Champagne Kisses (11 page)

Leaping in the air, Michael let out a primal lion’s roar, stretching his hands to the ceiling, shaking his shoulders out and throwing the rolled-up note at Austin, who happily grabbed it as if it was a baseball.

‘Good shit, man,’ praised my Herculean lover. Then he wandered out of the room, waving his hands around and performing a very bad rendition of the Fun Lovin’ Criminals number, ‘Barry White’.

Uncomfortable with the developing situation, I remained pinned to the couch, and as Michael marched about in the kitchen with his Colombian power powder racing around his system, I had a ringside seat for my second masterclass in how to shovel class As up your nose.

First, Austin checked which nostril was working better, by closing each one off individually with his thumbs. After deciding to run with his left nostril, he shoved the twenty up it and used his right index finger to cover the other side. With ease of movement he effortlessly devoured what was left on the table in two sweeping snorts.

Unfortunately for him he had to satisfy himself with
just
the two lines, instead of my fella’s suicidal greedy three.

Not wanting any of the precious sprinkle to go to waste, he wet his finger on his tongue, like they do in the movies, fingered up the remaining dust and rubbed it on his gums. Then to finish off his housekeeping he fiddled with the end of his nose to make sure there was no coke hanging off it.

Just like Michael, he made it look like an everyday occurrence. Obviously, it was. It was only coming up to three o’clock on a Thursday afternoon, but I suppose when you have a job like Michael’s that has you working odd hours, a weekday afternoon is just the same as another person’s Saturday night. Or so I reasoned.

As if he had just snorted a personality, Austin’s pout started to relax from a harsh scowl to a more pleasant half-smile.

‘So, you’re the latest?’ he asked, making me cough with a nervous laugh. ‘Y-yess, I suppose you could say I’m the latest.’ I was far from impressed.

Seizing my opportunity to gather a little background knowledge of Michael, I asked, ‘So how do you guys know each other?’ Unfortunately, his mobile rudely interrupted my interrogation with an irritating beeping and he headed off to the hall with a brief ‘Sorry.’

I remained stuck to the couch. There were now
two
relative strangers pacing the additional rooms, and I
strained
to think what Maddie would do. This sort of thing wouldn’t faze her in the slightest, I thought. I just needed to act cool. It’s not as if it was the first time I’d seen someone do coke in my presence. I’d seen plenty of people partake of illegal substances back in Dublin, but without Maddie, Parker, Lisa or even Anna by my side, I was feeling a smidgen vulnerable.

Snapping into vixen mode and adopting the relaxed pose of a veteran groupie, I hung my bare legs on display and started to twiddle a loose curl around my finger.

Michael returned to the living room, with an open bottle of JD, a bottle of Coca-Cola and three tumblers.

‘Close your eyes,’ he demanded, his piercing brown eyes looking serious. Worried by his unpredictability I said, ‘What?’ But he just smiled. ‘Close your eyes for me, heart-breaker.’

I did as he said. I could hear him place the glasses and bottles on the table, and then immediately a powerful scent wafted up my nose, giving me a fright. I jolted my eyes open, only to see Michael waving a sprig of rosemary in front of me.

‘I picked it for you from the garden. There were no flowers to be seen, but this does smell beautiful … Just like youuu,’ he cooed.

It wasn’t quite Interflora calling, but I did see the romance in his gesture. He was still sweet, even though he was ridiculously high as a kite.

And just as we were starting to enjoy a moment
locking
lips, Robert De Niro came stomping back in, proclaiming, ‘Daz and Charlie are on their way.’ Not knowing if they were terms for more drugs or actual people, I sat back and sipped quietly on the Jack and Coke which Michael handed me.

‘WHOO-HAA!’ he whooped, like Al Pacino in
Scent of a Woman
. ‘I feel a big one going down!’

Staring out the window, I noticed that it had started to sheet rain – tears from heaven, indeed. How the hell was I going to get myself out of this mess?

‘
I’M IN SUM BAR, OR CLUB TYPE PLACE IN CHEL-SEE
,’ I shouted down the phone to Maddie. ‘
AN I’M WASTED!
’ After about ten hours’ drinking, I suddenly felt the need to call home again.

And while I couldn’t really make out what she was saying, apart from, ‘… coming home? … OK? I’ll kill ’im!’ it was a comfort in itself to know she was at the other end of the phone – even if I couldn’t hear her over the pounding bass of the dance music.

Slumped on a toilet, I sat and stared at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. God, I was a state. I could easily be that bird from the Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ video.

Looking at my screen to see if I was still connected, I shouted down the phone, ‘I MISS YOU … I’M FF-FINE … TALK TO YA TOMORROW, HON!’ And then threw the phone back in my Prada bag. Thinking, duty done, I’d have put her mind at ease …

As I thought about rising to my feet, I wondered had I fallen asleep in the toilet? I was convinced I had lost time somewhere. I had a track record of taking power naps.

After gathering the energy to stand up I misplaced my footing and fell forwards against the door with a bang.

Very ladylike I thought, bursting into fits of laughter.

Pulling up my cerise Kylie pants, I safely positioned my bag on my shoulder and, taking a deep breath, I unlocked the door and tried not to fall down. Greeted with a disapproving frown by the toilet attendant who sat surrounded by the contents of a pharmacy, and several women availing themselves of her perfumes, deodorants and lollypops, I pulled the face of a six-year-old girl and stuck my tongue out at her the second she turned her back.

I was sorry I hadn’t applied some make-up in the cubicle, for the main area around the sinks was dimly lit and the smoked-glass mirrors only made me feel even drunker. It was a couple of moments before I realized the toilet woman was glaring at me again, so I smeared lip gloss everywhere from my top lip to my chin and all places in between, and made my way out, only to have to stumble through several other heavy doors.

It was then that I became aware I hadn’t a clue where I had left Michael sitting.

Scanning the busy room, I could only see bodies
and
flashing lights and waitresses and people walking past me on mobile phones.

Trying to get my bearings I propped myself up against a cigarette machine. Bringing my right index finger up to extend from the end of my nose, I pointed to the left of the room, at each table, and worked my way across to the bar to see if I could jog my memory. It didn’t work.

It was too dark, there were too many people, too much dry ice …

Turning to a nearby group I asked if I could sit at the end of their couch for a minute. But I didn’t wait for a reply, and plonked myself down beside them regardless.

After about five minutes I felt like a complete fool as the women around the table had started making comments to their partners about me.

Just as I started to probe my bag for my phone, dropping an eyeliner and some English money that Parker had given me on the floor, Daz appeared out of nowhere, put his hand on my shoulder and asked, ‘What cha doin’ over ’ere kid?’ His Liverpudlian accent sounded warm and compassionate.

‘Oh, thank God.’ I jumped up immediately and threw my arms around him.

We had bonded throughout the day, as he filled me in on his Irish roots. His mother Kathleen was from Dolphin’s Barn in Dublin. And his real name was Darren.

‘You’re OK, gal, wer just ova ’ere.’ He smiled as he spoke, and led me masterfully by the hand through the swarms of people, back to safety.

‘Look who I found,’ declared Daz, holding my arm in the air like a trophy.

‘We were about to send out a search party for ya,’ explained Michael as he gave me a solid hug. ‘Don’t do that again. You gave me a fright. You’ve been gone nearly an hour.’

Settling back into the group, I clung to Michael as if we were magnetically charged. Sod him, I thought, I had given myself a scare and didn’t fancy the idea of getting lost again either.

Despite the fact that he picked up his entertainment of the group from where he had obviously left off, I gripped his hand and refused to let go. Thankfully, he didn’t protest.

‘I need to talk to these people. If you want me, just squeeze my hand, OK?’ he said, before embellishing some anecdote about a model who refused to take her clothes off after being booked to do a poster campaign for a power shower.

‘It’s not my fault you forgot to shave your
bush
, you dumb fuck, I said to her.’ His New York accent resonated thicker than before. ‘I said fuck it. A big bush is retro, so we stripped the bitch and shot her …’ His audience howled with laughter.

After about twenty minutes I had started to sober up, and asked Michael to get me another drink.

‘Do you wanna do a line instead to wake you
up?’
he asked. ‘No thanks,’ I said, my face wincing as I spoke, ‘it’s not really my thing.’

‘Well, how about some jungle juice?’ He pointed to a glass of Coke with a small plate resting on the top of it.

‘Huh?’

‘Some gone with the wind? A little unfaithful? Some amyl nitrate? Oh, poppers. That’s what they call it in Ireland. You must have heard of poppers?’ His eyes lit up with excitement.

‘Umm, OK. I’ve heard of poppers, but what does it do?’ I started to feel open to the power of his persuasion.

‘It makes you wanna dance – and it’s legal.’ He winked, urging me to try it.

‘Promise you’ll mind me?’ I pleaded, glancing nervously at the innocent-looking glass.

‘I promise,’ he said, rubbing my back and giving me a peck on the cheek. ‘You’ll get a kick out of it.’

Feeling safe in his arms, I grabbed the glass and asked him what to do.

‘Hold the plate over it until you’re ready to take a big breath.’ His instructions came as if he were telling a child how to tie her shoelaces. ‘When you are, take it off, take a deep breath then hold it for a few seconds and cover the glass up. It’s potent stuff. It’s not good to stink the place out.’

‘That’s it? I just breathe in and hold it?’

‘That’s it, heart-breaker. But be ready, it’ll probably blow your head off.’ He laughed at my innocence.

Feeling like a rebel wild child I stuck my face in the glass of Coke and took a deep breath of something with the distinct odour of smelly socks. Gross, I thought, as I struggled to hold my breath.

And as I replaced the glass on the table I released my inhalation and instantly felt a rush of blood erupt through my body and explode across my face. My cheeks were on fire, my heart started to pound, and it felt like it was going to surge out of my chest.

As Michael looked on like a proud boyfriend, a wave of emotion flooded over me and I took it upon myself to straddle him and push him to the back of the couch, which was carpeted with people’s jackets and coats.

‘Do you feel good?’ he asked as I pinned his arms back by the wrists. ‘Yes, baby,’ I replied, coming over all light-headed, ‘I feel very, very, very good!’

I kept kissing him like I was a Hollywood starlet until several members of the group started shouting, ‘Get a room!’ Reluctantly, I sat back down to face the group. In milliseconds I was bored and demanded, ‘I want more!’

Happy to oblige me, Michael handed me the glass again. Fearlessly I took a second, deeper breath of the poppers.

This time I held it in for longer. And just like before I felt the rush of blood rippling over me. My heart pounded again, my head went dizzy. I had never experienced anything like it before. I felt hot. I felt like I wanted to dance.

And dance I did. Stepping up on the table, I thrust my hands in the air and tossed my hair to the beat of, ‘Where’s Your Head At?’

I didn’t know.

I didn’t care.

I was living in the moment, and it felt great.

I was being a bold Eva. And I loved it.

The diva was back …

4

9.55 SATURDAY MORNING,
I was stepping out of a black cab and ducking into Liverpool Street Station. The sky was grey. And so was my mood. Sorry – change that to thunderous.

With three days to go till Valentine’s Day, I didn’t want to be booked on a cheapo no frills flight back to Dublin. I wanted to be boarding a BA to Vegas. But it wasn’t to be. Michael had been called back to the Big Apple on an urgent job, and the party was well and truly over.

‘The industry needs me,’ he teased. And that was as much of an explanation as I got.

Luckily for him his flight wasn’t till later, so I left him in bed, our bed, looking as edible as ever. His tired eyes and wayward hair just added to his appeal. ‘I’ll call ya later – ya big ride,’ were the last words he shouted as I shut the door, in his newly acquainted Dublin accent.

I cursed the cold as I stared back up to the bedroom
window
, where we had spent so much quality time nuzzling and analysing the world’s problems. I had hoped he would have waved down or blown me a kiss. But I was probably being petty.

We had grown close in our time together. We’d laughed, been intimate; Michael had even feckin’ proposed to me, but had yesterday confessed that it had just been a wicked ploy to make him stand out.

Stand out indeed. I felt as if I’d been catapulted up in the air and then dropped from a height like on a ride at Alton Towers. Despite my best tough girl act, I still found it hard to control my emotions. Maybe I’d watched too many rom-coms, because I still believed – hoped for – fairy tales.

Stupidly I had thought Michael serious when he asked me to marry him. How naïve! My heart then sank, well, it kept sinking, especially when he told me my booking number for the flight and said, ‘It’s just the way it’s gotta be, heart-breaker!’

I felt totally despondent. I wasn’t the heart-breaker. He was.