friendship kindled

I

The first time I met Wilhelmina was over a pub lunch I was having with a friend in The Old Crown, who, it turned out, vaguely knew her.

The lunch itself had been a “guilt and hope” affair; an old friends’ homage to a once delightful relationship with pleasant memories and past exploits to be much discussed; the only real remaining bonds between two busy lives that had drifted apart. The Old Crown had been our pub and the natural place to stoke the embers of our dying friendship. I half think we both finally kept our many times re-scheduled appointment because, this time, we had settled on the pub as the venue. We both wanted to see it for ourselves, as much as see each other of course.

In younger days we would meet up in the Old Crown on many a Friday and Saturday night, all dapper and, we certainly thought, dashing; before setting off across the town in search of fun, frolic and fantastic women. Last orders on such nights would invariably find us back in the Old Crown, talking about this bird or that bitch that didn’t know what they missed, or lamenting the lack of fun that no one seems to have any more, or if we were in a particularly self sanctimonious mood, the lack of fantastic women in the town. If one of us had the good fortune to pull and not the other, and it lasted for more than the week, the lost soul would typically spend their Friday and Saturday night in the Old Crown, mingling with various mates that drifted in and out of there. Over time, as these things go, we managed to hold onto our conquests for longer, and found ourselves increasingly spending weekends apart. We never actually stopped visiting the Old Crown; it’s just that we never went there anymore.

But those were good times and we got on well! And there was no real reason for us to not spend time together. Apart from my friend’s girlfriend of, I’d say about a year and a half now, not liking me much. So there we were at lunchtime (our girlfriends at work), just the two of us about to meet and catch up on the good old days. As I approached my old haunt, I remembered how much my girlfriend of, I’d say about a year and some months, had hated the Old Crown when we first started dating. So we began trying different places. As I stood looking at the Old Crown, it also struck me that the pub my girlfriend now liked to call “our regular” looked a lot like the Old Crown in so many ways.

The pub at lunch was quite different from what my friend and I remembered of the evening scene there. The brick-red wallpaper ensconced at intervals with gilded double lights turned out in the daylight to be terracotta dabbed onto crimson paint. The dark-wood scarred, burned, stained, ash-filled and drink-spilled evening tables were neatly wiped, covered and topped with a centre piece holding a flower, salt and pepper shakers, an inviting and almost pretentious menu, and sauces in lacquered terracotta pots. 

It was obvious that my friend had not been waiting long. He sat at a table not too far from the bar and was still looking around at the daytime pub, trying to reconcile it with his earlier nocturnal memories of the place. He waved, we greeted, and I waited at the bar to order our drinks: two snakebites for old time’s sake.
“I grabbed us a table - Its pretty busy in here at lunch time!” he said, searching my face to see if I was any more familiar with this particular presentation of our favourite haunt. It was busy with office clerks and managers, supervisor-types from the big construction site around the corner, PA-at-lunch groups, shoppers and the odd trendy person.
“Do they have any hot-pot or something on the menu?” I asked. My friend pulled the card out of its holder and was studying it.
“No – lamb chops in a rich port sauce, seasonal vegetables and lightly seasoned mash seems to be the closest” he laughed.
“That’ll do; what about you?” I asked, as some loud, energetic, suit and his pinstriped friends trying to push in for their drinks elbowed me. 
“I’ll have the seared cod served on a bed of spinach and rosti,” he said in a refined voice, as I averted my eyes towards the bar.

I ordered, got our drinks, sat down and surveyed the pub and the mixed crowd ebbing and flowing at the bar. We launched into a jovial conversation trotting happily down memory lane, and I wondered whether some of these people here had mis-spent their youth in the Friday and Saturday dives we used to call nightlife. Our food came, and a blonde in a group of three women all with knee-length skirts, covered legs, high-heeled shoes and closed, collarless tops, looked our way as we were served. I thought she looked familiar as I caught her eye. If anything, I might have been more familiar with her younger sister, I thought, as I looked away from the lines on her neck and towards the bar to where my friend had been looking and half-frowning.

“Do you remember one night we were outside that kebab shop just off the High street, you know, the one where they did those really massive kebabs, and we chatted up those two blondes in really short skirts?” I asked my friend, bringing him back to conversation. He sniggered.
“Yeah, I got off with the older one – what did she call you – a desperado wasn’t it? And I told her you don’t look half as desperate as she did! And instead of punching us she actually thought it was funny!”
“Yeah, she was pretty desperate,” I said. 
I decided not to refer him to the blonde at the other table and looked back to the bar where he’d been looking.
“Sisters, weren’t they?” he smirked, probing my memory, “you were sick on the young one’s legs.”
I was watching a slender young man with a funny shaped arse in black trousers, studded belt, black boots, black waistcoat and white t-shirt, with obviously dyed black hair, collect his change and pick up his half-pint. I turned to my friend, creasing into a smile.
“Not exactly, but it got her tights off didn’t it? By the time she’d calmed down, I’d had ‘em off and rinsed in the Maccy-Dees loo, my hands rubbing her thighs up and down to warm her up. I told her I’d dry her tights under the dryer and get her a new pair! She was touched!  She put her arms around me and asked if I’d get her a silky see through pair with sparkles on it – I can’t remember exactly -all I remember is telling her ‘anything you want’ as I locked us into the cubicle”. I could tell like me he was almost cringing under his laughter, which became increasingly genuine as images of how much we must have made a lot of people cringe back then were slowly turning into a realisation that we could still see some of that cringe factor in each other now.

The black waistcoat and white T-shirt jerked into view, the half-pint slipping out of an elbow-knocked arm, the bloke’s knee-up connecting and launching the drink towards our table, a diving save to catch the drink before it hit the table, tits shaking in the T-shirt – what the fuck!?! –  my friend and I scrambling backwards over our falling chairs to get out of the way, the glass connecting and bouncing up a fountain of  harassed bronze liquid, the body crashing where the glass had landed, dead centre, over our pub lunch.

For an absolute split second, that boisterous pub was dead silent.

“Sorry!” exclaimed the youth looking up, scrambling up, totally crimson, covered in food.
“Fuck me!” said my friend. 
“Never, Bob – fuck off!” it said, turning to me and immediately trying to wipe bronze liquid off my shirt. Its hand was covered in rich port sauce.

I was looking at the T-shirt. It definitely contained tits. Not big ones mind, but they were there.

“Sorry, So Sorry,” the youth babbled, and I could see the complete horror, total embarrassment and building anger on his? her? face. “Wilhelmina, what the fuck?” exclaimed my friend. And then help arrived.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of us were sitting down, cleaned up somewhat with drinks at hand, in the Dog and Duck. I had taken an instant liking to Wilhelmina. Any woman that tried to knee-up a full, falling glass and could put Bob down while wiping seared cod and rosti off her face rated highly in my book. It turned out that she lived with her mother who Bob happened to know but I suspect he wasn’t letting on about how well. She’d even played with Bob when they were much younger and had been well known back then as the street’s tomboy.

Now she was a very mildly pimply-faced, average build girl in her twenties, with slightly kempt eye-brows, interesting greeny-grey eyes in an oval face with a slightly upturned, well proportioned nose but something couldn’t get me to think there was anything attractive there. It was attractive, each element I mean, but it wasn’t put together in a way that as a man I might find attractive. Or rather, it was obvious that she was plain. But that would be a description for a girl and the features were better than plain and somehow feminine adjectives were awkward to apply to Wilhelmina. Like noticing her arse in those trousers at the bar. Looking back, if that arse had been on a woman in tight jeans, it would have been a very pretty sight indeed, but the way Wilhelmina’s arse sat atop that stance on those legs just made it look, well, not feminine at all. 

“What a ponce-filled pub!” she sneered, “The Old Crown is nothing like that in the evenings!”
“You’ve been there in the evenings then?” I asked, my curiosity suddenly heightened.
“All the time! If Janice – do you know her? She serves there most Fridays and Saturdays, if she’d been there, I’d have been dead embarrassed about what happened! I really would have liked to kick the shit out of that bastard that knocked the drink out of my hand – I could swear he did it on purpose! Just because I dress different! Just a bunch of poncy tossers! Its his fault, you know, that your shirt got messed up.”
“He always was a bit on the slow side” chuckled Bob, and I knew he wasn’t just referring to me trying to get out of the way.
“You’re just a plain lucky bastard as usual” I retorted and he knew I wasn’t just referring to him managing to escape the flying beer.
“So you know each other well, then?” asked Wilhelmina as we both grinned.
“We go way back,” replied Bob “to the days of the Old Crown Crew. Anyway, I have to get back.”
“The what?” asked Wilhelmina, and I could see distance building in her expression.
“Ignore him,” I said, “piss off, Bob – I mean - see you around. Say hello to your girlfriend, tell her to get in touch and that we must get together some time,” I said smiling.
“You mean, finally a foursome, going out I mean,” he gurgled, “take care old mate”. We shook hands, smiling over memories of youthful aspirations and a friendship that, thanks to Wilhelmina’s unintended intervention, still appeared to retain some of its jocular adventure. 

And Wilhelmina was still here. “Look” she said brightening up -  “Lets get down to McDonalds, I can rinse your shirt out and we can dry it quickly. And in the meantime” she said, fumbling in her pocket trying to check her change, “I could buy you a lunch there”. This could be long or this could be short, undiscovered country or the beaten track. I chose.

I locked eyes with her, displeasure growing steadily on my face and in my voice as I spoke slowly. “If you think rinsing out this shirt is going to get rid of the beer and port sauce, you’re having me on. I have to explain this to my girlfriend. Can you imagine what a believable story the whole thing makes: this girl tries to catch a falling beer by kneeing it to catch it and in doing so launches it square towards me and in order to stop it, she throws herself on my dinner! I don’t think that sounds very credible.”

The expression was wilting in Wilhelmina’s face, not simply registering my disapproval but unwanted complication was creeping in. I continued, looking displeased, put out, hassled and giving her no alternative: “I’m going to give you my shirt – you take it home, clean it, dry it, iron it and get it back to me this evening. At the Old Crown.”

I could almost picture certain thoughts racing through her head. Back into the Old Crown. Janice. Is he trying to chat me up? Cheaper than buying him a McDonalds. He’ll probably buy me a drink tonight. Does he expect me to buy him one? In front of Janice. He’s a stranger, fuck him. I messed up his shirt, Bob’s friend. He’s not interested in me, he has a girlfriend. 
“All right” Wilhelmina said, “as long as you don’t think you’re going to get anywhere with me”. 
“Wasn’t interested to” I replied, taking off my jacket.
“That’s what they all say until they get the beer goggles on” she retorted.
“I’ve had enough beer for today – I’ll be sticking to coke” I responded, unbuttoning my shirt and taking it off.
Wilhelmina got up to leave, as I gave her the shirt, and put my jacket back on.
“How do I know you are going to bring me my shirt back?” I asked.
“See you at eight” she said, and as she turned away: “Is your girlfriend coming as well?” I couldn’t see her piss-taking smile through the back of her head but could swear it was there. I paused.
“No. ” A pause. “She doesn’t like the Old Crown. Which is a shame for her, because I do.”


II
It was coming up to nine. I was on my second pint. I’d spent almost the last hour thinking about how much this place at night was much more akin to how I remembered it. The spectrum from shady characters to trendy all-sorts had used it as a crossroads for much of the town’s nightlife. It was a place where people came and went throughout the evening, rather than stopping off for the night. It did have its handful of regulars, like all pubs. By sitting there, you could imagine all sorts of interesting things the people coming and going got up to in other places in town; they looked interesting enough. Wilhelmina had portrayed that sense of person even at lunchtime, while waiting for her drink. Now, she was probably off somewhere else, having a good laugh with her mates about the twat who gave her his shirt to wash and iron.

I had been prepared for her being late. I’d even turned up at ten past eight and confirmed with the barmaid that Wilhelmina hadn’t come in as yet. The barmaid, whose name turned out to be Janice, didn’t appear to know Wilhelmina socially, but certainly knew her as a friendly regular and one to liven up the place a bit. Cheeky Janice had even asked me with a glint in her eye if I had a date with Wilhelmina. When I’d replied that I wasn’t going to get in the way of the pair of them, I only got a funny look back.

My thoughts since lunchtime had drifted occasionally to Wilhelmina, and they only seemed to prompt more questions. I’d settled on Wilhelmina the dyke as a sort of general answer. Meeting Janice, who wasn’t a lesbian (at least by my initial assessment), and the fact that she hadn’t met Wilhelmina outside the bar, unseated that image slightly. Of course, Wilhelmina might herself be on the pull and as a lesbian would know far better whether Janice was or not and so on. I’d never seen one lesbian pull another, nor pulled one myself. And in any case, how many women go around telling men they’re bi-sexual if that was the case? Or openly declare they’ve “tried the guy - but like the bi?” People don’t walk around with labels stitched to their ears, or guest-books stuck to their private parts. “Sign on entry”. Yeah, right. Half the things people say aren’t believable anyway.  And Wilhelmina hadn’t said a lot, except one reference to dressing different. So when she’d asked me about my girlfriend being here tonight, knowing full well she wasn’t going to be, was she flirting? And why did I care, since I couldn’t see anything attractive in her and knew I didn’t want to flirt with her, at least not in any serious way?

Wilhelmina interrupted my thoughts by standing right in front of me without speaking. As I looked up from my dwindling drink and into her face towering above, I noticed the same attire as lunchtime, with white T-shirt swapped out for a black one. Hides the next lot of spillage much better, I thought. The plastic carrier bag in her hand had my shirt bundled up in it. So much for the “iron it”; but at least I was getting a clean shirt back. I was nevertheless pleased to see her, or maybe I was relieved. “Don’t think much of your ironing,” I grumbled. 

Her mouth twisted and contorted as she sat down and dropped the plastic bag onto the table, almost releasing its contents onto the many beer-ringed table. “Well I got home, but my mum wasn’t” she paused. “She’s usually back by six but she wasn’t even back by seven. So I used the powder thingy in the machine and put the shirt in and I mustn’t have looked correctly but I swear I set it on a low heat wash or something and anyway that powder says it helps to restore colour but my mum must have missed something and look my mum washes all my clothes anyway so how do you expect me to know how to use a washing machine in the first place and you know I could have done a runner but the thing is” she said, as she slowly pulled the shirt out, spreading it across the beer-ringed table “something went wrong and I don’t quite know what”. I could see the shirt had streaks of white patches across it and the original beer hadn’t quite gone. “I was watching it every second it was washing, I swear it and as soon as I thought something was wrong I pulled it out” Wilhelmina continued, “I rinsed it off with fairy but the white bits didn’t come out. I dried it best I could too”.
I was looking blankly at my ruined shirt, with the beer-rings seeping through to leave fresh marks on its back. 
“What powder did you use?” I asked.   
“Well one time we had this party in my house, right, and my uncle or someone fell and spilt a can of beer on the curtains so my mum washed them with this special powder stuff that gets beer out. I remember because she sent me down the shops specially to get it”, She explained, expecting me somehow to understand what powder she was talking about.
“What was this stuff called?” I asked.
“I don’t remember, all I can remember is it restores colour to net curtains.”
“And what colour are net curtains usually, Wilhelmena?” I asked.
“White” she said. Her voice had started to tremble.
“Exactly.”
“Oh,” she said. “OH! Does that mean I can streaky bleach my jeans in the wash! Cool! I-” and she looked at me, barely holding back a snigger. I wiped the table down with my shirt, pushed it back into the plastic bag and said, “What are you having?”
“A pint of lager please” came the reply.

She was intent on watching Janice’s comings and goings and servings closely without seeming too obvious while I observed Wilhelmina from the bar. She’d even re-positioned her seat to get a better view of the bar. I made a point of being friendly with Janice, who had acknowledged me as soon as I’d got to the bar to place the order. When my turn to be served came, Janice pleasantly engaged for longer than she needed to sort out the drinks order. She knew she had my attention and was showing how pleased she was to receive it.  Thinking about it, Janice had been looking at me on a number of occasions while I’d been waiting for Wilhelmina. I had put that down to being a follow on from her last odd look but maybe it was something more. With drinks in hand and a parting smile to Janice, I returned to Wilhelmina feeling glad to be back in the Old Crown.

Wilhelmina, arms folded, shot me with a “So what’s your game, then?” question. The answers could have been many. I tried the truth.
“I’ve been trying to figure out the same about you”, I said.  I could see my reply didn’t make sense to her.

She quizzed me about the last time I’d been in the Old Crown; how come I knew Janice; how come we’d never seen each other before in the pub; my friendship with Bob; even about my girlfriend and whether I knew her mother. As far as I could tell, my replies had been pretty neutral. In fact, they were straightforward, non-threatening and void of any flirtation or innuendo, despite her quite personal questioning. My answers had seemed to ease her into a greater willingness to engage in conversation, and yet I could sense her unwillingness to reciprocate with any information. She’d circled the camp and, having a better map of the territory, decided to come in for another assault on my motives.
“You wanted to meet me here. Tell me why” she requested.
“Tell me why you accepted,” I replied. “And don’t tell me you felt you owed me a clean, ironed shirt.” The flash of hurt across her eyes seemed genuine enough. She looked down.
“I did feel really, really bad about what happened at lunchtime. Oh my god, how embarrassing! I almost resolved never to come back here.” She looked up towards the bar.
“You still haven’t told me,” I pointed out.
With a smile in her eye, and a smile twisting across her lips, she said, “ I like the Old Crown.”
“Yeah”, I laughed slowly, “So do I”.

Our conversation got easier after that, and we talked about the various places we’d been in town and how they’d changed. We briefly explored possible common friends beyond Bob, but soon gave up. I reassured her again that I didn’t know her mother. We touched on each other’s musical tastes, and described at length the changes the Old Crown had seen over the last years. She bought me a round and I bought her another, and we both stayed away from Janice.  Last orders rang in the Old Crown on that Friday night, and we left before the drunken crowd spilled out onto the street.

She parted to catch her bus and turning, asked with a cheeky smile, “So how come your girlfriend didn’t come along tonight?”
“What girlfriend?” I replied back, and with a grin, set off to catch the train. As I walked, I wondered whether my nearly ex- had spent a teary night in with the girls, lamenting about what bastards men were for not appreciating the hard work women put into making the relationship right; or out drowning her insecurities and desperately trying to silence her woman’s intuition.