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He sips his from a tiny cup and I grin, reminding myself not to spill even a drop of the hot chocolate. Not when my form-fitting black dress has a bloody great white stripe all the way along the middle.
“So, would you like to tell me a little bit about yourself, Mirabelle?”
“Actually, you can call me Mira if you like. Most people do, saves time and effort. And people imagining me to be some sort of European princess, or something, which I am not.”
I’m close to sinking through the floor, when I notice his face crease with a genuine smile. Gathering my gumption, I continue, “Well, I have a degree in marketing from Bristol University. I did a lot of agency work when I was first out of uni. I’ve also been known to subsidise my income with security work.”
He sits up at that and frowns. “Pardon me?”
From my bag, I remove my SIA licence and flash it to him. He asks me to pass it over.
“It’s due for renewal soon, but actually, I think my days of bouncing are done.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, and I may be crossing a line, but you don’t look—”
I toss my head back a bit. “Yep, I know.”
“So, what sorts of situations did you end up having to deal with in that line of work?” he asks, passing back my licence.
“Hmm, where do I start?” I laugh, and take a very deep breath. “The worst thing about the job is when men think they can touch you up. Because of course doing an aggressive job means you must be one of the lads. So I got very good at placing myself between bouncers they wouldn’t dare mess with, and also, very good at Chinese burns and eye glares that could rock even the most wicked people to their knees.”
Aidan tips his head back laughing. “Now I want to experience one of those eye glares.”
Somehow, I manage to swallow past my embarrassment, gather my breath and give him one of those glares.
“That’ll do it,” he says, looking impressed.
Then it could be the casualness with which the conversation has progressed, but I say, “One of the worst situations I ever dealt with was at a festival I was security at. A woman had accused some bloke, a stranger to her, of trying to assault her inside one of the Portaloo’s. Now, after the fact, when it went to court, there were witnesses who said this woman had invited said stranger in with her. But when her boyfriend caught them after, and she claimed the rando had assaulted her… I’d never seen such aggression before. The boyfriend and his four pals went to town on this bloke, and me and several other security guys couldn’t pull them off, it was relentless, like they were wild animals and the red mist had got them.”
“Jesus,” he says.
“They killed him.” Aidan covers his mouth. “And when we finally got the blokes shackled, none of them were repentant. They were all pretty sure they’d just killed a rapist and were damn happy about it, too. Of course, me and the other members of the security team present at the scene had to give statements and whatnot. We couldn’t explain how ten of us couldn’t pull those men off that one guy. It was sheer brutality and like a switch had flipped. We couldn’t explain it except that, they were so deep in their blood lust, they’d suddenly each found the strength of ten men, you know?”
I remember the night many years ago, when Kallie came to my dad’s house in the middle of the night, with a split lip and a look of far-off devastation in her eyes. I’d wanted to kill the bloke who’d done that to her. It’d been like this gnawing hunger, this absolute, overwhelming desire to hurt back.
“That was awful, but why particularly for you, was that so bad?” he asks gently, genuinely wanting to know.
The truth is, it wasn’t even my past experience with Kallie that made that whole thing so traumatic. It was…
“It was the woman.” I look Aidan in the eye. “She carried on with her life, showed no remorse, nothing changed. Almost as if she’d known just what to say to make them flip. She made me ashamed to be a woman.” I bite my lip with regret. “I realised it’s the least of our worries as security people, figuring out which fellas are most likely to cause hassle. The size of them and the amount of tattoos they have is one thing, the groups they turn up in at clubs, and all that… it’s that one psycho who looks small and inoffensive you’ve gotta be wary of. Cos the people who are out for a bit of fisticuffs is one thing, easily dealt with, but those minority psychos? They wreck lives by the dozen, let me tell you.”
“So, you must have some training, then? In self-defence or something?” he asks.
“Why, would it make me an even worthier candidate? Do you get many attempts on your life, Mr Linklater?”
“Call me Aidan. And no. It’s all rather boring here.” He pulls a funny face. “But I expect if I wore my wealth on my wrist or wherever” – he gestures at his body – “then maybe I’d get jumped, eh?”
I laugh and feel myself even more lulled into a false sense of security. “I’m a purple belt in quite a few things, my favourite is taekwondo. But I’m also a little psycho.” I lean forward with a finger over my lips. “Shhh, don’t tell anybody.”
He laughs loudly and it makes me feel really good about myself, a lot better than I’ve felt in a while.
Aidan refers to the bit of paper on his desk that I realise is my CV. After he’s stopped laughing, he takes a sip of espresso and says, “So you worked for Flawless for a couple of years?”
“Yes. That’s right.” I try not to sound glum about it, but it’s difficult to hide how I really feel sometimes. This summer it’ll be a whole year since I left, and a year since… not that I’m counting.
“And why did you leave this position?”
I wonder if I should tell the truth. Whether he knows what happened already. Through guesswork or even gossip on the grapevine, he might already know. However, like he just said, his world is a bit different to most other people’s. He’s cut off where he is. He’s not a celebrity. He probably doesn’t go to common-or-garden clubs. He hangs out with other rich people no doubt who have no inclination to roughhouse. Rich people exchange casual barbs and are much cleverer about how they deal with their enemies.
