Jenny Colgan 3-Book Collection: Amanda’s Wedding, Do You Remember the First Time?, Looking For Andrew McCarthy. Jenny Colgan
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It suddenly occurred to me that she may not, in fact, be in there alone. I tried to remember what had happened to Johnny McLachlan when he’d returned to the bar. Shit! He must have left and come back here! Argh! I hoped he hadn’t heard me call him a twerp. And she didn’t even know he was married! Or – yikes! – we hadn’t found out what had happened to Charlie. Maybe she’d gone back on her shag-to-death routine for once. Wow, she’d be annoyed. Oh no, the married man or the prick! Too many cocktails.
I leaned into the door.
‘Erm … d’you want me to go away and come back later …?’
It was too late: Fran had already swung the door open. She stood there, looking exhausted, with a man’s shirt on and a towel round her waist. I grimaced.
‘I can go away, you know. It’s no problem.’
‘Hello, Mel,’ she said wearily. ‘No, I suppose it’s OK.’
She drew back her arm from the door, and I entered the fuggy, darkened room – to see, of all people, Angus, looking extremely sheepish indeed, checking the zip on his flies was done up properly.
‘!’ I expostulated.
We stared at each other. He flushed beetroot, and I tried to recover myself.
‘Hi!’ I said brightly, shooting a fierce look at Fran.
‘Hullo,’ said Angus, looking at the floor. He pretended to look at his watch. ‘Ehmmm … I’d better go … I told Fraser I was going to … ehm, help him pick a cravat.’
I nodded slowly. We all stood stock-still, until Fran realized it was her cue to take his shirt off. He practically grabbed it, and buttoned it up at lightning speed.
Fran, refusing to look embarrassed, stood poised in her bra. For a moment, I thought she was going to shake him by the hand and thank him very much for coming, as it were.
Angus left, stuttering. I left it a full half-second and turned round.
‘WHAT the FUCK was that?!!!??’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Melanie, no need to get so overexcited.’
‘Overexcited?? Me?? I’m not the one who managed to shag two people in an eight-hour period.’
‘Neither am I, darling. Shall I put the kettle on?’
‘Huh? What on earth is up with you?’
Fran walked around the small room pulling up blinds and opening windows, before putting the coffee maker on. I was standing in the middle of the room, wringing my hands in frustration.
‘Tell me!’ I begged her. ‘I thought it was my job to get drunk and misbehave!’
Fran looked dreamily out of the window until I wanted to kill her. She’d always been fairly mercenary in her dealings with the opposite sex, but this was just too bizarre – first Charlie, then Johnny and now Angus, of all people. My new friend Angus, who, I had to admit to myself, I thought had rather liked me, (1), and (2) I had thought was rather noble.
Finally the coffee was ready and she sat down beside me in her ‘Frankie Says Relax’ T-shirt, which still fitted her.
‘Please, Fran,’ I said, trying to sound calm, ‘just tell me what’s going on. Are you on a special mission from space to sleep with everyone we know?’
She patted me gently on the hand. ‘It’s not what you think.’
‘What, there are animals involved as well?’
‘No.’
‘What then?’
‘Well, you know I was being a lioness?’
‘Oh yes. So in fact there are animals …’
‘Johnny wasn’t quite up to being a lion.’
‘I’m not surprised. You practically ripped his head off.’
‘That is not true.’ She shot me a sharp look. ‘We’d gone outside …’
‘Yeah, to get arrested.’
‘… for a breath of fresh air …’
I snorted.
‘… and before we’d gone two yards, he burst into tears.’
‘Honestly, Frannie, that does not surprise me.’
‘Mel, does anyone ever tell you that you talk too fucking much?’
‘Ehm, yes, actually. Quite a lot. Funny, Alex was saying just the other day that I always talk more when … I’m –’ I saw her thunderstruck face – ‘nervous,’ I finished.
Fran harrumphed. ‘Anyway. He burst into tears and said he hated his wife and his life and his job and I was the nicest thing that had ever happened to him and how depressing everything was and this was the only party he’d been to for eight years and how I had no idea what it was like teaching geography day in day out to a bunch of illiterate animals.’
She paused, waiting for me to comment, but I wasn’t saying anything.
‘We ended up in the bar downstairs, with me having the most boring, sober three hours ever, listening to someone else’s ghastly life.’
‘Why didn’t you escape, and come and find me? I was having a great time.’
‘Every time I made the slightest move, he started weeping into his pint again and saying I was the best friend he’d ever had.’
‘Oh no.’
‘Honestly, Mel,’ she looked at me haggardly, ‘have you any idea how much I know about the amount of paperwork involved in the National Curriculum?’
‘Well, it’ll come in handy if you ever play Miss Jean Brodie,’ I said encouragingly.
‘So, finally, I decided I was going to have to leave before I started plunging a fork into my thigh. And then he tried to get off with me!’
‘Well, you can understand it from his point of view.’
‘Cheeky bastard! If he’s going to be a pale and interesting stranger, that’s fine. If he’s going to bore the tits off me for three hours about his wife, then he can go piss up a rope, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You are possibly the kindest person I’ve ever known.’
She sighed. ‘I know. So, I sent him off with a flea in his ear.’
‘Did you hit him?’
‘Not that hard. Whining little toad! Then I sat and had a drink or two. And then I came back upstairs again, looking for you.’
‘I stayed to the end, so I must have just gone.’
‘You had – I saw you from the window, dragging Alex up the road.’
‘And you didn’t come and help?’
‘It was freezing out there.’
‘Yes, it was, thanks.’
‘And there was almost no one left in the bar except for Angus, who was propping himself up with some double whiskies.’
‘I know, I saw him before I left.’
‘He looked pretty miserable, so I started talking to him.’
‘Did he mention me at all?’
‘Ehm, no, not at all.’
‘Oh. OK.’
‘Why?’
‘No reason.’
‘Huh.’ She gave me another sharp look. ‘Anyway, he was pretty drunk, so I let him stay here. And that’s the end of it.’