Jenny Colgan - Looking for Andrew McCarthy

‘Shit!’ said Julia. ‘I forgot Loxy’s shelving!’

She tried to turn the trolley around. They were completely trapped. Ellie groaned loudly as they backed up four hundred people around the shop; people who showed their horror at this transgression by muttering very loudly and immediately falling out with the person they were with.

‘Sorry!’ Julia was saying. It was suddenly about 200 degrees in the store.

‘Why don’t we just cut our losses?’ said Arthur. ‘Dump the trolley and run like hell.’

‘God, this place drives me crazy,’ yelled Ellie suddenly. ‘I think it’s some sinister rat/maze type experiment. Giant creatures are peering in through the corrugated roof, making notes on us.’

She looked at the crowds, backing up like panic-buyers at a petrol pump.

‘There’s no way back,’ she said suddenly, in horror, staring around her and breathing hard. ‘There is no way back. Don’t you see? Guys, don’t you SEE?’

They all looked at her.

‘We’re on a one way trek through Ikea. This is it. This is our lives. There’s no way back.’

‘Ehm … are you freaking out?’ said Arthur, as Julia manoeuvred herself out of position. Ellie was still fixed to the spot and staring straight ahead.

She thought about it. ‘Yes. YES I AM.’ And she stormed off against the flow of traffic, leaving a chorus of disgruntled middle class tutting in her wake.

Ellie sat in the car park, thinking furiously. That was it. She was getting off this track right now. The poster in her bedroom came back to her. All those dreams. All those teenage nights. For what? Andrew had disappeared. Emilio; Judd; Anthony. All gone. ‘I’m disappearing too,’ she thought to herself, sadly. ‘I’m getting older, and giving up and fading into the background. And if I don’t run away now, then I’ll run away to Plockton in twenty years and that really will be a disaster.’

By the time her friends finally emerged ninety minutes later, red-faced and cursing, she had it all figured out.

‘Okay, everyone pay attention to me,’ announced Ellie loudly.

‘Well, that will be a new experience for us all,’ said Siobhan.

It was the following Monday night. Ellie had summoned everyone to a council of war round at her flat, much to Big Bastard’s disgust. She had been putting out bowls of crisps when he’d grunted, ‘I’m going to the pub. All your friends are morons.’

‘Okay, no, hang on, why are my friends morons when your friends moon out of the back of coaches every week and think it’s always hilarious ?’

‘Because they know how to have fun,’ he sniffed, trying to smooth down his unruly hair with his enormous hairy paws. ‘Your friends just sit around and talk.’

‘Sitting around and talking are what people do ,’ said Ellie. ‘Showing off their arses to each other is what monkeys do.’ She held up a Pringle and a cashew nut. ‘See?’ She waved the Pringle. ‘People sized brain’, then the cashew, ‘monkey sized brain. People brain – monkey brain. Ellie brain – Big Bastard brain.’

She ate the cashew nut.

‘Big Bastard brain all gone .’

‘And they’re all poofs.’

‘How could they all be poofs? Some of them go out with some of the other ones of the opposite sex.’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not a poof.’

‘Um, yes it does. Oh, Big Bastard, I’m sorry I ate your brain.’

‘Well, I’m going to have some of my mates round.’

‘What, so that you and all your non-poof friends can spend the day showing each other your butts?’

‘I might have them round tonight after the pub.’

‘You will not!’

‘My flat darlin’.’

‘Yeah, your flat which will get completely done in when your pissed up friends start picking fights with each other. Or themselves; you all look the fucking same. You’d better take that mirror down, they’re like budgies.’

‘We do not look the fucking same.’

‘Okay, what would you say is the top shirt designer of choice amongst every single one of your friends?’

Big Bastard shrugged. ‘Who cares? Clothes are for girls.’

‘It wouldn’t be Ben Sherman by any chance would it?’

He shrugged again, but his ears went slightly pink. ‘So what? ’S comfortable.’

‘And what about shoes? A little beige number perhaps? With connotations of being Big Masculine Woodcutters?? Okay, you bring back all your nongay friends with peanut brains to show each other your arses and worship Johnny Vaughn. We’ll see you later.’

‘I’m putting your rent up.’

‘I’m reporting you to the Inland Revenue for having an undeclared tenant.’

He’d stomped out of the house snarling, although not before Arthur had arrived and maliciously called him duckie.

‘I can’t believe the way you turn into Graham Norton whenever you see Big Bastard,’ Ellie said, straightening out her fishnet tights.

‘That’s my militant side, sweetheart. It’ll do him good in the long run, you’ll see. Anyone with that much testosterone can’t possibly be straight anyway.’

‘Oh, he is. I know, because when he thinks I’m not looking, he touches himself when there are those girls on television who sing pop songs in their school uniform.’

Ellie glanced into the mirror, smoothed down her black curly hair and removed some cashew nut debris from between her teeth. She always felt scruffy next to Arthur, who pretended that his immaculate appearance was a natural gift from God.

‘Deviant. Okay, what are we all here for? You never normally have us round here unless you’ve broken something.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Ellie. ‘What about that time I needed to borrow money?’

Siobhan filed in warily.

‘You realize I left work early for this?’

‘Siobhan, it’s eight-thirty. Was there anyone else in the building?’

‘Just some people I know.’

‘Okay, how many non-security personnel were there apart from you?’

Siobhan pouted and stretched out on Big Bastard’s chair, removing a half-eaten multi-pack of KitKats.

‘God, that flatmate of yours eats like a horse.’

‘Eats like a horse, farts like a horse and you don’t even want to know what it’s like when Carmel’s round.’

‘No I most certainly don’t,’ said Siobhan. She looked tired and drawn. ‘Patrick can’t make it. He’s working on some buyout. Or it’s his evening class. God that’s weird; I can’t even remember. Christ, I’m so knackered.’

Ellie put a glass of wine in her hand.

‘Uh huh. I think I might have something that can cure that.’

‘Alcohol! Excellent!’

‘I thought you were never drinking again after we reached Kahlua,’ said Arthur.

‘I don’t remember saying that. Although to be fair, I don’t remember getting home.’

‘No. Not alcohol. It’s my fabulous and brilliant plan. But we’ll need to wait for everyone to arrive.’

‘Ehm, I told Colin he could come,’ said Arthur.

‘You didn’t. He’s so not in on the big plan.’

‘It’s alright, I’ll make him hand round the nibbles.’

‘Yeah, ’cause it’s illegal for him to serve spirits.’

‘Very funny. I’ll have you know that beneath that childish veneer there’s a very old soul.’

‘Fuck off!’

‘True. Well, old soul, good muscle definition – call it what you will.’

‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Loxy apologetically, sticking his head round the door. ‘I stopped to get Jules some flowers on the way home from work and missed my train.’

‘Bloody idiot,’ said Julia over his shoulder, putting down her suede handbag and kissing everyone within reach. ‘Hello, hello. Okay, what’s going on? And if it’s Monopoly, include me out.’