Tales From a Hen Weekend (16 page)

‘What the bloody
hell
…?’ starts Karen, almost accusingly.

‘You had his
number
?’ says Emily, looking at me as if I’ve suddenly sprouted horns and a tail.

‘No! No, I
didn’t
! I don’t understand… someone must have put it in my phone as a
joke
!’

I scroll back through my Contacts, feeling hot and upset under the suspicious gazes of my friends. Could I have hit the wrong number? Jude’s is an Irish number. I know it’s correct. I’ve only got two other J’s – Joyce, and a Jenny who I used to work with.

‘It doesn’t make sense!’

‘Try looking under
H
,’ Karen advises me caustically.

‘No! Look, it’s not in here – see!’ I show her the phone. ‘Not under H, not anywhere.’

‘What’s that?’ points out Emily, looking over our shoulders. ‘
Irish
? Who’s
Irish
?’

‘Oh!’ I raise my eyes to the blue, blue sky and burst out laughing. ‘Oh my God! I get it now! Oh, how
weird
is that! How absolutely
weird
!’

‘What’s weird?’ says Joyce, suddenly appearing behind us. ‘Come on, girls – I’ve found the others – they’re only in the next pub up the road here. Hurry up! Marge is getting the drinks in!’

At the mention of drinks, everyone turns and practically sprints down the road to the pub. And thankfully it’s not till we’ve taken some of the dust of the road out of our throats with a pint of Dalkey’s finest Guinness that I’m called upon to explain myself.

It was the treasure hunt, you see.
Phone number of a guy who speaks Irish
.

After getting the red thong, the condom and the cucumber, Auntie Joyce and I were just leaving the hotel to start scouring the streets of Dublin for gorgeous men, schoolgirls and Irish speakers, among other things, when we practically fell into the arms of this guy who was rushing headlong in through the swing doors, looking around the reception area with panic in his eyes.

‘Whoops! Sorry!’ I said, stepping back to let him past as he was obviously in such a hurry.

‘Toilet!’ he shouted, staring at us – as well he might, considering the way we were dressed.

‘Sorry?’

It was pretty obvious he was either very drunk, very strange, or some kind of pervert, if not all three.

‘Toilet!’ he repeated, urgently. ‘Is there one?’

‘Over there!’ said Auntie Joyce, with a smile, pointing in the appropriate direction. ‘Poor thing,’ she added as he made a bolt for it. ‘I could see he was desperate. He was practically wriggling on the spot, the way you used to when you were a little girl…’

I didn’t particularly want my infantile toilet habits to be the subject of conversation.

‘He’s got a cheek, hasn’t he? If he’s not even staying here?’

‘Yes, dear, but sometimes, you know, you just can’t help it. I remember when your mum was pregnant with you. God almighty! She couldn’t go for more than five minutes without needing the loo. We had to ask in the most embarrassing places. Shops, pubs, libraries – we found out where all the toilets in the town were, I can tell you.’

If there was one thing I wanted to discuss even less than how much I peed when I was a little kid, it was how much my mum peed when she was expecting me. However, we’d both been so involved with this line of conversation that we hadn’t got any further than just outside the hotel door when our Mr Desperate came hurtling out again.

‘Thanks, ladies – or should I say
kids
!’ he said, with a grin, sounding (understandably) much calmer now. ‘Couple of Guinnesses too many – you know how it is. You all right? You lost your teacher, or something?’

We’d been studying our treasure hunt list and gazing up and down the street, hoping for inspiration.

‘No, no, we’re not lost,’ I said. ‘We’re just trying to
find
something.’

‘It’s a treasure hunt,’ explained Joyce. ‘We’ve got a list of things to find.’

‘Need any help?’

‘We-ell.’

Now, this was both an opportunity, and something of an embarrassment. You see, it obviously crossed my mind straight away that we could ask him, by way of returning a favour, to come back with us as our Most Gorgeous Man. The trouble was, he so patently
wasn’t
. (Mind you, if I’d known Lisa was going to appear with Ernest, I’d have thought we were in with a chance.) Don’t get me wrong – I’m not completely shallow. I’ve got nothing against men with strange thin curly hair combed over their bald spots, with tattoos on their necks, and weighed down with heavy gold jewellery. I don’t even mind if they’ve got a bit of a beer gut and wear their trousers too tight and far too short. Everyone has their own look, you know, their own personal style, and some people… well, some people just haven’t got it
quite
right.

But I couldn’t ask him to be our Most Gorgeous Man. I just couldn’t! I knew I wouldn’t be able to say it, without my face betraying the fact that he was actually the only man available so we we’d have to make do. And he surely must have known he wasn’t gorgeous, so he might think I was taking the piss.

‘Do you speak Irish?’ I asked, with a sudden spurt of relief, having noticed this one on the list. ‘We need the phone number of someone who speaks Irish!’

‘Well. No, sorry, not personally. Can’t help you there. But… just a phone number, is it? That’s all you need?’

‘Yes – do you
know
anyone who speaks Irish?’ asked Joyce, excitedly.

‘Here you are.’ He got his phone out of his pocket, scrolled down his Contacts and called out a number.

‘Hang on, hang on!’

I didn’t have a pen, so I grabbed my own phone out of my bag and entered the number. What to save it as? Well – obviously –
Irish
. I’d only need it till we checked back in with Emily with all our treasure hunt booty.

Of course, when Helen and Jude turned up with Harry, no one else got the chance to show off the rest of their treasures. We were all so completely overcome by him that we just kind of abandoned the game. It was a bit of a shame really, because I don’t think they all had a red thong, for a start, and our cucumber was definitely bigger than anyone else’s. As for the Irish speaker’s phone number, it went completely out of my mind. Till now.

So is this the coincidence of the century, or what? No wonder the others are all looking at me as if I’ve concocted the most unlikely fairy story they’ve ever heard in their lives. This oddball throws himself at Joyce and me because he wants to use the hotel toilets, insists on helping us with the treasure hunt, and gives us the phone number of the very same person who’s helping Helen and Jude by being a Gorgeous Man? Like there isn’t more than one man available in the whole of Dublin?

‘And Harry speaks Irish?’ says Lisa, giving me a look that says
Yeah, right, and I’m the Queen of Sheba
.

‘He wasn’t speaking Irish when we met him,’ says Helen accusingly.

‘And he wasn’t speaking Irish to you later on in the club, was he,’ points out Karen.

‘He couldn’t speak
anything
to her in the club,’ snickers Suze. ‘She had her tongue too far down his throat.’

‘Get over yourself now, with yer nasty talk!’ Jude interrupts as everyone else joins in the giggling. ‘Sure and
you’ve
got a tongue on you yerself, Suzy Smith, that would clip a hedge, so it would!’ This just sets everyone off giggling even more, but at least it’s taken the heat off me a bit. ‘And why would yer man be speaking Irish to us, when we’re talking to him in English, and he’s English himself, would you ask yerselves that?’

‘And anyway,’ says Joyce eventually when the laughter’s died down, ‘It’s
true
. I was there. This young man gave Katie the phone number, and she saved it in her phone under
Irish
. She asked me to remember what she’d saved it as.’

‘Thank you, Joyce,’ I say, with supreme dignity. ‘And as
I
is next to
J
in my Contacts, I must have hit the wrong one.’

There’s a kind of grudging silence. Jude shifts in her chair, propping her bad foot up a bit higher on the seat opposite. Everyone sips their drinks. Our sandwiches and chips are brought over and we all tuck in with a vengeance.

‘Phone him, then,’ says Lisa suddenly.

‘Yeah! Phone him!’ everyone joins in immediately. ‘Go on, phone him!’

‘I already have! I made
enough
of a fool of myself! OK, it’s very strange, and very embarrassing, but let’s just forget it. Please?’

‘No!’ insists Helen. ‘Come on – phone him again, and ask him to speak some Irish.’

‘Yes, come on – just for the hell of it!’ laughs Emily. ‘We can all have a listen. Jude will know whether it’s real Irish or not.’

I’m not actually finding this very funny. They’re teasing, I know, and they think it’s a laugh, but they’re also still not one hundred percent sure if I’m telling the truth. They can smell a bit of gossip and their noses are quivering for it. The trouble is, if I make too much of it, if I take it too seriously, get all petulant and refuse to join in the fun, I might as well stand up and announce that I’m up to no good.

‘I’ll do it,’ says Joyce suddenly.

‘You will?’

‘Yes. Come on. I’m not embarrassed.’ She holds her hand out for the phone. ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’

‘He’ll swear at you in Irish?’ suggests Mum.

‘Big deal. I won’t even understand. Come on, Katie, dial the number, or whatever you have to do.’

You could hear a pin drop in our corner of the pub. We’re all watching Joyce, open-mouthed, as she waits for Harry to answer. Lisa has actually got a chip in her mouth waiting to be chewed – not a pretty sight.

‘Hello? Harry? It’s… um… Joyce, here. I’m with Katie – you know? The hen party? Yes, that’s right – the bride. What? No, no – she’s fine. No, there’s nothing wrong with her – I’ve just borrowed her phone. Harry, look – I hope you don’t mind me asking. Do you speak any Irish?’

We can hear him laughing. Even from the other end of the table I’m sure they can hear him.

‘Why? Well, you see, I know it sounds strange. Yes, I realise you’re English. But we were given your number last night. That’s why – yes! That’s why Katie had it in her phone. Someone who knew you, gave us your number, for the treasure hunt – you know? We needed someone who spoke Irish, and this
friend
of yours…’

The laughter from the other end of the phone is even louder now. It sounds like there’s a whole room of them guffawing there.

‘What? He’s no friend of yours? Well, quite. Yes, that’s him. Tattoos, yes, gold chains. Chris, you say? Well, tell Chris from us he’s
very funny
.’ Joyce raises her eyebrows at the rest of us. ‘Katie? Yes, she’s here, next to me. Hold on – I’ll pass you over.’

It’s not exactly a private conversation. I’m being closely listened to by eight pairs of ears. But it’s still nice to hear his voice again. Even if he is still laughing.

‘I don’t speak a word of Irish,’ he says. ‘Sorry about that. Bloody fool Chris. His idea of a joke.’

‘Is he with the stag party? We didn’t see him at the club.’

‘He was there all right, but doesn’t get up off his arse to dance or anything like that. He lurks in dark corners – best place for him,’ he says, still laughing.

‘Sorry for bothering you, then. I’ll let you get back to your mates.’

‘It’s no bother. It’s given me another chance to talk to you, Katie. And now I’ve got your number, too.’

I feel myself blushing. Eight pairs of eyes are watching me.

‘Yes, well. OK, then. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Don’t get too drunk!’

‘Actually today’s my last drinking day. When this mob fly back tomorrow morning, I’m picking up a hire car and driving down to County Cork to spend a few days with my cousin.’

‘Cork? My friend lives in…’ I begin, glancing at Jude, and then stop, feeling silly. County Cork’s a big place. So what if his cousin lives in the same county as Jude? It’s not exactly a riveting coincidence. ‘Well, have a good time with your cousin, then,’ I finish lamely.

‘Thanks. He speaks Irish, incidentally!’ he says with a laugh. ‘I guess that’s why Chris picked on me. Well, I might not have been any good for the Irish speaking, but you’ve got my number if you need anything else…’

‘OK, yes, thank you. Goodbye!’ I say hurriedly, feeling myself grow hot again.

‘Another striptease, or anything, you know,’ he says softly.

I hang up, put the phone down and take a bite of my sandwich. I can’t meet those eight pairs of eyes until my pulse has returned to normal.

‘There you are!’ says Joyce triumphantly. ‘How about that, then! Just a joke, and a coincidence! Now – get on with your lunch, everyone, for goodness’ sake!’

But when everyone else has gone back to their own conversations and they all seem to have finally forgotten about it, I look up and catch Joyce’s eye. And she gives me a wink.

I hope she can’t read my mind.