What If?

by Shari Low

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Well, I tell you what. Something says to me that you’re not trouble. Three of our waitresses haven’t shown up tonight. If you can start right now, I’ll give you a trial. I’ll pay you cash, that way the permits won’t be a problem.’

  I wanted to hug him, but I tried to show a modicum of restraint. I’d already had one emotional breakdown in front of the poor guy, so I didn’t want to completely terrify him by invading his personal space and going for a full blown cuddle.

  ‘Go downstairs and ask for Jackie – she’ll find you a uniform.’

  Please God, don’t let the uniform be a rabbit’s tail and a pair of ears.

  ‘Thank you,’ I stammered. ‘I’ll work really hard.’

  And I did. For six months, I worked six nights a week in the club – no rabbit’s tail, no ears, and the place was as classy as Joe had promised. I made friends easily with the other girls and would often arrange to meet them before work for coffee. We’d sit in a little café on the edge of a canal and drink coffee and people watch all afternoon. Transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, drag kings, dominatrix, gay couples, straight couples – it seemed like every section of society was represented on the streets of Amsterdam, without judgement or prejudice. It was a world away from my working class, close knit upbringing and I adored it. The only downside was that I missed Kate, Sarah, Jess and Carol desperately and wished I could share this with them, but as a first year apprentice in a hair salon, struggling students, and a fledgling model, none of them had the money to come over, even for a weekend. I had to settle for quick notes dashed off on postcards, letting them know I was still alive.

  In some ways, I’d transitioned to a new life, a new world, and most of the time it felt like my previous life didn’t exist. There was a lot of that in this city. Maybe that’s why I continued to live in the Dam Central Hotel, even though the girls from the club thought I was insane, because in a funny way I’d grown to love it. The owner was an eccentric Frenchman called René, who, after he had established that I wasn’t a drug dealing hooker, became almost fatherly in his affection for me. Or at least, what I thought fatherly affection would be like if it wasn’t drowning in bourbon. He would wait up for me in the evenings and bring me coffee each morning whilst I regaled him with stories about the previous night’s customers. The businessmen who dropped more money than I earned in a month on their bar bills. The models who looked like they could do with a pie. The fashionistas, the glitterati, the celebrities, the bizarre characters in their outlandish costumes. The pimps and dealers that made the mistake of trying to do business and were rapidly ejected by the security guys.

  As for Joe, he always made time to have a quick chat in the evenings and he’d often join us for a dawn breakfast at the end of a shift, or for coffee in the afternoons. Watching him work had been an education. He ran the club like clockwork, with a fine balance of toughness and decency, and despite our age difference, we always seemed to have loads to talk about. He made me feel safe, protected, but it was more than that. We were friends. Not close enough that I could give him my opinion of the stunning women he occasionally dated – all gorgeous, glamorous socialites on the Amsterdam scene, and all of them brief flings that he never seemed to take too seriously – but close enough that we would watch an afternoon movie at the cinema and spend hours debating the merits of Miami Vice versus Hill Street Blues.

  I was settled. I was happy. Until the universe decided to toss a grenade in my direction.

  On a chilly afternoon in March, I was sitting in the coffee bar on the ground floor of the hotel, watching the world go by through the large window that faced on to the street, when suddenly my mother passed before my eyes. I closed them quickly, thinking that someone must have slipped a hallucinogen into my croissant, but when I reopened them, she was still there. And so was my dad. And my gran. My GRAN, for God’s sake! She’d never been further than Skegness in her life. This might only be a sea away from Scotland but I lived on the cusp of a different world and not one that my granny should ever have to see.

  My heart started racing and I didn’t know whether to make a dash for the back door or hide under a table. I opted for the nearest table. Shit, shit, shit. Maybe they would pass by. Maybe they were just on a weekend break and it was just coincidence that they were here. Or maybe Callum had told them where I was and they’d come to drag me back, kicking and screaming. I’d written to them when I got a job and told them I was living in Amsterdam, but I hadn’t said where exactly, just that I was safe and well, and having an adventure. I’m fairly sure my mother’s head would have exploded on reading it. Only Callum knew my actual address, courtesy of weekly letters I sent to his best friend’s house, and I’d sworn him to secrecy.

  Shit, shit, shit. I felt a draught as the door opened and then the footsteps of people entering. Don’t let it be them. Don’t let it be them. Don’t let it be them.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the unmistakable voice of my mother to a stunned René, who was still reeling from the fact that one minute I’d been chatting to him and the next I was camouflaged as a table leg. ‘I’m looking for my daughter. Her name is Carly Cooper.’

  Silence.

  ‘Does she live here?’ my mother persisted in her posh ‘telephone or talking to the priest’ voice. I knew what she was doing. She was looking around thinking that the hotel was a dosshouse and all the people in it were obviously fugitives who’d broken their bail conditions.

  More silence. Now I knew how criminals feel when they’re cornered by the police. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do except surrender with my hands in the air.

  I slowly rose from under the table, banging my head on the way up. I smiled ruefully.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I stammered. ‘What brings you here?’

  As reunions go, it wasn’t the warmest. My mum had come on a mission to take me home and had brought my dad and gran in the hope that they’d back her up. That was the first flaw in the plan. My dad was already eyeing the bar and my granny had plonked herself down at a table with two punks sporting blue Mohicans and was telling them about the terrible time she’d had last time she went to the hairdressers for a perm and a silver rinse. Her curls were still a shade of pale purple. She was a giggle, my gran, and I adored her, but that wasn’t enough to get me on a plane home.

  I was outnumbered but defiant. I had no intention of leaving. After all, couldn’t they see that I was still in one piece after six months? When I put this point to a foaming-at-the-mouth mother, it was swiftly rebuffed.

  ‘Look, madam…’ She always called me ‘madam’ when she was severely pissed off. ‘We left you here for six months, thinking that the novelty would wear off and you’d eventually come home, but you obviously prefer living in squalor!’

  René looked mortally offended.

  ‘But this has gone on long enough, so you’re coming with us, young lady, this minute!’

  Eventually, after much shouting and arguing, I brokered a deal using powers of political diplomacy that would have made Jess proud.

  ‘Tell you what, Mum,’ I conceded. ‘Stay for two days and you can meet my friends and see where I work and if you still disapprove, then I’ll come back.’ I wasn’t sure what that would accomplish, but I was desperately trying to buy time.

  She hummed, hawed, pursed and unpursed her lips, before realising that, short of dragging me out by the hair, it was as close as she was going to get to victory in round one. She reluctantly agreed.

  My dad finally found his voice. ‘Do you have to work today?’

  ‘No, Dad. It’s my night off tonight.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we go back to our hotel and change, then we’ll meet you back here at eight and you can show us the Amsterdam night life.’

  I knew what he was doing. He wanted to go out on the town to see if his closest friend also vacationed in Amsterdam, but I didn’t care. He was offering me a reprieve from my mum’s disapproval. God bless
Jack Daniel’s.

  They arrived back at eight o’clock on the dot. My mum always was a stickler for punctuality. It was a warm spring evening and in a world of tourists and jaw dropping characters, she stuck out like a sore thumb in her flowery dress and sensible pumps. My granny was wearing her trusty faves – crimplene slacks and her best bingo cardigan – and my dad, in his seamed chinos and polo shirt, looked like he was en route to the nineteenth hole.

  ‘What do you want to see, Dad?’

  ‘Why don’t we just have a wander around this area and we’ll see where it takes us?’ He was already slurring slightly.

  ‘But, Dad, this is the Red Light district.’

  ‘We’ll see something new then, won’t we?’ he replied with a wink.

  My mother snorted her disapproval and I grinned. My dad really was the oldest swinger in town.

  We set off down the adjacent streets. It was fairly quiet, the crowds not usually building up until after nine, but already there were some girls sitting in their windows, hoping for early trade. This wasn’t helping my case to stay here at all. My mother wouldn’t last two hours here, never mind two days.

  I was on the lookout for a sling to keep her chin off the ground when we suddenly realised that my gran was no longer with us. We searched around frantically and finally saw her about a hundred yards back, staring in a window with a red light above it and a buxom brunette, wearing a leopard-skin bra and G-string, sitting in it. My gran looked like a senior citizen lesbian voyeur.

  ‘Gran,’ I shouted. ‘Come on. What are you doing?’

  She bustled up to us. ‘I was just looking in the window of that lingerie shop, dear. I may be too old to wear it, but I can still admire it,’ she added with a twinkle in her eye.

  The rest of us collapsed in hysterics. Even my mum managed a giggle. Thank God Gran hadn’t had her specs checked in ten years. She honestly thought she was looking at a mannequin modelling the latest line in undies.

  We wandered on until Gran demanded we stop for liquid refreshment. Needless to say, Dad wasn’t arguing. In the first pub we came to, there was an eclectic mixture of pimps, pushers and tourists sampling the seedier side of the city.

  We got drinks at the bar and found a free table. After a few moments of my mother’s silent disapproval, I was relieved when my gran broke the tension by announcing she was going to the loo. Standing up, she was scanning the place for a LADIES sign when a giant of a man wearing a gold rope the size of a tow chain passed her.

  ‘My, that must have cost a fortune, son,’ she remarked, invoking that Glaswegian theory of life that says it’s perfectly acceptable to speak to everyone you meet and verbalise every thought with no offence intended.

  He looked at her like she was insane and thankfully kept walking.

  ‘He must have some job to be able to afford jewellery like that,’ she whistled.

  ‘I, erm, think he’s in sales, Gran.’

  A frown of puzzlement creased her pan stick foundation. ‘What kind of sales?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Maybe coke?’ It was one of the most popular drugs of choice among the clubbers around here.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be having any of that,’ she wittered. ‘Those fizzy drinks give me terrible indigestion.’

  I put my head in my hands as she spotted the toilets and beetled off. Tears of laughter coursed down my face. She really was priceless. She was also going to land us in serious trouble unless I got her away from this madness. I decided to take them to the Premier Club. At least there we would be safe from my gran’s naive utterings and there would be a better class of reveller for my mother to disapprove of.

  As we approached, Chad, the doorman, grinned widely.

  ‘Hey, Cooper, what you doin’ here, babe? I thought this was your night off.’

  ‘It is, Chad, but my family have arrived from Scotland and I just wanted to let them see where I work. Can you let Joe know we’re here?’

  We went inside and found a table. The act tonight was a Harry Connick Jnr lookalike, who was belting out ‘I’ve got you under my skin’.

  ‘Oh, I love this song,’ exclaimed Gran as she dragged my dad on to the dance floor, an easy task now that his limbs were lubricated to the consistency of rubber. She was soon quickstepping her heart away, looking like a star performer from Footloose – the Senior Years.

  Joe joined my mum and I at the table. He immediately registered the general displeasure radiating from my mum and had the whole situation sussed in ten seconds.

  ‘Mrs Cooper, I’m Joe Cain. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  Mum gave him a look that would freeze hell, but Joe just kept on going, at his charming best.

  ‘You must be really proud of your daughter.’

  Proud? What was he up to? My mum looked like she was about to develop an ulcer the size of Orkney and he was saying she should be proud.

  ‘And what exactly should I be proud of, Mr Cain?’

  ‘Of Carly. She’s done great since she got here. I think it’s so commendable that she’s over here, working hard whilst developing her language skills and cultural education.’

  ‘Really?’ I couldn’t tell if her tone was sarcastic, disbelieving or mellowing.

  ‘Why yes, Mrs Cooper. Her Dutch and French are coming along great and she spends her whole life in the museums and galleries here. It’s invaluable experience for a girl of her age.’ He grinned at me.

  What in God’s name was he on about? The only French and Dutch I spoke was ‘good evening’ and ‘goodbye’. And the only time I went near a museum was to sit on the steps outside on a sunny day to top up my tan.

  Stop, Joe, stop, I silently willed him.

  But my mum was definitely softening. She had relaxed her shoulders and was almost smiling.

  He continued. ‘And as for her work here, well, you can see that this is a very respectable club and Carly has worked so hard that we’ve decided to promote her to assistant manager.’

  WHAT? Had he been taking the kind of drugs that were strictly banned from the premises? This was all news to me. I mean, sure, I loved my job and was always ready to work extra hours and stay late. And yes, I’d taken to organising the staff and doing the weekly orders. But promotion? I wanted to kiss him.

  When Fred and Ginger returned from the dance floor, Mum introduced them to Joe. Within ten minutes, he’d won them over, using charm on my gran and a free bar tab on my dad.

  He sat with us for the rest of the evening, even persuading my mum to dance a couple of times. He was outstanding and at some point my heart did a somersault and I started to see him in a whole new light.

  We finally left at 3 a.m., everyone a little drunk (or a lot, in my dad’s case) and very happy. Joe walked us to the door and insisted that we let him take us to lunch the following day.

  ‘That would be just lovely, Joe,’ my mum agreed amiably. ‘I’m looking forward to it already.’ It was my turn now to scrape my jaw off the floor. I’d never seen her look so… I struggled to pinpoint it, before realising with shock that she was relaxed.

  Joe winked at me and I blew him a kiss. He was spectacular.

  The next day, lunch in the conservatory of the American Hotel was followed by a tour of the Van Gogh Gallery, where I pretended I’d been there many times before, and then dinner in the Krasnapolski. Joe gave me another night off and for once he didn’t go to work either. He couldn’t have been more attentive to my family or to me for that matter. What was going on? And why had my heart started thundering the minute he walked into a room?

  My mum and gran sat down to breakfast with me on their final day. Dad was upstairs nursing his daily hangover.

  ‘Carly, your dad and I have been talking and it seems that you’ve done well for yourself here. We would have no right to force you to come home and I’m sorry I underestimated you. I was only concerned because we want you to be safe. I hope you know that.’

  ‘I do, Mum,’ I said, not sure I could believe what I was hearing. Swe
et Jesus, it was a miracle. ‘But I’m happy here and I don’t want to leave.’

  Gran spoke up. ‘That’s okay, Carly, ma darling. We understand. If I had a friend like your Mr Cain, I wouldn’t want to leave either, pet. He certainly loves you.’

  He does? Whoa. Since when? How come I didn’t know this? Surely it was all a big act to save me from the wrath of the mighty Cooper clan?

  I was still dazed as I saw them off in a cab to the airport. My parents weren’t big on displays of affection, but my granny wrapped me in a bear hug. ‘Have a ball, pet,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Right enough, that doesn’t leave much.’ With a cheeky cackle, and pursed lips from my mother, they were off and strangely, I was sad to see them go.

  ‘Get yourself together, Cooper,’ I told myself as I got ready for work that evening. I couldn’t believe it, I was nervous. Or excited. Or something that was definitely making me shake as I applied my mascara.

  I went to the club early, hoping Joe would be there. He was. I tentatively knocked on his office door.

  ‘Come in,’ he shouted.

  I entered slowly, trying my best to smile but only managing a demented grimace.

  ‘Hi. I just wanted to thank you for being so great with my parents. You didn’t have to do that and it was really nice of you. Don’t worry, I know you just said all that stuff about a promotion to get my mum off my case, so I’m not expecting anything. I want to pay you back for all the money you spent on us and I’ll make up the extra night off this week.’ My brain was screaming at me to stop talking, but my mouth was on Mission Babble.

  He sat back in his big leather chair, a languid grin on his face.

  ‘Number one, it was no problem – your folks are nice people. Number two, the promotion is genuine – I was going to tell you later in the week. Number three, I don’t want you to pay me back – I enjoyed myself. Number four, you don’t have to make up any time – you do so many extra hours that you’re owed a few days off.’