by Clare Lydon
Geri turned and glared at Laura, pinning Laura by the chest with her right index finger.
“One mention of the word Gimpy in her presence and I won’t be accountable for my actions. Capiche?” she asked, the last word in Italian brogue.
“Sorry Gimps – promise.”
***
By 9pm the group’s night was in full swing, desserts eaten and a second round of shots lined up at the bar. At the table, Abby was proving to her receptive audience that she’d ingested far too much management speak into her vocabulary, talking about how to leverage off the failing relationship of one of her friends.
Stevie put another cross in her Abby con pile. Abby struck Stevie as calculating and ambitious – and she meant that in a positive way. Stevie had always known she wanted to be a teacher, always known she wanted to work with kids. Similarly, she could see Abby had always wanted to be in management, to have people listen when she spoke, to hold a position of power. Even though their career fields were totally different, perhaps the two of them were not so dissimilar after all.
Stevie turned now to her wife of three years, her partner of ten, and felt a wave of love for her. Maybe that was because she’d shared her profiteroles with her after Stevie had finished her dessert of tarte tatin. Maybe it was because, even though she was a solicitor, she didn’t use the words ‘leverage’ or ‘bifurcate’ in everyday conversation. Or maybe it was because she could see things from a slightly altered angle and, right now, staring into the all-too-evident cracks in other people’s lives, Stevie reckoned it was time to start plastering over the one crack in hers. She leant over and kissed Vic on the cheek.
“What was that for?” Vic asked.
“Just because,” Stevie said.
Vic’s caution failed to lift.
***
Kat might not call the shots but she could certainly drink them as she proved now, arriving back at the table with a tray of tiny drinks. Obediently, they all picked up their tequilas and sambucas, applied salt and lemon where necessary, licked, slammed, sucked, winced. Before Stevie even knew what was happening, another glass of wine had appeared in front of her, another shot and the night flipped to fast-forward, taking on a life of its own.
What did the locals think of their pub being infiltrated by tourists? Or was it something they saw every weekend? The place was stacked high with young men sporting tousled blond hair and faded jeans, looking like they’d surfed in direct from the beach. A few young couples were dotted around sharing a romantic Saturday night dinner and, by the door, a foursome of 60-somethings were enjoying their steaks with red wine, faces flushed, cheeks pinned into grins. This was how life should be – fine wine, fine food, fine friends.
Behind them, sitting at the only other larger table in the pub were a group of what Stevie assumed were tourists, too – either that or they were local royalty. Three men and three women who all exemplified the term ‘power-couple’. It’d been applied to Stevie and Vic before now, but they’d have to bow down to this altar of prestige.
The men wore pristine shirts, litres of expensive cologne, shimmering gold watches; the women had miles of shiny hair, yards of red lips, hundreds of white teeth, a blur of cleavage. Stevie caught one of the brunettes casting a glance their way and couldn’t help but smile. For a moment she imagined trading places with her and playing the dutiful wife and mother, doing the dinner parties, wearing the sparkly dresses. Then she frowned, shuddered and kissed Vic once again. The brunette raised a single eyebrow and smiled.
When Stevie tuned back into her table’s conversation, the talk had turned to who had the sexiest job.
“Got to be Gimp… Geri,” said Stu, winning points with the group’s lone singleton for the nomination as well as for correcting her name. “I mean, CID sergeant – what’s not to love? The badge, the power, the handcuffs…” This last comment brought whistles from the crowd.
“Brought them with you for later?” Tash asked Geri, laughing.
“Keep it down!” Geri cast an apologetic eye towards the bar. “Anyway, you’re way off the mark. Stu and Darren work in PR and that means free drinks and parties, so they get my vote. Plus, being gay is part of the job description – who doesn’t love that?”
“Works for me most days.” Darren raised his wine glass in approval.
Stevie pulled her ‘disagree’ face and held up one hand.
“Permission to speak granted,” Geri said.
Stevie smiled graciously. “I know her job isn’t the best paid or the most powerful, but if I had to swap jobs for a day with someone, I’d go for Tash.”
At this, Tash perked up visibly: she’d been squinting out of one eye for the past ten minutes.
“Me?” she said softly.
“Absolutely!” Stevie said. “You get to nose round other people’s houses all day. You change people’s lives by getting them their dream home. Plus, you clearly get to meet some hot clients while you do it, too. If I had to have a career change, I’d be an estate agent.”
“I hope she doesn’t meet too many other hot clients,” Laura said, sipping her bottle of Heineken.
“None that match up to you, gorgeous,” Tash replied, kissing her girlfriend on the cheek before turning to address Stevie. “Thanks for the vote of confidence but I can tell you it’s not all glamour. But I do love seeing inside people’s houses. It’s the perfect job for a nosey-beak.”
“No votes for HR director, then?” Abby grinned at her own joke. “Don’t all rush at once...”
Geri cleared her throat. “I agree that my job has a certain sex appeal,” she said, leaning on her elbows. “But if I could choose my ideal job for a partner, it’d be a chef. Someone who could make me pancakes for breakfast and it not seem like a big deal. Someone who could just whip up a plate of something delicious at the drop of a hat. That would be awesome. Someone like Nigella perhaps…” Geri stared off into the distance.
“We’re talking about jobs around the table, not who you’d like to shag.” Stevie rolled her eyes.
***
All this job talk made Kat twitchy, so she headed to the bar and ordered another pint of Rattler. She didn’t ask for the drinks kitty – paying out of her own pocket would mean fewer pairs of concerned eyes draped on her. She was served by an older woman with curly brown hair that bounced as she bent to retrieve a glass from a shelf below the bar.
“Looks like a fun night,” the woman told Kat, indicating the jocularity at the table.
Kat nodded, watching the pint glass fill with the rust-coloured liquid and feeling the saliva flood her mouth in anticipation. “Yeah – weekend away.”
The woman smiled as she flicked the cider tap the other way to give the top a final fizz. “You over from London?” Her accent was surprisingly West Country-free.
“Most of us – renting a house on the cliff.”
“Tom and Grace’s house probably? I love that place, great views.” The woman set the pint down on a beer mat on the bar.
Kat paid her the money and reached out for the pint. She was already drunk but she also knew this wouldn’t be her final drink. Tonight’s path was already becoming clear and it ended in oblivion. It was just a question of when Kat would reach it.
At the table, Vic was speaking to the rest of the group and all, bar Stu and Darren, were listening intently. The lighting in the pub was too bright, making Tash squint as she focused. The jukebox, meanwhile, had taken a slightly more modern turn, now churning out a selection of hits from the 90s.
It was currently playing a track that made Kat frown as she tried to remember it – who had a secret smile again? She plucked her phone from her pocket and hit the Shazam app. It whirred for less than a minute, then told her it was Semisonic in 1999. She wondered again how pub quizzes worked anymore now everyone had smartphones.
Her attention shifted back to Darren and Stu who were having a mutely animated conversation and looking down into their laps. She fixed her f
ocus, then saw Darren get up and go to the loo while giving Stu a conspiratorial wink. He returned, sat down next to Stu and like a professional tag-team, Stu seamlessly made his trip to the bathroom look routine and anything but a cocaine-run.
Stu motioned to Kat as he passed her and she nodded. He gave her a wink and sauntered towards the loo, his long legs encased in jeans, his blue T-shirt sitting just-so on his torso. Within a minute Stu was out and approached Kat at the bar.
“Not coming to sit back down with us?” Stu’s eyes never left Kat’s face as their hands grazed each other’s and Kat took the tiny package.
Kat’s heart raced a little faster as it always did when she was carrying Class A drugs.
“Will do after this,” she told Stu, licking her lips.
“Same again?” he asked as she walked past him, brushing his shoulder.
“Why not?”
Kat pushed open the door to the ladies which she imagined had once been a brilliant shade of white but now had peeling paint with a mass of smudged grey fingerprints. The toilets were strip-lit and all three were empty – Kat chose the cubicle on the right.
She rolled a note, shook out some powder onto the top of the cistern, flushed the toilet and with the noise of the flush in her ears, snorted her line, chasing the runaway flecks to finish. She stood, performed a final power-sniff and flushed the toilet again before stepping back into the light as if nothing ever happened. Whoever perpetuated the myth that drugs were glamorous had clearly never done them off the top of toilets like most people Kat knew.
She stepped up to the sink and washed her hands, studying her face in the mirror. She had lines where there were none three months ago, she was sure of it.
The door opened and Stevie walked in. She was dressed in denim dungarees but, strangely, she managed to pull it off. It wasn’t a trick that everyone could manage.
Stevie smiled widely but Kat’s response was too slow.
“You okay, lovely?” Stevie asked, putting an arm around Kat’s waist.
“Just looking at my wrinkles – this is what nearly 40 looks like.”
Stevie kissed her shoulder. “All in the mind – you look gorgeous.” She jigged from foot to foot. “Gotta go, I’m bursting.” Stevie pushed into the middle cubicle.
Kat heard Stevie unclick her buckles, so turned on the tap to mingle the sounds. She felt the coke sinking down from her nostrils to her throat, felt her front teeth going numb, was comforted by the familiar sensation. Cocaine was what had kept her going at her former job – that and the energy drinks. To use it now as a recreational drug rather than a means to stay awake seemed almost decadent.
Kat added some more lipstick, air-kissed herself in the mirror and then, with chemical confidence beginning to thump through her veins, strode back into the pub.
Eyes Wide Shut
Vic could tell that Kat was close to the edge when she saw her parading across the pub on her way back from the toilets. Her eyes looked wider, her stride longer, her smirk firmly in place.
Stu was getting more drinks at the bar and she chatted to him briefly as she passed. Kat sank a half pint of cider in the blink of an eye, then immediately grasped another full one. Kat turned to Abby to see if she’d registered the scene, but for the first time this weekend her girlfriend seemed to have dropped the reins and was in deep conversation with Darren.
Or rather, Darren was talking at Abby.
Kat walked back and plonked herself down next to Abby, putting her arm around her and giving her a sloppy kiss on the cheek as she did.
Darren grinned at Kat, his cheeks all Chablis splotch, his eyes alight with cocaine glitter.
“The mystery solved!” Abby told Kat, kissing her on the lips.
Kat wobbled slightly on her stool, then grinned. “Mystery?” Kat tried to raise an eyebrow, but only succeeding in grimacing slightly.
“The mystery of the missing girlfriend.”
“Just been at the bar chatting to Stu, shooting the breeze.” Kat smiled through her eyes, slid one way and nearly fell off her stool.
Abby held out an arm to steady her. “You okay?” she asked, bringing her head level with Kat.
Kat nodded obediently.
It was plain to see she was anything but.
***
Stevie and Stu arrived back at the table together, handing out drinks to everyone and then taking up their positions. Drinks refreshed meant another round of cheers for the group and then, with everyone sitting down, conversation went retro.
“What would our university selves say about us if they could see us now?” Stevie ran her hand through her short blonde hair.
“I think they’d be impressed we were out when we’re this old,” Vic laughed, stroking her wife’s back.
“They’d be impressed we could afford it, too – dinner and drinks. We forgot to drink a bottle of Martini before we left the house, though,” Stevie added.
“You used to do that?” Tash asked, eyes wide. Not having been to university, she wasn’t as up to speed with their previous drinking antics, although she’d heard tale of a few.
“Oh my God, I’d completely forgotten about the Martini!” Laura screwed up her face. “How on earth did our livers survive? We’re all walking miracles of modern science to be here today.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Stevie beamed round the table. “If you’d shown me this picture 20 years ago, I’d have been ecstatic.”
Tash laughed and not for the first time, she wished she’d known this group earlier in her life – not only to stop her marrying Simon, but also to understand who she was in such a supportive environment. She was glad she’d met them all eventually, though – she counted them all as her friends after five years with Laura and, she hoped, many more to come. In fact, she was even thinking about proposing to Laura now it was legal.
“Never mind 20 years ago. If the stories I’ve heard about ten years ago are correct, then we need to get this party started!” Darren clapped his hands together.
Tash couldn’t wait to hear more stories, but clocked the look of alarm on Stu’s face.
“Babe…” Stu began.
Darren talked over him. “I mean, Vic and Stevie shag for the first time, Kat and Laura shag – who’s going to be the naughty one tonight? I vote for either me or perhaps Geri if they have to be single.” Darren glanced at Stu, grinning.
Stu simply stared, then put his drink down on the table as quietly as he could. He was trying to stay calm but panic was seeping into his facial features.
Tash frowned. Hang on, what had Darren just said? Kat and Laura? Her Laura? Tash looked around the table and saw minds whirring, foreheads frowning, heads twisting, daggers flashing.
Vic was the first to speak, clearly going for the damage limitation option. “I remember ten years ago very well and yes, it was the start of something amazing for both of us. I hope this weekend is too.” Vic didn’t dare look to her right where Laura, Tash, Kat and Abby were sitting.
“Darren, you’re a complete fuckwit.” Laura’s tone could cut slate.
“Yeah – that was well out of order,” Kat slurred.
Tash was looking confused. “Did he just say what I think he said?” She looked from Darren, to Laura and then back to Kat. Once, twice, three times. Tash furrowed her brow and focused her attention on Laura.
“You and Kat?” Tash moved her index finger between the two, pendulum-like. “Since when, you and Kat?”
Laura raised her eyebrows to the ceiling. “It was a drunken mistake. Ten years ago. It was nothing.”
Kat looked disgruntled at this description, but said nothing.
Darren, with exquisite timing, chose this moment to wade back in. “Oh come on, lesbians, let’s not get dramatic – it was ten years ago! Ten years! You’re all happily married now, so who cares?” Darren put his palms on his thighs and looked around the table. Still grinning.
Stu took the opportunity to back him up. �
��Exactly! Who cares what happened ten years ago? We’re all adults now in happy, healthy relationships after all.” His voice was sing-song. It was a long shot to style this one out, but he had to give it a try.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Tash said, massaging the bridge of her nose, her brain now flooding with images she didn’t want to entertain. Perhaps hearing more stories was a bad idea after all. If Tash had a headache before, it’d just quadrupled in size. A marching band was tap-dancing on her brain, a team of builders hammering behind her eyes. “Kat? You fucked Kat?”
Tash glared at Laura. She needed some air, to get out of this group. She needed to breathe. She scraped her chair back and her head nearly exploded with the movement. She heard Laura say her name as she left but she didn’t look back. She passed the group of power couples, passed a couple having a steak and the risotto with a bottle of wine, passed the group of upmarket pensioners by the door enjoying their Saturday night.
As she reached the door she felt a presence behind her and turned around. Laura was standing not three inches from her, looking freaked. Part of Tash wanted to cup Laura’s face, to tell her it would all be fine – and she really hoped it would be. But right now, Tash didn’t want to look at her, didn’t want to be the only one not in on the secret. She put a hand on Laura’s chest and pushed firmly.
“Not now,” she said. “Just… leave me. Go back, reminisce some more and work out if there are any other secrets you need to get off your chest.”
Tash knew it was harsh, she knew it was in the past, but if it meant nothing, then why not tell her? That was the question playing on her mind.
***
Laura stood back and watched the pub door slam in her face. Were her eyes spinning in their sockets? It seemed possible right now. She was floating up and outside of her body, looking down on the wreckage of this situation, assessing the damage. She looked down to her arms, her legs, her torso, her feet – all still there. She was 50% giddy, 50% disbelief. This must be happening to someone else.
