The Night We Met

by Zoë Folbigg

  ‘He’s Dutch. Well, half-Dutch. He’s called Wesley. Lived in London for almost twenty years.’

  ‘Twenty years?!’

  ‘He’s older,’ Jim confided.

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Thirty-eight. I’m 28. It’s OK. Hardly dad issues.’

  ‘I guess,’ Daniel shrugged, as if he were giving Jim and Wesley his blessing. Jim was four years older than him too – maybe 38 didn’t seem so old as you approached your thirties.

  ‘He works for Cosmo. Writes about clits and G-spots all day.’

  ‘Bit weird.’

  ‘He was once even their male centrefold.’

  ‘What a con!’

  Jim battled with a sprig of mint as he took a sip of Pimm’s and lemonade. ‘Straight women can lust over gay men you know? Look at Ricky Martin.’

  ‘True,’ Daniel said, rolling his eyes. Leather trousers weren’t his thing.

  ‘Mr April. He’s had it blown up, put on his flat wall. Had a bunch of tulips strategically placed in front of his cock.’ Jim beamed with pride.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Daniel said, raising his glass and trying not to picture it.

  Jim Beck had snogged many men in the two years Daniel had known him, but there had never been anyone significant enough to be actually named. It was always Boyband Bitch, PR With The Big Prick, Human Rights Guy or The Tory. Wesley being called Wesley was certainly a significant development.

  ‘We met at a Steps showcase at Virgin Megastore. Went to G-A-Y after. Barely been apart since.’

  ‘Wow, that’s brilliant Jim. Is he coming here? Do I get to meet him before my shift?’

  ‘He’s at the Women of the Year Awards right now – might meet me at Chinawhite later. Shame you can’t pull a sickie and join us.’

  For a year now, Daniel had been working night shifts on the sports desk at The Sun, fixed by eternal matchmaker Jim. The sports editor Will Simpson had been nice – settling Daniel in with his tasks before handing over to the night editor Larry at 11 p.m., and Larry was nice enough too, despite smelling of stale cigarettes and rainwater. Daniel was usually tasked with the next day’s World Cup round-up, Wimbledon match previews and Tour de France build-up, while tomorrow’s paper was already rolling through the huge printing presses in the middle of the vast complex. Head down. Get on. There wasn’t much time for chitchat but the money was good – at £200 a night he was earning three times his day rate on The Echo, then sleeping briefly on the train home before getting changed – at The Sun you could wear whatever the hell you wanted, it was only on a local newspaper that Daniel had to dress smartly. He’d have another hour’s kip on his bed before turning up for work at 9 a.m. to face a gruelling onslaught from Viv Hart. At lunchtime he would go home, shower and power nap. After a year of stealing sleep where he could, Daniel was struggling, although the nights he met Jim for a pint before a shift were definitely better.

  ‘Oh and he loves football!’ Jim announced this as if it ensured Daniel would love Wesley too. ‘So obviously I’m having to pretend – but that Holland game the other night… wow! Those guys can play soccer!’

  Daniel laughed and threw a beer coaster at Jim.

  ‘You fool!’

  ‘A fool in love,’ Jim smiled proudly.

  Daniel looked down at his drink and stirred the limp strawberries and cucumber into a whirlpool as he remembered his own pitiful love life.

  It had been almost two years since Olivia lifted his night and his life at the bottom of the world. It would soon be her birthday again, and he remembered her twenty-first the night after she had gone. He had spent the evening nursing a pint of Speights, back in the sports bar they had started in the night before, watching cricket on the large television screens above the bar and feeling lonely. It felt businesslike and empty. He imagined every room felt businesslike and empty after Olivia had left it.

  Last year, on her twenty-second birthday, he wondered where she was in London, as he spent the night writing about transfer news at The Sun while ‘I’ll Be Missing You’ by Puff Daddy played on Capital FM more times than Daniel thought funny. Now her twenty-third birthday was approaching, and Daniel lamented that he still didn’t even know her surname.

  Jim knew Daniel was thinking about her.

  ‘Did you try AOL?’

  They both knew what he was talking about. ‘Honestly, I use it for stalking and searching up things all the time. You can even use a dictionary on it to look up spellings,’ he confessed, a hack he didn’t think any other hack had cottoned onto yet. Jim could access AOL at work to look up the age of Shania Twain, Cameron Diaz or Patsy Kensit within seconds, or find out what year George Michael went solo. ‘Viv has got the internet now, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah, she has. But without a surname…’

  ‘Could you trawl through all the Olivias in London or Milan on Friends Reunited?’

  Daniel’s sheepish look revealed he already had. ‘I even walked down Charing Cross Road the other week when I didn’t need to, that’s where her college is.’

  Jim winced for him. ‘Oh buddy…’

  ‘I know, I’m a dick. Never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea!’ Daniel brushed off.

  ‘There’s a girl over there checking you out,’ Jim said excitedly, nodding unsubtly to a table in the corner of four young women who looked like they worked in PR, all blonde straightened hair, Anna Sui eye gloss and Mulberry handbags. Daniel didn’t look round. He didn’t need to say it.

  She’s not Olivia.

  ‘Anyway your news is great,’ he said. ‘Don’t feel bad for me. I’m really happy for you – this Wesley sounds like a catch. Tulips and all.’

  ‘Oh Daniel!’ Jim’s big Bing Crosby eyes grew. ‘You’re so lovely and so handsome. I want you to find love too!’

  Daniel laughed and changed the subject.

  ‘Where does Wesley live?’

  ‘Wandsworth, not far.’

  Daniel anticipated The Look that came from Jim as he speared a grape with his straw and did a double take. ‘Fuckin’ grape?! In Pimm’s?!’ Jim then got back to the business of persuading Daniel to move to London.

  As soon as Jim left Elmworth and the Echo to start his job on the showbiz desk at The Sun, he moved from his flatshare by the church to a flatshare four times the price in Tooting Bec – and loved it. He was always trying to get Daniel to move down there too. Daniel was slowly becoming accustomed to London. Since traversing from King’s Cross to The Sun’s HQ in Wapping five times a week and sometimes meeting Jim beforehand, he was becoming more familiar with the city, even if he wasn’t ready to move there.

  ‘Don’t worry don’t worry, I’m not going to say it – but just remember the offer is always there, as soon as Dull Dean moves out, that room is yours, even if I have to drag you from Elmworth myself.’

  ‘Thanks mate,’ Daniel said, as he looked up at the TV. National anthems were being boomed out from a stadium in Nantes as a group of American tourists started cheering as unconvincingly about ‘soccer’ as Jim had.

  ‘Must we watch this ghastly game? I’m still exhausted from the Holland one.’

  ‘Yes. We do. The first half anyway.’ Daniel looked at his watch and rubbed his eyes. ‘It could be worse, it could be England playing and it’d be rammed. At least you have a seat. And Pimm’s.’

  ‘Wales should be there,’ Jim joked, finishing up his drink.

  ‘Wales are never there!’

  ‘Cheeky bastard.’

  ‘Your round.’

  Jim looked at his watch. At 8 p.m. on a Thursday there was little else to do but get tipsy with a friend. He had time to kill before Chinawhite, Madame Jojo’s or The Ivy got swinging and he’d already filed his non-time-sensitive stories to his showbiz editor. He just had to get the big splash, hopefully one for the cover if it was a really good night, and he usually got those when he was half drunk.

  ‘OK, I’m meeting the ugly one from Boyzone at 11 p.m., you’re in luck.’

  Jim straightened his blazer
and got up to go to the bar while Daniel looked at the screen. The comfort of watching sport, the feeling that he was never alone, the shared experience of a uniting moment, getting him through a few minutes of solitude. He looked from the screen to the table in the corner, and blushed to see one of the blondes looking at him before lowering her head in a huddle with her friends. He looked at Jim, waiting at the bar and clutching his new mobile phone tightly – Jim was the first of Daniel’s friends to have one – while he seemed to be in an animated chat with the barmaid beyond him.

  Daniel looked back to the television; the game had kicked off. He didn’t see the harangued-looking barmaid, the last of the cigarette smoke she had enjoyed on her break exhaling from her neat nose. She was tall and willowy with bronze skin and deep red hair, falling messily down to her small chest.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked Jim accusingly. She stood out even more because her accent was unusual – and not Australian, like many of the barworkers in Central London.

  She looked grumpily at Jim while he hesitated, as if she had 4,000 better things to do tonight than to pull pints; as if it were he who had shouted at her to come back from her break. Jim narrowed his big blue eyes to study hers, of a colour he’d never seen before but must have heard about in a book, or somewhere, because there was something familiar in her uniqueness.

  ‘A Pimm’s, and… erm… a vodka tonic please,’ he said, flustered.

  ‘We’re out of Pimm’s,’ the barmaid replied unapologetically.

  ‘Sorry Liv, can I just squeeze by, get some ice?’ asked a bearded barman with horn-rimmed glasses. Jim looked between the bearded barman and the woman pressing a glass against an optic, and was hit by an exhilarating thought.

  ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Not interested,’ she shot.

  ‘Nor am I,’ Jim replied, as quick as a flash, and let out a booming laugh that jarred with his baby face. The sound caught Daniel’s attention again.

  ‘Look, what do you want instead of the Pimm’s?’ Her eyes were hostile and fiery.

  ‘A cider please, he’ll have a pint of Magners,’ Jim said, as the barmaid rolled her eyes and grabbed a pint glass. She obviously preferred serving shorts. ‘And please tell me your name,’ he said, clasping his hands together. ‘I promise I’m not a creep. I just might have a nice surprise for you.’

  The barmaid’s curiosity got the better of her, and a little smile curled into the corner of her mouth as she placed the pint in front of him like a challenge.

  ‘Olivia,’ she said, as she straightened out the bar mat and leaned on the pump. ‘My name’s Olivia. Why the hell are you asking?’

  ‘Olivia from Milan?’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Fashion student?’

  Olivia checked herself for giveaways but her thin cream slip dress held no clues. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  Jim punched the air.

  ‘Olivia from Milan, you have just made my day!’

  Daniel looked up to see Jim do a little dance at the crowded bar, but didn’t know why. Jim handed over a tenner.

  A playful, perplexed smile crossed Olivia’s face and Jim noted she looked totally different to the woman who’d come back from her break.

  ‘Get on with it!’ barked a man behind the bar with spiky hair dyed blond at the tips. ‘You spent too long on your break as it is.’

  ‘I’m serving!’ Olivia spat back.

  ‘And tie your hair up! It’s not good practice to have it loose near food and beverages.’

  Olivia ignored the man and pressed buttons on the till.

  ‘Here, two-seventy change. Now how do you know me?’ Olivia smirked. ‘I didn’t get off with you at that party last night, did I?!’

  ‘Erm, no. I have never met you before in my life.’

  ‘So how do you know me?’

  ‘Please, Olivia, would you do me a massive favour by bringing this pint over to my friend?’

  ‘Vaffanculo!’ she laughed dismissively.

  ‘Olivia!’ asserted her boss, jangling a chain of keys looped onto his slacks.

  Jim gave Olivia his most dashing smile.

  ‘It would mean more than you know, and then everything might make sense.’

  Olivia raised an eyebrow as she picked up the pint. She couldn’t remember most of the shit she chatted to punters in the pub she worked in; she must have spoken to this one before.

  Jim didn’t know if she was going to carry the drink over for him or throw it in his face.

  ‘Over there. I think it’ll make you smile.’

  Olivia walked to the end of the bar where she followed Jim back to his table, hoping that whatever this guy was playing at would be worth winding up her boss for.

  ‘Well, I fuckin’ hope it’ll make you smile,’ Jim muttered to himself under his breath.

  ‘Olivia!’ snapped the landlord. ‘It’s not table service! Get back behind the bar!’

  The tall woman in the cream satin slip dress slipped through the pub, pint in one hand, pushing her hair back with the other.

  ‘Olivia! Thirsty punters here!’

  ‘Just there, that table there,’ Jim directed as he came to a halt to one side, letting Olivia through. ‘There you go,’ he said proudly. Daniel was staring at the football open-mouthed, but had kept glancing at the bar to see if Jim was OK and who he was in conversation with. And then he realised as he saw her approach.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Vaffanculo,’ she whispered. ‘Dan-i-el?’

  Yugoslavia scored and the American tourists in the corner shouted at the TV.

  ‘NOOOOOOOO!’ yelled one.

  ‘USA! USA!’ chanted another two in unison.

  ‘Olivia!’ Daniel gasped.

  ‘Hey. How are you?’

  Daniel coughed on a strawberry stalk as he stood and gave Olivia’s bare shoulders an overenthusiastic hug. She looked more sophisticated than the backpacker in the denim cut-offs and paisley shirt, the ribbed vest and tie-dye trousers. Her nose ring had gone and her English sounded better. A London twang outweighed the mid-Atlantic one. She seemed a bit thin and slightly wooden, but pleased enough to see him.

  Over her shoulder, Daniel could see Jim smiling, as he gave two thumbs up and rose on his Campers.

  Jim looked on but couldn’t help feeling it was all a bit Danny and Sandy in Grease, only 80 per cent confused enthusiasm from Daniel and a casual vagueness from Olivia. And then he felt bad. There was an awkward pause.

  ‘It’s so cool to see you! Do you work here?’

  Daniel was baffled – if a Pirelli tycoon’s daughter could live in a flat in Soho, why was she working behind a bar?

  ‘Yeah…’ Olivia looked almost embarrassed, as if she could read Daniel’s mind. ‘Keeps me out of trouble,’ she laughed.

  ‘Did work here!’ shouted the landlord as he called last orders on Olivia’s employment. ‘Sling yer hook! There are homeless out there who’d pull a better pint.’

  Olivia turned back.

  ‘Yeah, well fuck you!’ she shouted, making a hand gesture Daniel had never seen before. ‘Then give them a job, you fuckin testa di cazzo! I gotta gig to go to anyway…’

  ‘I love her,’ Jim mouthed at Daniel.

  Olivia marched to get her leather biker jacket from out the back but the landlord threw it at her face before she could even reach the bar. She just caught it before a zip hit her eye, and cursed something else in Italian.

  ‘Bring your drinks with you,’ she commanded Daniel and Jim. ‘We’re outta here.’

  ‘You’ll pay for those glasses!’

  Daniel and Jim looked at each other, worried about stealing from the pub but too enchanted to ignore Olivia’s diktat, so they downed their drinks, which was easier for Jim and his vodka than it was for Daniel and his pint, and followed her out onto Rathbone Place.

  ‘How the hell did you manage to set that up?!’ Daniel marvelled as he wiped cider from his mouth.

  ‘You’re we
lcome,’ Jim almost sang, taking full credit for the coincidence as the pub door slammed shut behind them. Daniel didn’t care about the football anymore. He didn’t care about his shift. He stood there, unable to wipe the smile off his face. The girl he had been obsessing about for two years had just walked across the pub with a drink for him and right back into his life.

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve bumped into you!’ Daniel enthused, while Olivia lit a cigarette and scowled down the barrel of it, not looking as surprised as Daniel felt. Jim checked his phone to see if Wesley had messaged or his meeting had changed. The downside of having a mobile phone? The ugly one from Boyzone kept changing their rendezvous.

  The three of them stood awkwardly on the summer-stained pavement of Fitzrovia. ‘Where are we going then?’ Daniel asked, rubbing his hands together, as if they had just broken out of prison.

  ‘You not going to work?’ Jim looked surprised.

  ‘My friend has a gig at the 100 Club,’ Olivia nodded down the road towards Oxford Street as she took the first, soothing drag. ‘They started ten minutes ago.’ Olivia looked at her watch. The colourful Swatch Daniel remembered from Dunedin had been replaced with a chunky gold one that looked like it might have been her father’s.

  Daniel looked up and down the road, torn by what to do.

  ‘Have you got Will’s number in your phone?’

  ‘Sorry Daddy-O – only the showbiz desk…’

  Daniel and Jim looked at each other and winced. Despite Will’s bank of freelancers and night journalists, Daniel would never get away with going AWOL for the night. Fort Murdoch was like a prison, you had to sign in and you had to sign out.

  ‘Sickie?’ Jim suggested helpfully. ‘Showbiz or News can pass it on. Although it is getting a bit late…’

  Olivia looked at them impatiently.

  ‘Well, you could eat soup or you could jump out of the window,’ she shrugged.

  ‘Huh?’ they said in unison.

  ‘Take it or leave it. But I know which I’d rather be doing…’