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The man waits with tender anticipation, his palms face down on the table. He wears a faint smile at the thought of what is to come but also at how things have come to be, the days, the years, turning everything mellow like a softening fruit.
A smell wafts in from the kitchen, interrupting his thought process. Its aroma is rich and glutinous yet it stirs his gut only modestly. This is not because it is unappealing, but because of its steady presence; a dish that has punctuated many occasions of his life like a shot of his favourite liqueur.
Voices echo out on the landing then the front door opens and a whirlwind of bare limbs and smiling faces rushes into the hallway. The guests discard their belongings on the floor, fanning themselves against the heat and uttering gentle commands to the children hanging off their hips or clinging, like ivy, to their thighs.
They float down both sides of the table to land kisses on his cheeks. He receives them like marks of approval, a sign that he has accomplished what was required of him; as a father, a mentor and a protector. They tell him of the trials and trivia of their day, while the children peer timidly round the table leg, murmuring for mummy to shift her attention back to them. He smiles at both of these of things and takes a long drink from the glass of red wine that has been keeping him company until now. The alcohol floods his bloodstream, and he feels his sense of contentment amplify.
More people arrive: husbands and cousins. They come to him with a handshake or a squeeze of the shoulder and congratulate him on his accumulated years. He avoids their eyes and politely deflects the reminder with a thank you, not wanting to be drawn inwards to thoughts of ageing.
In a timely fashion, the food arrives. Elbows bump and hands crisscross one another to reach for platters of oily vegetables and glistening meats. He relishes in this ceremony, knowing that the goodness of the food is being shared amongst all who are dear to him, as it should and always has been.
A toast is made to his wife, the cook, and he hurriedly lifts his glass. Her soft, green eyes dart about the table in a panic and he loves her then: always the observer, but so rarely the observed. He loves his daughters too, their sweet faces, buoyant with the promise of youth and the beginnings of family. He’s been good to them, he thinks. He’s provided. And now they are blossoming.
He tops up his glass and drains it. Then he grins, forgetting what made him smile. Does it matter?
The conversation drifts around him now, detached and incoherent. Words are directed his way, but he scarcely engages in their meaning. He drinks again, and the room becomes a little brighter.
Dessert arrives, and the guests tuck in just as enthusiastically as before. The dish is offered to him but he waves it away, frowning as though it is an unwanted distraction.
He’s lost his train of thought now and other notions are beginning to cloud his head. What cause really is there for all this celebration, he wonders, when age only brings about weariness and the inevitability of lost dreams? He looks around the table for recognition of this fact, but everyone is too cheerful, caught up in merriment or at least pretending to be.
He leans forward and the surface of the table fills his vision. The marks and callouses are like reminders of the paths he’s taken and the ones that were cut short. He shakes his head as failings assume extraordinary weight, that he did not return to his hometown often enough and that the promise of some land and modest vineyard was never realised.
His wife speaks quietly in his ear, rousing him from his stupor. The guests are leaving now and he senses their vivacity funnelling out of the door. He tries to say goodbye, but it comes out like jumbled words uttered during sleep.
Then he is left as he began, with only a glass to keep him company while the threads of his thoughts whirl about, too fractured and imperceptible to recall. Rest is the only rational thing left to do and he drags himself to the bedroom, where the afternoon sun shoots long lines through the slits in the shutters.
About alex rankin
Alex is a writer from Bristol, UK. He originally studied journalism but has always had a love for creative writing. He recently undertook a mentorship programme with a surrealist poet, which has encouraged him to look at new ways of writing. His work has appeared in Ellipsis Zine, Flash Fiction Magazine and Reflex Fiction.
