Stilettos & Stubble (31 page)

Two
years later.

The club is
closed.  A sign on the door says, ‘Private Party.’  The rickety old steps are now
smooth and even, the railings a shiny scarlet red and ‘The Gossamer Glove’
frontage is proud and pristine.

Inside Liza Minnelli
is playing on the music system, interspersed with the sounds of chatter,
laughter and a baby crying.

It’s been a while
since I’ve been inside The Glove.  Oh I still see the girls regularly, but my
life’s very different now.

My writing went
from strength to strength and I was taken on by a hot-shot agent who went on to
secure me a three book deal with a major publishing house.  ‘Tales from the
Glove’ has been a huge success and is rising steadily up the bestseller’s list.

It had soon become
clear that I’d need to give up my front of house job and devote myself fully to
my new career.  So I
didn’t
become a kept woman. 
I’m
one of the
bright young things of London now and can often be seen at functions, dinners
or high profile books launches.  And with my handsome husband by my side, I
breeze through them with the confidence of one who knows she’s loved and cared
for.  Sometimes, I’ll put a bit of lippie on or a quick coat of mascara but I’m
usually just bare faced and beaming.  Love is the best make up there is.

When I left my
position at The Glove, Lubov took over.  It seemed odd for her still be to
working as a drag queen and Daddy felt a little uncomfortable with blokes drooling
over her.  It’s all worked out just perfectly.

And my father was
taken on as the club’s new accountant.  Annie had admitted to being crap with
money and fully accepted that a lot of the business’s downfall had been due to
his habit of sticking his head in the sand.  Dad went through the books with a
fine toothed comb and every receipt and bill was accounted for.  ‘The Gossamer
Glove’ was flying.

Lubov is sitting
next to me now, sipping champagne and grinning wildly.  She’s dressed in a
stunning Vera Wang wedding dress and has never looked happier.  Her big day has
finally arrived and she’s enjoying every last second of it.  My father is
looking young and dapper in his grey suit and he’s chatting animatedly to Luke
and Annie, his health scare long behind him.

Stella and Dave
are in the corner taking it in turns to pacify their baby and, although
exhausted, they look content.  Their dream finally came true.

Mia has joined
Lubov and me at the table and she looks over to the crying baby.  She puts her
hand on my
huge
stomach and then back to her tiny bump and says, ‘Be us
next, eh Perce?’

How two women can
be at the same stage in pregnancy and look
so
completely different is
beyond me - but I don’t care.  I’ve been there, done this before and I know I
turn into a hippo when pregnant.

The evidence is
sitting on the floor on his play mat, bashing a plastic hammer with his chunky
little fist and blowing bubbles from his chubby cheeks.  Someone has placed a
pink feather boa around his shoulders and he giggles as it brushes his face and
tickles him.

My
ten pound,
ten ouncer,
now a very sturdy one-year-old, is content wherever he goes and
never fails to bring a smile to people’s faces.

His sister, due
in a couple of months, is currently on track for being as big a baby as
Mattie.  But she’ll be raised with love and a positive outlook.  And with
Luke’s looks she can only be a stunner.  I
would
say that our family
will then be complete but I somehow doubt it.  I like having babies and I enjoy
growing to circus-like proportions.  Luke likes it too and he’d be more than
happy to have six.  We’ll see.

Annie is up now
and tapping a spoon on his glass, calling for hush.  ‘May I have your attention
please?  A toast to the happy couple, Gordon and Lubov!’

‘Gordon and
Lubov.’  We echo.

Then he adds,
with a hint of irony, as he looks around the strange assortment of guests, ‘And
to ‘The Gossamer Glove’ where all you need to be is yourself.’

IF YOU ENJOYED
‘STILETTOS
& STUBBLE’

TURN THE PAGE

TO READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

OF AMANDA EGAN’S

CHICKLIT ROMANCE NOVEL

‘COMPLETING THE PUZZLE’

COMPLETING THE PUZZLE

Chapter
One

‘Mum, Gramps has been at the cooking sherry again!  He’s asleep on the
bathroom floor and I
really
need a dump.’

And so my Monday morning began.  As if the 6.30 alarm hadn’t been a rude
enough awakening, I had yet another Crawford family drama to deal with.

Of course darling hubbie Hugh was safely ensconced in the en-suite,
shaving and whistling along to ‘La Traviata’ - oblivious as usual.  But even if
he’d been aware of the situation, he wouldn’t have got involved.  He’d made
that more than clear when I’d moved my old dad in six months ago.

‘On
your
head be it, Fee,’ he’d mumbled as he rooted around his
mouth with a toothpick - an obsessive habit, but it came with the territory of
being a dentist’s wife.  ‘Your life will never be your own and don’t look to me
to help out - I’m having none of it.’

Not big on teamwork or loving support, my Hugh.  And as for my
boys
! 
Will and Toby, at nineteen, saw Gramps as a constant source of drunken
entertainment and good for a few free rounds down at our local.  I’d told them
time and again not to encourage him, but they just thought he was ‘cool’.

Which of course, he
was
.  He was my dad and I thought the world
of him.  And he wasn’t
really
a drunk, he just occasionally forgot he
was in his eighties and couldn’t knock them back quite the way he used to.  And
I knew he missed Mum so badly, the odd drink just took the edge off his misery.

As I threw my silk dressing gown on and headed to the bathroom, I
silently cursed my mother. 
‘Why did you have to go and leave us, Mum?  See
what my life’s turned into?’
  Selfish I know, but sometimes I liked to have
a little internal rant.  No point voicing it though because nobody ever really
listened to me.  Actually that wasn’t strictly true as Toby, my sensitive twin,
would regularly sit me down, pour me a glass of wine and say, ‘Come on Ma,
chill and spill!’  I loved my chats with Tobes and it never ceased to amaze me
that twin boys could have such different personalities.  I’d often find I was
just getting to the heart of what was
actually
bothering me and Tobes
would be looking at me sympathetically, when his brother would appear, pulling
a creased T-shirt over his head, scratching, sniffing and demanding the keys to
their shared car with, ‘C’mon Tobes.  Got a fitty to meet and I don’t want to
keep her waiting.  Alright Mum?’  That would usually be accompanied by a clumsy
hair ruffle and a stolen slurp of my wine.  He loved me in his own unique way.

The sight that greeted me on arrival at the downstairs bathroom could
have broken a lesser woman, but my nursing training kicked in and I put my
sensible hat on.  Dad was curled up on my towelling robe, sleeping like a baby
and Will was hopping around on one foot in desperate need of relief and
ablution.

‘Come
on
Mum!  That kebab and the five pints I had last night
really need to make an exit soon! 
Do
something.  Wake him up!’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Will.  You could have made
some
sort of
attempt at waking him up yourself.  Are you
totally
bloody useless?’

‘Hey, Dude!  When the bowels are calling, I can’t think straight.’  He
continued jumping up and down in his boxers.

‘Do NOT call me ‘Dude’.  I’m your
mother,
not some ‘half-mast-trouser-wearer’
you hang out with.  Now give me a hand to lift Gramps through to his room. 
Come on Dad, wakey-wakey.’

At this point, Hugh passed the scene of the debacle that had become my
life.

‘Morning, ma famille!  Coffee on is it, Fee?’

Before I had the chance to come back with a barbed response, Will piped
up with ‘If we don’t move him soon Mum, I swear I’m going to crap myself.’

Ah, Mondays!  Don’t you just love them?

*****

Work wasn’t much better.  Everyone thought being
a part-time nurse in a private secondary school must be a doddle but trust me,
it wasn’t.  My day could range from broken limbs acquired in over-exuberant
rugby games to splinters in bums or young girls confiding they’d either begun
or, worse still, missed a period.

Never a dull moment.

That particular Monday was an unusually tough
one as our Ofsted check was approaching and the owner of the school, secretly
nicknamed ‘Sir Fuckwit’, had got his tits in a tangle as a quarter of the
school seemed to be suffering from a stomach bug.  That meant that the sick
bay, and obviously the kitchens, would come under closer scrutiny than usual.

Spending a morning with Sir Fuckwit rated about
as highly as a Brazilian wax in my book.  I thought he was just about the most
pompous letch you could ever wish to meet and my office was quite small - there
was nowhere for me to hide.  But he was the affluent perv who paid my wages
and, just occasionally, I was flattered by the fact that he found me
attractive.  After all, my husband was beginning to make it more than clear
that
he
no longer did.

By lunchtime, I was just about dead on my feet. 
I’d spent the whole morning keeping my cleavage to myself, my buttocks out of
Sir F’s range and ringing affluent Yummy Mummies to come and collect their sick
children.  More often than not, this was met with an ‘Oh no, Fiona, no can do
at the mo!  Just stick her in the sick bay somewhere and tell her I’ll see her
at pick-up.
Thanks!
’

So I had twelve puking, pooping kids aged
between eleven and eighteen strewn across the school as the sick bay wasn’t big
enough to accommodate an outbreak of such magnitude.

After I’d thoroughly scrubbed my hands and
settled down to a speedy lunch I really didn’t relish the idea of a phone call,
even from best friend Cordelia.

But then it
was
one of those days.

‘Fee, darling!  How’s things?  Still playing
Nurse Nightingale, are you?  I’ve got some frightfully exciting news … shall I
tell you?’

I knew there was no point in replying.  Cordelia
only needed an audience and no participation was usually required, so I carried
on munching on my carrot sticks and humus as she hit her stride.

‘I’ve got an audition!  Yes, a biggie.  It’s
Blythe Spirit and you know how I’ve always longed to play Elvira?’

At forty-nine, I’d have thought Cordelia would
have been more suited to Madam Arcati but we’d been friends for too long and I
knew that my thoughts on the matter would
not
be appreciated.  I loved
her dearly but ‘high maintenance’ didn’t even come close where Cordelia was concerned.

Of course, she’d always been like it.  It’s not
like she’d just
suddenly
turned into a ‘luvvy’.  From the first time I
set eyes on her in our shared dorm at Grantley Manor boarding school she
screamed ‘Diva’ with flashing lights and accompanying jazz-hands.

She’d already purloined the top bunk and was
sitting swinging her shapely legs and twirling her immaculately coiffed hair.

‘Hi!  You must be Fiona.  But I’m going to call
you Fee.  I’m Cordelia Norton-Hughes and we’re going to be the best of buddies. 
I’ve got tons of Miss Selfridge make up and as long as you don’t have
conjunctivitis, you can share.’

Fourteen she was, and packed with enough
confidence for both of us.  She was solely responsible for
all
the
trouble we later got in to - from bunking off and going into town to getting
hammered on Merrydown cider.

And she knew even then, beyond a doubt, that the
theatre was for her.  Coming from a theatrical family, she had ‘Thespian’
stamped through her like a stick of Brighton rock.  I spent many a mad weekend
with the Norton-Hughes family when my parents were out of the country on
business and I even had my first pathetic attempt at a French kiss with
Cordelia’s brother, Sebastian.  We often joked about that later - he became a
consummate gay and swore it was me who turned him!

So, from that first day, we were inseparable. 
Where Cordelia led, I meekly followed.  She auditioned for all the lead roles
in school productions and I organised back-stage, having no desire to be in the
spotlight.  When I told her I wanted to become a nurse she looked horrified,
gagged and then said, ‘Oh, but there’ll be lots of dishy student doctors for us
to bed, I suppose.  Yes darling, you become a nursie - the uniform will look
fab with your figure.’

On leaving Grantley Manor with our A levels,
mine straight A’s and Cordelia’s straight C’s, we headed off to our first flat
share in Earls Court - the ideal base for me to study nursing and Cordelia to
go to RADA.  And we lived our lives to the full, working hard all day and then
partying at night.  We changed boyfriends as often as our knickers, we cried
tears of the broken-hearted and caused a few blokes to cry their own.  I was
there when Cordelia peed on the stick that determined she was pregnant with a
baby she didn’t want - and I was also there when she sobbed dramatically into
her silk pillow after the termination.

Equally, she was there when I met Hugh -
although she’d instantly told me he was a stuffy old man at the tender age of
twenty-five and that I’d never be happy with him.  She stole the show at my
wedding, looking stunning in her shimmering gold bridesmaid’s dress and was
utterly useless when I went into labour with the twins.  Although she did perk
up a bit when the dishy paramedics arrived.

In hindsight, she was a crap choice of Godmother
for the boys - although they’d totally disagree - but she’d never have forgiven
me if I hadn’t chosen her.  Her presents to them ranged from nothing
(“Away
on tour and it just slipped my mind!”)
to a year’s subscription to ‘Loaded’
and a trip to Spearmint Rhino.  My boys’ spiritual welfare was completely
over-looked but they thought she was the best thing since the invention of the
games console. 
And
I’d overheard some of the comments their friends
made when she was floating around my kitchen in her silk PJ’s - there always
seemed to be a houseful when she stayed over.

Not that I was jealous or anything.  I just
wished she didn’t have to be
quite
so gorgeous
all
of the time. 
Of course, our lives had taken completely different directions.  I settled with
a husband and children - she drifted through life with a string of admirers,
dashing off to far-flung climes and attending ‘luvvy’ parties.  But she’d
always arrive on my doorstep when things went wrong, clutching her suitcase and
a couple of bottles of wine.  She’d then take root in the kitchen, puffing away
on endless Sobraine cocktail cigarettes and painting her nails as she sobbed at
the unfairness of it all.  And then the minute the boys turned up with their
hormonally-charged buddies, the hair would be fluffed, the pout would reappear
and she’d be slipping on the heels to get down the pub before you could say
‘Lights, camera, action!’

But that was Cordelia and I wouldn’t have
changed her for the world.  News of her upcoming audition certainly seemed to
have got her buzzing and I wished her well as I hung up.  It seemed to be quite
a big budget TV production and it was just what she needed to raise her
profile.

How different our lives were, I thought as
another teen entered the sick bay and deposited the contents of their stomach
on my office floor.

*****

By the end of the day I was longing for a quiet glass of wine and a soak
in the bath with a good book.  So I wasn’t best pleased to return home and find
Dad and the boys at the kitchen table, playing poker and drinking whisky.  The
kitchen tops were littered with the debris of hastily made toast and nobody had
even considered loading the dishwasher.

I pointedly banged and bashed my way around the kitchen, sweeping crumbs
and chucking rubbish.

‘Hey, Mum.  Take a chill pill’  Will foolishly piped up.  This wasn’t
the ideal welcome home statement to a peri-menopausal mother who’d spent all
day dealing with human waste.