I’d decided it was time for a jolly good drink.
‘Sorry?’ the girl said.
Phil waved a hand woozily. ‘Nothing. Ignore me.’
‘Ya.’ Raine looked rather meanly at my producer, I thought. Bit cheeky, I thought. This man was one of my best friends and a very fine producer, too. Who did she think she was, looking at him with a just-fuck-off expression? How dare she? This man deserved respect, for Christ’s sake. While she was distracted, I took the opportunity to pour about half my whisky over Phil’s jacket, then brought the whisky glass up and did the pretend drinking thing again, just as Raine switched her attention back to me, and a smile reappeared on her face. She clinked glasses once more. I thought I could smell the whisky fumes evaporating from the dark surface of Phil’s old but still serviceably stylish Paul Smith. I swirled my whisky round in the glass. Raine was watching.
‘You trying to get me drunk?’ I asked her in a sort of kooky, role-reversal kinda stylee.
She lowered her eyelids a little and slid up to me on the seat until I could feel the warmth of her through my shirt. ‘I’m trying to get you to come home with me,’ she murmured.
‘Ha!’ I laughed. I slapped my thigh. ‘You shall go to the ball, Cinders!’
Phil was snorting with laughter on the other side of me. Raine gave him a dirty look. I took her chin in my hand and brought her mouth towards mine, but she put her hand on my forearm and gently pushed my hand down. ‘Finish your drink and let’s go, okay?’
I’d already disposed of most of the rest of the whisky and could happily have slugged the rest because it wasn’t enough to make any real difference, but by now it had become something between a game and a point of honour to dispose of the whole lot without a drop passing my lips, so I looked over Raine’s shiningly blond head and said, ‘Okay… Shit, is that Madders and Guy Ritchie?’
She looked. I dumped the last of the whisky onto Phil’s jacket and stood up, lowering the whisky glass from my mouth as Raine turned back again. ‘Guess not,’ I said. I felt fine, I thought. The prospect of sex with somebody new, especially somebody new who looked as good as Raine, was a profoundly sobering influence all by itself. Still, I felt myself sway as we edged out of the booth.
‘Phil, got to go.’
‘Fine. Have fun,’ he said.
‘That’s the intention. You take care.’
‘And you precautions.’ He sniggered.
‘See you Monday.’
‘I just have to visit the loo,’ Raine said as we crossed through the crowds.
‘I’ll see you at the cloakroom.’
I spent a couple of minutes nattering to the cloakroom girl on the ground floor. Unlike Phil I usually checked my jacket in, but then I didn’t use mine as a wearable handbag.
‘Ready?’ Raine asked, passing her receipt to the girl.
‘Very,’ I said.
Raine let me help her on with her coat. It was an Afghan, which I interpreted as a retro-fashion-driven coincidence rather than some subtle geopolitical statement. She turned and looked me in the eye, gaze switching from one pupil to the other. It felt good, very sexy, to be inspected so closely. She hadn’t tipped the cloakroom girl but I didn’t care. I kind of fell against her and she let me kiss her, though not deeply. She pushed me away and glanced at the girl. ‘Come on,’ she said.
It was raining as we left. I nodded at the bouncers, who smiled and nodded back. I was moderately certain I knew their names, but I wasn’t absolutely sure, and getting bouncers’ names wrong was a lot worse than not calling them anything. I stared at the rain and the traffic sizzling up and down the Avenue, lights bright in the drop-jewelled darkness. ‘It’s rain, Raine,’ I said.
‘Right, ya,’ she said, gazing down the street. Yes, Kenneth, I thought to myself, like she’ll never have heard that one in her life before.
‘Friday night in the rain,’ I said authoritatively. ‘Our best chance is a taxi dropping somebody off. I’ll bravely volunteer to make a dash for one if it pulls up.’
‘Right.’
‘Or I could just phone a mini-cab,’ I said, taking my mobile out after a struggle with the little holster at my hip. ‘I’ll tell them there’s an even more exorbitant tip in it than usual.’ I squinted down at the little Motorola as I flipped it open. ‘Just don’t say anything about curry,’ I muttered, closing one eye to see the display properly.
Raine looked round. She put her hand over mine, over the phone. ‘No, it’s all right. Here’s a taxi now.’
A black cab had just pulled up at the kerb. ‘Glory be,’ I said, putting the mobile away again. ‘Na, its light’s off…’
But Raine was already pulling me across the pavement towards the cab. ‘Ya, I flagged it.’
‘Fine work, Raine,’ I said, grabbing for the door handle and missing. She opened the door but I insisted on holding it open for her. I then hit my head getting in. ‘Ouch.’
‘You all right?’
‘Fine.’ I started searching for my seat belt. ‘This is a really good omen, you know, Raine,’ I told her, raising my backside off the seat to grab at the belt.
‘Ya, it is, isn’t it.’
‘Getting a taxi that quickly on a rainy Friday?’ I said. ‘You’re a miracle worker. Or, as a combination, we’re just blessed.’
‘Right, ya.’
The cab pulled out into the traffic, heading north-east. I finally got my seat belt on. Raine hadn’t bothered with hers. I started lecturing her on the extreme inadvisability of this, given what had happened to Princess Di, but she just looked at me strangely and I realised that as well as preventing you from being flung forward, limbs flailing, in a bad crash, seat belts also stopped you from snogging. They made you Safe In Taxis. I was appalled with myself. I was sure I’d known this before but I seemed to have forgotten.
‘You’re right,’ I said, though she hadn’t said anything. I undid my belt. ‘Solidarity, sister.’ I slid along the seat towards her. I caught the driver glancing up at us in his mirror. Raine let me slip my arms round her, pressed up against the seat corner. I covered her mouth with mine. She opened up a little more this time. I fumbled to get my hands inside the Afghan coat.
‘Maybe you should put your seat belts on, eh?’ the driver said. It was an oldish cab so he had to talk through the gap in the perspex screen between us, rather than use the intercom set-up the more modern cabs have.
Raine pushed me away. ‘Ya, I suppose we should, ya,’ she said, with what I took to be obvious reluctance.
‘Ha. See?’ I said, wagging a finger at her. I felt for my belt again. She watched me, then put hers on.
‘Here,’ she said, helping me with one end.
‘Thanks.’ I sat back, closing my eyes.
‘Have a snooze, why not?’ Raine said.
I opened my eyes, looked at her. ‘I’m not tired,’ I told her. ‘Is it far?’
‘Ya, fair bit to go yet.’ She glanced at the driver, then leaned over to me and said quietly, ‘Get some rest. You’re going to need it.’ She gave me one of those heavy-lidded looks again and stroked my hand in a manner I decided was distinctly carnal.
I grinned in what I hoped was not too lecherous a fashion and sat back, closing my eyes. ‘If I start snoring, I’m only pretending in a sorta post-modern ironic way, okay?’
‘Ya, right, sure.’
The taxi drove on, grumbling and clattering through the late-night traffic. It sounded a lot like my old Landy. Very relaxing. The rain swishing beneath the tyres and against the wheel wells sounded calming and soothing. It was quite warm here in the back. It made me think of darkened hotel suites. I took a deep breath and let it out. A little while to rest the eyes. Why not? A snooze would do no harm. On the other hand, I didn’t really want to drop off and start snoring or drooling or looking gross, so maybe it wasn’t such a great idea.