Downward

by White, Bethan

  Sam put a finger to her lips. ‘Ssshh about Kyle. No Kyle tonight. We’re just two hot women on the town, okay?’ She plunged into the crowd, putting an arm around the bride-to-be, the reason for her impending nuptials stretching the front of her skimpy dress. ‘Hello, ladies,’ she said, beaming around the group. Megan watched, smiling. Sam may be the boss but for tonight, she was just one of the girls. ‘Are we all here?’

  The bride nodded. She seemed a nice little thing, if on the dim side. Megan looked at her standing there, teetering on high heels, five month pregnancy straining at her dress and wanted to hug her. Tell her there was no need to do this. That she would be all right on her own. But everyone was different; perhaps she was embarking on a marriage made in heaven. It didn’t do to judge.

  So they all poured into the Chinese restaurant and the staff looked at them with the stiff smiles they kept for this kind of group. They had put four tables together but right at the back of the room. They knew these women would be raucous, messy and bad tippers. But business was business and you couldn’t turn it down. They started bringing out the dishes and putting them on the little hotplates already in place down the centre of the table. Megan was between two girls who didn’t work with Sam and the rest; they were friends of the bride from way back and were soon talking around Megan as though she wasn’t there. After a while, she offered to swap with one of them and they grabbed the chance, so after that, she was alone to all intents and purposes, with an inedible spring roll and a pile of crispy chilli beef, which flew in the face of any trading standards rules in that it was chewy not crispy and possibly not even beef.

  There were speeches, using more foul language in one five minute space than Megan had heard in the last six months. There was laughter, of the drunken, slightly hysterical variety. Megan was shocked to see that the bride-to-be was as drunk as the rest and this, as much as the horrible food, was enough to bring her to her feet, gesturing to Sam.

  Sam leaned over to whisper into the ear of the woman sitting next to her and she came round to Megan’s end of the table. ‘Problem?’ she said, brightly through gritted teeth.

  ‘You have to ask?’ Megan said, also through a fake smile. ‘The bride is both pregnant and pissed, a combination I wouldn’t think has been common since the Sixties. The food is vile. Let’s go.’

  Sam raised her voice. ‘Oh, poor you,’ she said. Then she turned to the table and made tummy rubbing motions, pointing to Megan. ‘Not very well,’ she mouthed and everyone smiled, nodded, put their thumbs up. To get rid of the boss and her miserable friend this early in the evening was an unlooked for bonus.

  Once outside, both women exhaled. ‘What a truly dreadful night,’ Megan said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw how drunk she was.’

  ‘She has every reason to be,’ Sam said, solemnly. ‘She’s marrying some brainless estate agent, begging your pardon. In fact, he’s from Stanley’s; do you know him? Jason. Gavin. Gareth. Something like that.’

  Megan spluttered with laughter. ‘There’s a Gavin. A bit of a jack the lad as I remember.’ She realised with a pang that she could say that without melting down. Perhaps she had turned a corner tonight.

  ‘Well, he should have watched where he jacked his lad,’ Sam said. It wasn’t wit of the first order, but it would do for now. ‘They’d only been going out about three weeks when she was pregnant and now they’re getting married. I can't believe they’re being so stupid. It can't end well.’

  Megan forebore to answer that one. What was there to say, after all?

  Sam swung on down the precinct, either unaware of what she had said, or very much aware; you could never tell with her how much havoc she intended and how much just followed her around. ‘I thought we’d go to the Bell. There’s no way that lot will end up in there; I don’t think they know what Prosecco is!’

  Megan smiled. ‘Not such a good venue for us, then,’ she said.

  ‘There’s more to life than cheap wine,’ Sam pointed out. ‘We’re on the spirits tonight, my girl, and no messing.’

  Megan groaned in anticipation of the hangover to come. ‘You know gin goes straight to my head,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent. That’s what we’re after. Here we are.’ Sam pushed open the doors and made a typically spectacular entrance. ‘Grab a table and I’ll get two doubles. Start as we mean to go on, eh?’

  The pub wasn’t as packed as the others they had passed. The manager had made a decision long ago. No bar snacks. No fancy, poncy wine list. Just beer and spirits. On a good night you might get ice and a slice, but only if he had remembered to get some in. But for anyone who just wanted a drink and some conversation, this was the place. There was a guitarist in the corner, strumming and muttering into a mic, but he was easy to ignore. His songs were all pretty miserable as well, covers of Radiohead and Leonard Cohen, so there was no risk of anyone dancing. In short, it was a perfect place for two women out to get drunk.

  Sam was back at the table in double quick time and it was a good night – there was ice and a slice. They looked around the room and didn’t see anyone worth talking to, so they settled in to bitch about the girls at the hen do – and there was plenty to bitch about; this evening could be a lot of fun after all.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Chris asked while Mark locked up his front door. He noticed that his host looked fondly into the window of his shop and wondered why pharmacies ever thought that things that scraped the dry skin off your feet and mosquito repellent ever made for an attractive point of sale display.

  ‘I thought we’d go to the Bell.’

  ‘Ah, no, Mark! It’s such a crap pub. They don’t even do bar snacks.’

  ‘We have just demolished an enormous pizza with everything on it,’ Mark pointed out. ‘And just because it’s a crap pub with no bar snacks, it means it doesn’t get mobbed by bloody stags and hens.’

  Chris thought it through. ‘That’s a point,’ he said. ‘And, it’s in walking distance, so we can both have a drink.’

  ‘Hell, yeah,’ Mark said. ‘If even half of us is sober by the end of tonight, I’ll count it as a failure.’

  Chris pulled his wallet out as casually as he could and looked inside. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. A hundred quid. Where the hell had that come from? He answered himself immediately. His mother. Sleight of hand was clearly another skill they handed over with the baby.

  ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Mark said, misinterpreting the bulging eyes. ‘Tonight’s on me.’

  Chris was about to explain, but then changed his mind. Mark could afford it, after all, and if blame was to be placed anywhere, he would be at least a contender. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘Things are a bit tight …’

  Mark held his hand up. ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘No more talk of who pays what. The only thing is, I may have to slip you a tenner if you’re the last man walking. We don’t want to miss any drinking time just because I can't get to the bar.’

  ‘Deal,’ said Chris, with a smile. His stomach gave a lurch, and not just in anticipation of another night on the booze. Somehow, he knew this night wasn’t going to end well. He didn’t believe in airy fairy crap like intuition, but sometimes, he was to find, it really is better to go with your gut.

  Megan had only had one glass of wine with her meal but on the other hand she had only picked at the food so she was, to all intents and purposes drinking on an empty stomach. Nevertheless, on her second gin she was beginning to feel that she was approaching peak performance. Witty, amusing but not loud and given to random laughing and/or weeping. Perfect. If Mr Right didn’t catch her now, he would be sorry. She was peering into her glass, watching the ice chase the slice as she stirred it with her swizzle stick, otherwise known as half a bamboo skewer, when Sam suddenly nudged her in the ribs.

  ‘Here he is!’ she hissed.

  Megan’s head snapped up. Chris? It had to be; who else would Sam call ‘he’? ‘Where?’ All she could see were a couple of suits, walking in their direction.


  ‘There,’ Sam said. ‘I admit that I’ve been a little less than honest with you, Megs.’ As she spoke, she stood up and leaned against a suit, the rather less attractive one, to Megan’s surprise, and gave him a long, lingering kiss. ‘Megs,’ she said, when she finally broke away, ‘meet Brian. Brian, Megs.’

  Megan took the hand he proffered and smiled. She looked at Sam with her ‘just you wait’ expression and then looked behind them both to the spare wheel brought along for Sam’s desperate friend. Actually, he looked okay. He was wearing a suit, yes, which made him look both needy and nerdy. But there didn’t seem to be any of the usual ref flags – shaving rash, pen in top pocket, bad veneers – so she pulled out the chair next to her and said, ‘Hi. I’m Megan. And you …?’

  He sat down in a waft of something expensive. Closer to there were still no warning signs; Megan could have kicked herself, but in fact that just made her even more suspicious. Left hand – no ring. Wait for the voice; the voice was going to like Daffy Duck, she just knew it. ‘Hi Megan. I’m Will. Not called after the prince, in case you’re wondering. Sadly, I predate him by a year or so.’

  Megan looked closer. Hmm, yes, a bit more than a year or so, my lad, she thought. Possibly ten. But he clearly looked after himself and perhaps there was something to be said for someone who had been around the block a couple of times. ‘Hi. I can't think of anyone famous called Megan – sorry.’ She smiled. ‘That’s a great line, though; I’ll have to try and think of some. For future use.’ She knew she was prattling and looked into her glass for inspiration.

  Sam had sat back down and pulled a chair round for Brian. She looked at Megan with a questioning look but got no evils back, so hoped they were good. Yes, Brian and Will weren’t in youth’s first flush, but look where a thirty-something got you; left holding the baby. These guys weren’t bad to look at, but there was that added dusting of gratitude which meant they wouldn’t stray too far or too fast. ‘Brian and Will are in IT,’ she told Megan.

  She had had them down for bankers, so IT was a pleasant surprise. ‘Really? I’m sorry to say that I can hardly manage my smartphone. Computers aren’t really my thing. What is it you do, exactly?’

  The two men looked at each other and laughed. ‘We don’t understand them much, either,’ Brian said. ‘We just got lucky when we were at university. My parents had some money they wanted to invest. We had some nerdy friends who needed jobs after they graduated …’

  ‘Do you remember that one … what was his name? Those glasses and that hair … you know …’

  ‘God, yes. Josh. He looked like nothing else on earth but could that boy program – I call him a boy because he got his place when he was fifteen. He’d graduated in eighteen months. He made the business for us, really.’

  ‘And yet you don’t remember his name?’ Megan said, an edge to her voice.

  ‘They burn out,’ Will said, dismissively and she liked him a lot less, just like that, in the blink of an eye. He looked around the table. ‘Drinks?’

  While he was at the bar, helped by Brian who seemed to be attached to him by some invisible thread, Sam leaned over. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He’s an arsehole, Sam,’ Megan said. ‘What were you thinking?’

  ‘No!’ Sam was annoyed. ‘Come on, Megan. You’ve only just met the guy. Give him a chance.’

  ‘A chance of what?’

  ‘Who knows? The night is young. I tell you something, though. If he knows half the tricks Brian has up his sleeve, you’re in for a hell of a night.’

  Megan looked and indeed was, outraged. ‘I’m not taking him home tonight!’ she hissed. ‘What do you take me for?’

  ‘A woman who hasn’t had sex for months. A woman who needs to feel someone’s arms around her. No one will judge. Go for it. He obviously likes you. So, give him a chance.’

  Megan sat back and smiled up at Will just in time. He put a drink in front of her and pulled up his chair. ‘So, Megan, Sam tells me you have a little boy. I’ve got two kids, not so little now, though.’ He fished into his breast pocket and pulled out two photos. A girl sitting on a pony scowled out of one. A boy with a rather bad overbite wearing a very expensive-looking school blazer stared out of the other.

  ‘Lovely.’ She just wanted out. This guy had so much wrong with him and now, here was the baggage as well. She took a huge slug of her drink and felt her eyeballs shrivel. ‘What the hell is that?’ she gasped.

  ‘Gin,’ Brian laughed. ‘With a hint of tonic.’

  Megan’s eyes were watering and to her embarrassment, one of her contact lenses decided to go walkabout. ‘Ow!’

  ‘What?’ Sam’s voice was full of concern.

  ‘Oh, just this damned lens. I don’t wear them enough, that’s the thing … ow!’

  Sam shuddered. ‘I don’t know how you can,’ she said. ‘I hate anyone fiddling with my eyes.’

  ‘Look over here,’ Will said, whipping a crisp, white hanky out of his pocket. ‘I wear lenses, I don’t mind hoiking it out for you. Look up.’

  And that was how, walking in with Mark at that moment, Chris saw, in glorious technicolor, the love of his life, her chin held in a masterful hand, looking up with shining eyes into the face of Mr Perfect.

  He hadn’t needed an excuse to get hopelessly, roaringly drunk but it was good to have one. Mark could only look on in horror as his friend poured drink after drink down his throat. Having left the Bell in a slam of doors, they had started working their way back along the High Street, gate-crashing hen and stag parties without fear nor favour. Had he but known it, Chris was a major reason for many of the selfies taken that night being ditched rather than shared on Facebook. Who wants to post a selfie of themselves with a green-faced, belligerent drunk in the background? Finally, the worst happened. He found a woman even drunker than he was, sprawled on the pavement outside a gastro-pub, just managing to avoid rolling in her own sick. He pulled her to her feet and in doing so, she fell against him.

  ‘You’re a handsome one,’ she slurred and collapsed against his chest.

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he muttered.

  She reached up and pulled his head down for a long kiss which both of them knew was a bad idea. But somehow, the bad idea turned into a good idea which turned into a desperate urge to give each other a good seeing to in the next dark alley they could find. She took his hand and set off at a drunken trot, ankle turning over on her fuck-me shoes every other step or so.

  Mark was fairly hammered himself, but not so much that the beer-goggles won out over commonsense. ‘Chris!’ he called after his stumbling friend. ‘Chris! You don’t want to do that!’

  A fist caught him in his back. ‘Don’t you talk about my friend like that,’ an aggressively drunk voice said.

  ‘What?’ Mark turned round to face his attacker. A girl in a skimpy dress, her belly sticking out too far to be anything other than a pregnancy, stood there, an L plate pinned crookedly across her chest.

  ‘Don’t you call my friend “that”,’ she said. ‘She may be drunk, but she deserves better.’

  Mark’s innate politeness kicked in. ‘No, no I didn’t call your friend that. I meant, he didn’t want to do … well, what it seems he is already doing.’ Mark sighed. He had heard some rumours, Chris had borne some of them out over pizza a lifetime ago, but this was beyond a joke. He couldn’t see anything down the alleyway, but the drunken cries and shrieks of delight told him everything. ‘I apologise for him, I really do. He’s had a bad time of it, lately.’

  ‘Well,’ said a well-spoken voice behind him. ‘He seems to be having a good time of it now. I suggest you look the other way, ladies,’ and Brian, ever the gentleman, walked on the alleyway side of his little party as he shepherded them along to the cab rank.

  In the back of the cab, Megan was quiet. Will had an arm around her shoulders and every now and then dropped a small kiss on the top of her head or nibbled her ear. He was murmuring things she probably should have been protesting against, but
her mind was whirling. She was putting two and two together and making at least a dozen. The man at the end of the alley was Mark, one of Chris’s best friends. The girl he was talking to was the hen she had started the evening with, the intended of one of Chris’s ex-colleagues. The man in the alley, was clearly off his face on drink and god-knew what else when Mark was involved. So, who else could the man in the alley be, with the morals of an alley cat, appropriately enough, than Chris? The father of her child. Will murmured another question into her ear and she turned her head to look him straight in the eye.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, clearly and concisely, to everyone’s surprise but especially her own. ‘Yes, I would like you to come home with me and do all that. And a bit more, if it’s on offer.’ In the seat opposite, she caught Sam’s expression. It was very mixed, to say the best of it. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Like you said, I’m a woman who hasn’t had sex for months. It’s time to put that right, isn’t it, Will?’

  He looked at her, delight all over his face. ‘It certainly is,’ he said. ‘It certainly is.’

  Stone Cold Sober

  *

  Sunday morning. Chris couldn’t exactly call himself a Joni Mitchell fan, still less Neil Diamond, but nevertheless, the words to Chelsea Morning just wouldn’t leave his head. There was no milk or toast or honey and if the sun had actually made rainbows on the wall he may have actually been sick. But the tune was there and the words, in no particular order. He would have to think about switching on the radio soon, before the damn thing drove him demented. Even something from One Direction or, God forbid, Justin Bieber would help to drive it out. He dozed again, an arm over his eyes. Mark’s spare room curtains weren’t doing much towards cutting out the light.

  An hour or possibly a minute later, the door to his bedroom opened. No one spoke and Chris toyed with saying nothing in the hope that they would go away. The technique didn’t seem to be getting him anywhere, though, so he opened one eye and squinted under his forearm. Mark was standing in the doorway, fully clothed, clearly showered and shaved. It was still Sunday, right?