by LUCY LAING
The minutes were there the following morning, when I arrived at work.
PROGRESS REPORTS.
* Tash has made exciting progress with a dark stranger she met on the internet – Tash to meet him next week, but all the girls also to go the bar and size him up.
Tash to suggest to her internet stranger, that they meet in a crowded popular bar, on a main road, not a back street, and that she would come in her own car.
* Rach suggested that we all log on to the internet to see if we can find mystery hunks, too.
(I said we should wait to see if Tash’s man turned out to be Mr Right instead of a balding, eighty-year-old midget, before we all went plunging in and landed ourselves with a bunch of perverted OAPs.)
* Kaz to go on a blind date with Adam, the builder.
Kaz to give him a fair chance – not look at the size of his wallet constantly throughout the evening.
* Prawn Revenge has been declared a complete success. Apparently Mike has been going hairless trying to find out what the rotting smell upstairs in his house was, and even hired a plumber to take out his entire bathroom suite and inspect all the pipes to see if there was a sewage blockage.
* Still no word from Jen about joining the club. Rach suggested we add Hugh Grant to her list, but Jen would definitely have to buy an English country mansion, if she started dating Hugh. (I am beginning to get a little annoyed with Jen for not replying – and if she’s not careful, Tash’s cast-off eighty-year-old bald midget will be on the top of her list.)
• A baby shower for Rach’s baby has been arranged. Kaz said it will be a good excuse for us all to get drunk. Rach pointed out that she would be drinking orange juice, and we needed to bring some presents. It wasn’t all about her friends getting sloshed.
What sort of things did babies want nowadays? I felt sure it would be a girl, and there was one thing I knew for a fact – girls love make-up. I could buy her the new mascara from L’Oreal, oh, and a Touche Eclat concealer stick, too, something that no girl should be without. Touche Eclat is an absolutely brilliant invention. I’ve lost count of the numerous times I’ve woken up with a thumping hangover and huge, dark shadows under my eyes, and Touche Eclat has saved the day.
I turned back to my computer screen. There was a little envelope blinking in the corner of my screen. Ooh! Good, an email. I opened it and there it was – a reply from Jen’s fan club.
‘Jennifer Aniston has received your email and will be in touch,’ it said.
Yeees! Yeeees! Yeeeess!! I punched the air with victory. I knew Jen wouldn’t be able to resist the help of the club. I swung my swivel chair around in triumphant victory to face Nick.
‘Jennifer Aniston has replied to our email, like I knew she would,’ I told him, smugly. ‘Now what do you have to say about it?’
‘Well, I …’
‘Oh, sorry, I forgot that there is no way Jennifer Aniston was ever going to reply to the Has-beens, Hags and Crones’, I said, mimicking Nick, before he had chance to reply. I got up and did a little triumphant tribal-like dance around my computer, reaching over to press the ‘print’ button on my computer, as I jumped past.
‘When you’ve finished leaping up and down like a crazed baboon, what has she actually said?’ asked Nick, suspiciously. I read the reply out to him.
‘It sounds like a standard reply to me. Don’t get too excited. Now, what are you doing?’ he asked, as I started ripping the printed reply into tiny bits.
‘I always said I’d make you eat your words, if she did reply. So I’m ripping it into bite-sized pieces, so it’s easier for you to swallow,’ I said, grinning.
He leapt out of his chair and sprinted into the men’s toilets, sticking his head around the door ten minutes later, to see if the coast was clear.
‘Don’t worry,’ I called out to him. I’m going to make a cake at home tonight and I’m going to put her reply in it, and at least it will taste nicer for you.’
‘Phew,’ said Nick, coming back. ‘That’s let me off the hook. The cake will burnt to smithereens by tomorrow morning.’
‘Cheeky,’ I said, but for once, I wasn’t annoyed with Nick. Jen had replied and it was practically the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me – an email from a Hollywood celebrity. It was almost as good as when I bumped into Ken Barlow at a local horse show in Cheshire a few years ago.
‘Have you arranged to meet your mystery man, yet?’ I asked Tash, a few days later.
‘Yes, but I’m really nervous about it,’ she said. ‘I kept putting him off, but I couldn’t tell him I was worrying he was going to be a bald midget. That would have sounded pretty shallow - even for me – so I had to agree to meet him. We’ve arranged to meet in Loco’s - that new bar, which has just opened on the main street in Manchester, just by Miss Selfridges.’
‘We’re definitely coming, too,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want you wrapped in a carpet and whisked away.’
‘I know,’ she said laughing. ‘I need you all to protect me from the Mad Carpet Killer.’
‘Are you having a new carpet fitted?’ asked Nick, when I got off the phone. I explained to him about my constant worry for Tash’s life, when she had disappeared off with various men over the years.
‘So you are all going along to protect her from this one,’ said Nick, chuckling. ‘For once, I don’t think you are all completely, insanely mad.’ I felt a little flicker of pride that Nick thought I was doing something sensible for once. Then I squashed it immediately – as if I needed his approval for anything.
‘I can’t believe Tash even went on an internet chat room – she isn’t the type,’ I said. ‘She’s never met anyone that way before, and let’s face it, she doesn’t really need to.’
Nick nodded his head in agreement. It always slightly annoyed me how much he fancied Tash, but I never said anything to him – I’d hate him to think I was jealous.
‘If I was him, I would roll Tash up in a carpet and roll myself in with her,’ said Nick. I clouted him over the head with a magazine I had in my hand – a bit harder than necessary.
‘Be serious, Nick, this is her life I’m worried about.’
***
Four days later, it was the day of Tash’s Big Mystery Date. I was nervous for her. I spent the afternoon hopping around from one foot to the other and making endless trips to the coffee machine.
‘You look like you’ve sat on the world’s biggest ants’ nest,’ remarked Nick, who was sorting through photographs from this morning’s picture shoot.
‘I’m nervous about tonight,’ I said. ‘What happens if he is a balding midget? Tash will be back to square one.’
‘It would be better than him being the Carpet Killer, ‘Nick pointed out reasonably. ‘If a balding midget is the worst that he is, then she will have got off pretty lightly.’
Kaz drove us all into Manchester that evening. I’d never seen Tash anything but cool and collected. Now she looked like she was about to step on stage and star in a one-man show.
‘Calm down, Tash,’ I said to her. ‘It’s only a date.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I feel like I know him so well already – we’ve been talking for hours every single night, but I don’t know him at all, if you know what I mean.’
Rach kept telling Kaz to go slowly around the corners. She was having morning, noon and night sickness at the moment, and she’d had to force herself to come out tonight.
Rach’s mum had eventually come round to the idea that she was pregnant, so she’d moved back in with her parents and was in the process of looking for a flat.
‘It’s bizarre,’ she had told me last week. ‘Mum has even rooted out her old knitting needles from the loft and is making it a little jacket. I’ve told her to wait until my first scan, but she’s already half way through it.’
‘At least she’s now happier about everything, which makes it all easier,’ I said.
‘You look gorgeous,’ I reassured Tash. She was wearing a silver, bustier to
p with black trousers, and her hair was shinier than I’d ever seen it.
Kaz parked the car and we walked towards the bar. I grabbed Tash’s hand and gave it a squeeze. It was clammy.
‘Where are you meant to be meeting him?’ asked Rach, who looked a bit green. I hoped she wasn’t going to throw up all over Tash, so I moved in between them.
‘There’s a wine rack on the wall in the far corner, and I’ve arranged for him to meet me there,’ said Tash. ‘He’s never met any of us before, so if you three walk in a few paces behind me, it won’t look as though we are together. You all go to the bar, and I’ll carry on walking to the table. Got it?’ she said, looking around us all as if we were on a secret bombing mission or something.
‘Got it,’ we all told her, obediently. Tash walked through the doors and Kaz, Rach and I followed her, a few steps behind. Suddenly Tash stopped and we all bumped into the back of her, like a line of dominoes. Still she didn’t move. She was staring at someone. Sitting at the arranged table was a familiar face. I looked at Kaz, who had her mouth hanging open. Rach was the first one to speak.
‘What the hell is Mr Beale doing here?’ she said.
***
Rob Beale hadn’t moved a muscle. He was staring at Tash as though he had seen a ghost. I gave her a prod, and pushed her towards the table. We all followed her. I had to admit Rob looked pretty good. Gone were the few extra pounds around his middle that we’d spotted him with, a few months ago. He was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans.
‘Tash, I can’t believe it’s you,’ he said, standing up. They both looked in complete shock.
‘It is you, Dark Knight 96 – isn’t it?’ she said in a small voice.
‘Yes, and you must be Miss Sparky,’ he said, referring to her Internet user name. He held out his hand in an effort to break the tension: ‘Pleased to meet you.’
Tash stared at him for a few moments, and then burst into a peal of relieved laughter.
‘Thank God, it is you,’ she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down next to him. ‘At least you aren’t an eighty-year-old, balding midget.’
Kaz, Rach and I were standing watching Tash and Rob, like they were in some freak show.
‘C’mon,’ I said to the other two. ‘Let’s go home. I don’t think Tash is going to end up rolled in a carpet.’
‘Fancy her mysterious, dark stranger turning out to be Mr Beale of all people,’ said Kaz, shaking her head, as we walked out the bar. ‘What on earth is going to happen?’
**************************************
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘I wonder what she’s going to do,’ said Kaz the following lunchtime as we were sat in Saleros. ‘I know she has a soft spot for Rob, but he’s still cut up about his wife leaving. So it’s not an easy situation.’
‘Have you seen Lisa recently?’ I asked her, taking a sip of coffee.
‘She came round last night to discuss the court case,’ said Kaz. ‘The hearing is meant to be next week, and Pete is pressurising her to withdraw her statement.’
‘No, surely not,’ I gasped. ‘She’s not going to pull out, after what he did to her?’
‘I hope not,’ admitted Kaz, ‘but she keeps saying that she wants a quiet life. She said to me last night that it’s tempting to try and forget all about it and put it behind her. I told her that it was the easy way out, and that’s what I had thought all those years ago. She knows that I was talking sense, but I’m not 100 per cent sure that she won’t drop out at the last minute –and then the case will really fall to pieces.
‘I’ve got my photographs, but it was a long time ago and I’m really the backup for her case.’
‘I hope that it does all go ahead as planned,’ she said quietly. ‘He needs to be punished for what he did to me and Lisa. How many more women will he have to hit before he’s stopped?’
I reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sure it will all be all right,’ I reassured her.
We paid the bill and walked out of the cafe into the bright sunshine.
‘What’s happening with your blind date?’ I asked. ‘I know Tash has given him your number.’
‘Well, he did call last night,’ admitted Kaz.
‘I can’t believe you didn’t tell me,’ I screeched at her, hopping around with excitement. ‘What did he sound like? What did you say? Are you seeing him?’
‘Hang on, slow down a bit,’ said Kaz, with a laugh. ‘He did sound nice. We chatted for a few minutes and I’ve arranged to see him at the end of the week for a drink; but,’ she added, seeing my look of glee, ‘don't rush out and buy a hat, Bee. You know what I’m like.
I know people may think I’m shallow but I promised myself that I wouldn’t ever struggle with money again in my life, and to me that’s the most important thing. However much I like Adam – if I do at all – if he’s as poor as a church mouse, then he won’t be for me,’ she said, adamantly.
‘But he could turn out to be your Mr Darcy,’ I said, earnestly. ‘Don’t give up on him, Kaz, before he’s even had the chance to show you his wet shirt.’
Kaz laughed. ‘You and your romantic notions, Bee,’ she said, shaking her head at me. ‘Wet shirts are great, but they don’t put food on the table. Mr Darcy was stinking rich and lived in a huge mansion. He may not have been so attractive, if he had been living in some hovel and working on the docks for a penny a week.’
‘True,’ I said, but I hardly think Adam is living on the bread line, so give him a chance.
‘I’m not promising anything,’ said Kaz, turning into the school gates and giving me a wave.
‘My love life is a desert,’ I grumbled to Nick later that afternoon, as we made yet another cup of coffee.
‘What makes you say that?’ he asked, giving the cappuccino machine a thump to get it started.
‘It may not be the happy-ever-after endings we had envisaged when we started this club, but Tash has someone in her life, even if he is the middle of separating from his wife; Kaz has got a blind date and even Soph has got her man. Rach is pregnant, and it’s only me who has nothing,’ I added, mournfully, ‘and I’m drinking so much coffee to try and perk me up that one day I’m going to wake up and find I’ve turned into one giant coffee bean.’
Nick laughed. ‘At least life would be easier for you then. You wouldn’t have to spend ages in the morning, frantically trying to decide what to wear,’ he said. ‘Cheer up; I’m sure Mr Right will come along soon – tapping his white stick in front of him to find you.’
‘Very funny,’ I said, sarcastically. ‘At least he would like me for who I am, and for my immense wit and intelligence, instead of more superficial things, like the size of my chest and youthful looks,’ I added, taking a dig at Nick.
He laughed again and took another swig of coffee. That was the irritating thing about Nick. I could make digs at him all day long and he never seemed to get annoyed. He was so horribly cheerful all the time, and I was the one who always got wound up.
***
Kaz was nervous and kept fiddling with the buttons on her coat. It was the morning of the court case and she was giving evidence. I’d offered to come with her for moral support, so I’d picked up her and we were driving over to the court.
‘So Lisa hasn’t dropped out then?’ I asked Kaz.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I thought she was going to – but she went shopping a few days ago and saw Pete walking along the high street. He didn’t see her, but as he walked past, she could see that he was with a woman. According to Lisa, the woman was hanging on to his arm and looking adoringly at him. She said it made her feel sick to her stomach to see it. She knew that she had to go ahead with the court case. She couldn’t walk away, knowing that the girl would probably end up like we did, or worse. ‘
We pulled into the car park next to the court and Kaz grabbed my arm. She was trembling from head to foot.
‘I can’t do it, Bee,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t face him in there. What am I going to do?’
Kaz braced up. She smoothed down her coat. ‘I can do this,’ she said, determinedly. ‘Come on, let’s get it over with.’
Security staff searched through our handbags at the court entrance. Thank God I’d remembered to take the voodoo doll out of my bag. How humiliating would it have been to have had the doll waved around in the air for everyone to see; with me trying to explain about poor James’ Caroline. I’d have probably ended up being arrested myself. Kaz and I sat waiting on the wooden chairs outside the courtroom for what seemed like an eternity, before the usher finally said that the case was about to start. I went into the court room, leaving Kaz and Lisa waiting outside, ready to give their evidence.
Lisa looked awful, as if she hadn’t slept for a week with worry. She had huge, dark circles under her eyes and her fists were clenched in her lap. She and Kaz held hands tightly.
Inside the court room Pete sat in a booth by the judge’s chair. He was grim faced, and a muscle kept twitching in his cheek.
Lisa was the first to give evidence. She told the court how she had first met Pete. He was great with her son, and he had soon moved into her little terraced home in Manchester; but then after six months, she had gone round to see a friend one evening, and was late back. He had been sitting in the lounge when she walked in, apologizing for being late.