Whisky and water

The kitchen door opened and a gaunt head looked through. The suddenness of the newcomer’s appearance made Bob jump. The emaciated head regarded him skeptically and then entered the room, revealing a lanky body beneath it. “Um …’ the head said.

“Dad” said Angie, quickly, breaking off her description of Ann Frank’s house. “Dad, this is Bob.” Bob rose uncertainly, unsure whether to give Angie’s father the bottle of Talisker they had brought with them right away, as some form of peace offering, or wait for a more opportune moment.

“Bob. Yes. Bob. Hmmm” said Angie’s father, regarding him skeptically. Bob had a momentary feeling that neither parent was certain if they should go to the bother of remembering his name. “Bob” said Angie’s father again. “What happened to the other one?”

“Dad!” Angie snapped in exasperation. “That was a horrible thing to say!”

Bob decided to go for it. “Mr. Duffy” he said, stepping forwards. “I’m very pleased to meet you. Angelica” – he could not resist using Angie’s full name – “Told me you appreciated good whisky, so I took the liberty of getting you a gift.” He handed over the bottle of Talisker, wrapped in brown paper.

Angie’s father took what he was offered, regarding the package with some doubt. He looked inside the bag and seemed satisfied. “Excellent stuff” he remarked. “Obviously you know a good whisky. Will you permit me to offer you a dram?”

Bob consented to this, and Angie’s father poured them both generous measures, neat. Angie smiled and winked at Bob. Things were playing out as she had described.

After this dram, and a second from the same bottle, Angie’s father suggested that they try something from his liquor cabinet: “Just to appreciate the difference in taste.” By this time they were in the lounge, a large and very comfortable room. Angie winked again and gave a tiny nod: best to keep the momentum going. So Bob consented to Mr. Duffy’s suggestion, and he opened his liquor cabinet, using a tiny key on a key ring that he carried with him at all times – this information was to be imparted to Bob later in the evening when everything had become much more blurry and slurred.

Angie and her mother were excluded from the whisky tasting. Instead, they took advantage of the opening of the liquor cabinet to liberate bottles of what Mr. Duffy dismissed as “Feminine spirits” – gin, Bailey's and white rum.

“Stuff like that is an insult to a cultured palette” he declared, slopping Lagavulin into fresh tumblers. Bob was already feeling tipsy, but could think of no way to politely stem the flow of whisky. He prided himself on having a hard head, but he was concerned at the volume Angie’s father was drinking and wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to keep pace.

“Now tell me” said Angie’s father, after several different whiskies had been tried. “What are your thoughts on the church?”

Bob had been briefed to expect this question, and had been coached in various non-committal replies. Andy’s disasterous attempt at humour had also been held up as a example of how not to approach this question. Bob looked into his whisky glass, circling the liquid slowly in the tumbler. “I feel people have become too interested in what makes churches different, not in what binds them together” he said, casually.

“Excellent” murmured Mr. Duffy, appreciatively, though it was hard to decide if it was Bob’s answer or the whisky he commended. “There is certainly too much interest in flim-flam” he said portentously. “The real church is a rugged beast, and not overly concerned with trivia, don’t you agree.”

“I think so” said Bob, regarding the material thing in his tumbler that Mr. Duffy valued so much. He was aware than Mr. Duffy had finished his drink and was keen to pour another, so he swallowed the contents. Almost immediately Mr. Duffy was on his feet, gathering the empty tumblers and hunting around for clean ones. They must have an infinite supply, thought Bob. I’m lost. But at least while he’s fixing drinks he won’t ask me any more questions about God.

In this he was wrong, however, as Mr. Duffy turned from where he stood at the liquor cabinet, the favoured malt in his hand and the tumblers on the fold-out front of the cabinet. The question he was posed, however, was odd enough to make Bob forget his irritation at the old man’s questions.

“Would you think it appropriate that whisky be used in church services instead of wine?”

Bob was flummoxed. Angie had not prepared him for questions like this and he felt that he was standing on a trapdoor – was there some hidden trick in the question? There was to be no help from her, however, she was talking with her mother, a process that seemed to involve a lot of hand gesturing and attempts to talk over each other. He decided to play along and see what happened.

“I don’t see why not” he answered, as Mr. Duffy splashed the whisky into the tumblers. “I know there are some churches where they don’t use wine at all, but fruit juice, so I don’t see why not whisky.”

He realized immediately that this was a very dangerous comparison. Mr. Duffy returned with the drinks and regarded Bob skeptically.

“I’m not sure I like your reasoning, young man, if you’ll indulge me for saying so. The reason I asked was because I have been thinking quite a lot recently about Cain and Abel” – Bob was relieved to hear familiar names mentioned. At least he knew who these two were – “And it has occurred to me that perhaps we should pay more attention to that story than we are wont to.”

Inside himself, Bob sighed with relief. The old fellow had obviously wanted very much to talk about something, and had found a route to get to whatever it was that he wanted to say. Bob recognized this from numerous lectures from Max. In fact, he reflected, Mr. Duffy could be an older incarnation of Max. With this revelation, he lost a lot of his fear of the older man and settled back into the established routine of fake attentiveness he used when Max was in declamatory mood.

“You see, Cain’s original crime was not that he murdered his brother, or that he was envious, but that he was found to be wanting in the sacrifice he made to the Lord: ‘But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell,’ Genesis 4:5. And the reason that Cain’s sacrifice was wanting was because he was not offering the Lord the very best that he had to offer: ‘If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door: and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him,’ Genesis 4:7. So you see why I asked you if whisky might not be more appropriate for the sacraments than wine.”

“I think I do” Bob lied, certain that he would be told anyway. He was not wrong.

“Cain was a farmer and the Lord expected him to offer the best of his crop. Abel was a shepherd, and the Lord expected the best of his new born lambs. Only the best, mind.” Mr. Duffy looked at Bob with a keen eye. “Scotland does not produce much wine.”

“No, indeed” Bob replied.

“We import wine from France, from Italy, from Spain, from Chile, California, Australia, New Zealand. We do not make it ourselves. We make whisky, and also beer, of course.” This thought seemed to throw him for a moment, but he recovered well enough. “But whisky is our premier product. It is what we work hardest to produce and what our hardest work goes into. We do not work to produce wine. We work at one thing, and with the proceeds of that, filthy lucre, we buy wine to make communion with. Essentially, it is money that we are offering to the Lord, a grotesque idea. What would the Lord do with money?” he demanded, fixing Bob again with a surprisingly clear and intense glare, given the amount of whisky he had drunk.

“Umm … Nothing” Bob replied, almost wrong footed by the sudden question.

“Less than nothing” Mr. Duffy declared emphatically. “Money is purely a creation of man, an idea, a nothing. What does God want with our ideas, eh? Do we think he needs our help? It’s arrogance, pure Babylon.”

The tirade was interrupted by the necessity of choosing malt for contemplation. He’s as daffy as Angie warned me, Bob reflected, but he seems harmless enough and I’ve got an idea of what he’s talking about.

“The reason I spoke of Cain and Abel was because we must pay particular attention to how the Lord treated them. You know their importance?”

Shit! A direct question. Bob sought desperately to disinter some memory from childhood bible classes. “They were the children of Adam and Eve?” he ventured timidly. He thought that was right, but he had no idea if it was what Mr. Duffy was fishing for.

“Exactly! They were the first people born, not created by the Lord, as Adam and Eve were. So we can look to their example to see how he expects all other children of men to act. And the message is clear – he expects us to offer him our finest produce, not something bought at the supermarket with money, but something we have created ourselves, with great labour: wine in France, sherry in Spain, and whisky in Scotland.”

“It stands to reason” muttered Bob, though he suspected Mr. Duffy’s stance had more to do with his fondness of a nip than his professed reasons.

“Let’s go for a walk, lad. I’ve drunk enough for now and a stroll by the water will fresh me.”

Bob looked over to Angie in panic. How was he meant to respond to this? He saw that Mrs. Duffy was asleep, over come by the white rum, probably. Angie was watching them with bright eyes.

“Your father wants to go for a walk, Angie” he relayed. “Would you like to come?”

Angie frowned. “Are you sure this is a good idea, dad?” Her tone was indulgent, but he detected a trace of worry, none-the-less. Perhaps they were moving into unexplored territory for her as well? In spite of everything, he felt a wry amusement at the realisation that Angie was as uncertain as he was.

“Of course it’s a good idea” Mr. Duffy retorted, lurching to his feet, unsteadily. “Five minutes one way, five minutes back, we’ll all have clear heads in the morning.”

He was not to be argued with, so they donned jackets in the hallway and shoes on the porch and walked down the dark driveway, leaving Mrs. Duffy snoring gently in the living room with a glass of gin sitting beside her for when she came round.

The shore was only across the road from the house. They turned they walked in the direction of the causeway that connected the island at low tide. It was very dark now, the lights of the township sparkling in the gloom. Bob had to admit that he felt much better outside the house than in, where he had been starting to stifle. He was able to assess his condition now, and realised with some consternation that he was very drunk. He did not know how much booze Mr. Duffy could soak up, but from Angie’s stories it must be a lot. Angie and her mother had certainly drunk a lot, rapt in their own conversation. It chilled him to realise that perhaps Mr. Duffy was the most sober one of the group.

The black water lapped quietly nearby. In the distance he could hear cars on the main road, and closer to hand the dull thump of a bass line. Someone was having a party. Mr. Duffy heard this to. “Listen to that” he exclaimed, gesturing vaguely into the darkness. “That dreadful beat. This is the consequence of Babylon, of money. We neglect to give the Lord the best that we have. And if we don’t think that the Lord deserves the best that we can offer, how can we expect it for ourselves? Everything is debased and vile.”

He turned to face the water and glared out into the darkness. “And it will stay that way until we find our way back into a proper relationship with the Divine. We must get rid of all this flim-flam and approach the Lord like little children.” He paused for a moment, and when he continued there was a break in his voice. Shit, he’s crying, thought Bob, he’s further gone than I thought.

“The Lord is waiting for us to find our way back to Him. He is calling out to us, waving His hands to attract our attention, but we are deafened by music, blinded by money and pretty silly earthly things. We don’t see Him, we don’t hear Him. We can’t hope to see Him or hear Him until we have shed all the foolish temptations of this Earth and look to Heaven like little children.” In the darkness Bob sensed Mr. Duffy was moving as he talked, but he could not see what he was doing. He braced himself to follow if Mr. Duffy ran for it, but realised with a prickling sensation of shock what was actually happening. Mr. Duffy was taking his clothes off.

“Like little children” he said, as he shed his shirt and fumbled with his trousers. “Naked as the day we were born, the first step of the journey has to be a token of our rejection of Babylon. Children are innocent, we should be like them to become like them.”

Angie cried out in horror as she realised what her father was doing. Mr. Duffy was a white blur in the darkness. Bob still stood, unsure, too frightened to grapple with Angie’s naked father. Perhaps, he thought stupidly, he knows what he’s doing. I’m sure he knows what he's doing.

“Bob, stop him!” Angie’s voice broke with panic, a girlish squeal. Mr. Duffy was moving, making a dash for the water.

“Wash the sins of the world from me” he wailed as he splashed into the shallows. Bob was chasing him, but the white blur moved quickly into deeper water, an indistinct whirl of limbs against the darkness. The water surged up against Bob’s thighs. Christ, he thought, he’s going right out. His flung his hand made contact with a wrist or arm, but he was so startled that he failed to grab it and it flew away from him again.

The water was up to his waist now, both men were wading slowly through the dark sucking liquid. Bob realised for the first time that this was dangerous. He made a lunge at Mr. Duffy, because soon he would be too deep to do anything more than plod after him, and caught him in a crude rugby tackle around the midriff. Both went down, the water surging up over their heads, and Bob found he was detached from earth and air, with nothing to stand on and water flooding into his nostrils. The only solid thing he had hold of bucked and wriggled like a seal, but Bob clung on even more grimly. In this dark world of stinging cold water he was determined not to let go.

Then his kicking feet touched bottom, ground into the shingle of the seabed and his head burst through the lid of the water. He whooped in a long breathe, staggered as Mr. Duffy and the water did there best to drag him further out into the dark brine. He took long, awkward steps backwards, stumbling slowly towards the shore, dragging Mr. Duffy with him. The struggles of his unwilling burden overbalanced him in the shallows and they went over with a crash and a yell. Mr. Duffy tried to escape back out to sea but Bob got a grip on his ankle and dragged him back onto the land, where the desire to have the sins washed from him seemed to vanish and he lay on the cold grass whimpering.

Bob looked around. Where was Angie? This question was answered a moment later when she came running back from the house. She thrust something at Bob. A towel. He rubbed himself as dry as he could while Angie tended to her father, who had become entirely quiescent. With some effort, they got him back on his feet and they took a few unsteady steps back to the house. The towel was draped over Mr. Duffy’s shivering shoulders.

Suddenly, they were dazzled by a torch beam, shown directly into their faces. “Who’s there?” demanded a quavering female voice. “This is Mrs Hodges, the neighbourhood watch. Who is it?”

The torch beam played slowly across them, and Bob was sure he heard a soft cry when it dropped down Mr. Duffy’s narrow, hairy chest to illuminate his pale, shrunken genitals, barely poking out of the dark nest of his pubic hair.

“Mrs. Hodges?” Mr. Duffy roared suddenly, roused from his stupor. “You whore! You rotten old whore!”