Twenty-five years earlier…
Richard King had a girlfriend. This week she was tall and blonde and the kind of girl who didn’t want any other woman near. Amanda had worked that much out, as much from the way the girl put her arm proprietorially around him when they sat drinking their coffees, never mind how she gave dirty looks to every other woman who came within twenty paces of him. Amanda didn’t know the girl’s name, but she knew very well who Richard was, and when she caught him watching her, she guessed perhaps he’d noticed her too.
‘So, this is what you do, is it?’ he asked her one day when he slipped in on his own. It was after work, his tie was slightly askew, his jacket hooked about his thumb.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Amanda glanced over her shoulder. Her bateau top gave just enough of a glimpse of white unblemished soft skin, it made her curiously aware of herself. Her soft copper curls skimmed her collarbone and she knew she resembled Molly Ringwald at best, but that was not why Richard was interested in her, she figured.
‘I mean, here, you’re going to work in a bar all your life?’
‘Does it matter?’ She was playing with him, even though she had a feeling she was way out of her depth. She knew she was a challenge to him. Apparently, he’d dated every other girl in the bar, apart from her. They just seemed to fall for him, perhaps it was his Porsche that won them over. ‘Beer?’ she asked, bending towards the bottles of Mexican beer that he always ordered.
‘No, not this time, I didn’t come here for beer. What time do you finish up?’ he asked, moving along the counter so there was only the shining black granite between them now. ‘We could have a beer together…’
‘Oh, I don’t think so…’ she’d heard all about Richard King. He wasn’t the kind of bloke who settled for a kiss and cuddle. He expected girls to go the whole way and Amanda just wasn’t that kind of girl.
‘We could have it here, right here. No strings. Or coffee?’
‘I’m really not that interesting and I don’t think I’m your type. Don’t you have a girlfriend already?’
‘Darlene? Oh, she’s a nice enough girl, but we’re just having fun.’ He said smoothly and she was tempted to tell him that she was sure Darlene thought it was a lot more than that. ‘I’m not taking no for an answer,’ he smiled at her. ‘You can buy me a coffee, if that makes you feel better. I just want to talk to you.’ Amanda almost buckled, perhaps it wasn’t just the Porsche that won the other girls over.
‘Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to take no this time.’
‘What time do you finish?’ he persisted.
‘When I do,’ she smiled at him, enjoying his attention, ‘I’ll be going home and getting into bed alone.’
‘Ah,’ he said mock wounded, he placed his hand against his improbably breaking heart. ‘Now you’ve really hurt me.’
‘Don’t take it personally. I’m just too busy with college at the moment to see anyone.’
‘It wouldn’t have to be a thing, with me…’ his eyes crinkled and she was sure he’d had plenty of no-things all about the city before her.
‘Well, here’s the thing, Richard, it would have to be a thing for me.’ She winked at him and then turned and left him standing there.
A week later he turned up sans scary girlfriend once again. And again, she sent him on his way, rejected. Soon, it became their thing. He showed up, begged to take her out and she flatly refused. Then, one afternoon, Amanda got word that her painting would be the centrepiece of the end of term show and she was just beside herself with joy. Richard turned up as usual, probably expecting rejection.
‘Okay, I get a break in about ten minutes. I’ll get us two coffees; we can have them at the bar.’ She smiled at him, where was the harm in a coffee? It was all the nicer because he’d just stood there with his mouth open, probably in shock.
Amanda got a half-hour break. Usually, she walked around the corner to the National Gallery. She could sit there all day; half an hour gave her just about twenty minutes before one of her favourites. This week, she was working her way through the Ann Madden exhibition, Amanda could lose herself for hours before one of those charismatic works.
It surprised her that the coffee with Richard seemed to fly by even faster than one of her jaunts to the National Gallery. Afterwards, she couldn’t think what he talked about, but she had told him more about herself than she intended.
‘So, you’re an arty-farty?’ he said, draining his coffee. ‘I’m impressed,’ he took her hands, she scrubbed them clean each night before coming on shift. ‘I bet you’re really good,’ he said smoothly and she reddened because she had a feeling that somewhere in there was an innuendo that had nothing to do with using charcoal or acrylics.
‘I’m okay, I suppose.’ Amanda figured she was middle of the class, but it didn’t matter, she just loved art, always had. Everything about it just made her feel right. She loved bright colours, loved seeing the page transform and she adored the idea that something, hardly a germ of a notion, could come to life in a way that would never be forgotten.
‘So, when you graduate – will you draw or…’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean, to make a living at it, you have to be really good, don’t you?’
‘I suppose that or just know the right people. You wouldn’t believe the crap rich people buy. Don’t you think, it’s all about sales anyway? I mean, how do you know if something is good – it’s only when some poor idiot parts with a couple of hard-earned notes for it that it gets a value.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about that…’ Amanda wasn’t sure if he was kidding her, so she decided, best not to rise to the bait. ‘Anyway, if I did become an artist, you could buy them…’ she smiled at him coquettishly, forgetting herself, just for a moment.
‘Oh, Amanda, I think I’d buy every one of them, if I thought it’d make you happy.’ He looked down at the table now, studied his hands for a moment, but she figured it was part of his act. It was how he drew girls in, she’d seen him do it a thousand times before. It was very subtle, but it was enough to make her realise that her break was over.
‘Anyway, I must be getting back to work. They don’t pay me for entertaining the customers, not even the regulars, I’m afraid.’
‘Pity. Which college are you in, you never said,’ he inclined his head, interested maybe as much to gauge how good she was.
‘Oh, I’m in the National College of Art and Design,’ she said, it still gave her a thrill to say that.
‘The NCAD,’ he made a little wolf-whistle, ‘well, I’ll be looking out for your end of year show.’ Across the bar, his current girlfriend or at least this week’s girl, had arrived, he put his hand up in the air, as though alerting a taxi to his whereabouts. ‘Phoebe, have you met Amanda?’ he said, his fingers resting on his lips for just one appraising moment. It was a trademark move for when he was about to tell a lie. ‘She’s sorting out some artwork for the apartment, you know, I must have mentioned her.’ The fib tripped off his tongue so easily, but Amanda didn’t care, she was much too busy at this stage trying to remember not to fall in love with him to register his only giveaway habit when he was economical with the truth.