by Cate Woods
‘You head on up and start the bath running, I’ll be straight there with her milk.’
Once Luke and Dot have gone upstairs, I move around the kitchen preparing her bottle as if on autopilot; the emotional maelstrom of the afternoon has left me totally drained. I feel like I should be happy about how things have turned out, but right now I’m just desolate at the thought of never seeing Sam again. Wrong as that may be, I can’t help it.
Before I head upstairs to join Luke and Dot, I check my phone; there’s a message from Sam:
Hey Cinderella. Did you enjoy this afternoon as much as I did? Hoping we can do it again soon x
I clutch my phone to my chest, closing my eyes, letting myself bask in how good he made me feel, how excited about the future. I’m not sure how long I stay like that, but I’m only jolted out of my reverie when I hear Dot crying upstairs, clearly wondering where the hell I’ve got to with her milk.
‘Coming,’ I call – and then, with the last dregs of my willpower, I delete Sam’s message.
34
I’ve been waiting in this nightclub queue for twenty-five minutes now and it’s not moved a millimetre. I know this for a fact because I’m still standing adjacent to a metre-high, poorly graffitied cock and balls, which marks the spot where I started queuing. It’s not that people haven’t been allowed into the club – in fact, there’s been a steady flow of glamazons having a quiet word with the doorman and ducking under the rope – but not one of us plebs whose names aren’t cool enough to appear on the promoter’s clipboard has yet been admitted. So we’re stuck here, meek as sheep in a pen, seething ineffectually whenever someone hotter or better connected than us skips the queue. To make matters worse, I’d just assumed that Riva would have put my name on the guest list, so when I arrived I strutted up to the door, feeling pretty sassy in a black jumpsuit of Jess’, only to be sent straight to the back of the queue amid smirks and whispers from the other sheep. Not that I blame them, I’d have reacted exactly the same: Schadenfreude is the only power we possess right now.
I check my phone: 10.40 p.m. Bugger. When Riva called me yesterday and said we’d be meeting in The Club (apparently it’s too cool to have a proper name) at 10 p.m. and I told her that was my usual bedtime, she had laughed hysterically – ‘You crack me up, Barb!’ – but actually, I wasn’t joking. I’m sure it’ll be worth it if/when I get inside, as, according to Riva, this place is so hot Hailey Baldwin had her birthday party here last week, but right now I would pay a day’s wages to be cosied up in bed with a romcom on my Kindle. I suppose I could try messaging Riva again to see if she can come and get me, but it looks like she still hasn’t read the last one I sent. I think I’ll give it until 11 p.m. and then call it a night. I wouldn’t be quite so unwilling to wait if the surroundings were a bit less ‘murdery’, but here, in this badly lit alley, just off the grotty bit of Lower Clapton Road, I get the impression that it’s only a matter of time before we start to get picked off by muggers, like a herd of wildebeest being preyed on by hyenas. And as it’s always the old and infirm who are first to go, I’ll definitely be the first victim; everyone else here is at least ten years younger than me.
To pass the time, I take a few arty photos of the cock and balls, experimenting with different filters. Would this be something ‘ArbiterofCool’ would put up on their feed? In an ironic way, perhaps . . . With this in mind, I click onto Instagram to see how my latest photos are doing. I was at the Eliopoulos mansion again this morning, and while taking the official marketing shots I also snapped a load of unofficial photos as well: the Buddha by the koi carp pond, a marble sculpture in the master bedroom, a pair of metallic Aquazurra heels that I found in the floor-to-ceiling shoe closet in the guest suite and arranged on a fur rug (#Aquazurra #fakefur #luxe #designerlife #decorinspo). I have a loyal and enthusiastic band of followers now and, as ever, get a massive kick when I see the likes and comments mounting up.
And then, as if at some hidden signal, the queue starts to edge forwards, and ten minutes later I have made it inside The Club. I’d like to say it was worth the wait, but with its strip lighting, plastic chairs and scuffed lino, the vibe in here is definitely more ‘church hall disco’ than super-hip hangout. There’s even an old-fashioned tea hatch, of the sort WI ladies might hand out fish-paste sandwiches from to the vicar, although here it opens onto the bar. I can’t see anyone I know and I’m feeling massively overdressed; everyone else seems to be wearing Nineties Grunge. I join the queue for the tea-hatch when, to my relief, I hear Riva hollering my name.
‘Babe! Over here!’
Towards the back of the room there is an assortment of old leather sofas and armchairs, which have been pushed together to create a sort of VIP seating area, and it is here that I spot Riva, kneeling up, leaning on the back of the sofa and waving frantically.
‘And where the fuck have YOU been, Barb?’ she booms as I approach. You’re late!’
‘Sorry, I was stuck outside in the queue for ages.’
‘Whaaaaat? You should have said you were with our party. Guest list all the way, baby!’ Riva bounces up and down on the sofa, whooping, while Delphine and Farrah – who are sitting nearby – join in, although they clearly don’t know what it’s in aid of. I get the impression they’ve all been hard at it for some time.
‘Well, I told the guy on the door I was with you, but he didn’t have my name down.’
‘What the fuck . . . ? Talia, did you put Barb’s name on the list?’
A crop-haired brunette lounging on an armchair nearby looks round. ‘Who?’
‘Barb.’ Riva points at me. ‘Her.’
Talia looks me up and down, barely hiding a sneer at my jumpsuit, then shrugs and turns back to her conversation.
‘God, I’m so sorry, babe,’ says Riva, eyes saucer-wide. ‘I must have forgotten. Will you forgive me?’ She pouts, tugging at my hand like a little child. ‘Pwetty pweeeese?’
Hmmm. I get the feeling Riva’s buoyant mood tonight might not just be down to cocktails and excitement.
‘It’s fine, honestly,’ I say, sitting next to her on the sofa.
‘Awwwww, love you, babe!’ Riva throws her arms around me with such force that we fall back against the cushions; she’s still giggling manically some time after we struggle back up again.
If I felt like the highly esteemed guest of honour the last time I went out with Riva, this time I’m the spare part. Apart from Riva, Delphine and Farrah, I don’t know anybody else who’s here, and, like Talia, it clearly only takes a glance for the other guests to decide that I’m not worth talking to.
Riva is busy chatting to a beautiful guy who looks vaguely familiar – I think he might be a famous musician? – and Farrah is hanging around the DJ booth, so I try to chat to Delphine. But once we get the pleasantries out of the way, and she asks whether I’ve booked my nose job yet, the conversation putters to a standstill; I exhausted all my fashion anecdotes last time, so I can’t even rely on those to help things along. Our lives are so different now, it’s painfully obvious that we have nothing in common.
There’s a sudden squeal of laughter from Riva, who is now sitting on the musician’s lap with her arms around his neck. Amidst the low-key looks of most other people here, Riva sticks out like a Crufts-winning poodle amongst street mutts: she’s wearing a turquoise, one-shouldered mini-dress and a headpiece in the shape of a giant pink cherry. I feel a pang of envy at her confidence and fabulousness.
‘I just don’t know how Riva does it,’ I say, turning back to Delphine. ‘Juggling her career and all this while raising Jethro. She makes me feel completely inadequate.’
Delphine wrinkles her perfect little nose. ‘Jethro?’
‘You know, her son.’
‘Oh right, yeah. But, you know, it’s not as if she has to look after him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Like, Riva doesn’t do any of the actual mum stuff, does she? With her career – are you kidding me? She palmed him off onto h
er own mum when he was like, I dunno, a couple of weeks old. He was certainly super tiny. Riva was just so busy with work, and her mum’s still pretty young, I think, so it made sense for Joshua to go and live with her.’
‘Jethro,’ I say, as my mind frantically tries to process what it’s just heard.
‘Yeah. Jethro.’ Delphine nods, smoothing her hair over her shoulder. ‘I mean, can you imagine Riva looking after a baby!’ She gives a snort of laughter. ‘She’d have left him at a shoot, or on a plane or something . . . So yeah, he lives with Riva’s mum in, like, Croydon or somewhere, and Riva just visits when she can.’ Delphine reaches for her drink, but then stops. ‘Oh my God, she told me this hilarious story about going to see the kid this one time and she literally had to explain that she was his mum, because he thought she was his sister!’
‘Um, yeah, that’s hilarious.’
‘I know, right? Seriously, she cracks me up . . . Oh hey, Donovan – hi!’
Having spotted someone more interesting, Delphine jumps up and disappears off into the crowd, leaving me to process the bombshell she’s just casually dropped.
In a way I’m relieved, as this has now answered all my questions about how Riva managed to make parenting look such a breeze: it’s because she’s never done any actual parenting. If her account of motherhood sounded like a fairy tale, it’s because that’s exactly what it was: pure fiction. The more I think about it, though, the angrier I become. It’s not that I’d ever judge her for getting her mum to raise her child – whatever works for them, it’s nothing to do with me – but what pisses me off is that Riva made me feel like a failure by leading me to think she was effortlessly juggling all these balls, when in reality she wasn’t even bothering to pick up the balls in the first place.
I suppose, giving her the benefit of the doubt, she might not have wanted to tell me about her mum raising Jethro because she was worried I might disapprove. I glance over at Riva, who’s now licking the musician’s face, and my insides scrunch up with irritation. No, she’s never given a shit about what other people think. She must have known I was hoping for reassurance when I asked her about Jethro – for some practical advice, mum to mum – so why would she deliberately lie to a friend to make them feel worse about themselves?
Because she’s not really your friend, says a voice inside my head, which may or may not be Tabby, Fiona, Claris, Jess or a combination of all four. And as I watch Riva’s cherry hat bobbing away at the musician’s face there’s an ache in the pit of my stomach that feels a lot like betrayal.
‘I need a drink,’ I announce to no one in particular. I stand up, smooth down my jumpsuit and hold my head high as I make my way towards the bar. There is a huge crowd gathered around the hatch and I elbow my way towards the front, desperate to numb my feelings with alcohol. I’m so consumed by my inner ranting over Riva that it takes me a little while to register that standing a few feet away, his head nodding in time to the beat, is my former friend, work colleague and one-time fuck buddy: Tomo.
35
I stare at him, frozen in shock. It’s definitely Tomo, there’s no doubt about that, but at the same time it’s . . . not Tomo. He looks, well, nothing like he used to. The only thing he’d be able to model these days would be hair-loss shampoo. His famously chiselled face is now swollen and puffy – either from fillers or boozing, it’s hard to tell – and his legendary body, which once inspired a range of men’s pants for Debenhams, looks soft and bloated under his too-tight Stüssy t-shirt. None of us are getting any younger, but I’m staggered how much Tomo has changed in five years.
I yell his name, but he doesn’t hear me, so I jostle my way towards him and try again. This time he turns round, and – after locating me as the source of the noise – looks at me with unfocused eyes, swaying slightly.
‘It’s me,’ I say with an expectant smile. ‘Barb.’
But his face crumples in almost comic confusion. Oh come on, surely he must remember me?
‘We used to work together and . . . stuff. Barb?’ I can’t believe I’m having to explain to him who I am; at one stage we were almost inseparable. ‘Jay Patterson’s assistant?’
As ever, my ex-boss’ name works its usual dark magic.
‘Fuck, yeah! Barb!’ Tomo reaches over and hugs me; I get a whiff of sweat and cigarettes. ‘Great to see you again, babe! Fuck, it’s been, like . . . a really long time!’
‘I know, about five years.’ I smile. ‘So how have you been?’
‘I’m really good, yeah.’ He sniffs, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. ‘I quit the modelling, you probably heard. Had enough, man – it was all so fucking shallow . . . Nowadays I’m a DJ. Spend a lot of the year in Ibiza – fucking amazing place, I love it . . .’ More sniffing. ‘What about you? Still, uh, taking photos?’
‘Yep, although I’m working in property rather than fashion,’ I say. ‘And I’m a mum now, too.’
Tomo reacts as if he’s never met a mother before. ‘You’ve got a kid? Wow. That’s . . . intense.’ He narrows his eyes. ‘It’s not mine, is it?’
I’m not sure what my face does, but it clearly does a good job of conveying my incredulity.
‘I’m kidding! But . . . we did fuck, right?’
Jesus, what a charmer. ‘Yes, we did.’
‘Phew.’ He grins. ‘Although I’m usually pretty safe to assume that the answer’s gonna be yes. Ha!’
Tomo is now in front of the hatch, and greets the barman with a complicated handshake. ‘Hey Kendo, can I grab a double JD with Red Bull? Cheers, bro.’ He turns back to me and says: ‘So are you still in touch with Jay? Fucking unfair what happened to him, all that drugs shit in the press. I mean, he was just the poor dude who got caught, right?’ He gives a bark of laughter.
‘I haven’t seen Jay in years,’ I say, ‘but I’m here with Riva.’
‘Yeah? Me too! Just like old times, eh?’
And with that Tomo takes his drink from the barman, gives him a fist bump of thanks, then turns and pushes his way back through the crowd, leaving me still waiting to be served. It seems that it’s not only his looks that have faded since we last met: his charisma has gone AWOL too.
When I finally make it back to the sofas, Tomo is deep in conversation with Riva and Delphine and the possibly-famous musician has disappeared. There’s no room for me to sit with them and so, after hovering awkwardly for a moment, I perch on the arm of the sofa. They’re chatting about a mate of theirs called Lupo, who has apparently got into a Twitter spat with Kanye West about something, and as I listen to their competitive name-dropping (‘Yeah, but you know what Jay and Bey can be like . . .’) it strikes me that I’ll never be part of this world again – and for the first time I realise this is actually a good thing. Just a few hours ago I’d have been desperate to join in, to prove that I was still cool, but after the events of this evening I really can’t be arsed. I’m too old for this shit, I think, as I gulp down my drink – and it’s a terrifically liberating feeling. I get a sudden longing to be hanging out with my real friends, and with it comes an uncomfortable prickle of guilt: they were absolutely spot on about Riva; I was just too stubborn to admit it. I’d really like to phone them right away, to smooth things over, but Tabby and Claris are bound to be asleep and Fi is on her minibreak in Amsterdam. It then occurs to me that I haven’t heard a peep from her while she’s been away – usually I’d have had a dozen texts by now giving me a blow-by-blow account of Finn’s failure to propose. Oh God, have I totally screwed up our friendship?
‘Hey babe, didn’t see you there.’ Tomo shuffles along the sofa, patting the space. ‘You can squeeze up next to me.’
‘You still here, mama?’ Riva shrieks. ‘Thought you’d be tucked up in bed in your Gap jim-jams by now!’ She cackles wildly, clearly completely wasted, and I have a sudden urge to knock the stupid cherry off her head.
Then Tomo leans closer to me, his face slick with sweat, and fixes me with a look that once would have been irresistibly seductive, but
is now somewhere between menacing and constipated. ‘So Barb, I’ll be coming back to your place later, right . . . ?’
‘Actually, it’s not Barb – it’s Annie. And no, I’m afraid you won’t be.’
He snakes his arm around my back and down towards my bum, which he gives a rough squeeze. ‘Oh, I think I will . . .’
‘No,’ I say, taking his hand – probably more firmly than I intended – and shoving it back in his lap. ‘You most certainly will not.’
Tomo glares at me, holding his hand as if gravely injured. ‘Jesus, chill the fuck out. I was just having a bit of fun.’
Riva gives a withering snigger. ‘Come on, babe, don’t kill the vibe. No need to overreact, yeah?’
I look at the pair of them, taking in their glassy-eyed expressions, twitchy movements and ugly grimaces, and suddenly the charmed life that I always thought Riva and her friends were living doesn’t look anywhere near as shiny and enviable.
‘Well, I think I should be getting home,’ I say, jumping to my feet. ‘It is way past my bedtime, after all! Delightful to see you all, look forward to catching up again some other time.’
And with that I turn and stride towards the exit before any of them can say a word.
I burst through the door and then stop outside, buzzing with adrenaline, closing my eyes and taking a deep, calming breath. Relief floods through me; I feel like I’ve had a lucky escape.
‘Annie? Is that you?’
I turn towards the sound of the voice and there, leaning against the wall, a cigarette clasped elegantly between two long fingers, is Edgar – alter ego of Madame Kiki Beaverhousen – and I’m relieved to see he’s smiling at me with genuine warmth. I needed to see a friendly face right now.
I greet him with a kiss. ‘Giving Kiki another night off, are you?’
‘Madame Kiki would never deign to be seen in a shithole like this,’ he says with theatrical outrage.
‘So why is Edgar here?’
