‘I’m afraid she’s not here, she’s out on a shoot.’
‘On a shoot,’ he said, looking a little choked up. Well, it’s not easy hearing that your sweetheart’s away getting her kit off with someone else, is it? ‘What time will she be back?’
‘Well, she won’t come back here Colin, she’ll just go straight home. I expect you’ll see her tonight.’
‘Where?’ he asked.
‘At your place,’ I said. ‘Well, goodbye.’
‘No, she’s not coming to my place tonight,’ he told me. ‘I’m going to hers, but the trouble is, I’ve lost her address. Could you give it to me please?’
Boy he did that so cunningly I almost fell for it.
‘Oh, I don’t think we can do that Colin, it’s company policy not to give out our girls’ addresses to anybody we don’t know,’ I said, getting both feet behind the security doors.
‘But you know me.’
‘Ah yes, I do, but it’s just company policy, a bit like the insurance, our hands are tied.’ I wish yours were mate. ‘My advice to you is just give her a call yourself. She’ll remind you of her address.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’s a good idea. What’s the number?’
‘You haven’t got her number either?’
‘I lost that too.’
‘Oh dear, that’s awkward. I’m very sorry, but we can’t give out numbers either. It’s the rules.’
‘Can’t you just bend them this once, for me?’ he implored.
‘I’m very sorry, I could get the sack if I did.’
‘I wouldn’t tell anyone.’
I leaned forward and whispered to him very quietly, ‘No, you might not, but she would,’ flicking towards Wendy with my thumb. ‘Sorry.’
‘But, I am her boyfriend!’
‘Yes, yes, yes, we know you are, but if we gave out numbers to everyone who asked, any old nutcase off the street might get hold of them,’ I said and waved goodbye to him through the suddenly shut glass.
*
Of course, this all made for a very amusing story when Paddy and Matt and everyone else got back that afternoon, and Paddy told me one in turn.
A couple of weeks previously Mary had got a phone call from some matey who was near to tears with apologies. He explained that he’d gone down his local the night before (in Leicester somewhere), taken his usual seat and got the paper out, but had the strangest feeling something was amiss. When he looked around, everyone in the pub was staring at him and smiling, and he recognised them all from somewhere but he couldn’t think where. Anyway, he shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat, quickly downed his pint and went home, puzzled and a little upset as to what he’d seen down the pub. It was only when he got home that he realised what had happened.
Ace had thrown him a surprise party down his local and he hadn’t noticed.
‘I’m so, so sorry,’ he told Mary. ‘I wondered why people were looking at me, waiting for me to speak and I just sat there without saying a word. Please, please, believe me I’m sorry. You must hate me now. You went to all that trouble and I just left,’ he went on, actually breaking down at one point.
Mary told him to hang on and asked Paddy if he’d thrown one of the readers a surprise party last night.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Out of curiosity, Paddy took over from Mary and asked matey what the problem was. Matey explained it all again so Paddy tried to set his mind to rest that Ace hadn’t thrown him a party. Matey was having none of it.
‘You did, you did. You’re just saying that.’
‘We’re not mate, honestly. We wouldn’t. I promise you, we didn’t thrown you a party last night.’
‘Then why was the pub full of Ace girls and why were they all looking at me?’
‘Mate, I don’t know. All I can tell you is that you’re probably mistaken, I doubt very much they were Ace girls because... er, all our girls are in America at the moment shooting our calendar.’
‘They’re not, you’re lying. They were in The Badger’s Arms last night waiting for me to acknowledge them. I didn’t realise, you see, I didn’t realise. That’s why I just went home. I’m so sorry, please, if you throw me another one I’ll realise next time.’
‘Look mate, we didn’t thrown you a party. I mean, why would we?’
‘I don’t know, that’s what I couldn’t work out either. It’s probably why I didn’t say anything because I wasn’t expecting it. I’m so sorry.’
Paddy went on to tell me that matey had even offered to refund some of the expenses and for a few seconds Paddy was half-tempted to take him to the cleaners. I mean, who’d believe him if he complained afterwards? He didn’t in the end, he just reassured him that his apology was accepted and that was the end of the story, as far as Ace were concerned.
‘Okay, thanks. Again, I’m sorry, and please, keep writing about me.’
‘He was a Premier League mentalist,’ Paddy told us.
‘I had one like that not so long ago,’ Matt said. ‘A bird, surprisingly. She wanted to know why we kept superimposing her face onto all the models in our mag. She said it was ruining her relationship and her reputation in Stockport, if that’s possible.’
‘Well, that’s alright for you lads, Leicester and Stockport are miles away. I’ve got this fucking psycho just around the corner and now he knows my face. You think he’ll come back?’
‘What, are you kidding?’ Paddy smirked. ‘Of course he’ll come back. You ain’t seen the last of him by a long way.’
*
The only surprising thing about Colin Daish’s return was that it took ten days to happen. He must’ve sat at home all that time, masturbating his cock to pâté waiting for the phone call that was never going to come before deciding to get up off of his arse to come and see what was taking us so long.
‘Your mate’s here in reception,’ Wendy told me when I picked up the phone.
That was it, ‘your mate’. No notice, no warning, just ‘your mate’, so of course I strolled down to reception expecting to see one of my ‘mates’, only to find myself instead coming face to face with the last man on the planet I wanted to see.
‘You cunt!’ I whispered to Wendy as I went past her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it was him?’
‘What, and me get stuck with him? Not likely, he’s your mate.’
I walked through the security doors and Colin held out his hand for me to shake.
‘I thought I’d just pop in because I haven’t heard anything yet. I was thinking maybe you called while I was out and that I missed it,’ he said, anxiously.
‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t called you yet.’
I suddenly realised that there was no easy way of getting rid of this one, he was here for the long haul and it wouldn’t matter how many times I fobbed him off, he’d keep coming back until we fixed him up with Jerry, something that was never going to happen. I was going to have to nip this one in the bud before it got too silly, not something I would’ve normally volunteered to do. Colin didn’t look like a man who took bad news well, although ironically, he looked like a man who’d had plenty of practice.
Fucking Wendy!
There was nothing else for it; I had to stand before him, look him in the eye and give it to him straight.
‘Has no one else spoken to you yet?’ I asked.
‘No, I haven’t heard anything.’
‘Oh, this is very awkward because it’s not really down to me, the photographer should’ve given you a ring.’