When first the liquor started to disappear, I put it down to imagination. When you store liquor far in excess of what you're legally allowed, you must make allowance for losing count of how many single malts, or flavoured vodkas, you have in stock. But it was those flavoured vodkas, or lack of them, that first alerted us to the mystery of the disappearing spirits. When the sample bottles started going one by one, it was evident that either the servants were tippling on duty, or someone in the family was. My wife sniffed around my son's cavities and declared him clean, but could hardly be as forward with the help. |
By now the rum was disappearing as rapidly as the Irish cream, and who was to know whether the gin was being watered down too. Of course, we'd cottoned on that it wasn't the servants but my son's group of gangly friends who found the pickings easy in his bedroom. Would they like to join us in the living room? "No uncle, this room is fine," flashed a guilty-looking, acne-bursting adolescent (that evening all the peg bottles of scotch disappeared). "Dinner, boys," my wife would try and tempt them out. "Thanks auntie, we've eaten at home," said the spindly crybaby. "Eaten at his own home, yes," hissed my wife, "but clearly he's drinking in someone else's home!"
That was some years ago, around the time the boys pinched the car keys to go driving post-midnight, having failed to inform their parents, or us, about these underage jaunts. But they were all home last week, young men now, with girlfriends, come to take my son out for a night on the tiles. It would have been churlish to remind them of their teenage escapades, for they seemed to be responsible lads all: an airline pilot, a cricketer with the premier league, a chartered accountant, a businessman....
It seemed appropriate that I should offer them a drink, so I did. They were most of them whisky drinkers "" on the rocks, with soda, or water. I asked them about their work, training, shifts, bosses, the conversation skittered back and forth, and then, one by one (so we might not notice) they started inching towards their earlier haunt, their friend's, my son's room. Soon there was music, perhaps I made them another round of drinks, I know my wife sent them snacks. And then they were ready to go paint the town red.
"How they've grown," I marvelled to my wife, who had seemed to me unmoved by their newly developed biceps or flattering ways. So when she pursed her lips in disapproval, I understood it as the natural angst of an older person watching the young seize all the fun they can. "You must," I said to her, "learn to appreciate the young."
The next morning I was a lot less happy, for the bar count showed drastic depletions in vodka, whisky and rum. While the levels in the decanters had dipped considerably, I could have sworn there was a bottle of tequila missing "" and why wasn't the Pernod there? "Your friends," I railed at my son, even though he was still asleep for being out till late, "are scoundrels." "Darling," smiled my wife at me, "don't be upset," adding for good measure, "you know, you must learn to appreciate the young."
