Alphabet Weekends - Elizabeth Noble [76]
Arriving had been surreal. The entrance to the club looked for all the world like the door to a sewer or some Victorian horror location, under the arches in an unsalubrious part of town, south of the river. Opposite, the paparazzi were camped out, drinking tea and talking in loud Mockney. They’d ignored the four of them when they arrived, despite Susannah and Casper’s best efforts to move in a famous sort of way.
Natalie had heard the murmur go round, ‘It’s nobody much.’ Crikey! Hanging around with famous people was really good for your self-esteem. Her boss would be ser iously, seriously hacked off that he wasn’t there. On account of him being a J-lister. Natalie smiled to herself. J for Jerk. She must remember a few names to drop into conversation on Monday morning. It was all like some incredibly complicated caste system, wasn’t it? Here, she was nobody. Having been here, however, would put her at the top of the pile at work for a while. The games we play…
She felt like the only girl in the room who had dressed herself. Everyone else was so ‘groomed’. Puffy perfect hair, flawless faces, frocks she recognised from the pages of her magazines, the kind of frocks that cost a month’s rent. She and Susannah had got ready two hours before, in the same bathroom, with Natalie dipping her fingers into the same pots as her sister, so how was it that Susannah looked completely at home and she felt like a poor relation?
‘You look fine!’ Tom had been a little exasperated.
‘ “Fine”. The word a girl longs to hear. Thanks,’ she had hissed at him in the taxi, but he had only chuckled.
She recognised practically every other face. Admittedly, some from Hollyoaks and Coronation Street – Susannah called them Rent-a-C-listers – but definitely some from the catwalk, and more than one from the silver screen. All behaving perfectly normally, as though they spent their whole lives being photographed and stared at by strangers. Which, of course, they did. At least models looked completely strange in real life – like newborn genetically modified giraffes. They were freakishly thin, like lollipops with giant, fluffy heads. She wished Rose was here: she’d have a field day.
There were podiums strategically placed around the room, with pole-dancers gyrating on them. Allegedly, this had what Casper called ‘resonance with the themes explored in the script’. He and Tom were taking the time to note the artistic integrity. Or were they, option B, staring at the spread-legged, barely clothed girl with the huge tits and the smashing sense of rhythm? Tom was feeding himself a miniature something enthusiastically. He reminded Natalie of Ed, eating his tea in front of The Fimbles. She pulled his arm, so that he put his head down, and shouted in his ear, ‘My mum can do that.’
It was an in-joke. They’d gone to see the cricket at the Oval a few years ago: England being crucified by Australia – hard to narrow it down to a particular year – and some brash Australians sitting behind them had waved a banner proclaiming that ‘their mum [could] do that’ whenever the Poms dropped a catch. Tom laughed a lot. But didn’t immediately stop watching.
‘I need another drink!’ She nudged him. She didn’t know why she disliked it so much, but she did… Feminist principle, probably.
Tom sauntered off reluctantly in the direction of the bar. Natalie hugged a dark corner of the room and just watched the people around her. She could see Susannah draped over Casper, talking to some similarly lithe luvvies over near the door. Then she watched a young actor from a medical drama she watched avidly, dancing with some beautiful girl wearing a dress apparently made out of macramé.
Tom had been gone for ages. She came round the corner a little, and scanned the bar for him. There he was, at the far end. Looked like he already had the drinks – but he was still talking to the girl who’d served him. Or, rather, she was talking to him. Flirting with him, if Natalie wasn