One?

by Jennifer L. Cahill

  ‘Oh my god, I totally forgot, shiiiiiiiit, I didn’t even bring a change of clothes, oh no! I’m so not in the mood to meet him, I remember now… he rang yesterday to see if I was still up for it. I definitely can’t cancel, that would be so rude… oh no George!’ Penelope sounded totally devastated.

  ‘Well, it’ll just have to wait until tomorrow then…’ George was not happy about this either, she had assumed that when Penelope had suggested meeting up tonight, that she had already cancelled with Richard.

  ‘But that’s ages away!’ Penelope whined.

  ‘I know! Believe me, I can’t wait to hear about it too, but you should meet up with him. It’s not every day that you bump into an old friend, and if you cancel he’ll probably take it the wrong way.’ George advised her.

  ‘I know, oh, well… tomorrow then… but I’ll speak to you later anyway…I’ll try to not have a late one with Richard…’ Penelope was resigned to the fact that, that was the way it had to be.

  ‘Ok, bye.’ George sounded empathetic.

  ‘Bloody Richard! I’m so annoyed, all I want to do is talk about Alyx, and now I can’t bloody do that with Richard…’ Penelope’s mood was dented, but only for a minute.

  Later that day, the phone rang.

  ‘Penelope Chesterfield.’ She answered curtly.

  ‘Hi Penelope, it’s me…Richard, is it a good time?’ Richard was terribly courteous.

  ‘Oh yes, it’s fine, are you ringing about this evening?’ Penelope mustered some cheeriness, after all, it wasn’t his fault that the timing of their get together that night was so bad.

  ‘Yes, I thought I’d drop by your office at about seven, is that ok with you?’ Richard was already planning the logistics.

  ‘That’s fine, listen Richard, I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t bring a change of clothes with me…’ Penelope sounded apologetic.

  ‘Oh no don’t worry about that at all… neither did I.’ Richard had never even considered bringing a change of clothes, he thought he looked his best in his suits anyway. He hated jeans, they were so common.

  ‘Ok, see you later then.’ Penelope was keen to get him off the line.

  ‘Looking forward to it.’ Richard replied curtly, and then hung up.

  ‘Oh no! It’ll be like a bloody meeting, the two of us sitting there in our suits. It’s lunchtime, but I can’t eat a thing! I don’t’ think I’ll ever eat again.’ Penelope was momentarily miffed by the thought of meeting Richard, but then the memory of Alyx floated back into her head, and it was all better again…

  After a full day of intense meetings, 7 pm came around rather quickly.

  ‘Miss Chesterfield, I have a Mr. Lord down here to see you…’ Richard had arrived a few minutes early.

  ‘Damn it… he’s early…’ ‘Ok, tell him I’ll be right down.’ ‘Well, no point in keeping him waiting.’ Penelope went straight downstairs. .

  ‘Richard, hi, lovely to see you again…’ Penelope gave him a kiss on his cheek.

  ‘Penelope, you look stunning.’ Richard kissed her back, and gave her a broad smile.

  ‘What, oh … erm, I mean thank you. Where are we off to sorry I forgot to pick somewhere, I’ve been really busy in work…?’ Penelope was a bit taken aback, she wasn’t even dressed up or anything, what was he going on about?

  ‘I thought we’d have supper at the Ritz.’ Richard announced.

  ‘That sounds lovely.’ ‘That’s weird… I thought he wanted me to pick somewhere, he must have had to book that!’ Penelope was slightly surprised at this, this had not been the plan at all.

  ‘So, tell me all about yourself… you haven’t gone and got yourself married have you Penelope?’ Richard went straight in with the killer question.

  ‘Well, no… I…’ Penelope began to get flustered, she was convinced he could see how crazy she was about Alyx just by looking at her glowing.

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Richard snapped, barely giving Penelope time to finish her sentence.

  ‘Erm, not really, you see…’ Penelope struggled to finish her sentence, it felt a bit like the Spanish Inquisition, and nobody expects that… when they are meeting up with an old friend.

  ‘Fabulous… I’m single too, great fun isn’t it?!’ Richard sat back in his seat and began to relax a bit and beamed at her.

  ‘Well, not exactly, it’s just that…’ Penelope began… but Richard cut her off again…

  ‘More champagne!’ He was filling her glass before she had time to protest.

  ‘Oh, alright then…’ ‘Well seeing as I can’t get a word in edgeways I may as well…’

  ‘… mainly looking after my investment portfolio, and then of course there’s the castle, and the yacht in the south of France… I try to get down there at least four times a year… did you know that my parents play golf with …’ Richard rambled on about himself, name-dropping whenever possible.

  ‘Does he actually think I’m interesting in all of this crap!’ Penelope was feeling drained as Richard went on and on, name-dropping and over-emphasising how much money his family has.

  ‘I don’t actually play golf myself, you see…’ Penelope struggled to get her point across, but failed miserably.

  ‘Great game! Great game… you should play, did you know that most of the business deals are made on the golf course and not in the boardroom…’ Richard stated matter-of-factly, as if this was a revelation that only he was privy to.

  ‘Well, I don’t feel like I’ve ever missed out because I don’t play…’ Penelope began to assert herself, the fact that she could not get a word in edgeways was ridiculous.

  ‘Nonsense! That’s settled… I’m arranging a golfing weekend for the two of us, how is May for you…?’ Richard jumped in with this as she paused to draw breath.

  ‘Hold your horses there, weekend away… help! The only thing worse than a “weekend away”… was a “golf weekend away”!’ Penelope could not believe this, one minute she was having a quick catch up drink with him and the next thing they were going away on a golf weekend together. What was up with the universe!?

  ‘So… no men on the scene then? I’m surprised at that, a stunning young lady like yourself…’ Richard went on and on.

  ‘… well actually, there is…’ Penelope tried to interrupt him to put him back in his place, but failed again. She admitted defeat to herself and knocked back another glass of champagne, to help her endure all of this machine gun fire conversation.

  ‘… I thought you’d be snapped up, can’t quite believe my luck!…’ Richard said with glee. He kept droning on and on, and Penelope kept sipping champagne, she was bored of this now and there was nothing else to do. She had a glazed look in her eyes.

  ‘I think this champagne is going to my head, I suppose I haven’t eaten all day, and every time I look up my glass has been refilled… how is he managing to do it without me noticing it.’ Penelope was starting to feel a little ill… drinking on an empty stomach was never a good idea. Richard was actually facilitating the process, but that was beside the point…

  ‘Richard! Are you shrying to get me dhhrunk?’ Penelope struggled to get the words out.

  ‘Would I?’ Richard smiled brightly at her, he seemed alarmingly sober all of a sudden, in stark contrast to Penelope.

  ‘Well I don’t know… that’s why I’m asking…’ Penelope was struggling to take the situation in, why on earth would Richard want to get her drunk, it was supposed to be a catch up with an old friend, not a date gone disastrously wrong!

  ‘No, no, of course not, don’t be silly.’ Richard regained composure now, he was seeing the concern flicker across Penelope’s gaze.

  ‘Do you know a guy called Alyx Stuart-Bruges?’ Penelope decided to try to change the subject, she was completely bored of this now, and all of the champagne had loosened her tongue.

  ‘… no… should I? The surname rings a bell…’ Richard started filing through all of the “need to know” people in his mind.

  ‘Well, he’s a … fri
end of mine, and he was telling me he has a castle in Scotland too… and I mean there can’t be that many castles in Scotland… so I thought that you might know him…maybe you are in a club or something, of people … you know, who own castles!’ Penelope babbled on, making no sense at all, drunk fuzzy logic!

  ‘What a club!? Now you are talking complete nonsense! Although the name does ring a bell, yes, yes, there was a girl… oh a terrible tragedy, her parents died in a plane crash when she was very young, oh and she did have a baby brother, that must be your pal.’ Richard knew he recognised the surname, and he recalled the tragic tale.

  ‘Indeed…’ Penelope glowed, she was really glad that she had asked now. ‘I knew it! I knew it! I knew he’d know him!’ A small feeling of triumph enveloped her, maybe this night hadn’t been a total waste of time after all. ‘That’s so sad about his parents though, the poor guy… oh my god I am soooooo drunk, I need to go to the loo, but I’m afraid to get up in case I fall over.’ Penelope squirmed in her seat, she wasn’t sure of herself enough to totter down to the loo, and she couldn’t make a spectacle of herself in the Ritz, she just couldn’t.

  ‘No, thanks, no more champagne for me…’ She put her hand over her glass as Richard went to pour again.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Richard snapped.

  ‘No, no really Richard I have a very early meeting, I really should go home now.’ Penelope sounded as firm as she could.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Richard sighed, ‘let me get you a taxi’. He jumped out of his seat, terrified that she would disappear into the night, never to return.

  Richard insisted on dropping Penelope to Clapham in a taxi even though it was a quite out of his way. By the time they got to Clapham Penelope was relieved that the evening was over.

  ‘Thank you Richard, for a lovely night… we must… hiccup… do it… oh excuse me… hiccup, again sometime… soon…’ She had given up trying to hide the hiccups by the time she saw Battersea Bridge, there just didn’t seem to be any point.

  ‘Indeed we will… now let me say goodbye properly…’ Richard jumped out to open the door for her, and then without any warning…

  ‘What…oh…!’ ‘There is a Richard in my mouth… eugh! This cannot be happening.’ Penelope struggled to maintain composure. A brief moment of denial was followed swiftly by the stark realisation that Richard had rammed his tongue into her mouth.

  ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, Good Night Princess.’ Richard strutted off delighted with himself, he couldn’t believe how easy it had been, he had won the prize.

  Penelope gave him a weak wave goodbye and stood there motionless, absolutely stunned. She struggled to get the key into the lock because she was so drunk.

  ‘I can’t believe that just happened! What the hell is going on? Ok, concentrate… key in the lock… key in the lock… turn key, oops, not that way, yes! The door is open… oh no…’ Penelope struggled to get the communal front door open, she was very drunk, and she was completely in shock about what had just happened. Once her front door was finally open, she lost her balance and fell in the door. She tripped, and knocked some boxes that were stacked on the stairs, making a loud crash.

  ‘Oh my god Penelope! Are you ok there?’ Charlie nearly had a heart attack, he had just arrived in himself, and wasn’t expecting Penelope to fall in the door behind him, making such a loud crash.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, I think the door took a bit of a battering though… are you ok little red door…’ Penelope bent down and started talking to the door in soothing tones, as if it were a little child who had fallen over.

  ‘Jesus!, what the hell happened to you? You’re hammered!’ Charlie had never seen Penelope in this state before, he was really, really shocked.

  ‘Not only that… my friend just kissed me!’ Penelope stood up, wobbled a bit, and said this in a very matter of fact way, pretty much the way a five-year-old would say it.

  ‘Who, George?’ Charlie shrieked!

  ‘Noooooooooooo, Ric-a-r-d, no Ri-sh-a-rd… no, no, you know Rich-ard, Loord.’ Penelope stuttered, she was feeling really hot, and she was not enjoying all the questions, but was happy to have finally got the word “Richard” out. Charlie was worse than her mother!

  ‘Not that ponce from Uni with the castle, and the water polo and all that shit?!’ Charlie was disgusted.

  ‘Well yes, and then he, well, I think he kissed me, and then he said I was a princess, imagine… I’m a princess, and it must be true because he has a castle , and we all know the type of people that live in castles… and then, my key wouldn’t work, and I tried and tried and tried, and then the door fell open, and I fell in, and here we are…’ Penelope was really speaking like a five-year-old now, and she was very proud of the fact that she managed to recount the whole story without even one hiccup. Her vision was becoming slightly blurred and Charlie looked so cross.

  ‘Right, come on… I’m going to put you to bed…’ Charlie was fuming, but his anger was not directed at Penelope.

  ‘What?! I don’t want to go to bed!’ Penelope put her hands on her hips, and stood there defiantly. One thick strand of her blonde bob hung down over her face and refused to be tucked behind her ear. She tried again and again to blow it away, she huffed and puffed and started getting really annoyed that it wouldn’t move.

  ‘Now, you know you have to go to bed Pen, you have to work tomorrow…’ Charlie decided that as she was acting like a child… he should speak to her as if she were one, so he said this in soothing tones. There was no sense in getting angry with her. It wasn’t her fault that she’d arrived home in that state.

  ‘Oh, no… work… I hate work…!’ Penelope took off her shoes, sat down on the stairs and folded her arms across her chest defiantly, in a huff.

  ‘Right come on.’ Charlie hauled her up and slung her gently over his shoulder.

  ‘Put me down!’ She started pounding lightly on Charlie’s back. Her world had literally been turned upside down.

  ‘No! How else are you going to get up those stairs…?’ Charlie laughed.

  ‘I think you may… just may… have a point there… will you bring my shoes up for me… please…’ Penelope started to sober up a bit, the shock of being lifted up and turned upside down, had this effect. Now her shoes were the emphasis of her childlike thought process.

  ‘You have lots of other shoes in your room, you don’t need those ones!’ Charlie said soothingly.

  ‘No! It’s the only pair that I have…’ Penelope was emphatic. ‘They are my faaay-vorites.’

  ‘Oh really!’ Charlie feigned surprise, and played along.

  ‘I swear, and I’ll die without them…’ Penelope sighed dramatically.

  ‘Ok, I’ll bring them up after…’ Charlie reassured her.

  ‘Thanks… I love you Charlie… you’re the best friend in the world,’ Penelope sighed, and in that moment she really meant it.

  ‘I know, I know… now come on … in to bed…’ Charlie carried her into her bedroom.

  ‘My shoes!’ Penelope shrieked as he placed her gently on the bed.

  ‘They are on their way up…’ Charlie stated matter-of-factly.

  ‘They are walking up the stairs on their own…? I always knew they were magic shoes! Penelope hissed conspiratorially.

  ‘No… Zara is bringing them up…’ Zara had heard what was going on and retrieved the shoes quietly. She arrived into the room and presented the shoes to Penelope.

  ‘Oh hi Shaaaaaara, you are an angel. Thank you for saving my shoooooooes…’ Penelope loved Zara now too, her magic shoes were safe and sound in her bedroom.

  ‘That’s ok.’ Zara smiled weakly at her.

  ‘I’ve left some water by the bed there Pen, if you feel thirsty…’ Charlie came back into the room with a pint of water.

  ‘Ok, I’m fine… nighty night…’ Penelope had managed to take off most of her clothes with a little help from Zara, and she was snuggled up in bed ready to go fast asleep. She scrunched the duvet up to her chin, and p
assed out.

  Charlie and Zara left her to it, and shut the door quietly behind them.

  ‘Bloody hell, thanks for bringing the shoes up…’ Charlie whispered to Zara.

  ‘What the hell happened to her?’ Zara asked completely astonished.

  ‘I think she was out for dinner with some idiot and he must have got her drunk. She literally fell in the door, did you hear the noise?’ Charlie fumed as he said this.

  ‘Yeah, I just thought it was one of your guitars falling over or something… do you know who she was out with?’ Zara was pretty concerned now, she had only ever seen Penelope completely composed and immaculate, even when she was drinking.

  ‘I think so, some idiot we went to college with,’ Charlie hissed.

  ‘A friend! Some bloody friend!’ Zara cried.

  ‘Exactly.’ Charlie agreed, and he stomped off to bed.

  Chapter 14

  The Morning After

  Penelope woke up with a thumping headache and her mouth was so dry she could barely feel her tongue. She was completely confused, disoriented and probably still… a little drunk.

  ‘Oh my poor head, how on earth did I get into bed? I remember the restaurant, and then it’s all a blur after that… how on earth did I get home… I remember Charlie, was he out too? Oh my god, Richard… Richard brought me home… oh no, and I think something happened… I think he kissed me. Only one thing to do…’ Penelope woke up with a splitting headache and struggled to piece the fragments of her memories of the night before together.

  ‘Hi,’ Penelope croaked.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, you sound terrible?’ George was shocked, she barely recognised Penelope’s voice.

  ‘I have the worst hangover.’ Penelope admitted.

  ‘Oh no, from last night… with Richard?’ George was feeling a bit guilty now, she had been the one encouraging her to go out with Richard.

  ‘Yep, and that’s not the worst part?’ Penelope started to feel sick at the memory she was about to relay to George.

  ‘No?’ George sounded astonished.