‘I suppose you’re right. I just feel kind of, “meh”,’ she sighed.
‘I think,’ Steph said, her voice dropping to a mock whisper, ‘we probably have to accept that our thirties are going to be a bit “meh”. In fact, if “meh” means we’re both in relatively happy relationships, raising healthy kids and have pretty good job prospects, then who needs extra drama?’
‘Good point. God, Steph, you always know how to talk me down from a ledge.’
Steph snorted.
‘What?’
‘Sorry, I was just thinking. Well, I’m good at advising others. But not so hot when it comes to figuring out my own life.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, nothing. You know …’
‘I am here for you, you know,’ Clare said. ‘I’m more than just a solicitor – I’m your sister.’
‘A soli-sister if you will.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Honestly, ignore me. I’m just tired.’
Had she overreacted to everything? Clare thought, as she hung up. Her younger sister’s quiet stoicism made her constant need for reassurance seem ridiculous. Was she just making a fuss about nothing?
But then she thought back to the bus driver, the barista, Nigel, Will; Toby using up all their credit on a car for himself, designer suits, a new briefcase and not considering her feelings at all; Alfie, who had left so many plates on his bedroom floor that she’d trod on at least two mouldy pieces of toast when she’d ventured into his room with a pile of clean pants earlier. Katie, who had actually asked her to drop her off down the road from her dance class last Saturday because – apparently – she was embarrassing.
She shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to have that kind of life. The kind of life where you’re the wind beneath everyone else’s wings and don’t get to spread your own.
Getting out her battered little notebook, she began to write.
Chapter Five
The following Monday, Clare’s wake-up was a little more rom-com and a little less EastEnders. For a start, the sun was shining. She’d slept well. Toby had remembered to put his dirty pants into the laundry basket. This was shaping up to be an unusually Good Start to the week.
She’d decided over the weekend, while running errands and taxiing children to football matches and catching up on Corrie – that perhaps she’d gone about it all the wrong way.
In fact, if anything, she felt a bit annoyed at herself for becoming a cliché – or at least she would be if she didn’t love her new shoes so much. Like a character in a movie, she’d gone down the ‘looks’ route when she’d wanted to shake up her life. But actually she didn’t want lustful looks on the bus as much as respect in the boardroom (and perhaps a bit of help at home).
As it was, her new look had only served to make her realise just how little attention Toby paid her – which had made her feel even worse.
But maybe Steph was right – maybe she ought not to worry too much about Toby’s apparent lack of interest. His personality transplant had happened pretty much as soon as he’d started his new role. It was bound to be stress, rather than any massive problem with their marriage, right? He’d told her Hayley had a boyfriend – she was his PA and that was it. And as he settled down into his new job, perhaps the old Toby would emerge again to replace the frantically busy, distracted new version.
But the moment she walked into the kitchen, her resolve failed her. Not a soul looked up, despite her chirpy ‘Good morning!’ The kids had been out or in their rooms for most of the weekend, Toby had spent half of Saturday morning at the salon, so this was the first time the whole family had been in the same room at the same time for two days. And nothing.
Toby was silent, sitting behind his paper. The kids were poring over cereal and phones simultaneously.
‘Don’t suppose you can flick the kettle on for me?’ said her husband, who had obviously sensed her come in but hadn’t felt the need to glance in her direction.
‘Sure,’ she said. She walked loudly and deliberately over to the counter and pushed the switch.
She wondered, for a second, whether her life was just a stage set, and she was the only actor without a script. Maybe she should take a leaf out of Bill Murray’s book and act outrageously, just because she could? It would certainly sort out the invisibility question once and for all.
‘Mmm, what to have, what to have …’ she said, watching her family carefully. Not one of them looked up. ‘Hmm,’ she said again. ‘Breakfast! The meal of champions! Breaker of the night’s fast. Setting oneself up for the day.’
Nothing.
She began to pour herself a bowl of cereal then stopped. Far too ordinary. Instead, she grabbed an enormous glass bowl and her soup ladle, tipped the majority of Alfie’s Honey Pops into it and flooded the whole dish with milk. Then she plonked it on the table between her children, slopping a little of its contents dangerously close to Katie’s phone and, pulling up a chair, took an enormous ladleful.
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Yummy.’
Katie, not looking up, moved her phone protectively away from the splash of milk.
‘Got to love Honey Pops!’ Clare said, almost desperately, willing someone to look up. Forgoing the spoon, she dipped her face into the bowl and bit into the sticky cereal. ‘So tasty!’
‘Uh huh.’ This was from Toby, still hidden behind his paper.
Clare leaned forward and pushed the page down to reveal her husband with his carefully coiffed mop, new silk tie and lilac shirt. ‘Anything interesting?’ she said, a honey pop falling from her chin and landing wetly on the market reports.
Toby glanced up at her, then looked again, more intently. Here it was. Here was the moment.
‘Clare?’ he said.
‘Yes, darling one? Light of my life? ITV’s answer to Jeremy Vine?’
‘Do you think you could pick me up a packet of Y-fronts today if you go to the shops?’
‘Sure,’ she said, feeling a dribble of milk roll slowly down her chin.
‘OK, thanks,’ Toby said, flicking the paper back up in front of his face.
What would it take? she wondered. Perhaps she should stage a naked protest outside the studio, glue herself to his laptop, or dress up as Piers Morgan in the bedroom to get his attention. You seem surprised to see me, she imagined herself saying. Come here and let me patronise you.
At the bus stop, she even wondered for a moment whether she ought to take a leaf out of Mr Flasher’s book. Today he was wearing his traditional raincoat, this time with apparently bare legs (despite the fact it was four degrees and windy), white sports socks and a pair of crocs.
While his attire wasn’t on trend, it was certainly memorable – and of course left anyone who saw you pondering the slightly fascinating, slightly repulsive possibility that you might be a pervert.
She nodded and smiled as he glanced up. Perhaps nobody noticed him either.
Sitting on the bus, she felt a little teary again. All her life, she’d played by the rules – worried that if she slipped up, if she did something forbidden or wrong, the world would come crashing down around her. Had she got it all wrong? Had blending into the background just made her disappear?
Arriving at the office, she strode in and went immediately to Nigel’s room. Foregoing her usual knock (the height of daring), she opened the door to see him sitting at his desk, glasses on the end of his nose, working from the light of a tiny desk lamp, like a character from a Dickens novel.
‘If the law supposes that,’ she imagined him saying, ‘then the law is an ass.’
‘Good morning, Nigel!’ she gushed, feeling almost high on a surge of adrenaline, anxiety and a weird sense of surrealism. ‘Did you get my memo about the retainer?’
He looked up from his computer screen. ‘Oh, yes. Yes. Well done, well done,’ he said, nodding his head but not
entirely convincing her that he knew what she was talking about. ‘So …’ he gestured at the pile of papers as if to suggest she buggered off now and let him get on with it.
Sod this, she was getting his attention no matter what. Ignoring this social cue, she stepped fully in, strode over to his desk and picked up his cup of coffee in his precious ‘The Boss’ mug. ‘Don’t mind if I have a quick slug?’ she said, ‘I’m gasping.’ She lifted the cup to her lips and drank deeply. It was cold, and there was a skin of milk on the top which stuck to the roof of her mouth. Yesterday’s coffee. She coughed, spraying a cappuccino-like foam onto his paperwork. A small bubble landed on the back of his hand and they both stared at it for a moment.
‘Actually,’ he said, wiping his hand on his sleeve and looking at her as if nothing unusual had happened, ‘I wanted to talk to you.’
‘Oh yes?’ she said, trying to fight the feeling of post-stale-coffee nausea that was spreading through her body. She sat down on the edge of Nigel’s desk, still clutching the mug and feeling a file crumple satisfyingly beneath her bottom. Perhaps this was it, perhaps he was finally going to throw her a crumb of praise for her recent phenomenal turnover.
‘We’re moving things around a bit in the office,’ he said. ‘With Will and I spending so much time strategising, it makes sense that he takes the office closest to mine.’
‘Right?’
‘In fact,’ Nigel continued, clearly not finished, ‘I think he’s rather a rising star – someone to nurture. Full of ideas. And so much energy.’
‘Yes, well,’ she said, almost drinking another slug from his cup but then thinking better of it.
‘Well, anyway. We thought we’d move you to the corner office – you know?’ he looked at her, his eyes searching her face for a reaction.
The corner office? she thought. What corner office?
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Which corner office?’
‘Er, the one … well, it needs a lick of paint of course. But next to the … um, the loos?’
‘There isn’t a …’
‘Well, we’d be repurposing it of course. New chair, et cetera.’
‘The … the coat cupboard?’
Nigel’s cheeks flushed. ‘Well, I suppose. Well, it is where we hang our coats at present of course. But originally … I mean, it’s actually quite …’
They were moving her office to the coat cupboard.
‘There’s no window …’
‘No? Erm. Oh dear. Well, perhaps it won’t be a long term … er … thing?’ he trailed off.
‘Right.’ Trying to retain some sense of dignity, Clare got up, smoothed down her skirt and left.
Later, she wondered why she hadn’t taken him to task on his proposition. Refused to budge. Challenged him about the fact that Will was newly qualified and quite capable of walking down the corridor to Nigel’s office without the need to boot her out of hers.
It was, she realised, just because it was so awful. So irredeemably surprising and awful. She’d been stunned into silence; acquiescence.
She understood suddenly what made people shoplift, or run naked across football pitches, or send pictures of their private parts to potential partners over the internet. She knew that people loved her, in their way. She knew that she was important, that the balls she kept juggling could not be dropped without seriously impacting her work or family life. But despite the fact she was integral to at least three people’s home lives and several people’s working lives, she was actually just a cog in the works; an essential part of the engine but not something anyone gave any thought to unless it suddenly stopped whirring.
She didn’t want to stop whirring. She liked being a mum, most of the time. It had been more fun when her children actually acknowledged her existence, and needed her, and wanted her to kiss them goodnight once in a while; but she knew deep down that they were evolving, that it was natural for them to grow away from her; that the relationship she had with her children would alter as they grew.
She didn’t want to quit her job and do something else – her role was a bit monotonous at times, but she was bloody good at it. And there was satisfaction in seeing how well her department was performing – even if no one else noticed.
She didn’t want a red carpet, bunches of flowers or a fanfare each time she went into a room. She didn’t expect everyone to bow at her feet or offer to carry her to work in a golden litter.
But it would be nice if, say, once every couple of months, someone acknowledged that she was there; that she was not just a backstage worker in their life, but had an existence of her own.
That she wasn’t entirely invisible.
She stopped.
Because in all her failed attempts at self-promotion, all of her nudging of boundaries; in all her self-pitying contemplation she’d overlooked the most important thing of all.
Invisibility wasn’t great if you hated not being seen.
But if you embraced it, invisibility could be a superpower.
‘I can do,’ she whispered to herself, ‘whatever the hell I want!’
Chapter Six
‘Mum?’
Clare lifted her head wearily from the pillow. ‘Yes?’
Outside, it was still dark, but the purr of traffic on the road told her that it must be at least eight o’clock. She sat up, suddenly alert.
‘We’re off!’ Katie’s voice.
‘OK, have a good day!’ she said, trying to sound upbeat and as if she hadn’t just been woken from a deathly slumber. The pillow next to her had a dent in it, and the duvet on Toby’s side had been flung across; other than that, there was no sign of ITV’s rising star.
Was TV work really so interesting that he’d get up and leave her without a word? There had been a time when she’d rarely started her day without the feeling of a semi-erect penis pressing into her back. At the time, she’d found it annoying – she wasn’t a morning person when it came to doing the dirty. Now, she looked back on those halcyon days of vertebrae-nudging semis with a fondness usually reserved for precious childhood memories or gifs of cute puppies.
Across the room, her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe caught her eye. Tousled hair, black under-eyes, an empty glass of wine on the bedside table like an accusation.
It wasn’t a good look. No wonder Toby had opted to take himself and his unsullied penis to work early.
She thought back to yesterday, when she’d thought being invisible could actually work in her favour. It seemed ridiculous in the cold light of day.
And now she was late for the only thing in her life that was going well.
She quickly worked on smoothing her hair down, clipped it back and pulled on an old faithful outfit of grey trousers and a blue blouse. Then, grabbing her tote and coat, she rushed out of the door without so much as a sniff of a coffee bean.
It was cold, and she’d forgotten to pull on a jumper in her haste. She walked fast to try to work up some heat, feeling her lips practically crack in the icy air.
At the stop, even Mr Flasher seemed to have upgraded for the cold weather. He was wearing a scarf, although he was still naked from the calf down.
She was getting quite fond of Mr Flasher now. He was reliable; always there. Always nodded a good morning at her these days.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I thought I was late!’
He looked at her. ‘You probably are,’ he replied. ‘I’m waiting for a different bus today.’
Shit. She’d have to get the next one.
Ten minutes later, there was still no sign of a bus. But the stop was remarkably busy – a group of girls dressed in strange red outfits huddled together, whispering. A man with an enormous bag on his back looked anxiously at his watch. And a girl with long black hair and a guitar case was leaning against the vodka advert on the bus shelter.
‘So, how come you’re going somewh
ere different today?’ Clare said at last to Mr Flasher.
‘Eh?’ he looked at her briefly, his jowly cheeks reddening slightly. ‘Well, it’s the thing today, isn’t it?’
‘The?’
‘You know,’ he said. ‘The thing … the,’ he lowered his voice, ‘thing, thing.’ He nodded his head for emphasis and tapped his nose conspiratorially.
‘Right.’
Before she could ask anything further, a bus – with ‘Auditions’ emblazoned across the front – pulled up at the stop.
Of course! She’d read about this in the paper. There was a local ‘open call’ for a TV talent show. A chance to perform in front of a couple of producers who might put you forward for the Real Thing. The kind of thing she’d have taken part in at university just for the fun of it. She wondered what Mr Flasher’s act was. What the others at the stop might be doing. She imagined herself, too, watching. Even walking onto the stage. Would she ever have the guts to do something like that?
She thought about another day at the office. Another day of writing unread memos to Nigel. Another day of Will grandstanding about his latest court date (this time, for a client with – gasp! – unpaid parking tickets). Maybe it was time she did something exciting for once. After all, it wasn’t like anyone would notice. She opened her bag to check that her notebook was there. Then followed Mr Flasher onto the bus.
Mr F. sat at the front, briefcase on lap, legs so far akimbo that she hoped for everyone’s sake he was wearing something under his coat. She chose a seat at the back and sat down, feeling slightly ridiculous. But it wasn’t as if she had to do anything, she thought to herself. She was just going to see what it was all about. It wasn’t as if her own bus had turned up anyway, so she’d definitely have been late in any case. It could be an adventure – something to get her mind off things if nothing else.
Sliding down in her seat as the bus filled up, she felt a shiver of excitement at doing something different for once. And without having had a caffeine hit that morning!
Perfect on Paper Page 4
