Blue Collar by Danny King Read Free Book Online Page B

that were specifically designed for women. No grungy little fleapits with frosted windows, tattered carpets
     and blokes swapping guns under the table, these were big, airy places with a fine selection of wines and more handbag handles
     than you could catch your coat pockets on.
    It sounded like just the ticket.
    I phoned up Charley all excitedly and gave her the itinerary.
    She paused for a moment, then chuckled and asked me if I was serious.
    I had been up until she’d chuckled and asked me if I was serious, but now I was just plain confused. What was wrong with that?
     It had all the basic components that any date should have: booze, food, bright lights and handbag handles.
    Charley stopped chuckling when I didn’t start and told me she didn’t mean to mock.
    ‘Oh, well, no, it sounds lovely, and Leicester Square’s great and all, but I was thinking of somewhere a little less touristy,’
     she said, making me wish I’d suggested the Lamb and the fucking bookie’s after all. ‘I’ll tell you what, do you know the Workers’
     Social?’ she asked.
    ‘Which one?’ I asked.
    ‘No, silly, it’s a bar. In Noho.’
    Noho? Where the hell was Noho? And what did she want to go to a Workers’ Social for? I figured Charley was probably still
     on her ironic kick but I suddenly didn’t mind. I’d take a date of darts and dominoes and having a sing-song round the piano
     in the corner over a night of spilling egg fried rice all down my front any day of the week given the choice. With this in
     mind, I told her I knew it well and that I’d see her there at eight sharp and hung up the phone sporting the first smile my
     face had seen since I’d left her place two days earlier.

5 The workers ain’t that social
    I t took me ages to find out where Noho was in the A–Z , my search being slightly hampered by the fact that there isn’t actually anywhere called Noho. It’s just what trendy people
     call the streets north of Soho. Robbie put us straight the next day and said he even knew the Workers’ Social because a mate
     of his brother’s worked there in the evenings, and he scribbled down the name of the street for me.
    ‘Shit place it is. What you want to go there for?’ he asked.
    ‘Yeah, what’s wrong with the British Legion in Wowo?’ Jason smiled, all pleased with himself for about five minutes until
     it started pissing down again. ‘Oh, what is this?’
    Wednesday proved a bit more productive and we actually got eight hours under our belts, much to everyone’s relief. I beamed
     with excitement and whistled ‘Zip-a-dee-doo-dah’ all day long until a vote was taken and the lads packed me off to the other
     end of the site to fill in joists. I couldn’t wait to see Charley again and as much as the clock tried to drag its heels,
     it couldn’t hold our date off for ever and the wait was finally over.
    Well, almost. I arrived in Noho half an hour early and found the Worker’s Social right where Robbie’s brother had left it.
    It wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting. From the outside it was all neon signs, blacked-out windows and miked-up bouncers,
     a light year away from the working men’s clubs I remembered going to with my old man when I first left school. But that was
     like nothing compared to what I saw when I actually walked through the door. The place wasn’t even half finished. It was all
     breeze-block walls, exposed lintels and concrete floors. Cables and pipes ran between exposed wooden joists in the ceiling
     and even the bar was just a slapdash, badly pointed bare brick wall topped off with an old scuffed-oak surface. Most astonishing
     of all, though, were the seats in this place. They’d all been cast out of concrete. Even the tables. I could see the impressions
     where the wooden frames had been dismantled after they’d set.
    Forget about a piano in the corner, this place needed a muck mixer.
    Still, I’m not such a big lug that I can’t appreciate a bit of variety and I