Dead Centre - Andy McNab [47]
I’d already done most of the pre-gaming bars. The last hits had been the Barrels, the West Bank and the Hop Pole, and now I was heading to Saxtys. The wine bar had been in the city centre for decades in different incarnations. It also had a nightclub that was Jan’s idea of a perfect Friday night out.
I walked through the glass doors into a wall of noise. The blow-heater blasted downwards across the threshold to keep it warm inside. The place was packed with pressed shirts, clean jeans, night-out dresses. Colognes and perfumes filled the air. I eased my way through the wall-to-wall crowd. The club hadn’t opened yet, but it was time enough for Jan to have booked herself a spot. Women like her who thought they were still sixteen were as much a fixture in this town as the cathedral.
And there she was. Right at the back of the crowd, at the bar, just before it opened up into the seating areas. She and two other mutton-dressed-as-lambs were standing around a small table, waffling away.
Time hadn’t been as kind to Jan as it had to Tracy. Her sleeveless blue dress stretched just that bit too tight. Her bra straps showed, and the flesh overflowed each side of them. The hair was still the same, far-too-dark-to-be-natural brown and straightened beyond belief. Her mascara was laid on with a trowel, and she hadn’t held back with the bronzer and eyeliner.
I moved towards the bar and into her line of sight, but she was too busy chatting to her mates. If they ever started shooting The Only Way Is Hereford, these three would be first in the audition queue.
‘Jan!’ I did my best to look surprised to see her. ‘Jan!’ I had to raise my voice. ‘How are you?’
She gave me a fuck-off-whoever-you-are look. I wasn’t in Friday-night clothes and I wasn’t twenty-five.
‘It’s me – Nick.’ I kept the smile in place, still bending, tilting my head down to her level.
Recognition finally dawned.
‘All right, Nick?’ Her expression brightened. ‘How are you? It’s been ages!’
The Hereford accent always sounded like soft Welsh to me. Her arms came up for a bear hug and I got a noseful of Boots Special. She took a step back but kept a hand on my arm as she checked me out.
‘Too long, Jan. Mong’s funeral, I guess. You look … really … good …’
She liked that. She probably wasn’t used to flattery from someone who wasn’t after a shag. ‘Oh, thanks, Nick. I’ve got to put a bit more slap on these days to cover the wrinkles, but I get by.’
Her mates melted away and started talking to a group of men with sharp creases down the sleeves of their Friday-night shirts. She hadn’t introduced me to them. Code, probably, for ‘fuck off’.
We had to keep close to make ourselves heard over the music. The Boots Special was starting to make my eyes water.
‘So, you married again yet?’
She lifted up her left hand. ‘Not right now. But I’m a four by four.’
‘A what?’
‘Four kids by four husbands. They’re all grown-up now. Flown the nest. Gives me some me-time at last.’ She gave me a sad smile. It told me that me-time was not quite as much fun as she was trying to make it sound.
‘You still living on the Ross Road? In the flats?’
She reached down for a glass of what looked like spritzer and sipped from it until the ice slid down and hit her lips. ‘What about you? You found a nice girl?’
‘Why? You offering?’
A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘Well, there’s a thing …’
She started the general catch-up stuff. Have you seen this guy, that woman? All that shit. I didn’t have a clue who she was on about half the time. This was no longer my world. When I’d left Hereford to go and work for the Firm, that was it. I wasn’t coming back for weekend trips. Hereford was done. And after London, there was somewhere else, and somewhere else again. I’d moved out. I might even have moved on. The only thing I’d left behind was my account at the Halifax. I wondered how the recession had hit my £1.52.
‘Seen anything of BB?’
Her expression clouded. ‘No – fucking arsehole. He stayed at my place the night before the funeral, then didn’t even bother coming to the service. What a wanker.’
I