by Shari Low
We both got out of the car, met on the pavement and I leaned down to return the snog.
Yes, he was short. In my gravity-defying heels I was close to five foot ten. He was five foot six. We were Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman – without the weird religious beliefs and the multi-million pound divorce settlement.
The height difference didn’t bother me in the least. Not at all. OK, it did feel a little bit odd. I just kept telling myself that we’re all the same size lying down. Size doesn’t matter. Good things come in small packages. Lizzy and I had come up with at least half a dozen other similar clichés the other night but imminent in-law fear was now affecting my powers of recollection.
The doorman at the Carriage Club opened the huge bronze door to let us through and my excitement/trepidation level slid up another notch. The Carriage Club was the most exclusive restaurant venue in Glasgow; a four-storey building that contained a stunning, Gothic designed restaurant, several bars and a nightclub that was frequented by the trendiest people in the city. It attracted an eclectic mix of the wealthy, the celebrity and the successful. Er, and me. Who was none of the above. This might explain why I’d only been twice, both times with Ginger, who practically lived there when she was in town. Tonight we were here courtesy of Peter’s father who was something big in banking. I made a mental note to warn Josie to keep her career in financial fraud quiet if she ever met him.
We made our way up one of the sweeping gilt staircases, across the huge mezzanine area at the top and through the imposing doorway that led to the restaurant. At 9 pm it was already busy, with almost every table taken. We were shown to our booth, in the far corner of the room, beside the entrance to a private dining area that – from the volume of the revelry within it – was obviously being used. My curiosity was immediately piqued. This place was a legendary destination for touring celebrities and bands. Who was playing in the city this weekend? I was sure I’d read somewhere that Atomic Kitten were in Glasgow. And Kylie. Two gents in suits appeared from the room and walked past us and I caught a hint of an Irish accent.
Westlife! Oh my fecking God, it must be Westlife. Lizzy would have a freaky if she were here. She was the only married woman I knew with a picture of a boy band on her fridge. She’d drawn a heart around Mark’s face and always broke into ‘Uptown Girl’ as soon as she started Hoovering. Apparently murdering a cover of a Billy Joel classic relieved the monotony.
I’d just slugged back my first glass of Dutch courage when I spotted the maître d’ heading our way, escorting a couple who were possibly the most perfectly matched people I’d ever seen. Same height, same hair colour, same tans, same style of dress. Great. Now, instead of thinking Lovely to meet you, I was thinking Flowers in the Attic. Do not say that out loud. Do not.
I surreptitiously clocked the positions of all table knives just in case.
‘Lou, this is my mum and dad, Jack and Penelope. Mum and Dad, this is Lou.’
Very formal. And no, it wasn’t in his captain’s voice. Smile. Be gracious. Make a good impression. A wave of heat rose up from my chest, with the effect of sucking my silk blouse against my skin. If a damp patch appeared I was out of there. This was ludicrous. What was wrong with me?
We all shook hands and sat down. This was going to be fine. It was. I was not sixteen. I was a successful business woman, a cosmopolitan woman of the world and I would not be intimidated by a couple who may or may not have been brother and sister in a past life. Or Thunderbirds. I couldn’t help notice that they were both gifted in the shiny face and generous eyebrow department.
Be cool. Be calm. Don’t get flustered.
‘So, Lorna,’ Penelope began, in Margaret Thatcher’s voice. Not a good start. ‘Peter tells me that you have a little salon in the suburbs. Quite right, dear. I mean what’s the point of coming into the city? Too much top-notch competition here.’
I had a horrible feeling this wasn’t going to go well.
By the time desserts were served, I’d lost my fear of her stabbing me, primarily because if I had to stay there any longer I was going to take matters into my own hands and kill myself. She was snooty, she was rude, she was relentlessly self-involved and she was a master of the backhanded compliment. She’d talked about herself, the charity work, herself, her holidays, herself, and Peter’s achievements from 1967 until the present day. And how she’d influenced them. Oh and apparently my hair was lovely and the perfect style for someone with a plump face. To make matters worse, his father was practically monosyllabic and Peter seemed to have reverted to being twelve. Just before pudding was served, he’d allowed her to lean over, straighten his tie and rearrange his hair flick.
Somewhere between the crab starter and the sticky toffee pudding, my opinion of him had plummeted so far that he could have recited the Karma Sutra in his captain’s voice and not a nipple would have been piqued. What had I seen in him other than . . . OK, so he was a pilot. If this was what having a shallow personality did for you, then I was really going to have to get in touch with my spiritual side.
The noise from the private dining room interrupted my thoughts. Westlife were now singing something about being in a world of their own, and it was getting a raucous response. How much did I want to be in there instead of out here with the Glums? Dear God, get me out of here. I promise I’ll be good. I’ll help old ladies across the street. I’ll do voluntary work. I’ll pray every night. I’ll stop Josie from giving heavy breathing phone calls to people she doesn’t like. Just save me. Save me please.
‘LouLouLouLouLou!’
It was hard not to laugh. Staggering out of the private dining area, like a severely intoxicated Glaswegian version of an archangel sent from heaven, was Ginger. I jumped up to hug her, ignoring the horrified sneer on Penelope’s face as a bush-sized mass of ginger frizz descended on her table.
‘Baby!’ she hollered.
‘Ginger! What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here with my boys. They’re playing at the Concert Hall tomorrow night. Did you not hear them?’ She gestured to the room she’d just appeared from. ‘They’re in there just now taking the piss out of Westlife.’
Her boys. They were the new big boy band in the making – a collection of hair gel, testosterone and overdeveloped pectoral muscles called Stud.
‘Anyway, what are you doing here?’ she said, scanning the table, waiting for explanations and introductions.
I made sure that I was enveloped in a hug and that only she could hear my reply.
‘Being held hostage by pure evil. Save me.’
She pulled back and winked. ‘I need you to come with me right now!’ she said loudly.
‘You do?’ I asked, feigning disappointment.
‘I do! Because . . . because . . .’ No, don’t let me down now. Come on girl, you can do this.
‘Because . . . tampon emergency!’ she announced with gusto.
Penelope looked like she was about to have a stroke but I didn’t wait to find out. I grabbed my bag and made rapid apologies to Peter and his parents, then bolted as fast as decorum and my unfeasibly uncomfortable shoes would allow me. We only stopped for breath when we reached the safety of the mezzanine.
People tried not to look at the two giggling women who were acting in a far too uncool manner for an establishment of this calibre.
‘A tampon emergency?’
A shrug accompanied her very wellied, rueful grin. ‘I was under pressure. And fifteen, apparently.’
‘Seems to be contagious. My boyfriend’s been stuck in adolescence since his mother sat down.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Three dates.’
‘He looked tiny.’
‘He’s a pilot.’
‘Aaaaah. Good enough.’
She pulled a cigarette out from between her boobs, followed by a lighter, and lit up, while I tried not to be jealous that her size eight arse was encapsulated in the most amazing pair of leather trousers I’d ever seen. She looked deadly. Over the trousers were
thigh-high leather boots with heels that were not a fraction under seven inches, and the outfit was topped off by a black blouse, which was left open to reveal a cleavage designed by God. One that doubled as a storage device for smoking paraphernalia.
‘Thanks for saving me, hon, I owe you.’
‘Don’t be crazy. You’re coming back in with me. We’ll sneak you past their table. It’s so busy now they’ll never notice.’
I shook my head. Much as that sounded like the best idea I’d heard in a long time, I wasn’t going back into the lion’s den for anyone. Better to just take off, call it a night and be thankful that I met the family before I did anything stupid – like go past five dates and actually get attached to a guy who let his mother rearrange his flick.
She was right though. People were swarming across the mezzanine and from where we stood we could see that the downstairs entrance was busy too. I wanted to suggest that she come on home with me but there was no point. Ginger the party animal hadn’t been to bed before dawn in years and she wouldn’t start now . . . not while there was still Jack Daniel’s in the bar and cigarettes in her bosom.
I gave her another spontaneous hug and she tried not to squirm. ‘I miss you, Ginger. I feel like we haven’t caught up properly for ages. How about we spend the weekend together – we’ll descend on Lizzy and spend the next two days in pyjamas drinking coffee and trying not to let the kids hear that we’re talking about inappropriate subjects.’
I could tell she was about to give me the reasons why that wasn’t possible, when suddenly she paused, thought, then, ‘Fuck it. That sounds brilliant. You’re right, we need to catch up. Let’s do that. I need to go to the guys’ gig but you and Liz could come with me. We can be eighteen again for two hours, as long as we don’t scare any members of the public.’
I laughed.
‘Let’s go find a phone and call . . .’ She paused as some- thing down below caught her eye. ‘Fuck me dead, there’s Red! Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedddddddd!’
I leaned over the balcony, looking in the direction of the door and sure enough, there was Ginger’s brother arriving with a crowd of very trendy-looking people. Hell, how long had it been? Five years? More? Last I heard he’d moved to London and was working as a photographer for a music magazine. Or a newspaper. Or . . . something.
‘Reeeeeeeeddddddddd,’ she hollered, but it was no use.
We were too high up and it was too busy down below.
‘Don’t worry, he’s coming up that other stairway,’ I told her. ‘I’ll just nip over and –’
‘Reeeee . . !’
It was a weird sound. Like someone going through a tunnel or going off into the distance. Already facing the other way, I snapped my head back to see . . . Several things registered. Ginger was no longer standing beside me. A movement just below. A black shape. Falling. Falling. People looking up. The horror. And the screams.
Oh God, the screams.
Twenty-seven
Headline: the Daily Record, 18 November 2001: M U S I C MANAGER IN SERIOUS CONDITION AFTER FALL IN TOP GLASGOW NIGHTSPOT.
The paper had lain on the table in the corner of the room for twelve days. The twelve longest days ever. The first forty-eight hours had been a tornado of activity, with doctors and nurses and specialists racing in and out of the room in the ICU.
At first there was so much to say, so much activity, so many questions, so many tears, but for the last few days only the beep of the machine that monitored her heart.
Now we took it in turns – Ike, Red, Ginger’s mum Moira, me. Lizzy came as often as she could, for at least a few hours at night when Adam was home to look after the children. Only two were allowed to be with her at any time so we worked in shifts. Ike and Moira. Red and me. One of us taking off for a shower and a couple of hours’ sleep in the family room when Lizzy was there.
The doctors didn’t say so much now. Two broken legs. A fractured arm. A smashed pelvis. Internal bleeding. A swelling on the brain that had forced them to put her into a medical coma to relieve the pressure and give her body a fighting chance to heal. They’d stopped administering the drugs to keep her asleep the day before. Now it was a waiting game. A medical crapshoot as to when she would wake up, if she would wake up.
A sob stuck in my throat and I forced it back down. I would not give in to thoughts like that. She was going to be OK. She’d come back. She had to.
A million times I’d replayed that moment in my head. If only I’d been closer to her. If only I hadn’t looked away. If only she hadn’t been wearing those crazy boots. If only she hadn’t seen Red. If only she hadn’t leaned over. If only . . . If only she wasn’t lying there somewhere between life and death and if only we could do something to fix her.
The door opened behind me and, for a few moments, the aroma of coffee prevailed over the smell of cleaning products. Moira, like most women of her generation, cleaned when she was distraught. There wasn’t a square inch of the room that hadn’t been disinfected, polished or buffed.
I took the drink from Red and he managed a faint smile. ‘Anything?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing. The doctor came in on rounds about ten minutes ago. Still saying the same thing: the fractures are healing but it’s all about the head and they just don’t know.’
There was a long sigh as he pulled up the chair across at the other side of the bed and sat down. Almost two weeks we’d been sitting like this and, bizarrely, it was starting to take on some kind of weird normality. At first we’d just stared at Ginger, immersed in fear, looking for every little sign of hope. Then we talked. Sometimes about stupid stuff, sometimes about the things that were important. Some of the time we took turns to read to her, to play music that she loved, to tell her ridiculous stories that would make her laugh. But mostly we were just there and moving through the moments.
Without letting go of her hand, I put my head on the bed and closed my eyes. Exhaustion hit in waves. I’d stayed round the clock that first weekend, but since then I’d been working at the salon every day, then coming straight to the hospital at night. The regular clients all knew Ginger so it was the main topic of conversation at CUT. ‘How is she?’ ‘Any progress?’ ‘No news?’ I spent all day every day wishing I was at the hospital, and all night at the hospital wishing Ginger would get better. Life had turned into one big exhausting wish-fest.
It was even tougher for Red because he was so far away from home. For the last five years he’d been living in Notting Hill and working for a London newspaper as chief photographer. His office had been very understanding about his leave of absence to take care of his sister, but staying with his parents, hundreds of miles away from his home and job, had to be hard.
‘Hey.’ As I lifted my head I realised that Red was wearing a different T-shirt from a moment ago.
‘You fell asleep,’ he said softly.
Why did we all speak like that in the hospital? We were in the presence of Ginger – we should argue, raise our voices, bitch about stuff. We’d already joked that she wasn’t waking up because she was bored rigid with all of us just sitting there doing nothing. The gallows humour got us through the worst bits.
I spotted the clock. Midnight. Bugger, I’d been sleeping for two hours. Some support system I was. I stretched and shook the magazine I’d been leaning on off my face, fairly sure that I had the text from the front cover of Heat imprinted on my cheek. I leaned over, took his mug of coffee from his hand and glugged some back. He didn’t object.
The door opened behind us and Lizzy came in looking as exhausted as I felt. ‘Hey, babe, you’re not on duty tonight,’ I said softly, torn between being pleased to see her and worried that she was pushing herself too hard.
She shrugged. ‘I know, but . . .’ Tears. Huge big fat ones, rivers of them.
I flew out of my seat and put my arms around her. ‘Lizzy, don’t, she’s going to be OK. She’ll get through this. She will.’ It was the same stuff all of us had been trotting out for twelve days but we had to keep
believing it.
‘I know, it’s not that it’s just . . . I couldn’t stay home, Lou. I just worry about her and Adam, he doesn’t understand. It’s like he just doesn’t understand anything any more.’
I was so stunned I could have budged Ginger across the bed and lay down beside her to recover. Lizzy and Adam had always been so solid. If there was one couple, other than Dave and Della, who were totally meant for each other it was them.
‘What’s wrong? What’s been happening?’
‘You know what, I’m just going to go have a run around the block and come back in half an hour,’ Red said gently.
Despite the tension, Lizzy and I laughed. ‘And there goes the West of Scotland male – first sign of emotion and he heads for the nearest exit.’
Grinning, Red gave a deep bow and then bolted for the door.
‘So tell me,’ I prompted. ‘What’s been going on?’
Lizzy grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the bedside table and dried her face, then blew her nose so loudly that several coma patients in adjoining rooms probably stirred.
‘I don’t know, Lou. It’s been like this for months.’
Months. My friend had been having problems for months and this was the first I knew of it. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
She shrugged. ‘Because it was all small stuff. Little things. Nothing I could put my finger on. And you know me, I just like to sally along and hope everything sorts itself out.’
There was no arguing with that. In our little trio, Ginger had seventy per cent of the confrontational quota, I had twenty-nine per cent, and Lizzy was left with one per cent that she used only when returning unsuitable goods to Marks & Spencer. Even then it took her weeks to pluck up the courage.
‘And what with you working all the time and me juggling the kids, whenever we have seen each other I’ve just wanted to have a good time and escape the stress for a while.’
I reached over and stroked her hair.
‘Oh, Lizzy, you know I’d have taken time off, come over to see you, done anything help.’