Gretel is such a fucking dick, I swear.
‘Gretel!’
There’s a delay between Josh calling my name and me registering he means me.
He tries again. ‘Gretel!’
This time I kick in, twisting in the direction of his voice, a playful smile already on my face. I spot him amongst the ocean of loosened ties, and raise a hand to wave hi. He’s standing with a group of all men cradling mostly finished pints. I feel their eyes on me as I make my way over, weaving gracefully through the throng, keeping my smile on the whole time. I reach Josh, and, without hesitating, lean in for a hello kiss on the cheek. ‘This is so weird that you’re here,’ I say, faking excitement at the odds of it. ‘It was a good thing you messaged when you did, I was about to get on the Tube.’
I can tell Josh is drunk from the sweetness on his breath and the way he clutches me a bit too intimately for only one date.
I wave at the clutch of IT men. ‘Hi, I’m Gretel,’ I say, picturing my floating Pocahontas trail. ‘Who wants a drink?’ I point to their mostly empty pints and, bewildered by my sudden arrival, they nod.
Shit. That’s all my payday money gone within one evening.
‘Great! Same again?’ I turn to Josh who’s still grinning at me with his slightly sunburnt, excitable, drunken face. ‘And you?’
‘Yes, that would be great. Cheers.’
That’s another fiver.
‘Brilliant!’
The bar inside is dark, cooler, and adorned with fake flowers hanging inexplicably from the ceiling. It’s mostly empty apart from the scrabble of people at the bar. The staff wilt behind the counter, leaning over and letting people yell instructions, nodding, while also frantically scanning the rest of the queue to see if they’ll ever get a breather. One lines up a queue of Magners, splashing each bottle into pint glasses filled with ice, a sheen of sweat glistening on his face like a glazed doughnut. I scan the queue for the best entry point, doing the maths of crowd flow to figure out where to stand to get served quicker. I pick a spot, push in, and, I’m just in the process of trying to make eye contact with a barmaid when I feel Josh’s presence behind me. I arrange my face into a smile and twist around. His face is already in a giant grin.
‘Well, fancy seeing you here,’ I say, blinking more than I normally do.
His grin stretches wider. He’s too drunk to hide how very glad he is to see me. ‘I thought I’d come and pay for your round,’ he explains. ‘It’s very polite of you to offer and everything, but I don’t feel it’s right for you to blow fifty quid on beer for my work friends.’
The thoughtfulness almost makes me stumble. That, and the relief that I don’t have to financially cripple myself buying six London Pale Ales. ‘Thank you,’ I tell him, just as I manage to grab the bar lady’s attention. I lean over and shout my order at her then I turn back to Josh as we wait. ‘That’s really kind, thank you.’
‘Just the right thing to do,’ he mumbles, blushing at my gratitude.
‘Well now I don’t have to remortgage my house in order to pay for this round.’
He laughs. ‘No, now I’ll have to remortgage mine.’
‘And live in an empty pint glass.’
‘Hey, at least the pint glass is branded with the logo of this super cool pale ale that’s brewed on-site.’
‘All the hipsters will be living in these pint glasses in a year’s time. You’re so ahead of the curve.’
He lets out another seal-bark of laughter, putting his hand on my back to reiterate how funny he finds me. The physical contact, again, ignites annoying chemicals that dance around the spot where we’re touching.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ he layers the come-on.
‘You too.’
We stare at each other, and his green eyes really are very pleasant. I think it’s impossible for any woman in my age bracket not to find green eyes have some kind of kryptonite effect. The drawing scene in Titanic came out at a very influential time in our sexual development.
‘Six pints of pale ale and a rum and coke,’ the bar lady announces, gesturing to the cornucopia of glasses in front of her. ‘That’s forty-two pounds ninety, please.’
Keeping his hand on my back, Joshua steps forward with his card. He’s standing so close that most of his left side touches most of my right. I start collecting up the drinks to distract myself from my bodily stirrings. There’s no way I can continue with this if I lose sight of myself and get chemically involved, even though I’m not really sure what ‘this’ is. Apart from maybe a very significant psychotic meltdown. That, or I’m living in someone’s intense revenge fantasy fanfic.
We weave back to his workmates who are at the point of drunk where they cheer our arrival. I hand out their drinks and they thank me, not realising I’m not the one who paid for them. Then they return to their huddle and their boring conversation about office gossip.
‘So, yes, if we don’t launch till October, then Michael will definitely resign …’
‘The problem with that operating system is it’s so hackable, how they cannot see that …’
‘When do you think they’re going to announce if we get Christmas to New Year as extra annual leave? I don’t know whether to book a holiday in September or not …’
I clutch my glass and try to nod in the right places but there is literally no way to join in office conversations regarding an office you don’t work in. Not even Gretel has that superpower. Luckily, after ten minutes about the upcoming pension meeting, Josh saves me, twisting me away from the huddle.
‘I’m sorry,’ he smiles apologetically. ‘I didn’t mean to drag you away from your crazy night out for you to listen to dull talk about operating systems.’
‘But it’s my life goal fulfilled.’
‘Where have you been tonight anyway?’
I flash back to only an hour ago. Flinging myself around a cheesy and morally questionable bar with a bunch of youths like a geriatric mess. ‘All over,’ I say. ‘My housemate Megan met someone though, so I thought I’d move on.’
‘So you have a housemate then?’ he asks.
I nod. They’re maybe not the most aspirational thing to still have at 33, but Gretel lives in London and doesn’t have rich parents who can help her afford somewhere gentrified in Brixton. I can’t fake that. ‘Yes, Megan. It’s her flat. We’re university friends. How about you?’
He shakes his head. ‘No. I live by myself. I’m scared of housemates. After I had to move out from my ex’s, I ended up living with this terrifying guy called Donny from SpareRoom. He was so racist I think he should have been entered into some kind of Olympics. He managed to make literally every conversation racist. You’d say, “Morning Donny, it’s a lovely morning, isn’t it?” and his reply would be, I’m not even joking, “Yeah, it’s supposed to be twenty-three today. The blacks will fucking love it, won’t they?”’
I almost spit out my drink.
‘I know! I was stuck in a fucking contract with that man till the break clause came up. And in that time he’d actually tried to make me go on a British Pride march.’