‘Madame who?’ The lady Womble! What a dope! I should have known.
A minor positive is that the hotel bar is still open at this late hour. We found the clamped-headband receptionist manning it, and she uttered the magical words, ‘Yes, no problem. What would you like?’ I could have torn that Love Heart off the wall of our room for her. The one that says I LOVE YOU.
The cocktails are fierce, and this is a good thing. No pissing around with weak alcohol when your so-called boyfriend has been receiving photos of an intimate nature from an unknown woman and is likely to be shagging her at this very minute. I wonder if he’s Missionary Man with her too, and if she can orgasm that way? If she can name all the members of the Brat Pack, with extra points for Ally Sheedy? Bet she can’t.
‘What a time to come off antidepressants,’ I remark, and Shane smiles grimly. We are on our second round now, and he is sticking to the lurid cocktails, in solidarity. ‘You’re absolutely sure that message wasn’t meant for you?’ he ventures.
‘Definitely not. I haven’t sent him any photos, although he’s been asking for them…’ I catch Shane’s surprised look. ‘Of my feet,’ I add weakly.
‘Er… right!’ He sips his caramel negroni.
‘It’s a thing he wants us to do,’ I start, any lingering scraps of embarrassment having long been dissolved by my Dolly Mixture martini. So I spill it all out: Lloyd’s insistence that we’d ‘make a packet’, that he’d take care of the visuals and all I’d need to put into it was my time and a wide array of nail polish options.
‘Wow,’ Shane murmurs. ‘How did you feel about that?’
I shrug. ‘I’m not a prude, but it kind of weirded me out.’
‘I can imagine.’ We let this settle, and then he looks at me and asks, hesitantly, ‘So… that wooden box thing in your photo? The thing for growing peas in, was it really?—’
‘I’m sorry,’ I cut in. ‘That was a foot thing, for getting them muddied up. Apparently, the punters like that.’ I laugh dryly.
Shane reaches across the candy-striped table and touches my arm. ‘Christ, Joze.’ That’s what he used to call me: Joze. ‘I’m sorry this has happened to you,’ he adds.
‘Oh, I’m all right,’ I say dismissively. ‘It’s good to know, at least.’
‘I s’pose so. Still very hurtful though.’
I nod, conscious of the prickle of tears gathering at the back of my eyeballs, and flinch as my phone rings on the table.
It’s Lloyd. I tip the remaining pink martini down my throat and jump up from my seat. ‘Better take this,’ I announce, already marching away from our table.
‘Hey, hon!’ Lloyd says.
‘Hi, Lloyd.’
‘So, how’s life on the road? Got the band back together yet?’ He sniggers.
‘Not exactly,’ I reply as I step outside into the cool, damp night. ‘It’d be tricky, seeing as Ravi died.’
A brief pause. ‘Oh, babe, I’m sorry. Just a joke.’
I breathe out slowly, trying to steady myself. ‘I… got a message from you,’ I blurt out.
‘Did you?’ The silence hangs between us. A ginger cat, eyes glinting in the silvery glow of the street lights, peeps out from under a car.
‘Yes, I did. Obviously, it wasn’t meant for me.’
‘Shit,’ he murmurs.
‘It was a bit much, to get that,’ I continue. ‘Who did you mean to send it to?’
Lloyd exhales, as if my pesky trivial questions are irritating to him. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me!’ I cry as I stomp down the street, away from the hotel. A sliver of moon shines hazily through the fine drizzle. I think of Shane, sitting alone at our table, with his caramel cocktail – ‘liquidised Caramac!’ he joked, being of the same vintage as me. And I realise just how much I want to be back there with him, in the bar’s cosy warmth.
‘So, what’s her name?’ I ask, as Lloyd is still not being forthcoming.
‘It’s not really relevant,’ he replies.
