‘I thought you said you were hungry.’
‘Not
that
hungry.’
‘Hello, ladies.’ Thick east London accent, gold
bracelets, very short haircuts, very bad dress sense,
very up for it.
‘Hello,’ Anna replied distantly.
‘What are two ladies like you doing in a place like
this?’ One of them grinned, revealing a gold tooth.
‘Just taking it easy,’ Claire glanced nervously at
Anna.
Gold Tooth offered to pay for the drinks.
‘No honestly, thanks,’ Anna insisted. ‘We’ll get
our own. But thanks anyway,’ she repeated so as
not to insult him.
‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ The one with the
sideburns and three earrings slid a scraggy arm
around Claire’s waist.
‘Married.’ She held up her left hand. They stared,
electrocuted. Unbelievable! It was as if she had
waved a magic wand warding off the wicked witches
of the west. The three guys disappeared before you
could say ‘actually I’ve changed my mind about the
drinks’.
‘Well, that was weird,’ Claire stared after them.
‘Yes, very.’ Anna tried to catch the barman’s
attention. ‘But don’t be waving your ring around
– you know, if someone decent shows up.’
Later, at the club, the doorman ushered them in
with surprising speed, obviously thinking they were
someone else. At the bar a more mature man offered
them drinks. A nice start. He was American and
thought the girls could be models. Especially Claire.
He asked Claire to dance. A friendly dance. Why
did men always do that, Anna wondered. Was there
such a thing as an unfriendly dance? Claire politely
declined, blaming a sore foot. So he asked Anna.
‘Go on,’ Claire winked at her, ‘I’ll hold your drink
for you.’
Mildly insulted at being only second choice, Anna
followed him out on to the dance floor. George
Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ was playing. Anna hoped
he wouldn’t whisper anything careless into her ear.
Or do anything with her ear.
The American’s dancing wasn’t great. He shuffled
about uneasily after Anna on the crowded dance
floor, at one stage colliding heavily with a smooching
young couple.
‘Sorry,’ Anna told the male half.
‘Sorry,’ he answered her back and held her gaze
for longer than necessary. He was taller than average
with jet-black hair, long sooty eyelashes and sallow
complexion. Probably not Irish. Definitely not unattractive.
His partner whisked him away.
The song changed.
‘Well thanks for that,’ Anna told the American
hurriedly. ‘I think I’d better get back to Claire.’ The
hint fell on deaf ears. He followed her back to the bar
and bought another round of drinks. Anna scoured
the room to see if she could spot that man with the
dusky looks again. But to no avail. The place was
jammers. Claire and the American were blocking
her view. She began to feel hot. On a scale from
one to ten, the stuffiness in this place rated eleven.
She took a quick note of the exits. Only three were
visible. Hopefully the place wouldn’t catch fire or
anything. Her high heels wouldn’t stand a chance.
She knocked back her glass of beer and bought
the next round. She hadn’t eaten she remembered.
No wonder the walls felt like they were closing in
on her.
The music revved up. The American wanted to
boogie. Claire wanted to boogie. Anna didn’t.
‘I’ll be back,’ she told them and vanished to the
Ladies.
A good twenty-five minutes stood between her
and the first toilet. Feck it, she muttered, crossing
her legs tightly. Her bladder was about to explode.
That was the problem with beer. It ran right through
you.
She gave her hair a few half-hearted brushes and
injured herself slightly with eyeliner. Tears filled the
affected eye.
To say she didn’t look her best was an understatement.
Maybe you’re drunk, she told her reflection.
Her next drink would be a coke, she decided. A nice,
cool, civilized coke on the rocks.
Claire seemed to be having a whale of a time back
at the bar. Lucky divil! Somebody was chatting her
up. He looked coincidentally like Simon from the
back. Good Jaysus, it
was
Simon. What on earth
was he doing here?
‘Hello, Anna.’ Simon gave her a friendly punch.
‘What’s the story?’
Anna didn’t know. What
was
the story? Claire
gave her a guilty
I can’t stop him coming along can I?
look. Anna resigned herself to spending the rest
of the evening with a married couple. Great. The
American had disappeared. She almost wished he
hadn’t.
‘I’m exhausted,’ Claire whispered to Anna eventually,
after the three of them (Claire and Simon
holding hands) had stood around awkwardly for
a while. ‘I’m worried about leaving the babysitter,
you know . . . it’s late.’
‘Can you not send Simon home?’ Anna was
annoyed.
‘Ooo-kay . . . I’ll say it to him, but . . .’
‘No go,’ Anna snapped, ‘I’ll be all right here by
myself.’
‘Are you sure?’ Claire didn’t seem to think it was
the best idea she’d ever heard. ‘I’m not sure I like
the idea of you going home on your own.’
‘Hopefully I
won’t
be going home on my own.’
‘Well, if you’re positive.’ Claire squeezed her hand.
Anna was very sorry her friend was disappearing
so early. She could have begged her to stay but was
determined not to grovel. So, with a nonchalant
shrug, she shed her security blanket. And insisted
Claire left without her. Simon gave her a brotherly
hug. Claire kissed both her cheeks. They were gone.
It all happened so fast.
Right, thought Anna, I think I’ll have a bit of a
walk around. Simon had bought her another beer
(although she’d asked for a coke) before they’d left.
She set off in the direction of the dance floor, pint
glass in hand.
Hopefully someone would stop to chat her up.
Guys always did that when you walked around on
your own, didn’t they? Not this time. Anna got
around the nightclub’s perimeter fairly fast. Well,
that walk had proved fairly fruitless. What now? She
couldn’t do a second lap for at least ten minutes. She
lit a fag. And smoked it.
‘Have you got a light?’ Crikey, it was the dish
from the dance floor.
Anna blinked, not quite believing her luck. ‘Sure,’
she said coolly. Hopefully he wouldn’t just light up
and leave. She wasn’t going to let him just use her like
that. She held out the flickering flame and watched
him lean forward, catching it in a split second. He
inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.
‘So where’s your boyfriend?’ He raised an eyebrow.
He was quietly confident. Mysterious. Well,
compared to the usual louts she met in clubs. Very
intelligent. Anna guessed he was trying to work her
out. She intrigued him somehow. Good. That’s what
she was there for.
‘That oul lad on the dance floor?’ she giggled.
‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Right.’ He blew a perfectly formed smoke ring.
Anna watched it drift towards the ceiling.
‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ Anna decided to play
him at his own game.
‘I don’t have one,’ he said, ‘yet.’
She was glad the club was so dark. Dark enough
for him not to notice the scarlet rash rapidly disfiguring
the side of her neck. The heat was something
else.
‘Who was the girl on the dance floor, so?’ Anna
decided to be direct.
‘A friend.’
God, he didn’t give much away, did he? But to
be fair he was neither sleazy nor smarmy, more
smouldering and sharp. Anna wasn’t smitten. Of
course she wasn’t. But she could see how other girls
could be.
‘Listen,’ he looked at her levelly, ‘I could stand
here for half an hour and tell you you’re the most
beautiful girl in the world and that I’m not like other
men and all that crap, right?’
‘Right,’ said Anna, wondering where on earth this
could be leading.
‘Or I could be honest.’
Honest. It was a word Anna liked. Although
admittedly she wasn’t too familiar with it.
‘Yes?’ she emitted faintly.
‘Look, I like you. Or at least I think I do. I saw
you on the dance floor. I thought, “Hey, not bad!”
Now here I am. I’d like your number. If you don’t
want to give it to me, I’ll give you mine.’
‘No, I’ll give you mine,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t ring
men,’ she added untruthfully. Well, it wasn’t a
complete
lie. She did try very hard not to ring men.
Especially those who quite obviously never rang
back. But she was learning. These days when a
guy failed to ring, she’d try them maybe only . . .
say, three times (an improvement on bygone days!)
just to be one hundred per cent sure that they were
sure they never wanted to see her again.
He asked the barman for a pen and scribbled her
number on the back of his hand.
‘Thanks,’ he surprised her with a quick peck on
the cheek, ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘But . . . where are you
going
?’ Anna was alarmed.
He had to see her home. He had to. She couldn’t be
seen leaving the club alone. There was nothing more
humiliating than leaving a club on your own.
‘It’s my er . . . friend. She’s had a lot to drink and
is in a bad way. I can’t leave her on her own.’
‘Well, we could drop her off and go on somewhere,’
Anna said in a little voice and nearly bit
her own tongue off. What was she like? God, she
might as well stand on top of one of the speakers
and scream DESPERATE! Stay cool, she told herself.
‘Actually,’ she resumed her cool exterior, ‘on second
thoughts, you’d better go. My friends would kill me
if I just left without saying goodbye.’
‘Where are they?’ He looked round expectantly as
if a group of screaming girls might suddenly jump
out at him from behind the DJ’s box.
‘Oh, they’re over at the other bar,’ Anna said,
quick as lightning. ‘The queues are something else.’
‘Right.’ He gave her a quick peck again. ‘I’ll be in
touch.’
He was gone!
So much for a night of fun and frolic. Anna
examined her chipped Revlon red nails under the
flashing disco lights. She now knew the profound
meaning of loneliness in a crowd. She had to get
out of there. A single girl had no business staying
in a nightclub alone until the early hours of Sunday
morning. But she couldn’t leave yet, of course. Like
a prisoner she felt trapped behind the nightclub’s
imaginary bars. It was sad, she knew, but if she
bumped into that guy and his
friend
on her way
out her cover would be blown. God, she didn’t
even know his name. She fished out the shoddy
piece of paper from her bag. Rick. His name was
scrawled above his mobile number. He shouldn’t
have bothered giving her his number too. As if she
was going to ring him! Jesus, he’d better be worth
all this hassle.
Anna wandered unhappily around the club aiming
for nowhere in particular. Her head was like a
fairground complete with roller coasters and a big
wheel. Everything was spinning around fast and furiously,
and then something just suddenly snapped.
She’d had enough. Her safe little flat in Ranelagh
seemed very appealing right now. Wouldn’t it be
great to be like Dorothy in
The Wizard of Oz
, click
your fingers and simply say ‘Home Sweet Home’ or
whatever the hell she had said.