Of course! Vod Kerr Baa. Love it!
“Two strawberry cheesecakes, a chocolate profiterole and three vodka tonics,” I say to the barman, feeling ever-so-slightly stupid and a bit like I’m in a patisserie, not a licensed drinking establishment.
“I just had a very strange encounter with a very dishy bloke,” I tell Emma and Katie, putting the tray of drinks on the table.
“Ooh, what happened?” Katie asks, excited.
“It was one of the guys we had the table from. We thought they were leaving, right? But I turned round to find out what you wanted to drink and he was there, right behind me. He said he thought he recognised me.”
“That was a chat up line if ever I heard one,” Katie laughs.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But then I realised he was right – we have sort of met – at the gym, the other night, when he turned down the speed on my bike because I was about to hyperventilate.”
The girls find this far funnier than I’d like.
“You’ve pulled B. Go and talk to him,” Katie says.
“No. Don’t be daft.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because what?”
“Because he was leaving anyway – he only came back because he thought he knew me. This is a girly night. And, anyway, I’m not up for meeting anyone new yet. It’s too soon.”
“You two are as bad as each other.”
“Yeah, Becky,” Emma says, accusingly. “You keep telling me I should get out there and start dating again! What about you?”
“I think you both should,” Katie says, before I can answer. “Even if it’s for no other reason than that I don’t want a couple of old spinsters at my wedding!”
“Well thanks!” we both laugh.
“Besides, you’ll upset my table plan if you don’t bring guests.”
“You haven’t even started the table plan yet,” I say.
“That’s not the point,” she laughs, holding up her shot glass. “Are we ready girls?”
“Oh my god that tasted nothing like chocolate profiteroles – more like paint stripper,” Emma protests.
“How do you know what paint stripper tastes like?” I laugh.
“I don’t. But at a guess I’d say it tastes something like that,” she says, pointing to the empty glass in front of her and screwing up her nose in disgust.
The chocolate profiterole and strawberry cheesecakes are followed by vanilla slices and custard tarts, which are followed by rhubarb crumbles and lemon meringue pies. Which are followed by Katie saying: “Let’s dance.”
So we do. And just for us – because we are the first people on to the dance floor (which proves just how many desserts we have drunk) – the DJ plays a few cheesy songs - I Should Be So Lucky, Love In The First Degree, and Saturday Night Fever, at which point Emma proceeds to throw herself across the dance floor John Travolta-style, while Katie and I pretend she’s not with us.
And then a few more bodies join us, clearly drawn in by Emma’s dancing – in much the same way motorists slow down to gawp at the scene of an accident.
And then the DJ starts playing thumpy thumpy music, which we can’t stand. So Emma and Katie head off to the loos while I go to the bar for some water – and pray that it’s not vodka-flavoured.
I have drunk the entire bottle and am beginning to look like a Billy-no-mates when Katie finally returns from the loos with some bad news.
Emma has locked herself in the toilet and she’s refusing to come out.
“Emma,” I shout through the door. I’m not absolutely sure it’s the right door, but given the sniffling noise coming from the other side, I’d say it’s a reasonable guess.
“Emma. Open the door,” I tell her. But my orders are met only with more sniffling and the sound of toilet paper being pulled from its container.
It’s a wonder she’s found a toilet with any paper left in it at all. We’ve reached the point in the evening when you would normally reach for the paper and discover the only bit left to be had is the tiny scrap still stuck to the roll, which frankly just isn’t up to the job. So you tap on the wall separating you from the next cubicle and hope there’s someone in there who can shove a bit under for you. But then she doesn’t have any either, so you just have to drip-dry instead.
Then you come out and discover where all the paper has gone – all over the floor and around the sinks, covered in lipstick where the girls have been blotting all evening.
“Em, come on,” I try again.
Still nothing.
“Emma! Open the door!” Katie shouts, opting for the more brutal approach, which is no more successful than my own softly softly method, I notice.
We’re getting suspicious looks from the toilet woman. That’s probably not her real job title, but you know who I mean – the woman who hands you a paper towel after you have washed your hands for a bit of spare change (because we are, after all, incapable of fetching one for ourselves – though on this occasion such an assumption might be forgiven). No spare change here, lady – it’s all been spent on chocolate profiteroles and rhubarb crumbles.
And sometimes, if you are really lucky, you can also choose from a variety of beauty products to use in the rescue mission after you’ve looked in the mirror expecting to see the goddess you left the house with and see Godzilla staring back at you instead.
This woman has everything – hairbrushes, hairspray, perfume, tampons, disposable razors (presumably in case someone spots you doing the actions to YMCA by the Village People and politely informs you that you’re looking a bit overgrown?) even a palette of eye make-up, which could actually come in handy for the panda eye elimination that will inevitably be required if we ever get Emma out of the bloody loo.
Toilet woman catches me looking at her wares and wastes no time in swooping.
“You need something?” she asks, hopefully.
“Err…no, thanks,” I say, feeling a bit tight. “I’m good.”
“Unless you’ve got a screwdriver?” I add, as an afterthought.
“What on earth do you want a screwdriver for?” Katie asks.
“To unscrew the lock on the bloody door, of course! We could still be here this time next week at this rate.”
“I do, actually,” toilet woman says, reaching inside her bag – and astonishing us both.
And Emma, it seems, who unlocks the door.
When she hasn’t emerged a few seconds later we both squeeze into the cubicle where we find her sitting on the toilet lid with a soggy tear-soaked wodge of toilet paper in her hand, looking very sorry for herself.
“Sorry guys,” she says, soaking up a fresh wave of tears with the wodge.
“What for?” I ask, kneeling in front of her, forcing Katie up tight against the wall like a policewoman entering a building where a criminal might be lurking.
“For ruining the evening.”
“You haven’t ruined the evening, you daft cow. We’ve had a great night. You’re just drunk. We all are. Blimey, how many times have I locked myself in the loos over the years after one too many?”
I start mentally totting it up, out of curiosity.
“Don’t answer that,” I tell Katie, who appears to be doing the very same thing.
“I just miss him.”
“I know you do, Em, but you won’t miss him forever. You will get over him. I promise. It just takes time, that’s all.”
“But what if he was the one and I never meet anyone else?”
“He wasn’t the one, Em,” Katie says gently. “If he was the one you would still be together. And you will meet someone else. When have you ever not met someone else?”
“But I’m just so tired of being on my own,” she says quietly.
“What do you mean? You’re never on your own. You’ve got men falling at your feet,” Katie says, genuinely confused.
“But they don’t stay there, do they? Not like Matt. Or Alex. Alex didn’t leave you, B. You left him. He asked y
ou to marry him. If you hadn’t left him he would have stayed. Forever. I just want what you two have both had. I want someone to stay.”
“Even if it’s the wrong person?” Katie asks. “Em, if I didn’t love Matt – if I didn’t know for sure that I want to spend the rest of my life with him, then I wouldn’t be marrying him. I would wait. Until I did meet the right person.”
“She’s right, Em. That’s exactly why I couldn’t marry Alex. I wasn’t sure. Yes, he would have stayed. But in the end I didn’t want him to. Come on.” I pull her up. “Let’s go home. I think we’ve all had enough.”
As we leave the loos I’m dying to ask the toilet woman why on earth she has a screwdriver in her bag, but decide we are probably better off not knowing. Maybe she has just witnessed too many conversations like ours – conducted after one too many banoffee pies, through a locked toilet door.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
It’s my second week at Potty Wotty Doodah. Caroline has taken the afternoon off to watch Molly in her school play.
She’s left Fiona and I to supervise a four-year-old’s birthday party.
How thoughtful.
There are eight of the little darlings, all painting plates. That’s eight lots of paint-covered hands to dodge, followed by eight lots of birthday-cake-icing-covered hands. What fun.
Fiona has everything under control.
I am grateful. I am not to be trusted. I dropped a moneybox as soon as I arrived today. Pretty soon Caroline is going to start charging me for working here, never mind paying me.
I like Fiona. She’s fun. And very patient.
If I do ever get to be a writer, I think I’ll be great at interviewing people. In the short time I’ve know Fiona I’ve found out that she’s 32, married – to Adrian, and has no kids – yet. And she loves pink, and frogs – in equal measure. Which is why she is calling her shop The Pink Frog. All her clothes have a tiny pink frog stitched on them. I’m sure all the girls’ clothes would be pink if she had her way. And all the boys’ too, for that matter. She wears pink every day – a bright pink t-shirt, a pink bangle, a pink hair slide. Something has to be pink. It’s the law – Fiona’s Law. And Caroline wonders why she seems to be ordering twice as much pink paint as any other colour…
“I think you’re done,” she says to the token boy at this birthday party, who has covered his entire plate with black paint. She is showing incredible self-restraint. I know she’s dying to add a splash of pink to brighten it up a bit.
“Have you heard from any of your magazines yet?” she asks me, taking two plates into the back room ready for glazing.
“Just one. A rejection. But I’m sure the rest of them will come flooding in any day now. Rejections, that is.”
“Nothing like a bit of optimism,” she laughs.
“I know. But I think I’d rather be pessimistic then pleasantly surprised, instead of optimistic then suicidal.”
“If you want something badly enough you’ll make it happen, Becky. That’s what I say. Look at me. I knew I wanted my own children’s clothes shop ever since my mum made me my first party dress from her sewing machine in the front room. And now I’m doing it.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s just hard to be positive sometimes.”
Between us we take the rest of the plates into the back room before clearing the tables.
“Right, I want to see everybody’s hands up in the air, as high as you can,” Fiona tells her little painters. Obediently, they all reach for the ceiling. Desperate to win this game, the birthday girl stands up on her chair for extra height. While her mum lifts her back to safety Fiona and I swipe the paint-covered cloth from the table and in one swift motion replace it with a new one that’s covered in Disney characters instead.
And while Fiona distracts them with a quick Disney Princess quiz, I fill the table with Cinderella plates of sandwiches, Pocahontas bowls of crisps and chocolate fingers and a big jug of orange squash.
After they have demolished the crisps and chocolate fingers and left most of the sandwiches, it’s time for pass the parcel.
There is a packet of colouring pencils inside each layer so that no child goes home distraught at not winning a prize. They are revealed one by one after each short burst of Beauty and the Beast, the pause button on the CD player expertly controlled by Fiona as she mentally ticks off each child who has had a turn. The adults in the room breathe a sigh of relief when the stop button is finally pressed and the winner removes the final layer of Little Mermaid wrapping paper to reveal her prize – a Cinderella money box – in her rags on one side, and in her mice-made ball-gown on the other.
The winner is thrilled.
If you’d told me six months ago that one day I’d be being paid to pour orange squash into Disney Princess paper cups and watch four-year-olds paint rainbows on plates, I’d probably have laughed out loud – and no doubt persuaded you to add an extra hole punch or a packet of over-sized bulldog clips to your stationery order.
But today it feels quite normal as I reach behind the counter for my handbag, find my purse and take out a twenty pence piece. I slot it into the Cinderella moneybox and the little girl beams.
I take a mental picture of that smile. That’s the smile I will be wearing when I win my prize – a new job as a writer for Cutlery Weekly or Model Aeroplanes Monthly!
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Idea gathering is one of the most important skills for new magazine writers to acquire. And ideas are everywhere, apparently.
“I want to write, but I have no idea what to write about,” Sheila tells us when we meet for our second writing class on Tuesday evening. “How many times have I heard that?”
Well, seven this evening, as it happens.
Cathy, Bev, Jo, Stephanie, Tara, Georgina and I have not come up with one idea between us.
Audrey has come up with six. But they don’t count. Because they’re rubbish. How to make the perfect finger buffet, How to grow the perfect courgette, How to ensure over-ripe bananas don’t go to waste…Snore, snore.
“Ideas are everywhere,” Sheila tells us again. “Once you know how to find them, you won’t know what to do with them all.”
I’m not convinced.
“All writers should be avid readers,” she says.
Do Jackie Collins and Jilly Cooper novels count, I wonder?
“You should be reading newspapers, magazines, books, leaflets, the yellow pages…”
The Yellow Pages?
“Never reject any source of reading material,” Sheila says sternly, looking right at me.
I must have smirked. Now I feel like a naughty child.
“Newspapers will tell you what is important in the world today. Magazines will feature articles that you can find a new slant on. The Yellow Pages could lead you to an unusual new business that might be worth writing about. A drive-through nail salon, a pet beauty parlour, a café where you paint your own mug…”
She’s looking at me again.
Point taken.
“And take a good look at your own lives,” she says. “There’s no better place to find ideas – your experiences, your dreams, your interests. Have you done something that might be of interest to others? Lived somewhere a bit out of the ordinary? Had an unusual job?
“And what about your friends? What about their experiences? Do you know anyone who has had a life-altering experience? Anyone who is an expert in their field? Anyone who has an interesting hobby?”
I’m racking my brains, but I’m not getting very far. Clearly I have led a very dull life. My job at Penand Inc wasn’t of any interest even to me, let alone anyone else. And I’ve lived in West Sussex, West Yorkshire and now London. Whoopy doo.
I look around at my fellow students, hoping their lives are as dull as mine. I think they are – apart from Audrey no-one looks remotely inspired.
“Don’t move,” Sheila tells us. “I’ll be right back.”
As soon as she leaves the room Tara and Georgina start a game of Hang Man
and Audrey starts flicking through her book of quotations, while the rest of us try and convince ourselves this was 120 quid well spent.
When she comes back she is carrying a pile of newspapers and magazines.
She dumps one on each of our desks.
I’m sitting with Jo today. We get lucky. We get a month-old copy of Woman’s Own, while Audrey and Cathy next to us get The Dolls’ House Magazine. Audrey looks quite pleased. Cathy doesn’t.
“Now, I want you to look through the magazines and newspapers I have given you and come up with five feature ideas per team,” Sheila tells us.
Five?
Did she say five?
“I’ll give you 15 minutes.”
Now I know she’s joking.
“And don’t worry if you come up with more than five ideas, which I’m sure some of you will – we have plenty of time to hear them all.”
No, she’s not joking.
It’s actually easier than I thought. They’re not spectacular, but we have got five, and at least they are not about finger buffets and courgette growing.
There’s a cover story about a woman who dropped ten stone in ten months and then put it all back on again, so we come up with How To Get Out of the Dieting Trap – a look at how to give up dieting and establish healthy eating habits. I wish someone would write this actually, it could come in handy for the make-sure-I-fit-into-my-bridesmaid-dress plan.
And inside there’s a piece about the smoking ban, so we come up with the idea Never Give Up Giving Up – a look at the difficulties of giving up smoking and how to stick with it.
On top of that we’ve got Finding the Right Exercise to Keep You Interested – anyone can join a gym, but is it right for you?, A Mum’s Guide to Summer Holidays – how the working and stay-at home-mum copes with school holidays, and Pregnancy Cravings – a look at the regular and bizarre things women crave when they are pregnant.
I think Sheila is impressed.
And I think she is even more impressed with our ideas when she hears the rubbish some of the others have come up with.
Tara and Georgina got the Daily Mail. They spent 14 minutes doing the crossword and one minute coming up with How to Make a Cigarette Break Last All Day, which Sheila didn’t even dignify with a response.
The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights Page 138
