‘That’s not true!’ Josie defended herself. ‘I love a good romance. But what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t warn the boy…’
‘I’m past forty…’ Cammy said, yet again, aware that when they were locked in debate, neither woman would hear him.
‘… that he’s about to marry the Glasgow equivalent of the Bride of Chucky.’
Even Val could no longer maintain the argument and hooted with laughter at that one.
‘Bet you wish you’d just kept driving that day, ma love,’ Josie told him, softening the blow with a grin of affection as she said it. Cammy couldn’t remember the exact date, but he knew exactly what day she was referring to.
3 p.m. Glasgow City Centre. Many years before…
Two more drops on his run, then he was done.
Stopped at the traffic lights, he looked at the list on the clipboard next to him. La Femme, L’Homme. He’d delivered stuff there last week too. A new underwear shop that was opening in the Merchant City. Lovely girl, Mel, owned it… She sometimes made him a coffee while he waited for her to check the contents of the box he’d delivered. Forty pairs of Boss boxers, thirty Armani briefs, and a selection of bras that he was fairly sure had something to do with Kylie Minogue. Or perhaps he was making that last detail up in his head.
Anyway, it had been one bright spot in a day doing a job that only served the purpose of paying the bills while he figured out what he really wanted to do.
The traffic lights changed to green and he put his foot down and headed up Ingram Street. He needed to get finished early today if he was going to make it to the gym, before his usual crowd hit a new bar that was opening on Buchanan Street.
As he put the hazards on outside the shop, he noticed the sign, ‘Opening tonight’, in the window. They were cutting it fine. When he was in last week he’d have said they were nowhere near ready. Going by the crowd of workies he could see inside, they still weren’t even close. He offloaded the box from the back of the van, ran up the steps, opened the door and…
‘Yer a no-good wanker!’
The shout made his head swivel to the side, and the combination of shock, disorientation and the large box he was carrying conspired to distract him so much that he didn’t notice the half-built bra rack on the floor, tripped, flew forward, and ended up in a seriously convoluted position involving a metal frame, a dozen G-strings, a pile of double Ds, and a naked mannequin.
And the owner, Mel, looking down at him, panic-stricken.
Their eyes locked, and he decided that, pain aside, the fall had been worth it.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,’ Mel apologised, before turning to the source of the shout that had started it all.
‘For God’s sake, Josie, you’re going to kill someone.’
‘Was she shouting at me?’ Cammy asked, confused, injured, dazed.
‘No! She was shouting at that vacuum cleaner. It just cut out on her.’
‘No good piece of crap,’ Josie added, giving it a kick with a Doc Marten.
It was the first time Cammy had laughed all day. The sight of a woman who looked like she was in maybe her late fifties, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, in a profanity-laden, full-body combat dispute with a vacuum cleaner took his mind off the pain he was feeling from the knees down.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ Mel said again. ‘I don’t blame you if you sue. I’ll take it out of Josie’s wages until the end of time.’
He’d climbed on to a nearby chair and waited until the pain in his legs had dropped from ‘definite fracture’ to ‘perhaps just a strain’ and had more amusement in that half hour than he’d done in weeks. Mel. Josie. Their band of friends and family. The banter and bickering between them all had been hilarious. Before he’d stopped to question his motives, he’d told them they were the last call of the day (they weren’t), pitched in to help (with a slight limp) and informed Mel that he had retail experience (he didn’t). Whether it was out of sympathy, gratitude, or the fervent hope that he didn’t know a good lawyer, she’d offered him a job then and there. And that was it. What started as a temporary post in the blokes’ section, led to a couple of promotions, until he claimedhis self-penned accolade, Manager of Sack and Crack Support Services.
Mel and Josie had become his family from that day onwards. His hand-picked, wonderfully dysfunctional, endlessly dramatic family. Josie was the spiky-haired, chain-smoking, gloriously inappropriate aunt he’d never had. And Mel… Mel was his boss, his best-friend, his…
‘Are you okay?’ Val asked him, cutting into his thoughts. ‘Only you look like…’
‘…you’re having second thoughts?’ Josie asked, hopefully.
‘Nope, just revisiting the past for a moment. The early days, you, Mel, and me in the shop. They were great times, Josie.’
‘They were, right up until you hotfooted it off to LA and deserted us,’ she agreed, her tone mellowing, showing the soft side that she generally kept disguised under a veneer of sarcasm and brutal honesty.
‘How’s Mel doing?’ he asked, confident that he’d made the question sound nonchalant and casual.
Josie’s response said otherwise. ‘She’s doing great.’ That was all. No elaboration. No details. Just, perhaps, a tiny hint of sorrow. Or maybe it was sympathy.
