Chapter 16
“Ilove this place.”
Lottie breathed deeply, as if she was smelling the sweetest perfume, not inhaling the pong of stale beer and damp decay.
In her chic trouser suit and with her highlighted toffee-toned hair pulled up into a timeless chignon, she looked about as out of place in this joint as I did. But that didn’t bother Lottie. She always saw the good in everything. It was one of the things I loved about her. I often wished I could be more “Lottie”.
I wrinkled my nose with displeasure.
“I really don’t know how you can love this place; it’s got all the charm of an attack of dysentery, and if you order a pickled egg from the jar behind the bar that might become a reality.”
She shook her head in disagreement.
“It’s just so unpretentious, that’s charm enough for me. So many of the new bars are just generic versions on the same theme; they don’t have the appeal of a real old-style boozer like this.”
She settled herself on the rickety stool across from me and unzipped her purse.
“I’ll get us a drink.”
She peered at my now empty lipstick stained glass.
“What were you having? A gin and slim?”
“Yeah, but actually I wouldn’t mind something else. I don’t suppose they do cocktails here, by any chance?”
She was out of her seat and heading for the bar in one graceful move.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Five minutes later she returned to our table with two glasses of clear liquid with ice, two bottles of what appeared to be blue drain cleaner and a couple of bags of Scampi-flavoured fries clamped between her teeth.
I looked suspiciously at the table as she spread out the wares.
“I don’t want to be rude, but I said I wanted a cocktail, and I dread to think what abomination that is.”
She dropped the snacks down on the table beside our “drinks” and laughed.
“This is the best I could do in the cocktail department. It’s a double voddie each and a blueberry alcopop to mix. Try it, you might actually like it, and the barman said it would put hairs on your balls.”
I glanced over at the barman, who raised his hand to me and grinned. Decidedly more friendly than when I had ordered my previous drink. Hairs on my balls indeed? I wondered if he’d heard the exchange I had with young Archie and been impressed with how I’d handled myself. Maybe thought me a bit more formidable than he’d first imagined.
I mixed my drink together as Lottie had instructed. It was a taste sensation, all right, and definitely not one likely to be repeated any time soon: like cough syrup with a kick. But kick it did, like an angry mule, and after a few mouthfuls it was hitting the spot nicely. So, I wasn’t going to complain too much.
I was champing at the bit to talk about Seb. I knew how much Lottie loved her tea, and for once I had plenty to spill. But I was nothing if not polite, so first asked her about her day. It was always best to engage in a bit of small talk before unpacking the box of crap that was my life.
I was keen to spill my guts, not literally of course, but if I had many more of these “cacktails” it might become my reality.
“How are things going with Leo: you two still as loved up?”
I gave her a little cheeky wink, so she knew exactly what I was getting at.
Lottie blushed adorably at the mention of her man, and a little self-conscious smile played at the corners of her mouth.
“Yes, it’s just perfect, I’ve never been happier.”
She gave a little contented sigh that I would have found irritating in anyone else, but Lottie got a pass, I loved her that much.
“I have to pinch myself sometimes: I just can’t believe this is really happening to me and this is my life now.”
I smiled back at her.
“Well, you deserve it, my darling. He was a long time coming, but your prince rode up on his white charger eventually.”
She nodded her head in agreement and took a long sip of her blue drink, barely grimacing at all. She was made of stern stuff, that girl.
But my hard-wired Glover nosiness was getting the better of me and I had to pry a little more.
“And the sex? Still as phenomenal as you first thought?”
Lottie’s blush deepened and the smile was back.
“Yes, it’s incredible. I feel so relaxed and safe with Leo. In truth, I’m doing stuff that I never did with Daniel.”
She looked down at the table and picked at the corners of the tatty beer mat.
“Well, you know, Daniel and I barely had a sex life at all for the last few years, and the odd occasion we did indulge, it was only ever missionary.”
She paused to take another hearty swig of her drink and I nodded at her encouragingly.
“It’s OK, Lottie, I know you find it difficult talking about s-e-x.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. I had mouthed the letters of the last word with a comically prudish expression on my face. This had always been a quirk of hers –never actually saying the word “sex”, but just whispering the letters as if it was a swear word. She would feel cringingly embarrassed whenever the topic arose.
We could be having a fabulous time on a girls’ night out, but as soon as anything risqué was mentioned, Lottie would glance around as if she was worried her mother would jump out from the shadows and give her a good old whack with the family Bible.
So, the fact she was sharing her bedroom antics with me now was a revelation. It just showed how confident and liberated Leo was making her feel. It was remarkable the power that being in a good, equal, loving relationship could bring.
“I tell you, Lila, I was the equivalent of a sexual starfish: only ever one position, flat on my back, legs akimbo and barely moving for the whole four minutes it took him to lift my nightie and get the deed done and dusted.”
I cringed at this. Lottie really had been shortchanged in the whole Daniel department. Not only had he been a womanising knobhead, but he had treated her like a doormat rather than his wife. And now it transpired that on the extremely rare occasion that they ever indulged in conjugal headboard rattling, it had lasted no longer than the time it took to boil the kettle. And quite clearly never got as hot.
To see Lottie now lifted my spirits. She was blushing, partly from opening up about her sex life and admitting she now actually had one, and partly because of the alcohol. After the lengthy hiatus from all things rumpy pumpy, she was making up for lost time. And to put it politely, it, or rather she, had been a long time coming.
Lottie played with the paper straw in her drink.
“I even like sucking his…you know.”
She still wasn’t as liberated as I had hoped: clearly saying the word “cock” was just that little step too far out of her comfort zone.
“I never really did that with Daniel. The fact it was called a ‘job’ I thought was reason enough. It always felt like just another chore I had to do, like the never-ending stack of dishes to be washed or scrubbing the toilet. But it’s different with Leo: I can’t get enough of it. Everything about him is delicious, even that.”
My mind wandered back to my mother’s advice to me when I had first started seriously dating, many moons ago. She had taken me to one side and sagely imparted her nugget of wisdom, like she was bestowing the greatest gift a mother could give to her only daughter.
“Only ever go down for diamonds, my darling. That’s the best advice you’ll ever get.”
That had been my mother’s opinion on all things carnal. It was simply a transaction between two willing partners, quid pro quo: if he was getting something, you would need to be recompensed for your time and skill. And I liked to feel I was highly skilled in that department. Thank God I didn’t hold the same opinions as my mother though. The amount of cubic zirconia I had been gifted over my dating lifetime, I would never have seen any action and there would have been plenty of disappointed men.
Lottie looked at me nervously, her face flushed. I hadn’t said anything for a few seconds, and I could tell her brain was working overtime, worrying she had said too much.
“I shouldn’t have rambled on so much, should I? I’m blaming the drink. I should have a water next, I’m embarrassing myself.”
I hooted with laughter.
“It’s me you’re talking to, remember. This conversation is barely PG-rated; I don’t think you telling your best mate you’re a fan of fellatio is going to alert the church elders. Anyway, I’m in complete agreement with you: you just can’t beat it with the right man. I don’t know if I agree with you on the delicious part, though. I think I would still rather stick to licking an ice cream in the taste department that’s for sure.”
She sighed, visibly relieved she hadn’t overstepped the mark.
I gave her another little cheeky wink, as if I had just stepped straight off the set of a 1970s sitcom. Next, I would be saying “Oooh, a lovely bit of crumpet” or something equally dated and ridiculously un-PC. Instead, I came out with.
“Yep, I love to tongue-tickle the todger now and again, but as ice-cream flavours go, I would never plump for a double scoop of soft serve cock-olate.”
Lottie let out a delighted high-pitched giggle that woke up one of the boozers at the bar. He had nodded off into an open packet of cheese and onion crisps, and as he glanced around to see who had woken him from his slumber, he had a few crisps stuck to his face like warts. He reminded me of paintings I had seen of Oliver Cromwell. Only this chap’s skin condition was more potato-based than Olly’s would have been.
“Oooh, or…. or….”
Lottie was desperately fumbling to think of a “rude” flavour for her favourite ice cream, to rival my suggestion, but it was proving more difficult that she imagined.
” Cocky road or mint choc dick!”
Her face was triumphant, and I couldn’t help but laugh. Within a couple of seconds, we were both laughing so hard we could barely breathe, tears running down our faces. It’s amazing how when you are with good, true friends, even the silliest little thing can set you off. And the combination of dick-inspired dairy ice-cream flavours and the warty barfly had us in hysterics. Honestly, for a couple of middle-aged women, it was good to behave so childishly. It really blew the cobwebs away.
Eventually I managed to curtail my laughs and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Well, I know one thing at least: ‘vanilla’ isn’t the only flavour on the menu for you any more.”
Lottie raised her blue drink and clinked the glass against mine with a definite twinkle in her eye.
“Amen to that.”
I could feel more tears springing into my eyes. But this time they weren’t from laughing. I dug around desperately in my handbag, knowing the back of my hand wasn’t going to be good enough. I located a tatty tissue and dabbed at my eyes to stem the flow of salty tears. These were sad tears.
Never mind gin for making you weepy and maudlin; it seemed like vodka and blueberry goop was the new Mother’s Ruin. It might be as lethal as petrol to the guts, but it appeared to be gut-wrenching on the emotions too.
“What’s wrong, Lila? You…you’re crying?”
Lottie’s face was visibly shocked. She had never seen me cry before. As far as she was aware, I had never cried. Not like her: she welled up at ads for pet insurance on the TV, but I was usually much more stoic, made of sterner stuff. Stiff upper lip and all that. But just now my lip was wobbling pitifully.
She put a reassuring arm around my shoulders.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
I sniffed a couple of times. Not the most attractive of sounds, but considering our surroundings, we were still bringing the glamour, snot and all.
“It’s Seb…I’ve lost him.”
She looked confused.
“Seb? What do you mean, you’ve lost him? You’re always out and about together, you two are…”
She registered my expression, and the penny began to finally drop, her eyebrows rising.
“Oh…you and Seb.”
Lottie pulled a fresh new pack of tissues out of her own bag. Trust my friend to be so organised.
“Right, start at the beginning.”
So that’s what I did. I touched on my disastrous date with Mervyn, how I had come to the startling realisation that I had deep feelings for Seb, feelings I had been pushing down for so long. Always trying to protect myself, protect my heart. But if you push things down too much, eventually they’re going to pop back up, and often at the worst possible time. And that was exactly what had happened.
I was off crying again, telling my dear friend how I had lost him to the office floozy, how she wasn’t right for him. Uncharitably, I even mentioned that she dressed like a pole dancer in pinstripes. I knew that wasn’t kind of me, but Lottie just nodded along loyally.
In Jocasta’s defence, I also gave her a compliment: I said she was excellent at multi-tasking; she certainly seemed to be able to help Seb out of his trousers and get into his wallet at the same time.
Lottie was now shaking her head.
“But you didn’t really lose him to her, Lila. He was never yours to begin with. He wanted to be, but you were the one who continually friend-zoned him. You were adamant that he wasn’t the right man for you.”
“I know, I know.”
I blew my nose noisily into my soggy tissue.
“But I was wrong, I’ve been such an idiot.”
Lottie was still shaking her head.
“Make it make sense, will you. Is Mercury in retrograde or something?”
I shrugged my shoulders and blew my nose into my now soggy tissue. She pulled another fresh one from the pack and passed it over to me before she continued to speak.
“The thing is you’re always ‘Lila-ing’ around town with younger men. Most of your relationships are ‘situationships’ and have the shelf-life of a crème fraiche before they start to go bad, and you’re forever saying love just isn’t for you and you’ve got a heart like a swinging brick.”
I sniffed into my tissue but remained silent. I knew she was right, but I still hated it when she used my name as a verb.
I knew I had been an absolute idiot: forever keeping Seb on the backburner, like a pot of bubbling gravy I could dip into if I ever took the fancy. All these years keeping him at arm’s length, and we could have been so happy. I’d been a fool. A big, old, self-absorbed, ridiculous fool.
I had believed I was so independent and strong, parading my young boyfriends around on my arm like they were the latest Chanel bag, when in fact I had a Hermes vintage Birkin under my nose the whole time.
I now knew what I wanted, and that wasn’t a message with a dick pic attached from a Tinder beau. No, I wanted one of Seb’s cringingly awful sci-fi memes. That would be the thing that would now make my heart flutter.
And after all, a dick pic was only ever fit for the bin, literally junk mail in every sense of the word.
I drained the last of my lurid-coloured drink. I hadn’t liked it to start with, but now I was disappointed it was gone and only the empty lipstick-stained glass remained.
“I think I’m so smart.”
I hiccupped unattractively before continuing in a voice I could recognise was slightly slurred but unable to stop it.
“But quite clearly I haven’t retained the sense I was born with. I should have listened to you about Seb, but oh no, I knew better. I’ve got a stubborn streak a mile wide, and look at me now: old, bitter and as pissed as a fart.”
“Now that’s enough.”
Lottie’s voice was firm but not unkind.
“That’s no way to talk about my best friend. OK, you may be as pissed as a fart, but you’re still also fabulous. And there’s absolutely no point in all these ‘what-ifs’ and ‘what-could-have-beens’. It’s a complete waste of time to keep looking at the past, as you’re no longer going in that direction. What we need to do is figure this out and what you’re going to do now.”
I was off babbling again my words spilling over each over in my haste to make my point.
“If I’d just realised earlier that we were meant for each other and I loved him, we would be together now. But the timing is so wrong. I eventually figure it out, and now he’s got someone else.”
I threw my hands in the air in a gesture of defeat.
“Love…you love him?”
Even through my inebriated haze I could hear the shock evident in her voice. I turned to face her, trying to focus my eyes on her dumbfounded expression.
I thought for a few seconds. Did I love him? I had said it, but did I actually, truly mean it? Or was it the devastating effect on my brain cells from all the alcohol? But no, I realised the stone-cold truth. I absolutely, unequivocally loved Sebastian Young.
Charlotte didn’t look overly convinced. Knowing me of old, she was well aware how quickly my head could be turned. How at the drop of a hat my mind could be changed. She had witnessed me covet the latest designer bag for months, but then when I had it finally in my eager hands and was excitedly ripping off the paper packaging, I would begin to feel the first stirrings of regret. All that money, and what had I ended up with? An empty bag, that was what, and it would leave me feeling as empty inside as my bank balance inevitably was. But Seb wasn’t a designer bag. No, he was even better than that. He was my future, I was sure of it.
“And you don’t think you just want him now because he’s dating Jocasta? The fact that you can’t have him makes him so desirable. But if he were single, would you change your mind again? Decide that you were only meant to be mates? Move him firmly back into the friend-zone again?”
This gave me cause to ponder for a few seconds. Was she right? Was I just lusting after the unattainable? But no, I knew I loved Seb. I wanted him, no matter what. But was it too late? Had I lost the love of my life to my workplace nemesis?
“I love him, Lottie, that’s all I know for sure.”
“Well, if you’re sure, Lila, then you need to fight for him. You know Seb better than anyone else. If you really think he’s the one, then you go get him, girl. Take it from me, love is all that matters in the world. It took me half a lifetime to realise that, but now I know for sure. Be like one of my old screen idols: don your warpaint, throw your shoulders back and battle for his heart.”
She was making sense to me. And I had never been one to back down from a battle. I batted my eyelashes at her with fake modesty.
“But darling, you know I never fight; but I might be persuaded to gently tussle.”
She snorted with laughter: a sound so unappealing, even the fellow who had tried to tap me up earlier with an offer of a drink now cringed. He clearly had been drinking for most of the day, as with every pint he appeared to be sinking further and further off his bar stool towards the sticky floor.
Lottie’s face was determined. Clearly the lady fuel in the beverage was working on her too.
“Yeah, OK, you never fight. That’s why they call you ‘The Rottweiler’ at work, is it? Because you’re just such a sweet little pussycat? Well, if you’re a pussycat, you’ve got claws, and you need to use them. It’s risk versus reward ratio, when you think about it.”
She had seemingly lost her train of thought for a few seconds as she gazed off into the middle distance before continuing her impassioned speech.
“How much would you risk to win Seb back from Jocasta? Figure that out as a starting point and work from there.”
I nodded at her in agreement and banged my hand down on the table, making the remaining scampi fries jump up from their packet like startled prawny pillows.
“You’re absolutely right. I have to get him back. There’s nothing else for it.”
Lottie nodded in agreement before scooping a couple of the rogue fries from the table and crunching them down hungrily.
“Bang on, Lila. Do nowt, get nowt. You know sometimes it’s easier to apologise than to ask for permission in advance.”
Lottie was becoming more philosophical with every second that passed.
She continued thoughtfully chewing on the scampi fries as if they were the finest caviar she was tasting, which they most definitely were not. She had scoffed down the majority of the two packets of snacks. She’d better not blame me for the inevitable heartburn that was coming for her later. When a pub decided to sell those snacks along with the requisite crisps, nuts and pork scratchings, they should really stock Gaviscon shots behind the bar too, along with the Sambuca and Tequila Rose.
Wow, angelic Lottie was really showing a different side to her. Was she actually advising me to pull out all the stops in my desire to be with Seb? Always the Goody Two Shoes, this was not the Lottie of old. In the last year, my friend had really wised up.
But was she honestly telling me to go “balls to the wall” in my pursuit of love? It seemed she most certainly was. And she had still more wisdom yet to impart.
“You can’t let the love of your life get away, you just can’t. I realise that now with Leo. I almost lost him forever, and that would have been the biggest mistake of my life. He even went away to the other side of the world, but thank God we’re back together now. Don’t make the mistake I did and nearly lose your soulmate. If you’re not careful, time goes by so fast that you’ll end up old, sad and alone in your ratty dressing gown with only Radio 4 for company and inevitably end up getting eaten by your cats.”
Lottie was beginning to confuse me now. When had cats come into the equation?
“But I don’t even have any cats. You know I hate cats, superior creatures that snootily look down their whiskers at you. Give me a faithful dog any day.”
She wagged her finger at me, millimetres away from my face. Quite clearly, she was now exceedingly tipsy.
“Whatever, just don’t leave it to chance, that’s all I’m saying. You’re my best friend and I love you and you’re far too nice and pretty to end up as cat food.”
With that she rose shakily from her seat with a little gassy hiccup. The makeshift cocktail and bar snacks had apparently caused quite a commotion in her tummy. She gestured to the empty packs lying abandoned on the table.
“We’re going to make a plan for you to win back the love of your life, just as soon as I get us another drink and a couple more packets of those delicious rascals.”