Deciding to go for it was easy enough; actually going through with going for it was another thing altogether.
Hopelessly out of practice, Poppy took a leaf out of Dina’s book and tripled her usual amount of make-up. Heaps of black around the eyes, more blusher, and gallons more mascara. Rifling Claudia’s dressing-table drawers in search of big earrings, she came across a nice bronzy-looking lipstick and put it on. Bronze was good; it went with her hair and wouldn’t make her look a complete tart.
Poppy stared at herself in Claudia’s mirror as within seconds bronze turned to crimson. She looked at the label on the base of the lipstick. Damn, it was one of those Ultraglow indelibles.
Now she looked a complete tart.
‘Hey, Morticia!’ gurgled Dina when Poppy pulled open the front door at three minutes past nine.
By midnight Poppy’s mouth was magenta. The lipstick, which couldn’t be scrubbed off, not even with a Brillo pad, got darker the hotter you got. And Poppy was hot.
Matching Dina drink for drink had seemed the only way to banish the demons. By eleven o’clock, they had jostled and scrummed their way through half a dozen packed-to-the-rafters South Ken wine bars. Poppy found herself drinking tequila and exchanging banter with a crowd of city types ready to celebrate the start of the weekend. Dina, whose skirt barely covered her bottom, kept rounding on innocent men shrieking, ‘You pinched my bum! Right, you can buy me a drink for that. And one for my friend.’
When they eventually moved on to a club, it was with half a dozen or so stockbrokers still in tow. Poppy, purple-lipped and light-headed, wondered if the tall one called Neil was really as good-looking as she was beginning to think or just the best of an extremely average bunch.
Dina was dancing with B.J., the one who had started all the bottom pinching in the first place. Poppy danced first with Tyler, then with Ken, then with an Austrian called Hans who galloped around the crowded dance floor like a camel. Feeling sorry for him, because everyone else was laughing and pointing him out to their friends, Poppy galloped like a camel too. By the time Neil managed to battle his way back from the bar, she had worked up a raging thirst.
‘Steady,’ said Neil. ‘Don’t want you passing out cold.’
Poppy eyed him over the rim of her lager glass—well, maybe not her lager glass exactly, but the one she was drinking out of.
‘I’m all right. I’ve got hollow legs.’
Weird, but true. Tonight, she decided, they were definitely hollow.
‘You’ve got gorgeous legs.’ Neil had an engaging lopsided grin and endearingly curly earlobes.
‘You’ve got gorgeous ears,’ Poppy heard herself say.
The grin broadened. ‘You have… um, stupendous eyes.’
She wagged a finger at him. ‘Are you making fun of me?’
‘Absolutely not. Your eyes are stupendous. So’s the rest of you.’ His appreciative gaze flickered over the little white Lycra dress which clung lovingly to Poppy’s every curve. ‘I just wish you weren’t so plastered. I’d really like to see you again.’
About time I got myself a boyfriend, Poppy thought. She nodded approvingly. Yep, that was what she needed. To sort herself out and settle down with someone nice. Normal and nice. She gave Neil an encouraging look and wondered if he squeezed the toothpaste in the middle. She hated people who didn’t do that.
‘The thing is, you’re going to wake up tomorrow not even able to remember tonight.’ He looked wistful. ‘When I phone, you won’t know who I am. You’ll be too embarrassed to meet me… we’ll never see each other again… bang goes our great love affair. We’re doomed.’
Poppy thought at once of Tom, of the great love affair that had never happened. Thanks to her. Damn, how could she have been so stupid?
‘Oh God, don’t cry!’ Neil was filled with dismay. ‘Come on, cheer up. Have another drink.’
Poppy couldn’t remember afterwards whose bright idea it was that the impromptu party should be carried on at Cornwallis Crescent. She vaguely recalled everyone piling out of three cabs, loaded down with bottles from an all-night liquor store, and staggering noisily up the front steps to the house.
Boisterous games were the order of the night. Dina, a Club 18–30 devotee, appointed herself games mistress and bullied everyone into teams. In her element, she demonstrated with B.J. how to play pass-the-banana. B.J., who was like someone out of Baywatch, kept whispering, ‘Wait till this lot have gone. I know better games than this.’ Dina shivered with pleasure; she could hardly wait.
Poppy knew if she sat down for a second she’d crash out, so she didn’t sit down. If she was going to have a monumental hangover tomorrow—and really, there was no ‘if’ about it—she was jolly well going to get maximum enjoyment out of tonight. And if playing wheelbarrows around the sitting room—picking up matchboxes in your teeth along the way—wasn’t sophisticated, so what? Who cares, thought Poppy as she was hoisted onto Ken’s shoulders for the start of the next game. I’m having fun.
‘Stop wobbling,’ Dina shouted across the room. ‘Don’t hit the lights. And smile.’
A flash went off. Then another. Dina grinned and threw the camera to Hans. She grabbed B.J. ‘Come on, now take one of us. Ouch’—she yelped with laughter as B.J.’s hand slid downwards—‘you sod, I told you not to pinch my bum again! I’ll be black and blue tomorrow. What’s my old man going to say when I get home?’
Waking up the following morning was awful. As soon as Poppy realized how bad she felt, she tried to go back to sleep.
But how could you possibly sleep when you felt this ill?
‘Here,’ said a male voice over her shoulder. Poppy jumped as a mug of hot tea was pushed into her hand. When she turned her head—ouch, ouch—she realized she wasn’t in her own bed.
‘I live here,’ she groaned up at Neil, who had made her the tea. ‘How did I get landed with the sofa?’
‘It was more a case of you landing on the sofa,’ Neil explained. ‘Once you did, you were out cold. To be honest, none of us wanted to risk carrying you down the stairs to your room.’
‘Oh.’ Poppy thought for a moment. ‘So who slept in my bed?’
Neil looked nervous. ‘I did.’ Hurriedly he added, ‘I kept my clothes on.’
‘What about everyone else?’
‘Um… B.J. and your friend Dina disappeared upstairs. Tyler fell asleep on the bathroom floor—he always does that—and Ken’s behind the sofa.’
‘Ken,’ said Poppy, ‘are you behind the sofa?’
No reply.
‘I can see his feet sticking out,’ Neil explained. ‘I didn’t say he was conscious.’
‘Hans,’ mumbled Poppy.
‘No, his feet.’
‘Hans.’ She tried to remember who else had been at the party. A couple of blonde girls, but they had caught a cab around four. Her last memory of Hans was of him dancing that astonishing dance again, round and round the sitting room like a wasp in a bottle…
Neil shrugged. ‘Maybe he left.’ His earlobes turned red. He cleared his throat and sat down on the far end of the sofa. Poppy shifted her feet over to make room. How embarrassing, had she really been irresistibly drawn to those glowing ears? Had she actually told him they were gorgeous?
In the harsh light of the morning after, it was immediately obvious that Neil wasn’t the boyfriend she’d been looking for. Last night he had been good fun, really quite handsome, and flatteringly attentive. Today he was looking thin and gangly. He had adopted one of those eager-to-please, you-do-still-like-me-don’t-you expressions that were always, as far as Poppy was concerned, an instant turn-off.
As for the ears: frankly, they were weird.
Guiltily, Poppy dropped her gaze. Since she wasn’t looking so hot herself, there was every chance Neil was thinking the same about her.
But it was still embarrassing, having him perched at her feet like a puppy. She had had too much to drink and led him on. Shamelessly. She wondered if she could off-load the blame onto Dina.
‘Well,’ Neil joked feebly, ‘at least you remember me. I was worried you wouldn’t.’
‘Oh, I remember.’
Sensing her discomfort, his shoulders sagged a good couple of inches.
‘But now you’re sober and you’re having second thoughts.’
Defeated wasn’t the word for it, Poppy decided. The boy looked positively trounced.
‘Sorry and all that.’ She felt rotten, but what else could she say? ‘We had a great time last night. But really, to be honest—’
‘You don’t fancy me, you don’t want to see me again, it isn’t going to be the romance of the century after all.’ Neil shrugged and managed a self-deprecating smile. ‘It’s okay, I’ve heard it before. Story of my life.’
‘Oh come on, it can’t be that bad.’
‘It can.’ He was making light of the situation, but clearly meant what he said. ‘That’s my trouble, you see. If I meet a girl I like, I start fantasizing. Oh, not that,’ he added hastily as Poppy’s eyebrows went up. ‘I start fantasizing about us getting married. I actually picture the church service, the whole bit. Then, I imagine us with kids. Sometimes I even get as far as grandchildren. I know it’s hardly macho.’ He glanced, shamefaced, at Poppy. ‘It’s not what men do. But I can’t help it. I want to live happily ever after. That was why I couldn’t let you disappear last night. You might have been the one I’m looking for. I can’t wait for it to happen,’ he said sadly. Then, with a rueful smile, ‘Of course it never does, because I scare girls off.’
Poppy said nothing. She was thinking about Tom again. And wondering if the magic of their all-too-brief encounter would really have survived.
It was a horrible feeling, like being six again and having to listen to the school bully jubilantly telling you Father Christmas didn’t exist.
Poppy had believed unswervingly in Father Christmas, just as she had always believed in love at first sight.
Now, thanks to Neil, she was beginning to wonder if even that existed.
God, this was depressing. She pulled herself together and looked across at the lanky figure perched on the end of the sofa.
‘You’ll meet someone. One day it’ll happen.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Truly. Loads of girls would kill for a man like you.’
‘Yeah.’ His tone was unconvinced.
‘I mean, look at all the bastards out there who run a mile from any kind of commitment.’ As she said it, Poppy thought of Caspar.
‘Like B.J.’ Neil nodded in agreement. ‘He thinks I’m mad. He says women are only good for two things and one of them’s ironing shirts.’
‘I’d iron B.J.’s shirt on one condition,’ said Poppy.
‘What?’
‘That he stays in it.’