#and Bo isn’t phased because he’s from the streets and that kind of talk is normal)

[cultivating-wildflowers]

the face of a cat who just spent twenty minutes harassing everyone and has zero remorse for her behavior

[reekierevelator]

On the Eve of the Wedding

Finishing up at work on Friday nights was never easy.  There was always one last thing to do.  And then another last thing.  And another. It was never easy ensuring all the vans had returned from making deliveries and all next week’s orders were fully processed and ready to be loaded first thing Monday morning. And presentation was important. If the vans came back filthy a quick hose down was necessary.

Being loading bay supervisor was a reasonable job but I was hoping to make transport manager before I hit thirty.  After that I figured it might be time to settle down. But that Friday all I was thinking was at least it was the end of the week. So, at last, time for a pint at the local, the works’ crowd gathering in the Sheared Sheep, just to be sociable and wind down, reducing the week’s stresses and strains to old war stories, something to make each other laugh about.  

And Friday nights I liked a drink. Didn’t take the old jalopy in on Fridays. So later I’d generally pick up fish and chips or a pizza, or end up in an Indian restaurant with some of the gang.  If I got the early bus back to my little bachelor pad on the outskirts of town I’d maybe get something delivered. But this Friday night was different.

It was Rebecca Ralston, the red head from the marketing department. I seemed to have been bumping into her for the last few weeks. The main offices were at the opposite end of the site to the loading bay but somehow she’d felt the need to come over several times, wanting to talk to me about planning new adverts for the vans, different colour schemes, scheduling printing, application to the vehicles and so on. And this even though the current advertising contract still had almost a year to run.

Not that I minded. She was a bubbly sort of girl, an effervescent personality. Irregular teeth like pushed over tombstones but still easy on the eye. She brought a little brightness into the windowless little office in the dark cavern of the loading bay. She liked to talk with a hand on my arm or my shoulder, making sure she had my attention. And that day she hinted that after work on Fridays it wasn’t unusual for her to find her way to the Sheared Sheep. As it happened it suited her, she said, living close enough to just walk home if she happened to stay late.

Unfortunately, it was nearly eight when I finally got everything wrapped up and made that watering hole. The pub was already in that in-between phase where most of the early evening ‘couple of pints after work’ crowd had already been, drunk their quota, and gone off to catch buses and trains, while only one or two of the genuine locals had as yet made an appearance.  

But Rebecca was there, sitting on the edge of one of those leather sofas they’d refurbished the place with, the typical modern décor reflecting the changing functionality; more coffee shop or restaurant these days than the traditional beer-swillers’ second home.

The sofa was angled towards the door and as I entered she looked up at me under her curls and neatly shaped eyebrows and I could see she already had a glow on. She smiled that girlish crooked teeth smile and raised her hand in a nominal gesture of welcome. The black jacket of her office trouser suit was slung over the arm of the sofa. Her pretty powder blue blouse and black trousers looking fetching.

Two of the new young recruits to Accounts sat beside her. They noticed me as they followed Rebecca’s gaze.  She introduced them as Jerome and Melissa but as I joined them they both rose to leave, even refusing my offer of a round, insisting instead that they had other obligations and had to rush home. But they would be sure to see me around the office – sometime. People from the main office don’t mix much with the van loading fraternity.

Rebecca held out an empty glass saying she wouldn’t mind another double vodka tonic with lemon and ice, and when I returned from the bar the pub was even emptier.  Rebecca made a show of looking around all points of the compass, her short red curls bouncing, before she declared the Sheared Sheep mutton.

‘It’s really dead here, isn’t it?

I nodded and took another swallow before concluding the guest real ale, Crafty Brown Cow IPA was something less than acceptable. It seemed fermented from liquidised mince.

‘There’s another place up off the main road that’s livelier,’ Rebecca was saying, and I’d hardly had time to sit down before she’d grabbed my hand and we were on the move.  

The Hardened Artery wasn’t my usual kind of place but it was certainly busy. A three piece guitar band was playing 50s rock n roll on a tiny stage and there were even young trendy types trying to dance.  I rooted around and managed to scrounge a couple of stools and we proceeded to shout at each other, exchanging inane pleasantries over a medley of Johnny B Good and Hey Bo Diddley.

‘I like your shirt,’ she shouted, making me glance down at my red and blue striped button-down Ben Sherman.

‘I like your blouse Rebecca,’ I shouted back.

‘Call me Becky,’ she insisted.

‘Ok,’ I said, ‘call me Steve.’

 The band were roaring into Promised Land as Becky drew her stool much closer to mine saying she couldn’t hear, and I picked up floral notes from her eau de cologne as she pressed her legs up against mine. She waved her hand around ostentatiously like a fan in front of her face and undid the top buttons of her blouse as she complained about the heat. I felt myself definitely getting very warm too. I might not be quite God’s gift but I was sure I was picking up signals and the sap was rising. I wasn’t wearing a tie I could loosen but I took off my jacket and instead undid a few buttons of my shirt revealing the pecs and heading to the six pack.

Another few drinks in that sweaty room and the long working week was catching up with me. I was dreading the long cold bus journey home and found myself glancing down at Rebecca’s newly revealed cleavage with a certain amount of wishful thinking.

‘After a final couple of brandies we fell out into the cold dark street and, saying how late it was, Becky suggested, as even in my increasingly inebriated state I somehow thought she might, that I spend the night at her place and leave off travelling home until the morning.

After a twenty minute walk, or rather stagger, including various impromptu stops for clinches and kisses, her place turned out to be a bedsit in a big old converted house, part of a street of big old converted houses.  The furnishings were Spartan. A lack of chairs meant I had to sit on the bed while she retrieved a couple of bottles of beer from an otherwise suspiciously empty cupboard.  After she’d applied the bottle-opener and handed me mine she plonked herself down across my knees, draping her arm around my neck.  I only had time for one more sip of beer before her lips locked on mine and we toppled backwards on to the bed.

She was wildly enthusiastic and I wasn’t complaining, but that degree of gay abandon did engender a certain sort of ‘last time before the end of the world’ feeling. It was a long time before I was allowed to sleep.

Afterwards, in the morning, I commented that of the various women I’d known she was unusual in not living amid a clutter of clothes, shoes, accessories, and a jumble of make-up jars and bottles.

She said ‘Well, to be honest, that is usually me too, but I’ve already moved almost all of my stuff to Denis’s place.’

‘Denis?’ I queried cautiously.

‘My fiancé.  I’m moving in to his place after the wedding.’

For a moment I thought, hoped, I’d misheard. But Becky rambled on, unselfconscious and unconcerned. ‘The wedding’s at three o’clock tomorrow. Well, three o’clock today now, of course,’ she said peering at her little bedside alarm clock and giggling. ‘The dress – floor length, dazzling white and lacy - is laid out at my Mum’s, along with all the other stuff.  The cake’s a beauty – three tiers. I’ve got to get to HairWays at eleven. Full hairdo and manicure treatment. I’m going for cherry red nail-varnish to match my lipstick. The make-up will take forever. Sorry, it’s a bit late to send you an invite. But there are still one or two things no-one’s chosen yet on our gift list – I mean, only if you really wanted to…’

‘You’re… you’re… getting married - today?’ I managed to stammer.

She stretched her arm under the bed and brought forth a little box. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said, opening the little box and putting the ring on her finger. She held her arm up in the air to watch the diamond sparkle.

‘And Denis?’

‘Oh, he plays rugby, professional now. And he’s been working nights as a doorman, mainly the Jacaranda Club, - to help pay for the wedding.’

‘Ah... he sounds like a great guy.’

‘Yes, but I’m not married to him yet, am I Steve?  And you’ve got lovely blue eyes and you’re really quite firm and muscular too – it must be helping to load all those heavy boxes. You know the girls up at the office have been talking about you for a while. We like to see your hose on the forecourt. I thought, well, I might as well make use of my last legitimate opportunity. At least that’s what they all told me when we were out on my hen night last week.’

‘Oh really?’ was all I could find to say.

Maybe I looked a little disappointed or pensive because she peered into my apparently lovely blue eyes and bit her lip with her unusual teeth. ‘Oh dear, I hope I haven’t offended you.’ she said. ‘Steve, you don’t feel I’ve just been using you, do you?’ She burst into a big smile. ‘I mean, it was good fun, wasn’t it?’

‘Well, yes,’ I had to admit. ‘Really, it was great.  And no, I suppose… I mean, I was as keen as you were… It’s just…’

‘Oh, well that’s all right then, isn’t it?’  Her eyes shone brightly. ‘And it’s only nine o’clock. I won’t be Mrs Denis McGlone for another six hours. We’ve still got at least another hour before I have to be going.’

And as she fell into my arms I tried hard to clear all the frightening images of giant prop forwards and burly bouncers from my mind.