After Hours - Chapter Three

Not taking no for an answer, Kate dragged him out for the afternoon. His head still thumped from the night before, not helped by the six cans of lager he demolished slumped on the settee.
She installed him at a table outside one of Covent Garden’s trendy bars and went to get him a very large coffee. Max sat and watched the world go past. The weather had stayed warm, which struck him as a miracle in itself. Usually one good day meant two or three of rain and wind, but this time April had excelled itself. Pale flesh passed by their table, luminous in its whiteness, and Max was content to sit and look
‘Earth to Max; come in Max,’ Kate plonked the coffee in front of him, spilling a saucerful in the process. ‘Which planet were you on?’ she poured the coffee back into the cup.
‘Dunno really. Just people watching,’ Max heaped three sugars into his cup, causing yet another tidal wave as he stirred the coffee relentlessly.
‘It’s funny really,’ he looked up, squinting against the sun. ‘When I was at the Red Lion a couple of days ago they were looking for bar staff, and yesterday there was a new barmaid, if you could call her that.’ He could see the image of Sandra in Wellington boots wading through countless pints of overspill on the bar floor, and quickly brushed the thought aside. ‘I don’t know if it’s because I know the job’s gone, but the idea of working there really appeals.’ The thought came from nowhere. It wasn’t even as if Max had been consciously thinking about it, and he surprised himself.
If his admission shocked him, it had amazed Kate. She sat open mouthed, cup suspended in mid air.
‘But I thought you were a suit through and through. I can’t picture you behind a bar taking a load of flack from the customers. Anyway, imagine what your parents would say.’
Max’s father, Bernard was a journalist, editor of the local paper back in the Norfolk town of North Walsham where Max had been born and brought up. He was a proud man, and had been very supportive when Max had left home to better himself in London. Having encouraged him through college, and been very generous in the process, it was doubtful he would welcome his only son’s career change. Caroline, his mother, however, would probably be calmer about it. She had dabbled briefly in the pub trade, running a pub for a couple of years before she met his father.
Max knew they would be unhappy, but the alternative would be to move home in order to save money. He couldn’t afford to stay in London if things didn’t improve, that was for sure. He hadn’t even told his parents that he lost his job yet. It was all hassle he could do without. As much as he loved his family, at twenty-six years old he just couldn’t go back home. It would never work.
‘My Dad would be most unimpressed,’ Max sighed. ‘But if I can’t find something suitable soon, it is an option. Even if it just tides me over until I find something else.’
Max shifted on his seat. The trendy wicker basket chairs were aesthetically pleasing, but not exactly comfortable. ‘I’ve got about £200 in the bank, my Visa bill due in any day, and the rent due at the end of the month. Do you have any better ideas?’
Kate shrugged, ‘Bar work isn’t as easy as you might think. On your feet all day, watching everyone else have a good time. Do you remember last New Year’s Eve? You went up west and I had to work. I didn’t say at the time but I was green with envy. Bar work means working all the big celebrations because everyone else is out there celebrating,’ she leaned back in her chair. ‘God these chairs are as hard as hell. Don’t get me wrong Max, I love my job, but every job has its bad points.’
Max drained his cup, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here before we suffer irreversible spine damage.’ Kate hauled herself out of her chair and rubbed her back where the wicker had been digging through her thin jacket. ‘Where to now?’
Kate’s plans for the day included browsing round the second hand shops for more unusual items and her haul at the end of the afternoon included a pair of purple boots with silver buckles, a jade green skirt, even shorter than her work ones, which Max didn’t believe was possible, and two black tops which seemed to be ripped. She assured him they were meant to be this way, though he was convinced they had been involved with a large pair of scissors.

oOo

They arrived home late in the afternoon, ravenous, and decided to cook. Knowing that the joint contents of their cupboards would be extremely varied, and that nothing would go with anything else, Max scanned his only recipe book, given him by his mother when he left home, while Kate rifled through the pitifully bare cupboards.
‘One tin of beans, three packets of noodles,’ she opened a brown paper bag and peered suspiciously inside. ‘Three brown, wizened ex-carrots,’ they sailed past Max, dangerously close, as Kate continued her investigation of his cupboard.
‘Pasta spirals, tinned tomatoes and a bottle of ketchup that looks as though it came from the ark. Just look at it Max!’ she held the open bottle under his nose where he was shocked to find a growth of mould all round the top.
‘Well I don’t use much ketchup,’ he retorted indignantly as it flew over his head to join the carrots in the overfilled kitchen bin.
Kate’s cupboard didn’t reveal anything life threatening, but there seemed to be more sweet things in it than savoury, so they tried the fridge. In the end Max made a massive omelette with sweet corn and half an onion they found hiding at the back of the fridge. The eggs were only a week out of date, and didn’t taste as though they carried salmonella. They washed it down with the last two cans of lager, then shared a packet of custard creams from Kate’s fine selection of desserts.
They were just lounging in front of the television, which both of them had declared was awful on Saturday night but were too lazy to get up and turn off, when the telephone rang. They looked at each other, waiting for the other to answer it, and when it became obvious that Kate wouldn’t, Max grudgingly got up and went into the kitchen, silently praying it wasn’t his mother at the other end of the line.
He was gone for some time. When he reappeared in the living room doorway, his strange expression distracted Kate from Cilla Black’s latest victims.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘You look awful.’
‘I’ve just been offered a job,’ Max balanced on the corner of the settee. ‘It seems the Red Lion’s new barmaid just walked out and John has asked if I’d like to give it a go.’
‘What did you say?’ the corners of her mouth were twitching, a smile desperate to escape.
‘Well, what could I say? Do you think I should have taken it?’ his smile was probably a bit of a giveaway.
‘Come on, Max,’ a cushion hit him square on the head. ‘Tell me. What did you say?’
‘Yes,’ Max stood up and went to turn the television off. The sudden silence was deafening. ‘I start tomorrow.’ The silence continued, as did Kate’s widening grin.
‘Oh my God!’ the reality of the situation hit him. ‘What have I done? I’ve never pulled a bloody pint in my life. I was there yesterday watching Sandra behind the bar, enjoying the fact that she was a gibbering wreck, and tomorrow it’ll be me. Well it serves me right if I cock it up doesn’t it?’
‘Max, you’re ranting,’ Kate said patiently. ‘Calm down. You’ll be fine.’
‘Calm down!’ Max was rapidly reaching a state of apoplexy. ‘Easy for you to say.’
‘You’ll be fine. Trust me.’
Max sank back onto the settee. His legs wouldn’t hold him up anymore. He couldn’t take in the fact that he had said yes. Was it really him who had said it or was it the other Max? The one with only half a brain cell.
Kate reached down into the enormous purple sack that passed for a handbag and pulled out her purse, announcing it was time to celebrate.
‘Oh great, a new job with a hangover!’ Max said to the closing door, and dutifully went to get the glasses.