hill LP. I know.
I vaguely recall us having ‘home cocktail’ sachets of powdered something or other which, when added to lemonade or Tizer or whatever was handy at the time, was meant to resemble an alcoholic equivalent. There were a lot of vodka-doodaghs and a couple of pineapple coladas which I fondly recall and it gave me the taste. I even feigned placebo-type responses to drinking these sugar-infested drinks: twirling around in a state of drunkenness and being giddy with… well all the twirling I suppose (drunk on the idea at least).
My brother might have been slightly under but I was definitely at the legal age (he was taller than me, so that cancelled out any conjecture) when we visited our local hostelry like the rite of passage. We’d known it to be. Together. I know; it makes us sound like two Waltons or loved-up siblings in American sitcoms but we weren’t, not really. We bonded over the previously forbidden fruit that was alcohol; now we were the Knights Templar sitting across from one another at a Space-Invader-screened-table-top in the Fox and Hounds and life would never be as thrilling again.
Kids in candy shops? Yep, pretty much. And once I’d learned you get double the impact from a combination of things like… let’s say Brandy and Babycham (with a cocktail cherry sunk to the bottom) then you’d think I’d discovered my personal version of The Wheel. Or Fire. Maybe Penicillin but you get the idea. Life was good. Life was even Gooder when alcohol was involved. And when alcohol was involved there came with it a kind of Get Out of Jail Free card, meaning that whatever rude nonsense I spouted or crazy antics I got up to whilst under the influence, it could all be explained away because of The Alcohol. I couldn’t believe I’d lived all those years without its presence in my life (well, secondary drinking is hardly as effective).
I danced better, I had better ideas of which I took great pleasure expounding; I met a great deal more handsome men who also danced very well (and sang in tune), and either I had a larger circle of friends or else I was seeing double most of the time. Who knows? What actually cared? Not me. Not any of us, not really.
And now let’s fast-forward to today. Not specifically the 18th October, 2019, but… y’know,more generally.
With age arrives a certain degree of wisdom. Perhaps it’s hindsight, but when you get to your mid-fifties and you only recently (4 years ago and counting) realised that to pet one animal and yet eat another is cruelly hypocritical, then it seems only fair that recognising self-harm should be the next logical step.
I gave up smoking overnight. I gave up eating animals and their various secretions overnight. I have ‘given up’ drinking overnight on several occasions, which begs the question that if it harms nobody other than myself then I’m ok to do it.
The other day (Wednesday, if you’re interested) I had a day out at a place I’d never been to before: Tyntesfield. It’s a “spectacular Victorian Gothic Revival house and estate near Wraxall, North Somerset, England. The house is a Grade I listed building named after the Tynte baronets, who had owned estates in the area since about 1500.” And it exceeded expectations. The weather on Wednesday (for those who follow that sort of thing) was nothing short of glorious: blue skies, little whisps of cloud and a stillness that had us remarking on it. I went with somebody who has a passion for these places; whose interest in them means they are never dull, always fully involved and perhaps the best company I’ve had in my life.
We spent five hours there. Once home, delighted with the day, I made myself something to eat, singing tunes we’d been discussing in the car on the way back. And then I thought what could possibly round the day off any better than a nice glass of crisp, chilled wine? Like a celebration. Such a great day, let’s finish it off with more delightful things (I also watched ‘Moonstruck’ again and forgot how much I loved it) and went to bed a tiddly, happy bunny.
Yesterday I woke with—not so much a taste of regret in my mouth, but—a knowledge that not a lot would get done during the next 24 hours. My head hurt but that was alright, that’s why God invented Panadol, I couldn’t concentrate but that was alright too because I might find inspiration watching the ‘Away to the Country With You’ or similar tellyprog. And so I had a ‘dry’ (unless you count copious glasses of cranberry juice with sparkling water) day and went to bed feeling lacklustre in the extreme when compared with the previous nights’ humour.
And today I hear you ask? Well, let’s draw up that chair on which Hindsight has sat himself down, shall we? What does he want to tell us? I’ll tell you: he wants us to know that it’s great to feel happy following a delightful day out in excellent company, but sometimes cherries don’t need plopping on top of an already-beautifully-iced cake; it’s already lovely enough as it is. And if that analogy doesn’t work or make any sense then if you give me a few hours and a trip to the Tesco Express, I’m sure I could find innumerable ways of describing precisely what wisdom it is that I want to impart at the conclusion of these, my ramblings.
And afterwards, you can laugh at me, but it won’t matter because I’ll be drunk and expect to be teased. I’ve a feeling it’s why I enjoy drinking in the first place: so that a lot of the time, other real things don’t matter—or hurt—quite as much.
Debs J Cooper 