Before I Met You

38


1920




‘ARLETTE!’ GIDEON LEAPED up from his seat at the back of the Cygnet Club where he’d been talking to a man wearing a pink cravat. ‘I had no idea you were coming tonight. What a wonderful surprise!’

Arlette smiled at him, uncertainly. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Gideon, I wasn’t expecting to see you here, either.’ She accepted a kiss on her cheek and saw Gideon’s face drop slightly at the sight of her entourage, coming in behind her.

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Mr Pickle. I didn’t realise ...’

‘We’ve been to see Godfrey playing with his orchestra. At the Kingsway Hall.’ She said this quickly, breathily, as though she were lying. ‘It was absolutely marvellous,’ she finished. She moved aside so that Minu and Lilian could be greeted by Gideon and then watched awkwardly as Godfrey and Horace moved in to say hello, to shake hands and exchange pleasantries.

Arlette felt her spirits deflate. Although she and Gideon were probably widely held to be courting, in reality they had gone no further in their private moments than to hold hands. Gideon had made it plain that he would like to kiss her on many occasions, and on every occasion Arlette had fondly told him that she did not think she wished to kiss anyone. She saw Gideon as a handsome older brother, someone whose company she enjoyed, someone she looked forward to seeing and someone she felt she could trust. But she did not feel sufficiently passionate towards him to want to kiss him on his lips. But she was also aware that in spending time alone with him, that in encouraging his friendship and allowing moments of hand-holding and gentle affection, she had unwittingly been pulling him along on a lead, like a small dog. It was perfectly reasonable of him to assume that theirs was a special friendship within which there should be no room for anyone else.

And now, here she was, torn between the man who kept her safe and the man who made her feel mad with wanting.

‘So,’ Gideon was saying, his voice slightly betraying his disappointment in finding himself forced to share Arlette’s attentions, ‘I hear the performance was incredible. I’m sorry I missed it.’

‘Ah, Gideon, I will send you some tickets tomorrow, don’t you worry.’

‘And all these lovely ladies,’ Gideon continued, sounding slightly melancholy, ‘coming to see you. You must feel so flattered.’

‘Oh, indeed I do,’ Godfrey smiled. ‘Indeed I do. And now, well, Mam’zelle Arlette has to rush home to get her beauty sleep and she promised me a dance before she has to turn into a pumpkin so, if you don’t mind, I will whisk her away.’ He smiled heartily at Gideon, and Gideon smiled bravely back at him.

‘Of course,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Of course.’ He threw Arlette a slightly injured smile and then brought Lilian, Minu and Horace onto his banquette and started loudly ordering drinks for everyone.

‘I think our friend Gideon is worried that I am trying to steal you away from him,’ said Godfrey, his hand gently pressed against the small of Arlette’s back as they made their way towards the dance floor.

‘Oh,’ said Arlette. ‘No. I’m sure he isn’t. Because I do not belong to him.’

Godfrey stopped and looked at her. His face was a picture of charmed delight. ‘Well, no,’ he said. ‘Of course you don’t. A fine woman like you belongs to nobody.’

‘Absolutely, Mr Pickle.’

‘Godfrey.’

‘Yes. Godfrey.’ And then she smiled a smile she’d never known she was capable of producing. It was both innocent and worldly-wise. The smile of a woman who had experienced little, but felt a lot.

‘I have much respect for your friend Gideon,’ he continued.

‘As do I.’

‘He is a good man, with a good soul. I would wish him nothing but the best of everything.’

‘Me too.’

‘And I must say that I thought, from our last meeting, that he had laid a claim to your heart.’

‘Not in that way, Godfrey.’

They turned to face each other on the dance floor. The band were playing a torch song. The light was faded red and marbled with cigarette smoke. Godfrey smiled at Arlette and said, ‘Shall we?’ He offered her a hand, which sent a jolt of electricity through her body when she touched it. The other hand he brought down upon her hip where it burned a hole through her flesh. On the stage a middle-aged woman in a tight velvet dress sang songs of loneliness and heartbreak. Arlette smiled at Godfrey and he smiled back at her. Then he brought his face down to hers and for one extraordinary moment Arlette thought he was going to kiss her, here, on the dancefloor, in front of her friends, in front of Gideon, and she held her breath and thought, yes, let it be, let it be now. But he didn’t kiss her. Instead he put his mouth to her ear and said, ‘I would like to take you home, Miss De La Mare.’

She did not speak. Instead she simply nodded her head, just once, and then quickly, before anyone could stop them, before, indeed, she could stop herself, she took Godfrey’s hand and led him through the club, past the enquiring gaze of Gideon and her friends, out onto the pavement and into a hackney carriage.

‘Bloomsbury, please,’ she instructed the driver, breathlessly. ‘And quickly.’


They removed their shoes at the bottom of the stairs of the Bloomsbury town house and ascended the stairs on tiptoes. They heard the murmur of Arlette’s landlady through the door of her upstairs sitting room and paused momentarily before continuing on towards the attic rooms.

Once inside her apartment, Arlette drew the bolt across the door and then stood, for just a moment, flushed with desire, her back against the door, her arms clasped behind her, her chest rising and falling, while Godfrey stood before her, a slight smile on his face.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, and then put a hand to her cheek. She fell against his hand, greedily, and brought it to her mouth where she kissed it and tasted it and knew without any doubt that tonight she would lose her virginity.

His hand moved from her face, down her neck and then stopped upon her breastbone. She grasped it and pulled it down, so that his hand cupped her entirely. They stared at each other and then all the things that Arlette had suspected but never known for sure made themselves plain to her. She felt his mouth against hers, soft and urgent, his hands on her, all over her, the smell of him in her nose, the smell of sandalwood and vanilla, the same scent that had faded to nothing on a square of muslin in her bed-stand drawer over the past ten weeks.

And then, as though possessed by a secondary soul, one that had resided within her for twenty-one years without her knowledge, she found herself removing Godfrey’s trousers, then allowing him to remove her own clothes and within a few small, almost unthinking movements, they were upon her bed and he was on top of her, looking into her eyes and saying; ‘Miss De La Mare, have you ever done this before?’

She shook her head.

He looked at her sweetly, pushed some hair from her face and said, ‘Then I shall be gentle.’

And it was all she could do not to say, ‘No! Don’t be gentle!’ But instead she smiled and brought his mouth back down upon hers and allowed him to take her away from her state of purity.

It took all of five minutes. But what came after took all night. For hours, until the sun shone through the small dormer windows, they talked and they held each other. Godfrey told Arlette about his family: his father, the chief of police, his mother, a former beauty queen, his house at the foot of the Pitons, his childhood spent practising music, studying, singing in the choir at his local church. He told her about his experiences of the war and his adventures travelling with the orchestra, the friends he’d made and lost, and his plans for the future.

At around two in the morning, Minu returned. ‘Arlette,’ they heard her whisper into the darkness, ‘are you here?’

Arlette and Godfrey giggled into each other’s necks and Godfrey called out, ‘Indeed she is, Miss McAteer.’

Minu made a strange noise and said, ‘Oh. Oh. Oh. I see. Well, good night then, Arlette, Godfrey. Sleep tight.’

‘Night-night, Minu,’ they replied in unison.

But they did not sleep. They talked more. Arlette told Godfrey about her own childhood, the windswept house on the top of a cliff, her stoic mother, the death of her father, her childhood spent staring out of windows and wondering what it would be like to be an adult. She told him about the Miller family, about poor Leticia and her teacups of gin, about the absent father and the naughty boys, and Lilian torn between wanting to grow her wings and needing to stay grounded for the sake of her little brother. And she told him about her job at Liberty, the eccentric ladies with their impossible requests, and the fact that she was the youngest department manager in the history of the store.

It was nearly the hour to get up for work by the time they finally fell asleep, and when Arlette opened her eyes and saw him there, long lashes resting against his high cheekbones, one long, sinewy arm draped across her stomach, her heart lurched and she instinctively brought her lips down against his forehead, and when he opened his eyes and smiled sleepily at her, then pulled her closer to him and nestled his head into the crook of her shoulder, Arlette thought again of that funny, serious girl, staring dreamily through the leaded windows of the house on the cliff, across the Channel, into a distance that held nothing but secrets and mysteries. She knew that that girl was gone, that she was now where she was meant to be, a modern woman, strong and certain, held safe in the embrace of a man called Godfrey Pickle.





39


1995




‘I’VE BEEN HANGING out with your sister,’ said Betty, stirring sugar into a cappuccino and bringing it to her mouth with both hands.

John tore the top from a packet of sugar and looked at her quizzically. ‘She’s helping you out then?’ he asked. ‘With all this mysterious jazz stuff?’

‘Yeah. She’s been brilliant. She even took some time off work with me yesterday. We went to a gallery, had a picnic.’

‘This is my sister you’re talking about?’

Betty smiled. ‘Yes. I think you two should get together some time. I think you might actually like each other.’

John smiled sardonically. ‘And where have you got to, with your quest?’

She told him about the blue plaque and the engraved tree, the jazz orchestra and the painting of Arlette in the National Portrait Gallery.

John’s expression passed beyond his usual cut-off point of slight interest and towards wonder and surprise. ‘Wow,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘I mean, wow, that’s extraordinary.’

‘I know,’ said Betty. ‘And now, well, I’ve got this job, I probably won’t have much free time to look into it. I mean, all the libraries, Somerset House, all only open during working hours.’

‘I can help,’ he said suddenly.

Betty looked at him curiously. ‘How? I mean, you work longer hours than anyone I know.’

He shrugged. ‘I can take time off. An hour here or there. Everything’s walking distance. Let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll find it.’

‘Seriously?’ she asked.

‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Er, because your name is John Brightly and you are an island.’

He laughed and stirred his coffee. ‘What do you mean?’ he said, although it was obvious from his tone of voice that he knew exactly what she meant and just wanted to hear her say it.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘that you live in a bubble. The Bubble of John. Record stall, club nights, damp flat ...’

‘Don’t forget the records fairs, every weekend.’

‘Record fairs every weekend,’ she continued. ‘You don’t exactly put a lot of yourself out there, do you?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve got friends,’ he said.

‘Right. So you say. And when do you see them, these so-called friends?’

‘I see them,’ he said. ‘Not that much. Most of them don’t live in London. But I see them when I can.’

Betty smiled. ‘You’re not fooling me,’ she said. ‘You’ve got bars up all over the place.’

He laughed and put his hands up in front of him in a gesture of surrender. ‘Yeah, right, OK. I hear you. I am kind of closed off. I always have been. But that doesn’t mean I can’t get close to people. That doesn’t mean I’m not a nice bloke.’

‘Oh, John, I don’t think I was suggesting that you’re not a nice bloke. You’re just not the sort of bloke to get involved in other people’s shit. So thank you. For the offer. I really appreciate it.’

John smiled and nodded.

‘And actually,’ Betty leaned down into her coffee, hiding her face from him, ‘I think you’re a really nice guy.’

He peered at her and said, ‘Say that again, this time so that I can see you.’

She laughed. ‘I like you. OK? I think you’re really nice.’

He smiled again. ‘So you’ve made your mind up then? You’ve decided?’

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I have decided. John Brightly is a nice bloke and I like him.’

They both laughed then, and John said, ‘Good. Then it’s mutual.’

She peered at him suspiciously. ‘You like me too?’

‘Yes. I like you. I think you’re nice.’

‘Very nice or quite nice?’

He pretended to mull over the question and then said, ‘Very nice.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s good.’

They smiled at each other and Betty felt the air around them fill with something light and golden.

Then John said, ‘Promise me one thing.’

She nodded.

‘Promise me you won’t f*ck Dom Jones.’

‘What?’

‘Seriously. No good will come of it.’

‘But – what on earth makes you think I’m going to sleep with him?’

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

‘No. Seriously, Amy Metz said the same thing. I don’t even fancy him!’

He cocked his eyebrow a little higher.

‘Why do you think I fancy him?’

‘I don’t think you fancy him. I just think you could end up in bed with him.’

‘Because he’s a pop star?’

John shrugged.

‘So you think I’m that shallow?’

‘I don’t think you’re shallow. I just know how these things go.’

Betty narrowed her eyes at him and said, ‘I might have to review my recently expressed opinion of you, John Brightly.’

He held his hands out, palms up. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I totally retract everything I just said. I know you wouldn’t. You’re better than that. You’re different.’

‘That’s better,’ she smiled. ‘Much better. Thank you.’

But even as she said it, Betty suspected that John was just placating her, that deep down inside he did believe that she was capable of sleeping with Dom Jones because he was a pop star. And deep down inside, Betty thought that he was probably right.


The noise of the buzzer cut through a dream that Betty had been having about Arlette and John Brightly and Amy Metz, and she awoke, vaguely with the sense that she was still in Amy’s house, making a ridiculously big strawberry cake for everyone in a ridiculously big pink Aga. She looked at the time. It was midnight. She had been asleep for only an hour, and she cursed the ringer at the bell for robbing her of the benefits of an early night.

‘Yes,’ she muttered into the intercom, feeling fairly certain that it would be just a drunken reveller, mistaking her front door for the front door of a drinking den or that of a young model.

‘Betty, it’s Dom.’

‘Who?’

‘Dom. Jones.’

Betty ran her hands down her hair and grimaced, no longer certain where her dream had ended and reality was beginning, and thinking that maybe this was just an example of the events of the day influencing the things you dream about; that she was imagining this because of the conversation she and John Brightly had had earlier in the café.

‘Betty?’ said the voice again, and Betty did then, literally, pinch her own flesh, before clearing her throat and saying, ‘Yes.’

‘I’m lonely,’ he said.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m lonely. I just got back from Berlin and I’m not tired and I’m missing my kids and I want to have a drink with someone.’

‘I’ve got no booze,’ she said.

‘Come out with me, Betty. Please. Put on a nice dress and come out with me.’

She took her finger off the button and gazed at the floor for a moment, plucking the last remnants of sleep from her head and considering the proposal. She was starting work the next morning, had to be at Amy’s house at eight o’clock. She had turned down John’s offer to sit with him during another club night because she needed an early night, because she wanted to be fresh for work. And now Dom Jones was standing in the street outside her flat asking her out for a drink.

Dom Jones.

‘Will you take me to the Groucho?’ she said.

‘You wanna go to the Groucho?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I’ll take you to the Groucho, then.’

‘Good, but just a quick one, OK? I’m starting work for Amy tomorrow.’

‘You got the job!’

‘Yeah. On a trial basis.’

‘Well, then, get down here fast as you can. I can feel champagne in the air.’


Walking into the Groucho with Dom was an experience that Betty would never forget. Faces opened up like lotus blossoms at the mere sight of him, doors were held open, drinks were brought without being ordered. It was as though the club were a dark room and Dom was a light bulb. Betty wrapped her cardigan tight around herself and tried to pretend she didn’t exist. It was clearly ridiculous that she was walking in here with Dom Jones, and everyone who looked at her would know it too.

People whose faces she vaguely recognised put out hands to Dom as he passed, which he clutched at and patted and then said things like, ‘Yeah, man, good to see you. Hanging in there, mate. Hanging in there.’ A man played a piano by the staircase, and another man behind the bar shook together a Martini in a silver shaker.

Dom walked Betty across the room and they sat together on a leather sofa. Betty felt dazed and bewildered, all the lines between dreams and reality entirely blurred. Champagne arrived and was poured, and she and Dom toasted each other and people swivelled their heads surreptitiously in their direction and then whispered to each other excitedly.

Betty smoothed down her bed hair and scraped a blob of something off the hem of her black Lycra dress and remembered a night that felt like months ago, but was in reality only a few weeks, when she had walked in here hoping for a job, and been charmingly ejected back onto the pavement without even a sniff at the interior. And now here she was, warm in the heart of the place, sharing a sofa with Dom Jones.

‘So,’ said Dom, turning to face her, his elbow on the back of the sofa. ‘Welcome to the family then, I guess.’

‘It’s just a trial run,’ Betty stressed.

‘Yeah, but think about it. Unless something goes drastically wrong, why would Amy get rid of you, have to start looking all over again?’

Betty shrugged. ‘We’ll see,’ she said.

‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘It’s brilliant. I couldn’t be happier. Seriously.’

Betty smiled and drank some champagne and hoped that it might take her away from this sense of being a joke. The scruffy young nanny, dragged from her bed by a drunk pop star and plied with champagne in a celebrity hangout.

‘You know, I f*cking hate living on my own,’ Dom said, suddenly and unprompted.

Betty looked at him with concern.

‘It f*cking stinks. It’s OK during the day, but at night ...’ He ran his hands down his face and sighed and suddenly looked tired and ten years older. ‘I used to love getting back when I lived in Primrose Hill, even if it was really late, even if everyone was asleep. You know, I liked having to tiptoe about the place, seeing the kids’ things here and there, you know, their little shoes, then going into their rooms, watching them sleep, all that shit.’ He sighed again and smiled sadly at Betty.

‘Is there any chance that you and Amy, might, you know ...?’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘No,’ he said categorically. ‘No. That ship has sailed. She hates my f*cking guts. And yeah, you know, got no one to blame but myself. And, you know, my little fella.’

He glanced down at his jeans and Betty’s eyes followed his until she too was staring at his jeans. ‘Oh,’ she said, pulling her gaze away hurriedly. ‘I see.’

‘Yeah. I think I’ve got a problem, you know. Maybe I need therapy. Or maybe I need a chemical castration.’ He laughed hoarsely and Betty smiled nervously, wondering why Dom was being so open with her, why he was telling her so much. And then something occurred to her. Firstly, Dom was very drunk. But secondly, and more pertinently, she’d signed the privacy agreement that afternoon. At Amy’s house. He must have known. And now he was using Betty for free talk therapy, because he knew that she could never tell anyone.

The thought emboldened her and she said, ‘But surely if it meant that you got to live with your kids again, if it meant that you could get your old life back, surely you’d do anything?’

Dom downed his glass of champagne, poured himself another and topped up Betty’s. ‘Yeah, you’d think so, wouldn’t you. You’d think it would be easy. But that’s what I’m saying. I think I’ve got an addiction. And it’s like, you know, if you’re an alcoholic and someone offers you a drink, you’ll say yeah, but most people with a sex addiction don’t get offered sex all the time, but when you’re in my position, well, you know ...’

Betty nodded.

‘It’s hard to say no. It’s impossible. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Even if the girl’s, like, ugly. You know.’ He shook his head from side to side and then downed his fresh glass of champagne in three thirsty gulps. ‘Everywhere I go, I swear, they’re there, they want me to sign their tits, they want me to touch them just so that they can go home and tell their mates that I touched them. It’s like I’m a talisman, you know, like they’ll get something from me. And it’s all just utter bullshit, because of course I’ve got f*ck all to give. I’m just a bloke, with a dick. Who can sing. And write amazing songs. But I’ve got nothing to give. Nothing real. Unless it’s a baby.’ He laughed out loud, a sudden burst that made Betty jump slightly in her seat. ‘Yeah. I’m pretty good at giving women babies.’

Betty held her breath. There had long been a rumour in the tabloids that there was a Dom Jones love child somewhere in north London, a child only two weeks younger than Donny. But nothing had ever been proved. The mother, an emaciated sculptress called Tiffany, who’d also had a baby with another rock star, had never said anything to either fuel or kill off the rumours. But there was a suggestion here – the use of the plural ‘women’ – that maybe he was the child’s father. Betty looked into Dom’s eyes. They were bloodshot and slightly dazed. He’d clearly spent the whole day drinking to some extent or another. He was drunk and tired and vulnerable. She didn’t ask the question. Instead she smiled and said, ‘Yes, and very nice babies you make, too.’

‘Ah, yeah, my babies.’ His face softened. ‘My beautiful f*cking babies. I miss them so much. So f*cking much.’ And then he started to cry. He dug the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and sobbed. ‘I’ve f*cked it all up, Betty,’ he sniffed. ‘F*cked the whole thing up. I wish I could be different. I wish I could be just like some normal guy, you know, off to work with my lunch in my bag, kiss the kids goodbye, home for bath-time, glass of wine, shag the wife. But you know, I never could have been that person. I’ve always had it in me, all this creativity, all this power, all these urges, these overwhelming urges. Even when I was at school. All I did was chase girls and make music and cause trouble. And now I’m like, thirty-two, you know, and maybe it’s too late for me to change. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is all there is for me. Just all this arsing about. And sometimes that’s enough, you know.’ He sniffed again and wiped his nose against the sleeve of his denim jacket. ‘And sometimes it just ain’t. I mean, tell me, honestly, Betty.’ He looked up at her through wet lashes. ‘What do you think of me, truthfully? I mean, the real me, the one you’ve got to know against the me you used to read about in the papers?’

Betty took another sip of champagne, buying herself time to consider the question. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘I mean, obviously I read stuff about you, and obviously I had an opinion, but I don’t think those opinions really count for much ...’ She paused and saw that he was staring at her intensely, like his whole future depended on her opinion of him. She took a breath and continued, ‘And yeah, I suppose I thought you were a bit of a ...’

His eyes widened, waiting for her pronouncement.

‘... a bit of a rabble-rouser,’ she finished diplomatically. ‘And, you know, I’m not really a Wall fan so I haven’t followed the stories religiously but I just saw you as being part of a select group of people all doing the same things, hanging out in the same places, drinking too much, sleeping around, putting two fingers up at everything, all being really, you know ... clever clever.’

He winced at her words and then smiled encouragingly. ‘But what about now?’ he urged. ‘Now you’ve got to know me a bit. Has your opinion of me changed at all?’

Betty looked at him again and felt a small surge of annoyance. He had moved beyond using her for therapy and was now using her for ego-maintenance. He didn’t really want to know what she thought, not really. He just wanted reassurance that he was fabulous. She sighed and said, ‘You know, when I see you with your kids I think you’re nothing like the guy in the papers. I saw you once, across the courtyard, just after you moved back in, and you were holding Astrid in your arms, comforting her, and that was the very first time I really thought anything about you at all, to be honest. And I thought, oh look, he’s a human being ...’

His eyes widened and he nodded encouragingly.

‘But then, I see you like this,’ she said, ‘you know, necking champagne, making it all about you. And, I don’t know, it’s like going back to the beginning again.’

His eyes narrowed and he looked at her questioningly. ‘What do you mean?’ he said in a slightly injured tone of voice.

She paused while she tried to find a tactful way to express herself and then she looked at Dom, at his soulful puppy-dog eyes full of hurt and hope, and then she thought of the blurred photos of the girl giving him fellatio in a toilet cubicle and she thought, he is just a child, I shall spare him. So she shook her head and smiled and said, ‘Oh, nothing. Nothing. Just, you know, I suppose seeing you here, a bit the worse for wear, it fits with the media image. But really, I think, yes, you’re a good guy.’

His face flooded with relief and he took her hand and squeezed it and said, ‘Thank you, Betty, thank you. That means a lot to me because, you know, you’re such a great girl, such a cool girl, and I really, really value your opinion.’ He smiled at her cheesily and looked like he was about to say something else, but instead he picked up his champagne glass, drained it, picked up the bottle to top them both up again, stared at it with surprise and disappointment when it yielded nothing more than one small drop and then called over a waiter.

‘Another one of these, please,’ he slurred.

‘No problem, Dom,’ said the waiter.

‘Actually,’ Betty interrupted, ‘you know, I really need to get back now. I’ve got to be up really early ...’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ Dom pulled himself straight and ran his hands down his face. ‘Of course. You’re going to take care of my babies and so I will obviously not even attempt to persuade you to stay for another one. Even though I’d really like to.’ He turned back to the waiter and said, ‘Jack Daniel’s, please, a big one.’

‘Sure, Dom.’ The waiter smiled and took away the champagne bucket and their empty glasses.

‘I’ll see you out,’ Dom said, getting to his feet.

‘No need.’

He considered this for a second and then he suddenly looked tired and wan, and as if simply getting up from the sofa would be a severe physical effort, and he said, ‘Are you sure?’

Betty nodded. ‘It’s fine.’

‘You’ll be all right getting yourself home?’

‘I think I can probably manage the walk home,’ she smiled. ‘How about you? Will you be all right getting back?’

He smiled. ‘Yeah. I’ll probably kip down here.’

‘What, here?’ She pointed at the sofa.

‘No. Upstairs. There’s rooms.’

‘Oh. I see. But your house is so close.’

‘Look at the state of me, Betty,’ he said, his hand against his chest. ‘There’s paps out there. I don’t wanna give them the wasted Dom Jones photo. And besides, they’ll give me breakfast here. Bacon and all.’ He smiled weakly and looked like he might be about to fall asleep.

A man with a huge head of unruly curls that sat atop the body of a child approached Dom then and said, ‘All right, mate?’ Dom said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m great. Long time no see.’

And the man with the mop top said, ‘Saw you last week, mate.’

Dom said, ‘Yeah, yeah, course you did. I’m all over the place, mate. All over the place. Park yourself. Take a seat. I’m just saying goodbye to the nanny.’

The mop top man looked up at Betty and squinted at her through his curls. ‘The nanny?’ he repeated as though there was something inherently sexual about the concept of a person paid to look after children. ‘Hello, nanny.’

‘Hi.’ Betty considered introducing herself by her given name, but decided she couldn’t be bothered. ‘And bye. I’ll see you soon, Dom,’ she said.

He stood and hugged her around her neck, and he smelled of sour wine, departure lounges and too much time in the same clothes.

‘Next time,’ he whispered boozily into her ear, ‘we’ll do it properly. Yeah? Next time I’ll plan it, take you somewhere nice. Yeah?’ As he said this she felt his hand snake from her hip to her buttocks, and give them a gentle squeeze.

She nodded, with confusion. He was drunk and had no idea what he was talking about, but it did sound to her that he was suggesting a date. She moved his hand from her buttocks and pulled herself away from his over-firm grasp, then smiled tightly. ‘Night-night, Dom. Take care.’ She turned to the mop top and said, ‘Look after him, will you?’

Mop top simply smiled blankly and somewhat lasciviously.

Betty turned and left, moving slowly this time, her arms swinging by her sides, her eyes making contact, drinking it all in: 1a.m. at the Groucho, the whole place imbued with a communal lack of focus, of hazy memories and forgotten conversations.

She left calmly and happily, the nanny, sober and wide awake. She would go to bed and sleep for five hours and then she would wake up tomorrow in her own bed remembering every last detail. But she would not, she was sure, have even the first idea what to make of any of it.