Pascaline strolls in and grunts a monosyllabic greeting, slamming the cubicle door shut behind her. Solange follows like a chirpy balloon, and shouts ‘Bonjour!’ under the cubicle door.
Pascaline moans a laconic response, and Solange makes a sympathetic noise.
“Comme ça va?” she asks, patting on the door. I say nothing, but reapply some eyeliner and lipstick, pretending it means nothing to me. But I get the general gist of the response as Pascaline pours it out miserably en Français.
Pascaline has met a girl, it seems, who is being harassed by an ex-partner and it is complicated, as usual. Apparently the ex is threatening her with vaudaux, and has kept samples of her blood and hair. Pascaline is fed up with girls who have sob stories about the sado-masochistic auto-erotic fantasy shit that their last girlfriends were into. But the complicated part is, the girl is afraid she might also be pregnant from one of her ex’s ‘sex games’ and she’s afraid of her ex finding out.
I don’t claim to be an expert on either lesbians or the French, so this could be normal relations for either as far as I know. Solange is sympathetic and suggests they talk to the Foreign Language Students’ rep at University, who could refer them to a church group for Bible reading, prayers, faith healing, afternoon tea, and pub crawls. I wonder if this is also the French or lesbian way of dealing with a partnership crisis. Pascaline makes reluctantly conducive noises, emerges from the toilet cubicle, and the pair get their phones out and exchange some numbers, then start watching Dutch movie clips on ViewTube. I head upstairs, unable to tell how much pointless information I’ve just absorbed.
The bar staff and managers are way too excited for my mood, dressed up in tuxedos and slinky Bond Girl dresses, being drilled in teams of six on how to shake a Martini. Cooper is looking very smug as well, like a kid who’s found the cookie jar. When I ask why he’s so pleased with himself, he confides that he posted a notice on Facebuddy earlier that tonight’s Bond theme is not until tomorrow, and tonight is actually R’n’B Pimps & Ho’s night. So he’s expecting a completely different crowd in the venue to the red carpet turn-out the Zone staff are hoping for. Aha. Industrial sabotage.
When he strolls off to organise the front door, Hurst mentions that he posted a similar one on Twaddle saying that tonight’s theme is Hillbilly Farmers & Hoes. And Doorman Harry, still stuck at The Plaza with Mgr Diane for company, posted on Blueberry’s Viral Spiral networking chatroom that The Zone’s theme for tonight is Wizard of Oz gay pride party. Apparently the official Zone website had only got wind of this a couple of hours ago, and hurriedly changed the official website listing from ‘Strict Dress Code Policy’ to ‘Relaxed Dress Code Policy’ in fear of upsetting - or rather missing out on - customers rolling up in anything from hay and dungarees, to pink Lycra and feathers.
I decide to ask D.J. Crank if he knows anything about this and what his subsequent instructions are, and find my way up to his ‘bubble’ overlooking the club.
“Hey,” he greets me, a lanky familiar face on the club circuit, who looks like he survives on Red Akuma and cigarettes, with the occasional Sambuca thrown in. “Have you seen this set-up? I have to co-ordinate four rooms at once plus the lobby. That’s a ten-track mixer. You just know there’ll be a cock-up when Eminem fades into The Birdie Song.”
“Oh, you have different themes in each room?” I remark. “That’s useful. Have you heard the rumours about tonight’s Bond theme being changed on Facebuddy, then?”
“Yeah, the manager wants me to read the crowd and play a bit of everything mixed with the Bond soundtrack, but the only thing I’ve found mixes with the Bond theme is the vocal from Ghostbusters. So I’m thinking of adding a post to Waffle that it’s actually early Halloween this year.” He skips through pages on his Blueberry. “Plus the customers can’t actually get up here to talk to me, they have to post any song requests on the Zone internet Message Board, which pop up here on the screen. Meaning girls are going to be sending me pornographic texts all night, and the guys are going to be saying stuff like Oy Buddy Where’s The Toilet LOL.”
“At least you can lock the door and not be disturbed,” I agree.
“Yeah, that’s a benefit, because I’m in an online Poker Tournament at ten, I’m on the finalist’s table to win a million and a trip to Vegas,” he grins. “I’ve already picked up ten grand this month. Two more matches, then I’m quitting here and moving to Trinidad & Tobago.”
Sounds like a good plan, I think. I wonder where Connor would go, given the freedom and the choice. I wonder where I would go.
It’s a mixed bunch in The Zone this evening. Most customers have taken the safe option of coming out dressed as themselves, in regular clothing. So by about 10:30 p.m. the staff are feeling uncomfortable and over-dressed, taking every opportunity to hide in glass-washing rooms, texting their friends saying how awful it is. And nobody has even asked for a Martini.
Manager Diane from The Plaza turns up and manages to sneak in with Mgr Melanie, both showing a lot of airbrush-tanned cleavage and lipgloss pout, for a nose around and to fondle as many doormen as they can. Apparently to remind them about free staff drinks later, and to reminisce about whatever happened during their lock-in last night. Rather brilliantly, though, as they loiter on the doorstep after their tour, saying a rather long goodbye to Salem and Hurst with a lot of one-sided flirting while I’m punching tickets, they’re upstaged by Elaine arriving from Crypto out of the blue - on the back of Doorman Ben Trovato’s Harley-Davidson.
Dressed in Pussy Galore black leathers and a Whitesnake logo crash helmet, bearing a bottle of Rosé Champagne for Manager Stacie as congratulations. Salem calls Stacie to the door by radio, after Elaine says she’d rather not go in and disturb her. So she presents the Champagne to Stacie in front of The Plaza stalkers, who look as though they wish the pavement would swallow her up. Stacie invites her in, and Elaine says she’d love to stay but is off to an NME gig with Ben as V.I.P. guests of the band, who performed at Crypto before being signed with their new label. Stacie then invites her to the company’s corporate dinner in London instead ‘With Tiffany goody bags, darling!’ before Elaine waves goodbye and roars off again, giving her doorman driver a squeeze that turns Diane and Melanie green.
Stacie hugs her bottle of Champagne, looking very happy, and strolls back inside with the barest passing ‘Hello’ to The Plaza managers. Who have come empty-handed, and both look shell-shocked since the mention of the word Tiffany.
I try to hide my smile, feeling very proud to see Elaine back on form. Ben’s had a bit of a thing for Elaine from a distance for a while. I’m hoping she’s getting over her fireman fetish, and now looking at Ben as something more than just a reliable shadow in the workplace. As for the Champagne, Elaine is probably the best in her class at public and company relations. You only have to think of it as the same way she uses cookies.
After Diane and Melanie finally disembark with the parting exit lines of ‘Staff drinks later at our place!’ repeated until they’re out of earshot, which is across the road at Blonde’s where they continue the routine, Salem and Hurst resume their ordinary small-talk. Consisting of cars and Easter Eggs, and whether or not to enter a team in a charity Tug O’ War, which they think they’d lose against Trebor and Axwel’s Team Poleaxe.
Then Salem mentions he saw Sandra Harte’s husband today.
I pay more attention, as I overhear them discuss how she’d died Of complications in an emergency C-section. After ‘collapsing’ following work the other night - having taken drugs with Igor and ‘a new guy’ who’s now missing. Barry Harte, her husband, is facing raising five children alone, three of which aren’t even his. It sounds as though he’ll be able to bring the newcomer home in two weeks’ time, who apparently shares the same unknown father as the next youngest. His workplace has granted him a year’s paternity leave - plus both his older daughter from a previous marriage and his widowed mother are going to move in with them and help out, neither of whom Sandra allowed to see
the children before.
In a strange way, it sounds like things are turning out for the better in their lives. Although it doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable about it.
An ambulance passing gives me a fleeting reminder of Terry Dyer and Adam Grayson, and my brain confuses the two in its current information-overload backlog-processing state, as I notice I’ve just wondered if Adam is all right. Of course he’s all right, I tell myself, pulling my senses back together. He’s a machine. Adam never considered anyone else in his life as having priority. His life was a series of lists of things to do before there was any such thing as a To Do List. Even with a list of girlfriends. They weren’t emotional commitments to him - just things to tick off the list.
Almost immediately I feel a current lack of Connor around for reassurance, and look at my watch for the first of several dozen times that evening. I know I’m acting like a needy dependent waiting to see him, but I’m used to the opposite, with nothing to look forward to. So maybe the anticipation is something I should appreciate, that defines whatever’s wrong with my own mind at times, as being different from people like Adam.
It feels like hours before the last stragglers finally leave, they of course being Sadie and the Gucci Cheerleaders. Trying to drag the tuxedo-clad promotion boys with them, and whispering to Hurst and Salem, after any rumours of a lock-in that the door staff could get them into. Salem merely says that Blonde’s is still open and they could go and try their luck there. The D.J. overtakes them on his way out of the front doors, whirling by with his cases, and stops to give me a kiss on the cheek with a conspiratorial wink and a muttered ‘See you in Vegas, baby!’ before dashing out to his taxi. I picture him going straight from work to the airport, to amuse myself.
My phone rings as I do the final toilet checks, and I answer it to find it’s Connor.
“I’m just on my way down, you nearly done?” he asks.
“Yeah, just about.”
“I’ll be out front in a couple of minutes.”
We’ve checked out our radios and venue logo hi-vis ten minutes later. Now we’re all hanging out in the lobby restlessly, in our habitual black wool crombie overcoats, milling around like a murder of crows under the pretence of having a staff meeting. Because Sadie and her friends are still on the steps outside the locked glass doors waiting for approachable men to emerge, who they can then follow to their imaginary staff lock-in party.
I’m standing just inside the tinted glass. When Connor’s black uniform car pulls up and he gets out, I flash my LED key-ring at him through the door, indicating the girls on the steps. He stops, evidently says something about ‘jaywalking’ and ‘loitering’ and ‘on-the-spot fine’ - then reaches for his radio, at which point they give up their protests of waiting for invisible boyfriends, help up those of whom are sitting down, and cross the road to Blonde’s. Where Günther promptly pats his stomach and points to the kebab shop, illustrating that the entry fee for them tonight is to buy him food. Sufficiently diverted, the girls totter into Pittarama, and immediately hook up with a bunch of chav boys, who have their own crate of beer under the table.
Connor watches them critically before knocking on the glass and beckoning me outside.
“Coast is clear,” I tell the others, unbolting the door, and am nearly knocked sideways by doormen making a break for freedom, before the Cheerleaders notice. Connor reaches for my arm and pulls me clear of the doors.
“Thanks,” I grin, as Jag Nut says ‘Goodbye’ and runs for the alleyway to the car-park behind Hurst, Cooper, and Niall Taylor, like scattering meerkats. I glance behind, and see Manager Stacie also waving goodbye through the glass door, before she locks it again behind us.
I’m now left alone on the step with Connor, who’s still holding my arm.
“Evening,” he says. We both look at his hand on my arm, and then he kisses me. “Thought I’d better. It looked like I was detaining you otherwise.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” I remind him, and an expression I don’t understand crosses his face briefly.
“Get in the car,” he says. “Or I will arrest you.”
I comply and get in as he heads around to the driver’s side, and when he gets in and slams the door, he stops me before I fasten my seat belt.
“What?” I ask.
He leans across and pulls me into his arms across the gap between the seats. His arms cross over my back, closing me in a tight hug.
“Sorry,” he says in my ear.
I realise I was holding my breath, and let it out slowly, as if worried it might be squeezed out of me otherwise. But the word sinks in before I breathe in again, and I feel my eyesight go blurry and a sudden feeling of panic in my chest, as I find it’s tears threatening to escape. My breath catches as I try to swallow them back down. Connor responds by holding me tighter, and I have to let the tears fall in order to breathe without crying out loud. I press my face to my sleeve where my arm is looped around his neck, trying to catch them silently.
I don’t know what I’m experiencing in terms of describing it logically, except that it’s like something being released after being held prisoner inside me for a long time. Emotions are things I don’t experience easily. I have to go through all the mental checks, to see if it’s hormones, or if it’s a normal response for an average person. But right now, I know it’s because it’s ABOUT all that stuff, that he’s referring to, and the control I’ve used on myself to keep it all bottled up and private like a dam, being breached.
I feel the tears soak into my sleeve to my skin, and the connection seems to slow them down, as I worry he might also be getting soaked through his collar. I try to peel myself away, and uncurl my arm from around his neck to cover my face with my hand, feeling my hair clinging damply to my cheek.
Connor reaches up and pulls my hand away gently, trying to dry my tears away with his fingertips.
“I’m taking you home,” he says at last. “Yuri can pick up your car.”
I’m not even aware that he’s taken me to his house until I get out of the Audi, and the garage lights confuse me for a second or two. Connor locks the car after securing the garage, and leads me indoors via the utility room into the kitchen, hanging up his jacket on the way through.
“Do you want tea?” he asks abruptly. “Or juice, alcohol, sleeping pill, anything?”
“Tea.”
“Good. Me too.” He switches the kettle on, then pulls out a chair and pushes me to sit down in it, before sorting out mugs, and selecting teabags. “You feeling okay?”
I nod.
“What did you want to see me about?” I ask, clawing back a thread of what we were meant to be doing. “Something you got in the post, from Oz, or whatever.”
“It can wait until tomorrow,” he shrugs, and leans back against the counter, folding his arms and tapping on his own shoulder with a teaspoon. “I think you could use a decent night’s sleep before then.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sigh. I feel embarrassed about crying, and awkward that he feels responsible for me. “Sorry about earlier, I don’t know…”
“No, it was me,” he interrupts. “I wasn’t thinking before opening my mouth.”
“It’s no big deal, you could have dropped me off home.”
“I didn’t want to.”
I stop before protesting any more, because he looks at me steadily for a moment, and I feel suddenly like an animal does when frozen in front of car headlights. Knowing that something is coming fast, but not what it is. The kettle boils on cue, and he looks away again to make the tea.
I get to my feet, not sure whether I want to try and escape or what else is bothering me, but he’s already ahead of me in that sense.
“You can watch me make it,” he says calmly, pouring out the water. “I won’t put anything in it. Not even aspirin.”
He turns to the refrigerator to get the milk out, and looks me in the eyes again briefly. I sense an unspoken challenge.
“It’s okay, I’m just go
ing to the bathroom,” I say, taking a deep breath. “You go ahead, I trust you.”
I don’t wait for a response, but head through the living-room, towards the small downstairs shower and toilet next to the study/office. I shut myself in, lean on the sink, and breathe slowly until I feel calm again. Then I shed my work blazer, use the toilet and wash my hands.
The stupid thing is, I don’t even know why I’m panicking, unless it’s just because he’s seen me cry, which is new. I feel more vulnerable now because of that. But it’s true. I do trust him. Whether that’s wise or not, I don’t know yet either.
I just don’t seem to have any control over my adrenaline response.
I emerge from the bathroom carrying my jacket, just as he’s switching off the kitchen lights, holding the two mugs of tea in one hand. He crosses the living-room towards me, takes my hand with his free one and gives me a kiss on the lips. It feels like a silent thank-you.
“Bedtime,” he says. “You can borrow my t-shirt again.”
I just nod, and follow him upstairs.
“You know, I have seen your underwear once already,” he says, teasing, emerging from the walk-in wardrobe wearing pyjama bottoms and nothing else. Which I try not to notice, as I push my clothes out from under the bedcover where I’m hiding modestly, and quickly pull his t-shirt on over my head, wriggling it down my body under the covers. He clicks his tongue theatrically, picks my stuff up from the floor beside the bed, and puts it on a nearby chair. “Shouldn’t have done that. Out of reach now for the morning.”
“I’ll just have to make sure I get up before you.”
“Like to see you try,” he chuckles, and stands by the edge of the bed, draining the last of his tea, before putting his empty mug down next to mine. “No bets, I am actually getting under the covers this time. Is that okay with you?”
“It’s your bed,” I mutter, feeling myself colour slightly, and mentally measuring the amount of space likely to be between us before he gets in, wondering if I should inch back a bit to make more room. When he picks up the corner of the duvet and sits down, I scoot back automatically, worried that the mattress might suddenly dip in the middle, pitching me into an involuntary tangle. But he’s careful, pulling the covers up to his chest once he’s settled, and we’re lying side-by-side quite platonically. Again though, with the adrenaline problem. My pulse feels like it’s going to blow my eardrums if it doesn’t slow down.
Death & the City Book Two Page 5