The bar had been quiet
and the drinks had been cheap. At first
it had been exactly what we wanted. We
had taken a corner table and ordered the second cheapest bottle of white wine
on the menu. But as the night wore on the
music seemed to be getting incrementally louder to the point where conversation
became practically impossible. The cheap
drinks attracted a progressively cheapening crowd, from barely-legal girls in
too-tight dresses to a gaggle of women in their mid-forties wearing black
T-shirts emblazoned with ‘Shazza’s Hen Do’ in neon pink. Each had their own inappropriate nickname
printed on the back. They’d scarcely
arrived, and already we’d witnessed Spunky Sandra consoling a tearful Anal Amy
over her no-good boyfriend. On seeing the
queue for the ladies’ snake out into the main bar, we decided that was our cue
to leave. Stumbling, giggling, past the
bouncers and out onto the chilly city streets, I stopped to take stock.
