Time hadn’t been as kind to Jan as it had to Tracy. Her sleeveless blue dress stretched just that bit too tight. Her bra straps showed, and the flesh overflowed each side of them. The hair was still the same, far-too-dark-to-be-natural brown and straightened beyond belief. Her mascara was laid on with a trowel, and she hadn’t held back with the bronzer and eyeliner.
I moved towards the bar and into her line of sight, but she was too busy chatting to her mates. If they ever started shooting The Only Way Is Hereford, these three would be first in the audition queue.
‘Jan!’ I did my best to look surprised to see her. ‘Jan!’ I had to raise my voice. ‘How are you?’
She gave me a fuck-off-whoever-you-are look. I wasn’t in Friday-night clothes and I wasn’t twenty-five.
‘It’s me — Nick.’ I kept the smile in place, still bending, tilting my head down to her level.
Recognition finally dawned.
‘All right, Nick?’ Her expression brightened. ‘How are you? It’s been ages!’
The Hereford accent always sounded like soft Welsh to me. Her arms came up for a bear hug and I got a noseful of Boots Special. She took a step back but kept a hand on my arm as she checked me out.
‘Too long, Jan. Mong’s funeral, I guess. You look … really … good …’
She liked that. She probably wasn’t used to flattery from someone who wasn’t after a shag. ‘Oh, thanks, Nick. I’ve got to put a bit more slap on these days to cover the wrinkles, but I get by.’
Her mates melted away and started talking to a group of men with sharp creases down the sleeves of their Friday-night shirts. She hadn’t introduced me to them. Code, probably, for ‘fuck off’.
We had to keep close to make ourselves heard over the music. The Boots Special was starting to make my eyes water.
‘So, you married again yet?’
She lifted up her left hand. ‘Not right now. But I’m a four by four.’
‘A what?’
‘Four kids by four husbands. They’re all grown-up now. Flown the nest. Gives me some me-time at last.’ She gave me a sad smile. It told me that me-time was not quite as much fun as she was trying to make it sound.
‘You still living on the Ross Road? In the flats?’
She reached down for a glass of what looked like spritzer and sipped from it until the ice slid down and hit her lips. ‘What about you? You found a nice girl?’
‘Why? You offering?’
A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘Well, there’s a thing …’
She started the general catch-up stuff. Have you seen this guy, that woman? All that shit. I didn’t have a clue who she was on about half the time. This was no longer my world. When I’d left Hereford to go and work for the Firm, that was it. I wasn’t coming back for weekend trips. Hereford was done. And after London, there was somewhere else, and somewhere else again. I’d moved out. I might even have moved on. The only thing I’d left behind was my account at the Halifax. I wondered how the recession had hit my £1.52.
‘Seen anything of BB?’
Her expression clouded. ‘No — fucking arsehole. He stayed at my place the night before the funeral, then didn’t even bother coming to the service. What a wanker.’
I shuffled her towards the bar for another drink. There were still a few things this girl wouldn’t take lying down.
‘What about Tracy? Last time I heard, she was in France. She met somebody?’
There was no hint in her face of a drama. ‘Yeah, she’s OK. Some Russian or other. Lucky bitch. I wanted to go over as well, see if I could get one. She’s in love. They’ve got a little boy. Stevie … something like that. I think he’s about four … five … six, maybe. Don’t really hear much from them.’
She didn’t look too impressed with it all.
‘That’s great news, isn’t it? That she’s happy?’
The barman came over to Jan far earlier than our place in the queue deserved. She didn’t even need to tell him what she wanted. ‘What about you, Nick?’
‘I’ll just have an orange juice.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You still looking to live to a hundred?’
‘Nah. I just know a whole lot of other ways of killing myself.’ I moved the smile back into place. ‘You haven’t heard from Tracy, then?’
‘Not since she’s been in the money.’ She leant in a bit closer. ‘You kept on telling her to leave, didn’t you? Well, hasn’t she done well for herself?’
Her nose wrinkled. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
‘You could go, try somewhere else. You said your kids have left home …’
The drinks turned up, and a brighter future was no competition for a long swig of spritzer. ‘You were always good to her, weren’t you, Nick? She used to give me some of the money you sent, just sometimes, when I was a bit hard up.’
‘Oh, right. And I bet she still sends you a few quid, eh?’
I got a nod, but a disapproving one. ‘Yeah, but not that much. And it’s not like she couldn’t spare it. I thought maybe she’d buy me a house, but no. It’d be pennies for her. But what do I get? Nothing. And I’m her sister, for fuck’s sake.’
Jan took another slug. She’d made the mistake of thinking that just because people had money it was their duty to piss it away. She was jealous that Tracy had it, and angry that she didn’t hand enough of it over. It wasn’t Tracy’s to give away in the first place, but that didn’t seem to occur to her. All she wanted to do was grab.
‘Listen, Jan. I’ve got to meet someone at the Market Tavern. I’ll try and get back later. But if I don’t make it, what’s your number?’
I pulled out my phone, still smiling so much my face was beginning to hurt. She opened her bag. I didn’t expect to see house keys. She got so pissed she’d lose them, so she used to hide a spare set. But there they were. And I also clocked three mobiles.
‘Jesus, Jan. You a dealer or what?’
She selected one and powered it up. ‘Just a complicated life, Nick. Two men to manage, and you’ve got to keep them apart. I’m a bit old-fashioned like that.’
I gave Jan my number once she had worked out how to access her contacts file. ‘This is my personal phone. I don’t really like keeping anything on it. Not even texts or anything. You never know who might sneak a look while you’re busy making yourself beautiful. That wanker BB would have been straight in there. He’d probably send texts from it to all his mates, to tell them what he was up to. If he had any mates.’ She gave me hers. An O2 number. I tapped it in.
‘Whenever you’re in town, Nick …’ She gave me a hug, phone still gripped in her hand. Then she switched it off. ‘I hate these things.’
We parted with a quick kiss on the cheek. Her soapie mates were now getting chatted up by another group of guys with well-clipped hair and Friday-night shirts. She selected the one with a very tight blue-striped short-sleeved number, and was soon in the swing of things. Banter wasn’t necessarily his strong suit, but he was keen to give her the full benefit of his tribal tats. He flexed his biceps by gripping his Bud bottle like it was the last one on earth.
10
I worked my way out of the bar and turned right along Widemarsh Street towards the Green Dragon.
Ant was the taller of my new pair of comedians, but seemed to think lighting a cigarette in the doorway of Marks & Sparks would make him invisible. He was still in his favourite overcoat. I didn’t bother looking for Dec and his nondescript haircut. He’d be staking out the other side of the bar in case I chucked a left when I came out. The car they’d followed me in to Hereford was a C-class Merc, in case they had to keep up with the 911. But it wasn’t in sight now. They would have seen mine in the car park. They’d assume I wasn’t going anywhere for a moment or two.