Lizzy Harrison Loses Control (22 page)

‘Sorry, babe – you know I find it hard to keep my hands off you,’ he grins, thoroughly enjoying causing a little scene.

I whisper into his ear: ‘Just behave yourself tonight, Randy, and I promise you can misbehave as much as you like afterwards.’

‘As much as I like?’ he asks, leaning in towards me. ‘Now there’s an offer I can’t refuse.’

Once the meal is over and toasts have been drunk to Millers past and present, we’re released from sitting at the tables. There is a sudden rush of guests towards Randy, emboldened by alcohol into grabbing their moment with him. Several giggling girls have their photographs taken with him by their unsmiling boyfriends, but Randy charms even these disgruntled swains with self-deprecating jokes about just being here as a plus-one tonight.

The rugby boys bundle over as one, and Randy, to his credit, pretends to remember them all from the night at the Queen’s Arms, even though he and I have long established that he recalls nothing at all from that first encounter. Johnno, Bodders and Bangers delight in reminding him that they were the ones who carried him to the minicab, while Dusty and Paddy are careful to make sure their own contribution (picking up Randy’s jacket and keys from the floor) doesn’t go unremarked. Randy greets them all as dear friends, and the boys return to wives and girlfriends with a certain swagger, and with autographed place cards clutched in their beefy fists. I give Randy a little wave over the heads of his fans and decide to leave him to it for the moment.

It doesn’t take more than a few brief conversations with other guests to realize that all anyone really wants to talk to me about is Randy. I can hardly recall some of the people from my youth who come up to remind me of our close friendship and to express a desire to catch up soon, perhaps with my new boyfriend? Even Sue Miller can’t resist dragging me over to meet her friends from the Jacob’s Well Amateur Dramatics Society, who whisper and giggle amongst themselves before admitting they hope I might bring Randy to the first night of their September production of
Calendar Girls
. I murmur politely to Linda (Miss April) about Randy’s existing commitment to his US tour before excusing myself.

I’ve seen a kind of bunting hung around the walls of the vast hall, and, as I wander over to inspect it, I discover that it’s entirely composed of photographs of Lulu and Dan throughout their childhood. Two tiny babies nestle in a brown tartan blanket; it’s impossible to tell which is which. Dennis Miller’s resplendent sideburns bristle in the upper left corner of the picture as he gazes at them adoringly, though it must have been hard for him to see anything over those vast wing collars. Here’s the infant Lulu, desperately earnest in a leotard and ballet shoes, one chubby leg extended in front of her, toes pointed. Here’s Dan, carrying a football in what must have been a momentary flirtation with the game. Ah, here he is looking far more comfortable with a rugby ball tucked under his arm, his stripy socks falling down and two front teeth missing. As I move along the lines of photographs, the years pass. School uniforms change. Dan is suddenly a foot taller than his sister. Oh God, here I am, lips liberally frosted with Rimmel’s Heather Shimmer lipstick while Lulu, already firmly on her career path, secures my hair in a side ponytail. Her own hair is, of course, far more adventurous – she must have hit hairdressing college by this time: the top of her Louise Brooks bob is peroxide blonde, while the bottom is raven black. It looks like a large bird has pooed on her head.

‘Weird how you can tell the year just by what Lulu’s hair was like,’ says a voice behind me. ‘It’s more accurate than carbon-dating.’

‘Jeez,’ I say, turning around to see Dan. ‘It’s completely terrifying to see all of these pictures – where did you dig them up from? And what did we think we looked like?’

‘Yeah, it was fun going through them all,’ says Dan as we walk slowly along the row of pictures. ‘Brought back lots of memories.’

‘Most of them hideous,’ I say, grimacing at a picture from the late Eighties. ‘Check out my turquoise and pink paisley dungarees in this one.’

‘I think you looked cute,’ laughs Dan.

‘Cute?’ I ask doubtfully. ‘Do you mean cute as in “looking like a colour-blind lesbian”?’

‘Nah,’ he says. ‘More cute like a
blind
colour-blind lesbian.’

‘Thanks, Dan,’ I say. ‘You sure know how to flatter a girl.’

It feels good to be back to normal with Dan – to shared jokes and teasing instead of that strange tension that’s come between us ever since I started seeing Randy. I realize I’ve missed him over the last few weeks.

I stop at a picture of Dan and me in the early Nineties. I’m giving it full grunge in a long black cardigan, shredded at the sleeves, worn over a floaty floral dress with ripped tights and eighteen-hole Doc Martens. My dark-lipsticked mouth grins uncertainly from between limp curtains of long, mousy-blonde hair – so far from the glorious curly mane of Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder to which I aspired (I still maintain that hair was wasted on a man). Dan looks tall and hearty and timeless in – what else? – a rugby shirt and jeans. There is a clear two feet of space between us, as if someone invisible were standing there and pushing us apart.

‘Dan, you know –’ I say, nudging his arm with my shoulder – ‘all those years of taking the piss out of you for always looking the same, and now I see your rationale.’

‘You do?’ he asks, eyes crinkling into a smile.

‘You look exactly the same in every single one of these pictures, you total bastard!’ I laugh. ‘Lulu and I go from ridiculous outfit to ridiculous outfit, but you – you haven’t changed one bit since you were sixteen. You’re unembarrassable. It’s so unfair.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ says Dan, shoving both hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders. ‘I remember being pretty embarrassed in that picture.’ He nods his dark curls in the direction of my grunge-era shame.

‘Were you?’ I ask, peering at it. ‘Why? You don’t look any different now.’

‘Don’t you remember it being taken?’ He turns to look at me, raising a questioning eyebrow.

I look more closely at the photograph. ‘Well, I know where it is – your back garden. The blue shed gives it away. And I know from the clothes and hair that it’s before I went to university, so – early Nineties? But I don’t remember the actual picture being taken.’

‘I do,’ says Dan. ‘You and Lulu were going to a gig—’

‘We were? Who were we going to see?’ I ask, not getting any clues from my clothes. I never was the band T-shirt type.

‘Probably one of your bands with the stupid names – Carter the Unstoppable Dustbin or something.’

‘Sex Machine,’ I say automatically. ‘Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine.’

‘Whatever,’ says Dan, laughing. ‘I’d found you on your own in our kitchen . . .’

Now I do remember.

I’d been crying over some stupid bass player in a band who’d just dumped me after a hot and heavy three-week relationship, and once the tears had started, I’d found I couldn’t stop. I was crying about everything and nothing, about Dad and hormones and how life was just generally unfair and dreadful. I hadn’t wanted Lulu to see, so I’d snuck off downstairs to weep alone.

‘I remember,’ I say quietly, still looking at the photograph.

Dan had come into the kitchen and, without saying a word, had wrapped me in his arms. I hadn’t even known he was there until that moment. I’d cried into his shoulder for a full five minutes before I could get a hold of myself. Dan had kissed the top of my head and, as I’d turned my tear-streaked face up towards his, he’d very gently pressed his lips on to mine. Almost immediately we’d both heard the sound of Lulu thundering down the stairs.

Dan and I had leapt apart as if our bodies burned. Two seconds later, Lulu had burst into the kitchen demanding that Dan take a series of pictures of us in our best clothes before we headed off to the Windsor Old Trout. The final picture, of Dan and me, she’d taken herself. No wonder we both look so uncomfortable. That night, at the gig, I’d met a floppy-haired indie kid called Matt, with whom I enjoyed a ridiculously tempestuous on-off relationship until I went to university at the end of the summer. I’d forgotten all about that moment in the kitchen until now.

‘Do you?’ says Dan. ‘Do you remember?’

Even though my eyes are fixed on the photograph, I am intensely aware of his every movement, and I can tell he is turning to look at me.

Suddenly I’m grabbed from behind in a huge bear hug and swept off my feet.

‘Wa-hey!’ says Johnno, swinging me round. I didn’t actually think people said ‘wa-hey’ for real – I thought it was one of those words like ‘kapow’ or ‘oof’ that you only see in cartoons. But Johnno has just shouted it unmistakably in my ear while performing what feels like the Heimlich manoeuvre on my abdomen. My feet scrabble for the ground.

‘All right, Johnno,’ says Dan, only slightly betraying his weariness as we are suddenly surrounded by the full complement of his rugby friends. Bodders, Bangers, Dusty and Paddy all look a little embarrassed as they mumble their hellos.

‘Great party, mate, great party,’ says Johnno, finally putting me down and straightening his Homer Simpson cummerbund. ‘Just came over to say that while you’re chatting up the lovely Lizzy over here, it looks like someone else is chatting up your bird.’

I think I realize before Dan does that this almost certainly has something to do with Randy. We turn as one to see that the crowd around Randy has now dispersed. He has sat back down at the table, where he’s deep in conversation with Emma. If I thought Emma was staring at Dan with divine adoration, that was as nothing to how she’s staring at Randy. Dan was merely a minor saint, the sort whose desiccated finger might be sealed in a reliquary; Randy is the full Messiah. Her eyes flick upwards to his mouth every few seconds before dropping down to the table in front of her as if she is terribly shy. But the way her hand is placed on his leg has nothing shy about it. Randy’s head is bowed low as if to catch her every word, but I suspect it’s more to get a better look down the front of her dress. One golden arm is snaked around Emma’s hips. For one moment I am struck by the image of the two of them, shiny and beautiful together.

And then my stomach lurches. What does Randy think he’s doing? Don’t I mean anything to him at all? I leave his side for ten minutes and he’s instantly putting the moves on someone else. On Dan’s girlfriend!

I feel Dan start next to me. ‘What the fuck?’ He turns to face me. ‘Lizzy, are you okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ he says, teeth clenched. ‘But Randy fucking Jones . . .’

I know I mustn’t let Dan see how angry and upset I am. I can see that he’d happily punch Randy given half the chance, and that can’t be allowed to happen. Not only will it ruin the party for everyone, but Randy’s gig is next Saturday and I’ve promised everyone that I’ll keep him under control until then. Getting into a fight is not a part of the deal.

‘Look. Leave this to me,’ I say, getting a grip of myself. I put my practical work-head back on. Randy is my so-called boyfriend second; above everything else he is a client who’s about to get himself into trouble. It’s my job to stop him. ‘Let’s not cause a scene. Randy can’t resist a bit of female attention – that’s all this is.’

‘That’s all this is?’ says Dan furiously, backed by the full Greek chorus of rugby boys who surround him, arms folded and faces florid with anger and alcohol.

‘Bloody disgrace,’ mutters Bangers in Randy’s direction.

‘What kind of a way is this for him to treat you?’ says Dan, pulling at my arm as I try to move away. ‘Or for him to treat Emma, for that matter, pawing her under your nose and mine?’

‘Mumble-mumble . . . rip off his bollocks . . .’ goes the rugby boys’ chorus.

‘Right, that’s it,’ says Dan, taking a step towards the golden couple. I clutch at the lapel of his dinner jacket in a manner that would, in other circumstances, make me want to laugh. Any minute now I’ll be shrieking, ‘Leave it, he’s not worth it!’ like someone from
East-Enders
.

But instead I turn to face the rugby boys, still holding Dan by his jacket so he can’t make a run for it. ‘Dan. Johnno,’ I say. ‘Paddy, er . . . boys. You are all so lovely and chivalrous to be looking out for me like this. But this is between me and Randy, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d just leave it to me. I can handle it.’

‘It’s between me and Randy, too, Lizzy,’ growls Dan, still trying to move towards the table where Randy and Emma are utterly oblivious to the scene they are causing.

‘No, it’s not,’ I say, holding on tightly until my knuckles are white. ‘Dan, please – for me. Let it drop.’

‘Let what drop?’ says Lulu, appearing from behind the rugby boys with Laurent in tow. ‘What
are
you boys all doing huddled together like this? Starting up a scrum?’

Oh, thank God – I could kiss her.

‘You know what the boys are like, Lu,’ I say, instantly relieved. ‘They think that because Randy’s talking to Emma, my honour is somehow at stake!’

‘Oh, is that what it is?’ says Lulu, peering over at the table and swiftly assessing the situation. ‘Honestly, what is Randy like? He’s so hung up on maintaining his lady-killer reputation, he can’t let it rest for a moment, can he? You should’ve seen him pretending to try it on with me earlier!’

Laurent frowns and I see Lulu squeeze his hand, hard, to silence him.