Théodora Armstrong - Clear Skies, No Wind, 100% Visibility

“Quiet in here today,” Topher says, as Charlie tips back his wine glass. A taster is not a drink; a taster is part of the job. Many years ago, before Charlie’s father had a heart attack, he employed Topher at his restaurant, Le Carré. Topher knew Charlie as a fat little boy who stood quietly, like a ghost, in the corner of the kitchen. “Tu es un fantôme, tu n’es pas ici,” his father would say. You are not here . When his father drank too much, Topher drove him home, and on those nights Charlie would wake to his father singing over the stove, swigging straight from a bottle of wine on the counter. “Viens. Viens ma petite bête. Mange avec moi.” Charlie was a little beast — a chubby, acne-pocked little beast. His father would stuff his face with cream-drenched noodles, layers of fatty meat, salty fries. He’d eat anything brought to his mouth: liver, blue cheese, tripe. At the age of eight, he already knew the difference between a béchamel and a velouté.

“Tell me what you think,” Martin says, as he pours a taster for Topher as well. Topher sips the wine and swishes it around before swallowing and making some light smacking sounds on the roof of his mouth. He comes to Marinacove in the afternoon between lunch and dinner service on a regular basis to drink and to poach the wait staff. He doesn’t believe in drinking in his own establishment. Charlie doesn’t care about that kind of thing. The result is the same: they are both well on their way to being sloshed in time for the dinner rush. “Acidic,” Topher pronounces. “Notes of blackcurrant and raspberry.”

“Tastes like toilet water,” Charlie says, slurping up the last dregs of wine and pushing his glass back at Martin. There’s suddenly a lightness in his brain: the thick, stagnant chaos that filled his head this morning is dissipating with the tickle of alcohol.

“How about this one?” Martin joins them in the tasting.

They work their way through most of the wines on the list, even the ones they’ve carried for years, until the charade runs its course and Martin finally cuts to the chase and pours Charlie a long Crown and Coke. Charlie counts the pour — one, two, three, four — giving Martin a grim but approving nod. It’s rude to refuse a drink from a friend and Martin is his good friend. He notices Martin already has his own hidden below the bar in the well. He sets Charlie’s drink on the counter with a clink and a tinkle that makes Charlie smile. “For courage,” Martin says.

“I don’t need it,” Charlie says. “But I’ll drink anyway.”

“He’s asking for a raise today,” Martin explains to Topher.

Charlie shakes the ice cubes in his glass feeling annoyed. “You’re bleeding.” Charlie motions to Martin’s lip. “Right here.”

Martin grabs a bar napkin and dabs at the cut.

“I’ll join you in that drink, then,” Topher says. There’s a twinkle in his eye Charlie doesn’t appreciate. Martin pours another Crown and the three men cheers awkwardly, an unexpected air of camaraderie — a brief entente among alcoholics. “How’s your mother?” Topher asks, giving his drink a gentle stir with his swizzle stick. Many years after his father died, his mother went into the care centre, and for years Topher was the only person other than Charlie who ever dropped in to see her. He suspects there may have been something going on between them, probably long before his father’s death. He wonders how much Topher knows, if his mother ever confided in him or spoke of the late-night cooking sessions at home, his father spinning like a whirling dervish in nothing but boxers, his clothing in a pile in the hallway, piping sausages hopping out of the skillet, skidding across the floor as his father chased after them with a fork, shouting, Watch out! Maudit! Plates were smashed; a bottle of olive oil shattered into a million bright gold pieces across the floor; the blood-red brilliance from a smashed glass of wine looked like evidence from a crime scene. His bleary-eyed mother would stumble out of the bedroom, but the only thing she ever said was don’t forget to turn off the stove. She lived in constant fear of his father burning down the house, but she never told him to go to bed or to quit drinking.

Even though her mind is fading, his mother still talks about that one time Topher brought flowers to the care centre — white begonias. It’s as though she’s forgotten that Topher had vied constantly for Charlie’s father’s job, waiting for the opportunity that eventually presented itself.

“So they can afford to hand out raises here?” Topher says, glancing around the empty restaurant. Outside the clouds have darkened and the ocean is threatening the seawall, menacing the last few hardcore joggers on their afternoon runs.

“Who eats in the middle of the afternoon?” Charlie wants the words to sound tart, but instead they get lost in a yawn and end up sounding lazy.

“Ah.” Topher smirks and takes a sip of his drink. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Charlie.” He runs his finger through a patch of dust on the bar. “What were your numbers like this week?” Charlie shrugs and takes a gulp. He’d rather concentrate on finding the bottom of his glass as quickly as possible than acknowledge Topher’s smug smile. “We did fifty,” Topher says. “Not our best, but better than last year.” He leans back and rubs his belly as if it were a piggy bank. Martin whisks away his empty glass and replaces it without exchanging a word, a fresh napkin placed under the drink. They did less than half that number last week.

“We’re doing fine,” Charlie says. He fudged the books to make up for twenty pounds of lobster for a seafood risotto that never sold. Actually, he has massaged the numbers several times over the past few months, something that becomes easier the more often you do it. Charlie jiggles the ice in his glass, hoping Martin will get the message and replenish his drink too.

“I don’t know. I’ve been making fuck all,” Martin says, picking at the congealed blood sealing his cut.

“November is a quiet month,” Charlie says, jiggling his glass harder, sending ice across the bar floor. Martin misses his signal. “We’re going to be booked solid for the holidays.”

“Really?” Martin does a poor job of hiding his surprise. He walks over to the hostess stand and flips through weeks in the reservation book.

“They’re not all in there yet,” Charlie calls to him. “I haven’t had time to enter all the big parties.” He has one Post-it note in the back with Williams, party of seven, Dec 12th scrawled on it.

“Sure, you’ll be busy, man of your talents. Your father would be proud,” Topher says. The comment is insincere. An acrid smell is wafting from the open kitchen. From the bar, Charlie can see Rich, James, and Tara working at their individual stations.

“Do you smell something burning?” Topher says.

Charlie pours the drink himself. “Still bleeding,” he says to Martin, pointing at his lip, before turning to make his way to the kitchen. Outside the waves have overtaken the seawall and the joggers have all gone home.

To Topher, Charlie’s father was the pinnacle of success. But Topher never saw the man on the couch at four in the morning, bathed in the blue glow from infomercials on the boob tube, stuffing his fat son. It was at that late hour that Charlie learned the art of eating — how to hold his knife with the handle in his palm, and his fork with the tines pointed downward; how to tip his bowl and take the soup from the side of the spoon, how to tear his bun into bite-sized pieces before bringing it to his lips, how to pour first for his father then for himself. Charlie would lie in bed afterward, wide awake, rubbing his near-bursting belly. He’d listen to his father snoring on the couch, and as he watched the night sky turn cerulean he’d savour the flavours still lingering on his tongue.