‘Mackay’s down from the hills!'
The news is out there, twitters twittering, but, of course, I had missed it, unwilling as I was to break from my desperate preparations for the forthcoming festival.
‘Have you seen him or is it just the usual rumours?’
Perhaps a few days of peace was still possible.
‘Not exactly seen him, not myself, not personally – some women I know saw him at the Coco Cabana. As usual he was putting his nose in where it didn’t belong . . . you know how he is.’
I know, I know only too well. We all know eventually, as the smoke clears and the trail of destruction becomes apparent. The wrecked cars, the broken marriages, the broken promises, and of course the monumental debts . . . and then he’s gone, everybody breathes a sigh of relief and we try to pick up the threads of our lives.
‘He’s so old, I thought perhaps he was dead. It must be a few years since he last came down. Maybe some assassin got lucky. There's always hope.’
‘Not that one,’ he chortled, ‘one of the immortals – he’ll see us all out.’
Bad pennies, I thought and began to imagine a last minute flight out of all this. Sometimes it’s not worth the effort of staying. The cold, the cost of the endless celebrations, and my mind wandered off to a warm tropical isle, lying on some sun kissed white sand, on the edge of the lazy waves of a brilliant turquoise ocean, palm trees and cocktails. I wondered about my credit cards. I wondered who might come with me.
I smiled at the thought of Mackay discovering that I had shipped out for the duration and taken her with me. I might come back in a couple of months to help clear up the mess.