What If?. Shari Low
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I was suddenly wary. That was too easy. What was I doing? I was in the middle of a strange city, no one knew where I was, and I was about to go into the depths of some club that may or may not be entirely shady. If I had any sense, I would run. Flee the scene. Bolt to safety. But, of course, I had none, so I made my way upstairs and knocked tentatively on the first door I saw.
‘Come in,’ answered another American voice.
I entered, trepidation echoing in every step. This guy could be a mass murderer for all I knew. He could be a pimp, a drug dealer or Holland’s biggest trader in white slavery.
Sitting behind a large black glass desk, the man looked up and I could see the hint of a smile in his expression. He was about thirty-fiveish, broad chested, with hair that was thinning on top, wearing what could only be a designer suit. He was handsome in a rugged kind of way and I instinctively trusted him. Hopelessly naive, eternally optimistic. There was a pattern forming there already.
‘I’m Joe Cain.’ His eyes crinkled up at the sides as his smile widened a little. ‘And I may be losing my memory, but I don’t remember asking you to come here.’
‘I’m sorry I lied, but I just wanted to talk to you. I need a job.’
And then, to my eternal embarrassment, I burst into tears. The full waterworks. There were fluids flowing from every facial orifice.
‘I’m sorry,’ I gurgled, ‘I’m not normally like this, but I’ve had a really bad day.’
He jumped up, obviously terrified of this apparition in front of him, a cross between a burst pipe and a Cabbage Patch doll. I’m so not attractive when I cry.
He came round to my side of the desk and handed me a tissue. ‘Why don’t you tell me why you’re here. What did you run away from? Are you in trouble?’
‘I didn’t run away,’ I snottered.
I told him the whole story. It sounded so trite, so pathetic. The gist of it was that my parents are a nightmare, I didn’t want to stay at home, I was stupid enough to think I could come here and have an epic adventure and I was a complete tit for doing it with no money and no back up plan.
‘So I came here and now I really, really need a job. I worked in a restaurant for years and I’m a really good waitress. I just need a chance.’ Ok, so calling the bistro full of snotty snobs a ‘restaurant’ was a stretch, but he had no way of knowing that.
When I’d finished, he looked at me earnestly. ‘What age are you?’
‘Eighteen,’ I replied.
‘Do you have permits to work here?’
‘No.’
‘Do you do drugs?’
‘God, no. The strongest drug I use is paracetamol.’
He laughed. ‘This is a very upmarket club. No drugs, no sex, no gambling. There’s live entertainment and dancing every night and it’s strictly respectable. It’s one of the few places in Amsterdam where professionals can relax and entertain clients or bring their wives without masses of tourists or all the sleazy stuff. Do you think you could handle that kind of clientele?’
It was a valid question – I was sitting there looking like a groupie for the Grateful Dead. I thought back to the unbearably arrogant women from the café. I hadn’t murdered any of them, so clearly I was cut out for this environment. And as an extra bonus, this was a classy venue so my previous fears of resorting to go-go dancing were fading fast.
‘Of course I can.’
‘Well, I tell you what. Something says to me that you’re not trouble. Three of our waitresses haven’t shown up tonight. If you can start right now, I’ll give you a trial. I’ll pay you cash, that way the permits won’t be a problem.’
I wanted to hug him, but I tried to show a modicum of restraint. I’d already had one emotional breakdown in front of the poor guy, so I didn’t want to completely terrify him by invading his personal space and going for a full blown cuddle.
‘Go downstairs and ask for Jackie – she’ll find you a uniform.’
Please God, don’t let the uniform be a rabbit’s tail and a pair of ears.
‘Thank you,’ I stammered. ‘I’ll work really hard.’
And I did. For six months, I worked six nights a week in the club – no rabbit’s tail, no ears, and the place was as classy as Joe had promised. I made friends easily with the other girls and would often arrange to meet them before work for coffee. We’d sit in a little café on the edge of a canal and drink coffee and people watch all afternoon. Transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, drag kings, dominatrix, gay couples, straight couples – it seemed like every section of society was represented on the streets of Amsterdam, without judgement or prejudice. It was a world away from my working class, close knit upbringing and I adored it. The only downside was that I missed Kate, Sarah, Jess and Carol desperately and wished I could share this with them, but as a first year apprentice in a hair salon, struggling students, and a fledgling model, none of them had the money to come over, even for a weekend. I had to settle for quick notes dashed off on postcards, letting them know I was still alive.
In some ways, I’d transitioned to a new life, a new world, and most of the time it felt like my previous life didn’t exist. There was a lot of that in this city. Maybe that’s why I continued to live in the Dam Central Hotel, even though the girls from the club thought I was insane, because in a funny way I’d grown to love it. The owner was an eccentric Frenchman called René, who, after he had established that I wasn’t a drug dealing hooker, became almost fatherly in his affection for me. Or at least, what I thought fatherly affection would be like if it wasn’t drowning in bourbon. He would wait up for me in the evenings and bring me coffee each morning whilst I regaled him with stories about the previous night’s customers. The businessmen who dropped more money than I earned in a month on their bar bills. The models who looked like they could do with a pie. The fashionistas, the glitterati, the celebrities, the bizarre characters in their outlandish costumes. The pimps and dealers that made the mistake of trying to do business and were rapidly ejected by the security guys.
As for Joe, he always made time to have a quick chat in the evenings and he’d often join us for a dawn breakfast at the end of a shift, or for coffee in the afternoons. Watching him work had been an education. He ran the club like clockwork, with a fine balance of toughness and decency, and despite our age difference, we always seemed to have loads to talk about. He made me feel safe, protected, but it was more than that. We were friends. Not close enough that I could give him my opinion of the stunning women he occasionally dated – all gorgeous, glamorous socialites on the Amsterdam scene, and all of them brief flings that he never seemed to take too seriously – but close enough that we would watch an afternoon movie at the cinema and spend hours debating the merits of Miami Vice versus Hill Street Blues.
I was settled. I was happy. Until the universe decided to toss a grenade in my direction.
On a chilly afternoon in March, I was sitting in the coffee bar on the ground floor of the hotel, watching the world go by through the large window that faced on to the street, when suddenly my mother passed before my eyes. I closed them quickly, thinking that someone must have slipped a hallucinogen into my croissant, but when I reopened them, she was still there. And so was my dad. And my gran. My GRAN, for God’s sake! She’d never been further than Skegness in her life. This might only be a sea away from Scotland but I lived on the cusp of a different world and not one that my granny should ever have to see.
My heart started racing and I didn’t know whether to make a dash for the back door or hide under a table. I opted for the nearest table. Shit, shit, shit. Maybe they would pass by. Maybe they were just on a weekend break and it was just coincidence that they were here. Or maybe Callum had told them where I was and they’d come to drag me back, kicking and screaming. I’d written to them when I got a job and told them I was living in Amsterdam, but I hadn’t said where exactly, just that I was safe and well, and having