“Hi, Menna,” Sima said, grasping her arm affectionately, “am I glad to see you! You look fantastic! Did it all go OK?”
Menna nodded, “Yeah, not too bad, thanks. I’ve just been in the Ladies now for ten minutes trying to sort out my hair and I’d had a bit of trouble with the heels in the snow, so I just wore my wellies down and changed in the car park!”
Sima laughed and told her about the suede shoes and Isla’s lace-ups and Menna giggled in return. “Isla’s a star; she won’t mind at all – probably be so good for dancing that she’ll wear them next year too!”
“Oh, and Menna, I’m sorry but I’m afraid that Iestyn can’t make it tonight. I had no idea; Joe only told me tonight that he had something else on.”
Menna shrugged. “It’s OK. No worries. I saw him earlier anyway; off on some date or something.” Sima wasn’t fooled by the light-hearted dismissal, but realised that Menna’s pride didn’t allow her to dwell on it.
A waiter came to the table and Joe was retrieved from his friends. “Ah, the soup, please,” he told the waiter. “Hi, Menna, you OK? Hey, Sima, that bloke was John Davies, you know, the one I told you about? The one with the dog with the orange blob?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“You know, I said that he had a spare seat in his car? In the boot?”
“Joe – I don’t know what you’re on about…”
“No, it wasn’t the spare seat,” corrected Menna, “that was John Evans. John Davies had the funny trousers – you remember, at Jack Tarn’s house?”
Sima declined a starter and instead laid her head on the tablecloth and groaned.
A loud cheer from around the room brought Sima back up to sitting position and everyone craned their necks to see what was going on. Johnny Brechdan walked into the room, his hair coiffed with gel and his handsome face beaming with pride. Clamped to the front of his stylish suit, by one enormous hand, was little Gwennie Shackles, oblivious to the looks that her “dad” was receiving: unbridled joy on the faces of the older ladies, hilarity on the faces of his male friends and complete despair and disbelief on the faces of some of the younger ladies in the room.
Tansy walked at his side, with a coy smile, and they sat on the spare chairs at Nain and Taid’s table, with Nain taking Gwennie whilst Johnny got himself settled, and Taid taking Tansy’s coat. A wave of people flocked over to them and Gwennie was cooed over and Tansy was introduced to a dozen people whose names she would never remember.
The air in the hall became thick with questions: “So, is that baby supposed to be one of his then, or what?” “That woman – is she supposed to be the one blackmailing him then?” and “Have you managed to shag him since the baby’s come? No, me neither.”
Menna popped another garlic mushroom into her mouth and took a sip of water. Bit of a pointless night now that Iestyn wasn’t coming, aside from the hassle and expense of the new dress and haircut. She might as well not bother drinking and then she could just sneak off whenever she fancied. Otherwise she’d have to wait for her parents and they always stayed until the bitter end and she didn’t feel like sitting in a puddle on the floor in her new dress, doing Oops Upside Your Head or whatever ridiculous thing Dave the DJ thought was bang on this year.
It was nice to be with Sima and Joe, though, and she had waved at Nain and Taid Brechdan and Johnny and Tansy on their table at the other side of the room. But, really, she wasn’t in the mood for partying. Seeing Iestyn like that had been a bit of a shock. All that dress hunting, all that trying on of shoes, practising with curling tongs and trying to find out how to keep lipstick where it was supposed to be was, well, for his benefit really. To find out that he wasn’t staying was such a disappointment and one that she hadn’t actually considered. But, to find out that the reason he wasn’t coming was because he had a blind date just twisted the knife. Sima had apologised, but it wasn’t her fault.
She, Menna, had allowed herself to build up the night into one big romantic shebang and it was almost bound to go all curly: things tended to in her case. So instead of dancing slowly to ‘Lady In Red’, nuzzling her head into Iestyn’s strong shoulder, she would instead be getting pestered by her mum to “Come on and dance! Don’t be shy!” That’d be only slightly better than the year that Pissed Brian had put her over his shoulder and run around the room with her.
However, the night had a long time to run yet and she needed to put a brave face on it all. No point in sitting looking like a smacked arse all night; no, she needed to try and enjoy it – for Sima’s sake as much as her own – Sima looked like she might appreciate a friend to talk to who didn’t keep running off to talk to blokes about John Davies’ funny trousers and the like.
She took a little sip of wine from the glass at her side, “So, Sima,” she smiled, “tell me who else you’ve been sorting out recently?”
“Well,” replied Sima, “my favourite at the moment is an older lady who… Hang on, who’s this then? Grand entrance number two! Return of the prodigal son or what?”
There was another buzz developing in the room and Menna heard gasps and the scrapes of chairs as people stood to see what was happening.
“Well, look who it is now!”
“Well, bloody hell. Look who’s here…”
“Well, welcome home, boy!”
“Fuck me – did he do that to her?”
She craned her neck to see what was going on and through the throngs of people now standing, she could just make out a couple at the door. She saw a man in a dark suit and a woman in a very clingy white dress – perhaps they were a local couple that’d just gotten married and had popped by on the way to their reception? She was just about to turn back to Sima when someone moved and the man at the door came into view: Paul Morgan. Paul the Neuadd. Five years older and more handsome and expensive-looking than ever and with a woman at his side. A beautiful woman. Younger than him, smiling up at him with a gaze that needed no words. One hand was adorned with a large ring that glistened in the soft lights and the other rubbed itself over a swollen, pregnant belly.
Menna gasped and dropped her fork. Paul the Neuadd? Paul the bloody Neuadd? Tonight of all nights? She hadn’t clapped eyes on him or spoken to him or even received a note from him for years and now he turns up without warning, with a beautiful bride who looks as if she’s ready to give birth right there on the carpet.
Menna could feel the good vibes in the room as her neighbours welcomed home one of their favourite sons. She’d heard through the grapevine that he rarely came home now and that he was a successful estate agent in Manchester, but she hadn’t heard that he was married or that he had fathered another child.
She could also feel eyes from around the room turning her way to see how she was coping with the surprise arrival. They would all have known that she and Paul had once been an item, although no one knew why they had separated – but they would have made up their own theories.
She felt sick to her stomach, but knew that if she did as her gut instinct was telling her to do and bolted, they would all be watching that too. No, she thought, stay dignified, disinterested and show no emotion. If anyone was going to squirm, make him squirm. With an effort, she planted a smile on her face, turned back and said, “Sorry, Sima, you were saying about that older lady?”
Iestyn smiled again at Lulu and struggled with his chopsticks. They’d pretty much exhausted the “I’m just crap at chopsticks” gag as had they the “how’s the IT course” and the “what do you normally do on a Friday night” conversations. Iestyn thought Lulu was nice enough. She was pleasant to look at in a soft dumpling kind of a way. She smelt nice. She smiled quite a bit, but she was a little, well, passive.
He wasn’t brilliant at small talk, but surely there were a few things that she could ask back? There was the weather to talk about, he’d broken his arm three times and that was usually good for at least fifteen minutes, and he worked a bloody great farm with 350 sheep and each one had different things that happe
ned to it but they were still waiting for the main course to arrive.
However, although he was not feeling Lulu’s sexual vibes, the waiter obviously was; he’d been constantly looking over to their table and Iestyn had spotted at least three winks that had been given to a blushing Lulu as he’d walked past with a tray of dishes. Perhaps it was actually his, Iestyn’s, problem. Maybe Lulu was a real catch, but it was him that was lacking. Was she sitting there thinking, “For God’s sake, stop talking about your bloody sheep – you didn’t really think I was interested? I was only pretending! Tell me about the time you skydived or rowed across the Atlantic, like every other bloke I’ve dated has. At least try and look at my breasts; everyone else thinks they’re magnificent, but you’ve just looked at the lanterns on the wall.”
Lulu sat and watched Iestyn. He was very handsome and she was a little tongue-tied. He had those smart clothes on and a very trendy haircut and she combed through her own hair with her fingers as she smiled at him again. He’d seemed quite chatty, quite interested in her and her job. She wished that she’d stuck a little more closely to what she’d talked about in her blog – or actually, maybe it would have been better if she’d actually lived what she’d written about in her blog. She should have dived at her flat with a paintbrush and a pair of denim dungarees and painted it herself. Iestyn was sitting there with knuckles chipped and grazed and a black thumbnail all because he’d got stuck into something. She didn’t have a drop of gloss in her hair or even a chipped fingernail to show for her endeavours to “do up a flat”. She felt a bit of a sap and she realised that she didn’t have a great range of things to talk about.
“So,” she managed, “do you have your own dog? Or do you all share the general ones – y’know?”
Iestyn squinted up at her as if he were struggling to comprehend whether she’d actually asked that or not. “We all, well, we all use them all really, although I have my own favourite.”
“What’s he – or she – called?”
“Nancy.”
“Oh.” Louisa put on her deliberating face as if she were weighing up what she thought about a dog called Nancy. Instead she was desperately trying to think of something witty or incredibly interesting to say. Come on, come on, what would Rachel say? As her untrained mind ran through its usual topics – her work, the weird woman at her work, mucking up the balance-up again, reasons why her diets didn’t work, the new forensics series on BBC1, and her dad nearly reversing into the woman from across the yard’s BMW, she realised that she simply wasn’t ready for this.
She hadn’t really wanted the flat or the new exciting leap from her cosy nest. She was actually quite content sat on the sofa each night, her dad making sure that she was snuggled up with a blanket and her mum ensuring that she was well fed and watered. What did she really want with a draughty first-floor flat, sitting there, night after night on her own? She was a sociable creature and sociable creatures wanted company, conversation and someone else to make the tea.
She popped the last of her rice into her mouth and muttered an “Excuse me,” and popped off to the ladies for a break from the uncomfortable silence.
*
The roast lamb came and went and a big cheer went up as the waitress announced that it was from Phil Arnold, the Cwm, and Phil sat looking pleased as punch at the raised glasses (all the while hoping that they hadn’t gotten that sinewy old mutton that he’d persuaded the new guy from the abattoir to put through with the younger ones).
Menna chose the chocolate gateau with cream for dessert and she sat feeling cold, awkward and very uncomfortable. She’d always known that there was unfinished business between her and Paul. In her more charitable moments, she thought that perhaps she’d missed the boat on her right to respond to his churlishness. She should really have insisted on sorting things out properly – the two of them, not just her having to do all the hard work. Maybe that would have allowed her to move on a little faster. It had taken her five years to put on a sexy dress and (sort of) make a play for another man – albeit another man that was completely unaware of her efforts and instead was having a great time on a date with another woman.
And there was the last man she’d gone out with, sitting – typically right in the middle of her field of vision – chatting, laughing, greeting old friends and introducing them all to his new wife who, incidentally, he was treating like cut glass.
She was obviously far more his equal than Menna had ever been. She was beautiful and confident and happy and the only time she took her hands off her flaming belly was when they were replaced by Paul’s hand, caressing the bump with loving, fluid movements.
Menna knew that Paul had seen her – if only because he looked everywhere but in her direction. Should I walk over and throw my drink into his face, she mused. No, childish really and it would ruin everyone else’s night. Should she try and speak to him? Maybe later if he was alone… But what would she say? “Hello, you shit, how’s it all going?” Also, it wouldn’t be fair on his wife; she probably had no idea about what had happened and it wouldn’t be fair to drag her into something as unpleasant as this at such a late stage in her pregnancy.
“You OK?” Joe had reached across and prodded her arm as Sima had turned to talk to someone walking past behind her. Menna managed a watery smile and a nod and then demanded some more cream before he drank the lot straight out of the jug. “Sorry,” he grinned, “I thought it was just for me!”
Yep, just stick it out until the tables were cleared and then she could slip away unnoticed, leaving with her head held high and her dignity intact: maybe she could just scrape his car with her keys on the way past? Or perhaps pop a little dog shit under his door handle as she left…
The ladies’ washroom in the China Palace was not as palatial as the rest of the set-up; it had a little more of the British terraced house about it. Chipboard doors painted pillar-box red gave a headache-inducing glow and squeaked open onto tiny cubicles. Louisa chose the one nearest the window as it looked as if it might have a little more space. She didn’t actually need the loo, but instead eased open the tiny Crittall window, glad for the rush of cold air that blasted the self-conscious flush from her face.
The window opened out onto the police yard and Louisa could see a line of police cars parked facing the gates. She could see shadowy figures in the windows of the rooms opposite, blurred by the steamed up windows and she allowed herself a bit of a diversion by guessing at what these people might be doing.
She imagined seasoned coppers striding around interview rooms, banging their open palms onto the tables, the accused cowering under the attack. Yep, she decided, some of those shadowy figures that she could see were on their way to the slammer. But, never mind, eh, she thought as she squeezed back though the red chipboard, serves ’em right! She washed her hands and shook them over a plastic plant rather than use the damp towel stuffed through a hoop.
As she wasted time faffing about with her hair in the mirror, her stomach churned at the thought of going back to the table. Surely dates were supposed to be easier than this, otherwise no one would ever, ever, go on them? Iestyn seemed like a nice chap and she was a nice girl and yet they were sitting there as if they had nothing in common and nothing to say to each other if it wasn’t through a keyboard. She had to accept that although Iestyn was younger and more handsome than the person she’d thought he might have been, he was far less indulgent than she would have liked. Maybe he’d been expecting someone rather different too?
She knew that she was looking at least relatively attractive because the waiter kept winking at her and when he saw her struggling with her chopsticks, he’d rushed over with a knife and fork: shame really, as the chopsticks were pretty much providing the substance for their conversation and they hadn’t really got back on track since.
She tripped over the vacuum cleaner that was squeezed into the corner and went out to join her “date”. Only pudding to go; it surely had to get better over pudding?
Maybe by
the time they went for a moonlit walk, hand in hand along the riverside path, everything would have moved onto a more playful plane? She hoped that chocolate gateau was on the menu if they were going to go for a walk in this weather – she’d need something substantial to keep her strength up…
Menna made it through her dessert. Good, she needed the toilet; that would kill another five minutes. She might take her chances and see if she could sneak out just after the speeches – or maybe during them if Chairman Jon Jones was going to bang on about statistics like he did last year.
She excused herself from the table and, remembering her bag with its facial repair kit, wove between the diners to get to the lobby, greeting people here and there and receiving lots of compliments. By the time she’d reached the lobby, she’d actually cheered up; perhaps it was good to be out, to be amongst friends – to lance the boil on her arse that was Paul the Neuadd.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the huge, gilt-framed mirror in the hall and was pleased with what she saw. Usually by this time in the proceedings, she’d have necked so much lager that her face would be blotchy and her pores enormous. Instead now, she was sashaying slowly along, enjoying her new ability to walk in high heels. She heard footsteps behind her…
“Menna – Menna, stop a minute. Can I talk to you, please?”
Menna stopped dead. Then she carried on walking and just turned her head. Her brain was spinning at a hundred times faster than her feet, so by the time she’d said, “Oh, hi,” she’d already decided to play it cool. Play it calm and dignified. “How’s things?”
“Menna, Menna, hi, yes, I’m good thanks. How are you? Well, you look great – fantastic actually. You look fantastic. What’s new? What you up to?”
Cold Enough to Freeze Cows Page 33