Page 1 of Spiralling Skywards
I’d forgotten howlate people go out in the city, or in England generaly. Where I grew up, you couldn’t even get a takeaway after eight, even earlier in the winter. But here, people didn’t even start their night till around ten, and as I walked into the VIP area of the night club where Luke’s surprise party was being held, I realised my country-boy mistake. It was nine thirty on a Saturday night, and aside from Will, the place was empty.
“You’re keen, mate.” He smiled at me from where he stood behind the bar, chatting to a couple of his staff.
“Jet lag, my body clock’s shot to shit right now.” I smiled through my lie.
“What can I get ya?” Will asked.
“Beer please, and none of that warm shit you serve over here either.” I winked at the barmaid as I spoke.
“Oh, fuck me, never heard that one before. You wanna come around here and serve yourself? Thatisall you Aussie’s do when you come to this country, right? Work behind the bar?”
He had me there, when I’d back packed my way around Europe and the UK after finishing uni, I’d worked in three different pubs in London alone.
“Not this time, too old for all that shit. What time’s the birthday boy s’posed to rock up anyway?” I asked.
“Sometime before midnight, but don’t stress, the free bar starts at nine thirty, so people will start arriving soon. They’re not gonna wanna miss out on free drinks.” He nodded in my direction as he spoke.
“Get fucked, I’ll pay for my beer as long as it’s below room temperature.”
I watched as he took the pint the barmaid had just poured and passed it to me. I took a sip and pulled a face in disgust at the taste.
“What the fuck is that?”
Will frowned and turned towards the now terrified-looking girl standing next to him.
“Fosters,” she said quietly, her eyes widened as they darted between me and Will. We both started laughing.
“Darl, we don’t drink that shit where I come from. We ship it over here to you lot.”
Again, her eyes darted between us. I’m sure the poor girl was terrified she was about to lose her job.
“He’s not kidding, Court. Fosters is not the beer of choice in Australia,” Will told her.
“Get me a vodka tonic, plenty of ice. I should be safe with that.” After a second, I added, “Please, Courtney,” with a wink and my best smile so she wouldn’t think that I was some kind of pretentious arsehole and spit in my drinks for the rest of the night.
“So he’s no clue that you’re here?” Will had walked around the bar and was now leaning against the same side as me.
“Nah, I spoke to him this arvo, and he still thinks I’ll be here next week.”
“How long you staying for?” Will asked while passing me my vodka.
“I’m not sure really. However long it takes to get things up and running. I’m liking Luke’s idea of renting office space out this way rather than in central London. As long as we can find somewhere suitable and attract the right kind of staff, I’m more than happy to go along with that.”
Will nodded his head and took a sip of his own drink.
“He’s good at what he does, I’m sure he’ll have no trouble getting you the right calibre of staff.”
“He’s not let me down yet, and I have every faith that this new venture will be equally as successful as what we’ve achieved together in Australia.”
Will tilted his glass towards me. “To new beginnings.”
“To mates worth crossing time zones and drinking warm beer for,” I said with a smile and a nod of my head.
I had met Will Bennett in Australia through Luke Carter. Luke was the reason that I was in England. We had met at a hotel in Sydney. We sat side by side at the bar, watching a rugby match between England and Australia on the television. He’d commented, loudly, about how shit the Aussie team were, I replied with a louder comment about how crappy England were at sport in general. We’d both been drinking, and things could’ve gone either way. Luke shrugged at my comment, raised his glass in my direction, and agreed. We got to chatting, and I discovered that he had a degree in business management and international relations. I had taken over the running of my family’s international recruitment and relocations company. Luke was looking for work and had a skill set we could use I knew in an instant, he was someone that I would like to have as part of my team. We put our sporting differences aside and enjoyed a drink together. The next night, we went out to celebrate, and he introduced me to Will, who was working as a trainee manager at K.L.U.B, quite possiblythemost exclusive club in the whole of Australia.
Luke took up a position in our Sydney offices and ended up spending the next two years in Australia working with me on the recruitment side of things. Because so many of our employees were coming from Europe and Great Britain, Luke suggested that maybe we should set up a branch in England, which of course was brilliant. So he’d flown home a few weeks previous to set things in motion, and I’d arrived a few days later to surprise him at his thirtieth birthday party, which had been organised by Will at the newly opened club he was now managing.
“You divorced yet?” he asked me casually over the bourbon I knew sat in his glass.
