Would Like to Meet. Polly James
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her face. She’s covered in blotches and both her eyes are running continually, so we both sit sipping our drinks and dabbing our eyes with bits of tissue, while Eva concentrates on making eye contact with men – or boys, to be more accurate, if being Joel’s age still counts as a boy.
“I’m going to circulate,” she says after a while. “It’s never a good idea to go hunting in packs, and you two look like wounded animals.”
Apparently, we look less like wounded animals than employees of the club. As soon as Eva walks off, Esther and I are approached by five people in quick succession, who all want to know why women’s handbags are being searched when none of the men’s pockets are. Then some drunken bloke staggers backwards and falls over Esther’s extended leg, spilling his drink onto her dress.
“Watch out, you clumsy idiot,” she says, which turns out to have been the worst thing she could have said. Never insult an 18-stone man who’s drunk his own body weight in beer.
Mr Flobby glares at Esther, and then looks over at me. His vision must have cleared temporarily, because – somehow – he manages to spot our matching outfits. Then he moves closer to Esther, until he’s almost nose-to-nose with her.
“Well, love,” he says, his mouth distorted by a sneer. “I might be clumsy, but at least I’m not fucking ugly. You might dress like your friend over here, but with that horrible spotty face of yours, you sure as hell don’t look like her. You’re fatter, too.”
Then he lurches off to annoy someone else, while Esther stands silently, watching him go. She looks absolutely stricken, and I feel incredibly angry on her behalf as well as horribly guilty. I know I didn’t make that absolute git say what he did, but if I hadn’t sprayed her in the face, she wouldn’t have been blotchy. And she isn’t “fucking ugly”, either – or fat. She’s just got a bigger bosom than me, that’s all, and shift dresses were created for those of us who are flat of chest.
I tell Esther this, several times, but she just raises her eyebrows at me, and doesn’t bother to reply. The whole thing’s getting more stressful by the minute, especially as Eva’s still on the dance floor getting up close and personal with a young guy who looks familiar – and now an attractive man has come over to ask if he can sit next to me.
I have NO idea what to say in reply – and these horrible sensations are definitely not shivers. It is boiling hot in here.
* * *
Well, this is going well. Eva’s still dancing, Esther’s disappeared, I’ve drunk too much and the good-looking guy keeps trying to talk to me, even though I can barely hear a word he says. Have I suddenly developed early-onset deafness or something? There’s a weird roaring noise in my ears, so maybe it’s my blood pressure rising.
Even when I can hear Mr Good-Looking, I’ve just realised that I have absolutely no idea how to talk to men that I don’t know – or how to flirt with them, anyway. Every time Mr GL says something complimentary, I either try to laugh it off or I find myself giving him a sceptical look, as if he’s taking the piss. I even say, “Yeah, like that’s true” once, like a sulky teenager. I don’t know why he’s still bothering with me at all – or why I’m bothering with him, either, if I’m honest. I’d far rather be sitting at home in comfy clothes and watching TV, while chatting sporadically with Dan. That seems far less boring now than it did when it used to happen every evening, and being with someone without feeling you have to talk to them is like the Holy Grail, at the moment.
What if I never find anyone else I can sit comfortably in silence with? Mr GL’s fine to look at, and he could be the world’s most fascinating conversationalist for all I know, but he’s not Dan. That thought makes me feel as if I’m going to do one of those sudden sobs that keep catching me unawares, so I clamp my lips together and concentrate on breathing in through my nose, thus rendering further conversation impossible on my part, though not on Mr GL’s.
He doesn’t give up easily, I’ll give him that. In fact, he leans in closer and keeps up a continual stream of chatter about God knows what for the next few minutes, until the buzzing of my phone gives me the perfect excuse to move away from his arm, which has just started sneaking its way along the back of my seat. Too much, as well as far too soon.
“Excuse me a minute,” I say, meaning “for the rest of the evening”. Or even for the rest of my life.
Maybe it’s suddenly become obvious that’s how I feel because, as I open my messages, Mr GL stands up and says he’s going to the bar.
“I’d offer you a drink,” he says, “but … well, you know.”
“Yeah, I do,” I say. “Sorry, but thanks anyway. It was nice meeting you.”
I can’t do this stuff. I just can’t. And it seems Esther can’t either, as the text’s from her, apologising for disappearing, and saying she started to feel unwell so she walked to the taxi rank and is now on her way home. I think I’ll follow her example as soon as I find Eva … and send Dan a drunken text.
* * *
Two people complain to me about the state of the loos as I make my way across the club towards where Eva’s still dancing her arse off. Another asks why there are so few bar staff on duty tonight. They might as well just come out with it and say, “You look way too old to be here, unless you’re running the place.”
That’s not an attitude Eva seems to be contending with. As I push past a group of young guys who are standing watching while she shakes her enviable booty, I overhear them taking bets on “who’s going to shag the cougar”. I just hope it’s not the one I know: Joel’s best friend, Marlon, who I’ve always thought was such an innocent! I make a point of saying hello to him in a very disapproving voice, because I’m in loco parentis as his mum’s not here.
Eva nearly has a fit when I tell her Esther left hours ago, and then she demands to know why I didn’t come and join her, rather than sitting on my own “like a Billy-No-Mates”.
“I wasn’t on my own,” I say, “but I’ve had too much to drink and now I want to go home. You stay, and I’ll call you tomorrow. Just don’t sleep with Marlon, Eva – his mum would not approve.”
Eva promises she won’t, albeit with a certain degree of reluctance, and then she peers at me suspiciously.
“Are you all right, Hannah?” she says. “You look a bit tearful, as well as pissed. You’re not going to do anything stupid when you get home, are you? Like drunken texting, for example?”
“No,” I say.
I’ll probably do that as soon as I get into a cab.
* * *
Dan didn’t answer my texts, or his phone, when I rang that instead – which may explain why I’m now hiding behind a bush in his new back garden, watching him through a ground-floor window. I am officially going mad.
I had no idea Dan’s landlady had a dog! Luckily, it’s one of the handbag kind, so although it snaps at my ankles and yaps when it’s let out into the garden, it doesn’t do any permanent damage, although it does nearly give me a heart attack. If the music Dan, Aasim (the other housemate) and the landlady are playing wasn’t so loud, they’d definitely hear the dog barking and come outside to investigate, so I suppose I should count myself lucky I don’t get caught in fully fledged ex-wife stalker mode. The trouble is, I don’t feel lucky in the slightest and I’m worried I may be losing my mind.
I can’t imagine what got into me, telling the taxi driver to take me to Dan’s on my way home from the club, but seeing my husband enjoying himself with his new housemates when my evening’s been so shitty, certainly doesn’t make me feel any better – and nor does having to fend off a stupid sausage dog with chilly blue