‘Bobby’s taking us all to Café 21. I told you, got to look the part.’
Laura was sitting on the sofa, legs folded up under her, dressed in her standard uniform of shapeless, baggy fleece and ancient leggings. She used to be smart when I first met her, always dressed immaculately.
Was it my imagination or was she eyeing me suspiciously as I buttoned my best jacket in front of the mirror?
‘Will you be back after the meal then?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I was trying to sound patient, ‘I’m on babysitting duty, I told you that too. I have to make sure Sarah doesn’t rape or murder anyone or get roasted by the Newcastle youth team.’
‘Why do you have to be the one to keep an eye on her?’
I sighed, ‘because he asked me, because he trusts me with her. You could have come too, I said.’
‘And I told you I have to visit mother.’
‘I’m only saying, it’s not like you aren’t invited or anything.’
‘Well,’ she said, because she couldn’t refute the logic of that, ‘I just think it would be nice if you weren’t back late tonight that’s all.’
‘Laura, it’s her 21st birthday and she’s going clubbing. How early were you home on your 21st? I have to look after her so of course I’m going to be late. Jesus!’ I scooped up my keys and left her to it.
Bobby bought everybody a really nice meal at Café 21. There weren’t too many of us; a little bit of family, what little he had left, a young brother who had nothing to do with the firm, an older sister, there was the birthday girl of course and three of her friends, all lasses, since the boyfriend had been given the heave-ho, Malcolm, a bloke who worked for Bobby’s firm in a non-muscle capacity who’d known Sarah since she was a baby, and there was me.
‘Where’s the wife?’ asked Sarah.
‘Visiting her mum in hospital,’ I said, ‘the old bird’s not well.’ I didn’t tell her I was secretly pleased Laura couldn’t make it. Aside from the fact I had to concentrate on making sure Sarah was safe tonight, I really didn’t fancy a whole evening of Laura moaning that it was getting late, then getting the huff with me when I poured her into a taxi and sent her off home on her own. Since we’d got back from holiday she’d not been too much fun to be around. Sure she was worried about her mother but the old lady’d been ill, on and off, for years. She was one of those thin, scrawny women, who looked like an undernourished sparrow but I’d have put money on her reaching ninety and still moaning about her health everyday along the way.
During the meal, I made a big point of drinking nothing but mineral water and I watched my manners. We then said goodbye to Bobby and the oldies and I drove the four girls off to the club in the Merc.
We fought our way through the crowd and into the roped-off VIP section I’d sorted for Sarah. It was one of our places so I made sure there was plenty of comped champagne, the decent stuff, not the house shite we bought in bulk. The bottles of Veuve had been laid out nicely for our arrival in big, silver ice buckets with their best glasses and some table decorations. All of this made me pretty popular and Sarah kissed me on the cheek, ‘thanks David,’ she said.
‘No bother,’ I told her and it wasn’t. I mean I hadn’t actually done any of it myself. I’d just told them to make the tables look nice.
Sarah said ‘I can’t believe you’re not having any.’
I shrugged, ‘I’m your designated driver.’
‘I know, but you can have one glass,’ and before I could argue she poured one and handed it to me. We were all sitting in a half moon shaped banquette set against the wall, overlooking the dance floor. We toasted Sarah’s birthday and the girls proceeded to get well lashed-up. Before too long, they’d finished the champagne, so I ordered some cocktails then they hit the dance floor. They tried to drag me on there with them but I said, ‘later, got to see someone right now.’ Sarah did a mock pout. ‘Won’t take me long,’ I assured her.
I then went to find Palmer, the guy I’d entrusted to discreetly watch my back all night while I was watching Sarah. He was hard to spot at first, being all of five foot eight in his socks. Palmer was a muscley Scot without an ounce of fat on him. He was a calm and soft-spoken bloke, particularly considering he was from Glasgow.
‘Anything?’ I asked him.
‘Nah,’ he shook his head, ‘quiet. Got a man watching the CCTV and he’s not seen anything unusual. There are no new faces that concern us and nobody’s been watching you. I would know,’ he would as well, he was ex special forces and very, very good, which was why I’d convinced Bobby he was worth having on the payroll. He certainly didn’t look like he’d been in the SAS but you tend to find that with those guys. They are often small and not that hard looking, until it matters. I liked the fact that he didn’t look like a big psycho. With Finney you could always see him coming. If you spotted him having a pint you’d know straightaway what he did for a living. Palmer meanwhile wasn’t so obvious, he’d blend in anywhere and you wouldn’t notice him until it was too late.
Of course, he’d have been more expensive if he had left the army voluntarily, instead of being booted out suddenly about six years ago, when he went a bit mental, but that’s another story. ‘Nobody’s been eyeing up the girls any longer than a normal man would stare at a fit bunch of lasses like that, if you don’t mind me saying it.’
I was relieved, ‘I don’t mind you saying it but you might not want to put it like that if Bobby’s around or he’ll cut your dick off.’
Palmer laughed, ‘yeah, well, you aint her dad are you and you have to admit that Sarah is a tidy bit of…’
‘Just do your job,’ I snapped at him without meaning to.
‘Sure,’ he said calmly, ‘I am doing it.’
‘Good,’ I said and left him to it. I walked away wondering why I’d reacted so strongly to some pretty mild words about Sarah and her pals. I put it down to stress.
I returned to the banquette and sat there on my own for a bit, sipping yet another mineral water, badly wanting a real drink after my one glass of champagne but knowing it wouldn’t be a good idea. I reminded myself things weren’t going too badly. I’d had it first hand from Palmer that his blokes had spotted nothing out of the ordinary. Sarah was having a good time and she wasn’t even aware I had a crew watching her every move. Just as well, she’d have gone mad if she’d known. I just hoped no lagered-up bloke pinched her arse on the dance floor because, if I didn’t get there before Palmer’s lads, the silly bastard wouldn’t know what hit him.
Two of Sarah’s friends looked like they’d pulled, leaving Sarah and her mad mate Joanne alone in a corner of the dance floor. The last time I’d seen Joanne she was at work, standing on the bar down at Buffalo Joe’s in a black bikini and a Stetson, twirling a flag and marching along, miming the words to Amarillo with four other girls, while the crowd in the bar went crazy; only in Newcastle.
I could still see them both from where I was sitting. I was faintly amused by the obvious effort they put into making every move seem effortless. They adopted a studied cool but every turn and wiggle looked choreographed. Why is it girls always know the moves to every dance and blokes don’t have a clue? I wondered if they all went to secret practice sessions we didn’t know about.
Joanne leaned forward and said something into Sarah’s ear and she laughed. It was good to see her enjoying herself. Akon and Kardinal Offishall’s Dangerous started blaring out from the speakers, an appropriate song for Sarah Mahoney if ever I’d heard one.
They piled into the back of my car, giggling like a couple of teenagers. The birthday cocktails made them braver than normal and they were pretty cheeky when they were sober. I knew I’d got to be on top form to avoid looking like a total cock in front of them.
I put Ne-yo on and turned the volume up a couple of notches for Closer.
‘Blimey,’ said Sarah, ‘I thought you’d be cranking out U2 or something!’
‘I spend my life in clubs, I hear this stuff more than you do.’
‘Bit old for it aren’t you?’ asked Joanne.
‘Are you walking home?’ I asked her in return and she laughed. ‘Can’t believe you don’t think I’m down with the kids… ’
We passed another club that used to be an old warehouse. It had a big, metal ladder stuck to the side with thick, steel steps that zig-zagged up the side of the building and there was a ledge at the top right by the roof.
Sarah leaned forward and said, ‘See that ladder… ow!’ it sounded like Joanne had thumped her one, ‘Jo, you total slag,’ but she laughed anyway and a belt on the arm wasn’t going to stop her from telling me, ‘Joanne fucked a bloke at the top of that ladder!’
‘I did not! You bitch!’ and she was laughing as well, the two of them were like a couple of breathless hyenas behind me.
‘Is that right Jo?’ I asked nonchalantly, as if she had just admitted to kissing a bloke beneath Grey’s Monument.
‘No it fucking isn’t!’ she pretended to be horrified.
‘Yeah,’ said Sarah, ‘she fucking did.’
‘I did not!’ and she could hardly breathe through laughing, ‘if you must know I just sucked him off!’
‘Oh, that’s alright then,’ I deadpanned and we all cracked up.
When they finally calmed down Joanne said, ‘I can’t believe you told him. I think I should tell him something about you now.’
‘Oh I don’t think so.’
‘I do,’ I said, genuinely intrigued.
‘Ha, you see,’ said Joanne, ‘he wants to know.’
‘Well that’s fine because you don’t know anything about me. Nothing recent anyway. I’ve been a good girl.’
‘Really?’ Joanne was teasing now and I was beginning to get a little sick feeling, in case she told me Sarah had been shagging some spotty student or footballer. I realised to my horror that I’d be jealous. I told myself I was just being protective of her but I wasn’t sure I was really buying that argument. You can fool just about anybody but you can’t fool yourself.
‘Last Christmas, we had a girls’ night in. We got really pissed on wine and played ‘Marry him, Fuck him, Shove him off a cliff’,’ said Joanne.
‘How does that work then?’ I asked, none the wiser.
“Chelle started nominating blokes we knew and we all had to say whether we would marry them, fuck them or chuck them off a cliff,’ and she giggled.
‘Oh right,’ I got it now.
‘We went through all the boys our age, then some celebs,’ then she paused, ‘you don’t even remember do you?’ she asked Sarah who seemed blissfully unperturbed by this.
‘Remember what?’ she asked.
‘Well, you had been on the vodka as well as the wine,’ was all Joanne offered by way of explanation.
‘What are you on about?’ said Sarah testily.
‘What you said when his name came up.’ I couldn’t see Joanne, so I don’t know if she nodded in my direction but it was clear that she meant me. At this point Sarah literally gasped.
‘Joanne,’ she made her friend’s name into a warning.
‘You really can’t remember can you?’ she was loving Sarah’s discomfort now. I must admit I was taking a pretty big interest in this myself. I was quietly confident that I’d made the ‘fuck him’ list not the ‘shove him off the cliff’ pile but either answer was going to be embarrassing for both of us.
‘I don’t even remember playing the game,’ said Sarah a little snootily, ‘I was mullered.’
‘What do you think you said?’ urged Joanne, oblivious to Sarah’s mounting irritation.
‘No idea,’ replied Sarah, ‘could have been any of them or all three. No offence,’ the last two words were directed towards me.
‘None taken,’ I replied like her answer didn’t matter but of course it did matter, quite a lot. I put it down to male ego.
‘Want me to tell you?’ giggled Joanne, making the words into a sing-song, playground style taunt.
Sarah had clearly had enough of this and wasn’t going to allow herself to be embarrassed by her mate, ‘I should imagine,’ she began, ‘knowing me and how I am when I’ve been on the vodka,’ there was a moment’s pause when she summoned up the nerve, ‘I probably said that I would fuck him.’ She said the last bit defiantly, daring either of us to take the piss out of her.
I got a strange, conflicting sensation of being embarrassed, chuffed and not a little bit turned-on all at once because I knew from the sudden silence that she was telling the truth.
My feeling of euphoria didn’t last long however, ‘no!’ squealed Joanne, like it was the funniest thing, ‘that’s not what you said!’
Great, so when Sarah’s really drunk I join the ranks of the lemmings. Shit.
Joanne continued, saying the words slowly and deliberately, ‘what you actually said was, and I’m quoting here, “I’d fuck him then marry him, so I could fuck him some more!” Joanne started pissing herself laughing but Sarah had gone deathly quiet in the back of my car. Joanne had finally achieved the unachievable, embarrassing Sarah to the core of her being and I knew why. The M word. Marriage. Marriage wasn’t cool or something you could shrug off because you were drunk, like a loose comment about a shag. Marriage was love and kids and setting up home together, for life, it was the real deal. Blimey.
Joanne finally stopped laughing, perhaps realising she’d gone a bit too far for her friend’s liking. The situation needed remedying, if we were not going to have the longest, most embarrassing journey home imaginable.
Luckily we had to stop at a red light, so I could safely turn round and face them both. I glanced briefly at Sarah who looked like someone had just slapped her hard in the face. She didn’t want to look at me directly. Instead I looked Joanne in the eye, put on a serious looking frown and asked her outright, ‘you mean you wouldn’t?’
And she roared with laughter, instantly breaking the spell. ‘Eeh you cocky bastard!’ she cried.
‘I must be slipping,’ I added for effect, before turning back and easing the car away through the green light. I could hear Sarah laughing in the back again too. I was glad I’d spared her blushes and I made a conscious effort to stop feeling so bloody chuffed with myself.
TWENTY-ONE
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When I dropped Joanne off at her mum’s house, Sarah got out of the back seat and climbed into the front passenger seat next to me. She wound down the window and called after Joanne’s retreating rear, ‘laters bee-yatch!’
Joanne span round and flicked the Vs up at her before calling out, ‘be good you two and if you can’t be good be careful!’ then she did a pretty clear mime of a blow job, pushing an imaginary cock into her mouth with her hand while making the inside of her cheek bulge outwards with her tongue.
‘Classy,’ I said quietly as Sarah wound up the window.
‘I only hang round with her ‘cos she makes me look good.’
‘I can see that,’ I acted like the little conversation we’d just had hadn’t happened, ‘you enjoy yourself tonight then pet?’
She smiled happily, ‘yeah, I did. It was great. You? Sorry you couldn’t drink.’
‘No harm in it this once. Told you, I spend my life in clubs.’
When I got her home, the gates to Bobby’s house were wide open and I drove on through, parking up so she didn’t have far to walk up the gravel driveway, but not right by the windows. ‘Don’t want to wake your dad,’ I said.
‘He won’t be asleep,’ she told me, ‘not till I get in.’
I wouldn’t sleep either if I was him.
‘So where is it then?’
‘Where’s what?’ I asked.
‘My present,’ she said, ‘unless you are gonna carry on pretending you’ve not bought me anything for my 21st?’
‘Glove compartment,’ I said quietly.
Without another word she opened up the glove compartment and took out the long, thin box I’d put there at the beginning of the night. ‘M
mm, it’s beautifully wrapped,’ then she got suspicious, ‘did you get Laura to do it?’
‘Why would I do that when I could just flirt with the lass in the shop until she did it for me?’
‘Thoughtful,’ she said and she took her time unwrapping the gold paper, opened the box and took a long look at the watch I’d bought her. It was a nice gift, just expensive enough to thrill a 21-year-old who wasn’t expecting something that good, but not so extravagant that Bobby or Laura were going to want to take it in turns to beat me to a pulp for buying it. It was just the right side of innocent.
Sarah didn’t say anything at first. I was about as sure as I could be that she was going to like it, so I said, ‘what’s the matter? Not up to much?’
‘It’s great and I fucking love it, thanks!’ and she did and that also gave me more pleasure than it should. Sarah wrapped her arms round me and gave me a big, friendly hug that could just about be described as platonic. ‘You coming in? Dad’ll be chuffed if you do.’
‘No he won’t,’ I said,
‘Yes he will,’ and she laughed self-consciously, ‘you can have one drink with me.’
‘I’m driving.’
She stuck her tongue out at me and called me boring, ‘got to get home to the wife have you?’ she knew how to press my buttons.
‘She’s not my wife,’ I said uselessly, ‘but I do have to get home, yes.’
‘Oh-kay,’ she said it in a sing-song voice and started to climb out of the car, ‘thanks for my pressie, it’s beautiful.’
‘Not every day a girl turns 21.’
‘So true,’ and she was out of the car and gone, except she wasn’t, because there was a blur of movement as she went round the front of the car and was suddenly standing by my window. I wound it down and she said, ‘thanks pet,’ and held her hands wide for another hug and when I didn’t react she said, ‘oh come on, give me some sugar,’ in her mock-American accent. I put an arm out through the window and she wrapped her arms around me and this time the hug was for real. God she smelt so good and I knew I should let go of her, but it was way too nice.
The Drop Page 15
