by Paige Toon
‘That’s the point, my darling,’ Sam tells her.
Five minutes later the six people already in the bar when we came in make their way out, their pagers bleeping. The bartender collects up their ice glasses.
‘Where are you all from?’ he asks us. I notice his English accent for the first time.
‘Manly,’ the others tell him, but he’s looking at me.
‘Manly originally but I’ve been living in London for about ten years.’
‘Which part?’ he asks.
‘Marylebone,’ I tell him and he nods.
‘If you’re originally from Sydney, why on earth are you living in London?’
‘I like it.’
‘She’s dating an Englishman,’ Molly chips in.
‘What about you?’ I ask him quickly. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Essex, I’m afraid. I’ve been here since April last year. Almost time to go home again.’
Ten minutes and two free shots later, the barman points at the earpiece he’s wearing. ‘They’ve been telling me your half an hour is up for eight minutes now. Your pagers must be broken.’
We say our goodbyes and head outside onto the warm, bright pavement. I literally feel like I’m thawing out after the cold air in the ice room. The alcohol coursing through my veins probably helps too.
‘Right, then,’ says Sam, rubbing his hands together. ‘This is where the fun starts.’
He pecks me on the cheek. ‘See ya, Lucy. Look after her for me.’
Molly kisses Nathan and then grabs his arms, shaking him affectionately. ‘And you look after him!’
‘I will, don’t worry. Bye, Luce, have a good night.’ Nathan bends down and gives me a kiss, daringly close to my lips.
‘Bye!’ I immediately feel my face heat up.
‘We wouldn’t have wanted to stay in there for much longer–I was freezing my tits off!’ Molly laughs as we walk away. For all of ten seconds I resist the urge to glance over my shoulder, but when I finally give in and look back I can’t see them anymore.
Molly and I make our way around the other side of Circular Quay to the International Passenger Terminal. It may not sound glamorous but the bars gracing the downstairs decks certainly are, with their funky interiors, cool laid-back exteriors and perfect views of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House.
‘There you are.’ Molly smiles. Amy is already seated in one of the chocolate-brown outdoor sofas next to a couple of girls who look vaguely familiar.
‘Lucy!’ one of them exclaims when she sees me.
‘Oh, my God! Amanda! Jenny!’ I hardly recognise my friends from school. They jump up and hug me and drag me down to sit between them, whereupon they want to know anything and everything that’s happened to me in the last nine years. After a few minutes Bea, Molly’s work friend, arrives to join us, then Sandra, and then Molly’s friends from university until eventually there are nine of us squeezed around the table, drinking champagne cocktails.
She might’ve booked a tacky stretch limo, but apart from that Molly was hoping to avoid drawing too much attention to us tonight, so she’s not very impressed when Jenny pulls out a whistle shaped like a penis and starts to blow on it. That opens it right up for the other hens and soon poor Molly is being showered with a bright pink feather boa, handcuffs and L-plates, among other delightful little trinkets like glow-in-the-dark penis earrings. Nice. I notice Amy is rather quiet amid all the mayhem so I lean across to her and ask her how her mum was. ‘She’s fine, thanks.’ She picks up her Diet Coke and takes a sip, looking away from me. I feel like I’ve been dismissed.
The sun sets over the harbour, casting an apricot glow across the Opera House. It’s time for dinner so we make our way further around the Quay to where we’ve booked a table at an Italian restaurant. As we sit down, a jolly Italian waiter with an impressive moustache starts to serenade us.
Several bottles of red wine later I feel stuffed to the brim and can’t believe I’m even considering dessert. Am I mad? The waiter comes around to top up my glass. The bottle’s almost empty so I wave my hand vigorously and direct him to Molly’s glass. ‘She’s getting married.’ I’m feeling more than a little tipsy now.
‘Aah, married!’ he says, looking heartbroken. ‘Shame. So beautiful…’ And then he starts to sing again: ‘Happy marriage to you, happy marriage to you…’
Forty-five minutes and lots of laughter later we’ve paid the bill and Molly and I lead the way, arms linked through each other’s as we practically stumble down the stairs to the street where our bright pink limo awaits. The other hens squeal with delight. When our limo driver gets out of the car, I notice with glee that he looks a bit like a cross between Eric Bana and Mark Ruffalo.
‘I’m getting in the front…’
Molly drags me back in fits of laughter. Poor guy has no idea what he’s in for. We start to pile into the back of the car. It’s a little shabby, which you wouldn’t know from the outside, but we’re not really in the habit of giving a jot right now. Amanda cracks open the champagne.
‘Molly, what are you doing?’ I look out to see her standing on the pavement, swaying slightly. Amy is talking to her. I almost fall over as I exit the vehicle and join them.
‘Are you alright?’ I try to pronounce my words properly. Amy looks at me brightly. Whoops, I forgot she wasn’t a drinker. What was that she said yesterday morning?
‘Seeing Nathan wake up after a night on the town is enough to put me off…’
Nasty thought, nasty thought…Go away.
‘Amy’s going to her mum’s!’ Molly exclaims, as though it’s the most disappointing news she’s ever heard.
‘No!’ I protest. ‘It’s only eleven o’clock. You have to come dancing!’
‘No, really, girls, I’m going to go. I promised my mum. Sorry,’ she says, perfectly sober.
‘Do you want a lift?’ Molly slurs.
‘No, it’s okay.’ She smiles tightly. ‘My parents live only up the road.’
‘Are you rich?’ I ask, drunkenly, surprised. You’d have to be wealthy to live in this area.
‘Come on!’ the other hens squeal.
Molly drags me away and we stumble back into the car. Jenny passes us a couple of full champagne glasses.
‘I don’t think I need any more,’ Molly says. ‘I’m feeling a little bit peeeesssed.’
We cruise out of the Rocks area and into the city, winding our way through the streets towards King’s Cross. Our next stop is a nightclub.
Jenny’s blowing Molly’s penis whistle. I start to giggle and find I can’t stop.
James seems so far away, so separate from everything that I’m going through now. I feel happy, free. I could stay here, I think. I could not go back.
We arrive in King’s Cross, Sydney’s red-light district. Molly and I called the club the other day and arranged a guest list, so we don’t have to queue for ages to get in. The doorman lifts up the rope, leering at Jenny’s penis whistle and paying extra-special attention to Molly’s low-cut dress. But she doesn’t mind; it’s her night.
Inside, the music is pumping and the room is teeming with guys looking trim in tight T-shirts.
Is this a gay bar, I wonder.
‘Is this a gay bar?’ I yell.
‘Lucy!’ Molly screams, outraged. ‘No, it bloody isn’t. I want to be flirted with on my last single Saturday!’
‘Humph,’ I say. The guys here look pretty gay to me.
We split up and half of the hens head to the bar while Molly and I and a couple of others make our way to the dance floor. Immediately a group of guys gyrate up against us, disgustingly. I’ve had too much to drink and I’m feeling a bit too out of it for this. Plus I’m missing Nathan–no, James it should be–so I excuse myself and go and sit in the corner. Minutes later Molly appears with a couple of waters and slumps down next to me.
‘Fanks,’ I say glumly, and take a sip. We sit for a few minutes watching the mayhem on the dance floor.
‘Is this hard
for you?’ Molly turns to me suddenly, struggling to be serious.
‘Why, because my own relationship’s so shit?’ I sink down further in my seat.
‘No, because of how you feel for Sam.’
‘What do you mean?’ I sit up, immediately alert.
‘Sorry, I mean how you felt for Sam. Back in high school,’ she corrects herself.
‘You knew about that?’
‘Of course I did,’ she says. ‘You were–you are–my besht friend. How could I not?’
‘Did Sam know?’ How mortifying.
‘Nah.’ Molly shakes her head. ‘He’s a man. They’re oblivious to everything.’
‘Well, I can tell you now that I am well and truly over him,’ I say, passionately over-pronouncing every word of my statement.
‘I know you are.’ She looks back to the dance floor.
‘No, I am. I really am.’ This is excruciating.
‘I know, Lucy. You’re with James now, and you guys will work things out.’
‘Of course we will,’ I insist, overenthusiastically.
The truth is I don’t at this precise moment think we will. James seems part of another world. A world which I’m no longer a part of. My world feels like it’s right here, right now, with Molly’s fiancé’s twenty-three-year-old surfer brother. But I’m hardly going to tell her that. Even drunk as a skunk, I know how ridiculous it sounds.
Jenny appears, blowing that goddamn penis whistle, and I feel bizarrely thankful for the rude interruption. We drag Molly back up onto the dance floor.
Two hours later, when we are all well and truly past it, we stumble out of the nightclub and back into the waiting limo. Hot Mark Ruffalo glances at us in the rear-view mirror. ‘Manly?’ he asks.
‘Yes, please,’ I manage to tell him.
Molly’s boss and a couple of the other girls have already left, but we drop Amanda, Jenny and Bea at various points along the way and eventually approach the Harbour Bridge. There are seagulls or bats–I’m not sure which–flying above it, looking like hundreds of flecks of ash floating around in the light of the uplit buildings.
Molly and I lean back sleepily in our seats. ‘I don’t feel well,’ she murmurs.
The house is dark when we get home; the boys aren’t back yet. For the first time it occurs to me that Nathan might come back to the house with Sam. I hope he does. I hope so much that it hurts.
Molly stumbles upstairs towards the bedroom and plonks herself down on the bed, dragging me with her. ‘That was the besht night,’ she tells me.
‘Hey?’ Sam’s voice is bleary in the darkness.
‘Sorry!’ I whisper loudly, startled that he’s there.
It’s only the last couple of steps that are bothersome. But fortunately I don’t tumble down the whole flight. The door to ‘Nathan’s’ bedroom is closed. I lie in my own bed, willing myself to sober up, still wondering if he’s next door. Sleep eventually takes me and the next thing I know I’m dying of thirst and daylight is spilling down from underneath my blinds.
Chapter 6
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Huh? I think sleepily.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Bert the bat?
The door flings open and Molly is standing there in the doorway, pretending to be furious.
‘What the hell is THIS?’ She lifts up the pink fluffy handcuffs which are attached to her arm. ‘Call yourself my best friend and you don’t even uncuff me?’
I try to sit up but someone whacks me on the back of the head with a hammer. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.
‘Ow!’ I slouch back onto the pillow, holding my hand to my forehead.
‘Yes, ow,’ she says. ‘How do you think I feel? I’ve been bloody arrested!’
‘Stop it, you’re making me laugh.’
Molly looks down at me sternly. ‘I hope you’ve got a key, missy.’
Shit, a key! Where is it?
‘Um…’
‘Oh, for goodness sake, Lucy.’ She laughs.
‘I’m sure I must do. It should be in my handbag. Let me check.’
She leaves in a fake huff and I get up, S-L-O-W-L-Y, so as not to do any more damage to my hammer-head.
I pause for a moment, listening. I can’t hear the boys. I’m sure Nathan won’t be here, but I’m buggered if I’m going to risk it. I pull open the cupboard door and eye my reflection. Good job, Lucy, I think sarcastically as I spot my panda bear right eye next to my clean left eye. Didn’t quite pull that off, then, when I attempted to remove my make-up last night.
I search my handbag for a key, without any luck, and drag on my jeans and a T-shirt. I try to ignore the attractive bruises on my legs, courtesy of those inconvenient stairs last night. I attempt to smooth down my hair, then pad barefoot down the corridor in the direction of the bathroom and my make-up remover. Nathan’s bedroom door opens suddenly and I reel backwards in surprise. The smell of cigarettes, alcohol and sleep wafts out of the room.
‘Morning,’ he says groggily.
‘Hello!’ I reply a little too brightly and start to hurry past him, resisting the urge to cover up my right eye with my hand.
‘Have you been in a fight?’ he asks.
‘No, no, just a make-up incident.’
‘A what?’
‘I’ll be with you in a minute!’ I nip into the bathroom.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God, he’s here! My stomach backflips in quick succession like an Olympic gymnast on a bench. Quickly I brush my teeth, while at the same time doing a rush job on my right eye.
Sam, Molly and Nathan are in the kitchen when I reemerge, Nathan studying the handcuff attached to Molly’s right arm.
‘No key?’ he asks. I shake my head remorsefully. ‘One of those little hairclips should do it,’ he tells me.
Two minutes later, there’s a click and Molly is set free. ‘Yay!’ we all yell.
‘You’re pretty nifty, mate. Where did you learn to do that?’ Sam turns to his brother suspiciously.
‘Read about it in The Famous Five,’ is his dry response.
Nathan, I notice, is still wearing the same outfit he had on last night. He looks rough.
Phwoar.
‘Did you have a good night?’ I ask him, when Molly and Sam have gone back up to their bedroom.
‘Yeah.’ He scratches the stubble on his jaw.
‘How was the bungee jumping?’
‘A massive rush.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. You should try it sometime.’
‘No, thanks. Knowing my luck, the cord would probably break. What did you get up to afterwards?’
He chuckles and shakes his head. ‘That’s classified information, I’m afraid.’
‘What goes on stag night, stays on stag night?’ I raise an eyebrow.
‘Exactly.’ He smirks.
‘I hope you didn’t take your brother to a strip joint…’
‘I’m not saying anything.’ He grins, then stretches his arms above his head and yawns loudly. His T-shirt rides up and shows his tanned abdomen, dark hairs creeping from his navel downwards…I do an involuntary shake of my head to bring myself back to my senses.
We’ve decided to go out for breakfast at a café in Manly. Nathan pulls up a chair opposite me and picks up a menu.
‘That blonde last night was into you,’ Sam says to him, after a moment. The nausea I instantly feel has nothing to do with the amount of alcohol I consumed last night.
‘What blonde?’ Molly pries.
Nathan doesn’t answer.
‘Ah, a pretty little thing who wouldn’t leave him alone. You were on fire last night, mate!’
Nathan rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
‘Poor Amy,’ Molly says.
Poor Lucy, I think dismally, and try to focus on the menu. When I look back up at him he’s staring at me. I can’t read his expression.
‘I’m going to go for bacon and eggs,’ Molly decides out loud.
‘That s
ounds good; make that two,’ Sam adds. Nathan opts for an omelette and toast.
Molly and I head off to the counter to place our orders. In the end I choose pancakes and maple syrup. I need stodge and I need sugar, I decide, knowing full well that what my body actually needs is a nice banana or something. Bollocks to that. Back at the table I notice Nathan is drawing patterns in salt grains that he’s poured onto the wooden surface. I lean over, take a pinch and superstitiously throw the salt back over my left shoulder.
‘Oi!’ he says. ‘You’ve ruined my design.’
‘Your design.’ Sam sniggers. ‘What are you designing, mate?’
‘Could’ve been my house, you never know.’ Nathan grins back at him.
‘That’ll be the day.’ Sam laughs.
Ten minutes or so later, the waitress appears with our food.
‘So what did you boys get up to last night?’ Molly asks as we tuck in. ‘I hope you didn’t allow any bony strippers to gyrate on my husband,’ she says, turning to Nathan. Both boys laugh, but with guilt or outrage, I’m not sure. ‘Actually, I don’t want to know.’ She looks at me ruefully.
I’ve gone off my pancakes. But I’ve eaten one and I’m feeling pretty stuffed. I don’t really want to pig out in front of Nathan in any case, so I put my knife and fork together on my plate.
‘How’s your omelette?’ I ask after a while.
‘Not bad.’
‘Doesn’t look as good as the one you made me.’
‘Did you hear this?’ Molly turns to Sam. ‘Nathan made Lucy an omelette.’
‘Jeez, that’s advanced, mate. You’ll be doing a Jamie Oliver next.’
‘Christ, what do you think I am, completely incompetent?’ he replies, jokily exasperated. I do wonder if Nathan gets pissed off with all the stick he gets from them.
‘Right, I’m off,’ he says after a few more minutes, standing up and reaching into his pocket for his wallet.
‘Are you going surfing today?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, I might go out later,’ he answers. ‘But right now I’m going home to bed.’
He throws down $10, checking with Molly if it’s enough. Sam stands up and gives him a big bear hug.