Page 50 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘She often forgets to put in a crucial ingredient,’ Nina agreed pantingly as they trooped past the tattoo parlour and carried on up the stairs. ‘One time she made these Nigella Lawson Snickers muffins and forgot to add sugar.’
‘You still managed to eat three of them!’ Marianne reminded her from the top of the stairs where she was waiting for them.
‘Well, a lot of Snickers bars had to die to make those muffins,’ Nina said as she finally made it to the top and Christ, she was unfit. Noah wasn’t even breathing hard as she pulled him forward. ‘This is Noah. He gave me a lift from Surrey.’
Marianne gave Noah a quick once over. He was wearing non-ripped, non-skinny jeans, a sensible navy-blue jumper, though this one had a little hint of purple in the ribbing, and a friendly smile. He couldn’t look more basic but Marianne’s smile was equally friendly. ‘Lovely to meet you, Noah. Bet you’re gasping for a cuppa?’
‘I’d love one,’ Noah agreed as Marianne ushered him into the flat. There was a lot to take in, from the tiny hall made tinier by the flamingo-print wallpaper and fairy lights to the living room which was crammed with a mid-century three-piece suite reupholstered in leopard print, a tiki-inspired bamboo mini-bar, and floor-to-ceiling shelves which housed Claude’s collection of vinyl records. On every surface there was something to look at, whether it was a lamp in the shape of a pineapple, Marianne’s prized collection of Elvis Presley figurines or a plastic hula girl who did a dance when you pressed her belly button.
Noah stood in the centre of the room, even though Marianne had told him to take a seat, and did a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn so he could take in everything. ‘I love the maximalist approach,’ he said at last. ‘Reminds me of this vintage shop I went to once in Palm Springs.’
‘I love Palm Springs!’ Marianne called out from the little kitchen just off the lounge. ‘Last year Claude and I went to the Viva Las Vegas convention then did a week in Palm Springs. Great vintage shops. Nearly bankrupted myself.’
‘Nearly bankrupted me too,’ Nina remembered, plonking her overnight bag down. ‘She came back with all these dresses she’d handpicked for me.’
‘Yeah, but you get mates’ rates. Noah, how do you take your tea? And I made peanut-butter cookies and yes, I did put sugar in them.’ Marianne made a shooing motion with her hands. ‘Go on, sit down! Not you, Nina, take your coffee and go down to the torture chamber. Claude wants to get started straight away.’
‘Sorry,’ Nina said to Noah, who was seated in one of the bucket armchairs and didn’t look too perturbed about Nina abandoning him. Marianne was six foot in heels, with blue-black hair styled in waves and a short fringe under which her impeccably arched brows gave her an imperious look. She was wearing Sunday casual, which consisted of a pair of black cigarette pants and a tight black sweater and the whole effect was quite intimidating. ‘She’s not as scary as she looks,’ Nina added, because Marianne’s heart was solid gold. She was a nurturer, a mother hen, and had got Nina through break-ups, evictions, firings: so many crises.
Still, she couldn’t help but worry about leaving Noah up there as she arranged herself face-down on Claude’s padded black table. But then Claude popped out from behind a screen wielding his tattoo gun and said, ‘Let’s make sure we’re both happy with the design and then I’ll get you sterilised,’ and Nina remembered why she was there and how much it was going to hurt.
Noah would just have to fend for himself; Nina could only worry about herself.
The first ten minutes were always the worst. The first shock of the first punch of the first needle into her flesh. Then another one. And another one. Like some sharp-toothed bloodsucking insect chowing down. Nina hung her head and tried to breathe around the pain because she knew that she just had to get through the initial agony and acclimatise, while her inner voice declared quite loudly that there was no way she could endure another ten seconds of this, let alone ten minutes, never mindhours.
‘You all right, Nina?’ Claude asked.
‘Don’t talk to me!’ she snapped back. ‘Oh God, why do I let you do this to me?’
Claude, wisely, refrained from reminding Nina that she’d asked him to inflict this torture on her, was even paying him for the privilege.
The pain, the stabby stab stab, made her want to scream. How could she have forgotten how much this bloody hurt? Chloe had said that she’d repressed the memory of how pushing out a tiny human being from her vagina had caused her unimaginable agony. If she hadn’t repressed it, then no way would she ever have had a second child. Chloe had also said that getting Ellie and Rosie’s names tattooed in two hearts on her ankle had hurt much worse than giving birth to them.
‘If you ever have kids, Nina, after having all those tattoos, you’ll pop them out like you’re shelling peas,’ Chloe had once said to her in all seriousness and the thought of Chloe’s earnest face as she’d said it made Nina smile and if she could smile, then she’d broken through the pain barrier.
It still hurt like a hundred fire ants were eating into her skin but it was a bearable hurt. ‘Sorry for being mean,’ she said to Claude, untucking her head from where it had been buried in the crook of her shoulder.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Claude said easily as he adjusted the angle of Nina’s other arm, the one he was working on, which was resting on the pull-out padded flap of his tattoo chair. ‘So, how’s life been treating you?’
As Nina told Claude about her Ye Olde Laser Tag adventures, she could just make out the low-level hum of conversation from the flat upstairs and wondered how Noah and Marianne were getting on. Though both of them were the type to get on with anyone – Marianne was particularly beloved of elderly gentlemen in supermarket queues – Nina hoped that Noah wasn’t digging for information on her and that Marianne wasn’t spilling any of her secrets. More than anyone, Marianne knew where all Nina’s bodies were buried and just how many corpses were piled up in her dating graveyard.
There was the sound of footsteps and Nina tensed up in expectation of Noah popping his head round the door to say goodbye, so that Claude’s tattoo gun almost bounced off her arm.
‘Easy, tiger,’ he murmured as the footsteps carried on past the open door of the studio and they could hear Marianne’s voice. ‘It would be amazing if you could give me some advice as an impartial observer. ’Cause some of my customers want the stock displayed in decades, others in sizes, but I think it looks better to divide it by colour and …’
Her voice drifted off and Nina couldn’t believe that she’d asked Noah to give her free business advice but then, knowing Marianne, she could believe it only too easily.
It was another hour before they trooped back upstairs, this time stopping at the tattoo parlour and coming inside. ‘How you doing, Nina?’ Marianne asked in a concerned voice. ‘Ready for some sugar?’
‘Yes, please,’ Nina said because once her energy levels began to dip, the pain started edging towards unbearable again. ‘Did you get me some full-fat Lucozade?’
‘’Course we did,’ Marianne said. ‘And Noah, another cup of tea or do you fancy something stronger?’
‘Tea would be great,’ Noah said and Nina raised her head, which had again been buried in the crook of her non-butchered arm to see him standing in the doorway. ‘I could go back upstairs if you’d prefer,’ he added to Nina.
‘No, you’re all right,’ she muttered, though she wasn’t exactly sure that it was all right. She’d wanted to be as comfortable as possible, so she now had bare feet, and had undone the top of her dungarees and taken off her blouse so she was lying on her front in a black vest with the red straps of her bra visible. Nina had been in far more compromising and naked positions with other men, but she was in pain so she felt especially vulnerable. More to the point, it was Noah and she was starting to realise that everything with Noah felt different. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because of their past, or their work connection, or that Noah was so not her type that he’d become her type. He was unsuitable for all the right reasons, instead of the wrong reasons. ‘Ow! Jesus! Warn me if you’re going to hit a muscle,’ she added in a snarl to Claude.
‘Stop tensing up then,’ he told her calmly.
