Boy Parts(3)

He tosses me a little packet of bubble-mint – barely better than vomit.

‘You know, if someone who’s actually disabled comes in—’

‘Fuck off,’ I say. ‘Fuck off, Ryan. I’m not going to the customer toilets. I was literally just assaulted.’

Ryan wants us to piss with the customers, like animals. Ryan always thinks someone with a limp or a chair or IBS is about to barge into the bar, with the entirety of Scope’s advocacy board behind them.

‘I’m not ringing the police,’ he says. ‘FYI.’

‘Fine, whatever,’ I say. ‘You’re sending me home though, aren’t you?’

‘No. We’re short today,’ says Ryan. ‘I’m not sending you home for a hangover. How hard could she have gotten you? She looked skinny as fuck.’

‘Are you joking?’ I say. ‘She was wearing rings. And I’m not fucking hungover. Text someone. The new girl, with the pink hair. Carrie.’

‘Cassie,’ he says. ‘And no, it’s her day off.’

‘She won’t fuck you for this, you know,’ I say. ‘And you might want to knock that craic on the head. She looks pretty woke.’ I make air quotes, and sneer. ‘Time’s up, Ryan.’

I nod towards the ‘Shout Up!’ poster we have on the door of the toilet; the one that labels us a sexual-harassment-free zone. Ryan looks outraged. Ryan thinks it doesn’t count as harassment if you’re good looking, and Ryan thinks he’s good looking. Before he can argue, before he can remind me he went on the Shout Up! training day and everything, Ergi appears behind him. I didn’t know he was in today. He’s never in. We’re one of three trendy city centre bars he owns, and I think he often forgets about us.

‘What’s going on?’ he says, throwing an accusatory look at Ryan.

‘Nowt!’ says Ryan. I burst into tears. It’s easy for me to cry when I’m tired, when I’m poorly, when my eyes are already streaming.

‘Some mad woman hit me, look.’ I point to the red mark on my cheek. ‘And I got such an awful fright I was sick. And Ryan won’t let me go home.’

‘Why won’t you let her go home, man?’ he asks. His accent is strange: a mishmash of Albanian and broad Geordie-isms. ‘Call your new lass – pink hair. Carrie?’

‘It’s her day off, and Irina is out of sick leave.’

‘She just got fucking hit, man,’ says Ergi. ‘Are you okay? Why’d she hit you?’

‘I didn’t serve her quick enough. A man was grabbing me. It’s all on CCTV. It was awful.’

‘I’ll get you a taxi. I’ll sort it out, don’t worry,’ he says. He asks for my postcode, and orders an Uber for me. He says he’s going to check the CCTV and write an incident report, and that Ryan is to get me a glass of water and some tissues.

Ryan glares at me. When Ergi leaves, I stop crying.

‘It’s fucked up how you can turn that on and off,’ Ryan says, handing me the water, the napkins.

‘It’s fucked up that you sell coke,’ I say. ‘That’s all wrapped up in child slavery and shit.’

‘Is it now?’

‘Google it.’

He walks me out, seething, assuring me he knows I’m hungover. He tells me he’s going to tell Ergi. I tell him I’ll dob him in for dealing; people in glass houses and all that.

Then the taxi is here, and I’m out.

While I’m in the Uber, I get a flurry of apologetic texts from Ryan. I’m sorry I was being weird, just sat and watched the footage properly, hope you’re okay, please don’t tell on me, etc., etc. I respond with some emojis. Pizza, shrug, smiley, facepalm, sunshine. Interpret these glyphs how you will, Ryan.

It doesn’t take long to get back to mine. Flo is still here. She’s wearing my pyjamas and hoovering. She beams when I get in, her teeth stained with coffee, her choppy bob in disarray.

‘I didn’t expect you back so soon!’ she says. ‘What’s with your face? Oh my God, have you been crying?’ I grunt, and kick off my shoes, landing on my sofa with a thud. I bury my face in my hands. The bubble-mint gum has gone sour. I recount the story to Flo, who gasps and OMGs as required, like a panto audience.

‘You could literally sue,’ she says. I left out the bit with the boy, the photographs. I say I can’t be arsed. ‘You know, if you get attacked at work, you’re meant to get six weeks off. Paid, and everything,’ Flo says.

‘No shit?’ I say. ‘Well, that’s a silver lining. Get my pyjamas and a makeup wipe.’ Flo does.

‘I’ve cleaned the kitchen,’ she calls from upstairs. ‘And I’ve scraped all the coke off your coffee table. I managed to salvage at least a bump, so I put it in a baggy for you.’

She delivers my only pair of tracksuit bottoms and an old jumper – reserved for the most desperate of hangovers. I change in front of her, dropping my clothes on the floor of my otherwise immaculate living room.

‘Cool,’ I say. I can almost guarantee she’ll be beating herself up about this on her ‘private’ blog later. Private, because it’s just for her and two hundred of her closest internet friends. It took me about five minutes to find it.

‘It was just minging in here, and I thought I might as well tidy while you’re at work.’