Looking for Andrew McCarthy (24 page)

‘Huh?’ said Andrew.

Ellie looked at the girls’ long, flouncy dresses, so hopefully sexy and demure at the same time, and sighed. ‘This is what I wanted,’ she said, sitting back on the arm of the chair. ‘Well, without the puke. I wanted a proper American prom, with a pink dress, and Andrew McCarthy to take me.’

‘Hey,’ Andrew put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You know, I’m not sure they come without puke.’

‘Might have known,’ said Ellie.

She stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I think I’d better go to bed.’

‘What, and miss Truth or Dare?’

‘It’s late.’

One of the kids in the corner was setting up a stereo.

‘C’mon,’ said Andrew. He picked up a pink throw from the back of the sofa and tied it around her waist. ‘Why don’t you dance with me? Just one dance before you go to bed.’

Ellie laughed and coloured. ‘Do you think they’ve got any Psychedelic Furs?’ She stopped for a second,
looking perturbed. ‘Have I just realized this, or is that the worst name for a band of all time?’

Andrew drew her close to him and buried her face in his shoulder.

‘From the country that brought us Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark …’

In the corner the tape recorder started up.

‘FUCK PIGS AND HO’S!!!! FIRE ON THEM AT WILL WITH A MILLION GREAT BIG ENORMOUS GUNS!!!!! …’

Ellie’s face fell in disappointment.

‘Hang on!’ said Andrew. He fought his way through the throng and took something out of his bag. He clicked the tape off, ignoring the howl of the disgruntled teenagers, and replaced it with one of his own. Suddenly there was a very familiar refrain and … yes, it was. The Psychedelic Furs!

Ellie grinned broadly and laid her head on his shoulder.

‘Caroline hum … and it’s humphy-humph humph …’

Andrew chuckled. ‘Wow, you even know all the words!’

Ellie looked up at him in shock.

‘You did this on
purpose
.’

He laughed. ‘I do everything on purpose. And you are …’ and they both joined in the chorus, ‘Pretty in pink.’

And they stood there swaying in front of the fire,

ignoring the carnage around them, until the song finished and Ellie finally, reluctantly, tore herself away and went to bed.

‘Oh God, I needed that,’ said Julia, stretching her arms above her head. ‘I can’t believe I slept twelve hours.’

‘Hmm.’ Ellie drank her coffee quietly, reflecting that what was the point of doing the decent thing if you couldn’t tell anyone about it because they’d give you a hard time anyway and not listen to you when you tried to explain.

‘This room smells funny,’ said Julia.

‘Teenagers.’

‘Oh, God, I
thought
I recognized it. You know, actually, it’s quite sexy. It reminds me of that party …’

‘That Kool and the Gang party! How could I forget? You were wearing your new Poison perfume. Nearly gassed the lot of us like badgers.’

‘That’s what it is,’ said Julia, shaking her head. ‘Bless ’em.’

Andrew came in, looking rather coy. Julia immediately brightened and turned towards him like a sunflower.

‘Hello there! Did you stay up late last night?’

‘Not really,’ said Ellie and Andrew both at the same time. Then they looked at each other, which
felt to Ellie, on the sensitive side, as tantamount to admitting extreme guilt – they might as well have said, ‘yes, we went behind your back and did it up against the neo-colonial fireplace.’

At the thought of sex, Ellie realized she didn’t want her grits, which meant she obviously fancied Andrew – she could never eat in front of anyone she liked. She sighed.

‘Not hungry?’ asked Julia, cheerfully. ‘Maybe Hatsie got you pregnant. Maybe that’s what happens when he takes his hat off.’

Ellie grunted and forced down some scrambled egg.

‘So, Andrew … what are you doing today? We have to collect Arthur this afternoon.’

Andrew shrugged, ‘Well, I have to pick up a bit of Missouri scenery to help me out with the slogan …’

‘Oh, you’ve seen the way Ellie map-reads!’

‘Ha ha ha,’ said Ellie, a bit snuffily. ‘I’ll go and pack.’

‘Okay,’ said Julia, pleased to get some Andrew time to herself. ‘Oh, and if you get confused – yours is the stuff strewn all over the floor.’

‘Yes
Mom
.’

The airport was huge, empty and soulless. Amazingly,
they were early. After some awkward, waiting-for-someone-style banter, Julia walked past an international payphone and got a sudden tug of guilt. After all, here she was, flirting with this boy, and who knows … maybe this was completely wrong … maybe Loxy could convince her not to; convince her it was him she really loved.

She excused herself from the others and looped around to a phone well out of sight.

‘Hello?’

‘Um, hi there,’ said Loxy. He sounded extremely taken aback. ‘Ehm, how are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Julia. There was a long pause.

Then he said, coldly, ‘Ehm … great. Well, I’m, you know, just … nothing, really.’

Julia winced. So. He obviously hadn’t forgiven her for the little Heathrow fiasco.

‘Okay,’ she said, forcing levity into her voice. ‘I’ve got to go now. I’ll phone again soon.’

She peered round the phone. Andrew and Ellie were laughing at something and she suddenly realized that right at this moment she wanted to be where they were.

‘Right! Bye then!’ she said abruptly, and put the phone down.

‘Okay,’ said Loxy into an empty receiver.

Loxy put the phone down and slowly removed the hand he had covering Siobhan’s mouth.

‘I can’t believe you were going to pick up my phone at this time of night.’

‘I could have just popped over on my way home from work.’

‘You
did
just pop over on your way home from work, Siobhan. That’s still weird.’

Loxy was standing in Julia’s dressing gown, which he’d been wearing since she left. Siobhan was wearing a business suit and high heels, however one of the shoulders of the business suit had been pulled down to show off an extremely expensive bra. Loxy was really starting to worry. He liked Siobhan and everything – actually, he’d tended in the past not to notice Julia’s friends very much – but ever since he’d found her naked in his flat and gently moved her out (after coaxing her back into her clothes), things had gone a bit weird. He suspected she was turning into a bunny boiler.

‘I just came round to see if you wanted any supper,’ said Siobhan, tantalizingly waving a bottle of wine.

‘No, thank you.’ Loxy rubbed his eyes wearily.

‘Okay, sweetheart … do you want me to bring you some breakfast on the way in tomorrow?’

‘No, thanks, it’s okay …’

But she was gone.

Loxy needed some male advice to help him sort this out. Unfortunately, since devoting his life to Julia, he no longer had quite so many options in that area.

‘So, let me get this straight.’ Big Bastard squinted into his pint. ‘Let’s just go over this one more time, because I’m not getting it. Okay. She wants to have sex with you and you’re … not doing it. Sorry mate. I just don’t understand. Explain it again.’

‘I love Julia,’ said Loxy desperately. ‘I’m trying to stay faithful.’

‘So, what – you think Siobhan might have a really stinking minge or something? Clap?’

‘What’s “clap”?’ said Colin.

‘It’s what Arthur does when you manage to go three days without wetting the bed,’ said Big Bastard. ‘I mean, mate, really. Why don’t you just shag her? Jules decided to piss off and leave you, didn’t she?’

‘Yes, on holiday. I’m not sure that’s a random invitation for me to have a big fuckfest.’

‘It might be. Women find it difficult to talk about these things, don’t they?’

‘Yes, well I’m sorry Big Bastard, but I still think, “I’m going on holiday,” probably doesn’t mean, “Have a big fuckfest.”’

‘Suit yourself,’ said Big Bastard. ‘What’s her address?’

‘39 Lavender … why?’

‘No reason!’

‘She’s gagging for it,’ said Big Bastard quietly to Colin. Colin, eyes wide, nodded, just for a quiet life.

‘Do you want me to go round there and have a word with her, mate?’ said Big Bastard, bluffly. ‘Just get her to lay off a bit, yeah?’

‘Ehm … I don’t know – do you think that would help?’

‘It would help
me
,’ said Big Bastard. ‘Bloody Carmel chucked me. Honestly. I mean, if you can’t fart in your girlfriend’s bed, where can you fart? And sometimes, when you fart, things just get broken, that’s all.’

Colin and Loxy regarded him in amazement.

‘You know. Anyway, it was only an old vase.’

‘You farted and broke a
vase
?’

‘Hey – I thought we were talking about your psychotic nymphomaniac stalker.’

Loxy got up and got another round in.

‘Ehm,’ said Colin, ‘Big Bastard?’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘What’s our – you know – what’s the rota for cleaning up and things in the flat?’

Big Bastard put back his head and laughed.

‘Okay little one. Here it is. Mondays, you clean everything. Tuesdays you clean everything. And Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. And that way, I refrain from kicking your teeth in on Saturdays, okay?’

Colin nodded.

‘Good. Now go and tell Loxy to get extra pork scratchings.’

Arthur started in surprise. It had taken him over eighteen hours to get to Kansas City, and, walking unoptimistically through the exit, leaning over his trolley in tiredness, he really hadn’t expected to hear his name screeched out in harsh accents quite different to the soft murmurs that surrounded him. Waving frantically, Ellie and Julia jumped up and down, looking tanned and excitable. They were with a tall, extremely good-looking blond guy. Arthur raised his eyebrows.

‘And this is Andrew …’ said Julia rather proprietarily, after the screeching and the hugging and the jumping up and down were finished with.

‘Hi,’ said Arthur warily, looking at Julia’s flushed face. There’s trouble, he thought. He eyed Andrew’s muscular physique appreciatively, even though, as soon as he did so, he had a vision of Colin’s beseeching little face.

Ellie was looking uncharacteristically chirpy.

‘Hey, Hedgehog,’ he said, draping an arm around her. ‘How’s the search for enlightenment going?’

‘Pretty good actually,’ Ellie said, surprising herself. ‘Arthur, what do you think is worse – school discos or school proms?’

‘They both sound equally revolting,’ said Arthur. ‘Why?’

‘No, they
are
,’ she said, sincerely. ‘Good, isn’t it?’

The four stood around awkwardly as Arthur picked up his baggage. ‘So,’ said Julia enthusiastically. ‘What are we doing now? Enormous zoo?’

Andrew II shrugged. Arthur looked slightly perturbed. ‘I thought I might … have a very long sleep in the back of a car heading towards NEW YORK? REMEMBER?’

‘Oh,’ said Julia, looking anxiously at Andrew II. Ellie managed to resist the urge to do precisely the same thing. ‘Damn it,’ she said to herself. ‘This is going to be tortuous.’ Half of her wanted Andrew to go, get away, to avoid all the complication. The other half wanted him to stay very, very much, as she eyed the long curve of his back.

‘Um,’ said Andrew II. He shuffled a bit.

‘Guys?’ said Julia desperately. ‘We’re going to stay here for a bit aren’t we?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Arthur sceptically. ‘Where’s the International Transvestite quarter?’

The awkward silences were gaining ground.

‘Well, the Hedgehog wants to press on,’ said Arthur, conscious of trying to make the decisions despite being there fifteen seconds.

‘Umm,’ said Ellie.

Nobody moved.

‘Actually,’ said Andrew II finally, and with deliberate carelessness, ‘I haven’t taken a trip to New York in a while. You know, driving it might be rather fun.’

‘There you go,’ thought Arthur ruefully, as he saw both the girls’ faces light up, then the expressions being quickly hidden. ‘Bingo.’

‘Fantastic!’ said Julia, a little too quickly.

‘I’ll just have to phone Hatsie, let him know what I’m doing,’ said Andrew. ‘Last time I went away he tried to freeze himself to death through leaving the chiffon curtains blowing open.’

‘It’s lucky that hats keep in eighty per cent of body heat,’ said Ellie.

‘… and we live in a place with three hundred and twenty days of sunshine a year,’ agreed Andrew. ‘And then I’ll go and pick up a car. Meet you round the front.’

‘We’re going to need another car?’ said Julia disappointedly before she could stop herself.

Andrew looked back at the Toyota. ‘I think so. Unless we can do
Honey I Shrunk the American
.’

‘Okay,’ nodded Ellie and Andrew headed off towards the rental desk. The remaining three stood there looking slightly sheepish.