‘I like long things,’ Roxy smiled, then glancing at his crotch added, ‘so it looks like your luck’s out.’
The man scurried inside. I stubbed out my largely untouched cigarette.
‘Come on, Chloe man, a drink will give that stifled imagination of yours a kick up the arse.’
I stepped over the grimy doormat.
‘Why do I need my imagination? My head hurts as it is.’
Roxy waggled her finger in the air as if tapping a lightbulb above her head.
‘Because you and I are gonna make a list.’
‘A list of what?’
‘A list of what you want to be.’
‘Shall we start with “not unemployed”?’
Once inside, we crossed the sticky wooden floor and Roxy rested her elbows on the bar. Vik, the barman’s, eyes danced across her cleavage before eventually finding her face.
‘Give us a bottle of that pink sparkly shite there will you, Vik? It’s not real Champagne but it will have to do.’
‘The Prosecco?’ he beamed.
‘Aye whatever, aye. We’re celebrating.’
‘Celebrating what?’ asked Vik and I in unison.
‘We are celebrating my mate Chloe here getting out of the rat race and leaving the stuffed suits behind.’
‘Not through choice,’ I mumbled.
‘Now she can be whatever she wants. Imagine that freedom hey, Vik?’
Vik nodded blankly and poured two drinks.
‘Aye, there’s a big, wide fucking world out there,’ Roxy carried on, ‘and Chloe here is coming to get it.’
I weakly lifted my glass and sighed, ‘Maybe I’ll just stay in here for a while.’
CHAPTER FOUR
140g caster sugar
‘Write it down, write it down!’ Roxy whooped, thrusting her glass in the air along with her legs.
‘Put your legs down, Roxy, that man over there thinks he just walked into Ann Summers.’
I shoved the end of her pen into my mouth, forgetting it was decorated with pink plumage.
‘Eugh. Can’t you have a normal pen and not one that looks like a flamingo’s bum?’
‘Normal pens are boring. See that’s another thing. Now you can have any fucking pen you want. How mint is that?’
‘Er, not quite as good as having a job that pays me seventy grand a year?’
She made a dismissive deflating sound with her lips and grabbed my hand.
‘Whatever. Don’t eat it, put it on the paper and write it down for fucks sake.’
I frowned, scribbled, frowned again and held up the list, squinting in the orange glow of the retro light above our booth. Our drunken scribbles looked as if a tipsy cat had stepped in a pot of ink and tripped across the page.
‘Read it, read it!’
I cleared my throat, feeling embarrassed and ever so slightly sick.
‘Things I dreamed of being when I grew up, by Chloe Baker,’ I began. ‘Artist, ballet dancer, interior designer, Olympian, posh cake designer.’
As in designer of posh cakes not a posh designer of cakes, Roxy had added for clarification purposes.
I finished with a sigh while Roxy clapped her hands rapidly in front of her chest.
‘Slow down, Roxy, your bra will catch fire.’
‘But it’s exciting, pet, all those possibilities. Don’t you reckon? I’m all tingly.’
‘I think that’s down to the sambuca shots.’
She leapt to her feet.
‘Aye we’ve done good work today, Chloe, good work. Another drink?’
I watched her totter across the floor towards the bar. Whereas I tended to find myself jostling for elbowroom and desperately waving a twenty-pound note at the barman in the hope of being noticed, Roxy had no such difficulty. The men propping up the bar slid apart like theatre curtains and my sexy friend stepped confidently into her rightful position in the limelight. Vik greeted her with a bottle of Prosecco in one hand and a bag of her favourite crisps in the other. Feeling another wave of depression wash over me, I shuffled on the seat. The worn leather cushion seemed to sigh beneath me as I looked at the list that Roxy had no qualms about classifying as a good day’s work.
The pub door opened and a chilly wind blew empty crisp packets under my feet.
‘Chloe, I came as soon as I could. You poor thing.’
I was enveloped by the protective hug of our third musketeer, Heidi.
‘Can I do anything, Chloe pet? How dare they fire you? Do they not realise you are the best asset that company has? Honestly there is no loyalty these days.’
She hugged me again like a giant panda and I sank morosely into her voluptuous bosom. If I was the sensible child of the group and Roxy was the troublemaker, Heidi definitely played the maternal role. It had been the same way since school and her support had filled a gap for Roxy whose mother was a rarely sober party animal who disappeared sometimes for weeks at a time. My own mother was present in body but rarely in spirit, which was usually floating on a cloud of dope. Heidi was an occupational therapist who, when she was done caring for people at work all day, spent her spare time working in a charity shop and caring for everybody from us, to her family, to her neighbours and the local stray animals and hoodies (in no particular order). She dreamed of being a life coach but didn’t rate herself as special enough. As far as I was concerned, Heidi didn’t need a qualification to certify what she naturally was. I relaxed into her arms.
‘Thanks, Heidi, I’m so glad you came.’
‘Well of course, of course.’
She flung off her tartan coat and pulled off a fluffy red beret to reveal her black and red hair that stuck out at every conceivable angle. Clasping my hand between two woolly mittens, she sat beside me and peered into my eyes with a genuine expression of heartfelt concern.
‘You poor girl, it’s just terrible. I cannot believe it, really. You loved that job. You worked so hard.’
I was soothed by her soft accent and at the same time felt the tears well up in my eyes.
‘I did love my job. I know that sounds sad but it’s true. It was my life and now I just don’t know what to do.’
‘You’ll get another job, that’s what you’ll do. A better one and you can shove it up their… whatsits. The silly men.’
‘They’re bastards that’s what they are,’ said Roxy, bending down to kiss Heidi on the cheek, ‘I’ll get you a glass.’
She wiggled back to the bar, shouting over her shoulder, ‘Show Heidi the list, Chloe man. I tell you Heidi it’s fucking mint.’
After one more bottle of Prosecco and some ill-advised Byker Wallbanger cocktails, (named after a rough area of Newcastle but tasting ironically sweet and desirable, like a liquid Terry’s chocolate orange), we sat back and peered at the piece of paper. Roxy sat in the middle with her arms around us. Her signature scent wafted over me, mingling with the aroma of years of stale beer and chips that clung determinedly to the walls of the pub. The familiarity of her perfume was soothing on a day when my life seemed wholly unfamiliar.
‘So what have we decided?’ she chirped.
‘Do you start at the top of the list and work down or pick randomly?’ pondered Heidi with a hiccup.
Honestly, they were taking this seriously.
‘The only reason number one is artist is because that’s the first thing I wanted to be when I was young enough to want to be like my parents, which was before I found out they are completely bonkers so’ – I scored through the first entry on the list, the pink feathers on the pen flapping as I did so – ‘that moves us on to number two, which is ballet dancer. I was about eight when I had this ambition.’
Roxy gathered up her enormous amount of hair and held it up in a bun at the crown of her head.
‘Remember how good we were?’
Heidi and I frowned.
‘Roxy,’ I snorted, ‘if I remember rightly, most lessons you stayed outside smoking and eating the faces off the boys from Kings.’
‘Aye.’
‘And clearly etched on my memory is the time the old pianist with the fingerless gloves came to the end of his merry mazurka and all we heard from our ballet class was the rhythmic sound of you and JJ Fletcher shagging up against the fire door. I will never forget the expression on that poor man’s face.’
Roxy threw her head back and laughed.
‘Ee I loved ballet. You were good at it, Chloe. You did exams and all that shite.’
I raised my eyes to the ceiling and sighed.
‘I did one exam that the teacher did a whip round to help me do when she realised my parents didn’t have the funds. That wasn’t because I was the next Margot Fonteyn, it was because she felt sorry for me.’
Pity was something that had sat uncomfortably with me ever since.
‘But you passed,’ said Heidi kindly.
‘I did. Highly commended in fact as I remember, but it’s probably a good thing I didn’t set my sights on being the Royal Ballet’s prima ballerina. I don’t think my genes are that way inclined.’ I looked down at my body.
Heidi playfully jabbed my arm.
‘Howay, you’ve got a great figure.’
‘I’ve got an acceptable figure for layered clothes, not for leotards,’ I said.
Roxy pouted proudly and said nothing. She didn’t have to. Her body was the sort of body Lycra was made for; lithe, petite, smooth-skinned and without wobbly bits. I sighed and crossed out number two on the list.
‘What about interior designer?’ said Roxy, crunching a crisp between her front teeth. ‘I know some of Thierry’s teammates need someone to do their apartments. You could be the Newcastle United official interior designer, pet.’
‘Roxy, I can’t just be their interior designer.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because you have to study to be an interior designer, you can’t just be one.’
‘Bollocks to that. If you want to be one then just make up some fucking business cards, do a few sketches and be one. How hard can it be? I watch loads of those design programmes and it looks canny easy like.’
Roxy tipped up the crisp packet and poured the crumbs into her mouth.
There was a lot to be said, I supposed, for her simplistic approach to the subject. When Roxy had told our career officer at school she was going to find a millionaire boyfriend who treated her like a princess and satisfied her every need, she had meant it. When she had told Heidi and I she had ‘decided’ to become the WAG of one of France’s top professional footballers, there was no doubt in her mind. One hundred percent, he would fall in love with her from the moment she orchestrated a meeting in the nightclub the players frequented after the match. He would then shower her with hugely expensive presents, chase her when she played hard to get and, when he got her, he would generally fulfil her every need. Self-doubt did not enter the equation and she was not surprised at all when events transpired exactly as she had predicted. As for feminism, she didn’t see being a kept woman as an affront to women’s rights. Roxy was the one in charge and she didn’t want to work. She figured if Thierry wanted to pay for her lifestyle then more fool him. End of. I wished I could follow Roxy’s perhaps naïve (yet successful) methods but Roxy was a law unto herself. Besides, if I was honest with myself, I didn’t quite have the necessary attributes.
‘Anyway, interior designer was a passing fad when we first moved to Newcastle and finally got our own house with our own front door key. I used to lie in bed and imagine making it beautiful and tranquil like the houses on the covers of magazines with pretty wallpaper and fresh flowers and scatter cushions. But’ – I said while I drew a heavy line through number three – ‘we all know that would never happen with parents like mine. They let me do my own thing in the kitchen but the rest of the house was a lost cause. I gave up after they ripped the banister down to use in an art installation and replaced it with nylon rope.’
Heidi tucked her legs up underneath her on the chair.
‘Why did you want to be an Olympian?’
‘Doesn’t everyone? The glory of victory, the podium, gazing proudly at the flag while humming the anthem and clutching a huge bouquet of flowers…’
‘I prefer the flowers without the exercise and trainers,’ Roxy laughed, downing her wine.
Roxy had always been allergic to exercise because it messed up her hair and flawless make-up, even through school.
‘Basically, I think I wanted to be an Olympian after I watched the Los Angeles games in the Eighties. Everyone looked so sunny and beautiful and happy. I just thought how great it must feel to be part of something so exciting and part of a team.’
I sipped my drink. I knew the desire had stemmed from my childhood dream to be accepted.
I fiercely crossed out number four of five.
‘Pie designer then?’ said Roxy.
‘I didn’t say pie designer, I said posh cake designer. I don’t even like pies.’
Vik, who had been clearing the table beside ours raced over and beamed at Roxy. Or rather beamed at Roxy’s cleavage.
‘I can get you pies. What pies do you want? We’ve got meat, meat and potato, cheese and onion, vegetable.’
If he fawned over our friend any more we’d have to start calling him Bambi.
‘You don’t have cheese and potato do you, Vik? That’s my favourite.’
Which was another irritating thing about Roxy. She had a calorie count as long as a telephone number yet a dress size in depressingly low single figures.
‘I’ll make you one, Roxy.’
When Roxy touched Vik’s arm he began to hyperventilate. I hoped she’d let go before one of us had to perform CPR on the poor man.
‘Thanks man, Vik, you’re champion.’
She winked, which sent his sweat glands into overdrive. I watched Vik scurry away to the kitchen and sighed. Roxy looked from Vik to me and back again.
‘Howay, Chloe, man you don’t…?’
‘No! Of course I don’t.’
Vik had a very sweet nature and was a very adept barman but the fact that he was in his late forties, could have passed for eight months pregnant and had hair sprouting like cress from his chest, ears and nose somewhat turned my stomach. I wasn’t shallow but… well, maybe I was a little.
‘I just wish someone looked at me like that.’
Roxy wrinkled her button nose. ‘Like what?’
‘Like that,’ I groaned. ‘Not that you’d notice because every man looks at you like that.’
Roxy shrugged.
‘You never seemed that bothered before like. I was beginning to think you were frigid.’
‘I’m not frigid!’ I said far too loud.
A group of men dressed identically in black and white football shirts over nondescript jeans and trainers laughed into their pints.
‘In fact I’ll have you know I was chatted up by a very handsome man at the Metro station this morning. We flirted and we even er… held hands.’
I blushed at my own distortion of the truth. Heidi, an incurable romantic who was constantly searching for ‘The One’ in all the wrong places, clutched her cheeks.
‘You held hands? Wow, what was his name?’
‘Numph Noor,’ I muttered.
‘What?’
They leaned closer.
‘Don’t know, I didn’t exactly get his name. I was a little distracted and anyway, I don’t like to be too forward.’
Roxy slapped her forehead.
‘Where do you think you are, Downton Abbey? This is the twenty-first century, Chloe. It’s our turn to grab them by the balls and drag them back to bed.’
‘It’s not like that in the films,’ Heidi tutted.
‘Are you sure you’re not frigid, Chloe?
‘No I am not. I was upset at the time and it was very quick. He was just pleasant and he gave me a strawberry scented tissue and he was handsome and… damn why didn’t I get his number?’
‘Frigid,’ Roxy whistled into her glass.
‘Lonely,’ I sighed.
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Heidi pressed her lips together and tilted her head. I waved my hand weakly.
‘Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m feeling sorry enough for myself after everything that’s happened.’
The realisation that I had been made redundant hit me again and I clasped my hand to my stomach.
‘I get it,’ said Roxy, ‘but you’re not the only person to lose a job, Chloe man and there’s people a lot worse off than you. At least you’ve got money for the foreseeable future like.’
‘I know that but at least let me wallow for a bit.’
Heidi reached across and patted my knee. She was so kind she always made me want to cry.
‘I understand. Your job was your life and now it’s gone and you’re single too, so you don’t have any distractions to cheer you up. You’ve lost your focus and you’re frightened.’
Roxy rolled her eyes.
‘Fuck me I feel like I’m on Jeremy Kyle.’
‘Stop it, Roxy,’ Heidi tutted, ‘she needs our sympathy right now.’
‘She needs a good shag that’s what she needs. Or a puppy.’
‘I am actually still here.’
Roxy gasped.
‘I’ve got a plan. Come to the match with me on the weekend. The new Spanish centre forward has got a backside like a hamster chewing two golf balls and he’s on fifty grand a week. It might not help with the job situation like but it’ll definitely put a smile on your face.’
‘We can’t all go out with footballers,’ said Heidi with a frown.
‘Why not?’
‘Because some of us want intelligent conversation,’ I said unkindly.
‘Over-rated.’
‘And we don’t all look like you,’ I added. ‘I’m not built to be a WAG. Remember the last time I tried to attach false eyelashes? I stuck my eyes together.’
‘Fuck me, how could I forget? You looked like you were wearing crocheted sunglasses.’
Roxy and Heidi giggled and I tried to join in, but I realised I had sunk into the part of the evening where I had drunk too much to be wonderfully woozy but not enough to be obliviously out of it. I was officially in the maudlin zone of the spectrum.
‘Anyway, I don’t want a rich boyfriend thank you very much, I’m perfectly capable of providing for myself.’
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