Fast Friends (10 page)

The divorce, on the other hand, had been the most painful
experience of Loulou’s life, so painful that she
had dealt with it
in the only way she knew how – by pretending that the
marriage had never happened. In the space of a fortnight she had found herself
and her five large suitcases a new life in Glasgow.

’Have you
done much bar work before?’ asked the bar manager,
and Loulou fell instantly in love all over again. With his deep
voice and brown eyes and black tangled curls;
with that heavenly
Scottish accent, those clinging ultra-faded
button-fly Levis and thrillingly taut brown forearms; with the sheer
height
of
him .. .

and oh, when he smiled he revealed the most bewitching
dimple she had ever seen . . .

‘Speak to me,’ he commanded humorously, passing a strong,
beautifully shaped hand in front of her eyes. ‘I
said, have you
ever done . .

‘Oh sure, tons,’ lied Loulou absently, struggling to
regain her
senses in the face of such
heavenly perfection. Her stomach
was
down by her knees somewhere and she wasn’t at all sure
that she wasn’t about to keel off the bar stool,
her sense of
balance appearing to
have left her completely in this moment
of revelation. It absolutely had
to be love.

‘
You’re supposed to
tell me about it,’ the bar manager
reminded her gently. He had
introduced himself as Mac, she remembered. Such a wonderful, romantic, kissable
name . . .

‘Yes. Sorry. Um, well . . .’ With a suitably vague gesture
she
almost succeeded in knocking over a soda
syphon and three
glasses.

‘
God, sorry! Yes, I’ve
worked a lot in clubs and pubs .. .
down
south. London, Bristol, Bath. Can I have the job?’ she
blurted out
helplessly, her silver-grey eyes wide and appealing.
She would die if he turned her down now, just when she had
fallen
so desperately in love with him.

Meanwhile Mac was wrestling equally
as desperately with
his
conscience. He made and lived by his own unbreakable
rules and the one that was causing him
trouble at this moment
was the one which stated firmly that he would never get involved
with a fellow member of staff. He’d seen the unhappy
results of other such relationships too often to hope that they might not
happen to him. It was always, but
always,
a fatal mistake.

Yet here was this gorgeous girl,
lying her head off – she
certainly
wasn’t twenty-three for a start and he seriously doubted whether she had ever
been on the working side of a bar – and
gazing
at him with such an angelic, hopeful expression that all
he wanted to do was take her to bed. But if he
refused her the
job there was a chance
that he might never see her again and
that was every bit as unthinkable
as becoming involved with a member of staff.

Well, he decided suddenly, he’d just have to make damn
sure
that he would see her again. But
really, it was asking too much
of his hormones to expect him to be able
to work alongside this beautiful blonde angel and to keep his hands to himself.

‘I think, perhaps, that giving you the job here might not
be a
terribly good idea,’ he began to
explain slowly, but his words
were cut off by a shriek of agonized
dismay that could have shattered every glass in the house.

‘
No!’ Loulou gasped,
unable to bear the thought of losing
him or to tolerate the fact that he
was rejecting her. Couldn’t he
feel
the chemistry between them, for God’s sake? Was he
completely
unaware of the way things were? ‘Oh, please don’t
turn me down,’ she begged frantically. ‘I’ve got to have a job –
I’ve no
money and nowhere to live and I’ll have to sleep in a doorway and I’d work so
hard you wouldn’t believe it. I
love
this
place,’ declared Loulou with another sweeping gesture to
indicate
the smoky, tatty public bar with its nicotine-stained windows and battered
wooden furniture. ‘And I swear to you
that I’ll be the best
barmaid you ever had. Please, please give
 
me
a chance to prove it. Please, Mac? Will you? Please?’

I don’t
have
barmaids, thought
Mac with unhappy resig
nation. Clearly the hormones would have to wait. In the
face of such tumultuous persuasion,
how on earth could he
refuse her
this chance when she was so desperately in need of
work?

‘
OK,’ he said with a reluctant grin that sent Loulou’s
heart plummeting once more ‘You win. When do you want to start?’

Chapter 9

Mac broke his unbreakable rule within
forty-eight hours. He
had
probably broken it within forty-eight seconds, since his involvement with
Loulou was forged almost instantly, but he gamely managed to hold out for
almost two whole days before being inveigled into her narrow bed in the tiny
room above the pub.

It had been hopeless, pretending to himself that it wouldn’t
happen. Loulou was so adoringly besotted with him, and so determined that he
should in turn be besotted with her, that he
simply
had no choice in the matter. When she had called
downstairs as he was preparing to leave after the lunchtime
opening, asking him to please come up and kill a
monstrous
spider which was taking up
most of the bath, he had semi-
suspected that her intentions weren’t
entirely honourable.

When she opened the door, wearing only high heels and an
utterly bewitching smile, he knew for certain. Only later did he
learn that Loulou had never possessed an
honourable intention
in her life.

At first, however, the relationship
worked perfectly. Mac’s
heart wasn’t
in his job, it was merely a means of saving money. He was a photographer, and
one day he intended to be a
known
photographer, right up there along
with Lichfield and Bailey.
Every penny he
earnt went towards either a better camera, a
newer lens, or more film.
Being a bar manager was only work, whereas photography was life itself.

Loulou, on the other hand, after a series of mistakes so
awful
they rapidly turned into mini-legends,
took to her new-found
career like a hippo to mud. The dour,
working-class Glaswegian
men who frequented
the pub in order to escape their shrill,
endlessly complaining wives gave the new barmaid a particu
larly hard time at first. She wasna even a Scot, for
heaven’s
sake. But they found themselves reluctantly enchanted by her
merciless barrage of repartee, her ability to
out-swear even
dirty Murdo McLean, and the way she habitually
undercharged them for their drinks. Before long, the sons of these
uncompromising, not easily impressed, men got to hear about the bonnie
wee lassie from down South who had tipped the
contents of an
ice bucket down Jimmy McKendrick’s trousers in order to
cool
off his ‘nasty wee willy, the very,
very
smallest one I’ve ever
had the misfortune to see.’

Full of admiration for the slip of a girl who had publicly
humiliated Glasgow’s most persistent flasher and had finally
persuaded him to keep his parts private, the sons
took to popping
in for a quick drink
with their fathers, then staying on to feast
their eyes and ears upon
Loulou Marks. She was unique in their
experience,
and so obviously
enjoyed
herself that her passion
for life became infectious. The Ramsay Arms,
previously a
grimy, old men’s pub of few words and no laughter, was
totally rejuvenated within the space of two months, with Loulou buying the
teller of the best joke each night an enormous drink, leading
the singing which became a new nightly ritual, and
organizing
a never to be forgotten drag evening when even the most
determinedly dour old Scotsman turned up in an ill-fitting dress and high
heels.

‘If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have
believed that this was possible,’ said Mac, finishing his third roll of film.
Loulou was planning a rogues’ gallery of incrimina
ting photographs above the bar. ‘I never even knew that old
Joey
Blair
could
laugh.’

‘
‘I’ve just managed to
bring the old devils out of themselves
a
little,’ Loulou said modestly, trailing her fingers along the
smooth curve of his hip in a deliberately
provocative manner.
She was so in love with this man, he really could
have no idea.
He
was the only reason she had worked so hard to make
the
pub into a success. Happy punters
were more likely to say
‘and have one for yourself,’ and every time they
said it the jar
beside the till gained
another 80p. In two months the happy
punters, unbeknown to themselves,
had bought Mac a superb Nikon.

‘
You’re a miracle,’ he said now, reloading the
camera and
dropping a kiss on the very tip
of Loulou’s perfect nose.
‘Then why don’t you marry me?’

Only Mac’s lightning reflexes saved the camera as it
slipped
from his hands. Catching it, and
realizing that he was shaking,
he placed it with care on the bar.

‘
Oh Lou, you don’t mean it.’

‘
I do,’ she said fearfully, watching his expression and
finding that he was giving nothing away. ‘I do, I do.’

‘
Sweetheart, you said
that less than a year ago to Jerry, if
you
remember. You’re not even twenty-one yet and already
you’re a divorcee.
You can’t just dive in all over again.’

‘
I can, I can,’ insisted
Loulou stubbornly. ‘It’s so different
this time, you’ve got to believe
me. More than anything in the world I want to be married to you.’

Around them, men in Crimplene
dresses, the hairs on their
legs poking
through their American tan tights, sang ‘Knees up, Mother Brown’ and hurled
their handbags into the air. Frozen in time, Loulou and Mac gazed into each
other’s eyes, oblivious to the noise and laughter.

‘
I’m poor,’ said Mac
eventually. ‘It wouldn’t be fair to you.
You deserve so much more than
anything I can give you.’

‘I only
want
what you can give me. What
only
you
can give
me,’ she said with mounting
urgency. God, it was hard, proposing
to a man with a conscience. ‘Besides,
I like being poor.’

Mac, struggling to do the right thing
and slowly beginning
to realize that yet again Loulou was willing him to do the
opposite, was running out of excuses. He wanted to marry
her, dammit – who wouldn’t want to marry this gorgeous, gutsy girl, after all?
– but he had plans for his life, real plans and marriage had long ago been
ruthlessly edited out of them. Just as sleeping with a fellow member of staff
had been. Oh shit, he thought, battling with his conscience. What the hell was
he going to do?

‘
The novelty would soon
wear off.’ He attempted to sound
adult
and reasonable. ‘Poverty’s only ever fun for six months at
the very
most. You’d absolutely hate it, darling.’

Sensing that she was at last beginning to wear him down,
Loulou shook her head so violently that the
rippling silver
blonde hair swung out in an arc, brushing Mac’s face –
just the way he liked it.

‘I can work, we can make enough money not to be
disgustingly poor, and you can concentrate on your photography. Stop giving me
these bullshit reasons, Mac! Do you love me?’

Weakened, and hoping to God that this highly incriminating
conversation wasn’t being overheard – he would never live this down – he bent
his dark head.

‘
You know I do. But that isn’t . .

‘Oh yes, it
is!’ intercepted Loulou forcefully, closing in now for the kill. ‘That’s
all
that matters. It’s the very best reason in
the
world for getting married and don’t you dare argue with me any more. Now, I
fully intend to marry you. So, will you marry me? It would make matters a great
deal easier if you could just say yes.’