Blackberry Wine

41

Lansquenet, May 1999

HE HAD NOT SEEN JOE SINCE THE DAY AFTER MIREILLE’S VISIT. At first Jay felt relieved by his absence, then as days passed he grew uneasy. He tried to will the old man to appear, but Joe remained stubbornly absent, as if his appearances were not a matter of Jay’s choosing. His leaving left a strangeness behind, a bereavement. At any moment Jay expected him to be there, in the garden, looking over the vegetable patch; in the kitchen, lifting the lid of a pan to find out what was cooking. He was aware of Joe’s absence as he sat at his typewriter, of the Joe-shaped hole in the centre of things, of the fact that, try as he might, he could not seem to get the radio to pick up the oldies station which Joe found with such everyday ease. Worse, his new book had no life without Joe. He no longer felt like writing. He wanted a drink, but drunkenness merely accentuated his feeling of loss.

He told himself that this was ridiculous. He could not miss what was never there in the first place. But still he could not shake off the feeling of something terribly lost, terribly wrong.

If only you’d had some faith.

That was really the problem, wasn’t it? Faith. The old Jay would have had no hesitation. He believed everything. Somehow he knew he had to get back to the old Jay, to finish what they had left unfinished, Joe and he, in the summer of ’77. If only he knew how. He would do anything, he promised himself. Anything at all.

Finally, he brought out the last of Joe’s rosehip wine. The bottle was dusty from its time in the cellar, the cord at its neck straw-coloured with age. Its contents were silent, waiting. Feeling self-conscious, but at the same time oddly excited, Jay poured a glassful and raised it to his lips.

‘I’m sorry, old man. Friends, OK?’

He waited for Joe to come.

He waited until dark.

In the cellar, laughter.