by Jenny Colgan
‘A big fat tabby who’d just fallen off a dustbin …’
‘… or possibly a tiger. Anyway, I didn’t like my driving instructor. On my first day he said to me, “There are two things in this life that women can’t do. One is drive and the other is …”’
‘… scratch their balls? Ejaculate semen?’
‘No, although actually now I come to think of it, perhaps he should have revised up his estimate. No, the other one was make compilation tapes.’
They drove on in silence for a hundred miles.
‘Actually, I make terrible compilation tapes,’ confessed Julia. ‘I can never work out when to press the pause button, and it always runs over and …’
‘… exactly,’ said Ellie. ‘He’d already got it so right that I didn’t see much point in continuing, really.’
‘Okay, well you control the radio then.’ Don Henley had finished. Ellie fidgeted for a second.
‘Do you want country country or Christian country?’
‘Hmm,’ Julia looked at the dial. ‘Don’t they do that one – “Drop-kick me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life”?’
‘They surely does. But if you stick to country country you get “I’ve Never Been to Bed With an Ugly Woman But I’ve Sure Woken Up With a Few”.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Okay, hang on,’ Ellie twiddled the radio some more. Suddenly, the booming power chords of Glenn Frey’s ‘The Heat Is On’ came booming out.
‘Now THIS is more like it,’ said Julia, and they turned it up ear-splittingly loud and yelled along.
Ellie remembered how excited she’d been about driving. Her mother had never driven, so this was going to be her and her dad’s big project together, without her; something she would never even know about.
‘They don’t have cars in Plockton,’ her dad had said. ‘Just big horses that shit everywhere.’ She had giggled and then jerked the car off down the road. Two screaming hours of pain and terror later they had resolved never to sit in a car together again. When you only have one person in the whole world, don’t try and teach them to drive.
‘Oh my God, a man in a cowboy hat!’ shouted Ellie, pointing and gathering astonished stares from the other punters in the dusty and over-heavily air conditioned diner at the side of the road.
‘Oh,’ she said, coming into the room fully and realizing it was in fact packed with massive men in cowboy hats.
‘How y’all doing?’ said a short, friendly-looking man, coming over with two menus.
‘Oh my Go –’
Julia clapped her hand over her friend’s mouth.
‘Two please. Non-smoking.’
‘As opposed to what?’ he said, without comprehension.
Julia led a stuttering Ellie to the seat.
‘But he’s a … he’s a …’
‘Native American, yes. Good God, Ellie, when you were a kid did you used to point out Down’s Syndrome kids on the street and old ladies with wigs on?’
‘No! Just that old lady with Down’s Syndrome and a wig …’
‘That’d better not be true.’
‘But he’s … !’
The man came back up with glasses of icy water. The girls were in South East Nevada and were just coming down from an enormous fight about the two potential two-hundred-mile detours possible at this point – one to Vegas, one to the Grand Canyon. No prizes for guessing who was arguing which case, but it had come down to some very frosty exchanges focusing on the amount of watches worn by one of the occupants of the car and the moral standards, or otherwise, of the other. The result was that they had bypassed both places and gone straight on up route 15, ploughing on and on through the dust, and Julia was now eyeing up any coffee-related products with a ravenous half-open eye.
‘So where are you guys from? Poland?’ asked the waiter chummily.
‘England,’ said Ellie eagerly, looking at his fine forehead and large brown eyes.
‘England, yeah? So, that’s like, near Britain?’
‘It’s in Britain,’ said Ellie, less eagerly. ‘It’s kind of the biggest part of Britain.’
‘You’re shitting me! I thought that was London.’
‘Well, we’re from London.’
He looked confused.
‘Okay. So – where you headed? The Grand Canyon or Vegas?’
‘Neither,’ said Julia. ‘We’re going to Kansas City. Can I have some Jolt cola please? And a double expresso?’
‘Gee, you foreigners sure are weird,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘So you are really a Red Indian?’ asked Ellie through a mouthful of bacon and sunny side up eggs. Julia tutted loudly.
‘Yes ma’am. I’m a Havasupai.’
‘I’ve never met a real … umm, Native American before.’
‘Well, I’ve never met a real London person before.’
‘Really? There’s tons of us.’
‘There’s a few of us too.’
‘God, isn’t travelling weird?’ said Ellie to Julia. Julia raised her eyes to the ceiling and downed another black coffee.
‘We came from Los Angeles,’ added Ellie.
‘Really? I used to live there. In the eighties.’
That caught Ellie’s attention. ‘Yeah? Oh my God, what did you do?’
‘I ran a restaurant there too. Course, this was in the days when restaurants weren’t much about food.’
‘Yeah?’ The girls were agog.
‘Aw, jeez, Jimmy, are you startin,’ wit that Hollywood shit again?’ said the man in the next booth, good-naturedly.
‘Yeh, you shut your mouth,’ said Jimmy, waving the water jug alarmingly.
He schooshed them over and sat down. Ellie put her chin on her hands, all ready to listen.
‘It was just off Rodeo, real nice spot. We used to get everyone in there.’
‘What was it called?’ said Julia.
‘“Flash”. We got it all done out in pink neon and black leather and served portions that wouldn’t feed a rat. It was pretty cool.’
‘Sounds it,’ said Ellie. ‘Come on! Who used to come in?’
‘We had to widen the doors to let the shoulderpads through. On a good night you could choke on the hairspray and Giorgio perfume. And great big cell phones like bricks.’ His voice went misty.
‘Did the Brat Pack come in?’ said Ellie anxiously, unable to hold back for another second.
‘Oh yes,’ he said.
Ellie’s face lit up. She imagined them, at their peak, in their glitter, laughing and chatting and raising glasses to their youth and success and joy. She imagined walking through the widened doors; sitting down at the black leather banquette; sweeping up her (now miraculously straight) hair.
‘More bitching bunch of ingrates I never met in my whole life.’
‘Do you mean “bitching” in the good sense?’ asked Julia, shocked. Ellie was suddenly rigid.
‘Maybe you just caught them on a bad night,’ she said desperately.
‘Neh, they were in there all the time. Getting drunk. Falling over. Complaining about Tom Cruise getting all the good roles.’
‘Well, they were right there,’ said Julia. Ellie was still looking deeply unhappy.
‘Was … was Andrew McCarthy there?’
‘Who?’ He thought for a second and scratched his head. ‘No, he really didn’t hang out with those guys. Not really a party animal.’
Ellie’s grin was back instantly. ‘So. Not him then.’
He shook his head.
‘Have you any idea where he might hang out now?’ asked Julia.
‘Just not in restaurants, I guess.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Oh, but they were great days,’ he went on. ‘The tips. I can’t even explain it to you. Thousands of dollars, flying all over the place.’
‘What happened?’ asked Julia. Then, gathering herself, ‘Not that this place isn’t really nice and everything.’
The man grinned at her and nodded over at the swing doors into the kitchen. A beautiful and f
ilthy little boy was sticking fries in his ears.
‘Oh, you know …’ he shrugged. ‘Times changed. Fashions changed. People started turning up in jeans and mucky old Nirvana t-shirts and asking for mineral water. It wasn’t as fun any more. The glitter starts to fade, you know.’
Julia nodded.
A woman scooped up the child and came in from the back of the restaurant. She had long dark hair and large dark eyes, and had obviously once been extremely attractive, but was now insanely overweight.
‘And this is my wife, Sharalees.’
The woman smiled a warm smile. Ellie gave the child a piece of toast to stick in his ear.
‘I just been talkin’ to these fine young ladies from Iyerland …’
‘Hi there y’all. Has he been boring you with his old war stories again?’
‘He certainly has Sharalees,’ said the man in the cowboy hat.
‘It sounds great,’ said Ellie.
‘It was horrible, actually.’
‘Sharalees was going to be an actress,’ said the restaurant owner. ‘She was in an erotic thriller with Mark Hamill.’
‘Wow, that’s amazing.’
‘Yeah, but mostly I was his favourite waitress.’
‘Yes you were,’ said the man.
‘And let me tell you, it was pretty horrible in there. Lots of shouting nobodies who are all now either miserable or dead. Tips were good though.’
‘Uh huh,’ said Ellie.
‘Well, lovely to meet y’all. And can I just say your English is really good.’
‘We better be getting on,’ said Julia, regretfully. ‘We have to be in a motel before it gets dark, so Ellie can see to stomp the roaches.’
‘You don’t want to hear about the night Dudley Moore and Robert Downey Junior …’
‘I do,’ said Ellie.
‘Sorry,’ said Julia, ‘but if I have to drive all day, she has to stomp roaches.’
‘Oh, well, you make sure you look us up next time you’re coming through, okay?’
‘Absolutely. And the next time you’re in Europe, come and check us out.’
‘Yeah, we’ll do that. It’s Ellie and Julia, right?’
‘Yup.’
‘Great. Shouldn’t be a problem in your little bitty country.’
The next morning started nice and clear and Julia dragged Ellie away from the Eat All The Bacon You Want table as quickly as she could.
‘Let’s get a move on!’
‘Okay! He’ll wait for us in Kansas City you know.’
‘Who?’ said Julia. ‘Andrew II? I wasn’t even thinking about him.’ She fingered his cellphone number in her trouser pocket.
Ellie jumped in the tiny car. ‘Poo. It smells in here.’
‘Well, stop eating Cheez Whizz then.’
Ellie wound down the window.
‘Oh, God, what if Arthur doesn’t come? That’ll be crap.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ said Julia, a little stiffly. They set off on the poker-straight road.
‘No, that’s not what I meant,’ said Ellie. ‘I just … hate depriving him of his trip.’
‘Perhaps you should have thought of that before you sent us five thousand miles off course.’
‘Yeah, okay okay.’
Ellie fell silent. Why was it she never felt like she was doing something selfish until she’d actually done it and somebody pointed it out? It had been a mistake, okay? She hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. She just had to find someone, that was all. Thinking about this led her uncomfortably to thinking of her mother. She shifted in her seat uneasily.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ said Ellie. ‘Just bog-standard contemporary alienation.’
‘Oh, that.’ Julia turned up the Cyndi Lauper tape they’d bought for $2.99 and Ellie stared wistfully out the window to ‘Time after Time’.
From far in the distance a figure appeared by the side of the road.
‘A hitchhiker!’ said Ellie excitedly.
‘Yeah, no way,’ said Julia. They drew closer, and the road shimmered in the heat.
‘It’s like that Shania Twain video,’ said Ellie. ‘Look! It’s a woman.’
Julia peered over the top of the steering wheel.
‘It looks very tall to be a woman,’ she said doubtfully.
‘But she’s got long pink hair,’ said Ellie. Still doubtful, Julia slowed the car a little. The woman waggled her hips energetically and kicked up a very high heel.
‘Wow, it looks like she might be very very grateful if you picked her up,’ said Ellie.
‘Oh, look, I’m not going to.’
‘You’re going to leave a lone woman by the side of the road? Right on sister.’
‘Argh.’ Julia wrestled with herself.
‘Oh, please can we pick her up?’ begged Ellie. ‘I’ve been feeling really guilty about … things … and this would be a good thing to do, wouldn’t it?’
Making a Marge Simpson noise, Julia drew up by the exotic creature.
‘HEY!’ screamed the woman in a suspiciously deep voice. ‘Thanks so much. Oh, get you two cuties! What are you, like, Spice Girls that have been left out in the rain?’
Julia looked at Ellie as the ‘woman’ laughed, dumped her leopard skin travelling case, folded up her endless and suspiciously slim legs and poured herself into the back.
‘I’m Holly Wood,’ she began conversationally, poking her head through the gap between the two front seats. ‘And you’re my new best friends!’
‘So you don’t think,’ Ellie said, when Holly paused to let her get a word in edgeways, ‘that being a seven-foot-tall transvestite dressed as a hooker isn’t a bit of a dangerous way to go hitchhiking?’
‘No, honey! I give those truckers the biggest thrill they ever saw.’
‘I bet you do,’ said Julia.
‘Ooh, get you,’ said Holly and Ellie at once.
‘Where are you headed?’ Ellie asked her.
‘Well, I’m going to Toledo to pick up some chums … then we’re off to NEW YORK. YAHH!’
‘Ow,’ said Julia, whose ear was rather close to Holly’s massive carmine-painted mouth.
‘We are too,’ said Ellie, just as Julia shot her a warning look.
‘Yeah? For the festival?’
‘What festival?’
‘The tranny festival, hon. End of the month. Where do you think I’m off to, Carnegie Hall? We’re going to be dancing in the streets, hon. Don’t you even THINK about missing it!’
Ellie looked at Julia suddenly.
‘Do whatever you like,’ said Julia. ‘I’ll be at the Guggenheim.’
‘No!’ said Ellie. ‘Don’t you see? I think I know how to re-enlist the third musketeer!’
‘WARRRGH!’
‘What’s that?’ said Arthur. ‘I can’t really hear you this end. Colin and Big Bastard have turned the front room into an ice hockey rink. It would take too long to explain. Oh and by the way, Billy was round here. He says could you let him know if you’re coming back to him or not before he gets a new tattoo.’
‘Wow,’ said Ellie. ‘You know, I haven’t thought about him at all.’
‘I guess that means no,’ said Arthur, worriedly. ‘I’d better get on to him.’
Ellie told him about the International Transvestite Awards.
‘You know transvestites and homosexuals aren’t the same thing,’ he said reprovingly. ‘Oh God, Big Bastard’s using the Hoover as a sleigh.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Ellie. ‘I just thought you might like to know. In case you were reconsidering coming.’
‘Hmm,’ said Arthur. ‘So, while you were out actor-hunting in the snow I’d have to put on a hula skirt and wiggle my butt around to disco music?’
‘Not if you didn’t want to …’
‘See you in Kansas City!’
‘Good luck, Holly Wood!’ Ellie gave her a hug as they dropped her off in a quiet town in the middle of the Arizona desert.
‘Hon, I
don’t need luck, I just need someone who can sew a sequin on tight. So you’ll come and see me in New York?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Okay! Have a good trip now y’all! And don’t go picking up any strange men!’
‘As if!’ snorted Ellie and they pulled away.
‘Oh God,’ said Arthur, staring at his suitcase.
‘I don’t even have any jumpers.’
‘Borrow some of his,’ said Colin, who was perched on top of the bed wrapped up against the cold in an England rugby top fifteen sizes too big for him. ‘I’ve already packed your hula skirt.’
‘Absolutely not! I don’t know where they’ve been. No, actually, I do know where they’ve been – underneath those armpits for a start.’
‘Hey!’ said Big Bastard, wandering in with a six-pack protectively tucked under his arm, and leaning against the doorway.
‘By the way … which airline are you flying with, Arthur? British Gayerways? or Gay-roflot?’
Arthur turned round slowly.
‘BB, how long did it take you to think of that?’
Big Bastard hung his head.
‘Yeah, it was a slow day.’
‘A whole day?’
Big Bastard shrugged.
‘Well, I started yesterday. There’s loads you know. Oh, and are you going to be cruising at 30,000 feet …’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Arthur, cutting him off. ‘And anyway, what are you doing in here? The presence of hastily hidden Nancy Friday books would seem to indicate that it’s not your room.’
‘What the fuck are they when they’re at home?’
‘It’s like porn, right, only for girls,’ piped up Colin.
‘Girls don’t like porn!’ scoffed Big Bastard dismissively.
‘Big Bastard, you think girls don’t like sex,’ said Arthur.
‘Neh, I’ve just had an unlucky run of frigid bitches. What’s it like then? Is it all todgers and that? Do you two like it?’
‘No, it’s just writing,’ said Colin, holding up a copy of Women on Top.
‘Just writing? That sounds like it’ll be complete crap,’ said Big Bastard, picking it up and tucking it under his free arm nonetheless.
‘When are you off? I’d give you a lift on my scooter. But I’m a bit busy.’ He clutched the Nancy Friday book almost imperceptibly tighter.