Читать книгу Pip - Freya North - Страница 17

When Pip saw Zac across a crowded bar, she was hardly going to tell her sisters ‘Oh look, there’s my stalker, yes, I suppose he is quite handsome but don’t be fooled by good looks because actually he’s rude and odd, to say nothing of the baggage he lugs around, brimming with an ex-wife and sick son.’

There again, nor was Pip likely to reveal that, in the next twenty-four hours, there was a strong possibility that she’d be in bed with a doctor from St Bea’s with whom she’d already had great aural sex.

But Zac was there that night and Pip was quite taken aback that she should be amused rather than disconcerted, perhaps just a little excited rather than unnerved, that she had a certain pride rather than horror that the man over there, yes, the good-looking one in the navy jeans and navy shirt and spectacles that used to be free on the NHS but no doubt now cost a small fortune, was her own personal stalker.

Perhaps there was a part of her that would quite like to say ‘See that bloke? I can’t get away from him.’ Not because she sought her sisters’ protection – because she didn’t really fear him at all and of course she could look after herself well enough, thank you very much – but because actually, she was rather proud that her so-called stalker was so easy on the eye. However, duty called and decreed that the only blokes who warranted her focus were the one Fen was considering sleeping with, and the one Cat was deludedly desperate to have back. Tonight was about encouraging Fen to go for it and persuading Cat to leave well alone.

No. Pip wouldn’t be saying a word to her sisters. She couldn’t possibly. What – have the focus on Pip McCabe? Put herself in the hot seat and under the spotlight? Good God, no. No, thank you. Pip’s a great believer in there being a Time and a Place; frequently she uses the unsuitability of one or the other as a prophetic sign or else a perfect excuse. Soho, in the hurl of her sister’s potential boyfriend’s birthday party, provided her with neither the time for Zac nor the place to mention him to anyone. Ah, but there again, Pip, nor would a quiet night at your flat, or Fen’s or Cat’s. And a weekend up in Derbyshire wouldn’t be the right forum either, would it? Over the phone wouldn’t do. Nor would the grapevine. The time and place are rarely aligned in Pip’s eye.

So, Pip sipped champagne in Soho, providing morale support for one sister (Fen’s morals were, for the most part, in good shape) and utter support for the other (Cat had had a bad day after quite a good week, and the champagne was making her slightly unsteady on her feet). It had taken all manner of cajoling – including Pip walking on her hands at Cat’s flat earlier – to persuade the youngest McCabe to come out with them. And now look at her, bedecked in Whistles, partaking of champagne and eliciting a few appreciative glances from present company. Pip was well aware that champagne could be a dangerous thing. A little was a very good idea, too much could be disastrous, the distinction between the two could be perilously indistinct.

‘What do you think of the Holden guy then?’ Cat whispered, nudging Pip and giving a surreptitious nod in Fen’s direction.

‘Well, he’s well-spoken,’ Pip analysed, ‘charming, too. Obviously fairly well-to-do, not that it should count for a jot. I’ve been watching him and he gazes at Fen at any opportunity. That’s good. She’s not one to waste time on someone who feels anything less than absolutely smitten by her. I think he could well be worth her while. Good luck to her.’

‘I like champagne,’ giggled Cat, who simply thought Matt hunky, Fen lucky and that they should go for it, ‘and I like those dingle-dangle things.’

‘Looks like Fen’s on her way to Matt’s dingle-dangle thing,’ said Pip.

Cat whooped with laughter. ‘I meant the lights here!’ Pip knew perfectly well what her sister had been alluding to, but she also knew that her misinterpretation would cause merriment. Which it did. Pip raised her glass to the lighting – interestingly constructed multifaceted cubes of coloured Perspex floating with no visible means of support, diffusing light into colour and mood. Cat chinked glasses with Pip, her very own visible means of support.

‘I like the padded walls,’ Pip remarked and, to test her theory, Cat gently nodded her body against them. Pip sat down and patted the space next to her: ‘But Jesus, these seats are uncomfortable.’

Cat snuggled against her sister. ‘Is there any more champagne?’ she wondered out loud. ‘I love champagne.’ She paused, looking temporarily alarmed. ‘I think I might be having fun.’ She looked at Pip with her brow concertinaed. ‘Am I? Is that OK?’

‘Why don’t we discuss it over more champers – I’ll go and find some,’ said Pip, delighted that her sister had found something that she loved and was halfway on the road to having fun.

‘What do you think?’ Fen hissed, catching Pip’s arm as she embarked on her champagne quest.

‘I think free champagne is a fabulous idea but I think it’s all gone,’ Pip said. ‘Certainly it’s gone to Cat’s head.’

‘I mean about him. About Matt?’ Fen asked wide-eyed and close to, eagerly awaiting her sister’s response.

‘I think any man who has a party in a room with padded walls is very considerate indeed,’ Pip colluded, ‘and any man who stands all those bottles of champagne must be worth keeping.’ She observed her sister. ‘And I think any man who sets his attentions on my sister has impeccable taste. And he’d better treat you very nicely or the dingle-dangles will get it.’ Pip winked at Fen and wandered off in search of champagne.

‘Dingle-dangles?’ Fen murmured to herself.

There is no more free champagne. Pip decides, though, that champagne is what Cat must drink. Not because Cat loves the stuff, but because Pip won’t have her mix her drinks; she’s mixed up enough as it is. If it’s champagne that’s giving her joy, champagne she shall have. To the bar she goes.

And that’s when she comes across Zac.

She takes her place along the counter right next to him. Their elbows touch. But it is only when the barman allows her to queue-jump that she’s aware of him. Zac stares at her, irritated. Pip glowers back. Then she quickly looks away.

Fuck! It’s my stalker.

It is indeed. And he’s pissed off. He’s been brandishing a twenty-pound note in the direction of the barman for ages without success.

‘What’s a guy gotta do to get a drink round here? Sport a cleavage?’ he grumbles with a touch of wit that the noise of the bar renders inaudible.

Grumpy sod, Pip thinks. ‘Sorry,’ she says, establishing eye contact, ‘you were here first.’

‘Whatever,’ he says brusquely, ‘go ahead.’

He doesn’t recognize me. He hasn’t a clue who I am.

Pip can’t order and pay quickly enough and she weaves and shimmies her way back to Cat who is chatting amiably to Fen and Matt. A side of her wants to go, wants to avoid confrontation, doesn’t want Zac to suddenly recognize her, to approach, let alone converse. A side of her, however, newly unleashed thanks in no small part to Caleb, wants to play, wants to rile Zac and surprise him. A side to her is amused that he doesn’t recognize her and a side to her is slightly irked. So she stays, with half an eye on Fen, half an ear for Cat who is now drunkenly verbose, and half a mind to search Zac out and perform a magic trick on him.

Luck puts Zac directly in her path a short while later when she returns to the bar for yet more champagne for Cat. This time Pip smiles directly at him and he smiles back. That pretty girl who audaciously pushed in at the bar, he observes. The one who looks vaguely familiar.

At the heaving bar Pip waits an indecently short while to be served.

I haven’t a clue how I can feel insulted by him in Holloway, offended by him at the hospital, disconcerted by him on Hampstead Heath – and yet now rather taken with him in Soho.

Especially as you have Caleb keen and he comes with no added complications of children and stalking tendencies.

‘Champagne, please.’

Ask yourself which bloke your sisters would deem the more suitable.

‘Two glasses, thanks.’

I’m not telling Cat and Fen a thing – much less asking them anything of the sort.

When Pip turns from the bar, drinks in hand, she tries to catch Zac’s eye but he appears to look straight through her. She feels oddly rejected. Rejecting her feelings, however, she returns to the other side of the club where Cat is actually allowing herself to be chatted up by one of Matt’s mates and barely senses her sister’s return. Fen, meanwhile, has her lips a centimetre from Matt’s and she plants the first of many birthday kisses. Pip averts her gaze and busies herself tracing the rim of the wineglass. It feels as though her work is done. She feels like a spare part. She feels she is no longer needed. She wonders if she could just slip away.

‘Look, I know this sounds corny – and I swear it really isn’t my style – but maybe I could buy you a drink?’

Stalker Bloke!

She hadn’t seen him approach. She hadn’t expected him to. She’s unprepared. It’s not a state she is familiar with or one that she likes.

Shit.

For God’s sake, why not just say ‘yes’, Pip, with a ‘please’. Flicker your eyelashes and have a flirt. He’s only offering to buy you a drink and you don’t currently have one, Cat having just swiped it. Nor do you have anyone to talk to. This might pass the time. This might be amusing.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Pip all but cautions, ‘I’m here with my sisters.’

‘Well, I’ll get them drinks, too, if they’d like?’ he suggests. ‘Or is it more that you need their seal of approval?’ He’s ingenuous but momentarily, Pip wonders whether he’s mocking. Then, however, she observes that his face is open and his eyes are soft and he’s tilting his head in an acquiescent way. He shrugs: ‘I don’t have sisters,’ he explains, ‘I wouldn’t know.’ He redeems himself with that.

He still doesn’t recognize me. I don’t know whether to be offended or entertained.

He’s tired, Pip. A little pissed, too. And the bar is atmospherically lit or downright dim. And you look pretty different out of slap and motley.

‘Look,’ says Zac, ‘can I buy you a drink, or shall I just dig a hole right here and dive headfirst into it?’ He’s never before resorted to chatting women up in bars but he’s elicited a laugh from the girl and he rather feels he’s done quite well. Friendly without being smarmy, witty not corny, self-deprecating not self-satisfied.

‘Sure,’ says Pip, ‘why not.’ Her sisters are occupied. Their glasses are full. They won’t need her for the time being.

‘What’ll you have?’

Pip licks her lips and appears to think about it, her index finger raised for emphasis. ‘May I have,’ she ponders and pauses and then regards him with direct eye contact and a lascivious twitch of her mouth, ‘may I have orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash?’ Zac stares at her because, what with the pervasive chatter, the ambient music playing a little too loudly and the good few beers in his system already, combined with the trippy dingle-dangle lighting, he thinks Pip has asked for a cocktail he hasn’t heard of but that he probably should know. ‘Orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash.’ she repeats.

‘Right,’ he says, trying to remember the precise order.

Pip repeats her request, once more, in Dr Pippity’s voice. And she raises her eyebrow and gives him a sly grin. And it is then that the penny drops.

‘Bloody Jesus bloody Christ,’ he murmurs. Pip can’t hear him but she can certainly lip-read. ‘Clowngirl?’ Zac exclaims. ‘Dr Whatsit or Merry Thingy?’

‘Pip McCabe,’ Pip says cordially, extending her hand most demurely, slightly concerned that he looks just a little alarmed.

‘Crikey,’ he says, and is immediately concerned that his vocabulary and the fact that he’s ruffling his hair excessively is all a bit too Hugh Grant.

I won’t say ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on’, then.

‘What’s a nice clown like you doing in a circus like this?’ Zac asks instead.

There’s a pause but fortunately Pip breaks it with a laugh.

‘We have to slip out of our slap and motley sometimes,’ she explains.

‘Is that what it’s called?’ Zac asks, vaguely interested, eyeing the queue at the bar.

‘Sometimes, it’s more slop and mutley,’ Pip says.

‘Now, tell me slowly what it is you drink,’ he says, quite wanting a trip to the bar to restore his composure.

Pip laughs: ‘They wouldn’t mix it correctly here, I fear,’ she says, ‘so make mine a glass of red.’

‘Coming up,’ he says, relieved. ‘My name’s Zac Holmes, by the way.’

‘Good to put a name to the face,’ says Pip drily, ‘after all this time.’

Zac sets off for the bar but returns almost immediately. ‘I’d just like you to know,’ he shouts above the music, ‘that I’m not some crazy bloody stalker.’

‘I know,’ Pip says to him, ‘you’re Zac Bloody Holmes.’ He nods, relieved, and heads for the bar. Pip watches him.

He has a pretty winning smile – for a stalker. But he also looks a little like my friend Susie’s ex. And God, did that guy screw her up by screwing her over and screwing her sister.

Don’t tar him with the same brush. Don’t tar him, full stop. You hardly know him.

But I ought to remember that he’s been insolent to me before. And he started chatting me up – In A Bar. And didn’t realize it was me. He’s probably on the pull. This is probably his style. If so, it clashes with mine.

And of course you mustn’t forget that you have your big date with Caleb tomorrow night.

Exactly.

‘Wait till I tell Tom,’ Zac says, returning with drinks. ‘You know – my little boy?’ His face lights up. ‘Of course you do.’

‘How is he?’ Pip asks, and is told he’s doing OK. Zac starts talking about him, the usual anecdotes laced with paternal pride, which of course run on and on. After a while, with her drink almost empty, Pip wishes the subject would change.

And I also wish I didn’t find him attractive. I mustn’t. It must be the alcohol. After all, this is the bloke who has stalked me in hospitals, been rude to me at children’s parties, behaved oddly in public parks and has been making passes at me in a bar. And he has a kid and an ex and he’s odd. So what if he’s good-looking? Distortion by drink!

‘We’re not talking baggage as in a small backpack,’ Pip says into her wineglass a little later when Zac has gone to the bar to replenish their drinks, ‘we’re talking excess baggage – on such a scale that he’d be fined heavily if he tried to check it in at the airport.’

Zac returns and confirms Pip’s misgivings when he starts regaling her with Tom’s Harry Potter obsession. He’s just about to ask her what sort of a name Pip is and what sort of a career clowning is, when two girls approach. They flank her like bodyguards and eye him with some suspicion.

‘Zac,’ Pip interrupts, glad for a chance to move on from Tom and J.K. Rowling but bemused that it is the arrival of her sisters expediting it, ‘these are my sisters, Cat and Fen.’ Privately, Zac is almost irritated by their eccentric names, but he greets them politely and hopes they’ll go away.

The sisters don’t go away. Cat and Fen hang around because they are unused to seeing their sister in male company, a stranger’s company. So they loiter.

Oddly, Pip wishes they’d go away. Of course, she blames the wine.

Why else would I quite like this Zac Holmes odd sod to myself for a little longer?

Fen whispers to Pip that Cat is pretty pissed and should they all go? Pip can see that Cat really should leave now but should not return home unescorted. Fen, with sudden nerves over Matt, wants them all to leave together. Go back to hers and make popcorn, she suggests. Have a chat, she proposes. For a split second, Pip is exasperated and just wishes her sisters could take some initiative and take care of themselves. Even if just for half an hour longer. However, she says nothing of the sort. She tells Fen not to be stupid, she’ll take Cat home, Matt will no doubt take her home. ‘It’s his birthday,’ she spells out. ‘You’re his number one present.’

Pip returns her attention to Zac who is being stared at by Cat, not for any reason other than that she’s at that stage of inebriation when whatever her gaze falls upon is fixed. Fen kisses Cat and nods at Zac. Then Pip nods at Cat and gives Zac a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Ta for the drink, Zac,’ she says, ‘but I have to go. My sister here is lovelorn and pissed. It’s a fatal combination.’

‘Sure,’ Zac says almost eagerly, because the sad drunk sister looks as though she may well burst into tears or throw up. Or do both, in whichever order, rather soon. Pip guides her out. Zac watches her go. She has a nice bottom.

Let her go. Odd sisters with stupid names. Come on! Not my type. To say nothing of the fact that she’s a frigging clown, for Christ’s sake.

However, when Pip returned unexpectedly a few minutes later, he was surprised how pleased he was to see her. Her drunk sister was looking ominously green around the gills and Pip gave him an apologetic raise of her eyebrows as she guided Cat towards the toilets.

‘My sisterly duties do have limits,’ she said, standing by his side moments later. ‘Accompanying Cat right into the loo goes beyond them.’

‘Look, can I perhaps buy you a drink sometime when you’re not surrounded by sisters and we don’t have to yell above dippy-trippy music and the bar staff aren’t fascists?’ Zac felt uncharacteristically nervous but the beer in his system encouraged him to ramble on. ‘I mean, I know it appears I’ve been rude to you in parks and hospitals and kids’ parties but it’s been unintentional – just unfortunate. I’m not rude by nature, honestly. Nor do I chat up girls in bars, or anywhere really, for that matter. And I’ve never met a clown who isn’t male and elderly and scary.’ He paused for breath, wondering how to follow that. ‘And I’d like to buy you a drink because you seem interesting and you’ve meant a lot to my son.’ He stopped and scratched his head. ‘But I don’t want to buy you a drink as a grateful parent-type,’ he rattled on, ‘but actually simply because you. Are. Really. Quite. Pretty.’

Oh, fuck. What am I saying?

God – what is he saying?

Pip hadn’t yet said a word in response. And the lighting had been momentarily dimmed to such a level that Zac could barely make out her features, let alone judge her expression.

‘Well, Pip, I’ve made a fool of myself.’

However, just the slightest shake of her head, just the glimmer of a smile, bolstered Zac. ‘Look,’ he said, laying a hand lightly on her shoulder, ‘I just think maybe it might be a laugh to get together for a quick drink sometime.’

‘Sure,’ Pip shrugged. Though she had the time, she suddenly found she did not have the inclination to give accepting his offer a second thought. ‘Why not!’

‘Cool,’ he nodded, so surprised at her equanimity that all he could do was say ‘cool’ again into his beer glass.

‘I’m in the Thomson’s directory,’ she said, extending her hand to shake his. ‘Well, Merry Martha is.’

‘Cool,’ Zac said one final time.

Then there was a Cat amongst them, looking grey and sheepish. Pip started to guide her out. She turned around and nodded at Zac. He made a telephone motion with his hand. She nodded again. He watched her put her arm protectively around her sister and then they were gone.

Zac hadn’t spared a thought for Juliana. He didn’t mind in the least that she wasn’t with him that night. She had prior arrangements. Not that he’d invited her, anyway. After all, they were only simply seeing each other – fairly regularly, yes, but with no stipulation of exclusivity. They weren’t an ‘item’ and this was underlined by the fact that when they went to bed – which was the purpose of each time they met – they did so to have sex, not to make love to each other or sleep together.

Zac rejoined his friends in the club and brushed off their questions about who was the girl he’d been chatting to as ‘just someone I’ve bumped into a couple of times’.

I’m not sure why I want to pursue this Pip McCabe, he mused as he headed home by cab a couple of hours later. But I do know I’d like to pursue her – so I guess I’ll find out why when I do.

I haven’t spared a thought for Caleb.

Pip considers this fact as she tucks up Cat in bed, bucket at the ready, before making a bed for herself on her sister’s sofa.

Does that mean I’m an old slapper? Or is it like having two job offers and initiating second interviews before deciding which one to plump for?

‘Hang on,’ she says quietly into the darkness, ‘I already have two jobs.’

For a girl who has proclaimed that she isn’t remotely in need of one man, let alone two, she nevertheless goes to sleep wondering whether Stalker Bloke will call, and how her date with Dashing Doc will turn out tomorrow. She hopes to see the former again soon. And she’s looking forward to seeing the latter sooner than that.