Girls' Night In
Jessica Adams
GIRLS’ NIGHT IN
Edited by Jessica Adams, Chrissie Manby and Fiona Walker
Copyright
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2000
Compilation © 2000 HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
For copyright details of individual stories, see here
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover illustration © Cherie Chapman
All characters and incidents in this publication are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780006514855
Ebook Edition © MAY ISBN: 9780008132972
Version: 2015-06-02
In and Out Copyright © 2000 Freya North
Dougie, Spoons and the Aquarium Solarium
Copyright © 2000 Jenny Colgan
The Power of Two Copyright © 2000 Fiona Walker
The Truth is Out There Copyright © 1999 Marian Keyes
Rudy Copyright © 2000 Lisa Jewell
A Swimmer’s Tale Copyright © 2000 Stella Duffy
Post Haste Copyright © 2000 Isabel Wolff
Cassandra Copyright © 2000 Cathy Kelly
Access All Areas Copyright © 2000 Jane Owen
The E-Male of the Species Copyright © 2000 Wendy Holden
Love on the Underground Copyright © 2000 Jessica Adams
Fairweather Friend Copyright © 2000 Patricia Scanlan
Something Different Copyright © 2000 Clare Naylor
The Itch Copyright © 2000 Polly Samson
Morro Copyright © 2000 Alecia McKenzie
Flung Copyright © 2000 Adele Parks
Pull Me in the Pullman Carriage Copyright © 2000 Helen Lederer
The Plain Truth Copyright © 2000 Claire Calman
Mr Charisma Copyright © 2000 Yasmin Boland
The Sun, the Moon and the Stars Copyright © 2000 Pauline McLynn
The Shell of Venus Copyright © 2000 Victoria Routledge
Man with a Tan Copyright © 2000 Anna Maxted
Storm Clouds Copyright © 2000 Sheila O’Flanagan
Caravan Copyright © 2000 Rosalyn Chissick
The Seven Steps from Shag to Spouse
Copyright © 2000 Tiffanie Darke
Lip Service Copyright © 2000 Karen Moline
Saving Amsterdam Copyright © 2000 Chrissie Manby
A Form of Release Copyright © 2000 Daisy Waugh
Hurrah for the Hols Copyright © 2000 Helen Simpson
No Worries Copyright © 2000 Sarah Ingham
Re: The World Copyright © 2000 Amy Jenkins
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction Neil Morrissey
In and Out Freya North
Dougie, Spoons and the Aquarium Solarium Jenny Colgan
The Power of Two Fiona Walker
The Truth is Out There Marian Keyes
Rudy Lisa Jewell
A Swimmer’s Tale Stella Duffy
Post Haste Isabel Wolff
Cassandra Cathy Kelly
Access All Areas Jane Owen
The E-Male of the Species Wendy Holden
Love on the Underground Jessica Adams
Fairweather Friend Patricia Scanlan
Something Different Clare Naylor
The Itch Polly Samson
Morro Alecia McKenzie
Flung Adele Parks
Pull Me in the Pullman Carriage Helen Lederer
The Plain Truth Claire Calman
Mr Charisma Yasmin Boland
The Sun, the Moon and the Stars Pauline McLynn
The Shell of Venus Victoria Routledge
Man with a Tan Anna Maxted
Storm Clouds Sheila O’Flanagan
Caravan Rosalyn Chissick
The Seven Steps from Shag to Spouse Tiffanie Darke
Lip Service Karen Moline
Saving Amsterdam Chrissie Manby
A Form of Release Daisy Waugh
Hurrah for the Hols Helen Simpson
No Worries Sarah Ingham
Re: The World Amy Jenkins
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher
Introduction
It’s difficult to see what devastatingly handsome men, heart-breakingly wet tissues and the odd glass of Cava have in common with a school in Rwanda and a playground in Kosovo. But here, in this glorious book, you have it.
This book was the brainchild of writing friends Chrissie Manby, Jessica Adams and Fiona Walker. Meeting up for drinks one night, they talked about the host of young women whose unique brand of fiction currently top the book charts, and decided to bring all that talent together in one book for one terrific cause. Scribbling ideas on napkins, they were determined from the outset to create a book that raises spirits as well as funds. Within twenty-four hours, this unique collection was born.
The approaching deadline saw stories flying across the internet and writers who had previously been head to head in the book charts asking each other for advice. Of course, there were a few obligatory girls’ nights out to discuss narrative structure over a glass or two as well! With best-selling authors from the UK, Ireland, America and Australia donating their stories free of charge, the generosity and enthusiasm of all involved has been extraordinary.
One pound from every copy of Girls Night In goes towards War Child’s Safe Play Programme in the Balkans and an educational programme in Rwanda. In Kosovo, thousands of children have been left without anywhere to play, have fun, or have a normal childhood. In Rwanda most girls have no access to education. So thanks for buying this book – you’ve just helped these children, have a great night in on me.
Why War Child Are Great:
Since it was founded in 1993, War Child has alleviated the suffering of tens of thousands of children throughout the World. Providing mobile bakeries and supplying insulin to stricken warzones, the charity directs aid where it’s needed most. But they do not disappear when the guns have stopped shooting and the fires have died down. They are also instrumental in healing the psychological damage caused to children by their experiences of war.
The money raised from this book will fund two essential projects:
The Safe Play Areas Programme runs throughout the Balkans on land cleared of mines, unexploded bombs and rubble. War Child builds playgrounds where children of all ethnic backgrounds can play without fear, encouraging them to make friends and build bridges for the future.
In Rwanda, girls rarely have the opportunity to be educated into their teens – in fact as few as 8% complete primary school and are able to go on to secondary school. In partnership with
Girls’ Night In, War Child will fund essential improvements to a girls’ school near Kigali, ensuring that a greater number of young girls are given the opportunities taken for granted throughout the West.
Freya North
Freya North was born in London but lives in rural Hertfordshire with her family, where she writes from a stable in her back garden. A passionate reader since childhood, Freya was originally inspired by Mary Wesley, Rose Tremain and Barbara Trapido: fiction with strong female leads and original, sometimes eccentric, characters.
In 2012 she set up the Hertford Children’s Book Festival, which she continues to run. She is an ambassador for the charity Beating Bowel Cancer and a judge for the CPRE Rural Living Awards. Her 14 bestselling novels have been translated into many languages and published around the world.
In and Out
Freya North
‘Lady – is your nose itching?’
Finty McKenzie took the palm of her hand from the tip of her nose, where it had been doing all manner of pressing, rotating and jiggling, and looked up. Locating the owner of the husky mid-Atlantic drawl, he who had posed the question, she alighted on an elderly man, clad in plaid.
‘You got an itchy nose, huh?’ he pressed, not waiting for an answer. ‘Honey! Doncha know? You’re gonna kiss a fool!’
The exclamation mark soared instantly from floor to ceiling of the plush hotel bar, but it was the word ‘fool’ which reverberated; the ‘f’ having been expelled from teeth and lips like a bad taste, the ‘1’ lingering on a very spiked tongue tip. The aged American chuckled extravagantly (because he knew what he was talking about), Finty whooped with sudden laughter (because she hadn’t a clue what he was talking about), but Brett, the man sitting next to her, he who had been bedding her these past three months, gave no hint of reaction.
To prove a point, but not quite sure what, or to whom, Finty affectionately kissed Brett in front of the American. This served to make the man guffaw so heartily that a fit of coughing befell him and expedited his exit from the bar.
‘What a character!’ Finty laughed.
‘Shoot me when I get like that,’ Brett said measuredly. Immediately, Finty experienced a quite violent reaction which she had come to term ‘a moment’. She’d never had one until she’d met Brett. Every so often, something he would say or do would, for a moment, alarm her so severely that it would course through her blood like acid. The searing horror came as much from self-disgust that she could be with such a man, as from his crime itself. However. Here she still is. These were but moments. And she wasn’t sure from where they originated. Head or heart. And which should rule which? These were but moments. Wasn’t she just looking for things to throw at the relationship? She’d scold herself for sabotaging something that might well be very good indeed. More tolerance, that’s what’s needed. But from him or her? She had justified the thinly veiled racist comment he had once made as but a momentary aberration. And he’d only been joking, of course, when he’d asked her to make his bed the morning after they’d first slept together there. And he had a migraine that night he left her stranded in Soho in the early hours. It had been OK. She’d found a cab almost immediately, just a street or three away. And Brett had phoned the next day to explain that he suffered from migraines. That they made him do strange things. Like leave people in the centre of the city at an unseemly hour. Of course, of course. All forgiven.
‘Brett gives me a fucking migraine,’ Sally said, peering into the oven and wondering if it was the slightly grimy door that made the Marks & Spencer luxury cheese puffs look golden or if they were indeed ready. ‘How long?’
‘Three months, must be,’ said Chloë distractedly, rocking against the radiator as if forgetting how hot it was each time her bottom met it.
Sally stared at her. ‘The cheese puffs,’ she said with theatrical kindness, raising an eyebrow at Polly and fixing Chloë with a look of exaggerated pity.
‘Oh, them,’ said Chloë in a bid to patronize Sally for ranking cheese puffs higher in the grand scheme of things than Finty and Brett, ‘almost eight minutes.’
‘But they look ready,’ Sally protested, saliva shooting around her jaw and her stomach reminding her that crisps and a pot of coleslaw at lunch had not hit the spot.
‘You leave them be for another four minutes,’ Polly warned, brandishing the empty carton for emphasis and opening a bag of hand-cooked vegetable crisps in a futile bid to lure Sally away from the oven. ‘Here. And wine while you wait. It’s my bloody oven.’
It was Polly’s turn to host the Gathering. Though, as hostess, her responsibilities were minimal apart from ensuring that ready-made luxuries were in the oven, that the corkscrew was foolproof and that any live-in lovers had been banished. The Gathering was a monthly institution, founded instinctively three years ago when all four girls found themselves dumped and depressed and desperate to do voodoo. They had convened with a need to exhaust their repertory of expletives, to drink much vodka and perform a cleansing ritual Chloë had read about which entailed the burning of a bunch of sage and much chanting. The swearing and the smoke from the sage gave them giggles, they soon found themselves quite drunk on spirits bottled and natural, and their sense of personal justice and order in the world was restored. Where their hearts had hurt at the beginning of the evening, now their sides ached from laughter. They decreed that such a restorative tonic should not be restricted to times of crisis but should become a mainstay of every month. Raucous in Richmond at Polly’s place or dancing in Dean Street until the proprietor told them to leave; chilling out at Chloë’s or conversing animatedly at a Conran restaurant; a few sniffs rapidly devolving into mass sobbing at a chick-flick at the Leicester Square Odeon, or getting stoned and saying not a lot at Sally’s. Wherever they were, their sense of togetherness could make a month make sense. In or out, they’d shake it all about, kiss each other liberally at home time and look forward immensely to the next gathering.
‘I think I’m planning my life, and doing the things I’m doing, safe in the knowledge that I can always Workshop-Through-It at our Gathering,’ Polly had once said, to much nodding all round. Which was why Finty’s absence was so unfathomable. Rather insulting. Just a little worrying, too.
‘Don’t like,’ said Chloë, wrinkling her nose.
‘I’ll have yours, then,’ said Sally, fanning her mouth and eyeing Chloë’s cheesy puff.
‘Brett,’ Chloë said. ‘Don’t like him.’
‘You’ve only met him once,’ Polly protested.
‘As have you,’ said Chloë, ‘and did you like him?’
Polly gave Chloë a swift smile of defeat. ‘No.’
‘Ditto,’ said Sally who’d burnt the roof of her mouth but couldn’t possibly admit to it and therefore took another cheesy puff. ‘I don’t like what he’s doing to her.’
‘Do you mean that he’s taking her away from us?’ Polly, who feared this to be the case, asked.
‘No,’ Sally said, ‘not that. More, I feel that he’s detrimental to her self-confidence; which is why she jumps to his beck and call.’
‘Forsaking us for him,’ said Polly.
‘Yes,’ Sally clarified, ‘but I can’t believe it’s because she deems him preferable, nor that she’s taking advantage of us.’
‘I think he’s a harmless creep,’ said Chloë, ‘way way out of Finty’s league. I think she’ll figure that out soon enough. When the novelty of new sex abates.’
The three women fell silent.
‘However, I, for one, cannot believe that sex with him can make up for his questionable personality,’ Chloë continued, ‘nor for it taking precedence over the Gathering.’
The three women fell silent.
Was their concern for their friend’s welfare with this man? Or that they rued the fact that their hitherto sacred coven might be fallible? An era ending? If they conceded that this was the case, weren’t they investing a harmless creep with more power than they felt he warranted?
‘My point is
,’ Sally said, using her hands for emphasis to prevent herself from succumbing to a fourth cheesy puff, ‘Finty should be here, not there. I think it’s indicative of a floundering relationship that she isn’t. It’s only one night a month. She has a duty. I mean, when have any of us ever rejected a Gathering?’
‘You did, you old tart!’ Polly cajoled. ‘When you first started seeing Richard. When he was going to seduce you with his culinary skills.’
‘Yes,’ Sally said patiently, ‘but he did. And then I married the man.’ She peered into Polly’s fridge and brought out reduced fat guacamole and humous. ‘See me now – banning husband from home on a monthly basis – grounds for divorce, surely! Mind you, if he ever objected – well, grounds for divorce, surely.’
‘Oh God!’ Chloë exclaimed. ‘Please don’t let Finty marry Brett!’
The girls made noises and gesticulations of a mass vomiting session and then giggled guiltily. Perhaps Finty really was in love with the man. Perhaps he was a really lovely chap who wasn’t very confident in company. Or merely had an awkward manner, rather than no manners at all, which is what they all suspected. Perhaps he was to be on the scene for months, even years. He would remain great gossip fodder – as long as Finty remained oblivious to the fact. Suddenly, along with the vegetable crisps and rather luminous guacamole, the three women also passed around a smile steeped in slight suspicion and discomfort. It occurred to them that perhaps their own partners had been the subjects of such unfavourable scrutiny. Maybe still were. No. Surely not. Richard was such great company. William was sensitive. Max always had them laughing. And the fundamental difference was that these three men were openly at ease with their respective partners and her friends. Whereas Brett had stiffened when Finty had kissed him in front of them and he’d squirmed when Sally had burped, when Polly had sworn, when Chloë had touched his knee in a bid to extend welcome, to establish familiarity.
‘Where was he taking her anyway?’ Chloë asked, uncorking a bottle of Semillon and giving Polly the thumbs up at the bumper bag of oven chips held aloft for their approval. ‘Where have they gone that could possibly be preferable to oven chips, low fat dips and our delectable company?’ She burped under her breath, as demurely as she could. Sally responded with one that made the rafters tremble.
