But Zac was there that night and Pip was quite taken aback that she should be amused rather than disconcerted, perhaps just a little excited rather than unnerved, that she had a certain pride rather than horror that the man over there, yes, the good-looking one in the navy jeans and navy shirt and spectacles that used to be free on the NHS but no doubt now cost a small fortune, was her own personal stalker.
Perhaps there was a part of her that would quite like to say ‘See that bloke? I can’t get away from him.’ Not because she sought her sisters’ protection – because she didn’t really fear him at all and of course she could look after herself well enough, thank you very much – but because actually, she was rather proud that her so-called stalker was so easy on the eye. However, duty called and decreed that the only blokes who warranted her focus were the one Fen was considering sleeping with, and the one Cat was deludedly desperate to have back. Tonight was about encouraging Fen to go for it and persuading Cat to leave well alone.
No. Pip wouldn’t be saying a word to her sisters. She couldn’t possibly. What – have the focus on Pip McCabe? Put herself in the hot seat and under the spotlight? Good God, no. No, thank you. Pip’s a great believer in there being a Time and a Place; frequently she uses the unsuitability of one or the other as a prophetic sign or else a perfect excuse. Soho, in the hurl of her sister’s potential boyfriend’s birthday party, provided her with neither the time for Zac nor the place to mention him to anyone. Ah, but there again, Pip, nor would a quiet night at your flat, or Fen’s or Cat’s. And a weekend up in Derbyshire wouldn’t be the right forum either, would it? Over the phone wouldn’t do. Nor would the grapevine. The time and place are rarely aligned in Pip’s eye.
So, Pip sipped champagne in Soho, providing morale support for one sister (Fen’s morals were, for the most part, in good shape) and utter support for the other (Cat had had a bad day after quite a good week, and the champagne was making her slightly unsteady on her feet). It had taken all manner of cajoling – including Pip walking on her hands at Cat’s flat earlier – to persuade the youngest McCabe to come out with them. And now look at her, bedecked in Whistles, partaking of champagne and eliciting a few appreciative glances from present company. Pip was well aware that champagne could be a dangerous thing. A little was a very good idea, too much could be disastrous, the distinction between the two could be perilously indistinct.
‘What do you think of the Holden guy then?’ Cat whispered, nudging Pip and giving a surreptitious nod in Fen’s direction.
‘Well, he’s well-spoken,’ Pip analysed, ‘charming, too. Obviously fairly well-to-do, not that it should count for a jot. I’ve been watching him and he gazes at Fen at any opportunity. That’s good. She’s not one to waste time on someone who feels anything less than absolutely smitten by her. I think he could well be worth her while. Good luck to her.’
‘I like champagne,’ giggled Cat, who simply thought Matt hunky, Fen lucky and that they should go for it, ‘and I like those dingle-dangle things.’
‘Looks like Fen’s on her way to Matt’s dingle-dangle thing,’ said Pip.
Cat whooped with laughter. ‘I meant the lights here!’ Pip knew perfectly well what her sister had been alluding to, but she also knew that her misinterpretation would cause merriment. Which it did. Pip raised her glass to the lighting – interestingly constructed multifaceted cubes of coloured Perspex floating with no visible means of support, diffusing light into colour and mood. Cat chinked glasses with Pip, her very own visible means of support.
‘I like the padded walls,’ Pip remarked and, to test her theory, Cat gently nodded her body against them. Pip sat down and patted the space next to her: ‘But Jesus, these seats are uncomfortable.’
Cat snuggled against her sister. ‘Is there any more champagne?’ she wondered out loud. ‘I love champagne.’ She paused, looking temporarily alarmed. ‘I think I might be having fun.’ She looked at Pip with her brow concertinaed. ‘Am I? Is that OK?’
‘Why don’t we discuss it over more champers – I’ll go and find some,’ said Pip, delighted that her sister had found something that she loved and was halfway on the road to having fun.
‘What do you think?’ Fen hissed, catching Pip’s arm as she embarked on her champagne quest.
‘I think free champagne is a fabulous idea but I think it’s all gone,’ Pip said. ‘Certainly it’s gone to Cat’s head.’
‘I mean about him. About Matt?’ Fen asked wide-eyed and close to, eagerly awaiting her sister’s response.
‘I think any man who has a party in a room with padded walls is very considerate indeed,’ Pip colluded, ‘and any man who stands all those bottles of champagne must be worth keeping.’ She observed her sister. ‘And I think any man who sets his attentions on my sister has impeccable taste. And he’d better treat you very nicely or the dingle-dangles will get it.’ Pip winked at Fen and wandered off in search of champagne.
‘Dingle-dangles?’ Fen murmured to herself.
There is no more free champagne. Pip decides, though, that champagne is what Cat must drink. Not because Cat loves the stuff, but because Pip won’t have her mix her drinks; she’s mixed up enough as it is. If it’s champagne that’s giving her joy, champagne she shall have. To the bar she goes.
And that’s when she comes across Zac.
She takes her place along the counter right next to him. Their elbows touch. But it is only when the barman allows her to queue-jump that she’s aware of him. Zac stares at her, irritated. Pip glowers back. Then she quickly looks away.
Fuck! It’s my stalker.
It is indeed. And he’s pissed off. He’s been brandishing a twenty-pound note in the direction of the barman for ages without success.
‘What’s a guy gotta do to get a drink round here? Sport a cleavage?’ he grumbles with a touch of wit that the noise of the bar renders inaudible.
Grumpy sod, Pip thinks. ‘Sorry,’ she says, establishing eye contact, ‘you were here first.’
‘Whatever,’ he says brusquely, ‘go ahead.’
He doesn’t recognize me. He hasn’t a clue who I am.
Pip can’t order and pay quickly enough and she weaves and shimmies her way back to Cat who is chatting amiably to Fen and Matt. A side of her wants to go, wants to avoid confrontation, doesn’t want Zac to suddenly recognize her, to approach, let alone converse. A side of her, however, newly unleashed thanks in no small part to Caleb, wants to play, wants to rile Zac and surprise him. A side to her is amused that he doesn’t recognize her and a side to her is slightly irked. So she stays, with half an eye on Fen, half an ear for Cat who is now drunkenly verbose, and half a mind to search Zac out and perform a magic trick on him.
Luck puts Zac directly in her path a short while later when she returns to the bar for yet more champagne for Cat. This time Pip smiles directly at him and he smiles back. That pretty girl who audaciously pushed in at the bar, he observes. The one who looks vaguely familiar.
At the heaving bar Pip waits an indecently short while to be served.
I haven’t a clue how I can feel insulted by him in Holloway, offended by him at the hospital, disconcerted by him on Hampstead Heath – and yet now rather taken with him in Soho.
Especially as you have Caleb keen and he comes with no added complications of children and stalking tendencies.
‘Champagne, please.’
Ask yourself which bloke your sisters would deem the more suitable.
‘Two glasses, thanks.’
I’m not telling Cat and Fen a thing – much less asking them anything of the sort.
When Pip turns