After Hours

I've posted about the Club before but to save you the trouble of having to go digging through my archives for details, I work behind the bar at a West End nightclub in London. It's kind of shit but it has some advantages for a work-shy office-phobe like me. But the worst thing about working in the Club is the manager, aka The Fat Bastard (the description says it all).

Suze, Danny and I are the regular barstaff and ancient in terms of the usual job longevity - I've worked here for almost two years, Suze for coming up to three years, and Danny for ten months. The rest of the bar staff come and go so quickly it's barely worth the effort of remembering their names. Suze, Danny and I get on pretty well. I wouldn’t say that we’re best mates or anything but we’re united by our wish to witness the total humiliation and downfall of The Fat Bastard. So far, it's proven to be a superglue bond.

Suze is a wannabe actress who'd shag her granny on live telly if she thought it would get her name up in lights. So far, fame has proven elusive; Suze spends her daylight hours at castings, lining up with everyone else like a herd of cattle on their way to the branding shed. She’s resigned to having world-weary eyes flicking over her for a split-second followed by a clipboard-brandishing casting agent telling her that she’s too old, too young, too short, too tall, too ugly, too attractive, too big-titted, too small-titted, or just plain not right for the part. It’s not quite the stuff dreams are made of but she’s working hard at it.

Danny is, well, he's just Danny. He's just another no-hoper without a dream to call his own, waiting, hoping, for the call to something, anything, better than this.

We're usually out of the club by 3.30am, unless Don, the owner of the joint, is having a lock-in. On the lock-in nights one of us stays behind to tend bar and keep the Don posse happy - it's not too bad, there's usually a couple of notes in it for us and a taxi home. But on the nights when Don is nowhere to be seen, and when we feel up to it, or need to chill in likeminded company, we head for a private member's club hidden in the back streets of Soho. Don't get me wrong, it's not along the lines of the Groucho. Our after hours drinking club is the kind that you don’t need an exclusive membership for; you just need to look like you’re not a copper. We don't go there that often, or at least, I don't anymore - my energy levels are running on empty more often than not these days. But Suze and Danny did manage to drag me there last week. I'll post about it later.