Sugarcoated (3 page)

We shared the packet of Minstrels outside the news-agent’s. Not exactly 50-50, if I’m being honest. I always eat two at once, gannet that I am. But I don’t think Stefan noticed.

Nah. He seemed obsessed by the fact that I’d been all alone-o inside Quinn’s when the hammer drama kicked off. But not obsessed in a nosey old Mulleny kind of way. No. And definitely
not
because he was gagging for gory details involving blood or smashed teeth or broken bones. Stefan only wanted to know about the hammer attack because –
sweetie pie
– he was worried about the effect it might have had on little old
moi
.

‘You must have been
terrified
, Claudia. You poor thing,’ Stefan put his hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. When he sighed his breath smelt of chocolate. Mmmm.

‘Two men smash up another while you’re stuck in
the optician’s all by yourself? Just you? No customers?’

As he probed me with questions, Stefan stroked my shoulders.

‘Yeah, only me. Dad was on lunch,’ I shrugged, mainly to nestle against the weight of his hands.
This is unreal
, I was still thinking. From where I stood, practically in Stefan’s lovin’ arms, eating chocolate to boot (Does life get any sweeter?) I could see our shop. It was garlanded with police tape. Dad was outside it, shaking his head.

‘Look, Pa. Ain’t such a crap day after all. I’m being chatted up! And not by a gargoyle!’
I was tempted to yell out. But I don’t think Dad would have given me thumbs-up right now. He’d his back to me and his thumbs were otherwise engaged. One was jabbing at the mess on his window, the other at some noddy-suit huddled over the outline of the hammered man plucking the ground with tweezers.

‘Just as well Dad was elsewhere,’ I told Stefan, pointing him to the scene. ‘He’d’ve tried to stop the attack. Got himself whacked by a pair of hammer-psychos, knowing him.’

‘You saw them?’

‘Huh?’

Stefan’s fingers stopped stroking. Pressed into my collarbone instead. ‘You saw the guys who did this? Have you given a statement to the police?’ Stefan’s grip grew less gentle as he spoke. I twisted to free myself.

‘Hey –’

‘Oh, Claudia. Sorry. It’s just that –’ Stefan’s fingers relaxed. He ran his hands the length of my arms till he reached my sticky paws. His knees crooked so his pale grey eyes were level with mine. The little smirk he shrugged me dimpled at the left side of his mouth. Made him look baby-faced.

‘Sometimes,’ he said, while I tried to guess his age –
Eighteen? Twenty? More? Impossible to tell
– ‘you hear about people helping the police and they end up …’

‘End up what?’

donk donk donk

When the phone in Stefan’s soft suede jacket pulsed, I felt the vibration in our joined hands. Like we shared a heartbeat:

donk donk donk,
Another One Bites The …
donk donk donk …

‘Don’t you ever answer that?’ I nodded at the sound. ‘Hate to be
your
girlfriend.’

‘How can you stay that, Claudia? D’you want to break my heart, babes?’ Stefan let go my hands to dig out his phone. He cut the call again. Then he thumbed his menu button. Handed the mobile to me. It was a tiny, sexy slip of stainless steel. State of the art.

CLAUDIA – ADD NUMBER: its screen winked.

So I accepted the invitation. Good thing too.

My own mobile rang as soon as I handed his back.

‘Hi? Claudia? It’s Stefan. Can I see you later? Please say yes, babes?’ Before I’d even fished mine out my pocket Stefan’s eyes were pleading over his tiny, sexy mobile, while my tinny non-polyphonic ringtone embarrassed me by playing
I Am the Walrus.

‘You don’t know
anything
about this guy, you nutter,’ I giggled, floating home after agreeing to meet Stefan outside the Underground. Couple of hours from now.

‘You don’t know what age he is, where he lives, what he does, his surname … So what, he’s
GORGEOUS
. Live dangerously,’ I announced at volume to a small boy zigzagging towards me on a scooter, head down. He wouldn’t be doing that again. Not without a helmet. Not to
my
pelvis anyway.

Yeah, live dangerously, I decided. What else was I going to do? Get Starsky and Hutch to run a police check on Stefan?

Hire manly Marjory as my bodyguard?

Was I going to send Stefan a text questionnaire:

Excuse me, most gorgeous guy
I’ve ever met. See before you
go down in history as my FIRST
and ONLY date, d’you mind
ticking the following boxes to
disclose whether or not you
are:

A. A psycho axe-murderer.
B. The Devil in a suede jacket.
C. Just after me for my body.
(Ooooh yes please!)

It wasn’t as if five foot ten, size-nine-footed Desperate Dinas like Clodhopper Quinn here could be choosers. And frankly, with a back-story like mine in romance, two hours with a psycho axe-murderer was a score in my book! I’d make sure me and Stefan stuck to public, well-lit areas. I’d even ask him to leave his axe behind the bar. Politely, of course.

‘Anyway, we’re only going for a
drink
,’ I reassured the showered, naked hefty slad of flesh filling my bedroom table mirror. Then I groaned. Aye and it would be ONE drink, too. Then
Time, gentlemen, please;
the state of me.

‘Nice knowing you Claudia,’ as I imagined Stefan’s eyes scrutinising what I was seeing right now, I also heard his voice in my head. It was giving me the brush-off in the slightest foreign accent – Swedish? Danish maybe? Sexy whatever it was. ‘Specially when it was calling me ‘babes’.

‘Sorry, Claudia. I think you’ve a brilliant personality but you and I just aren’t right for each …’

In a Scandinaviany whisper, I armoured my reflection for the inevitable:
‘Clod, you’re fired!’

Yeah. I’d give my relationship with Stefan half an hour tops. Before he acted on impulse again with a lassie, he’d be booking in at my dad’s for an ocular oil-change and service.

Oh well, being somebody’s babes was fun while it lasted. I consoled myself with the half-eaten Jaffa-cake I found next to my bed. Hardly the comfort food I needed. Especially when I opened my wardrobe and discovered that the Special Outfit Fairy I’d made a wish for in the shower wasn’t flitting about inside waving her magic wand over the latest
Who’s Looking at Me, Anyway? Collection
.

For my FIRST and ONLY Date I’d a choice of changing into my ONE and ONLY pair of jeans that zipped up properly. Either that, or I squeezed back into the Quinn’s Family Eyecare navy polyester uniform trousers I’d been wearing all day. These are hideous on me. So hideous that
even
Mum, a diplomat with thirty years’ experience of telling people what they really look like in specs that do nothing for them, and someone who never, ever,
ever
comments on my statuesque dimensions suggested, when Dad insisted I wore them for work, ‘Sean, they’re not exactly the best cut when you’re as well-built as our Cloddy.’

My last-resort sartorial options were the Ozzy Osbourne-style joggies I favoured for slobbing round the house in … or – Wait for it – my school skirt. It was pleated. Shiny-seated. Brown. And in the dirty laundry basket.

‘So I have
nothing
decent to wear.’

For the First Time in my entire life I wished my mum was here to deal with my First Ever Fashion Crisis. Not in Melbourne. Waiting for my brother’s wife to finally make her a glammy granny and me an
auntie. Mum would have celebrated my Nothing To Wear Emergency by taking me on the kind of Ultimate Shopping Spree she’s prayed and dreamed her Clyde-Built Disappointment Of A Daughter might desire some day.

But Mum wasn’t here. Nor any handy fashionista girlfriends with plus-size clothes to lend. Not
any
mates, come to think of it, with my best mate Georgina on the other side of the globe just when I needed her most. Alas and alack. But I’d no time to dwell on my lone-o status. Not right now when I’d an hour max to get myself tarted up. Either that or I dingied Stefan. With a no-show, or a text:

Srry.Cnt mke 2nite.Bi.

That’s why, as a last resort, I ended up in Mum’s room, plundering her wardrobe.

How sad was that? My mum’s forty-nine, for God’s sake. Size twelve body. Size four feet. She’s what you’d call ‘laydee-like’, as in USA First-Lady-like. Into knee-length dresses and killer heels, or twinky little skirt
suits like Jackie O used to wear. She hates women in trousers. Believes there should a law making it a fashion crime, punishable by public flogging in Top Shop, for anyone over sixteen to be caught wearing jeans. Over age and
size
sixteen. Which means Mum’s Law would criminalise me. Her Big Clod Of An Only Daughter.

Look at you. Complete and utter lost cause
, I could hear Mum right now. Chanting her mantra of disappointment at the sight of me squeezed into her Ralph Lauren Little Black Dress. I was wearing it skin-tight (not by choice) and tunic-style over my tatty jeans.

‘But I’m in a frock, Mum. Look!’ I picked Mum’s wedding photo from her bedside table. Panned it over me on the off-chance it was a portal to Down Under. ‘And I’m going on a date. This guy. He just started talking to me …’

Picked me up in the newsagent’s
…

Mum’s twenty-year-old eyes stared thirty years into the future. Locked on mine.

Hold on, Cloddy
, the eyes in the photo seemed to narrow slightly.

Where
did you meet this, this
…?

Stefan, he’s called. He just picked me up …

All sounds a bit sudden, Cloddy. Nice boys just don’t … You just make sure you … And let me see what you’re wearing? Why are you all unbuttoned like that?

I clamped my hand to the opening of Mum’s dress, hiding the spill of my boobs. When I’d put it on, I left the front deliberately undone.

And why wouldn’t I flash my two best assets?

Rather than make myself as decent as the innocent bride-smile on my mum’s face, I placed the wedding photo face-down on her bed.

Well you just better watch yourself, Cloddy
. I imagined I could still hear Mum’s duvet-muffled warning.
D’you know where this Stefan’s taking you? Find out and tell your dad, OK? Is there money on your phone? D’you have enough for a taxi? You won’t be leaving drinks with this fella if you go to the Ladies –

Leave my drink? I wouldn’t be out long enough to need a pee, I convinced myself, swiping one of Mum’s scarlet lipsticks randomly over my mouth. Then swiping my mouth clean again. Who was I kidding?
Trying to scrub up. There’d be no need to tell Dad
nothing
about my plans! This date would be history before Dad’s standing Saturday evening rendezvous with
Doctor Who
was over. He wouldn’t even known I was out and I’d be back in my room. Joggies on.

So don’t worry, Mum
. I was locking the front door, walking up the garden path, talking aloud to myself. I confess I tend to do that when I’m alone on the lane that connects our house to the street. Either talk or hum. Helps take my mind off how far us Quinns live from the nearest neighbour …

Anyway – phew – I could see the street now. That’s where I caught a final glimpse of myself in the privacy windows and spotless paintwork of another of those massive yummy-mummy cars. Must have had dodgy Sat Nav or something to be parked, engine running, at the end of our lane.

Before I could decide if it was the same make of car as the one Dad and the Mullens walked out in front of earlier, it sleeked away. My reflection tracked along its nearside. It was not an inspiring sight.
Seventeen, and
your First and Only date’ll be a speed date
,
I bet myself a
fish supper on the way home. In that time I’d be lucky to get Stefan’s surname, let alone his life history.

But I lost my bet.

No fish supper.

Still, even
I
wouldn’t have managed it. Not after Caesar salad, fillet steak with mash, and a medley of fine Italian ice creams. All washed down with champagne. Two bottles Stefan and I necked between us. Well, I necked. Mainly.

Good going for a debut date. Not that I could personally compare the situation with anything.

All I knew was the first night my best pal Georgina stepped out with Amazingly Intelligent Adrian (who has since turned out to be The Love Of Her Life) they shared a smoothie in Starbucks. Cost and straw. By the way, on the subject of Georgina, walking to the Underground to meet Stefan I reminded myself not to forget every juicy detail of my date, so I could debrief Georgina later. Not face to face, alas and alack, but in
the weekly email I’d be sending through cyberspace to a godforsaken village in India or Africa or somewhere flyblown with no running water and sporadic electricity. That’s where Georgina, my Bestest Buddy, was off gap-yearing. With Amazingly Intelligent Adrian instead of Amazingly Unintelligent
moi
. Double alas and alack! Mum’s right: I really was Clod by name and Clod by nature. After all, the single solitary significant thing I’d managed to do properly and thoroughly in my life thus far was fail. All my big exams last year. Spectacularly 100 per cent result! Ds and No Mentions. Which is why I was stuck in sixth form doing five resits without a decent mate for company. Hating every minute of it. But that’s another story …

Far
more interesting was what I’d be reporting to Georgina in this week’s bulletin from the Civilised City:

How Stefan – black jacket, black t-shirt, still full-on gorgeous – was already waiting for me outside the Underground. A rose poking out the back pocket of his jeans. OK: cheesy gesture, but Stefan just about got away with it. The rose was for me, after all.

As Stefan passed the flower over he kissed me on both cheeks –
mwa, mwa, mwa
– Continental-style, and tickled my nose with its petals so my knees buckled. Then he took my hand and said, ‘You look
un
believable, babes.’

With attention like that from a dreamboat who did not appear to be paying some kind of forfeit, no wonder the night turned into something of a blur. Even before I partook of intoxicating refreshment I realised I wouldn’t even be able to give Georgina the name of the restaurant we went to. Or where it was. Although my problems with the alcohol-free portion of the evening happened because for most of the taxi-ride to an address I didn’t catch Stefan giving the driver, I’d my eyes on the meter and my mind doing mental subtraction on the twenty-quid note I’d shoved in my back pocket. I’ve a notion I was humming again too. Just a touch of
Tragedy
. That’s until the fare ticked up to £18.60 and I must have stopped breathing or something. Stefan chuckled and covered my eyes with his hand.

‘Hey. Relax. Blink. Exhale. Never worry about a
thing when I’m taking care of you, babes,’ he murmured, sliding his hand from my eyes to my cheek. Holding it there so I nearly swooned from the heat and scent of his skin and the hint of cologne on his wrist. A perfect moment if I hadn’t had to share it with the ugly little snake tattooed there, it’s forked tongue flicking out as flame instead of flesh.

Still, despite the disappointment of my sweet-talking guy having one imperfection (I HATE tattoos), as far as I was concerned I was in heaven already when our taxi chugged up a cobbled lane and dropped us outside an archway sprinkled in fairy lights. Lazy jazz guitar drifted up to greet me and Stefan as, fingers threaded through mine, he led me down down down a steep, uneven stairway.

‘Where are we?’ I asked when we were standing in pitch darkness waiting for someone to answer three hard raps Stefan had given a door I could only presume was there.

‘Here,’ he said as the door opened and the jazzy music grew louder. I’d stepped into a smallish room. It was low ceilinged. Candlelit. Partitioned into four or
five booths, each one draped with thick, spangled voile through which I could barely distinguish shapes: dark jackets and bulky outlines of men. The glint of a bracelet or necklace against bare, female skin. Not to mention the shock glow of an illegal indoors cigarette. From each booth voices rose and fell in chatter. Adult voices: pealing females, muttering men. No one my age. Or Stefan’s, for that matter.
Though I can’t figure his age. And this is a grown-up place
, I decided, aware of crystal and cutlery and laughter tinkling and chinking to accompany two musicians in sharp suits and pork pie hats. In the furthest corner of the room one brushed a drumkit, his eyes permanently closed. The other – a dead ringer for BB King – riffed on a massive chrome guitar.

‘Where are we? A Glasgow speakeasy?’ I asked, obeying the beckon of a spherical tuxedoed man who was at least a foot smaller than myself. Without a word he marched me and Stefan into the only unoccupied booth.

‘Why d’you ask? Don’t you like? You more a Burger King girl?’ Even as he made the suggestion, and
before I could snap back – a tad offended –
Do I look like
a Burger King girl
?
Stefan was tugging me down to sit beside him. So I plomped on to a plush bench of padded velvet. On the table in front of me a bottle of champagne peeked from an ice bucket. It was already open.

‘No … it’s just it’s all … amazing.’ I took the glass Mr Tuxedo filled and Stefan handed to me.
It’s a sophisticated, 100-per-cent-non-Clod Quinn kind of a place,
I was thinking,
and here’s me in my jeans and no make-up …

‘Well then, if you’re happy, does it matter where we are?’ Stefan was smiling broadly at Mr Tuxedo. By the time I’d looked up to see if he was included in our conversation, we were alone in the booth.

‘To us,’ Stefan raised his glass. ‘Cheers! Saluti! Mazel Tof!’ he grinned, necking his champagne in a oner. Not knowing any better, Coke being the only fizzy drink I normally swig with my din-dins, I did the same. Course it went straight to my head.

‘Zat one of your customs? Sloshing back the bev?’

Before I’d even put down my empty glass I was
giggling, trying not to snot champagne bubbles.

‘Customs?’ Stefan was frowning. Refilling my glass. Guiding it to my lips.

‘Y’know: Mazel Tof! Down the hatch! One of your foreign customs,’ I sloshed another toast at Stefan, ‘Coz you’re not from … y’know? Here.’ When I waved my drink in the air, I managed to sluice wine all down my hand and over the sleeve of Mum’s Ralph Lauren dress. ‘You’re Norwegian or Dutch or Swedey or …?’

‘My passport says British Citizen, clumsy Claudia.’ Stefan interrupted my list of fantasy Nordic types – before I could suggest ‘Finnish’ or ‘Icelandic’ or ‘Viking’ – by taking my wet hand in his and kissing it. That was enough to make me forget what I was asking him about. But when he started to lick drips of champagne from the inside of my wrist …