If he had been ten minutes later we’d never have met.
The bar was getting too crowded and too loud, with the sound of smug, boorish after-work suits trying to out-do each other.
‘Nailed six million, mate. The yen played a fucking blinder for me this week.’
‘Not bad. Keep it up and you’ll get to play with us in the big boy pool. My margin on pharmaceuticals this week is buying me a Porsche,’ his buddy gloated, his repetitive nose-rubbing suggesting he’d been celebrating with pharmaceuticals of a different kind.
Their chronic wankery didn’t detract from the fact that I loved this bar. The classic white colonial frontage sat on the bank of the Thames, supporting the huge wooden deck that overlooked the water and Richmond Bridge, only yards away to the left. Even on a chilly October evening, as we stood outside, getting jostled by the masses, there was something of a fifties romance about it.
We’d come here for celebration drinks with Vincent, a mate from college, who had decided to start up a corporate catering service on the other side of the city. He was now deep in conversation with a five foot ten Cindy Crawford lookalike who was eyeing him with such lust I expected her to unhinge her jaw and swallow him whole at any moment. Vincent had that effect on women. Except me. The dark-haired, chiselled jaw, brooding hunk thing wasn’t my type so I found it amusing to watch as he… yep, there it was. Cindy reached up and kissed him, then he gave me a wave, blew me a kiss and the two of them disappeared out the door.
Not a bad idea. It was time to go home.
It had been a long week. My feet hurt. I’d had three hours sleep thanks to a delightfully wealthy Battersea housewife who’d booked me to prepare a banquet breakfast for a fundraiser, ignoring the fact that if they’d just gone for bacon butties the recipients of the charity would have been a few hundred pounds better off. Not that I was complaining. The wealthy housewife market had been a fantastic source of income in the two years since I’d launched the company. When I say ‘company’ I mean me. And a van. My only other assets were boundless optimism, enthusiasm, and a small but growing customer base, so I was thankful for the work, even if it did mean that the aroma of eggs Benedict and smoked salmon blinis had followed me around all day like a sinister yet appetizing stalker.
The following morning, I had a children’s party for thirty twelve-year-olds in Balham and those chicken goujons weren’t going to prepare themselves.
My bed was calling me until Lulu, in typical fashion, changed my plans.
‘Shauna, I’ll be five minutes. Cover for me if Dan arrives,’ Lulu hissed, before punctuating the request with a kiss on the cheek that definitely constituted coercion, possibly even conspiracy, with an added twist of emotional blackmail.
Every guy in the bar watched her as she wiggled her way past them. Captivating. Mesmerizing. I was probably the only one who noticed that she was actually following a tall, gym-formed Australian she’d been subtly flirting with across the bar all night.
A mental image of my bed faded. In Lulu’s world, five minutes could mean thirty, or longer. She’d once left me holding her drink while she popped out of a bar for a cigarette with a ski instructor, and called me the next day from Gstaad.
‘Bloody outrageous!’ I added to the list of descriptive terms for the Jessica Rabbit redhead who was heading to the back of the restaurant.
‘Who’s outrageous?’ Rosie asked, breaking off from the conversation she’d been having for the last fifteen minutes with Paul, the mature student. This was the third time she’d invited him to join us for a drink, and there was a spark there, but he was a very measured, analytical academic who was studying geology, or psychology, or zoology, or one of the ologies, so the spark was taking a long time to ignite into anything more than deep discussions about… actually, I had no idea what they were talking about.
‘Our friend,’ I whispered, smiling as I gestured to the departing wiggle. ‘Remind me to kill her at some point. I promise I’ll make it painless.’
‘I’d help dispose of the body but I’m a bit preoccupied,’ she replied, making sure Paul was out of earshot. I hoped he was good enough for her.
If ever there was an illustration of how there was no equality or fairness in the distribution of confidence and self-assurance, my friends were it. Lulu killed at life, at fun, at demanding attention and getting it. She took risks, and she grabbed what she wanted. Rosie, on the other hand, the eternal people-pleaser, quirky, with a huge heart, lived in hope of love and adoration finding her .
The restaurant was filling up now, the noise level increasing as Toploader finished ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’ and handed over to Kylie who was, for some inexplicable reason, ‘Spinning Around’.
‘Bugger, there’s Dan,’ Rose whispered, urgently.
Of course it was. Because, hey, the Gods of Reckless Friends loved this kind of shit. I should have left already, made the escape sooner, before the devastatingly handsome boyfriend of my darling friend was strolling towards me, while aforementioned darling friend was outside, undoubtedly doing something immoral, possibly illegal, definitely wild, with a tattooed Australian. Instead, I was about to give a performance that would win me an Oscar for “Best Liar In A Friendship Situation.”
‘Hey girls,’ he greeted us, with a kiss on each cheek. I’d always thought that Dan Channing was one of those enigmas, people who looked like they were something other than what they actually were. He looked like a square-jawed, impossibly handsome male model or an actor. Or at the very least, one of those firemen who strips naked with a strategically positioned hose in a Christmas calendar. But no, he was in sales of something I wasn’t exactly sure about. Car parts? Mechanical supplies? Anyway, he managed a sales team that travelled around garages flogging some vital component of a vehicular nature.
‘Where’s Lulu?’ was of course his first question.
‘In the ladies,’ I replied. ‘She might be a while. Think the cystitis is playing up.’
A mischievous lie but I couldn’t resist laying the seeds for a discussion that would make Lulu squirm. It was less than she deserved for putting me on the spot. My grin was quickly accompanied by a scarlet flush of the face, as he stepped to the side to reveal the curious gaze of green eyes of a tall, cute guy standing right behind him. ‘Guys, this is Colm. Colm, meet Rosie, Paul, and the one that’s talking about cystitis is Shauna.’
Ah, a resounding moment of dignity, one which Colm took in his stride by reaching out to shake my hand, saying, ‘Please to meet you. And just to get it out of the way, I have never suffered from cystitis.’
Yes, those were the first words the love of my life ever spoke to me. It wasn’t exactly Mills & Boon, but that didn’t matter. I’ve no idea whether it was the soft Irish accent, the rapid humour, or the way he smiled the most open smile I’d ever seen, but right there and then I decided he was mine.