The night club was loud and boisterous. These situations weren't ones in which Annie
thrived, and she could feel it. There were too many people, too many balding
thirty-something's dancing desperately in an attempt to attract girls half their age, and
definitely too many flashing lights. Annie's head hurt.

She spotted Mandy, her friend, over at the bar. It took Annie much longer than
anticipated to get over there, but it didn't matter because it also took Mandy a lot
longer than she had thought, also, to be served a drink. The pair of girls met
somewhere in the middle of everybody.

'I saw you at the bar when I came in, that was about three hours ago.' Annie joked.

Mandy leaned in towards Annie to shout out her reply. 'Ha, yeah. Quite a wait; might
as well start queuing again now. I'll have finished my drink by the time I reach the
front again.

In the midst of everything there was a silence. Mandy and Annie blinked in the
opposites, waiting for the other to speak.

'How's your Granddad, Ann? I know he hasn't been well.' asked Mandy, eyes wide and
hair alive with frizz.

Annie paused, tears began to form in the corner of the eyes of her small, rounded face
as she gestured to Mandy to lean forward towards her. 'He died two nights ago!' She
screamed so that Mandy could hear.

Mandy tried to listen even more carefully in an attempt to appear comforting in spite of
the surroundings. 'I'm sorry!' she yelled. She put her arm around Annie and lead her
to a seated area at the side of the club. Annie sobbed salty tears into Mandy's new £40
top while Mandy tried not to notice.

There was simply no escape from the relentless noise, strobe lighting and hopeless
middle-aged men; in despite of this, Mandy was adamant to comfort her friend, to
make something of the night.

The two friends continued to bellow at each other until after the main lights had come
on, the music had stopped and they had fled successfully from Roger, 38 from
Crawford who promised 'the time of their lives' if they 'shared a cab back to his pad.'

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Copyright Andrew Macarthy 2005