Amuse bouche... Sunny drinks

Jean was walking home from work. It was a Friday evening, a sunny Friday evening, and they were all out.

Any pub with even a half-presentable outside space was thronged with after-work drinkers. Bottles of cider, cold pints, gin and tonics. Shirt sleeves rolled up. Lipstick on.

The age profile was on the young side. Everyone in the same carefree boat. The weekend getting off to a summery start.

If Jean had time to stop, she’d have a thing or two to tell these young ones. Enjoy it now. Kids and spontaneous Fridayevening drinks don’t mix.

Open-ended evenings and being answerable to no one won’t last forever. Appreciate it, don’t take it for granted. Definitely don’t wish it away.

But Jean didn’t have time to stop. Jean had to get home to let the minder go. She was walking fast, getting her steps

in, but a bit late. If she arrived in even a few minutes after six, she’d have to pay the minder another full hour.

That’s where the G&T money goes, girls, Jean thought, berating herself for sounding so sour.

In her time, Jean had enjoyed plenty of drinks in the sun of an evening. Even of an afternoon, from time to time.

Afternoons that turned into evenings, that occasionally became late nights. Drifting from one place to the next, friends coming and going, no fixed plans.

Casual bites to eat, sometimes nothing to eat, which never ended well. Empty-stomach rows with boyfriends. Being sick on the way home. Not remembering how she’d got home.

There was plenty Jean didn’t miss about those years. She didn’t miss the headache you’d have by eight if you had your first drink at five. She didn’t miss the slightly seedy feeling of being half cut when it was still bright. She didn’t miss the hangovers.

What Jean missed was the spontaneity. Not all the time, just sometimes. She sometimes missed those days when the clock wasn’t your enemy and your evenings were a blank canvas to be painted any way you wished. No kids’ dinners, no baths, no bedtime stories.

Jean phoned her husband, hoping he wasn’t going to answer from outside a pub somewhere.

He was at home already. The minder was paid and gone. The children were fed.

“What are you doing now?” Jean asked.

“I’m sitting in the garden with a beer,” he answered.

“Nice,” said Jean. “I’m nearly there. Will you get me a drink, too?”

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Surprise me,” said Jean.