PUZZLES
Erwan was at a party in the Big Pink house, a good party. The line-up included: a bloodied football supporter; a scientist (covered in blood); Dr Who, or rather, a person wearing a long scarf; a demon; a bloodied witch; an ordinary citizen, with blood; a zombie; a vampire, with blood. Erwan was cunningly disguised as Tom Baker. With a bottle of Bushmills he was walking around talking enervated nonsense to anyone unfortunate enough to stray his path. He joined a debate without knowing much what it was about.
Levin was on an armchair talking to James. Tutting at the music, he got up to turn on Zeppelin remasters. He turned to James.
James was clutching his head because Erwan was doing his nut in with his frenzied debating. The girl soon left and Erwan swung haphazardly into another seat, much the worse for wear, stars spinning around his inebriated skull.
‘Man what the fuck were you talking about. You were doing my nut in there,’ said James.
‘Wha?…’ said Erwan, not even entirely conscious of where the words were coming from. He smiled inanely.
‘Ah fuck. Doesn’t matter, you’re pissed.’
‘I’m pissed?!’ Erwan roared. ‘Yes,’ he then agreed, nodding. He seemed to fall into some kind of temporary coma.
‘Why is everyone so completely drunk?’ asked Levin.
‘Dunno man. Probably they drank too much of the Juit Fruice.’
‘Ah yes. The Juit Fruice.’
Oh yes, the Juit Fruice. The fruice, made only hours earlier, was now entirely gone. No-one, Barry and Emmett excepted, knew exactly what was in it, and even they didn’t know. Brown sauce was one of the ingredients; so was brandy, vodka, fresh fruit, lemons, limes, orange, an apple, vindaloo sauce, monkey testicles, cannabis, the Irish constitution, war, cinnamon, tomato, mashed bananas, and a half-bottle Tequila.
They gazed proudly and longingly at the Juit Fruice, the finished creation, proud with longing. Drinking a glass each, toasting to their craftsmanship, they pronounced it ambrosia from the Gods. They left it there for a while. When they returned Hamish had finished it.
In finishing it Hamish nearly signed his own fateful destiny in vomit. Because by finishing it he thereby finished himself – almost. He wasn’t the only one to partake, of course – Levin, James, Erwan, Emmett, Barry, Neil, Claire, Sarah, Levin MacHill, Travolta – all had a plastic tumbler or four. The Juit Fruice had been brewed in a big black bucket so it went quite evenly around. Or so they thought. Before most of the guests had arrived nearly everyone was piss-drunk on fruice. Hamish seized his opportunity when vigilance was low and filled a pint glass with it. Then he pressed the bucket itself to his lips to drain the nectar to the dregs.
Too late Emmett saw him – ‘Hi man! Stop! Our Juit Fruice!’
Barry came running at the sound of those fateful words. Baz saw the state of young Hamish, bucket in hand, satisfied and vaguely large grin on his face.
Barry laughed uproariously. His observation: ‘This man is obviously fucked!’
Emmett’s: ‘All our Juit Fruice is gone.’
‘Wha?’ Barry. A delayed reaction. Then he cried: ‘Noooooo!’
He threw his fist to the heavens. Then he laughed uproariously again. The boy was a total mess. Mr Hamish was trying to do the Hamusbic shuffle on the linoleum floor with bucket in place of pint.
‘Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!’ Barry cried, trying to rub the tears of laughter from his weeping eyes.
Hamish looked. He was smiling lopsidedly, Juit Fruice stains around his mouth. ‘Wha’s the matter?’ he said.
He dropped the bucket on the floor and weaved his way to the kitchen door, pausing to lean on the doorframe for support. Then he continued his journey to the livingroom.
Some time later, those inside the livingroom (Claire, Neil, Levin MacHill, James and Sarah, Levin McCochall at the loo) saw a bloodied man crash through the door and lurch towards them. He was wearing a football top. They cleared the way. He dropped onto the sofa. He began to make ghastly noises. Barry and Emmett followed. They propped his feet onto the sofa and considerately made sure his mouth was pointing downwards so that any unsavoury substances that made their way out would make their way out rather than into his unfortunate lungs.
‘That chap,’ said Barry, looking at the prostrate casualty, ‘drank all the Juit Fruice.’
They began to complain but recognised that there was plenty of other drink available, no shortage. They lashed into beer, whisky, vodka. Other drinks. Relaxed, the strong liquor and weaker beer taking the edge off the tension that hosts feel before a party. Well roped they were before the second lot of guests made the door.
The first lot of guests were Tanya, Sarah, Sheila and Miriam who, likely to their lasting happiness, did not live in the Big Pink house. Mind you, the Pink house had not then developed the reputation it would later acquire as a hive of evil and despondency. It was clean and habitable. Nor yet had the War on Terror cast its gleep and shadowy slime across an unsuspecting world.
Erwan wasn’t strictly speaking a resident of the Pink. He just spent most of his time there. He’d arrived soon after Sarah and Tanya in time to sample the Juit Fruice, so we can consider him as being part of the ‘first lot’ of guests.
The doorbell rang. It was the second lot of guests. After that people stopped counting lots: it was simply more people who came, the party well under way. The second lot of guests contained friends of Barry and Neil, more students of biology. That part of the party became lodged in the kitchen for the rest of the night and couldn’t get out. Elsewhere, people mingled and drank and spat. Neil was speaking to Tanya and Sheila. It was he who spat. He spat on Tanya’s face. It was a big mistake, one he’d made once before, to his reasonable horror and confusion.
He spat straight into her face quite deliberately.
Tanya became furious, as she was well entitled to do.
‘You just – you just spat into my face?’
Neil wriggled in pleasure and shame. ‘Yes …’
It was the vodka he blamed it on. He didn’t have time to complete the thought though because Tanya gave him a barrage of justified abuse.
‘What the fuck p— is your problem, you f— dick?’ She completed this short tirade by throwing what remained of her drink in Neil’s face. There wasn’t much, just a bit of vodka and lime cordial. Enough to wet his face and shoulders and dampen his lab coat.
‘Oh! Here, now …’ said Neil, apparently not much discomfited. He did feel genuinely remorseful, though, for what he’d just done to her. Spat in her face. Why the fuck had he done that?
‘Why on Earth did I do that?’ he asked her. ‘I don’t know why I did it.’
‘Oh, fuck you.’ Tanya left. Sheila too rebuked him and went to the livingroom. Neil wiped the remains of Tanya’s drink from his face and thought no more about it. He immediately joined Barry and Dave (a biologist) for a conversation about toast and small animals.
Meanwhile, slightly earlier, slightly after the second group arrived but before the miscellaneous ‘other’ groups arrived, there was Hamish. He was still lying on the sofa. But now other noises began to occur from his general vicinity. Growling, unfortunate noises. No-one noticed; they were having a good time. The first anyone noticed was when Hamish got up because he had vomited over the sofa (and of course no-one likes to lie in their own vomit). This was a disgrace; but everyone found it slightly amusing.
Most of the Fruice was out of his stomach and either on the sofa or the floor. At least the floor was wooden (or some faux-plastic wood substitute). Hamish looked at the mess and murmured some complaint about the floor not being authentic pine. James mistook this for ‘Get me more wine, you dogs!’ and shook his head.
‘No, Hamish, no more alcohol for you.’
Hamish then vomited on the sofa. The sofa was less fortunate that the floor, being made of a cotton/polyester hybrid. It absorbed all the stinky digestions of drool and was quite yuck. Orange rind, and weird brown and yellow mess, spread in a viscous pool over and into the sofa. Some pe
ople who witnessed it themselves nearly wanted to vomit. For others it was but a temporary diversion.
A little of the vomit went on Hamish’ blue-white football shirt. He picked at this shirt and stared at the vomit a little helplessly. It was as if he didn’t quite comprehend. ‘Who’s going to clean this?’ he said in a strange way. Some parts of his mind remained active. He knew someone had to clean it; he probably knew, somewhere in that chaos of liquor and destruction, that it was him who’d have to do it.
He was handed a mop and bucket as well as a new-clean dishcloth.
After Hamish had made a few feeble efforts to clean up his vomit and after he’d been sent to do it again a few times until it was fairly decently sorted out, a large troupe of fellows, Emmett, Barry, Levin, Neil and Erwan, put the fellow to bed. Erwan did not help much: he was somewhat inebriated himself. The others pulled the shirtless Hamish towards his room. They put him in bed despite his protestations. He wanted to get on with the party. He didn’t reappear until late the next day and lacked any memories of the events. But most people’s memories the next day were a little blurred. Especially after that time. For instance, the author can’t remember anything that happened, but will hazard to give the following timeline:
Neil ventured upstairs at about one-thirty a.m. Erwan had a relative re-lease of life and stayed up until most people went home, about 4am. He had a kip on the vomit-free sofa. Later he rose at about 7am to take his remaining Bushmills home.
Barry and Emmett sat up with anyone who wanted to stay (Tanya, Sheila, Levin MacHill, Sarah, James) talking and drinking until about 4am. Then they went to bed.
When Neil got up the next day (with severe feelings of guilt that he couldn’t pin down) he was quite hungover. Several months later Neil went to the sofa that Hamish had vomited on, around five in the evening, tired out from a different hangover, and actually laid his head down on it. He, who, months before, would have gingerly sat on the edge of the sofa if forced to – he actually laid his head on the sofa that had seen vomit (and, as far as they could tell, urine; and there were definitely many takeaways smeared into it). And he snoozed there, entirely sober and conscious of his action. What could have caused this change?