The Whiskey Monologues

AN EXTRACT FROM “THE INVISIBLE THREAD”

The last time Fionn, Matthew and I were together before the plan reached its climax, we sat drinking in my kitchen until the wee small hours. There was a bottle of eighteen-year Talisker whisky being saved for a special occasion like this. Matthew didn’t know this was a special occasion, but it was a watershed in our relationship.

A drink like that is something to be enjoyed amongst the most intimate of groups you see, ones who know already the thoughts swirling in each other’s heads. But I alone knew what they were thinking, asleep and awake their thoughts trawled through me. Fionn thought he knew my mind, but I knew he was slipping. Matthew knew nothing. In my trance I was the one in control. I was in control of it all. It was me who I poured the drink. Just with ice, mind; you have two options: ice or neat. Anything fancier than that and you don’t deserve a whisky.

I was silent for most of the night, listening to the babble that Fionn had perfected which kept Matthew onside. Fionn was the honeypot, the football trivia, the vapid jokes. He was overly familiar and slipping. Matthew was the sycophant, the easy-to-amuse petty scheme-boy. I cut in, brash.

“Is there anything you regret?”

They both lost their place in whatever conversation was simmering along. Fionn stared deliberately at me while I avoided his eyes; Matthew was still whisky-hearted, mouth halfway through some inane story. For the first time that night the only sound was the dull dunts of ice on ice in our glasses. It’s good to cut into small talk, silence like this is better than fucking small talk. And you know what he says?

“Well, I’ll regret this in the mornin’, eh?”

Matthew was being fucking funny again. His whiny fucking screech was hilarious as per. I hope you’re bright enough to stay away from the whine of petty men. And stay away from people who confuse small talk for conversation.

Aye, well, I don’t move a muscle, just keep my eyes on Matthew across the wee table, and I see Fionn’s moved his suspicion from me to the cunt too. Matthew fades a bit, maybe is thinking that when I’m drunk I get a bit faux-serious so he clunks towards a diplomatic response. Crinkles his eyes a wee smidge like a smarmy bastard and bites his bottom lip. I come within a hair’s breadth of flipping the table when he finally speaks.

“I don’t believe… in regret” this wee worm says. “What we should dae is just dae what we want. And you shoulnae be dain it if yer the sort of cunt that regrets stuff. Regret’s fir cunts who dinnae enjoy their life, and Catholics.”

And I say to him “Is it not guilt that’s for Catholics?” and he goes “Well a dinnae have guilt either, dae a? A’ve made aw ma decisions masel. A’ve done them aw cause I wanted tae. Nothin to be guilty about if it wis you that chose tae dae them, eh?”

Wee guy will never know he nailed the nails into his own coffin. I drained my glass and left them the bottle.

Submitted by Cal McDonald.