Do You Want to Know a Secret? (15 page)

‘I’ll have a margarita and can I get a large bottle of still water for my very sober friend here?’ she says. This is girl-code for, ‘You’re making a show of both of us and now you need to sit quietly and drink about five gallons of water while I chat up the cutie barman.’

At least, I
think
she wants to chat him up. Barbara is sometimes so cool and detached around guys, that it can be hard to tell the difference between someone she
fancies
and someone she doesn’t. In fact, half the time I don’t think they can tell, either. Anyway, I’m not in any state to argue with her as by now the room is kinda starting to spin a bit.

‘Glass of water here and a margarita for the lady,’ says Nathaniel, not taking his eyes off Barbara, not even for a split second.

‘Ooh, still water, my, my, what
are
we celebrating?’ says a guy on the bar stool beside me, who I’ve only just noticed. It’s the voice that catches me first, deep and honeyed, very, very sexy. He’s attractive too: older, maybe early fifties, slightly greying. If he was played by a hot Hollywood actor, it would have to be . . . Richard Gere. He’s wearing a suit and drinking a large whiskey and it’s all very rat pack and cool. In fact he looks like the type who might just break out into a chorus of ‘My Way’, any minute.

I try my best to think of something witty and sharp to answer back in a flirtatious coquette manner but all I can come out with is, ‘Yeah, my brothers are always shhaying, drink as much as you like but a pint of water before you go to bed ish your only man, my friend. Reduces your hangover by approxhimantely fifty per cent. Fact.’

Oh God, I must be plastered. Did I really just say ‘my friend’ to a total stranger at a bar? I also think I may have burped a bit, but I’m actively trying to block that out.

‘I love a woman who understands the delicate intricacies of the hangover cure. Although personally I think drinking still water in a late-night club is akin to drinking the devil’s mouthwash. So where were you two beautiful ladies earlier?’

‘Meeting boys. Wisth great shuccess, I have to tell you.’

Now had Barbara not been so engrossed with flirty barman, and hadn’t unofficially clocked off as my dating monitor for the night, chances are she’d have yanked me out of there on account of my having diarrhoea of the mouth, but no such luck, so I rabbit on, drunk and unsupervised.

‘You shee . . . I haven’t dated anyone sherioushly in waay too long and my friend here is just amazhing around guys so she’s . . . sort of taking charge of my love life and we came out tonight on a bit of a mission and . . . what can I shay? Two lovely phone numbers in the can. Shanks to Barbara, in the space of a shingle night, I’ve gone from Mother Teresa to Mata Hari.’

Sober, I’d have crawled under the table and gouged out an eye rather than impart all that info, but honest to God, by now my head is actually lolling.

Anyway, handsome stranger seems to find all this hilarious.

‘Go for it, lady, you
carpe
that
diem
.’

‘Shritcly speaking, I shouldn’t really be shpeakign to you until Barbara’s vetted you. Just to make shure
you’re
not some total arsehole, aka my usual type.’

‘OK, well maybe you’d like to tell your friend Barbara that I’d like to take you out some time, if you don’t mind adding my name to your list of conquests, that is. And please add that my intentions are entirely honourable.’

3.30 a.m
.

The taxi ride of shame home. Me, Barbara and Nathaniel the barman, who’s finished one shift and about to start another one, if you get my meaning. Oh yeah, and apparently he had to physically help me out the door of the nightclub, but that’s yet another memory I’m trying to suppress. I get really giddy in the taxi and tell them all about rat-pack man who it turns out is called Tom, no, Tim, no, Tom.

Shit, I must be
plastered
. Plus I have this awful, nagging memory that when he asked me out, I demanded a pen from him and scribbled my number on the cuff of his shirt. In my defence I thought I was being very femme fatale, but more than likely came across as being anyone’s for a bag of chips.

‘Do you mean the older guy in the corner? Oh yeah, he’s a regular,’ says Nathaniel helpfully from the front seat of the car. ‘Film director, or so he says. Great man for a few drinks. Good tipper, too.’

‘I take my eye off you for two seconds,’ Barbara hisses
at
me, ‘and you blithely swap numbers with someone un-vetted. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘Yeah, but curioushly, I’m not.’

‘He was in a nightclub on his own, with no friends. Does that tell you anything?’

‘Aloof, bit of a loner, all adding to his general sehxiness quotiensh,’ I slur.

‘Suppose it turns out that he used to be a woman?’

‘All love ish a rishk, but a risk you have to take. Oh look, Barbara! That houshe looks exactly like mine! Skip outside the front door and everything.’

‘It
is
your house. Now good night, you drunken lush. Drink another litre of water now and I’ll ring you first thing in the morning. Well, first thing in the mid-afternoon.’

She helps me out of the taxi and on to the pavement and it’s only by a miracle the taxi pulls off before I start shouting, ‘Nathaniel, I hope you realishe you’re a very, very lucky man!’

4.00 a.m
.

In bed, fully dressed, pillow looking like the Turin Shroud with all the make-up that’s mashed into it, room helicoptering around me. I’m just drifting off into a lovely deep sleep/stupor when the phone beside my bed beep beeps. Three unread text messages, all from some bloke called Eddie. I grab the phone, drop it, then
have
to haul myself out of bed to pick it up, all the while thinking, ‘Eddie? Who’s Eddie?’

First message was sent at midnight.

HEY VICKY, REALLY ENJOYED MEETING U TONIGHT. WILL CALL YOU TOMORROW. EDDIE X

Oh yeah,
now
I remember. Cutie Scottish guy, cardigan man, looked a bit like Philip Seymour Hoffmann, which as we all know is a polite way of saying chubby but attractive.

Anyway, there’s a second message from him that came through at about 12.30.

MAYBE DINNER, THIS SAT? EDDIE X

And another one, that came through about 1am.

ARE YOU HOME YET VICKY? WILL I CALL YOU NOW? EDDIE X

God bless Barbara is all I can think as I stumble back into bed. Three fellas in one night? I mean, never mind the law of attraction, by the law of averages, unless I seriously bugger things up, one of them has to turn into a boyfriend.

Doesn’t he?

Chapter Ten

Memories from last night that aren’t just a nauseous blur.

OH DEAR GOD
, very, very few. I’m lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, still trying to piece the night together, when slowly I become aware of a thud-thudding noise all around the room. It flashes through my mind that maybe this is some new type of tortuous tequila-based hangover that I haven’t experienced before, but then I realize it’s actually Gerry, aka Useless Builder, who must have let himself in, and is now attacking some part of what WILL be my showroom-condition home with what sounds like a large lump hammer.

Or could it just be my head pounding?

No, definite lump-hammer action going on. Which has now stopped. Which means he’s clocked off for one of his hour-long breakfast-roll breaks. (I wish I was kidding.)

Oh, shit and double shit. Which means that I’m late for work.

I pick up my phone and glance at the time on it.

Half nine.
Really
late. Bugger.

The only good thing is that I’ve no presentations today and, better still, I’m not expecting any clients to call into the office, which means I can skulk behind my desktop, quietly work away and not interact with or breathe stale alcohol fumes on or near any other human beings. Apart from Paris and Nicole, who with a bit of luck I can bag/cajole into keeping me in grande cappuccinos and lovely carb-heavy, hangover-friendly bagels or some such for the rest of the day. I’ve done it for the pair of them often enough, and now . . . it’s payback time.

I’m just padding barefoot across the freezing concrete bedroom floor into what WILL one day be my stunning en suite bathroom when Gerry shouts up the stairs at me.

‘Eh, Vicky, love, you weren’t thinking of doing anything drastic up there now, were you?’

I open the bedroom door and try to shout back but it only comes out as a hoarse croak.

‘Like what, for instance?’

‘Like flush the loo. Or, God forbid, have a shower.’

‘Oh, Gerry, are you really telling me I can’t use the bathroom?’

‘I had to cut the water off, love. There’s a problem with your tank in the attic. Might need a whole new one. And sure, you know yourself, it’s gonna cost you.’ All this delivered in the tone of someone who actually
loves
imparting bad news; in fact, the worse the better. The bastard is wasted in the construction industry, he should have been a medical consultant.

I groan and slam the bedroom door shut, wince at how bloody
loud
the noise is, then throw on a suit and swab my face with a baby wipe. This physically hurts so much that I can’t bring myself to go all the way and put myself through the torture of actually applying make-up, so I opt for the ‘why bother?’ option instead. Miles better idea.

I scrape my hair back, gargle with heavy-duty Listerine and off I go.

‘Looking a bit rough there, love,’ says Gerry as I stomp downstairs and into what WILL be my elegant yet homely kitchen, oh, I don’t know, probably around the same time that hell freezes over.

There he is, sitting on the furniture I borrowed from Mum and forgot to give back, work abandoned, feet resting on a bag of grouting, fag in hand, reading the racing page of the
Daily Star
and eating a breakfast roll. You should just see him, there are Zen masters living in caves in Tibet less chilled-out and zoned. But then, why am I even surprised? After all, this is a man who
considers
three hours rolling a cigarette to be a morning well spent.

I take a deep breath, clench my teeth and remind myself, like it says in my
Law of Attraction
book, attitude is gratitude. A day that Useless Builder actually turns up for work is a good day.

‘Overdo it last night, did you then, Vicky? I’ve seen healthier-looking ghosts.’

Now I don’t know what’s making me feel worse, the cigarette smoke, the smell of bacon, or just maybe the fact that I’m still a bit jarred from last night. All I know is that I have to get out of here NOW. If I don’t, there’s a good chance I’ll a) have a fight with him, therefore have to get someone else in to finish the job, who’ll probably charge me double, and that’s if I’m lucky and I actually DO get someone. Option b) is that I throw up. And right now, I’m just not on form for either, really. Not to mention the fact that I’m stuck with a loo I can’t even flush.

‘Oh, just a quiet night out with the girls,’ I snap. ‘So, do you think I might have running water by the time I get home? Kind of difficult for me to function without it.’

I meant that to sound pissed-off and vaguely threatening, the way Laura would if she had to deal with this, but the rule of thumb with Gerry is, the more you try to assert yourself with him, the more his type B
‘lazy-arse’
personality asserts itself. In fact, times like this, I really,
really
wish I could be more like Laura, who’s capable of throwing a look so icy it could freeze an espresso.

‘I’ll do my best, love,’ he says, managing not to lift his eyes from the racing page. ‘But I can’t guarantee you.’

‘Gerry, can I just point out that you’ve now left me
without running water
. If I lived in Africa, people would be sending me money. Bob Geldof would probably have a fund up and running by now.’

‘Would you relax? I’ve a great tip for you.’

‘Oh, terrific. Is it perhaps to stand under garden sprinklers on my way to work and wash myself that way? Or maybe to invest in a few buckets, leave them out the back and pray for heavy rain?’

‘Now, now, now, don’t be taking your hangover out on me, love. Here’s me only trying to do you a favour.’

I sigh deeply. Clearly better just to hear him out and then get out of here. I’m too tired and my head’s thumping too badly for yet another fight with him.

‘Yes, Gerry, what is it?’

‘Little Dancer, in the four o’clock at Aintree. Worth fifty euro each way. The going is good and if you ask me, she can’t lose.’

I grunt goodbye, fish my car keys out from under a packet of Jaffa Cakes on the patio table and mutter
something
about how I really want to see some work done by the time I get home.

‘It’s not up to me, love, it’s up to the people at the builders’ providers. I mean, if they
happen
to have a galvanized steel tank in the exact dimensions that’ll fit your attic, with an access hatch and a ball-valve cover and all, then I’ll have it done for you when you come home. Otherwise, sure you’ll just have to wait.’

I glare at him, waiting for that catchphrase, which he always tags on to the end of every excuse, without fail: ‘I mean, I’m not a miracle worker.’

If the law of attraction was instantaneous, I fume, stomping out the door and clambering into my car, then right now I would like to attract a ten-tonne anvil to land on Gerry’s head, while I sat on the sidelines and laughed, like in a cartoon.

Laura calls me as I’m driving, instantly calming me down.

‘I am slowly coming to the end of my rapidly fraying rope with Useless Builder,’ I seethe in the direction of the hands-free cradle, where the phone’s plonked. ‘Do you think if I hired a hit man to threaten him that might have some kind of motivational effect?’

‘Ooh, you’re sounding a tad under the weather, dearest,’ she says soothingly.

‘It’s only because I’m a woman on my own, you know,’ I fume. ‘If there was a man about the house,
Gerry
wouldn’t dare treat me like this. All I can say is, I must be paying off some hideous sins in a past life to have to put up with him and all his gobshitery carry-on.’