‘Me too.’ Lou checks her watch. ‘C’mon, if you hoover and I clear the tables, maybe we’ll get out on time for once.’
‘Yes, boss.’ Steph grins.
Lou smiles back. Thank God for Steph and the rest of the staff here, united in nugget-frying hell. ‘Fancy a quick drink when we’re done?’ she asks.
‘Could murder one,’ Steph replies. She stands back from the mirror, smoothes her hands over her rounded hips and inhales deeply as if summoning the strength to face the mayhem outside.
And it is mayhem. By midday, the blue sky had turned a moody grey, and the onset of rain always brings in the hordes. In her first week here, Lou discovered that things don’t gently wind down towards the end of the day as they do in normal workplaces. No, they wind up. By 5.30 pm the kids are usually so overwrought and exhausted that at least two-thirds are crying, lashing out at their parents and refusing to leave. Plus by that time, their stomachs are swishing with cheap blackcurrant squash and churning with horrible deep-fried nuggets. So they feel sick as well. Some children actually are sick. Compared to mopping up puke, Lou thinks wryly, retrieving a squashed muffin from the ballpool is almost a perk of the job.
‘I don’t wanna go home!’ a little girl wails in the play zone. ‘Wanna climb on the big rope again!’ The mother throws Lou an apologetic look. Lou smiles back. Although the woman looks young – late-twenties perhaps – her shoulder-length bob bears a thick swathe of wiry grey at the front. Perhaps motherhood has done that to her, or she’s just had to endure one too many bleak afternoons at Let’s Bounce. Will that happen to Lou if she works here much longer? She noticed a solitary grey hair nestling among her auburn curls this morning – at thirty-five – a defiant, silvery wire which she yanked out in disgust.
The girl is now darting between the scuffed, primary-coloured tables. ‘Come on, Bethany,’ the woman cajoles, holding out her hand ineffectually.
‘No! I hate you!’
‘They’re closing in a minute,’ the mother adds. ‘Look – all the other boys and girls have gone home. This lady’ – she indicates Lou, who wonders at what point she became a lady – ‘wants to go home and if you don’t come right now, you’ll be locked in all night.’
‘Good!’ the girl thunders. ‘It’d be fun.’
‘Your mum’s right,’ Lou says lightly, dragging the vacuum cleaner with its ‘amusing’ cartoon eyes towards them. ‘But if you don’t mind, I’ve got to hoover up first.’
‘Right. Sorry,’ the woman says, stepping away from a scattering of nuggets on the carpet. Lou switches on the hoover while Steph loads a tray with dirty plates.
The child is now refusing to put on her shoes. ‘Want to help me hoover?’ Lou asks.
The girl eyes her warily. ‘Okay.’ Lou hands the tube to her, quickly glancing around to check that Dave isn’t lurking around. He’d snap that she was contravening health and safety regulations (although discarded food and nappies in the ballpool area don’t seem to bother him one bit).
The girl is hoovering with reasonable efficiency and her mother looks relieved. ‘You’ve done a great job there,’ Lou praises the child.
‘Thanks.’ She grins proudly.
‘You know what?’ the mother adds, clearly grateful for Lou’s intervention, ‘you’re a natural to work somewhere like this.’
Lou smiles and thanks her, but by the time the mother and daughter have left the building, she’s thinking that being a natural at scraping up chips off the carpet was never supposed to be part of the plan.
‘Still fancy that drink?’ Steph asks as they leave, tearing off their tabards and stuffing them into their bags.
Lou thinks about Spike lying around at home, perhaps strumming a guitar but more likely depositing yet more used teabags into the sink. ‘God, yes,’ she declares. ‘Let’s go.’
TEN
‘Result,’ Spike says, placing his mobile back on the bedside table.
‘What’s that?’ Astrid asks.
‘Lou’s in the pub, having a drink with her friend from work. Reckon she’ll be a couple of hours at least …’
Astrid laughs and shakes her head in mock despair. ‘You’re terrible, giving her all that crap about rehearsing at Charlie’s. I don’t know how you can live with yourself, Spike.’
‘Well, I could be rehearsing,’ Spike murmurs. ‘In fact, we could practise a few things right now.’ With a broad smile, he swivels back into Astrid’s rumpled bed, pulling her towards him. She’s so beautiful, he thinks, like one of those gamine actresses from the sixties. All smooth, golden skin and perky breasts and that curtain of long, straight hair with a fringe hanging over her clear blue eyes.
Astrid, who is entirely naked, coils around Spike like a cat and plants a kiss on his fevered brow. He’s not ill, yet that’s how he feels when he’s with her: hot and feverish, as if the inner workings of his body which control mood and temperature go haywire the minute he arrives at her small terraced house.
‘You okay, baby?’ she asks in that vaguely posh voice with husky undertones, which always sends tiny sparks zapping up his spinal cord.
‘Better than okay,’ he replies with a smile. ‘Absolutely fantastic.’
She chuckles throatily, swinging her legs out of bed and stretching up to her full six feet before sashaying towards the open bedroom door. Spike stares at her bum, deciding it’s so perfectly formed, it looks airbrushed. ‘Want a cup of tea?’ She glances back with a teasing smile.
Tea? How can he think about tea when he’s just copped a long, languorous look at her backside? Yet that’s what Spike loves about Astrid Stone. Her casual air, the way nothing seems to ruffle her. The way she can enjoy a full four hours in the sack, then swing out of bed and suggest a hot milky drink, as if prolonged afternoon sex is a completely normal and expected part of a drizzly Monday afternoon.
‘Tea would be great,’ Spike replies, although it’s the last thing he fancies right now. He wants Astrid back in bed with him instead of wasting valuable time waiting for the kettle to boil and, if any beverages are to be consumed, he’d prefer a nice cold beer.
He can hear her now, padding lightly downstairs and pottering about in the kitchen. As she hums a lilting, unrecognisable tune, he sinks back into her plump white pillows and congratulates himself on his stupendous luck.
He really is a fortunate bastard. Astrid made all the moves, from the moment they met at the Red Lion, six months ago now, one wet October night. She’d come along with Charlie, a friend of Spike’s with whom he has vague intentions of starting a band. It had felt like an ordinary night until Astrid strode in – a blonde, blue-eyed goddess.
‘Spike,’ Charlie said grandly, ‘meet my dear friend Astrid.’
Astrid beamed at him. ‘Uh, hello,’ Spike croaked, taking in the cute peasant top and slender hips and legs that went on for about seventy miles in dark skinny jeans. Her ankle boots were scuffed, and she wasn’t wearing make-up which, to Spike, suggested a self-assuredness he found incredibly loin-stirring. ‘Hi, Spike,’ Astrid said breezily, kissing his cheek and nearly sending him staggering back into a table laden with drinks.
When Spike tries to replay that night, he can’t remember all of it. If someone were to ask, ‘What did you and Astrid talk about? What did she drink?’ he wouldn’t be able to answer. All he remembers is Charlie melting into the crowd, and some godawful Dire Straits tribute band playing on a tiny stage, and he and Astrid escaping to flirt in a dark corner until last drinks were called