Do You Want to Know a Secret? (34 page)

‘Laura!’

‘Summer months, what else can I do? Call social services, I’m a crap mom. So, anyway, to cut to the chase . . .’

‘The case?’

‘No. Desmond Lawlor.’

Oh.

‘Dearest, I am aware that I haven’t spoken these words to you in over fifteen years, but . . . I think I might like him. Really like him.’

‘Oh, hon, that’s wonderful.’ And I
do
mean it. Honestly.

‘He’s been calling quite regularly,’ she says, her voice dropping several notches, as if the baby will suddenly wake up and miraculously understand this conversation. ‘And I thought nothing of it. Mostly it’s been work-related, about the column and such, but then it did strike me that he did seem to be showing an excessive amount of interest in it. Then earlier, he rang and asked me to . . . now, promise you won’t laugh?’

‘I promise, but as I have just dealt with a deranged stalker, the laugh would probably do me good.’

‘I’m meeting him this Saturday . . .’

‘Yes?’ To go to some Brahms concerto in the national concert hall, I’ll put money on it. Isn’t that where all . . . emm . . . suitors who are, shall we say, a bit advanced in years, would take someone like our Laura?

‘. . . to have afternoon tea with his mother.’

And I’m so shocked, not at Desmond asking her out, but at the fact that his mother is
still alive
. . . for the first time today, I can’t think of a single thing to say.

Hours later, and I decide to walk home, glad I left my car there and badly needing to clear my head. Fresh air and a bit of healthy exercise, that’s just what I need right now. This virtuous state of mind only lasts for about two blocks, and then I think, oh bugger this walking lark, I’ll ring Barbara and see if I can talk things over with her instead. Yeah, miles better idea. She’ll put the whole rotten Eager Eddie fiasco into perspective for me and who knows? Maybe even get me laughing again.

‘KA, KA, KA, MUM, MUM, MUMMMMMM, BA, BA, BA, BA, MMMM . . .’ Honest to God, is all I hear as she answers.

‘Barbara? Please tell me that you haven’t been sucked into some kind of mind-controlling cult?’

‘Hi babes, sorry. Voice exercises. Look, I know I haven’t been in touch, but it’s just all been mental here. How are things with you? On the man front, I mean?’

And so I fill her in. Everything. The works. I’ve been dying to tell her, and I don’t leave a single thing out. And then, I don’t know why, but out of nowhere I start to get a bit teary. Exhaustion, disappointment, the fright I got earlier, everything just seems to come on top of me at once. And going home, alone, to an empty house, yet again, doesn’t help matters much either.

‘Vicky, are you OK?’

‘No. Yes. I dunno, tired. Fed up . . .’

‘Look, why don’t you call over for a drink? A nice bottle of wine and you won’t give a shite about being lonely. Trust me.’

I waver for a bit, then decide, yeah, that’s just what I need right now. Not to be alone is a very good idea.

‘Well, do you mind? I know you’ve your big dress rehearsal coming up and I don’t want to disturb you if you’re . . . emm . . . doing voice stuff, or anything.’

‘Not at all. Get your gorgeous ass around here right now. I was just saying to Angie, we need to take a breather, too. Hang on, ANGIE? WILL YOU NIP DOWN THE OFF-LICENCE FOR SOME VINO?’

Oh bugger. In the whole of my health, I’m still not able for Evil Angie, but the way I’m feeling tonight, there’s a good chance I might just knife her if she starts her ‘so what have you done for my career lately’ crap on me.

‘Ehh . . . actually, Barbara, on second thoughts, I think I might just call it a night.’

‘Oh. Are you sure?’

‘Sure. You and Angie enjoy your wine and I’ll chat to you tomorrow.’

‘Well, if you’re sure,’ she says, a bit worriedly. ‘Call you after rehearsals tomorrow, OK?’

‘OK,’ I sigh, wearily clicking off the phone and
walking
on, past the summer evening revellers, sitting at pavement cafés, all enjoying the long, balmy evening.

Couples everywhere, that’s all I seem to see. Hand in hand, laughing, enjoying life. Like you’re supposed to.

And I get to thinking . . . there’s Laura, moving on with life, back in court with a man asking her out. I mean, OK, he might not necessarily be my type, but she seems to like him and that’s all that matters. Then there’s Barbara, slaving away, on the verge of what I really believe will be the big break she truly deserves. And then there’s me. On my way home to face yet another long, lonely night. And it’s not like I haven’t tried, put my heart on the line, really made an effort. God knows I’ve done the groundwork, and where has it got me? Being threatened by a lunatic obsessive in my own office who then has the gall to tell me that
I
need professional help, that’s where.

Maybe there’s just something I need to face up to.

A little amendment that needs to be made to the law of attraction book.

Yes, anyone can get anything they want through sheer force of will, is what it
should
say . . . except for love. Because how do you make someone love you?

I mean, a
penthouse
for f**k’s sake.

Chapter Twenty-Two

BELIEVE ME, IT
wasn’t my intention to guilt-trip Barbara when I got a bit teary on the phone that time, honestly, but I think it must have had that effect on her because right after work, the next Thursday, she calls me and tells me we’re going out. No arguments, no discussion, we’re just doing it.

‘But what about your big dress rehearsal this weekend? Don’t you want to stay home and, I dunno, run lines and make those weird howling noises all the time?’

‘I promised you a Thursday night on the trawl and I’m not taking no for an answer. You’ve worked so hard on this show for me that it’s the very least I can do. As your project manager, I’m officially telling you it’s time to put past disappointments behind you and move on. Like I always say, if you want to get over someone . . . get under someone. Over and under. Simple as that.’

Which is how I find myself in Major Tom’s bar and
lounge
, sipping a glass of white wine that frankly could double up as acid for a car battery. Not that I’m ungrateful to Barbara for taking time out to hook me up (she sez hopefully), but, for about the tenth time tonight, I find myself asking her, ‘Why
here
?’

I have to shout, mind you, because there’s a match on and wouldn’t you know it, the only seats we could get are right under the giant plasma TV screen.

‘Look around you, dopey,’ she says, drinking beer from the bottle and looking effortlessly sexy, even though she’s come straight from work and is in leggings and a baggy sweatshirt. I, on the other hand, am in the good Karen Millen work suit and might almost pass for her financial adviser. And I don’t mean that in a good way, I mean it in an older, prissy, spinsterish-looking way. Oh Christ, all I need is Dame Edna glasses and a blue rinse to complete the effect.

‘It’s a well-known sports bar, therefore, for our purposes, a target-rich environment. If this place was a TV show, it would be . . . you know, something presented by Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.’

‘Don’t get it.’

‘A guy magnet. Trust me, within another round, someone will have chatted you up.’

She’s right, someone does, but it’s a woman called Dixie (no, really, that
is
her name), who’s wearing flat shoes and no make-up or bra. She’s chatting away, only
pausing
to holler and thump on the table whenever her team scores, almost sending our drinks flying. Not even Barbara is being approached, which is highly unusual, but then just about every pair of male eyes here is glued to the match. I’m presuming things will pick up once it’s over, but Barbara doesn’t give my theory much of a chance.

‘Come on, Vicky, drink up, you’ve that
big meeting
tomorrow morning, remember?’ she eventually says, invoking our pre-agreed dating code-phrase that means we’re outta here.

I don’t put up any arguments till we’re outside, then, as we’re hailing down a cab I say, ‘I don’t get it. Shouldn’t we have done another half-hour in there? Whatever match was on couldn’t have lasted much longer, and there were some serious cuties gathered around that big screen. Without wedding rings. I checked. You know me, I’ve X-ray vision for that type of thing.’

‘Honey, the only person hitting on you in there was a dyke. And you’re too naïve to have even spotted it. So now, they probably think we’re a pair of beards who only go to sports bars so we can hang out with butch-looking women. Right. Next stop, the Bailey.’

On and on we go, bar after bar, and honestly, by closing time I have absolutely no good news to report. Nada, not a single thing. Or should I rephrase,
I’ve
no
good
news to report, Barbara, naturally, was hit on right, left and centre, so nothing unusual there. As she and I were deep in conversation, though, her standard response to any poor unfortunate who dared interrupt her was, after a cursory glance of assessment: ‘We are TRYING to have a private conversation here, do you mind?’

‘Barbara, do you think maybe we’re losing sight of our end goal here? Maybe? Just a bit?’ I tentatively asked, when we’d moved on to our
fourth
bar and still no joy.

‘I’m saving you from arseholes. I mean, did you see the state of that last one? Looks like his mother picked out that suit for him. Fifteen years ago when he was making his confirmation.’

On the plus side, though, I haven’t seen her in so long that we do get an awful lot of catching-up done. Rehearsals, it seems are going brilliantly, and everyone is blown away by Serena’s boundless energy and amazing ideas for the production, which is kind of music to my ears. Plus it’s beyond fab to hear Barbara, the same girl who most likely knocked about two years off her life-expectancy through sheer nerves and blind terror when she first met the mighty Ms Stroheim, now chat away about her like they’re bestest pals. You should hear her: it’s all Serena this, Serena that. The big dress rehearsal is coming up in the Iveagh Gardens, so they’re all getting psyched up for that.

The only other major update she has is that Evil Angie has split up from her make-up artist boyfriend and is now dating Oberon, King of the Fairies.

‘What?’ I splutter when she divulges this particular nugget of info.

‘That’s his character in the show. And he’s straight, you eejit. Anyway, he’s been hanging around our flat twenty-four seven and the only thing is . . .’

He fancies Barbara, I think, secretly delighted to see her getting one up on Evil Angie. Finally.

‘. . . I’m not 100 per cent, Vicky, but I’m pretty sure he has an eye in my direction and . . . well, he’s fun, he’s a cutie, hot bod, me like. But he’s dating my friend, so that’s the end of that, really. Come on, drink up, no joy here either. We’ll go to Krystal.’

‘Just a thought,’ I say, as we gather up our stuff to go. ‘OK, so this guy is seeing Ev . . . sorry, Angie at the moment. But who’s to say what’ll happen in the future? My point is, yes it’s very noble of you to automatically reject a guy because he’s dating a friend, but what you have to ask yourself is this. Would she do the same for you?’

‘Course she would,’ Barbara snaps, a bit too quickly, though.

Midnight
.

We’re both sober, amazingly in my case as I’m normally
rubbish
with drink and my hit-rate is an embarrassing total of . . . one. And she was female. Plus, at this stage, I’m almost nauseous with tiredness and am practically fantasizing about getting home to bed. Alone, that is, to sleep. Oh, just listen to me, I’m officially sounding like a granny. I’ll be saying novenas and making gooseberry jam next.

‘I just don’t get it,’ Barbara is saying as we hop out of a cab outside Krystal nightclub, her favourite late-night haunt. ‘Where are they all tonight, anyway? It’s like the
Village of the Damned
.’ Not that matters are vastly improved when she does haul me up to the members’ bar upstairs. Slim pickings, we silently nod at each other, dragging ourselves up on two bar stools.

‘Oh, here comes my f**k buddy,’ she hisses at me, as Nathaniel the barman, her on-again, off-again love interest, zooms over to ask her what she’s having. She orders a margarita; I completely lose the run of myself and go for a fizzy water, although if the truth be told, what I’d actually,
really
love is a cuppa tea, a Hobnob, home, and bed.

In that order.

Anyway, Barbara and Nathaniel are soon deep in conversation, and I’m just on the point of reaching for my handbag and slinking off home when a slightly familiar-looking guy slides up on to the bar stool beside me. Older, maybe fifties, soulful expression . . . or maybe
then
again, that’s just me romanticizing him. Wouldn’t be the first time, either.

‘Hey, pretty lady, don’t tell me you’re leaving?’ he says, in a gravelly, cigars and cognac voice.

Oh shite, this is driving me mental, I
know
I’ve met him before . . .

‘At the risk of jogging a lady’s memory, in answer to your bewildered expression, yes, we have met before. And no, I can’t remember your name either, my dear. Although I have a vivid recollection of your scribbling your phone number in biro on my cuff.’

Oh for f**k’s sake.
Now
I remember. The last time I was here with Barbara, I was so trolleyed drunk that what he’s saying is seriously beginning to ring a bell. Did I really write my phone number on his shirt cuff? Christ alive, I must have been plastered . . .

‘So should we re-introduce ourselves? I’m Tom, by the way. Pleasure to become, emm, re-acquainted with you. I don’t actually recall how long it is since we last met, but then time is irrelevant here in the seventh circle of hell.’

‘Vicky,’ I smile, shaking his hand and trying to weigh up whether I fancy him or not. No wedding ring, which is a good start. And it’s a bonus to find out his actual, correct name: I have this vague idea that the last time we met, I kept drunkenly calling him Tom, no Tim, no Tom.

‘May I get you a proper drink? I assume that glass of water in front of you is some sort of joke.’