by Jackie Clune
“Bollocks,” said Stu, turning to rescue his bike from outside. “Bollocking ridiculous.”
At least the pub was just up the road. A quick half-pint would speed him on his way and oil his wheels all the way to Stockwell.
. 7.
The ladies’ loo at The Wheelbarrow was probably the tiniest cubicle on earth. Typical of British blokey boozers to give any woman brazen enough to enter its portals such a minute toilet, as if to say, “Come in, but don’t think you’re really welcome.” Amy inched her way past the hot air dryer and squeezed past the vending machine—no tampons, just condoms. Also typical.
With any luck, I won’t be needing either soon, thought Amy, clutching at the second ovulation test stick in as many months. She’d felt a strange twinge just after her first pint.
Perhaps this was what the Germans charmingly refer to as Mittelschmerz—a slight pain in the middle of the menstrual cycle associated with ovulation. She folded herself around the door, almost straddling the loo seat in order to avoid breaking her knees on it as it shut. Struggling with her tights, she attempted to wrestle her underwear to the floor. After a few attempts at getting her tights past her shins, she gave up and decided she would just have to aim properly. Weeing on target had never been her strong suit. How could she ever forget the time she’d been caught short on her way to the school disco and had managed to pee all over her new pink suede pixie boots? It had taken her six months of paper-round money to save up and buy them, and she’d gone home sobbing at her own urinary ineptitude, too ashamed to carry on in her now smelly, weesplattered footwear.
She’d wanted to be the envy of year four, not the laughingstock.
She took the test stick from its plastic wrapper and nervously placed it between her legs.
Amy couldn’t help but feel strangely excited. If two blue lines showed in a couple of minutes’ time, it was all stations are go on the baby front. She would have to emerge from the loo like a lioness on the prowl and hunt down a suitable mate for the evening. All she needed was the green light—or the blue lines. But first she would have to wee on the stick, and try as she might, she just could not get started. She thought of waterfalls, dripping taps, hosepipes. Nothing.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered out loud. Outside, the door to the washroom creaked open and Amy heard the quiet female cough alerting her to another visitor.
“Come on,” she whispered. Still nothing. This was crazy. What a time for her pee phobia to rear its head again. Since the pixie-boot debacle, she’d often suffered aim anxiety when in strange urinating situations—backpacking through Europe had almost been ruined by her inability to squat in the bushes or on foreign train loo seats—but not usually on actual toilets. Her thighs were starting to tire under the strain of squatting, and the door outside creaked again. A small queue was beginning to form. Noise from the early-evening crowd began to leak in—obviously, the latest arrivals in the loo were having to prop the door open to stand in line.
Bloody marvelous, thought Amy. But I will not give in. I need running water. Pulling her skirt down around below her knees, she slid the bolt open and sidled out of the cubicle door. A line of about six office girls stood crossly from the hot air dryer to the hallway outside.
“Sorry!” said Amy, smiling sweetly at cross girl number one. “Having a few problems.” Keeping one leg inside the cubicle, she reached over to the sink and attempted to turn on the tap. It wouldn’t budge.
“Sorry!” she said again, as cross girl number two tutted and got out her hairbrush.
With a huge wrench, Amy released the stiff faucet. Water shot out, spraying her blouse and soaking cross girl number one.
“Shit!” she shrieked. “Thanks a lot!”
“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” said Amy, ducking back in and crouching over the toilet. Whether it was the gushing tap outside, the cold water all down her front, or the diversion of the utter humiliation she had just endured, Amy finally, blissfully, began to pee. She remembered just in time to push the stick under the stream, then placed it carefully on top of the toilet-roll holder. Pulling up her tights, she wriggled out of the cubicle and began to studiously wash her hands, skillfully avoiding eye contact with the cross girls as she switched on the hot air dryer. The noise drowned out any possibility of a verbal recrimination, and Amy rubbed her hands gratefully under the warm air. It wasn’t until the dryer stopped that Amy heard the voice from inside the loo, which had the irritated tone of someone who had been calling for some time.
“Excuse me!”
“Yes?” Amy answered lamely.
“I think you left something in here?”
The test. Amy had forgotten to bring it out with her.
“Oh . . . yes sorry . . . do you just want to shove it under the door?”
“Not really. It’s covered in wee.”
“Oh, OK, I’ll wait. Sorry.”
There was a short pause.
“I can just tell you if you like,” said the woman, clearly warming to the drama of the situation.
“Erm . . . OK,” said Amy, keen to get out without having to face the woman.
“It’s got a blue line in one window. . . .”
“Yes. That just means it’s worked. Anything else?” asked Amy, by now flatly expecting a negative.
“And it’s got another little window and . . . yes, wait a minute, it’s a bit dark in here, I’ll just put my glasses on. . . .”
Amy bit her lip in irritation as the woman rummaged in her bag, just visible under the door. After what seemed like about three hours, she spoke again.
“Yes . . . I think there’s another blue line in the second window . . . yeah, definitely.”
“Sure?” said Amy.
“Yep. Hundred and ten percent,” said the woman.
“Thanks!” said Amy, adjusting her bra and dabbing on a fresh coat of lipgloss.
“Once more unto the breech, dear friends!” she announced to the slack-jawed toilet audience as she brushed past them and back into the smoke-filled bar.
. 8 .
Bollocks! Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks!” shouted Stu, rubbing his bleeding elbow. He’d just pulled out onto the road again when a taxi shot out from nowhere and clipped his back wheel, sending Stu wobbling off to one side. Fortunately, it was the pavement side.
The taxi, of course, hadn’t even bothered to stop, and although Stu made a cursory attempt to memorize the guy’s license plate, he knew there would be no follow-up. What was the point? Cabbies did this kind of thing every day. Probably every minute of every day, someone was being hurled off their bike and into the street by some road-hogging, bleary-eyed, fat-arsed cabbie. He’d landed, bike still in his grasp, on the edge of a beer barrel being used as an impromptu table outside a pub. Blood was trickling from his forearm and his elbow, and he felt as though he were fourteen again, but not in that good way when he felt inexplicably hopeful or happy—just publicly humiliated. A couple of guys about his age stopped their chatting about IT, or stocks, or whatever the hell those people talked about outside such pubs, and took the opportunity to resurrect their own inner fourteen-year-olds. They sniggered, pointed, then returned to their beers.
At least it was the right pub. Stu looked up at the inappropriately rural sign above the pub door—a smocked yokel pushing an ancient wheelbarrow full of corn through a wildflower meadow. A far cry from the cynical seven quid they were asking for a “ploughman’s lunch” inside. He limped, bleeding, into the bar and looked around for a man who looked like a likely Josh. That hardly narrowed it down. Most of the occupants looked a bit poncy, a bit posh, and most of them were men in suits. Stu clocked the gaggle of women in one corner nursing their Bacardi Breezers, one of whom he noticed was now dabbing at her damp blouse. He could spot a wet bosom at a hundred paces. But even he was not in the mood right now. He had to locate this Josh bloke, deliver his parcel, and get back on the bike and back home before Baz and the others went out without him.
Clearing his throat, he address
ed the whole room.
“Is there a Josh Johnson here?”
A few of the people close to him turned and looked dispassionately back at him before resuming their conversations. Stu tried again.
“Josh Johnson?” he shouted, waving the parcel hopefully in the air.
Still nothing. The girls had started to look at him now. One was pointing to his cycling shorts and making some comment, which her companions seemed to find highly amusing.
Stu was fed up now. The blood was dripping onto the booze-drenched carpet, and his elbow was beginning to sting like hell.
“Josh Johnson! Josh Johnson! A million quid for Josh Johnson right here in this envelope!”
The pub suddenly went quiet, and from the far corner of the bar, Stu saw a small group opening up.
“I am he!” boomed a large voice from within.
Stu made his way through the bar, finally ending up in front of the small group in the corner.
“Josh? Which one of you is Mr. Johnson?” he said, trying to mask his irritation.
“I am,” said a voice from just behind him.
Stu turned to locate the joker. She was about his age, dark-haired, and casually dressed. She was the only woman in the group and didn’t look like she fitted in at all in this environment. Her eyes met his as she broke into the cheekiest of smiles.
“At least, I am if you weren’t joking about the million quid.”
The men around her started to laugh.
“Watch her, mate, she bites,” said one of the younger guys.
“Nice shorts!” said his mate.
“Gay!” shouted the first.
Stu ignored them and wrestled with his courier bag. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could feel the woman checking him out. Without thinking about it, he drew in his stomach and gently puffed out his chest. She was definitely up for it. Or was she just one of those women who were all headlights, no engine? Would she flirt and then leave, like so many of the thirtysomething women he wasted evenings on in bars? They acted like they were up for anything, but when it came to the crunch, they left with their mates, more interested in having a laugh for the evening than taking home some scruffy bloke. Gone were the days when women needed to bag a man to feel like they’d had a successful night out.
“Can’t you find your package?” said a third guy with a northern accent.
“I can see it from here!” said the posh bloke, and the whole group erupted with laughter.
What a bunch of wankers, thought Stu as he finally located the brown padded envelope at the bottom of his bag. What was this good-looking, sexy woman doing with a crowd of plonkers like this? It never ceased to amaze him how guys like these managed to get really nice women to go out with them.
“Just sign there please,” Stu said to the posh guy.
“You’re bleeding!” the woman said suddenly.
“Oh, it’s nothing—I just got knocked off my bike outside. Happens all the time. Nothing to worry about. Occupational hazard.” He smiled, doing his best to look nonchalant but feeling slightly queasy at the amount of blood now oozing from his arm. The skin, he could see now, had come clean away and was hanging in an unsightly flap from his elbow.
“Ouch! You should get that seen to. Here, let me get you some tissue.”
Before he could object, the woman ran off in the direction of the toilets, leaving him trapped in the circle of men who were finding so much sport in his presence. Which one was she with? Surely not this chinless git with the parcel? She didn’t seem like that type. Not vacuous and “Chelsea” enough. What about the macho northern bloke, the one who’d made the crack about the content of Stu’s cycling shorts? A lot of perfectly sane women were inexplicably attracted to such Neanderthals—he’d read it in an ex-girlfriend’s Marie Claire. Something about an unreconstructed cave woman gene. Not her, though. She looked far too wry to fall for that chest-beating routine. Surely not these two idiots in their designer suits with their school-boy banter? They only looked to be about twenty-five, and she did not look like a Mrs. Robinson. With the woman temporarily absent, the atmosphere took a sober turn. It was as if all the teasing, posturing, and competing had been solely for her benefit. So perhaps she wasn’t with any of them? They started to chat among themselves, nudging Stu subtly out of the circle, returning him to his rightful social position—he was staff.
“Here you are,” said the woman, appearing by his side with a large clump of sodden toilet paper.
“It’s not very good, but it’s all they had. No first-aid box. We should probably report them.”
“Oh, thanks, it’s fine, really.”
“Let me see?”
“No!” said Stu, as she started to pull at his elbow.
She laughed and carried on.
“I don’t even know you,” cried Stu in mock-indignation. “And here you are, trying to get a look at my flesh wounds!”
“Urgh! The skin’s coming off!”
“I know, now leave it! It’ll be fine!” said Stu, playfully batting away her hand.
“No, it won’t be fine. What is it with you men? You won’t be helped, will you?” she said, clearly not a woman to be told no.
“And my name is Amy.”
“Stu.”
“Well, Stu, you really should get that seen to. Perhaps your girlfriend will be able to patch it up for you when you get home—if not, I’d go to Casualty if I were you and get it checked out.”
“Smooth,” said Stu, smiling.
“What?”
“Very smooth. ‘Your girlfriend.’ Like your style.”
“What do you mean?” said Amy, coloring slightly. Had she been rumbled? Was her seduction technique that obvious? She hadn’t even really meant to be fishing for information, but something inside her was propelling her on. Her biological clock needed no winding up.
“Yes, you’re probably right. . . . I should get it seen to. And no, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t—I mean, I wasn’t—” stumbled Amy.
“Why don’t you buy me a drink—for the shock, I mean—and we’ll forget you ever said it,” said Stu, sure now that she was within his grasp.
She hesitated for a second, then stuck out her chin and said, “Right. Large brandy coming up.”
Stu watched as she wriggled through to the bar, a slow smile spreading over his face as he observed her round, velour-clad bottom disappearing behind a pillar. It bore the word “Juicy” in white letters over the curve of her lower back.
Hope so, thought Stu. In many ways this was the best part of pulling—the banter, the checking each other out, the anticipation of what lay beneath the surface layers of clothing, and conversational innuendo. He started to plan the evening. A few drinks here (he hoped she had some money, because he’d spent his last pound on a bottle of Lucozade at lunchtime, and it would be too much of a hiatus to nip out to the cashpoint and attempt to extend his overdraft again), then, his courage bolstered by the booze, he’d suggest they move on somewhere else. They couldn’t stay in the midst of these blokes all evening; otherwise, she may mistake his interest for just general sociability. No, he would have to make his intimate intentions clear. No doubt she would “um” and “er” a bit, pretend to be in two minds, but she would eventually agree to meet him back at her place (he couldn’t be sure that Will wasn’t in the flat this evening, or that the pile of crusty washing up had been removed from the sink). Once back at her place, he could ask to have a shower—the hot water was dodgy at his flat so it had been a few days, and cycling around London all day did nothing for a boy’s armpits, especially as he didn’t believe in deodorant. Again, she might hesitate, wary of such an obvious ploy to get naked, but he would say that he needed to clean his wound and she would relent (you had to let chicks slowly realize that they want it just as much as you). From then on, when he had emerged from the shower with the towel around his waist (revealing his strong cyclist’s upper body), it would be smooth sailing. Stu let out a sigh of satisfacti
on, his routine worked out. He wondered where she lived. He’d have to take his bike—couldn’t risk leaving it chained to the railings overnight, or he’d come back to a one-wheeler in the morning. Presuming, of course, that it would be daylight by the time he returned. But surely, if he was careful and charming and didn’t move too fast, he’d be able to snare this gorgeous and wholly unexpected treasure. It was at times like this that Stu loved his life. No one to answer to, no one to go home to, nowhere to be but wherever he wanted to be in that moment. And although this rootlessness had started to pall, every new liaison these days had an air of possibility. This could be the one. This chance meeting in a pub over a cut elbow could be the stuff of wedding day speeches, of “how we met” anecdotes in years to come. Life was great. Stu sighed again in anticipation of the evening ahead.
Just play your cards right. Not too keen. Not too predatory. Don’t want to frighten the deer back into the forest, he reminded himself. The next half hour was crucial.
“Right. Drink up, then back to mine. Let’s get that wound sorted,” said Amy, thrusting a large brandy roughly into Stu’s hands.
Blimey, she is keen, he thought, gulping back the liquid and trying not to cough. He hated brandy.
“OK, nurse. Whatever you say. But I’ll have to bring my bike, so I’ll meet you there.”
“Oh,” said Amy, “fine,” scribbling her address down on a beer mat. “Don’t be long.”
“I’ll be dripping blood on your doorstep before you’re out of the West End,” said Stu, memorizing the address.
“Oh, yeah? I’ve got a BMW,” countered Amy, pulling on her leather jacket and ignoring the winks and jeers now coming from the blokes she was with.
“Race yer,” said Stu, leaping to his feet and heading for the door. This would be fun. He’d heard all about female BMW drivers. By all accounts, this ought to be the night of his life.
. 9 .
It could be tonight, thought Amy as she sped along the Embankment. She made a conscious effort to take in the view she loved so much—it might be the last time she’d do this as an unpregnant woman. The London Eye, the South Bank, Waterloo Bridge—all her favorite bits of London crammed together along one stretch of stinky water. But she loved it. Her stomach lurched at the idea that tonight might be the last carefree night of her life. She remembered the good bottle of champagne she had kept for just such an occasion and worked out how long it would take to chill in the freezer. Stu looked as though he liked a drink. Better not get him too tiddly, though—intoxicated sperm were likely to miss their target and just hang around in her cervix, having a party. She didn’t want to waste her second month, not when this guy looked like such a fit specimen. She had hardly been able to believe her eyes when she’d caught sight of his perfect Lycra-clad bottom. It had been a complete waste of time going for the intellectual last month. She should have guessed that anyone at a MENSA evening would be screwy. Much better to go for someone fit and physical, someone who let his body do the talking. She put her foot down on the accelerator and pressed her back into the leather seat. With a bit of luck, and with the traffic lights on her side, she’d have the champagne on ice and the candles lit before he got there. She might even have time to nip into the shower and attend to any bikini-line stragglers. As if to thwart her, the next set of lights switched to red, forcing Amy to hit the brakes hard. All along the Embankment for about a mile ahead Amy could see brake lights slamming on. Great. Now she was caught in a red-light chain. No chance of getting to Docklands before him. She’d seen the way those couriers slipped through traffic like freshwater salmon. Oh, well—at least he would be waiting eagerly on her doorstep. Amy swore she felt her womb lurch at the prospect.
