The Unreliable Placebo

by Gill Mather

  “No problem,” she says. “A lot of them will probably double up. It all sound wonderful. It’s a great idea. I can't wait.”

  THE EVENING IS suddenly upon us. I don't have Sharon to help me get ready but I’m sure my tight gold sequin-covered dress will be more than appropriate for the occasion. I’ve cooled four bottles of bubbly to welcome them and break any ice as necessary. Not necessary apparently. They all arrive in high spirits and the bubbly is gone before I know it or have even had a chance actually to pour it all out. They’ve helped themselves. I suppose this is better than everyone standing around looking uncomfortable. Introductions seem unnecessary too.

  I’ve put on the TV some downloaded Ziggy Stardust and other Bowie clips and they blare out erotically, not to mention Bowie’s tight tights. I think it hits the right mood and we’re soon bopping away in my living room. The girls are not slow to raid my drinks cabinet and they make light work of the bites I spent the afternoon preparing.

  Cheryl and Susan I note don't especially gel as Sharon and I had hoped. Susan, if a tad uncontrolled at times, does it in a refined way. She’s svelte and quite elegant really. This Cheryl is….well….a bit loud, a bit common actually. Her dress is cut out in lots of places which might be OK for a slim muscular girl in control of her body, but Cheryl’s is spilling out of it like a large not quite set blancmange. How can someone from Australia be so pale, resembling a large white slug. And yet so full of herself. She has a strong Antipodean accent and the lingo to go with it. I thought Australian slang had become passé, but I guess I’m wrong. Or maybe it’s making a comeback.

  Luckily Maggie seems to get on well with her cousin and I see that in fact they are quite similar in appearance and attitude. Indeed if you didn't listen too closely to Maggie’s London accent, you could mistake her for an Aussie.

  The minibus is late arriving. I receive several texts warning of its delayed progress and in due course of its approach, and ultimately of its various unsuccessful attempts to find my house despite Satnav and having definitely been given the correct postcode.

  But eventually I see it drawing up outside and we pile in. I ordered it to be here early anyway so we should arrive in good time, hold ups on the A12 aside. I notice that half my drinks cabinet and store of wine has been transported onto this minibus. I hope the driver is an understanding sort. Cheryl certainly can knock back the red wine. Perhaps it’s a recognised trait of young Australian women.

  As we burn along the dual-carriageway, Cheryl regales us with her itinerary. She’s staying with Maggie in Essex for a few weeks and then she’s moving onto other Pommie rellies. She seems to have cousins all over the world. She’s spent time already with her sheep-shagger rellies. She talks about the “North Island” so I gather she may mean New Zealand especially as Wellington comes into it.

  There are seppos she’s intending to visit at some point. This means nothing to me, but it involves flying into JFK Airport so it must have something to do with the USA but I still don't see the connection.

  When she’s done the UK, there are Micks she’ll be landing on.

  She is free with her opinions about Pommies in general. Mostly they’re people whose “lift doesn't go to the top floor”. When this causes some offence, she tells those affected to stop “spitting the dummy”.

  “I hope,” she says, “that these bloke’s tockleys tonight are worth a gander. I can go to Woolworths to buy gherkins any day of the week.” Did she say Woolworths?

  “Don’t you have a boyfriend back home who’s missing you while you’re away?” I have to ask. She’s such a sweet thing, surely there’s someone in her life.

  “No-one to get stoked about,” she replies. “There’s a banana bender I see sometimes when he visits Sydney. But it’s not serious. I need serious right now like a third arsehole.” The word resonates with me but I don't mention anything. As for ‘banana bender’, is she talking about a gay bloke? I’ll have to look it up on the internet later.

  “Right. Good. Of course,” I say.

  Cheryl and Maggie nudge each other and giggle. They take alternate swigs from a bottle of my red wine. They make me feel like a bit of a wet blanket.

  I haven't had much to drink myself. I’m actually feeling rather tense. I ought to cut this out and enter into the spirit of the thing, but I feel responsible. I’ve arranged this evening and I want it to turn out well. Perhaps a smaller party would have been better, just me and Sharon and a couple of others we know well. But it’s too late now. I’m sure I’ll be able to lighten up when we get there.

  THE VENUE is an enormous place. Its internet images don't do it justice. Nor do they exactly portray the fabulous opulence, the competing styles, all very authentically copied I’m sure if you ignore the effects of plastic and other modern materials.

  Having been dropped off and entered the building, or at least that part accessed via Entrance C, we cross a vast hall, the huge high walls of which are interrupted by large carved oak double doors (or they could be laminated) leading into presumably individual banqueting and other halls. Some events are clearly already under way as noise emanates from some of the rooms when the doors open for serving staff to enter and leave. The doors glide open and closed. The staff appear to have remote controls despite the fact that the doors, and the hall as a whole, are decked out in a similar style to the Palace of Versailles. Or how in my ignorance I imagine it might be. We gaze up in awe at the high ornate ceiling, no doubt a false ceiling, but ornate all the same. The girls check their appearances in the eight foot high gilt framed mirrors hanging on the walls at intervals.

  Dotted around the hall are lavish water features, elaborate baroque style fountains delivering cascades of water into fish ponds. Concealed lighting in oranges, reds, blues and greens illuminates the figures of dolphins, mermaids, representations of Neptune and so on giving the impression that the water itself is coloured. Actually it’s a little garish, especially as the general level of lighting in the hall is bright to blinding. I suppose it has to be for health and safety. The statues of Neptune are fully anatomically correct giving rise to some nudging and pointing.

  Somewhere near the middle of the hall, somewhat dwarfed by the other features, stands what would looks like a large bird bath, except that it has a naked curly-haired cherub standing on one edge in the attitude of a peeing boy. A Mannekin Pis no less. I can't tell if this or the other statues are made of real stone or just plaster or some sort of resin. Unlike the fountains, no water is flowing and one can clearly see the hole by which the water would emerge from the boy if it was on.

  I don't go up to the cute little thing to get a closer look. Others are not so circumspect however. In particular, Cheryl and Maggie lean over and fondle the baby penis to the shrieks and jeers of the others. Cheryl even puts her forefinger in the hole and wiggles it about. The women around her go into paroxysms of ecstasy. Cheryl takes a selfie of her and Maggie.

  “One for the blog,” she says drunkenly and she and Maggie almost fall backwards into the bird bath but instead end up on the floor. They and those around them scream with delight and they show off the photos, captured on continuous shooting mode, of their descent ending in legs in the air on their backs.

  I don't know that this is necessarily a good thing, at least not at the beginning of an evening or hardly into it. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me though. Sharon is laughing along with the rest of them. I mustn’t be a kill-joy. Surely I can't be turning into a serious person, an old maid who frowns on others having fun and sits in a darkened room festooned in cobwebs, dwelling grimly on past events. But neither must I sink a disproportionate amount of alcohol to compensate and end up over a toilet bowl for most of the night.

  This isn't a problem however once we’re seated at our table and the wine, cocktails and canapés are served. I find I have no appetite for any of it and sit sipping sparkling water. It must, I tell myself, be the time of the month. Sharon looks at me with concern.

  “Are you OK?”
she mouths at me from her place the other side of the table.

  I nod. “Yes. Of course,” I lie. She’s not convinced but I smile at her and sink into my seat as the lights go down and the entertainment begins.

  I SUPPOSE THESE poor young men must have grown accustomed to it but it has to be pretty worrisome all the same to have a pack of drunken females braying at them in an unrestrained fashion. And it’s not by any means just our table. We’ve already seen the drag act and I can't say that it was the most refined of entertainments. The man’s lipstick was smudged and his tights were laddered. The air was blue most of the time and the jokes very coarse in my opinion. Needing to get away, I took myself off to the loo more than once. Perhaps it was just me and the lack of alcohol because the others seemed to appreciate the drag act. Reactions ranged from being mildly amused to finding it side-splittingly funny apparently in direct proportion to the amount of booze consumed.

  “Hold me up,” hooted Maggie at a particularly crude joke, pretending to fall off her seat. At least I hope she was pretending.

  “I’m gunna wet myself soon,” said Cheryl with tears streaming down her face.

  There is a short interval after the drag act, during which we discuss, amongst other things, what’s going on in the other rooms off the large foyer. We’d heard clapping and cheering from some of the rooms during our trips to the loo.

  Sharon wonders if there are several different shows going on tonight.

  Cheryl expresses her opinion forthrightly, though by now extremely drunkenly.

  “Nah,” she says. “Jus’ a load of ole middl’-aged tossers, wind-bagging on ’bout God knows what. Masons or summink.”

  We’ve been given an instruction sheet saying that on no account are we to approach the small stage and attempt to touch any of the men or their appendages. It actually says ‘appendages’ as though they’re not really part of these handsome creatures forced to earn a living in this rather demeaning way. I think I’m definitely turning into an old maid.

  There are about twenty similar tables, that’s approximately three hundred hyped up, drunken women possibly considering ignoring the handout and just launching themselves at the penis of one of the performers and effecting to make it a little less flaccid. No wonder the lads don't look wholly comfortable.

  And naturally, the first to attempt it has to be Cheryl. Followed closely by Maggie. Where, I have to wonder, does Sharon get her friends?

  Without warning, previously unseen bouncers emerge from nowhere and unceremoniously manhandle Cheryl and Maggie from the room. The show continues as the rest of our table cast our eyes to the exit doors wondering where Cheryl and Maggie have been taken.

  Eventually, especially after the bouncers return minus Cheryl and Maggie, a few of us have to go and investigate. We see them immediately next to the bird bath but things don't look quite as they should be. As we approach, we see that Cheryl has her index finger up the opening in the penis of the Mannequin, right up to the hilt. She and Maggie are laughing uncertainly, the rest of us freely, that is apart of course from kill-joy me.

  We hear cheering and the door to our hall opens. The striptease must’ve finished. The rest of our table come out and walk over to us with graphic descriptions at the ready of the mens’ on-stage antics. Then they turn to view Cheryl and Maggie. Cheryl clearly has her finger stuck. Maggie pulls at it but Cheryl just screams at her to stop. Obviously this pair aren't safe to be let loose on their own.

  “If you pull my bloody finger off, how’m I s’posed to bat off?” Cheryl bawls.

  “Wha’m I s’posed to do then?” says Maggie.

  “Go and get the fucking management.”

  “Oh, yeah. OK.”

  And Maggie weaves an unsteady route over the huge hall to the back end, her passage interrupted by occasional difficulty with her incredibly high heels. How she knows which way to go I can't imagine. Maybe the bouncers, recognising a pair of trouble-makers, told them where to go. I certainly feel like telling them myself. But she comes back quickly with a laid back sort of bloke who appraises the scene. And the first thing he asks is:

  “Who made the booking?”

  I wish the floor would open up. They’ll never accept another booking from me. Always assuming that I’d want to come back here. Ever. And I hope I don't get a bill for this and any other trouble Cheryl and Maggie create. I admit that it was me. He looks at me and says something about the hotel not accepting responsibility for damage or injury. I start to apologise profusely.

  “You see she’s from Australia, she doesn't know how to behave herself properly. I’m sure,” I say, “that this never normally happens, but….”

  “Actually more often than you’d imagine. Why d’you think we don't have the water on most of the time? It’s because it makes a helluva mess when people put their fingers up and the water’s on. Goes everywhere. We nearly got flooded out once.”

  “Er,” I say, “well why don't you bung up the hole then.”

  “We do. All the time. Only temporarily. Using like chewing gum and that. But people just fish it out.”

  He sighs. “I’ll go and get big Sylve. She’s one of our chefs. Expert at getting people fingers out of the little shit’s dick.”

  He walks off. We stand there and wait and soon ribaldry sets up again and those around me, our whole party by now, start giggling and cracking daft mostly very rude jokes and take photos, while others, in the main Maggie, become frantic. She starts to haul at Cheryl again and Cheryl starts to scream and the women around me hoot with laughter.

  SOMETIMES CIRCUMSTANCES conspire against one. A confluence of events takes place, like planets lining up, the forces too strong for me or anyone really to resist. It’s just going to happen and that’s that. A man walks out of another of the conference rooms in the direction of the gents; tall, bespectacled, dark-haired, benign expression. A man whom Cheryl would no doubt describe as a middle-aged tosser, though he’s just a couple of years older than me.

  Maybe, just maybe, he won't hear the outburst of alcohol-fuelled combined hilarity and panic going on around me. Or perhaps he’ll hear it but be too polite or embarrassed and will try to pretend not to notice. Perhaps he won't look over in this direction. Or if he does, there must be a small chance that he won't notice me surrounded by drunken hysterical women in this ridiculous situation. Or, seeing me out of context, he’ll fail to recognise me. All of these possibilities may rush to my aid and knock the planets out of alignment. But do they? Of course they don’t.

  Dennis walks unerringly in my direction, friendly smile at the ready.

  “Form a wall,” I hiss at the women around me.

  “Duh?”

  “Wha’?”

  “Wall?” the less inebriated of them say.

  “Yes. A human shield. So this man walking over here can't see Cheryl.”

  To give them credit, they quickly catch on and all stand up straight, ramrod stiff, giggling a little, not at all artificial-looking. Oh no not at all. It is of course hopeless.

  “Hello,” says Dennis. “I thought I caught sight of you earlier walking across the hall when the door to our room was open but I assumed I must be imagining it.” He’s quite tall. He looks over my shoulder, and over those of the human wall, at Cheryl’s large behind, her shocking pink lacy knickers clearly visible through her tights.

  “Spot of bother?” Dennis asks.

  Maggie continues to tug at Cheryl’s hand and Cheryl squeals. Then she groans and says unnecessarily loudly:

  “Fuck. I’m gunna hurl.” And she does. Mostly into the empty bird bath but some of it goes over Maggie who swears freely and, letting go of Cheryl, crashes into the rest of us. I bump into Dennis.

  “Gosh, I’m so sorry Dennis,” I say.

  “No, no. It’s OK. Is she all right though?” He doesn't however make any move to assist her. And neither do the rest of us not wishing to get overwhelmed by blackcurrant coloured vomit. Cheryl starts to heave signalling another outpouring. Obvi
ously her oesophageal sphincter has relaxed and a siphon effect is starting. We all back away as the manager returns accompanied by a vast woman in chefs clothing. The manager bears a large tub of Vaseline in one hand and a giant pot of Swarfega in the other.

  “In case,” he says, weighing the Swarfega, “the Vaseline’s not enough.”

  This puts me in mind of that old rugby song about Dinah and the axle grease but I suppose we’d better not go there. Still, in a better mood, I reckon I could teach that Cheryl a thing or two.

  The chef smacks a large towel round Cheryl’s face and orders her to hold it fast with her free hand.

  “They always chuck,” she explains to the rest of us.

  Cheryl groans and her body contorts. It sounds and looks as though she’s dying. As the towel turns crimson in colour, between them the manager and the chef work Cheryl’s podgy digit free from the stone or possibly fibre glass urethra. At last the fiasco looks as though it’s drawing to a close. The manager leads Cheryl and Maggie off somewhere to recover and get cleaned up. The others drift back to the hall where the drag act is due to start again soon.

  I’m speechless with mortification. I’ve no idea what to say to Dennis in this situation. What can one say? I don't really know these women? They’re nothing to do with me? I just happened to be passing through the foyer and…

  “Anna I’m most awfully sorry. I’d love to stop and talk to you but this year I’m the chairman of the group I’m with and I have to get back to them. I’ve got to say a few words in a minute. Sorry. See you again soon hopefully.”

  And he hurries off towards the men’s room.

  “Well thank you so much God, or fate or whoever you are,” I mutter under my breath through clenched teeth, “for arranging to put Dennis directly in my path at this particular moment in time.”

  DURING THE SECOND half, everyone carries on knocking back the booze with abandon. Cheryl must’ve got through at least two bottles of red by now, though admittedly a lot if it has ended up in Maggie’s lap and the chef’s towel. I don't know what the management did to resurrect the pair of them but their clothing doesn't look any the worse for their ordeal. I can't detect any give-away odours either, just some very strong perfume.