‘Password, please?’
‘Mint julep,’ Jack said.
‘Push the door.’ There was a dull click, and Jack opened it with a shove. ‘After you,’ he said, motioning for Rachel to head inside.
The lighting in the bar was warm and moody, and mostly came from wall lights and old standard lamps. Many of them had red shades, which added to the shabby-chic, deliberately sleazy look of the place. The furniture was tasteful but mismatched, and there were old cream tiles and exposed plaster on the walls. The air smelled aged and leathery, but still clean – antique rather than musty.
The glassware Rachel could see was all vintage in style. Most of her colleagues seemed to be holding heavy-bottomed cut-glass tumblers full of dark, amber liquid, or gold-rimmed champagne saucers brimming with pale, pastel-coloured froth.
‘Drink?’ Jack asked.
‘Yeah.’ Rachel nodded. ‘I’ll come with you to the bar and see what there is.’
It wasn’t ideal that they’d arrived together, she reflected. Even though they’d only met on the doorstep, it must look as if she and Jack had been together all evening. Kemi caught Rachel’s eye and made a kissing face.
‘What do you fancy?’ Jack asked.
‘Hmm,’ Rachel said, scanning the chalkboard above the bar. There must have been fifty different cocktails listed there, many of which she’d never heard of before. ‘Ooooh, I’ll have a French 75, please.’
‘Lemon, sugar, champagne and gin,’ Jack read, looking up at the menu. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’
‘I don’t think it’smyalcohol intake we need to worry about,’ Rachel said, nodding at Kemi after Jack had placed their order. She was giggling, winking at them from the other side of the room through hands that she’d cupped into a heart shape.
‘D’you think she’s trying to tell us something?’ Jack asked, leaning in so Rachel could hear him over the general hubbub. Beneath her colleagues’ conversations and laughter there was the sound of glasses clinking, the clang of cocktail shakers in motion and soft jazz spilling from well-concealed speakers. This was the sort of bar Jack belonged in, Rachel decided; old-fashioned, classy and expensive, but somehow suggestive of smut.
‘Isaid, do you think she’s trying to tell us something?’
‘Nothing I don’t already know,’ Rachel said, suddenly rash. She hadn’t even had a drink yet, and she was letting herself spar with him.
There was something about this place. If Rachel was coquettish tonight, maybe she could blame the dim, sexy lighting.
A bow-tied barman handed them their drinks, and they moved away from the serving area to make space for the people behind them.
‘Is that so?’ Jack’s eyes were dancing dangerously. ‘I like you in this bar, Ryan. And in that dress.’
He leered at her melodramatically and she whacked him on the arm.
‘Stop it. People already think we’re having some sort of affair.’
‘Let them,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It makes no difference to me. But I suppose you have your boyfriend to consider.’
‘Exactly.’ Rachel nodded, pleased that he sounded put out and already feeling wobbly after a few glugs of her cocktail. ‘Now, make yourself useful and introduce me to some Manchester people.’
As the night wore on, the agency’s most senior staff began to head home. This, combined with the copious quantity of free cocktails they’d provided, meant many of those left behind misplaced the inhibitions they’d held on to while their bosses were around. There was still money behind the bar, and one way or another it was going to be spent.
As closing time approached, Rachel – far from sober but of comparatively sound mind – took stock of the state of her colleagues.
Greg was arguing with Theo, who didn’t want to accept he was too drunk to drive his scooter home to Fulham. Ella’s new boyfriend had come by to collect her some time ago, but Kemi – who’d been her partner in Prosecco-guzzling for most of the night – was slumped in a corner looking sleepy.
‘I should help her get home,’ Rachel said to Jack, who’d been hovering beside her for most of the night. ‘She doesn’t live far from me.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he said. ‘We can share a cab.’
Between them, they hauled Kemi up and out into the street. She was chatty but mostly incomprehensible, which Rachel was grateful for; the handful of coherent comments Kemididmanage were about Rachel, Jack and their ‘sitting in a tree’ status.
Jack laughed every time Kemi insisted they must be ‘doing it’, but listening to lurid speculation about her own sex life made Rachel want to die.
Greg had shaken his head at her when he’d seen them pulling Kemi towards the door – not in disapproval, exactly, but perhaps in disappointment. Combined with the alcohol sloshing around in her stomach, it had made Rachel feel a bit sick.
