Jessica Adams - Girls’ Night In

It’s not even a loaded silence – of things left unsaid, or wounds being licked or issues being brooded over , Finty realized, it’s the result of there being very little to say. Soon enough he’ll say, ‘Another drink? Shall we eat?’ and after that, sex and sleep .

‘Another drink?’ asked Brett, ‘or shall we go and eat?’

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ Finty asked him, turning her body towards him, making an effort and really wanting to know.

‘What?’ Brett replied, because he really didn’t understand the question. He frowned at Finty and winked at the waitress who sauntered over with notepad and attitude.

‘Film!’ Finty tried. ‘What’s your favourite film?’

‘Another G and T?’ Brett asked her, now perplexed to the point of irritation.

‘Never heard of that one!’ Finty said lightly, nodding at the waitress to affirm her drink.

‘I’m going to the bog,’ Brett said with fatigue, as if to suggest it was a place far preferable to Finty’s company and Top Ten questionnaire.

‘Desert Island Discs?’ she implored in vain as he rose and left.

What are mine this week? She pondered, enjoying how impossible it was to select only eight pieces of music. And then it struck her that she would really rather be on a desert island with no music at all than with Brett, even if he placed the world’s jukebox at her disposal. She glanced around the room. A couple, much her own age, sat locked in each other’s company; no limbs touching, just engrossed, obviously stimulated, undoubtedly in love. Near to them, a group of four women. A gathering, a girls’ night out – replete with the essential alternation between whispering, giggling and shrieking ‘No! Oh my God!’ Their conversation was shared naturally, their laughter and interaction unforced and obviously highly cherished. Finty didn’t want to be on a desert island; she didn’t want to be in the West End. She wanted, desperately, to be in Richmond. The waitress arrived with the replenished drinks. Finty glanced at her watch. It was gone half nine.

‘Do you think we could have some more peanuts?’ Finty asked. ‘A large bowl?’

‘No!’ PoUy laughed.

‘Oh my God!’ Sally shrieked, hiding behind her hands.

‘Oh yes indeed!’ Chloë confirmed. ‘And I’ll tell you something for free, it was weird at first – but bloody amazing before long.’

‘You old slapper!’ Polly said, clapping.

‘Sexual deviant, more like!’ Sally laughed.

‘I’m a bit pissed I think,’ said Chloë, theatrically forlorn.

‘You’d have to have been,’ Polly snorted, ‘to have done that !’

‘Better have some more vino-darling,’ Sally said, all doctor-like. ‘Here’s to you, you dirty, dirty girl!’ The three women raised their glasses and drank.

There was signal and battery on Finty’s mobile phone but again she went to the payphone in the foyer.

‘Lady! Let me guess, you’re calling for the rescue services!’ the now familiar American voice called softly to her as she was about to drop coins in the slot. Finty turned and regarded him quizzically. ‘Hey! You could have the fire brigade drench him with water, the police lock him up, or an ambulance take him away to a very special hospital.’

‘Look,’ Finty remonstrated, though it was against her better judgement, ‘he’s my boyfriend. You’re offending me.’

‘No,’ said the man, ‘I’m not offending you. Unnerving you, maybe. Offending you – no. I just had a terrible steak. I left most of it and, for some goddamn reason, a large tip too. I’m going to my room. Come use the phone from there.’

Finty didn’t think twice about following him into the elevator. But she did think of Brett. Fleetingly. And then she remembered the peanuts and the waitresses to whom he could wink, and she knew he’d be OK. For the meantime, at least.

‘I’m Finty,’ she introduced herself before disembarking the lift on the sixth floor.

‘And I’m George,’ the American said. They shook hands and he led the way to his room.

Rooms. The American had a suite.

‘Are you drunk?’ he asked.

‘No,’ Finty rued.

‘Hungry?’

‘No.’

‘Want to make that call?’

‘Please.’

‘Would you like a gin and tonic? And some room service?’

‘Yes please.’

‘Dial 9 for an outside line.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Hullo?’ Polly answers the phone. Finty can hear singing in the background. She knows it is Chloë doing her Gloria Gaynor. She can almost see Sally collapsed in a fit of giggles on the couch. She can envisage Polly sitting cross-legged on the floor with the telephone crooked under her chin while she rolls a joint.

‘It’s me again.’

‘Finty!’ Polly trills. Suddenly, the other two join her in a wonderful, if dissonant, chorus of ‘Finty McKenzie! Finty McKenzie!’ The volume is such that Finty holds the receiver away from her ear and the cacophony wafts into the room much to the delight of George.

‘Are you having a lovely time with Brat?’ Polly asks while Chloë in the background hisses, ‘Brett! It’s Brett.’

‘I’m not with him any more,’ Finty says. ‘I’m with George, in his hotel room.’

There is silence. She hears Polly repeat her last sentence verbatim, but with dramatic full stops between each word, to the other two.

‘Who the fuck is George?’ she can hear Sally gasp.

‘Where the fuck is the hotel?’ she can hear Chloë implore.

‘Are you OK?’ Polly says, suddenly sounding sober.

‘Ish,’ says Finty. ‘Can you come and get me?’

Sally, Polly and Chloë stare at each other. They are in Richmond. Not so much drunk as utterly sozzled and somewhat stoned to boot. They have a friend in need holed up in a hotel room with a man called George and a boyfriend called Brett in the bar beneath. The information is too much to digest, let alone act upon.

‘Finty,’ says Polly.

‘George,’ says Sally.

‘We need a cab,’ says Chloë.

Finty replaced the receiver and became engrossed immediately in the chintz of the curtains because it seemed like a safe place to be; lost in the swirls and details of something other than her own life. She was vaguely aware of someone unfolding her clenched fist and placing a glass in her hand, a plate on her knee; of someone stroking her hair and patting her shoulder. When the hand was removed, her shoulder felt chill and so she reached for the hand and placed it back there. She hadn’t the energy to swallow down the lump in her throat, or the wherewithal to prevent a large fat tear glazing and stinging her eye before oozing itself out to splat against the glass in her hand. The noise brought her back to the present.

‘Spoiled,’ she said quietly.

‘Hey,’ said an American voice soothingly.

‘But I have ,’ she shrugged, as if it was a fait accompli. ‘I’ve spoiled his evening, your evening, their evening. And my own.’

‘Horse shit!’ George protested. ‘And bullshit!’

‘But the Gathering,’ Finty stressed, ‘it’s sacred. I turned it down for a man with a penchant for peanuts and the ability to make my nose itch.’

‘Well, hon,’ George said after a thoughtful slurp at his glass, ‘I guess you won’t be doing that again.’

‘A Man Called George!’ Sally proclaimed to the concierge, giving the counter an authoritative tap. ‘Please.’

The concierge bestowed upon her a look of great distaste, followed by a withering glance at Polly and Chloë who were sniggering behind the faux fig tree in the foyer.

‘George Who?’

‘He’s expecting us,’ said Sally, refusing to drop eye contact.

‘He’s American,’ Chloë added helpfully.