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17
Rebecca
I pushed through the fogged-up glass doors of Bar Monaco, immediately slipping off my coat and draping it over my arm. It felt comfortingly familiar in here with the smell of sweet sticky cocktails that had been carelessly spilt on the floor and the baskets of salty frites everyone ordered for dinner because they were cheap and they couldn’t be bothered to stop and eat something proper. I’d always thought of it as a sort of extension of the Kingsland Marketing staffroom and every time I stepped through the doors, I could guarantee there’d be someone I knew inside. I liked that. The idea that I had a local, that Bar Monaco was sort of my equivalent of the Queen Vic (usually without the massive rows and slipping-out of devastating family secrets).
‘Becs!’
I spun around looking for Val, trying to place where her voice had come from. The wooden dance floor was already packed full with the usual hordes of City workers flailing their arms around, half-drunk pints of beer swinging precariously in their hands. There was always at least one smashed glass on the floor by the end of the evening and occasionally – just once or twice – it had been mine. Saying that, I tended to watch what I drank after work these days, mainly because I got slaughtered very easily if I hadn’t eaten and, more often than not, made a complete fool of myself. By far the worst time had been the year I’d started at Kingsland, when I’d got off with a seventeen-year-old from goods-in and had been too embarrassed to go down for the post for weeks afterwards.
I finally spotted Val and the others waving frantically at me from across the room.
Twisting my body left and right to avoid bumping into anyone, I crossed the dance floor. Atomic Kitten’s ‘Whole Again’ was blaring out from giant speakers; the one downside of this place was that the music was crap.
‘Hi, everyone,’ I said, approaching the table. ‘Sorry I’m late. And happy birthday, Val!’
‘Aaargh, you’re freezing,’ she said, laughing when I hugged her.
I pressed a present and a card into her hands. ‘Here you go – just a little something. I meant to give it to you earlier, but I’ve been in meetings all day.’
We’d been buying each other birthday gifts for the last ten years, since we’d started our new jobs on the same day and had had to sit through an excruciatingly dull health and safety training session. We’d hit it off instantly, giving each other sneaky, bored eye-rolls like teenagers, her childlike exuberance an antidote to my more conscientious, less out-there personality. She brought out the fun in me and, according to her, I stopped her going completely mental. Not that she was like that so much these days. Marriage had calmed her down. I thought that’s what probably happened when you hit your thirties and did the requisite ‘settling down’ thing. I wondered what happened to thirty-somethings who didn’t ‘settle down’. Should we carry on acting like we were twenty-five forevermore, going to clubs until the doorman told us we were too old to get in, the hangovers getting worse and worse with each decade that passed?
‘God, I feel old,’ groaned Val.
‘You’re a baby,’ I replied, laughing.
‘I’m thirty-four. Thirty bloody four,’ said Val, squashing her cheeks dramatically between her hands.
I shook my head. ‘Stop worrying, will you? You know you look about ten years younger than you actually are.’
Val sighed, slumping into her seat. ‘I may look it, but I certainly don’t feel it,’ she said. ‘Anyway, enough about me and my decrepit, aging body. Sit down, Becs, get a drink down you.’
Paul from Accounts moved up to make a space, patting the bench next to him. Great.
‘Why are you so late, anyway?’ asked Val.
‘I had a press release to finish,’ I explained, reluctantly taking a seat next to Paul.
‘You work too hard,’ said Val, tutting and turning my present on its side, shaking it next to her ear. ‘If you don’t get that promotion, it’ll be a complete travesty. Oooh, what is it?’
‘Nothing breakable, luckily.’
Paul pushed an empty wine glass in my direction, plucked a bottle of white from an ice bucket and poured me a glass. I liked the way this happened with ease and grace, everything moving into its proper place like a Viennese waltz.
Val ripped the wrapping paper open, barely registering the beautiful embossed design I’d spent ages choosing – it had little chandeliers on it, each one sparkly and rough when you ran your thumb across it. I was always touched when someone gave me a beautifully wrapped gift, or a card that had some sort of special significance. Val, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less about presentation and I might as well have wrapped it in plain, brown parcel paper.
‘Oh my God, I love them,’ shrieked Val, holding up the Oliver Bonas ‘V’ charm necklace and palm-tree print scarf for everyone to coo over. ‘Roll on summer!’
We hugged again and Paul tried to pour Val a glass of rosé, but she put her hand over the top of her glass.
‘I’m fine,’ she told him. ‘I’m pacing myself.’
I gave her a funny look, making a mental note to ask her about it later. She wasn’t usually one to hold back when it came to wine consumption, especially on her birthday.
‘How’s things?’ asked Paul, his trouser leg scuffing against my thigh.
‘Fine, thanks.’
‘I heard a rumour about you,’ said Paul, raking his fingers through his strangely voluminous head of hair.
