‘Hello, Anna.’ Simon gave her a friendly punch. ‘What’s the story?’
Anna didn’t know. What was the story? Claire gave her a guilty I can’t stop him coming along can I? look. Anna resigned herself to spending the rest of the evening with a married couple. Great. The American had disappeared. She almost wished he hadn’t.
‘I’m exhausted,’ Claire whispered to Anna eventually, after the three of them (Claire and Simon holding hands) had stood around awkwardly for a while. ‘I’m worried about leaving the babysitter, you know . . . it’s late.’
‘Can you not send Simon home?’ Anna was annoyed.
‘Ooo-kay . . . I’ll say it to him, but . . .’
‘No go,’ Anna snapped, ‘I’ll be all right here by myself.’
‘Are you sure?’ Claire didn’t seem to think it was the best idea she’d ever heard. ‘I’m not sure I like the idea of you going home on your own.’
‘Hopefully I won’t be going home on my own.’
‘Well, if you’re positive.’ Claire squeezed her hand.
Anna was very sorry her friend was disappearing so early. She could have begged her to stay but was determined not to grovel. So, with a nonchalant shrug, she shed her security blanket. And insisted Claire left without her. Simon gave her a brotherly hug. Claire kissed both her cheeks. They were gone. It all happened so fast.
Right, thought Anna, I think I’ll have a bit of a walk around. Simon had bought her another beer (although she’d asked for a coke) before they’d left. She set off in the direction of the dance floor, pint glass in hand.
Hopefully someone would stop to chat her up. Guys always did that when you walked around on your own, didn’t they? Not this time. Anna got around the nightclub’s perimeter fairly fast. Well, that walk had proved fairly fruitless. What now? She couldn’t do a second lap for at least ten minutes. She lit a fag. And smoked it.
‘Have you got a light?’ Crikey, it was the dish from the dance floor.
Anna blinked, not quite believing her luck. ‘Sure,’ she said coolly. Hopefully he wouldn’t just light up and leave. She wasn’t going to let him just use her like that. She held out the flickering flame and watched him lean forward, catching it in a split second. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly.
‘So where’s your boyfriend?’ He raised an eyebrow. He was quietly confident. Mysterious. Well, compared to the usual louts she met in clubs. Very intelligent. Anna guessed he was trying to work her out. She intrigued him somehow. Good. That’s what she was there for.
‘That oul lad on the dance floor?’ she giggled. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’
‘Right.’ He blew a perfectly formed smoke ring. Anna watched it drift towards the ceiling.
‘Where’s your girlfriend?’ Anna decided to play him at his own game.
‘I don’t have one,’ he said, ‘yet.’
She was glad the club was so dark. Dark enough for him not to notice the scarlet rash rapidly disfiguring the side of her neck. The heat was something else.
‘Who was the girl on the dance floor, so?’ Anna decided to be direct.
‘A friend.’
God, he didn’t give much away, did he? But to be fair he was neither sleazy nor smarmy, more smouldering and sharp. Anna wasn’t smitten. Of course she wasn’t. But she could see how other girls could be.
‘Listen,’ he looked at her levelly, ‘I could stand here for half an hour and tell you you’re the most beautiful girl in the world and that I’m not like other men and all that crap, right?’
‘Right,’ said Anna, wondering where on earth this could be leading.
‘Or I could be honest.’
Honest. It was a word Anna liked. Although admittedly she wasn’t too familiar with it.
‘Yes?’ she emitted faintly.
‘Look, I like you. Or at least I think I do. I saw you on the dance floor. I thought, “Hey, not bad!” Now here I am. I’d like your number. If you don’t want to give it to me, I’ll give you mine.’
‘No, I’ll give you mine,’ Anna said. ‘I don’t ring men,’ she added untruthfully. Well, it wasn’t a complete lie. She did try very hard not to ring men. Especially those who quite obviously never rang back. But she was learning. These days when a guy failed to ring, she’d try them maybe only . . . say, three times (an improvement on bygone days!) just to be one hundred per cent sure that they were sure they never wanted to see her again.
He asked the barman for a pen and scribbled her number on the back of his hand.
‘Thanks,’ he surprised her with a quick peck on the cheek, ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘But . . . where are you going?’ Anna was alarmed. He had to see her home. He had to. She couldn’t be seen leaving the club alone. There was nothing more humiliating than leaving a club on your own.
‘It’s my er . . . friend. She’s had a lot to drink and is in a bad way. I can’t leave her on her own.’
‘Well, we could drop her off and go on somewhere,’ Anna said in a little voice and nearly bit her own tongue off. What was she like? God, she might as well stand on top of one of the speakers and scream DESPERATE! Stay cool, she told herself. ‘Actually,’ she resumed her cool exterior, ‘on second thoughts, you’d better go. My friends would kill me if I just left without saying goodbye.’
‘Where are they?’ He looked round expectantly as if a group of screaming girls might suddenly jump out at him from behind the DJ’s box.
‘Oh, they’re over at the other bar,’ Anna said, quick as lightning. ‘The queues are something else.’
‘Right.’ He gave her a quick peck again. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
He was gone!
So much for a night of fun and frolic. Anna examined her chipped Revlon red nails under the flashing disco lights. She now knew the profound meaning of loneliness in a crowd. She had to get out of there. A single girl had no business staying in a nightclub alone until the early hours of Sunday morning. But she couldn’t leave yet, of course. Like a prisoner she felt trapped behind the nightclub’s imaginary bars. It was sad, she knew, but if she bumped into that guy and his friend on her way out her cover would be blown. God, she didn’t even know his name. She fished out the shoddy piece of paper from her bag. Rick. His name was scrawled above his mobile number. He shouldn’t have bothered giving her his number too. As if she was going to ring him! Jesus, he’d better be worth all this hassle.
Anna wandered unhappily around the club aiming for nowhere in particular. Her head was like a fairground complete with roller coasters and a big wheel. Everything was spinning around fast and furiously, and then something just suddenly snapped. She’d had enough. Her safe little flat in Ranelagh seemed very appealing right now. Wouldn’t it be great to be like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, click your fingers and simply say ‘Home Sweet Home’ or whatever the hell she had said.
‘Safe home now,’ the bouncer said as she braced herself for the freezing night air.
‘Thank you.’ She gave him a watery smile. That’s exactly where she wanted to be. Safe. Home. Now. She wished she’d worn a comfortable pair of boots. These heels were a killer. She tottered up to the traffic lights. And waited. Nothing. She decided to keep walking to prevent her feet from freezing into two blocks of ice. She looked around desperately for a glowing yellow taxi sign. A couple of occupied cabs seemed to be hurrying in the opposite direction, the occupants staring sadistically out of the windows.
None stopped for poor Anna.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I hope Anna’s okay.’ Claire was full of concern as her husband drove them home to the comfort of their three-bed semi, minutes from Ranelagh village.
‘Anna’s fine,’ Simon said matter-of-factly. ‘She’s a big girl now – well able to look after herself.’
‘I hate leaving her alone in that place, you know, with all those sleazes.’
‘I would have given her a lift if she’d wanted.’
Simon stopped at the red lights, laid a gentle hand on his young w
ife’s knee and gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Don’t worry about her,’ he smiled. ‘She’s probably talking to the man of her dreams this very minute.’
Claire genuinely doubted it. She couldn’t remember the last time Anna had met a man who was even vaguely suitable. She did it on purpose, Claire reckoned. She shunned security. Now and again she’d go through phases of claiming to crave love and marriage, yet at the mere mention of kids, Anna’s eyes would glaze over as she suppressed yawn after yawn.
Simon pulled up slowly outside the front door. It wasn’t even two a.m. yet and they were safely home. Mr And Mrs Married. Claire gave a short laugh. Anna wouldn’t want this for the world.
Fiona, the eighteen-year-old babysitter, was relieved to see them.
‘I didn’t think you’d be home so soon,’ she said brightly, gratefully pocketing her twenty quid. ‘The other couple I babysit for don’t come home till all hours.’
‘Ah, sure we don’t see the point in staying out half the night.’ Simon handed Fiona her coat. ‘Come on, I’ll walk you home.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Claire muttered as her husband closed the front door. She couldn’t help but feel slightly peeved at his throwaway remark. What about her? Maybe she might have liked to stay out half the night. Simon often had a night out with the lads. God knew, she rarely got the chance. It would have been nice to spend a bit more time with Anna. To have got a little hammered. Maybe carried each other home, unintentionally popping into Abrakebabra for a kebab and chips . . .
Claire climbed the stairs wearily. Those days were well and truly gone now. Simon had seen to that. It was all about responsibility these days. Mortgages and money matters. Promotions not emotions. Stockmarkets and supermarkets. Aiming high and DIY. Computing and commuting. It was all so . . . so . . . like the way her father had lived. Only worse. Much worse in fact. When her father had joined the bank in the late sixties, he’d simply had to keep his head down and patiently wait for promotion. It would come to him in good time, her mother would remind him as she baked the daily bread.
All that was done away with now. The roar of the Celtic Tiger and all that. No waiting around these days, thank you very much. Except for office colleagues waiting to cut your throat. Or hang you by the balls. Or stab your designer-clad back. It was all so horrible. In a way Claire was glad Simon had talked her out of going back to work. She didn’t know if she could cope with all that pressure.
She opened the baby door quietly and smelled the familiar baby smell that filled the tiny blue boxroom. The light flooded in from the hall. Andrew, asleep in his little yellow babygro with the duck on it, was breathing evenly. Fluffy, his favourite teddy, was tucked in beside him, one paw covering half of Andrew’s face. Claire tiptoed gently towards his cot and moved Fluffy slightly away. She bent down and kissed the soft warm skin of her baby’s cheek. Happiness surged through her.
Nothing, not all the nights out and wild times could ever replace the intense love she felt for her little boy. She heard Simon’s footsteps on the stairs. No wonder he was always working hard for his family. He loved Andrew as much as she did. That was why he spent those long laborious hours in the office, bent over his computer. Because of his wife and child. Because he was aware of his responsibilities. Because he was a good Daddy.
Anna woke in a sweat. Somehow her blanket was strewn across her bedroom floor. Sunbeams streamed through a crack in the check curtains.
What time had she finally got a taxi home? Had she even got a taxi in the end? She vaguely remembered having had an argument with someone about the shocking lack of taxis around the place at night. But who cared anyway? She’d got home somehow and besides her head was hurting too much to try to figure out what had been dreamed and what hadn’t. The whole night had been a bloody nightmare. A complete waste of time. Anna considered spending the whole afternoon in bed feeling sorry for herself, but a deep thirst forced her out of the bed. Her tongue felt like an old piece of carpet.
Never again, she told herself as she sipped from a half tin of flat lemonade. Yuck. Her insides were craving from the lack of food. Her poor bewildered stomach. She wondered if models always felt this bad. God, it was no great shakes being a waif with your tummy screaming at you, accusing you of abuse. How could one live with the guilt? She fired her empty can at the bin in the corner and missed. Feck it, she wasn’t going to pick it up now. If she bent down she’d never get up again. She’d pick it up tomorrow. In fact she’d do a big clear-out. Tomorrow after work. Jesus, work. Ugh! Anna slumped herself down on a red-paint-spattered stool and rested the side of her face on the cool kitchen table. The chilly surface was a welcome sensation against her fiery flushed cheek. Thank God it was Sunday.
CHAPTER NINE
‘So, Anna,’ Elaine sipped her carrot juice as they sat in a veggie restaurant on George’s Street, ‘have you written out your application letter yet?’
‘For what?’ Anna looked surprised.
‘Don’t you know? Your form for the post of assistant manager has to be in by tomorrow.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Anna stabbed her veggie burger with her fork. She had thought about applying for the post – after all she’d no intention of being a mere department manager all her life. But what in the name of God would she do in a one-horse town where if you sneezed everybody would be talking about it? She didn’t fancy packing her bags to go off and move to such a town just to exercise a bit of authority in a two-man shop. No, thank you very much. At least in Dublin she was right in the heart of things. And near Claire, of course. Not that she saw much of her these days though. Unfortunately, Claire was too busy being the perfect wife. Then there were her parents to consider. They’d miss her dreadfully. Or would they? Anna forced herself to consider it. Get real here, she finally chided herself. They probably wouldn’t notice if she was abducted by aliens and whisked off to Timbuktu. Who else was there? Mark? Well, he would just have to find someone else to torment. In fact, when she thought about it, was there anybody who would, like, really really mind her going at all? It probably wasn’t the best thing in the world to think about.
‘I’d love to get it,’ Elaine’s eyes glittered with emerald eye shadow and enthusiasm. Her whole face lit up when she smiled. She really was a striking-looking woman, Anna thought. It was terrible to think her husband had just skedaddled off like that. For no reason. But there was always a reason, wasn’t there, Anna thought darkly. No wonder Elaine was throwing herself into this whole promotion lark. Like someone throwing herself off a burning ship. Women did that sometimes. Got involved in lots of different stuff. To get over men. Ridiculous, when you thought about it really. All that energy. Anna wondered what men did to get over a woman. Moved on to another one, she supposed.
‘I’m sure you’ve got a very good chance,’ Anna said kindly. ‘You’re so enthusiastic.’
‘I have very little choice,’ Elaine said, her eyes hardening, her mouth set in a straight line. ‘It’s got nothing to do with enthusiasm.’
‘Yes, I know, I know.’ Anna dipped her spoon into her dessert, an orangey chocolatey mousse, laden with naughty calories. ‘Listen,’ she said, eager to change the subject, ‘how about next Friday, you and me head out on the town? You know, go on the complete rip.’
‘Sure.’ Elaine’s face softened. Anna meant well. Always looking out for other people. It was such a pity she lacked such direction in her own life. Anna’s answer to everything could be found in a bottle of something. Or a cream cake. Still, she wouldn’t say no to a night out. They might even meet a few men! Not that she’d ever seriously consider getting involved with anyone ever again. No, she’d never ever do that again.
They decided to have their after-dinner coffee somewhere else. Somewhere more sociable. As in a pub.
‘So, Elaine,’ Anna glanced around the pub to see if she could spot anyone interesting, ‘where do you reckon we’ll go on our night out? The Sugar Club? The River Club?’
‘What was that I heard about a night out?’
/>
Elaine looked up in surprise. The owner of the deep masculine voice stood behind Anna. Tall and well built, he exuded an unmistakable air of affluence. He had the most mischievous and merry green eyes she’d ever encountered. Anna swung around, her face turning a crimson colour. ‘Mark,’ she said, with a sharp intake of breath. Elaine laughed. It was unlike her colleague to be at a loss for words.
* * *
‘Thanks for sticking up for me in there,’ Anna whispered to Elaine as they walked back to Lolta’s twenty minutes later. ‘Mark’s always slagging me and I’m sick of it.’
‘But what exactly did happen last weekend?’ Elaine was bursting with curiosity, ‘’Cos you sure weren’t with me.’
‘I went to my parents,’ Anna admitted, feeling absolutely ridiculous.
‘That’s hysterical,’ Elaine laughed. ‘Thank God I copped on in there and said we’d had a great night.’
‘Yeah cheers,’ Anna answered sheepishly.
‘So do you fancy him then or what?’
‘No!’ Anna practically barked. ‘Mark is not my type at all.’
‘Really? I thought a guy like that would be anyone’s type. He’s absolutely gorgeous.’
‘And he knows it,’ Anna was emphatic. ‘There’s nothing quite as tragic as a man who thinks he’s
God’s gift.’
‘Well, let me have him then,’ Elaine pleaded.
‘Have him if you like,’ Anna tossed her hair defiantly over her shoulder and hoped Elaine was joking. ‘Sally won’t mind, I’m sure. She’s probably used to it by now.’
Anna escaped work early for a change. It had been a busy day with endless boxes of the Spring Collection being delivered and deposited any old way in the stockroom.
She left the store just after six and started the fortyminute walk home. In the evening it was quicker to walk than to bus it. The rain had abated and dangerous pools of water lurked alongside the footpath. She steered well clear of them. She wondered if Claudine had gone home to Paris yet. The terrible twosome had been nowhere to be seen for the rest of the weekend, thank God! Steve would be sitting alone in his flat with his alternative music. He’d be feeling lonely. Well let him, Anna thought. There was nothing she could do for him now.
Mr Right for the Night Page 6
