Date Tuesday 28 February Time 11.05am
My thoughts and reflections:
Still too hungover to write much. Suffice to say Margarita Monday was a success in a number of ways.
Cara loosened up after a few drinks and had a proper cry – snot and all.
Apparently, she’s just remortgaged her place so she can pay for her mum’s nursing home, and is worried sick about what will happen to her mum if she loses her job.
Cara has been caring for her mum ever since she was thirteen, and financially supporting her for years.
No wonder she’s so serious and stressed.
The care home has transformed Cara’s life – her mum is happy and, for the first time ever, Cara has some freedom.
We were all a bit pissed by then and told Cara we’d give her money if she lost her job so she could keep her mum in the home. Well, if we keep ours.
Drunk Stephen also said he was angsting over his job.
Cara told him that he was one of the best designers she had ever worked with in nearly thirty years of publishing and that he had it in the bag.
Then they started talking about the consultants coming in next week and how tense it was all going to be.
Cara said she’d googled the LL Group earlier; this felt like the time I should mention the fact I knew Matthew.
But I bottled it. More drinks arrived and Yaz started talking about how she’s worried her flatmate is wanking in her bed. The moment had gone.
We must have been about four rounds in when I got a message from Guy Carmichael asking if I wanted to come over.
I was pissed and bold and I’ve lost loads of jobs anyway so what’s one more: I took the risk and told him No, I want to see you for a drink first. Can we meet at the Mulberry Bush?
Then I felt less bold for about half an hour whilst I heard nothing.
At last he texted American Bar at the Savoy – I want a proper drink.
So even though it was a bit more of a trek from here, I went to the loos and redid my make-up and made excuses about leaving – Drunk Stephen said, ‘She’s got her about-to-get-shagged face on, ’ and I kicked him but I knew he wouldn’t give anything away, but Yaz, who was also drunk, kept asking who I was going off to see and really wouldn’t let it go.
And eventually, I said, ‘Just a friend.’
And then Yaz turned into a bit of a nightmare and said, ‘Oh my god, it’s someone from work, isn’t it?’ And then, ‘It is so totally someone from work, look at her face! Who is it? Cara do you know who she’s shagging at work?’
And I was actually getting a bit stressed until Drunk Stephen distracted Yaz by saying he thought Timothée Chalamet had just walked in.
Guy was already there when I arrived (he was wearing the same clothes he had at work and his navy coat which I think is my favourite) and for the first time since we’d gone for lunch, I think both of us were aware that this could go either way.
He ordered a negroni and I ordered another margarita, but before I drank it, I came right out and just said, ‘So, Guy, is your interest in me primarily an interest in Matthew Lloyd? I would appreciate your being straight up with me.’
And as the pianist played smooth jazz, Guy blinked for a second and seemed a little taken aback. But then he reached across the table and took my hand and said, ‘Look, Alice. It certainly doesn’t hurt your appeal, that you have the connections you do. But I like you.’
I must have looked uncertain at that point because he reiterated, ‘I do. I’ve got to admit, you’re rather unexpected. I’m not going to do you the disrespect of pretending this is something it isn’t. But, I will say there’s something refreshing about you, Alice. As well as extremely fuckable.’
‘You mean I’m an easy lay,’ I echoed Matthew’s words in the wine cellar.
‘ More like the perfect-level-of-challenge fuckable.’
Well, there you go, Matthew Lloyd , I thought. Maybe I’m refreshing and unexpected and the perfect-level-of-challenge fuckable. Doesn’t sound like I’m off to Scotland any time soon.
I drank my margarita, and did not think about Matthew, or what Drunk Stephen would say if he knew I were having drinks here (he’s very derisive about the sort of people that listen to jazz) and then we went back to the serviced apartment and had a lot of slightly slapdash and enthusiastic sex.
It had been a week since we’d last had any and you could tell.
Well, it had been a week for me, at least. I ended up staying the night there.
Guy woke me up before he left and told me to wait a while before I came to work.
I did a finger and toothpaste job, ordered a coffee from concierge (and tried to order painkillers to no avail), squirted a bit of Guy’s Acqua di Parma cologne to cover up the smell of sex and alcohol, and then went into the office.
Yaz, Cara and Drunk Stephen all commented that I was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but they were too hungover themselves to care.
It was only when Yaz was at my desk just now, that I got slightly nervous.
She went all nose detective and kept saying that I smelt different to usual but strangely familiar.
‘Have you switched fragrance?’ she said, sniffing me.
‘I swear someone in the office wears exactly the same scent. It’s kind of woody and leathery and lemony, almost like aftershave.
I know who it is, it’s on the tip of my tongue. ’
‘Probably just residue of margarita from yesterday.’ I backed away from her. ‘I get a bit sloshy when I’m pissed. Have you got any decent painkillers?’
I am grateful for:
Yaz’s fibroids. (Well, obviously I don’t want her to have them but the naproxen she’s been prescribed for it really does sort out a hangover and I am grateful for that.)
Not having a parent in a nursing home. Thank you.