At that moment my mobile rang and I saw it was Sally. I
pressed the green button and held it to my ear.
“Hello love, just me,” she said. “Just giving you a quick
ring to see if you want me to record
Taggart
tonight?”
“Oh, er yes please,” I replied, a little off-guard.
“Thanks.”
It was the last part of a three-part story tonight and
there’s no point watching the first two episodes unless you’re ready to commit
to all three. Stupid symbolic irony.
“Enjoy the party then and don’t get too drunk.”
“I won’t. What are you doing?”
“Oh nothing, just a bit of tidying and reading I suppose. I
might watch
Big Brother
later if
there’s nothing else on. Anyway, have fun. Bye love.”
“Yes, bye love. See you tomorrow.”
I listened until the line went dead then put the phone down
and turned it off for the night.
*
The party downstairs was already a
feeding frenzy of arms and elbows as five thousand years of civilisation was forgotten
in the face of a free bar. A couple of streaky barmen rushed backwards and
forwards under the taps as they tried to keep pace but the beast was loose
tonight and he was thirsty.
“Andrew, you
want one?” Tom called from the front of the melee.
“Bitter,” I replied fours times before he finally caught it.
A pint was passed back towards me but got lost in the crowd
so I had to call for another one to be dispatched. After another ten minutes
me, Tom and two pints of John Smiths finally met up and went in search of a
table somewhere quieter.
Most years, the Christmas party had been a sit down affair
but no one really felt like sitting down to a plate of turkey and sprouts in
paper hats in the middle of January, so a buffet had been laid on instead.
“You should try some of those chicken legs, they’re lovely.
I’ve had four already,” Tom told me.
“Well done,” I replied. I took a few sips from my pint and
looked around the hall. There was still an enormous knot of blokes fighting
over the free bar and the buffet was being continually raided by swooping
secretaries but most of the rest of the hall was empty.
Naturally there were a few party martyrs dotted about here
and there and some DJ off in the far corner playing with himself but the party
was still several hours of hard drinking away from anything approaching fun.
“Who are you looking for?” asked Tom, after he spotted me
scouring the darkness.
“No one.”
“Really? Well you look like a man who’s looking for
someone.”
That wasn’t good. I didn’t want to look like a man who was
looking for someone because people might start to notice and wonder who that
particular man was looking for. And why.
“Just seeing who’s in,” I thought to elaborate. Tom left it
at that.
“By crikey, this is going down well,” he gasped
dramatically, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and finishing his pint
at a canter. He stared at me for several seconds, as I took a gentle sip of my
half-full pint, before finding the need to shake his glass in my face.
“Come on, it’s your round,” he told me.
“It’s a free bar Tom,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I went up and got the last one. Now it’s your
turn.”
“Get it yourself,” I told him, damned if I was going
anywhere near that scrum while I still had a drink.
Tom kicked the table and sighed, muttered and growled as I
nursed my pint for as long as I possibly could, but he was equally damned if he
was going up again and snapped at me to “fucking drink up” every time I tried
to engage him in conversation. When I finally drained the last few suds Tom
practically tipped me out of my seat and told me to get four pints and a couple
of shorts while I was up there.
“Give us a shout when you’re getting served and I’ll come up
and grab them off you.”
That didn’t look like any time soon as most of the rest of
the company had the same idea and were ordering as much as they could before
the bar started charging.
Off to one side, the wankers from
Xtreme Kite Surfing Magazine
had formed a chain and were attempting
to bury a table at the back of the hall in pints, pissing everyone else off
something rotten. They’d monopolised one of the barmen for more than fifteen
minutes, leaving just one other lad to serve the rest of the company and
tempers were starting to fray. One or two blokes attempted to steal pints from
the
Xtremers
’ (as they insisted on
calling themselves) larder but a couple of them stayed back to protect it and
the whole thing threatened to kick off.
Incredibly, it didn’t occur to them, or more likely, they
just didn’t care that the reason the bar was so congested was because of their
hoarding and they would’ve continued all night had Norman not stepped in and
suggested they tried drinking what they had before ordering any more. The
Xtremers
naturally tugged their
forelocks the moment Norman took notice but were back boasting and toasting
their mischief with their trademark crossed forearm X salutes as soon as he was
gone.
They were wankers.
The extra barman told on the waiting time so I was able to
make it to the front, attract his attention, lean in some of the
Xtremers
’ spilt beer and make it back
out again with four pints and two shorts in a little under ten minutes.
“I’ll tell you, if that’s what it takes to get a couple of
free pints, I’d rather pay for my bloody beer,” I concluded.
I took heart from the fact that the drinks I’d gathered
would probably see us through to the last stampede when the free bar closed.
And when that nightmare unfolded, it would be Tom’s turn again.
I sat back down and was just about to get tucked into the
fruits of my labours when a long pair of legs suddenly appeared next to me.
“Oh hi, you came. I’m so glad you did,” Elenor squeaked
excitedly.
I turned around, looked her up and down and practically
bristled all over when I saw how stunning she looked. She was always sexy, of
course, even around the office, but suddenly she’d polished up like half a
million quids’ worth of sex vouchers. I could scarcely think to speak. Her hair
had been piled up on top of her head in some kind of exquisite bun, leaving
just a couple of curls to keep her temples company. Her neck was bare and her
shoulders naked, a tiny strap kept her gold sequinned top from collapsing under
the weight of her enormous tits and she’d managed to find a tight lycra belt
that could double as a mini skirt. Her legs were a golden nylon sheen and tan
loops that peered from under the hem of her skirt told me she’d gone the
stockings and suspenders route rather than cluttering things up with tights.
All these garments and a scattering of silver were piled on top of a pair of
pointed stilettos that looked like they could’ve been used for keyhole surgery
and which added three inches to her height while taking away half a stone in
weight.
She was, for want of a better expression, a shag just
waiting to happen.
“Yes,” I finally replied, figuring I should say something
before I tossed my marriage certificate over my shoulder and leapt on top of
her.
She twisted her legs and chewed on her lip for a bit before
feeding me my line.
“So, do you want to get me a drink?”
“Yes, sure,” I said automatically before remembering what
that entailed. “Oh bollocks.”
Tom looked at me from the safety of his pint and told me to
get us both another couple of shorts in if I was going up and suddenly I was in
the thick of it again, fighting my way through bedlam while Elenor’s cheeks
warmed my seat.
“’scuse me. Sorry. Coming through. Sorry. Can I just...
sorry. Sorry!”
I spent the best part of fifteen minutes chanting things
like these and slicing my way through the tangled nest of bodies before I made
it back out to daylight with two gin & tonics and two more whisky singles.
“Wasn’t there any ice?” Tom asked when I handed him his.
“Oh piss off,” I snapped back.
“Cheers,” I told Elenor, tipping my glass against hers.
“Bottoms up,” she replied with a wink, causing me to shiver
right through to my vows as I pictured her bottom bent over my hotel bed.
My God, was this really happening? Surely not? Surely… I
stifled my shiver with a shot of warm scotch and sent two gulps of bitter after
it to chase it through my system.
“So, will you be dancing later?” Elenor asked.
Tom rasped his lips in derision and looked to me to do the
same but I turned his world upside down when I told her, “sure, I might have a
dance later on. After a few more drinks, of course.”
Tom furrowed his brow in my direction and touched the
start-up button in his brain. He’d been hoping not to have to use it tonight
but suddenly something was afoot. He was cautious enough not to lend his
questions a voice, but he did start taking notes.
I wondered if I should tip Elenor the wink to be careful
around Tom, but then I remembered that we’d never actually come to any proper
sort of understanding and I was somewhat reluctant to go wandering into
uncharted territories without a nod of approval.
I decided the best way forward was fog, so I told Tom not to
be such a misery guts and join us for a dance. Surprisingly, Elenor didn’t jump
in to object. In fact, she even agreed and told Tom she wanted to see him
shaking his stuff before the night was out, and I took a moment to fret over
what this all meant.
I finally got it boiled down to
six possibilities:
Elenor was playing
along and being circumspect.
Elenor fancied Tom.
Elenor wanted to play
us off against each other.
Elenor wasn’t bothered
which of us she got.
Elenor wanted both of
us – at the same time.
Elenor wanted neither of us and this was all in my head.
The last of these possibilities was possibly the most
probable, but by that same token there had been a dramatic shift in Elenor’s
behaviour towards me over the last month, of that there was no denying. I’m not
an expert in these things, of course, all I could go by was my own experiences,
but they were telling me she was definitely interested.
How did I know this?
By the way she looked at me. And I’d seen this look before,
some fifteen years earlier, beneath the brim of a hat, in a dark and dingy
Student Union bar.
“I like your suit, where did you get it?” Elenor asked,
sliding her fingers into my jacket to feel my lapel.
“Nowhere expensive,” I admitted, and wondered if she’d let
me do the same to her top. I concluded she would.
“Look at those wankers over there,” Tom hissed, staring at
the Xtremers like a sniper who’s rifle was at the menders. “They’re doing it
again.”
Me and Elenor looked over and sure enough the Xtremers were
restocking their table after barely touching their cache.
“I’m going to say something because this isn’t on,” Tom
declared, rising from his seat and taking a few determined strides towards
their table.
“Come on Andrew, are you coming or what?” Tom asked.
Elenor’s eyes flickered across my line of sight and a faint
smile glanced her lips when I told Tom I was fine where I was. Tom continued to
stare at me before asking if he could have a quiet word “in private like”.
A guilty cloud quickly engulfed me but I was able to climb
out from beneath it and shape my face into an innocent gawp before we found
ourselves alone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You tell me pal. What are you up to with her?”
“Who?” I attempted.
“Don’t give me that. Her. Elenor. Who d’you think I’m
talking about?”
I built up my most convincing gasp of indignation then
slammed on the brakes and toned it down at the last moment when I decided I
shouldn’t know what he was talking about right away.
“What d’you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean, mush.”
“What?” I let that hang for a moment, then did a
silver-screen double-take and demanded to know just what Tom was implying.
“Don’t give me that, you just listen to me; don’t be a
fucking idiot.”
“I don’t know where you’ve...”
“I don’t care,” Tom slapped me. Yes, he actually slapped me,
albeit a very quick, light cuff around the chops. “You just don’t be a fucking
idiot, and I mean it.”
“Hang on a minute...”
“No, I haven’t got a minute. I’m sorry if I’m wrong, and I
really hope I am, but you’d better pull your head out of your arse and think
about what you’re doing, because this could be without doubt the stupidest
thing you’ve ever done in your entire fucking life,” he said, then added as an
afterthought, “And that’s saying something.”
“Tom, you’ve got this all wrong…”
“Good, I’m glad. I’m really really glad I’ve got it wrong.
Just you make sure it stays that way,” he concluded, then headed off to chin a
couple of Xtremers while staring back at me over his shoulder.
“What was all that about?” Elenor asked.
Tom’s words had followed me back to my seat like a bad smell
and they got stinkier the moment Elenor smiled up at me. I debated what to tell
her and plumped for a spun and slanted version of the truth.
“Oh, it’s just silly really,” I faffed. “He thinks there’s something
going on between us.”
“Like what?” she asked, shifting in her seat and twisting
her legs around each other like a couple of pipe cleaners.
“You know,” I prompted.
“No what?” she maintained.
“You know!” I shrugged, nodded and flapped my eyebrows but
Elenor still refused to fill in the blanks.
“What?” she insisted.
I took a deep breath and an even deeper swig of my pint then
told her, “He thinks we’re... well... you know, sleeping together.”