The Trials of Tiffany Trott (12 page)

_p. 107
“You know what our problem is, don’t you?” asked my New Best Friend Kate as we sat in Café Rouge on Saturday morning. It was clearly a rhetorical question. I could tell by the unusually vigorous way in which she was stirring her cappuccino. “Our problem,” she continued thoughtfully, “is that we’re in a sort of arrested adolescence.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, taking out my copy of
19
magazine.

“Instead of having conversations about grown-up things such as how to cope with a crying baby, or how to choose a good prep school, we have these incredibly teenage conversations about what to do if your boyfriend doesn’t ring when he said he would—”

“Dump the bastard!” I interjected.

“Or whether or not it’s OK to snog a guy on the second date.”

“What’s your view on that?” I asked.

“It’s as though we’re seventeen,” she went on. “But we’re not. We’re
thirty-seven.
It’s pathetic. Why can’t we just grow up?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Why can’t we just grow up and get married like, like, that Bianca on
EastEnders
.”

“Yes,” said Kate. “Like her. Then we could have proper, adult conversations about housekeeping and joint accounts and going to Tesco with our husbands.”

_p. 108
“Mind you,” I added. “She’s just showing off. Just because she managed to get hitched. Getting it on the telly and everything.”

“Yes,” said Kate with uncharacteristic ferocity. “She’s
showing off,
just because she got the rock, the frock, and the party.”

“And the tiara.”

“Yes.”

“And the spread in
Radio Times
.”

Silence descended like a stone. Kate was thinking. I knew this because a small pleat had appeared on her brow. I picked up the
Mail
and looked at the Nigel Dempster gossip page. Such tedious tittle-tattle, I thought. I really don’t know
why
people want to read that kind of stuff . . . ooh! That’s interesting:
New Labour’s Lawrence Bright, forty-five, is reportedly experiencing marital misery after his wife spotted him in the lingerie department of Harvey Nichols with a sultry thirty-something brunette.
Tsk tsk, I thought to myself. Another naughty MP. Don’t they ever learn?

“Do you think we’ll ever get hitched?” I heard Kate say.

“What? Oh. I don’t know.”

Kate was ready to talk again. “I mean, what are you looking for in a man, Tiffany?”

That was easy. “Common ground, a kind heart, reasonable looks, oh—and an
enormous
serve.”

“And fidelity,” she said.

“Oh yes,” I said, glancing at the photo of Lawrence Bright in the
Mail.
“And fidelity.” And then I thought of Seriously Successful again. “I’m not going out with anyone unfaithful ever again,” I announced. And while we sat there, ruminating over our coffee, I rewound my mental video back to Phil Anderer. And I remembered how painful it was going out with him. And how embarrassing, too. Because men with bad track records, well everyone seems to know. Look at Bill Clinton.

“How do you
cope
with him?” people would say to me with
_p. 109
an awestruck smirk when Phillip and I went to parties together. And I’d shrug it off with a peal of laughter and rapidly change the subject, but inside . . . inside, I felt enraged. Well, how do
you
cope with being married to such an ugly woman? I’d inquire. Or, How do you cope with a husband who is, by common consent, a bore? Or, How do you cope with your alcoholic wife? Or your drug-dependent daughter? How do you cope with
that,
precisely? Though of course, I didn’t say any of those things. I kept my outrage to myself. But privately, I felt ashamed of Phil Anderer because privately, I knew that they were right.

“Yes, fidelity is very important,” said Kate with sudden feeling. “Very,
very
important.”

I wondered what she meant by that, and why she was so emphatic. I didn’t like to ask—there were lots of things I didn’t know about her. I supposed she’d tell me if she wanted to. “Do you know,” she said brightly, clearly trying to change the subject now, “I think it would be better to try younger blokes because if they’re in say, their early thirties, they’re less likely to be bitter, twisted divorcés, and they haven’t quite got to the commitmentphobic stage yet.”

“That’s true,” I said thoughtfully. “Just a few years younger would be fine. But how do we meet them?” How indeed? We chewed our baguettes thoughtfully.

“I know,” she said. “Let’s go to a rave.”

“Yes,” I said. “What a brilliant idea.
Let’s
.”

When I got home I phoned the Ministry of Sound—dead upmarket so I’ve heard—and got the details for Friday night. We would have to queue, the woman told me, and we would have to dress appropriately.

“It’s OK,” I interjected. “I know
exactly
what to wear.”

“Whistles will be worn,” I told Kate over the phone a little later. “Carriages at six
A.M.
Dress—informal.”

“Tropical,” she said, “it’ll be
hot
.”

In the meantime, a couple more replies had trickled in from
_p. 110
my lonely hearts ad. The most recent one, which was accompanied by two photos, one full face and one in profile, read as follows:

Dear Advertiser,

I could not help noticing your very appealing personal advertisement two weeks ago. I must apologize for taking so long to reply but I am currently detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for the importation of illegal substances, and as inmates are only allowed to write letters once a week, this is my first epistolary opportunity. However, I am hoping to be released on parole shortly and I wondered whether you would care to meet up?

“You have got to be joking,” I said to myself. I mean, what would they say at the tennis club if I turned up with an ex-con? More to the point, I didn’t fancy him. And then there was an artist called Eric. I liked the sound of him and he was rather good-looking—tall with green eyes and blond hair. A few details jumped out of his letter—“Brighton art school”—“classic cars”—“tennis twice a week”—I really couldn’t be bothered to take it all in. So I just wrote back my standard letter:

Dear Eric,

Thank you for your recent letter in response to my personal advertisement. I had some pretty weird replies I can tell you, but yours was almost normal. Congratulations! If you would like to meet me, please give me a ring on the above number.

Yours sincerely,

Tiffany Trott (Miss).

Then I enclosed a rather good photo of myself taken at Glyndebourne with Alex last year (with a sticker over Alex’s face obviously) and popped it in the post.

When Friday came Kate and I met in the queue outside the club at ten
P.M.
We blew our whistles and jigged up and down to
_p. 111
keep warm, and actually we got some quite odd looks, which I attributed to sheer, naked envy—my stylish new Nike tennis shoes with the carbon rubber outersole, molded midsole, rear-foot trinomic cushioning and reflective trim for night visibility had cost £ 150! Finally we got to the head of the queue.

“You can’t come in looking like that!” said the fierce-looking female bouncer. “This is a very
upmarket
nightclub, it’s not a
rave.
No whistles, no running shoes. Smart club gear only.”

Oh. Oh dear. Blast.

“But we’ve been queuing for forty-five minutes,” I said.

“I don’t care if you’ve been queuing for forty-five days,” she replied. “You’re not coming in looking like that. I suggest you go and change and come back later—the club stays open until six
A.M.
” The thought of schlepping all the way back to Islington from the Elephant and Castle made me feel tired. Frankly, I couldn’t be bothered. Nor could Kate.

“I know, we can come back tomorrow,” she suggested.

“OK, we’ll come back tomorrow,” I said to the bouncer, “but could we just have a quick peek inside—now that we’re here? Just to make sure we
do
want to come back tomorrow?”

“Yes. Just to make sure it’s
our
kind of place,” added Kate.

“Well . . . all right,” the woman said reluctantly, “but make it snappy.”

We went in and were hit by a wall of sound. Gosh it was loud. And what an amazing venue. And so dark. The walls were lined with tin foil; illuminated streamers hung from the ceiling and gnomic inscriptions were projected all over the walls: “Happiness exists,” said one. “The world has a beautiful soul,” said another. Well, quite. The floor was already heaving with bobbing bodies—two thousand people bouncing to the boom! boom! of the beat. There were some terribly handsome-looking young chaps—perfect! But then, just as we had satisfied our curiosity and were preparing to leave, I caught sight of something odd—something wrong. Something, frankly, alien—and yet familiar at least to me. For in the far distance
_p. 112
was an intriguing spectacle: a solitary, gleaming bald pate. The strobe light kept bouncing off it—frankly it stuck out a mile among the crowd of luxuriantly follicled youths. Wasn’t that . . . no! It couldn’t be—but it really
did
look like—gosh I
wish
he’d keep still, I thought to myself, and then I’d be able to see. Surely it couldn’t be him, it was just someone who looked like him, but actually, I think it
was
him—Martin! At the Ministry of Sound! Martin, whose musical tastes run to nothing more adventurous than Gerry and the Pacemakers! Martin, who thinks Oasis is something you see in floral arrangements. In any case, surely Lizzie wouldn’t let him come to a place like this? Was it him, or wasn’t it? God, it was so hard to tell with all these people around and these blinding, flashing lights. Anyway, I was just making my way toward the dance floor, trying to get a better view, when suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“You two—out!” said the lady bouncer. “I said you’d have to be
quick.
”

“OK, OK,” I said, as Kate and I followed her out of the double doors. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

And we did. Suitably attired this time. Smart. Very smart. And no whistles. We were frisked on entry—it was just like being at the airport.

“What are you looking for?” I inquired, as another female bouncer went through my Prada handbag.

“Weapons,” she said. “And drugs.”

“I
never
take drugs,” I said truthfully. And fortunately, I happened to have left my small but efficient axe in my other handbag.

Kate was dressed all in black; she looked particularly chic and I noticed several blokes looking in her direction as we eventually gained admittance. My Liberty silk floral two-piece with the large pearl buttons and the lace edging on the cuffs seemed to attract a lot of attention, too—but then it did go down
extremely
well at Ladies’ Day last year. Anyway, Kate
_p. 113
and I sat on a huge circular seat, shyly surveying the throngs of men standing by the bar. No sign of Martin—I must have got that wrong. Most of them were pretty young, and wore shirts of an hallucinogenic hue. They looked quite, well tough, I suppose. In fact, to be perfectly honest, they looked like Millwall supporters. Some of them had broken teeth. Still, the night was young, I thought to myself happily. I was sure some more eligible-looking chaps would turn up soon. But my God it was hot! And conversation was going to be tricky—this “home” music is so loud!

Suddenly a man came up to us. “Do you want some coke, girls?”

“Oh, er, yes please,” I said. “A Diet Coke would be great.”

“Yes. I’d like a Diet Coke too,” said Kate. But the man just gave us a funny look and walked away. That wasn’t very friendly, was it? Oh well. And then Kate disappeared to the loo because she was unhappy about her hair, and I was just sitting there listening to the bang! bang! of the beat and watching the strobe lights when another chap came up to me. He was very young, but rather good-looking in a brutish kind of way. What on earth could he want?

“           ,” he said.

“What?” I replied.

“           .”

“I’m awfully sorry, I can’t hear a word you’re saying,” I said. “I’m afraid your shirt’s rather loud.”

“           DANCE?” I just managed to make out this time.

“Oh, would I like to dance with you? Well, er, er . . .” But before I could make up my mind he had grabbed my hand and was leading me onto the dance floor, where I was soon lost in the heaving, bobbing, bouncing mass of bodies.

I can understand it now. I can quite see how it happens. I mean, you hear about kids going to raves and dancing nonstop for eight or ten or even twelve hours, and you think, How do they
_p. 114
do
that? But now I know—you just get drawn into the rhythm of the thump! thump! thump! and before you know where you are you have danced yourself into a trance. And so I wasn’t at all surprised when I glanced at my watch at the Ministry of Sound to find that it was six
A.M.

“That’s it, everyone!” said the DJ suddenly. “Night night.
Gute Nacht.
Beddy byes. Bog off.”

Suddenly the lights stopped strobing and the sonic boom! boom! ceased. I smiled at my male companion, the charming young Millwall supporter who had invited me onto the floor several hours earlier. At last! I would be able to talk to him. He was really rather good-looking despite the somewhat prognathous jaw.

“Thanks very much,” I said. “That was fun. I’m Tiffany, by the way. What’s your name?”

“Stephen,” he said, with what I thought was a slightly odd, intense stare. “But my friends all call me Broadmoor.”

“Er . . . what an amusing sobriquet,” I replied.

“You can call me Broadmoor too,” he continued, as we headed for the door. “Or,” he continued, “you can call me Stephen. Whichever you like, really. Whichever you prefer. Stephen. Or Broadmoor. I leave it up to you.”

“Gosh, um, thanks. That’s er, very
flexible
of you. Well, see you again sometime. Broadmoor.”

“
When
will you see me again, Tiffany?”