Unsuccessful salving of a conscience

Baz had been attending a hanging, otherwise he’d’ve been there.

And afterwards, in my more hysterically dishonest moments, I even wondered if Luke had arranged for the assassination.  But that was a step too far in self-justification.   And if it hadn’t been for the fact that Luke knew the restaurant owner and had got reservations – because Baz asked if he knew whether or not it deserved its reputation – we’d not have been going there anyway.   I’m certainly not petty enough to say it was because Baz was missing for my birthday celebration – I know very well how these things happen:  the nearest available reporter had to go and Baz being on the spot there was no choice.   He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way either, even said to me (later, before he found out) that he’d been relieved that the Arts correspondent had been at his grandmother’s funeral.  (Which, he also said, made it five grandmothers he’d buried, in two years)

But.   He hadn’t been there.   I had, and so had Luke.   And because it was my birthday Luke was being kinder than usual, less vituperative, more entertaining, and he opened up a bit more than usual.   When the conversation got around to books he mentioned the Wigtown Book Festival that he’d been to at the weekend, which led to him telling me about Wigtown’s Bladnoch whisky.   And I couldn’t blame the whisky either because by the time he’d suggested we go to his flat just round the corner from the restaurant (I hadn’t known that, but presumably Baz had) so I could sample it, I was already guilty.

This also appears on Thinking Ten, where it is my response to the Monday, On Location prompt of 'A restaurant'.   As before, I am using these prompts to spark scenes for potential short stories or character development for forthcoming novels.