She palms the sides of her boobs, pushing them together like they need the attention, which they don’t. They—or she?—gets plenty anyway from a group of guys standing nearby, clearly enjoying the free show.
‘Don’t look now, there’s one breaking free from the herd,’ Ivy mutters, unimpressed.
Nat sniggers as a guy—skinny jeans and fuzzy of face—makes a beeline for our table. We’re down in the bar area now; leather sofas with a low table in front, masculine and rustic bookcases full of faux books.Or maybe notas I pull an aged copy of Canterbury Tales from a shelf.
‘A herd of hipsters?’ Ivy screws up her button nose, deep in thought for a second. ‘Do you think that’s the collective noun? A hashtag of hipsters? A pose, maybe?’
‘A trend of hipsters?’ I add.
‘Maybe,’ Ivy returns. ‘Or maybe they’d be a smug!’
‘I’ve got it,’ yells Nat, holding out her hands in demand for our silence. ‘A knob of hipsters.’
The be-bearded member of the knob-ite tribe steps barely falter. He definitely has more balls than bulk as he continues on to our table.
‘I think I’m gon’nae have to call the landscape people.’ His voice booms, almost as though the volume will make up for his lack of height, the contents of his pint glass spilling a little as he points a finger at us, collectively. ‘Because there’s a site of outstanding natural beauty right here! Ladies...’ he says, using his hand now as though painting a headline in the air. ‘You need to be put on the map!’
It’s such a horrendous pick-up line, I snigger into my glass.
My mother, bless her deluded heart, maintains that Scottish men have what she likes to callthe patter. “Smooth tongued devils, they are.”
Strange, but I don’t feel like whipping off my panties right now.
‘Is it ‘cos we’re all hills and valleys?’ asks a coquettish Nat. I think she might’ve heard this line before.
‘Oh, aye. And some,’ he answers, his eyes roaming over each of us before landing inevitably on Natasha’s chest.
‘Then consider me the custodian of this lovely landscape,’ she continues. ‘And the cover charge for looking is a round of drinks.’
Hairy hipster looks like he’s about to choke on the pint he’s brought along for the ride, opting to laugh. Eventually. It’s a sort ofshite, she’s done this beforekind of noise. And I think he’d be right.
‘What’s your poison, ladies?’
‘A round of old fashioneds, please.’ Nat’s reply is sugar sweet. ‘What?’ she asks, looking both left and right at our matching stunned expressions. ‘That’ll knock the smooth right out of him. He’ll not get much change out of thirty quid. Make hay while the sun shines, my girlies!’
A few minutes later Nat’s admirer is back, his pint now sitting on a tray. As he hands Nat her drink, she holds it like a game show model might.
‘See this drink?’ she asks sweetly. ‘It hasn’t got a nip of Rohypnol in, has it?’
‘Why, no!’ he exclaims.
She responds by reaching up and running her hand down his bearded chin. ‘You can’nae be too careful these days, aye?’ She then sends him a cheeky wink
Chairs are dragged nearer and our two groups eventually merge into one. Nat and Ivy are on form, dishing out one liners like professionals and it isn’t too long before Ivy the lightweight is on the way to inebriation critical mass.
‘Come on then, hipster Harry,’ she says, with more than a slight slur to her words. ‘Tell us the meaning of your tatts.’ The guy sitting next to her has a beard like one of the Hawkmen from Flash Gordon. And an expression just as dour.
‘My name’s Stephen,’ he replies.
‘With a p-h?’ asks Nat, trying not to snigger. Difficult when we both know what’s coming next.
‘Pheven! Pheven!’ comes Ivy’s giggling chant.
Hawk-boy merely picks up his pint without even cracking a smile, though to be fair it would be hard to tell what’s going on underneath all that fuzz.
I’m trying. I really am, but I feel like a cuckoo sat in a nest full of birds all chirping a tune I don’t know.Maybe the single persons mating call?I try to keep up, fit in, but it’s hard. The girls are on their way to drunk and while stone cold sober I’m not, I find my buzz just isn’t anaesthetizing enough. I’m also less than interested in getting to know any of these men.
And I feel like my sense of fun has been switched off.
