Dirty Pint

“Frankie, You can’t just get pregnant by some unsuspecting stranger.”
“Bull-shit, course I can.”
“Well, alright you physically can, but I mean you shouldn’t.”
Alice leaned in as close to Frankie as possible, at attempt at privacy in the crowded pub. The elbows of her cardigan were getting wet and sticky from spilled beer on the round, wooden table. Frankie’s espresso-coloured hair was big at the roots, in an eighties-style, and Alice’s blonde curls puffed out at the bottom. With their heads so close together it made a sort of yin yang.
“What’s brought this madness on anyway?” Alice asked, against her better judgement but unable to stop herself.
Frankie shrugged and sucked vodka-Redbull through a straw with a chewed end. She had expected this reaction from Alice, from most people in fact, and was therefore intent on ignoring their pleas for sanity.
Alice leaned back in her chair, her face alternately illumated by green and red disco lights. She shook her head, staring and challenging Frankie’s nochalant expression.
“What?” Frankie switched to defiance, “If you’ve got something to say...”
“Oh come off it, Frankie, you know exactly what I want to say.”
“I’ve thought this through, Ally-”
“I bloody hope that’s not true because if you’re thick enough to have thought this through and still come to the conclusion that this is a good idea, you’re a bloody fool!”
Alice slammed her glass down on the table for effect, and crossed her arms. Frankie was scowling and chewing on her straw. She watched the faded landlady collect empties from other tables.
“Whatever you think this baby is going to do or make better- it won’t.” Alice said suddenly.
Frankie turned around and realised Alice was watching the landlady, too.
“I didn’t expect you to understand. You’ve got a future, why would you want a baby now? It would just hold you back. What have I got? I’m going to have a baby eventually, why not now? What’s the point in me floating around with no direction for the next five years, then having one?”
“Because you’ll be more mature? Probably in a relationship? And that’s bollocks anyway, Frankie. The only reason you want a baby is because it’s easy. You won’t have to make any decisions about your future, you won’t have to try for anything or work hard. It’s an easy answer and it’s the wrong one.”
“Oh, fuck this, Alice. I don’t have to listen to you. Find yourself a lift home.”
Frankie pushed her seat back and stood up abruptedly. Her expression wasn’t insolent now, it was disgusted and hurt. Her perfectly groomed frown and parted lips were characteristics of the town’s trademark grimace. She flounced away from the table and hit her palms hard against the swinging door of the ladies toilets, before storming inside.
Alice turned back to face the empty seat Frankie had just vacated. She could imagine her in there now, throwing her clutch bag on to the wet, dirty counter in front of the mirror and reapplying her make up.
“She’s got enough on already.” Alice whispered to herself, sighing and rubbing her forehead. She pulled her fringe back away from her face, revealing dark roots.
“Bloody hell, what have you been drinking?”
Alice realised she had been sitting there with her eyes closed, and when she opened them a radiant boy with a leather jacket on was sitting in the seat opposite her.
“Oh no,” She forced a little laugh, “Just a rough start to the night.”
“Alright then, mate. What’s your poison?”
“Oh, don’t be silly...Sam?”
“Sean. It’s alright, we only went to school together for seven years.”
He tried to make a joke of it but he was obviously a bit disappointed and annoyed.
“Last chance, what you drinking?”
“Just juice.”
“Bollocks you are.”
He stood up and walked towards the bar. Alice’s memory of him from school was hazy, but she didn’t remember him being so tall and strapping.
“You’ve...bulked up.” She said hesitantly when he came back and handed her a glass. She didn’t ask what it was.
“Yeah, well. It’s been a couple a’years. I’m training to be a fireman as well so I kind of have to be...you know.”
“Ripped.”
“Yeah.”
They sipped their drinks for a moment, surveying all the people they knew or knew of, standing about chatting. They weren’t old enough to be the MTV generation or young enough to be the Facebook generation. They had babies young but not young enough for anyone to make a fuss about, they went to Glastonbury and as far as they were concerned they invented binge drinking. Alice often talked with her friends about the fact that they were the last kids to grow up without Sky, and the first to have alcopops. But their bonds seemed stronger for it, and they could take solice in the fact that boy-girl relationships often did turn into something real, once all the casual sex was over people got it together and got on with it.
“Kids today seem lonier than this.” Alice threw it out there, to see if Sean would know what she meant.
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s like, if one of those girls over there got knocked up tonight, whoever the Dad was, he’d be a mate. And he’d do the stand up thing and they’d get it together because it’s not the worst thing to end up with a mate. It’s better than ending up alone.”
They both stared at the girl he’d just made into an example.
“I think that, too,” said Alice, “But is it right? Do teenagers now just have higher standards than us? Or has the OC just made them look for fairytale true loves that don’t exist? At least not in small industry towns like this.”
“I dunno, mate, but personally, lookin’ around this room, I’d say we’re doing it right.”
He downed the rest of the something-and-Coke as if to put emphasis on his point, to make it an end note. He gestured for her to do the same, and she complied, wiping her lower lip on the sleeve of her cardigan afterwards.
“D’you want to get out of here?” he said, “I’m not pissed but I’m craving a kebab. Is that wrong?”
“God yes.” Alice screwed up her face judgmentally.
“Cheesy chips?” Sean offered with a cheeky two-handed thumbs up.
“You had me at kebab, really.”
She stood up and they tried to make a subtle exit, but Sean unknowingly headed for the door next to where Frankie was shamelessly chatting up a bloke playing the fruit machines. Alice intended to make a peace-offering goodbye smile, but Frankie didn’t turn to face her. Instead, she waited until Alice was halfway out the door before saying, perfectly audibly; ‘hypocrite’.
Alice’s left hand was touching the frosted glass panel of the door. Her eyes fixed on it as she decided what to do, and as a car drove past outside it’s headlights lit up the glass the glass, making her handspan a sillouette for a second, as if it had been scanned. She turned her head towards Frankie and the tacky fruit-machine player. They looked back at her expectantly.
“I’d suit up twice tonight if you were, mate. She’s a man trap, and definitely not on the pill.”
The fruit-machine boy looked at Frankie with the exact combination of mistrust and disregard Alice had been hoping for. To avoid being distasteful, Alice walked out the door straight away, and bounced confidentally down the stone steps to stand in front of Sean, who was trying to count his pound coins under the vitamin-C glow of the street lights.