The Last Laugh

by Tracy Bloom

  George turns round to reveal an enormous green and glistening globe in all its glory.

  ‘Is that what I think it is?’ asks Jules, a grin already forming on her face. ‘I haven’t had one of them in years.’

  I nod.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ declares Tim, beside himself. ‘I think I may have died and gone to heaven. I can’t believe it. Tell me it is what I think it is.’

  ‘It’s a vodka melon!’ I cry, raising my hands in the air. Tim and Jules cheer and clap uproariously as George carefully places it in the middle of the table.

  ‘Would you like to do the honours?’ I say, handing the knife to Tim.

  ‘I don’t mind if I do,’ he says, getting up and poising the tip of the knife at the top of the hard, round melon. ‘And may I make a toast,’ he adds, starting to push down. ‘To old friends,’ he says as the knife plunges in.

  ‘To old friends,’ I repeat, raising my glass.

  Thirty-Nine

  Mark and Tim have rolled their sleeves up and are having an arm-wrestle by the time Ellie comes home. We’ve cranked the music up and Julie and I are having a dance to a Now That’s What I Call the Nineties CD I’ve managed to dig up.

  We’re in the middle of ‘Place Your Hands’ by Reef when Ellie appears at the door. I glance up at the clock: it’s eleven thirty on the dot. For once she’s in on time. That’s a relief. No need for a late-night stand-off as I feebly try and punish her for the umpteenth time for staying out longer than acceptable. Her brow is furrowed as she takes in the carnage that now litters the kitchen. The vodka melon looks like road-kill, its innards exploded all over the blue and white checked tablecloth, fragments of red flesh scattered everywhere, including some in Mark’s hair and decorating his shirt.

  I should have known the vodka melon would be the key. Sinking his teeth into alcohol-drenched fruit finally worked its magical powers on Mark and he caved. Having eaten three slices, Tim carved himself a set of bright green melon teeth and inserted them in his mouth under the table before rearing up next to Mark, causing him to spit melon right in his face.

  That was all Tim needed. He leant over and sunk his hand into the half of melon that hadn’t been sliced yet, and drew out a handful of rosy red crumbling flesh and threw it in Mark’s face. It landed splat on his glasses as he froze and we all collapsed in hysterics. Slowly he raised his hands and wiped the sticky debris away then, quick as a flash, grabbed a handful that had landed on the table in front of him and lunged at Tim, managing to stuff the sticky mess down the back of his trousers.

  ‘You are disgusting,’ Tim told him, waggling his bottom, trying to get the lump of goo to drop down his trouser leg.

  ‘You started it,’ said Mark.

  Tim walked towards Mark, who tried to back away but he wasn’t quick enough. Tim swiftly put him in an armlock so that Mark’s head was down near his hip. He leaned forward as I pushed what was left of the melon nearer so he could reach it. He dipped his hand in for the second time and rubbed the sticky goo all over Mark’s hair until it looked as though he’d gone completely overboard with the hair gel. Mark thrashed about, trying to break free, but Tim is tougher and uglier than him and he had to wait until Tim released him, his hair slick and shiny and sticking up in all directions.

  Mark had stood there laughing, trying to catch his breath, when, without warning, his hand was behind Tim’s head as he forced it down onto the table straight into the vodka melon. There was a look of pure victory on Mark’s face. Jules and I gave him a standing ovation and he managed a quick bow before he allowed Tim to come up for air.

  ‘Fair cop, mate,’ said Tim, holding his hand out to shake Mark’s. ‘I’ll let you take that as a victory.’

  Mark looked down at his hand suspiciously before offering his own. They were mid-shake when Tim thrust his vodka-melon-dripping face into Mark’s neck and wrapped both his arms around him. I watched to see Mark’s reaction. He was tense for a moment then softened, putting his arms around Tim and completing the bear hug. They both banged each other’s back with fists and eventually pulled away.

  ‘You are such a tosser,’ announced Mark.

  ‘Likewise,’ replied Tim.

  ‘I could take you any day,’ said Mark.

  ‘Arm-wrestle?’ enquired Tim.

  ‘Let’s do it.’

  And that is how Ellie discovers her father late on a Friday night, in a way she has never seen him. Sitting at the kitchen table, vodka melon in his hair and dripping down his face whilst his eyes are screwed up tightly in the sheer concentration of beating his childhood best mate in an arm-wrestle.

  ‘Dad?’ she says when he fails to acknowledge her arrival in the room.

  ‘Ellie,’ he says, his eyes pinging open. Tim immediately slams his fist to the table and then leaps up out of his chair in victory.

  ‘Get in,’ he shouts. ‘Best of three, mate? Oh, and who is this gorgeous young lady?’ he says, sliding over to the door to take a closer look. ‘This cannot be Ellie. Will you just shut up?’ he says, turning to Mark. ‘Is this Ellie? No one as beautiful as this is coming from your loins. Are you serious?’

  ‘Give it a rest, Tim,’ says Mark, getting up to go and stand near his daughter. ‘You remember Tim, don’t you, love? Are you all right? Did you have a good night?’ he asks.

  ‘Er, yes,’ replies Ellie. ‘Me and Max are just going to sit in the lounge, okay?’

  ‘Max?’ asks Mark. ‘Who’s Max?’ He turns to look at me as though I should know.

  Max? So this must be the guy I saw her outside school with.

  ‘He’s, er…’ begins Ellie.

  ‘Hiya,’ says a head poking round the kitchen door. ‘I just walked Ellie home.’

  He grins at the mature adults in the kitchen dripping in vodka melon.

  We all stare back at him, not sure what to do. Tim decides.

  ‘Come in then, lad,’ he booms, pulling open the door. ‘Let’s see you then, shall we? Come on, don’t be shy, we won’t bite.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ protests Ellie. ‘We’ll go in the lounge, leave you to it.’

  But Tim has Max by the arm and is leading him to a chair.

  ‘Hang on,’ he cries just as Max is about to take a seat. Tim bends and flicks melon off the chair then pushes him down into it. He perches his own bottom on the side of the table right next to Max. ‘You walked her home, you say?’ he asks, staring at him.

  ‘Yes,’ nods Max. He actually looks a nice boy. I’m not sure he deserves or is ready for this.

  ‘Dad?’ pleads Ellie. But for once Mark takes no notice of his daughter as he watches Tim’s interrogation of the poor boy who has walked Ellie home.

  ‘You see, I’m talking man to man here,’ continues Tim. ‘When I was your age I used to “walk girls home”.’ He makes speech marks with his fingers. ‘I know what walking a girl home means and if I find out you have so much as laid a finger…’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Sutton, I wouldn’t do that—’ begins Max.

  ‘He’s not my dad,’ cries Ellie, walking over to Max and pulling at his arm. ‘That’s my dad.’ She points at Mark.

  ‘But ditto, what he’s saying,’ says Mark, pointing at Tim. ‘He, er, he’s right. She’s precious…’

  ‘What he’s trying to say is keep your mucky hands off her,’ says Tim, walking over to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mark. They both glare at Max like the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the sad dad world.

  Max nods vigorously as Ellie pulls him through the kitchen door to escape.

  ‘In bed by twelve, please,’ I shout after her before we hear the lounge door slam.

  ‘Jenny!’ exclaims Tim.

  ‘I said “please”.’

  ‘I’ll go up after them, shall I, and hand out the condoms?’

  ‘Oh, they knew what I meant. Anyway, what’s with all the heavy-handed dad thing?’

  ‘Jenny, darling,’ says Tim, putting a hand on my arm. ‘Me and Mark understand the mind of a teenage boy. We were bot
h there once. Think of your worst nightmare and double it.’

  ‘Do you think we should go in and put Match of the Day on or something? I’m not sure I want them to be alone,’ says Mark.

  ‘Good idea,’ says Tim, grabbing his pint off the table. ‘Any melon left?’

  Forty

  My hangover is monumental, I conclude as I stand at the top of the stone steps of Shady Grove the following day. Maybe not so monumental as the tapas and carafes of red wine incident, but it’s right up there. I’d forgotten the unfortunate side-effects of vodka melon. It looks so innocent. It’s mostly fruit after all, isn’t it? Sadly it’s revealing its inner evil in the glare of the sunlight this afternoon.

  Totally worth it though. Best night I’d had in a very long time. And I’m sure that Mark would have agreed if he’d stuck around long enough for me to ask him this morning. He ended up passing out on the sofa before Tim and Julie had even left. I’d put a blanket over him and left him a glass of water and a packet of paracetamol. By the time I got up he’d gone. Empty glass left on the sink alongside an empty packet of pills. No note, nothing.

  Karen has just called me on her mobile. She said she should be here any minute, having got stuck in horrendous traffic on the M6. She gabbles on, saying she’s had the meeting from hell trying to organise a product launch at The Lowry Hotel in Manchester. Apparently the Brand Manager is stroppy, stubborn and barely out of nappies, whilst the B-list celebrity they want to use in a photo-op has sent a rider as long as your arm. They’re demanding a brand of champagne that Karen assumes I have heard of waiting for them in their hotel room.

  ‘Oh,’ is my response as she relays all this breathlessly down the mobile phone.

  ‘Can you believe it? I mean The Lowry don’t even stock that brand. I remember the days when a decent Dom Pérignon was enough.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And it’s always the not-all-that-famous people who want the outrageous stuff. I mean, take Kenneth Branagh. All he wanted was a jug of water and some sliced lemon. Lovely man, really lovely.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m coming off the motorway now – says I’ll be with you in ten. See you shortly.’

  I hear the buzz of the line hanging up.

  She’d rung yesterday and said she’d like to call in and check out the venue for my party on her way back from Manchester. I suspect she wants to know I have everything in hand as she will be remembering my patchy organisational skills from our Corfu days. How she’s going to cope with Shady Grove when she’s used to high-end hotels I don’t know. Its faded grandeur is lovely in the realm of old people’s homes but hardly a venue to fill an event company owner with glee. And if she thought the Brand Manager was stroppy and stubborn, then, well… she hasn’t met Maureen yet.

  Today I decide I should actually make an effort, having already experienced Karen’s put-together look. I have coiffed my hair, put on make-up and I’m wearing the knee-high leather boots and brown suede skirt. It’s getting a bit loose so I’ve hidden the gaping waistband under a top, but I think I’m looking okay.

  A gleaming silver BMW glides up the drive and my heart sinks. I can’t help but compare myself. She has a better car than me. She is better than me. Obviously.

  I wave and she sweeps the car round into a visitor spot to the left of the steps. She jumps out, pushing sunglasses onto her head, where they fix perfectly, holding her blonde hair back. Her bright red lips are neatly lined and she has perfected the smoky-eye look. I am in awe.

  ‘For goodness’ sake, look at you,’ she says, looking me up and down. ‘I see where you were going with that dodgy Ginger Spice look now.’

  I grin back. ‘You look amazing,’ I tell her. ‘I forgot to tell you the other night.’

  ‘Piss off! I wouldn’t be getting this lot in a bikini nowadays,’ she says.

  ‘Well, I think you look great.’

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of you to say but you, my dear, look incredible.’

  We smile awkwardly at each other, not sure what to say next.

  ‘So this is it then,’ she says eventually, looking up at the grey stone building. ‘Shall we get cracking? I’m really sorry but I haven’t got much time. I have to be back by six to pick Sienna up.’

  ‘Of course, this way. I’m sorry it’s not The Lowry Hotel.’

  * * *

  Karen stands in the doorway of Maureen’s room, looking hesitant. She casts her eyes over the small room with all Maureen’s knick-knacks crammed in whilst the unmistakable smell of detergent rams the senses. It’s a world away from a meeting room at The Lowry, I imagine.

  ‘Come in, don’t be shy,’ says Maureen. ‘Let Karen sit on the chair,’ she continues. ‘You and me can sit on the bed.’

  She starts to pull herself up from her chair, grabbing hold of her stick for support.

  ‘No, no, please sit there,’ says Karen, finally coming into the room. ‘I’ll, er, I’ll, er, sit on the bed.’

  Maureen plops back in her chair gratefully.

  ‘Good to meet you at last,’ she says as Karen moves a towel to one side and gingerly sits down. ‘Jenny has told me so much about you.’

  ‘Has she?’ she says, pulling an iPad out of a designer tote bag.

  ‘It’s a shame it’s taken this to get you back together again,’ says Maureen.

  I shoot her a warning look. I had an inkling that Maureen might be hostile towards Karen. You know what they say about two’s company and three’s a crowd? By the suspicious stare that she’s giving Karen, I think I might have guessed right.

  ‘Yes, well, life happens,’ replies Karen.

  ‘So it does,’ agrees Maureen. ‘Looks like it’s treated you well,’ she adds, whilst making a play of looking her up and down.

  I’m not quite sure if she is referring to the gorgeous designer dress Karen is wearing, or the expensive bag, or the beautiful shoes, or the ample waistline. At a guess it’s the ample waistline.

  ‘I’ve not done badly for myself,’ nods Karen. ‘Events Horizon is my own business. I employ five people and we’re rated as one of the top events companies in the Midlands.’

  ‘Haven’t you done well,’ says Maureen, deadpan. I shoot her another warning look. ‘Well, I can’t tell you how pleased we are to have Jenny here at Shady Grove. It may not have the excitement of running parties but where would we all be if people like her didn’t selflessly choose to work in the caring sector.’

  What on earth is Maureen drivelling on about? I didn’t choose to work here, it was all I could get at the time and then I was too lazy to get out.

  ‘Absolutely,’ says Karen. ‘She’s clearly doing an amazing job. I so couldn’t do it.’ She casts another dismissive eye around the room. ‘I bet she gets you doing some amazing stuff,’ she continues. ‘Jenny was always the ideas person, I was the organiser. The amount of times I bailed her out because she’d forgotten to book a coach for a trip.’

  Karen laughs and fake-punches me on the arm.

  And the amount of times I stayed up all night and listened whilst you cried on my shoulder over Sean giving you the runaround, I think.

  ‘Sounds like you had a wonderful friendship,’ says Maureen. ‘Just marvellous. And now you’ve found each other again, just in time.’

  I shoot Maureen yet another warning glance. What is she playing at? I look at Karen to see if she has registered Maureen’s odd comment. Doesn’t look like it. She’s busy tapping something into her iPad. Karen was good at lists, I wasn’t. I thought I could keep it all in my head. The amount of times I would have to ask her if she’d written down some vital piece of information I was supposed to know. She always had. I was the one who came up with the crazy ideas and she was the practical one who made them happen. We were a great team back then.

  I feel the pang of two decades of memories lost. I wonder if we would have kept in touch if it hadn’t been for Sean. Would we have maintained our closeness despite being hundreds of miles apart, or had we both been
glad of the excuse to let it all slip through our fingers? To ease the guilt of not bothering to pick up the phone. What kind of friends would we have been? Weekly calls for gossip or only bothering to get in touch on high days and holidays? Weddings, births, christenings, maybe thirtieth birthdays at a stretch. Would we have gradually slid into each other’s past, disappearing from each other’s presents? Birthday and Christmas cards until perhaps just a Christmas card with a round robin. Is that what we would have become? From sisterly-level devotion to just a name on a list that maybe gets one of the best cards out of the bumper Christmas charity pack?

  Karen and I didn’t even manage that. If we had I’m sure her round robin would have been longer than mine – I think she’s had more to shout about.

  ‘So shall we make a start?’ says Karen, looking up.

  ‘Oh, please do,’ says Maureen with a false smile on her face. She reaches over and grabs an old receipt and a pen. She unwrinkles the receipt on her newspaper and turns it over, then poises her pen above it.

  ‘So I’ve managed to get hold of five sumo suits, three foam guns, and an adult-worthy bouncy castle,’ says Karen.

  ‘Wow, that’s brilliant,’ I say.

  ‘Is that all?’ says Maureen.

  Karen glances between the two of us.

  ‘It’s very short notice,’ she points out.

  ‘Of course it is,’ I reply. ‘I can’t believe you got anything, to be honest. Thank you so much.’

  ‘I had to pull a few favours with some suppliers but they know that I’ll put more business their way so it worked out fine. Now, do you have access to power and if so, where and what voltage?’

  I look at Maureen and she looks back at me. Neither of us has a clue.

  ‘No problem.’ Karen keeps tapping on her iPad. ‘I’ll confirm they need generators. What time can they have access to the site?’

  I glance at Maureen, who is still looking blank. She coughs.