Libby looked around at the bedroom, strewn with their stuff, and forced herself to shut the door. She knew it was time to leave. It had been a week since they’d gone to Jamie’s family home. After The Chat with Bunty, complete with the emotional blackmail, Libby had reluctantly rejoined the party. They had insisted on Kira staying as well and, after a couple of glasses of Pimms, Libby had actually started to relax. It became obvious once everyone got over the initial awkwardness that Jamie’s family get-togethers were not staid perfunctory affairs from which people left as soon as possible.
The never-ending supply of food and alcohol stretched into the late afternoon and evening. By that stage everyone knew way too much information about Kira’s exploits in India (she hadn’t in fact got much further than Goa on her travels, as this was where she said she met ‘her kind of people’ – from the photos it appeared that Kira’s kind of people sported long beards, red-rimmed eyes and had questionable hygiene, but that was not a huge surprise), includingKira’s Bowels Versus the Mumbai Surburban Railway Incidentin graphic detail.
After the kids had been tucked up in one of the many spare rooms and Bunty had moved onto the spirits, she’d toasted Libby’s career choice, declaring that she wished she’d takenherclothes off more in her twenties before her body had waged its war with gravity and lost.
In the week since, Libby had spoken to Jamie’s mother no less thanthreetimes, once being when Bunty and Giles both came to babysit so Jamie could take her out for their second ever official date. This was when Bunty had breezily informed a horror-struck Libby that she had taken it upon herself to phone her parents.
When Libby asked, with strained politeness, why on earth Bunty would consider that appropriate, Bunty had just shrugged and told her that ‘If my little boy was recovering from a very serious illness and had exams to contend with, I would want to know the lay of the land.’
Libby had no words. She wasn’t sure anyone except Bunty would refer to Jamie as a little boy, and she, being a mother of a four-year-old child herself, was certainly no little girl. She did however manage to let Bunty know that her mum had no idea about the stripping. Bunty reassured her that she had only referred to Libby’s ‘work’ in their discussion, not the nature of it.
‘But of course we both agree that you’ll have to be concentrating on your studies from now on,’ she’d told her, as if that was a totally obvious solution. The only thing that was obvious to Libby was that she had a total of seventy-two pounds and twenty-eight pence in her bank account and her rent was due in five days.
She turned and left the room. The next few days would be her last in his house and unbeknownst to Jamie this weekend would be her first back at work.
*****
‘We’re not open, mate. Come back later. Much later.’ The large bouncer crossed his massive tattooed arms over his chest and blocked the entrance to the club. Jamie gritted his teeth. He had been banging on those bloody doors for the last twenty minutes, with the pedestrians passing him by in a busy Covent Garden eyeing him like a lunatic – there was no way he was going anywhere.
‘Look,mate, I know she’s in there,’ he told Tattoo-Loving Bouncer.
‘Who’s in here or not is none of your fucking business until later, when we’re open, and only then if you pay. A lot.’
Jamie looked away and took a deep breath. The last time he lost his temper in this place he’d ended up unconscious. ‘I just want to talk to Libby for a moment. I’m her boyfriend, okay?’ Tattoo-Loving Bouncer responded by planting his feet even wider and shaking his head once.
‘Nobody disturbs the girls during practice.’
Jamie ran his hands through his hair and paced away for a moment. An image of the same Tattoo-Loving Bouncer hovering around Libby with obvious concern the night of the disastrous stag party sprang into his mind. This man cared about her.
‘She’s not well,’ Jamie told him, and watched as Tattoo-Loving Bouncer’s expression turned from hostile to carefully blank.
‘What do you mean? I thought she – ’
‘She hasn’t recovered fully and she has exams to study for. That’s what she needs to be doing this weekend – not prancing around some pole so perverts can drool all over her.’
‘I think you know very well that none of the perverts get close enough to those girls to even breathe on them, leave alone drool,’ Tattoo-Loving Bouncer said, his chest puffing up to even more ridiculous proportions so that his neck disappeared altogether. Jamie could practically smell the steroids.
‘Okay, okay. Calm down. All I’m saying is that Libby shouldn’t be here this weekend.’ Tattoo-Loving Bouncer’s chest deflated slightly, his arms uncrossed and one of his hands went up to rub the back of his neck. ‘You know I’m right, don’t you?’ Jamie probed, sensing he was getting somewhere. Tattoo-Loving Bouncer sighed. ‘She looks tired, doesn’t she?’ Jamie went on.
‘Look, the boss already told her not to dance,’ Tattoo Loving Bouncer said after a long pause. ‘She’s one of the main attractions and Steve is normally all about pulling in the punters, but … well … she’s Libby. We know this isn’t really her gig. And, yes, she does look like shit at the moment.’
‘Barry?’ The double doors were pushed open behind Tattoo-Loving Bouncer and a shorter, older but still well-built man stepped out onto the pavement. He looked closely at Jamie for a moment. ‘I know you. You’re the bloody idiot that climbed on stage. What’s going on out here?’
‘Boss, I – ’
‘I’m Jamie, Libby’spartner, and I’m here because she shouldn’t be working at the moment. I’ve come to take her home.’ The shorter man’s eyes widened for a moment before a slow smile spread over his face.
‘Listen, boy,’ he started – it had been a long time since anyone but his mother had referred to Jamie as a boy. ‘If Barry here or I couldn’t stop her dancing, what makes you think that you stand a snowball’s chance in hell?’
Jamie puffed up his own chest, wishing just then that he too indulged in anabolic steroids. ‘She listens to me, okay?’
The shorter man started laughing. Jamie felt the last few threads of his temper fray.
‘If she listens to you, fella, why the fuck is she currently shaking her gorgeous arse all over my club?’
The threads broke and Jamie made a sudden lunge forward to push past the two men, but Barry’s large hand planted itself firmly in the middle of his chest and stopped him dead. He turned wild eyes to the shorter man and his fists clenched at his sides.
‘Stand down, Casanova,’ the shorter man said, his amusement still evident in his voice. ‘They’re practicing. No thongs in sight.’ He sighed. ‘Look, I know she shouldn’t be dancing. I’ve offered to pay her for the weekend anyway if she’ll go home. Even offered her a cut of the tips on top. But that woman in there is the most stubborn female I have ever come across in this business, and believe me that is saying something. She once told me she’d do anything to get ahead, ‘beg, borrow or steal’, she said, which is total crap because she won’t take charity. When I pushed it she threatened to go to another club.’
