‘Name?’ a voice asks.
‘Erm, Maddison Clarke, but I might have a booking under Aiden Edwards. . . I’m not sure.’
The silence on the other end lasts far too long, sending my stomach into a tailspin. I still can’t shake the feeling this couldall be one sick joke and Aiden truly has sent me into the middle of nowhere.
‘Maddison Clarke, got it. With friends? How many?’
‘Four! Well, three. Three. . . plus me, so. . . f-four in total.’ My palms are sweaty and I can barely string a sentence together any more. We’re not even in yet– how am I supposed to cope when we’re inside? I still don’t even know what we’re facing when we get there.
‘Cool. Come in.’ Another short buzz sounds before the latch is released on the door in front of me. I push it open and turn back to beckon to the girls, watching as they creep closer. Their eyes are still fearful, as I’m sure mine are too. But we have come this far and I cannot back out of this now. . . I need to at least stay long enough to relay this back to Aiden.
We make our way down a dark hallway to the only other visible door at the end. There’s no signage, no instruction and very little light, just our guts and the muffled shuffles of our soft-soled shoes.
‘Not a sex club,’ I say.
‘Or a drug thing,’ Raina adds, as we all motion to the handle for the final door.
We turn it together, our fingers lingering on the handle, and open the door to wonderland.
I can hear a unified gasp behind me as we creep into the room, taking in the paint-splattered walls and wooden tables. Nineties R&B blares from the speakers, echoing through our chests and immediately jolting Kimi back to life.
‘OK, I see!’ she says, whipping off her jacket with glee. ‘Nowthisis a vibe I can get behind!’
Raina cheers happily as we settle down onto some stools and anxiously await our first drinks of the night. ‘Definitely not a sex club!’
That much appears to be true, yes, but I’m still lost as to what exactly this place is. It’s got all the makings of a club– DJ, stage, drinks and a healthy crowd of people. But no one seems settled. Everyone is biding their time, glancing up at the stage and getting into position.
‘What’s wrong, Mads?’ Kimi asks as she and Devi return, haphazardly balancing eight oddly shaped glasses between them and a tray of shots.
‘Happy Hour?’ I ask as they begin setting them down.
‘Nope. Just figured we may as well commit,’ Kimi answers. ‘And rightfully so– what’s up with you and that face? We’re here and we didn’t get murdered!’
‘I’m just confused.’ I take a sip of my first drink. It’s peppery, fizzy, with a hint of ginger and the kind of kick that sneaks up on you. It goes against everything in me not to ask what it is, but that’s not what carefree people do, so I suffer in silence instead.
‘You need to chill,’ Devi says. ‘There are drinks, there are vibes. Be in the moment! That’s what you’re doing this all for, right?’
And aside from the job, I suppose it is, but that doesn’t shake the fact that this doesn’t make sense. There’s no reason Aiden would send me to a random club in the middle of nowhere, simply so I could chill and ‘be in the moment’. And this place particularly feels anythingbutrandom. There’s got to be a meaning.
‘Mads, drink up!’ Kimi takes in my scrunched face. ‘We’re gonna go dance and these need to begonebefore we do.’
I take a breath, close my eyes and try to see into Aiden’s mind. . . put myself in his far-too-informal shoes. Maybe he’s here, maybe he wants to catch me out– pop out of the shadows with an ‘I told you so’ as I sit on my stool overthinking. Maybe he doesn’t even believe I’ll make it tonight. . . put my name on the guestlist just so he can check tomorrow that I didn’t sign in.He’s always been a fierce competitor and I should have kept that in mind from the moment he handed over the address. It wasn’t a favour or help, it was part of a greater scheme. A scheme I must outsmart, even if I don’t know what it is.
I lift a shot to my lips, letting the sharp smell waft up my nose before I gulp it down for all that it’s worth. The girls look back at me, startled. I see both shock and pride on their faces before they look to each other with agreement, pick up their shots and quickly do the same.
Little by little, everything fits into place– from the drinks to the crowd to the people we meet as we own the dance floor. It’s a room of joy and love, and shared nostalgia, wrapped in a vibrant and sparkly bow. I can feel myself move with it, breathe with it, freeing myself from my head and diving into the pool of freedom around me. If I could bottle this high I would do so in an instant, but instead I must treasure it for what it’s worth now. A night with my girls in a place we don’t know; a place that has managed to capture what happiness is.
A couple of hours in, sirens sound from the DJ booth and the crowd cheers, abruptly halting their moves to smile towards the stage. We turn with them to see a man enter to applause, clutching a microphone as he amps the crowd up further.
‘All right, all right, you all know what time it is!’ he bellows into the mic, much to the glee of the people before him. ‘The drinks are down, the crowd is here– it’s time for us all to. . .’
‘PAINT THAT MATE!’ the crowd screams around us.
The chant bounces off the walls clear and strong, with a certainty that has the four of us as lost as when we first entered.
‘Who’s feeling brave tonight and ready to win their table a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound tab and one of our beautiful T-shirts?’ he asks.
Kimi turns and shouts to us. ‘Two hundred and fifty? For what? I’ll do whatever it is for two hundred and fifty quid!’
