They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

83 March 2012

I don’t take taxis that often, but I can guarantee I’ll get a what’s-your-game look from the driver whenever I give my address. Elbestrasse. So what. Hey, one of the perks of living in my dodgy ‘hood’ is that the bars are cheap.

But today it’s my birthday, it’s Saturday night and we’re not doing cheap, we’re celebrating! It is girls’ night out on me, and we are doing posh! I’m in a taxi heading towards the Frankfurter Hof, and the city’s hotels don’t come posher than this venerable grande dame, with its top-hatted doorman outside.

I know I should be conserving every penny, but what the hell, I’ll blow a few quid — or rather euros — tonight and that will just bring the time I run out of cash a few weeks nearer. Unless, with my improving grasp of German, I can get a decent paying job. But I’m not worrying about that now. Tonight I’m going to have fun!

Ingrid and Cordelia are already at a table in a dark corner of the smart and very lively bar, both pretty much near the end of their first Cosmopolitans — it looks like — and they jump up to greet me with squeals of excitement. They are both nurses at the consumption room and we’ve become friends over the past few months. Like me, Ingrid is a single mum, with a nine-year-old son, and Cordelia’s tales of her online dating disasters have had us in fits.

I order a bottle of wine for us to share and get to hear about her latest hook-up — if a man in a beanie, showing her pictures of his dick on his phone within five minutes of their drinks arriving, can properly be called a hook-up. It’s not because of her stories that I haven’t tried online dating myself, it’s that since Nicos I haven’t the energy or inclination to meet anyone. I don’t want another relationship. Not another new relationship. I’m feeling more and more that I want what I had and threw away.

Roy.

Ulrike, a social worker at the consumption room, has texted to say she is five minutes away. She seems far too pretty to be working in such a grim environment, but she genuinely loves it, like we all do, it’s a great team. When she first told me she was gay and single, almost a little suggestively, those desires I’d had for women pre-Roy flashed before me and I felt a momentary wave of arousal. But right now I’m not getting tangled into any kind of a relationship. I’ve got myself straightened out from my addiction — well, within reason — and my focus and priority, one hundred per cent, is getting Bruno sorted. I owe him that.

And in truth, I’m feeling a lot of guilt about being such a rubbish mother to him for the first three — almost four — years of his life. Pretty much a drugged-up zombie who found it easier to stick a games console in his hands, rather than actually do any activities with him. But that’s different now, we do everything together and he’s honestly my best friend.

No surprise Dr Ramsden talks to me about Bruno’s lack of socializing skills with that upbringing.

But now I’m two glasses of wine down, with another bottle on its way. The bar is alive with chatter and laughter and feel-good music, and we four girls are totally lit up. Cordelia is telling us about yet another hilarious online dating disaster with a mistimed kiss, when suddenly, I hear Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ playing, and amid the haze of fun and oblivion, I have a fleeting reality check. Someone walking over your grave, my mother used to say.

Roy loves Billy Joel as much as I do, and this was one of the songs on our wedding playlist.

Sing us a song, you’re the piano man...

And you’ve got us feelin’ alright.

‘Feeling all right?’ Ulrike asks me and gives me a flirty smile. A come-on smile?

I ball my hands and dance my fists in the air. ‘Never better!’

We all clink glasses so hard that Ingrid’s breaks, spilling her drink down onto the table and the nuts and olives. A fresh one appears. And then at some point, we all stagger through into the dining room, to our table, where we don’t care that our raucous giggles and loud laughter are totally out of place in this grand, elegant and discreetly calm room, and I don’t give a toss about the frowns from several elderly diners near us.

THIS IS MY BIRTHDAY! I feel so elated — thanks to the booze — better than I’ve felt in — oh God — so long.

I try to focus on the wine list, which is the size of a telephone directory, and turn to the sparkling ones. I nearly select a Prosecco, which is a fairly eye-watering price, then think what the hell and plump for a Champagne at a price that, luckily, I can barely read. Well, how many times in your life do you have a birthday?

And later, after blowing out the candle on the tiny cake and blowing another bottle of champers, the waiter brings the bill. When I sign my credit card slip, my eyes even more blurry, I grandly add an extravagant fifteen per cent tip without even looking at the total.

Then we stagger back to the bar. Ingrid and Ulrike go outside for a smoke, and Cordelia heads off to the loo. When I reach the crowded bar, a hand grips my arm and a vaguely familiar face is grinning up at me from a stool.

My addled brain takes a moment to process who it is.

‘They let me out of my coffin, for one night,’ he says with a big grin.

I don’t believe it!

It’s the guy I met briefly all those months ago at the schloss. Shambolic Hair. Stoker. AKA Bram.

‘I kind of figured we’d meet again,’ he says with another grin. ‘Get you a drink?’

And suddenly, at this moment, I wished all the three other girls I was with would disappear.