The Blue Guide (10 page)

‘I'll make a move, then,' I say. ‘Call me later, Carlotta, about what time you want me to pick you up tomorrow.'

Carlotta is standing up now. ‘OK,' she says, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek. ‘And thanks again, Alicia. I have a great time.'

She turns back to Paco and says something in Spanish before walking away; I guess she's gone to the toilets, since she's left all her bags. I wait until I'm sure she's gone and then turn back to Paco, smile uncertainly.

‘Thanks,' he says simply.

‘For what?'

‘You know –' His eyes blaze into mine. ‘I know it's not easy.'

I shrug, cast my eyes around the food hall at all the people shopping for their supper. Why do other people's lives always seem so cosy and uncomplicated when your own is in turmoil? And why does turmoil suddenly seem to be my
modus operandi
?

‘Can I see you again?' I say finally. ‘Alone, I mean.'

Paco sighs, runs his hands through his hair. ‘It's difficult,' he says. His eyes are on the door through
which Carlotta will reappear sometime soon. ‘It's just crazy right now, my schedule.'

‘Fine,' I say, feeling like an idiot. I take my handbag from the stool where I had placed it.

‘Alicia,' he hisses, grabbing my wrist as I start to walk away. ‘I don't want you to think I don't want to see you. It's just – difficult right now. I hardly even see Carlotta, and if I take any more time away from her she'll get suspicious. But I'll find a way. I
do
want to see you again. I keep thinking about you all the time.'

‘OK,' I say, heart a little lighter. He's staring back at the doorway. ‘I'll go now,' I say, equally anxious that Carlotta doesn't see us still together.

He tightens his grip on my wrist, then lets go. ‘I'll call you as soon as I can find a way,' he says.

And then I'm gone, across the food hall and out into the rain, feeling more than a little ridiculous in my tarty dress, looking for a taxi. I can't face a sweaty, overcrowded rush-hour bus, can't face walking home alone through the grey streets, seeing all the lovers getting together after work, holding hands, linking arms, heading for bright bars and restaurants full of the tinkle of carefree laughter.

I NEED A
girly night out, I say to myself back at my flat. I've had a shower, poured a large vodka and tonic, and talked some sense into myself since my moment of despair on the street outside Selfridges. There are two messages from Jess, who's beginning to sound cross, and even a little worried, now. I'm not surprised: I've been blanking her calls on my mobile all afternoon. She knows something's up.

I don't divulge much on the phone, just that a couple of things have happened that I need to talk to her about. Happily, she's free this evening, and we agree to meet in an hour and a half at Julie's Wine Bar not far from where she lives in Holland Park. There's a restaurant there if we decide to eat, but on past experience we'll be having a liquid supper.

I sit down at my dressing table and plug in my hair drier. Sometimes, I think, I don't deserve a friend like Jess. She's always been there for me, and I hate to think of what would happen if she wasn't. Not that I'm an emotional disaster zone, though the last few months might suggest otherwise. Far from it, in fact. I'm pretty low-maintenance as friends go. But everyone gets themselves into a little pickle now and again. Everyone needs someone to hold their hand through the bumpy bits.

Good old Jess – she didn't even tell me, when I was obsessing about Daniel, to get a grip on myself. She never once said: look, Ally, you had the shag of your
life and you really like the guy, but it was basically a one-night stand and nothing more and you have to get over it. He's out of your league.

No, she totally understands that however brief our encounter, I'd found, in Daniel, someone I just knew I could make a life with. Someone who made me laugh, who turned me on, who treated me – at least it seemed that way at the time – with respect. Someone who stayed remarkably down-to-earth when all the glamour could have turned him into the world's biggest arsehole.

Jess just held my hand, and called me up, and sat drinking vodka with me when I didn't feel like going out, watching reruns of
NYPD Blue.
She'd even turned up on my doorstep one night with a pair of Eurostar tickets, and we'd spent a weekend in Paris looking at art, and wandering along the Seine, and drinking cheap red wine and talking about everything and nothing. Our hopes for the future. Our careers. Which rock stars we'd like to fuck. The best positions for orgasms (she prefers it doggy-style, with manual stimulation of the clitoris – whether by herself or her partner, doesn't matter).

I've never had lesbian inclinations, but sometimes, when I hang out with Jess, I think she's so damn perfect that I don't know why I don't just tustle her into bed and fuck the living daylights out of her. Ever since our first term at uni together, when we were neighbours in our hall of residence, we've been the best of buddies. And she is gorgeous to boot. But we both like dicks, and that's that.

One night on that visit to Paris, when we got back to our room in the early hours, drunk on booze and talk, I'd seriously considered – for one mad, lonely moment – just going for it anyway, to see what it was like, to
see if it could work. But I knew she didn't want me, as I didn't
really
want her, and that we risked losing our friendship through one pissed experiment. And so after she'd gone to sleep I settled for a woozy wank, lying in front of the silently flickering TV, thinking about Daniel Lubowski in the dome room.

Afterwards, my hands still sticky with my juices, I'd sneaked out of the room and – in direct defiance of all Jess's advice to just stop thinking about him and get on with my life – dialled his number from my mobile. This time I actually went through with it, rather than just thinking about it, rather than calling up his number on my screen and then bottling out. My heart was in my throat, and I don't know what I would have said if he'd picked up, but the call clicked through to his answerphone anyway, and I hung up. I never told Jess I did that, but nor did I try calling Daniel again after that weekend, though I still thought about him when I wanked.

Jess is already sitting at a table when I arrive, sipping a glass of Chardonnay and making puppy eyes at the new barman, who's pretending not to notice, although you can tell from his body language that he's secretly rather enjoying the attention.

She nods over at him as I sit down opposite her. ‘Might take him home tonight,' she mutters. ‘Could do with a damn good shag.'

Jess split up with her banker-wanker boyfriend a year ago and has been happily single ever since, although she's not averse to a bit of rough and tumble when the mood takes her.

‘Could do worse,' I say, looking over appraisingly at the object of her desire. He's polishing glasses now, affecting to look out of the window as his honed pecs flex and then slacken with the movement of his arms.

‘So anyway, how are you?' says Jess, leaning towards
me over the table. ‘You've been a pain in the arse to get hold of. Mr Primadonna Ballerina been keeping you on your toes?'

She stops when she sees my face, my averted eyes.

‘You haven't? Ally, tell me you haven't.'

I open my mouth to speak, but I can't. I can hardly believe it all myself. I feel like I'm in some weird dream. I'm fucking Paco Manchega, I say to myself, and it sounds completely unreal. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing.

Jess is right in my face now, hers all flushed and excited. Then she leans back, tries to look stern. ‘Hang on,' she says. ‘Why are you looking so damn miserable if you're copping off with one of the world's great love gods? And why, more to the point, didn't you ring me the minute this happened?'

I slump down in my seat, wishing I wasn't here, that I'd just stayed at home and drunk myself into a stupor. Jess is going to go ballistic when she hears what I have to say, and I don't know if I can handle it.

‘I'll get you a drink,' she says, relenting, tuned in now to my despondency and figuring it needs the softly-softly approach.

‘So hit me with it,' she says with a coaxing smile when she sits down again, placing a large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon on the table in front of me. ‘What's the story?'

‘He's married,' I say bluntly, and I watch as her face falls.

‘Bloody hell, Ally, when did that happen?'

‘A month ago. Her name's Carlotta. She's trying to be an actress.' I look out of the window. ‘She's nice, actually,' I add. ‘In fact she's making a lot of effort to be my friend. It's her that I'm showing round while Paco struts his stuff, actually.'

Jess leans forward to extract a cigarette from her pack, offering me one at the same time. I take it, and for a few moments we smoke in silence.

‘So what happened?' she asks at last, and I recount the whole tale for her, from my wank in the bath via our illicit doings in the stretch limo to his parting words at the oyster bar. As I'm talking, she alternates between anger and laughter, but when I've done she's deeply serious.

‘You have
got
to stop, Ally,' she says, wagging a finger at me. ‘I don't know what this guy thinks he's playing at, but you're on a crash course with disaster, no doubt about it. You don't need me to tell you . . .'

‘I don't,' I interrupt. ‘I knew exactly what you were going to say, and I would say exactly the same thing if it were you in my place:
get the hell out
.' I feel in my pocket for some notes to go buy another round. ‘But admit it – you'd have done the same thing if the chance presented itself.'

Jess looks at me through narrowed eyes. ‘That is
not
the point,' she says, mock-sternly this time, and we laugh together. A weight lifts off my shoulders: this is what I came here for, I tell myself – to be reminded that problems are sometimes only as serious as we want to make them. I've been silly, but I have time to get out before anyone is hurt.

Of course, now we've got the moral reprobation out of the way, Jess is desperate to know all the nitty gritty of my night and day with Paco – everything from the colour and make of his briefs to the size of his dick and how many times I came. She can't help herself, asking more and more questions, and as I answer them I notice her head turning more and more frequently to look at the guy behind the bar. I sneak him a glance, and I realise with a secret thrill that he's listening in on our
conversation now. He's got a odd little smirk on his lips, and he keeps looking up and catching Jess's eye. Both of them, it's clear, are getting all in a froth at my descriptions of what Paco and I got up to, and after a few minutes I decide to leave them to it.

Jess and I have a giant hug as I wait for my taxi. ‘Just remember what I said,' she admonishes. ‘Leave well enough alone, girl. This one's too hot to handle.'

‘Message received loud and clear,' I say. I shoot a look at the barman, who's already undressing Jess with his eyes while she's preoccupied with me. Jess lives only five minutes away, but I seriously doubt they're going to make it back to her place before getting down and dirty.

‘Have a lovely night,' I say to her, and then a thought occurs to me. ‘Listen,' I whisper. ‘I don't know exactly what lover boy over there heard, but I don't want it getting around about Paco, for obvious reasons. Will you try to sound out what he did and didn't hear? And if he thinks he knows who we were talking about, make sure you get it straight that it wasn't Manchega, OK?'

‘Don't worry,' says Jess, ushering me out of the door. ‘You can count on me. Now just get the hell out of here.
Some
of us haven't had a decent fuck in months, you know.'

On my way home in the taxi, I turn my mobile back on and there's a message from Carlotta. There's langour in her voice, as if she's drunk, or has just made love. She tells me she's been thinking and has decided she'd like to go see some art tomorrow. She says she doesn't mind where, but then Paco's voice can be heard in the background:

‘The Tate Modern. Tell her to take you there, angel.'

‘The Tate Modern,' reiterates Carlotta. She's strangely pliant with Paco, I think, for a woman who seems to know her own mind so well the rest of the time. ‘I expect you midday again. Thanks Alicia.'

I climb out of the taxi outside my flat, suddenly incredibly weary from all the emotions and complications of the last few days. But it's all over now – I've promised Jess and I've promised myself. I'll get a good night's sleep and tomorrow will be fresh and bright as a blank canvas.

IT'S PAST NOON,
and the meter on my taxi is ticking over as I wait for Carlotta outside the hotel. I called up quarter of an hour ago to let her know I was waiting, but there's no sign of her. Still, at the rates Paco's paying me, I could sit here all day, letting the fare go through the roof. I sit back and watch the world go by. It's a balmy summer's day and there's a lot of flesh on display by the office workers and students strolling out of Fitzrovia and down towards Oxford Street – lots of midriff T-shirts and short skirts and little denim shorts.

Suddenly Carlotta's there, sliding into the back beside me. She's somewhat toned down today, in a short-sleeved baby-pink cashmere top and flared black linen skirt that comes down almost as far as her knees. She's still in heels, of course, and her hair is loose as yesterday.

‘Sorry,' she says, clearly not really meaning it, and not offering any explanation. A sickly caramel smell floats in with her.

‘What's that perfume?' I say.

‘Angel,' she says. ‘Thierry Mugler. You like?'