Stilettos & Stubble

by Amanda Egan

  I stood up slowly and went to the mantelpiece, ready to hold court with my revelation.

  ‘Listen! Listen,’ I shouted as I tripped over Bogey, soaking him in wine. ‘It’s funny really. Think about it. Me and Dopey Diana have swapped roles.’ I stopped, realising my faux pas, but it had apparently gone unnoticed by Diana, who was doing her best to keep me in her vision through squinty eyes and clearly trying to concentrate on what I was saying. I noticed a cigarette hanging out of her mouth - she didn’t smoke! I guessed desperate times called for desperate measures. Lubov didn’t smoke either and she was having a vague attempt at trying to light one too!

  ‘We’re both doing anything we can within our power to keep our men - and it’s shnot … I mean, it’s not working. It’s not getting us nowhere … I think I mean anywhere.’ I slid to my knees onto the floor and rubbed Bogey’s ears. ‘And as for you, Lubov, my father is a dick! You can’t help being younger. It’s no excuse. Men are bastards - they don’t know what they want.’

  Silence enveloped us for a while and then I said. ‘Well, that’s my theory anyway. How in the name of fuck it helps us, I don’t know, but it’s alwaysh good to have a theory.’

  And, having exhausted the crap I was talking, I passed out cold on the fire rug.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I woke the next morning freezing cold and dribbling into my hair. Bogey was paddy-pawing at my back and my head was pounding. Lifting it tentatively, I squinted through slitty eyes to see both Lubov and Diana curled next to one another on the sofa snoring gently. So it wasn’t just me that did that then? Cold comfort though, now I had no man to worry about hearing it.

  The thought hit me hard and my hangover trebled in intensity. Nausea washed over me and I ran to the bathroom and parted with what seemed like pure liquid poison. Why on earth had we put that much alcohol away? Dry retching, I heard a voice behind me, ‘Shit! I must puke too. Morning Percy. I do ze vomit in sink, I am much desperate.’ Lubov joined in the hurling symphony which set me off on a new round of my own.

  Eventually we both stopped and, with me on my knees and Lubov leaning against the back of the bath, we made an attempt at bringing one another into focus.

  ‘Vot stupid girls. Ve must eat pain-stoppers immediately and go for big trucker’s greasy breakfast.’ Lubov crawled onto all fours, stood up shakily and started to take her clothes off. ‘I take shower. I stink like skunk.’

  I managed to get myself upright and leave her to her privacy. Diana was groaning on the sofa and beginning to surface.

  ‘We all feel as bad as one another,’ I told her. ‘It’s showers, coffee, paracetamol and out for a cholesterol-stuffed breakfast.’

  Diana was only able to manage a grunt and I went through to put the kettle on and feed Bogey.

  The smell of tuna and pilchard cat food turned my stomach and almost had me over the kitchen sink for an encore, but my body was telling me there was nothing left to exit so I gulped thirstily at a tumbler of water and splashed my face at the tap.

  Diana was now leaning against the door frame, looking every bit as bad as I felt. Another comfort - beauties could look like crap in the mornings. Her face was grey, her eyes tiny little holes in their sockets and her hair was lank and shapeless.

  ‘I’m just going to nip next door, have a shower and change,’ she told me. ‘I’ll be back in fifteen. That food idea sounds the best.’ She did a pathetic little wave and walked as if on egg shells to the front door - any hint of her usual catwalk wiggle well and truly absent.

  The effort of standing suddenly became too much for me. I perched on a stool and flopped onto the breakfast bar, hitting my head as I did so. Could I really contemplate getting dressed and going to ‘The Egg and Soldiers’?

  I was given no choice. Lubov came into the kitchen with a towel around her and one on her head. ‘Please may you be giving me some clothes to vear? Zen get your body in ze shower. Your stench is making me feel sick all over again.’

  *****

  We began to feel slightly more human after eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, fried bread, sausages, toast and three coffees each. Diana could certainly put it away for one so tiny - she was a game girl and the more time I spent with her the more I liked her.

  I studied my breakfast companions munching in silence and realised what an odd collection we must have looked to outsiders - three hungover women in various shapes, sizes and styles united by a night of alcohol abuse and grief.

  Lubov was the first to finish and sat back emitting the tiniest burp into her paper napkin. ‘Zat is goot now. Lubov is feeling better. Next ve shall drink wodka!’

  Diana and I both looked at her in horror.

  ‘You can’t be serious?’ I asked. ‘How can you even consider booze now?’

  ‘Ven Lubov is sad she have hair of dog. I drink to forget. Wodka will make us lose our troubles.’

  Thankfully I was saved from this torturous form of treatment for the lovelorn as my mobile began to ring. My stupid heart skipped a beat as I scrambled to get my phone from my bag. I checked the caller display and both Lubov and Diana looked at me hopefully.

  I shook my head. ‘Nope. Just my best friend, Mia. Don’t get your hopes up, girls.’

  As I chatted to Mia, I saw that my partners in crime had both taken their own phones from their bags and were hunting for missed calls or texts. By the looks on their faces, we were all still in the same storm-tossed boat.

  After finishing my call, I told the girls that I needed to get to Mia’s to babysit for a couple of hours. ‘I’m afraid you’ll be doing the vodka cure without me. The last thing I feel like doing is looking after two hyper kids but it might do me some good. You know, take my mind off things.’

  Lubov looked at me with a frown. ‘Wodka is quicker, trust me. But zis is your loss. And, children, wodka … eizzer vay you get a headache. Dopey Diana, are you coming viz me to bar?’

  Diana looked a little perplexed and then nodded. ‘Sure Lubov. Lead me to the booze.’

  *****

  Mia had forgotten she had a dental appointment and, as it was the start of the Christmas holidays for the kids, she had no one to look after them.

  As I walked through her front door she took one look at me and said, ‘You look terrible, Hun! What’s up?’

  ‘Auntie Percy! Auntie Percy! Can we make cupcakes with sprinkles and sparkles? Can we? Can we?’ Isla was pulling at my jeans and looking up at me with her adorable brown eyes.

  ‘Yes, Isla Sweetie, we can. Just give me two minutes with Mummy and then I’ll be through.’

  ‘OK. But I know what a real two minutes is now - not grown up ones! I set the ticky tock on the oven and it will go ‘beep beep’ when your time is up. OK?’

  Isla ran to the kitchen and Mia looked at me. ‘She means it, Perce. Talk quick! We can have a proper catch up later.’

  I took a deep breath and said in one fluid stream, ‘Luke dumped me, said I’m trying to be something I’m not. Lubov is a woman and in love with my father … and I have a hangover the size of Russia. Finished!’

  Before Mia had a chance to reply Isla reappeared and said, ‘Oh that’s good, Auntie Percy. I heard you say ‘finished’ so you don’t need the whole two minutes. Let’s bake!’

  Mia looked at me apologetically and grabbed her coat and keys. Kissing me on the cheek she whispered, ‘I’m so sorry, Perce. We’ll dissect it all later. Promise.’

  Left alone with the kids I had little choice but to concentrate on them and cater to their every whim. How parents ever managed a hangover, a conversation or a moment of glumness with children around was beyond my comprehension.

  And yet, even through the mixing, the cleaning and the endless rounds of questions I still kept on with my own little internal argument.

  Did I owe Luke an apology? Was that was he was waiting for? And if I did, would we go back to how we were?

  I was just beginning to get to the point where things were almost clear in my mind when Isla piped u
p, ‘Auntie Percy? Mummy says I’m too little to know where babies come from. I’m not, am I? Will you tell me?’

  *****

  As it turned out, Mia and I didn’t get to have a proper catch-up as Tittie called me and asked me to meet him at the club. I just about managed to pass on to Mia that Isla had been informed that babies were made out of love and that she and Jo Jo were currently upstairs trying to make one of their own as they loved one another very much. ‘But only today,’ Isla had told me. ‘Not on days when he poos in my hat or steals my Barbie.’

  Mia shrugged her shoulders and joked, ‘Yep, sounds a bit like me and James really without the hat pooing. Thanks Perce and we’ll get that chat soon, won’t we? I need to know all the details. Luke’s way too good to let slip away.’

  As I pounded the streets to the club, my hangover almost a thing of the past, Mia’s words were ringing in my ears.

  He was too good to let slip away. But was he worth backing down for and did I have the guts to do it?

  *****

  I found Tittie at my desk in the back office looking tired and strained. He stood up when I entered the room and came over to kiss me on the cheek. ‘Hey, Sugartits! You’ve done a great job of keeping this place going. We’re really grateful to you.’ He took a shocking pink envelope from his back pocket and handed it to me. ‘Annie asked me to give you this.’

  I opened it up to reveal a card with a vertiginously high heel on the front. Inside it said, ‘Love ya! xx’ - with a Harrods voucher for two hundred and fifty pounds.

  ‘Tittie! I can’t take this!’ I perched on the desk next to him. ‘I’ve only being doing my job.’

  ‘No, love. You’ve been doing a lot more than that and we couldn’t have got through this without you. Take it. You deserve it - and a whole heap more but … well, you know the state of our bank account better than anyone else!’

  I was so touched and I felt the familiar prickle at the back of my eyes. But I sensed this was not the time for any dramatics or outpourings from me. Tittie looked like a man who needed to talk. So I made us both a coffee and sat with him at the desk.

  ‘How’s Annie doing?’ I asked quietly.

  Tittie warmed his hands on his mug, staring into the steaming liquid. ‘He’s sick, Percy. He’s found a lump and he won’t go to the doc, stubborn old bastard!’

  They were not the words I’d been expecting to hear - depression, anxiety, doldrums - any of those would have been easier to digest - but a lump? I put my hand over my mouth in shock.

  ‘Oh Tittie! I’m so sorry.’ I stopped and thought for a while. We were both assuming the worst and we shouldn’t have been doing that until we knew more. ‘It’s probably nothing, Tittie. Where is it? You don’t mind me asking do you?’

  He shook his head, ‘No, no, course I don’t. It’s in one of his balls. And I know it could be nothing but we can’t be certain until he gets to a quack, can we? I’ve tried everything, Perce - begging, pleading, screaming, bribing and a good dose of the old silent treatment and he just sits there ignoring it all, knocking back the drink and watching re-runs of ‘Come Dine With Me’. He said ‘Jeremy Kyle’ was making him depressed.’

  ‘Doesn’t he see that the way he’s dealing with it isn’t making any sense? He could have his mind put to rest within minutes and what he’s doing to you is incredibly selfish.’

  Tittie stood and poured himself a brandy, offering one to me which I declined. I didn’t know how Lubov and Diana were doing with the ‘wodka’ but I knew that my stomach was in no fit state for more booze.

  ‘He is being selfish, Perce, I know. But I think, deep down, he’s just terrified. He doesn’t want to find out the truth and yet not knowing is killing us both.’

  ‘We have to make him see sense, Tittie. You can’t go on like this.’

  ‘I know, Sweetness, but it’s easier said than done. And, let’s face it, it’s not just Annie’s health scare is it? This place is on its uppers - when the rent goes up we’re done for. That alone could be the death of him and yet he’s quite happy to fiddle while Rome burns - he’s lost his logic. He should be making sure he’s at his physical peak and in here every day trying to turn this place around. But no, he’s stuck at home kidding himself that nothing’s wrong.’

  When it was put like that, it really was quite scary. We couldn’t let him wallow any more.

  ‘Percy, if I’m totally honest, we won’t survive this hit. The club is falling apart around our ears, there’s no way on earth we can ever find that amount of rent and, if I’m brutal, the queens are getting on a bit, aren’t they? It’s all hopeless.’

  I grabbed my bag and threw it over my shoulder. ‘Sorry Tittie, but I didn’t have you down as a quitter. This club is packed out with happy customers nearly every night. Nobody complains that some of the acts are close to collecting their pensions. They just see a talented group of people who make them laugh. I, for one, am not giving up that easily. You can sit here and feel sorry for yourself all you like but it won’t do you any good. I’m off to see Annie and, trust me, he won’t stand a chance.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Annie opened the door with a wan smile. ‘Oh Tit’s sent in the heavies, has he? Come, in you old tart!’

  We went through to the sitting room and I sat on the armchair next to the sofa where Annie had obviously taken up residence. His ashtray was overflowing and a glass and bottle were on standby.

  In the background a voice-over on the TV was telling us that ‘Melvin from Glamorgan was having trouble with his meringues’ and Annie flicked the off switch with an, ‘Aren’t we all, Sweetie!’

  ‘Thanks for the voucher,’ I started. ‘It was really kind of you. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to go easy on you. Understood?’

  Annie nodded and lit a cigarette, batting the smoke away from his face. ‘OK. Spit it out. I guess you’ve come her to lecture me, so you might as well get it out of the way. Drink?’

  I shook my head and took a bottle of water out of my bag, downing some paracetamol with it. The dehydration and headache were kicking in again.

  ‘Heavy night? Annie asked.

  ‘Don’t even go there!’ I replied. ‘And don’t change the subject. You are acting like a selfish twat and it’s got to stop. If you don’t go to the doctors, you’re going to lose the best front of house girl you’ve ever had. Got it? I mean it, Annie. I will resign.’

  Annie blew a thin stream of smoke as he took in my words.

  ‘Ooh! Fightin’ talk, eh Perce?’ He then burst into a silent sob.

  I let him cry, stroking his shoulder and muttering soothing words. He needed to get this out and I was sure the floodgates had opened enough to give me the opportunity to coax him further. He’d been treating Tittie badly but he’d also been sparing him from these raw emotions. The breakdown could only be for the good.

  ‘I’m so scared, Perce. It’s all I can think about and it’s driving me nuts.’ He managed a wobbly little grin. ‘Pardon the pun!’

  I handed him a tissue from my bag and topped up his glass. He needed some Dutch courage - that much was clear - and if it took him to get slightly tiddly before he agreed to my demands, so be it. I was not leaving that flat until I had the result I wanted.

  ‘What if I’m dying, Perce?’ he asked with sad eyes.

  ‘What if you’re not?’ I replied matter of factly. Under my brave façade I wanted to scream and holler with him but that would get us nowhere. It was time for the no nonsense approach that my mother had taught me so well. ‘Period pain? Tough! Just get on with it!’

  ‘Lumps don’t always have to mean the worst, Annie. You’re an intelligent man. You should know that. But sitting worrying about it, and putting Tittie through hell, is not the answer. You need to get sorted and then get back to the club and put a plan into action. Will you ever forgive yourself if you lose the business because you were too busy being a big girl?’

  He sipped at his drink and stubbed his cigarette out, immediately lighting
another. ‘You’re a gobby cow, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yep! That’s why you love me. Now what do you say? There are too many people relying on you for you to go down without a fight. People who care for you, you miserable old git.’

  He dabbed the tissue at his eyes and let out a huge sigh. ‘OK, you win. You’re one scary piece when you’re wound up - not had a shag for a while?’

  ‘As I said, Annie, let’s not go there. Right! Where’s the number for your surgery? Let’s strike while the iron’s hot.’