Can I buy you
ladies a drink?
by Sarah Hilary
One was blonde,
the other not. I started in with, ‘I’m
indestructible.’
‘Come off
it,’ they both said.
‘Seriously.
I’ve been close to death three times.’
I held up my thumb and forefinger. ‘This
close.’
‘Go on,’
said Blondie.
I detected a
note of disparagement but I forged ahead.
‘The third time, it was fire. Terrible.’
I didn’t tell them I used milk to put it out.
Semi-skimmed, green label. The sofa smelled of
rice pudding for a week afterwards. I’d
dozed off there in front of Oprah, cigarette sly
between my fingers. ‘I very nearly
didn’t wake up.’
Not-blonde
sipped at her drink. ‘Oh, my.’
‘What
about the second time?’ Blondie asked.
‘Strangulation.
I was actually dead for a full minute.’
I’d had a craving for pancakes with syrup,
piled high on a plastic plate. When I’d
started to choke, the waitress had hurried:
‘You all right, love?’
‘Paramedics
brought me back,’ a little poetic license,
‘with a defibrillator.’ I whacked my
chest twice, thunk-thunk. ‘Kicked like a
bitch in heels.’
Not-blonde
snorted her drink. My drink, actually. I paid for
it.
‘The
first time?’ I offered. ‘When I was
born. D’you know the odds for surviving
birth?’ They wrinkled their noses at me.
‘Fourth time’s the charm.’ I
stretched, cricking my neck. ‘I’m
holding out for a blaze of glory.’
‘How’d
you mean?’
‘Sid
Vicious.’ I emptied an imaginary needle into
my jugular vein. ‘Keith Moon.’ I mimed
a drum-roll.
Not-blonde
slumped sideways, cheeks puffed out, tongue
protruding. ‘Elvis?’
‘James
Dean.’ I pretended to steer a car, badly.
‘Attila
the Hun?’
‘Attila
the –’ I parked the car and stared at
her. ‘What?’
‘Bled to
death of a nosebleed on his wedding night.’
‘Steve
Irwin,’ I insisted, ‘died doing what he
loved.’
‘So did
Mark Maples.’
‘Who?’
‘First
person to die on a Disneyland ride.’ Not-blonde
was deadpan. ‘Stood up on the Matterhorn
Bobsleds like an idiot, and was thrown to his
death.’
I’d known
she was trouble the moment I saw her. Grey hair
at her temples; she’d let herself go.
‘Dennis
Wilson,’ I began, ‘of the Beach Boys,
was diving from his yacht when –’
‘Tennessee
Williams choked to death on a nasal spray cap
which fell into his mouth while he was spraying.’
‘Come off
it.’
‘It’s
true.’ She picked the cocktail stick from
her drink, removed the olive and made a show of
re-impaling it with a squelch. ‘Vladimir
Smirnov, fencer, got a sword through the eyeball.’
‘Keith
Relf,’ I attempted weakly, ‘of The
Yardbirds, played electric guitar in the bathtub.’
‘That’s
nothing. Kenneth Pinyan perforated his colon in
2005 during a videotaped sex act with a full-size
stallion.’
Blondie patted
my hand. ‘Don’t mind Jude. She’s
an obituary writer. Can’t seem to switch it
off.’
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