Chapter 53
Petey
By midnight, Miss Timmy’s was absolutely heaving.
From the stage, Sandy Crotch, the venue’s resident drag queen, was delighting the crowd of drunken homosexuals with a medley of Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli tunes.
Ludo had bolted for the edge of the stage the second Sandy started belting out Judy’s “Get Happy,” and the rest of us were working our way through our seventh bottle of champagne.
“To be clear, because I’m well confused,” Jumaane said, “have you actually broken up with Baron Fuckboy?”
I shook my head. Then nodded. Then shook my head again.
“That’s really cleared that up.”
“I didn’t mean to,” I said. “But… maybe? We fought—”
“And then instead of staying to talk it through like an adult, you did a runner?”
When he said it like that, I felt like an idiot. “Yeah, but… you should have seen his face. He really hated me.”
Stav swirled his red wine around in his glass.
“But what did he actually say to you?”
“He said he was disappointed in me.”
“On account of you violating the privacy of several hundred people by secretly filming them?”
“Well, don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?” Stav sipped his wine.
“Like a lawyer.”
“I am a lawyer.”
“Yes, but it’s not like I really did anything wrong.”
“Unless you count Article Eight of the Human Rights Act 1998,” Stav said. “And the multiple potential GDPR violations, the possible defamation suits and intellectual property issues, and if you wanked to any of the footage, the voyeurism charges under the Sexual Offences Act 2003.”
I looked at him, appalled. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Sandy’s medley switched to Liza Minnelli’s “Losing My Mind.”
“Well, what did he say when you spoke to him afterwards?” Sunny asked.
I slumped back against the banquette, my head lolling from side to side.
“You have spoken to him, right?”
I couldn’t make eye contact with him.
The boys all groaned.
“I love you, mate,” Jumaane said, “but you’re a bloody bellend.”
Dav topped up my champagne. “Is there a reason you haven’t called?”
“He doesn’t have a mobile phone.”
The boys groaned again.
“But he does have a phone,” Sunny said. “And an email. And probably a pigeon loft. I mean, it seems like the kind of gaff that has one.”
“Oh, sod off,” I said, draining my glass.
I went to top it up, but Dav plucked the bottle from my hand.
“Do you want to fix things with him?”
“Of course I do,” I said quietly. “But it’s such a mess. I’ve fucked everything up.”
“You can’t avoid him forever,” Nick said. “Sunny and Ludo are literally getting married at your boyfriend’s house in a few weeks’ time.”
My stomach hollowed. I’d forgotten about the wedding.
“Plus,” Jumaane said, “Stav has already planned a full year’s worth of country house weekend getaways.”
Stav nodded. “Done the menus, selected the wines, bought the tweed.”
“They won’t be anywhere near as fun without you,” Jumaane said.
“But to be clear,” Sunny added, “we will still go without you.”
I looked around the table at my friends, a lump in my throat. “You’d really come and visit?”
Jumaane rolled his eyes. “You can’t get rid of us by moving to a party house in the sticks.”
“That’s the opposite of how you get rid of us,” Sunny said.
“Although it is how you get rid of me,” Nick added. “Unless this five-hundred-year-old house has a lift?”
On the stage, Sandy Crotch switched to Judy Garland’s “The Man That Got Away.” This medley was starting to feel personal. I had to get out of here. I needed to stop talking about William, thinking about him. He hadn’t called. He was clearly still furious with me. I’d ruined everything.
“I want to go dancing,” I announced to the table.
Stav shook his head. “I don’t think they’ll let you into Hades in the state you’re in.”
Was he an idiot? “Why would we go to that crèche? We’ll go to Vauxhall, like we always do.”
Sunny frowned. “You want to go to a sex club?”
“The sex isn’t compulsory, Sunshine,” I said. “You can go there to dance, you know.”
Stav knocked back his red wine. “I’m no Sigmund Freud, but that seems like super self-destructive behaviour.”
We bickered about where to go next until Sandy reached the Cabaret part of her medley. She was singing “Maybe This Time” when Sunny asked for the bill. By the time we dragged Ludo away from the stage, she was closing with “Cabaret” itself, and the gays were screaming their approval.
“Where are we headed?” Ludo asked as we stepped out into the fresh air of Old Compton Street.
“Vauxhall,” I replied. “And I don’t want to leave until Sunday.”