Looking For Lucy

by Julie Houston

  ‘Well, you weren’t overly helpful in providing hens of your own,’ Izzy said, slightly crossly. ‘You’ve lived in Midhope all your life and yet you turned down all my suggestions as to whom you could invite…’

  Still in a total panic about my having accepted Peter in the first place, the idea of a hen do was anathema to me when Izzy first mooted the idea, and I’d tried every which way to tell Izzy I didn’t want any fuss. Apart from saying, ‘Izzy, I don’t want a fucking hen do,’ there seemed little alternative but to go ahead with her plans.

  ‘OK, so who do you want there?’ she’d probed, once I’d accepted she was like a runaway train and it was going to go ahead regardless of what I wanted, or even whether I’d actually turn up. ‘Friends from school?’

  ‘I’ve lost touch with them all.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Friends from university?’

  ‘Izzy, they’re all nineteen. Remember, I’m a mature student…’

  ‘Well, a couple of nineteen-year-olds would be fun. Remind us what we used to be like…’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ I’d said firmly.

  Izzy had racked her brains for a while. ‘Staff from the Black Swan?’

  ‘Godzilla and Borislaw?’

  ‘No, maybe not.’ I’d kept Izzy and Declan entertained over many a curry and Sunday lunch at their place with stories from the Black Swan kitchen, and Izzy had sadly shaken her head in agreement. ‘Shall I ask your mother?’ Izzy had finally asked in desperation.

  ‘Please don’t,’ I’d replied, shortly.

  ‘Well then,’ Izzy had said cheerfully, ‘up to me to provide the hens myself.’

  And so she had.

  *

  ‘I thought we were having a hen do, not going shopping,’ I said as Izzy led the way into the Trinity Centre in Leeds.

  ‘Have patience, all will be revealed.’ She grinned as we walked past the Apple Store and Victoria’s Secret and took the lift up to the sixth floor. A bouncer on the door of Angelica gave us the once over and then, unsmiling, let us through onto a wraparound, planted terrace with panoramic views over the city.

  ‘Izzy,’ a voice shouted from a table in the corner. ‘We’re over here.’

  I suddenly felt a little shy: although I’d met Harriet and Mandy at our dinner party, I didn’t know them that well and I certainly hadn’t met the attractive, chestnut-haired woman who was having a fit of the giggles over something with Harriet. This must be Grace.

  ‘Come on, you’re late,’ Harriet said, standing to give us both a kiss and immediately putting me at my ease. ‘Now, Amanda—Mandy—you both met the other week, but this is my friend, Grace. When I told her we were coming out to celebrate your wedding she insisted on coming too. Hope you don’t mind?’

  ‘Gosh no, not at all,’ I said. ‘I’m really grateful you’ve all made the effort.’

  ‘Effort?’ Grace laughed. ‘I can assure you that getting dressed up and leaving the kids with their fathers for a change is no effort. Now, we’re just about to order cocktails. What do you fancy, Clementine? What a fabulous name—Clementine.’

  ‘Her sisters are called Mandarin, Nectarine and Tangerine,’ Izzy guffawed. For a moment, I froze, panic rising at the thought of Lucy somewhere dark, somewhere bad. In an alley? Down a backstreet? About to get in a car with a new-kid-on-the-block Ripper?

  ‘Right,’ Izzy said, beckoning a waiter over, ‘I’ve seen nothing but athlete’s foot, psoriasis, nits and a particularly unpleasant set of ingrowing toenails, as well as a probable dose of the clap, today and I need a drink.’

  ‘Reet, ladies, ahm Gavin and I’ll give your orders to the mixologist,’ the rather camp waiter said, brandishing his pad and pen. He was David Walliams—albeit with a Geordie accent—to a T.

  ‘A what? A mixologist?’ Harriet giggled. ‘Whatever happened to Tom Cruise?’

  ‘Ah, think he found religion, pet, and gave up on the cocktails.’

  ‘I think I’ll have a… erm… a Brazilian…’

  ‘Aye, man, you canna come into a posh place like this if you’ve not had a Brazilian already…’

  ‘… Sunset. A Brazilian Sunset for me please,’ Grace laughed.

  ‘Gosh,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what to have. Erm, I fancy a Cash Rebate I think…’

  Mandy Henderson’s blonde bob came up and she looked at me, a little smile on her lips as I named my cocktail. I felt sure she was about to say something, but she was stopped in her tracks by Izzy standing and calling over to Mel Naylor, who had just appeared at the entrance and was looking around for a familiar face.

  ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ she said, kissing those of us she’d met previously at Peter’s dinner party. ‘We set off from Essex early this afternoon but the traffic on the M1 was horrendous. And then it was all down to fifty miles an hour around Sheffield. If I’d had my trainers with me I’d have got out and run for it.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Melanie. You’re far too immaculate to walk anywhere, never mind run,’ Izzy protested, laughing.

  ‘Have you found a house up here?’ I asked. I liked Mel, liked the way that she had been so lovely with Allegra and I liked the idea of her moving north and her being another friend. I’d not had a gang of girlfriends since I was about fourteen, when Lucy had organised and headed ‘The Black Ladies’—a sort of take on ‘The Pink Ladies’ from Grease—and which was, more than likely, the start of it all.

  ‘Yes, we’re so excited. It’s actually not far from Westenbury, probably about ten minutes from you, Mandy and, now, of course, you as well, Clementine. We spotted it as we drove back from Peter’s place the other week, put in an offer the next day and basically had it all agreed this week. It’s been a bit nail-biting because there was someone else after it as well, but as we’d sold our house and have been renting down south, we were in a good position. We’ll come up fairly soon and live with Mum until we can move in.’

  ‘Well, we have a double celebration on our hands this evening then,’ Izzy said. ‘You’re just in time for the first round of cocktails, Mel. Get your order in…’

  *

  ‘And you have a son?’ I was chatting to Harriet, asking about her children.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘Do I have a son? Well, I have two, but as Fin is only two and absolutely no problem at all—even though he is two and two-year-olds, as I’m sure you remember are pretty terrible—I tend to forget about him. Which is a terrible thing to say in itself.’ Harriet downed her Brazilian Sunset in one and tried to catch the eye of our waiter. ‘No, it’s the seventeen-year-old—Kit—who is bloody hard work. He’s just finished his first year of A levels and hasn’t done a stroke of work as far as I can see. Nick keeps threatening to stop paying the school fees and says Kit will have to find a job and earn a living and, unfortunately, that’s just what the boy wants to do. So, when Nick threatens him with this, Kit goes “yes” and high-fives anyone who is around—usually the twins or Lilian, my nanny—and so Nick has to backtrack and then he goes off back to India or China or Russia or wherever he is due next and leaves me to sort it all out.’

  ‘The joys of teenage kids,’ I sympathised. ‘Actually, I could do with some advice on Peter’s daughter. She’s away at school most of the time but now she’s home and making it pretty obvious what she thinks of Peter marrying me. I suppose it has all happened a bit quick, and I have been really lucky with Max who is lovely.’

  ‘Yes, he is a lovely boy isn’t he? Both Nick and I said as much after we’d been for dinner. The problem with Kit at the moment is he’s always over here in Leeds. I think there’s some girl he’s knocking around with and, whereas he always used to tell me everything, now he’s not really interested in talking to me at all.’ Harriet sighed and then laughed. ‘And then, when I’m in the middle of telling him off, he’ll say something really funny and I just end up laughing. The other day he was eating scrambled eggs straight from the
pan: “That is appalling behaviour, Kit,” I said to him and he just said, “Mother, putting an axe into somebody’s head is appalling behaviour; eating scrambled egg out of the pan most certainly is not,” and I just laughed out loud and the moment for trying to educate him into being a civilised human being was gone.’

  ‘Are ye ready to eat, ladies?’ Gavin the waiter reappeared at our table. ‘Ye can come alang now leik. Now, there’s quite a lot of youngsters in toneet, but I’ve given ye all a table in the corner so you don’t have to worry about them thinking ye’re all part of the Antiques Roadshow. Joke, hinnies, just a joke,’ he chortled, ‘divvent get mad with us, leik,’ and led us to the table right in the centre of the room.

  ‘Why has every restaurant in the country jumped on the pulled pork bandwagon Grace grumbled as she studied the menu. ‘I don’t want to be pulling anything at my age and certainly not a lump of pig.’

  ‘I think I’ll have the Burrata with heirloom tomatoes,’ Mandy said, her clipped vowels sounding particularly refined compared to our Geordie waiter.

  ‘What the hell is Burrata?’ Izzy asked. ‘And heirloom tomatoes?’

  ‘Ah divvent have a clue about the Burrata, hinny,’ the waiter said dismissively, ‘but ah think ye’ll find the heirloom tomatoes are something yer grannie keeps hidden under the bed with the family silver…’

  Mandy tutted. ‘Burrata is an Italian mozzarella mixed with cream; the heirloom tomatoes are non-hybrid—they lack a genetic mutation that gives them their red colour.’

  ‘Right,’ Izzy said, frowning. ‘Erm, do you have a steak?’

  ‘For you, bonny lass, ah can find a whole cow if some meat is what ye’re fancying toneet.’

  I loved the menu and couldn’t make up my mind what to have. I always felt excited when I saw food that was original and gutsy. ‘I think I’ll go for the crispy Westmoor Farm pig’s ears with truffle mayo,’ I said. I was already trying to work out how they would cook it and if I could replicate it once I was home. Home. Golly, I’d be able to experiment to my heart’s content in Peter’s kitchen. My kitchen, I reminded myself. It would be my kitchen as well. Mine and Allegra’s.

  ‘Just the poor pig’s ears?’ Izzy said. ‘What about the rest of him?’

  ‘Neever ye mind aboot the pig, hinny,’ Gavin said seriously to Izzy. ‘Ye just think aboot that cow ahm gan breeng for ye.’

  ‘I know Clementine won’t agree with me,’ Izzy was saying confidentially to Mel and Mandy, ‘but I sometimes long for prawn cocktail, steak and chips—’

  ‘And a Black Forest Gateau to finish?’ I interrupted, laughing.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Harriet agreed. ‘Restaurants do seem to jump on bandwagons don’t they? Nick and I couldn’t go out for a meal a couple of years ago without everything being surrounded in damned foam. Reminded me of cuckoo spit and really put me off.’

  ‘I love it all,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I love seeing how daring menus can get. But, having said that, I do enjoy cooking basic regional stuff like Yorkshire pudding, curd tarts and… erm, erm… Eccles cakes.’

  ‘Eccles cakes? Wrong side of the Pennines, you heathen,’ Izzy snorted.

  ‘Well, you know what I mean,’ I laughed. ‘I’m already teaching Allegra the basics of Yorkshire cookery.’

  ‘I’ll send my kids over to you,’ Harriet said. ‘You can teach them as well.’

  ‘What are you going to do now you’ve finished your course at university?’ Mel asked. ‘You have finished, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I suppose it’s all changed a bit now,’ I said. ‘My plan was to find hotel management work—something that would fit in better with Allegra and school. That’s why I decided to do the course: restaurant hours and shifts just don’t fit in with having children. But now, well, I don’t really know.’

  I suddenly felt a bit embarrassed. All the women were looking at me, listening as I spoke. Were they all thinking I’d landed lucky? That I was only marrying Peter so I wouldn’t have to work?

  ‘I probably will end up doing some sort of hotel work,’ I said stoutly. ‘That’s what I’ve trained for…’

  Izzy patted my arm and then hugged me. ‘It’s your hen do, Clem. You’re not to think about work and the future tonight.’ She poured more wine as our food began to arrive. ‘A toast, ladies. To Clem. All happiness for your future, darling.’

  13

  ‘You are not allowed to go home at this time of night on your hen night,’ Izzy said bossily as she squinted at her watch. ‘I haven’t got my glasses—what time is it?’

  ‘It’s only ten-thirty,’ Grace said. ‘The night’s not started yet, Clementine. Come on, Harriet and I haven’t had a good night out for ages. We can’t go home yet—that really would be showing our ages if we’re home before midnight on a hen do, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘Are you worried about leaving Allegra?’ Mel asked ‘I imagine you don’t leave her very often, do you?’

  I smiled gratefully across at Mel. Even though she didn’t have children of her own she seemed to realise, without my saying so, that I was beginning to feel a bit twitchy about leaving Allegra. ‘Actually, she’s absolutely fine with Peter—and she loves Max and George, the dog…’ I hesitated. ‘It’s just that Peter’s wife, Vanessa, and her husband have gone off to Australia for six weeks, leaving Max and his daughter, Sophie, with us for the duration. Max is absolutely no problem at all—he seems to have accepted that Peter and I are getting married and that Allegra and I are basically taking over his family home. Children are amazingly resilient, aren’t they? Well, Max is. Sophie seems to be another story.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Just sixteen.’

  ‘Ouch.’ Mel pulled a face of sympathy. ‘One of my nieces is fourteen and she’s quite horrible—gone from a lovely little girl to a moody Rottweiler overnight. It can’t be easy for —Sophie, is it?—for Sophie with all those new hormones, and you swanning in with your little girl and taking over her home.’

  I nodded. ‘I know all that. And she’s away at boarding school in term-time so when she does come home she wants everything to be as it was, I suppose. I’m not sure how she gets on with her mother either at the moment. Vanessa seemed more than happy to leave her with us and go off to Australia with her new husband for a couple of weeks the minute Sophie arrived home for the summer.’

  ‘Hmm, does seem a bit mean, that. You’d have thought she’d have waited for the autumn when the kids were back at school.’

  ‘I get the impression that it’s because they’re not at school she’s gone now. I don’t think she can cope with Sophie now she’s growing up.’

  ‘Right,’ Grace said, standing up and grabbing her bag, ‘this is a hen do not a “talking about kids” do. Let’s pay the bill and then go find a club and dance.’

  And we did.

  Mandy Henderson led the way until she found what she’d been looking for down a rather grubby street just off Greek Street, and we all followed as she went down a long flight off steps into what seemed like the bowels of the earth. It probably was.

  ‘Are you sure this is it, Mandy?’ Izzy was asking doubtfully.

  ‘Yes, yes, absolutely. My son told me about this place. Said it’s quite upmarket and not at all full of young kids.’

  We gazed round at the heaving crowd, sweating in the warm July night, and Harriet and I exchanged glances. ‘Upmarket?’ she whispered from behind me on the stairs. ‘Bloody hell, I’d hate to see his idea of downbeat…’

  ‘Quick,’ Mel said, pushing her way through a group of men dancing energetically to a seemingly erratic beat, ‘there’s a table coming free over there. Grab it quick before someone else does.’

  No one else in the dancing, sweating throng seemed at all interested in sitting down and Mel bagged the table, purloining extra chairs from other tables so that we could all sit.

  ‘Phew, that’s better,’ Harriet said as she sat down gratefully and kicked off her heels. ‘These shoes are killi
ng me; any dancing I do will have to be barefoot…’

  Grace suddenly started laughing. ‘I don’t think bare feet will be a problem, Hat. Have you seen all the bare chests?’

  The rest of us looked round to where Grace was indicating another group of dancing, gyrating men. They were naked from the waist up, their smooth monochrome chests, slicked with a film of sweat in the sweltering heat of the enclosed space, a direct contrast to the busy, pink flamingo wallpaper on the wall behind them.

  ‘There is an unusually large amount of men here isn’t there?’ Mandy said in surprise as she gazed round. ‘And all dancing with each other…’ Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth. ‘Oh my word, it’s a gay bar isn’t it? I’ve brought you to a gay bar.’ She turned back to the table where the rest of us were hysterical with laughter.

  ‘This is so well thought out, Mandy,’ Izzy said with a straight face. ‘What a brilliant surprise to bring us down here—and not let on all the way through dinner that this is what you were planning. Is this your sort of thing, then? Are you and David members?’

  ‘Good gracious, no,’ Mandy said, shaking her head vigorously. ‘I really…’

  ‘Mandy, she’s teasing you,’ I said, laughing. ‘Do you think this is what your son had in mind for my hen do?’

  ‘Good gracious, no,’ Mandy said again.

  ‘I don’t care that we seem to have ended up in the wrong place,’ Izzy whooped, getting out of her seat. ‘This seems to be just the right sort of place for a hen do to me.’ Grabbing both my and Mel’s hands, she pulled us onto the tiny, pulsating dancefloor and began to move in what could only be described as an overtly sexual way. ‘Trust me, I’m a doctor,’ she said, smiling politely, and surprised, the men moved aside for her but then, grinning, shimmied back towards her, including her in their bump and grind.

  ‘Just don’t start doing the YMCA,’ Izzy mouthed theatrically before going back to back in a sort of upbeat do-si-do with the smallest of the five men.

  I was pleased to see we weren’t the only women in the club, but we were certainly outnumbered by the men, some outrageously camp, others not so at all.