8) The Hen Night
July 29, 2006
A Wedding is the perfect pulling platform. People are dressed up, full of champagne, and looking at a happy couple. The rhetoric is love, love, and love. There is no talk of divorce or the breakdown of the family unit. People are frisky and fruity. Plus everyone is a guest of someone you know. They’ve been vetted. The chosen specimen should not turn out to be a psychopath, and if they do, someone, i.e., the bride or groom should have warned you. I have quite a good track record at weddings. A best man tried to pull me at one wedding with the unforgettable line, “ Please shag me, it won’t take long I promise.” I once had a marvellous time in a stately home with a wonderful man. Although all rumours about adult fun on a billiard table (spread by my Farmer Brother) are completely unfounded. I am dangerously desperate to go to a wedding. Owing to the fact that my friends are either gay or single I’m currently experiencing a dearth of them which I expect to continue for about, oh I don’t know, eternity. My one friend who is getting married this year is selfishly doing so in Australia. I did beg her to have the ceremony here but she seemed to think she should tie the knot in the country of her birth where all her friends and family live. Some people only think of themselves. The bride-to-be semi-appeased me by promising a good old-fashioned Hen Night where I could work my magic. She recommended her favourite chat-up line, which involves offering your hand for the man to shake, and then saying “Hi my name is Lucy, remember it, you’ll be screaming it later.” I am impressed and excited. Homeless Friend and I spend hours getting ready. We drink Magners and listen to Disco Classics. We decide to dress in matching colours, blue and turquoise. We are a team. The look is Rizzo from Grease with make-up by ABBA. We are having so much fun applying Homeless Friend’s glittery Mac products to the tune “Keep on Jumping.” We can’t stop. We wear our highest shoes to make us look thinner. I hope that we don’t look like men in drag. As we wait for our nails to dry, we have a team talk. We decide we shall woo the men through the power of dance. We will 1) Spot a hot male on the dance floor 2) Dance in a friendly, sexy way near him until he notices 3) Follow up with a witty quip, which he will be pleased to hear, i.e. “You see I have impeccable rhythm, I’m creatively bendy too.” Or more likely “you dance well for a man.” We leave the flat wiggling and doing jazz hands. We arrive in the gorgeously grotty club. The bride to be is braless in a Marilyn Monroe dress and a BRIDE TO BE emblazoned sash. We whoop and squeal. We tell each other we look gorgeous. We order cocktails and champagne. The music is bad and loud. We love it. We can’t stand still. Homeless friend and I are like naughty teenagers let out of detention on an afternoon when a visiting boys school is playing football. The grotty club is hot. It is like being in the hottest place in the world standing next to a fire. Everyone is dripping with sweat and slippery like wet soaps. Once you give in to it, it is quite nice. Double D The Bride To Be is worried that her Hen Night sash is hiding her ample soon-to-be-married assets. She takes it off and quick as a dog under a dinner table I grab it. Double D The Bride To Be runs towards the dancing room shouting “Look my puppies are out tonight.” I follow her wearing the sash screaming, “Take me while you can!” We explode into the dance room. Only two drunken girls and an old man in a kimono are dancing. There is more atmosphere in the toilets. This is a set back. We wiggle back to the bar. It is full of men. We have to make the buggers move. We form a wall of excitable women and we stand in the way of the men’s toilets. Any man needing a pee now has to encounter us. We will not let him pass until he demonstrates a dance move. I have a stalwart repertoire of moves but am always on the look out for more. I remember the joy felt when I was first shown the ‘stirring the pot’ or the classic ‘big box, little box’ I am hazardously excited at the prospect of learning more. The first full bladdered man arrives. We demand a dance move. He clutches his beer and does a limp jerky shuffle. Helpfully I show him the classic “fishing line, real them in” move. He attempts it. He looks like a penguin that has bad hiccups and is sign languaging for the bill in a restaurant. I am horrified. I let him go and have his pee. Perhaps it’s best some men don’t dance. There is a slight lull in men needing a pee. The girls dance to “I Will Survive” in the meantime. We act out every line. We have a lot of fun with “I won’t lay down and die” as we act out hanging ourselves, drinking poison and getting shot in the heart. We are very inventive. We are the funniest people…ever. The next pee needer is gorgeous. We call him “The Fit Fandango”. He does a rarely spotted Justin Timberlake move where he cocks an imaginary hat and does a quick turn. I am already naming our children when he leans towards Double D the Bride To Be’s naturally beautiful, tall, blonde best friend and says, ‘You’re gorgeous.” I go off the game then. Homeless Friend and I go to the loo. We notice our make up has slipped down our faces. We are administering cosmetic first aid, when, out of nowhere, I say “Why don’t you text Merlin the Man With the Marvellous Tongue, you could just say ‘I’m out with Lucy and she was wondering where you are’?” Now Homeless Friend is stubborn as an olive oil stain and never does what I ask. In this instance though she forgets that and sends him a text. Two minutes later Merlin The Man With The Marvellous Tongue telephones Homeless Friend and within an hour he appears at the grotty club. We do a lot of dancing. I’m sure I look like a drunken toddler at a wedding but he seems quite taken with my “starting the lawn mower followed by the Mick Jagger pout and over the head clap.” I beam with pride. After all, it's a move that I've been perfecting since that long ago time when everyone drank Chardonnay.
At the end of the night we do some magical kissing and he says, “Can I take you for dinner tomorrow?” “Ooh yes please. I love dinner!” I say through my great big grin. “You’re gorgeous” I whelp and giggle. Then he looks at me “ You’re really…buxom.” “BUXOM!!!!!” I screech like an angry witch. “It’s a compliment, you’re like one of those women from the Hammer horror movies.” “HORROR MOVIES!!!” I shriek as though the angry witch has just been given a parking ticket. Homeless Friend and I somehow make it home on the nightbus. I am trying to retrieve The Carol Vorderman Detox Book from down the back of the microwave. I am like a scratched LP spitting out the word “buxom” over and over again. Homeless friend focuses me with one eye and slurs from the sofa. “ Luce I think Merlin the Man with the Marvellous Tongue might be seeing someone else. His friend let something slip tonight. He thought you were another girl. Merlin’s just come out of a long relationship and he’s sowing his wild Marvellous Tongue oats at the moment.” “Oh” “Sorry, but I had to tell you.” “Hmm, I don’t know whether I want to be one of many.” “No..” We are silent for a minute. Then I find the track, “Somebody Else’s Guy” on my iTunes. I pretend that I am a buxom diva singing for my life and I try to perfect Fit Fandango’s Justin Timberlake move, until I am dizzy. “Oh well, at least I can sod the detox. Shall we have some crumpets with Lurpak??”
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Book publication day post.