‘Well, I have some non-man-themed news,’ Vanya says, pausing until she has our full attention, ‘I got my mortgage approved.’ She bites her lip and then squeals with excitement.
‘That’s wonderful,’ says Dee.
‘Wow,’ I say, clapping my hands, but feeling my stomach churn. That means she’s really moving out. ‘I’m so happy for you.’
‘Thank you, and don’t worry, Laura, I won’t be going anywhere until at least December, you’ll have loads of time to find the new me.’
Four months. Dee will be married and living in Surrey, and Vanya will own a flat in Hackney. Everyone is moving on, without me.
‘Oh, and I have a present for your trip,’ Vanya says, handing me a paperback with an orange and black striped cover. ‘Tiger Woman by Bee Bee Graceful’ is written in bold gold lettering across the front. ‘We’re reading it for my book club. It’s going to change your life.’
She is always recommending me books that are going to ‘change my life’.
‘What kind of a name is Bee Bee Graceful?’ I ask.
‘It must be a pseudonym. I don’t think anyone knows who Tiger Woman really is, it’s the biggest literary mystery since Elena Ferrante. Honestly, you need to read it; it will help you re-harness your inner tigress, take control of your destiny.’
Dee shakes her head but doesn’t comment.
When we finally pull into Departures at Gatwick, I feel a bit sick after Dee’s swervy driving and all the Haribos I’ve eaten. Vanya and Dee both get out of the car to hug me goodbye.
‘Don’t forget to feed the fish,’ I tell Vanya, as I pull my black carry-on from the boot. We don’t have fish, it’s just something we say to each other. ‘And thank you for driving me, Dee, I really appreciate it.’
Dee takes hold of my hand and looks me straight in the eye before saying, ‘I love you. Call me whenever you need to. I know this trip might be emotional for you.’
I feel my throat tighten, but give her a grateful smile, then turn to walk towards the airport doors.
‘And Laura! Laura!’ Vanya calls my name until I turn around. Then she presses a hand across her heart and yells, ‘Keep the faith. He’s out there – you just haven’t met him yet.’
Chapter 4
Looking up at the departures board, I scan the place names and find my flight to Jersey. The word alone has so many connotations for me. I can’t hear it without thinking of my parents’ story, the prologue to my existence. Is it strange to feel nostalgic for a place I’ve never been to? Mum used to say we’d go together one day, but she was always juggling so much and there was never a good time.
Now that I’m undistracted by my friends, I begin to worry how unprepared I am for this weekend. Suki insisted I go straight away, so we could get the staycation article up on the site next week. The sponsor liked the idea of promoting a ‘September sun getaway’ while it’s still September. I don’t have a firm angle yet, though, and I haven’t managed to map out what I need to make the coin story work, to make it ‘feel contemporary’.
With everything being so rushed, I also haven’t had time to dwell on how I feel about going on this trip. Will stepping into the footprint of my parents’ story bring me closer to them, or am I just going to find it upsetting?
My mother is still so tangible to me. We shared a lifetime of memories and my grief for her is still so ragged it gives her solid edges – I can conjure her voice in a quiet room. I can picture the way she would open her arms to hug me when I walked through the front door. When I pass the Rooibos tea at the supermarket, I see her slim frame standing by the kettle, jiggling a teabag up and down by the string.
With Dad it’s different. He died when I was three, so I don’t remember him. I only have a few things left that link him to me; the coin, of course, then there are several photos, his old watch that I never take off, a library of his favourite books, and his treasured LP collection. When I was sixteen, I spent all my pocket money on a record player so I could listen to his music just as he had. I’m probably the only twenty-nine-year-old in the world today whose favourite bands are Genesis and Dire Straits.
There is too much of Mum to ever be condensed into a box full of things, but all I have of Dad are second-hand memories and these objects he left me. If I let go of what he treasured, I worry his blurred edges will fade until there is nothing left of him at all.
A woman bumps into me, her apology breaks my reverie, and I realise I’ve been standing, staring at the departures board for a good ten minutes. Now I must run so as not to be late.
It is less than an hour-long flight to the small island off the north coast of France. I’m travelling with hand luggage, but at the gate a man tells me, ‘Madam, we’re going to have to ask that you put your bag in the hold.’ I feel myself bristle. When did I become ‘Madam’ rather than ‘Miss’?
‘It’s definitely regulation size,’ I protest. ‘I actually bought this case specifically because it adheres to the dimensions on your website …’
‘I know, ma’am, but we have a very full flight today, so we’re asking people to check wheeled cases into the hold. There’s no charge; you’ll get it back as soon as you land.’
The man gives me an insincere grin that puckers his smooth, perma-tanned skin. Obediently, I shuffle out of the queue to open my case and extract what I need for the flight. I take out my mother’s Jersey photo album – too precious to stow in the hold – and Tiger Woman so I have something to read on the plane. Just as I’m trying to close my case, someone bumps me from behind, and my open washbag flies into the air. A value pack of fifty non-applicator tampons hits the floor and explodes across the lounge in a spray of white bullets. My cheeks burn as I fall to my hands and knees to retrieve them. The man who bumped me bends down to help. Why did I bring so many tampons with me for one weekend away? I’m on my fourth day; I should have just decanted the amount I was going to need – always decant, woman!
‘I’m sorry, that was my fault,’ says the man.
I turn to look at him, glance away, and then look back, as I realise I’m looking at the most handsome man I think I’ve ever seen in real life. He has soft brown hair, green eyes, a tall, broad-shouldered physique, and the kind of well-sculpted face that commands attention. He is wearing blue suit trousers and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Our eyes meet, and he holds my gaze. His easy smile suggests someone who thinks the world a wonderful place, which no doubt it is when you look like him.
‘I was in the way,’ I say, shaking my head and wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Am I drooling? I think I genuinely just drooled. Well done, Laura, Beethoven the slobbering Saint Bernard is a really sexy look.
I try to retrieve the stray tampons as quickly as I can. Of all the things that had to fly out of my bag, it had to be the tampons, didn’t it? The lounge must be on a slight slope, because the seemingly never-ending supply are now rolling down the aisle between the seats. I scurry around on my hands and knees, doing my best to fish the strays from beneath people’s feet as they carry on reading their newspapers, too British to acknowledge that sanitary products are being flagrantly bandied about in public.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I mutter.
When I stand up again, I see the beautiful man standing with a fistful of tampons he has helped to retrieve.
‘I think we got them all,’ he says with a dimpled grin.
Hardly daring to look at him, I take them and stuff them straight into my handbag. My forehead feels damp with sweat, my cheeks burn. Clocking my embarrassment, he says quietly, ‘Don’t worry, I have sisters.’
I give him a pained thumbs-up, too mortified to form words as I hurry back to the desk with my bag, hiding my face behind my passport. All the cool, flirty body language I could have gone for, and I went for the thumbs-up.
On the plane, I’m next to an empty aisle seat. If life worked like it did in films, this would be the perfect opportunity for a meet-cute. I wonder if people ever really meet that way. Mayb
e I should do a special edition of ‘How Did You Meet?’ and interview couples who all met on planes. As I’m thinking this, a burly man with a sweaty face and bum bag stops at the end of the row, indicating he is the person I have won in the seat-buddy lottery.
‘Cheer up, love, might never happen,’ he says, my face clearly betraying my profound disappointment with the seating plan, ‘and it never hurts to smile.’
I clench my teeth. He has uttered an expression that I loathe with a vengeance, and over the last two years I have heard it more times than I can count. It is an intrinsically sexist comment – if a man were looking contemplative or perplexed, would another man say to him ‘cheer up, mate, might never happen’? Would he be instructed to smile? No, he bloody well would not.
Bum Bag Man attempts to talk to me throughout the flight. He asks me where I’m staying in Jersey and keeps ‘accidentally’ brushing my leg with his hand. I curl into the corner of my seat, plug in my earphones to listen to No Jacket Required, my favourite Phil Collins album, and bury my face in my book.
Tiger Woman is full of exactly the kind of meaningless empowerment metaphors I imagined it would be. The first chapter is all about ‘reclaiming your roar’. I quote, ‘Do tigers worry about the volume of their roar? Do they play the pussy cat so as not to offend? They do not. The patriarchy forces us to turn down the volume, but we must roar and roar loudly, if we want to be heard.’ It’s the kind of language that makes me roll my eyes, but then I imagine turning to Bum Bag Man and roaring at him to stop touching my leg, rather than cowering politely behind my headphones and a book, and the thought brings a smile to my face.
All the optimism and excitement I felt as I packed my bag this morning has vanished, like air wheezing from a punctured tyre. The news that Vanya will really be moving out has thrown me; I thought it might take her months, even years to get organised with a mortgage. Everyone is moving on, growing up. Vee makes our flat a home; if a stranger moves in, it will just be a flat again. When I was twenty-five, I thought I would have achieved so much by the time I was almost thirty. But what have I got to show for the last four years? All that has changed is that the men who chat me up are now in their fifties and wear bum bags.
When we land, I dart off the plane as fast as I can, grab my black bag from the conveyor belt, jump into a taxi at the rank, and ask the driver to take me into town. All I want now is to be alone in my hotel, unpack, wash off the plane, and then order alcohol-based room service.
‘Your first time in Jersey?’ asks the cab driver. He’s wearing a plaid flat cap and has a wild brown beard, flecked with grey.
‘Yeah,’ I say quietly, all out of small talk. There should be some kind of code to politely convey to a cabbie that you’d rather not make conversation.
The driver’s beard is quite extraordinary, and I find myself staring at it. It’s nothing like a well-groomed hipster beard – more of a Tom Hanks in Castaway beard. This guy literally looks as if he washed up here a few years ago, has been sleeping in a hut, living off coconuts, and then today decided to start driving a cab. His car also smells distinctly castaway-like – there’s a definite musk of wet, sandy towels.
He surveys me in the rear-view mirror, and I’m slow to muster a smile.
‘Cheer up. Hey, might never happen,’ he says, in a soft, deep voice.
And that does it. Something inside me snaps, and before I can stop myself, I bite back.
‘I am allowed to look grumpy if I want to. It is my face and my prerogative not to smile. You don’t know what’s going on in my life, and it is not my responsibility to make the world a prettier place for you, OK? So just keep your eyes on the road, please.’
His dark eyes grow wide in surprise, and he dutifully returns them to the tarmac ahead. I know I should stop talking, rein it in, but it’s like this bubble of rage has been sitting in my stomach for I don’t know how long – and now that I’ve popped the cork, out it spews.
‘And you know, maybe I don’t want to look cheerful. Maybe I’ve got nothing to look cheerful about. Maybe I’m doing everything wrong and I’ll have “died with unrealistic expectations” engraved on my bargain basement headstone.’
I sink back into the seat, having scared myself a bit. I’m not sure the author of Tiger Woman meant me to ‘unleash my inner roar’ on a poor, unsuspecting stranger.
‘You’re over from London, then,’ says the driver, shifting awkwardly in his seat.
Oh right, so now he thinks I’m some angry city cow. It’s not city living that has made me angry. I cross my arms and turn to glare out of the window at the evening sky. We’re driving along the sea front now, a huge expanse of dimpled, wet sand merging into grey-blue water. I try to catch my breath, taking a moment to absorb the sight of the sea.
The driver is watching the road, his shoulders relaxed, a finger tapping on the wheel, unflustered by my outburst. Obviously, I should apologise – I know I’ve overreacted and none of what I’m feeling is this cab driver’s fault. But if I try to be nice, I think I might cry, and I really don’t want to cry on him – that would be even more awkward than him thinking me rude.
I’m booked into the Weighbridge, a hotel on a cobbled square in the centre of St Helier. It’s got a spa, several restaurants, and a beautiful view over the harbour. Ridhima, one of the assistants at work, got me a great deal as long as I hashtag the hotel in social media posts. At first glance, it seems the ideal central location from which to explore the rest of the island.
As we arrive, I snap a quick photo out of the window for Instagram.
‘Thank you,’ I say to the driver as he drops me off. Giving him a hefty tip, I mutter an apology.
‘Good luck,’ he says, in a way that implies I’m going to need a great deal of it because I’m clearly bonkers. Fair enough really, given my earlier meltdown.
My hotel room is exactly what I need; clean and comfortingly neutral. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel alone before – only ever with a friend or boyfriend. Do I wish David was here? No, he’d only be calling the front desk to enquire about the duvet tog rating or checking if the TV has Sky Sports. I shall relish the luxury of having a king-size bed, a giant bathtub, and all this space just for me. I start running a bath and take a small tub of Pringles from the mini bar. I know these things are a rip-off, but since my outburst in the cab, my hands won’t stop shaking. I need to give them something to do.
Who was that person who exploded at that poor man? That wasn’t me; I don’t get angry like that. I didn’t even know I was worried about any of that stuff. I know I’ve been a little all-over-the-place since losing Mum, but deep down I’ve always felt like an optimist. Maybe what Dee said in the car got under my skin, about needing to be realistic when it comes to love. Maybe I just need to accept I’ll never be the happy-go-lucky person I was before Mum died.
I pour myself a strong gin and tonic and open the balcony window to look out at the cobbled square and the harbour full of boats beyond. The sound of people enjoying themselves in the bar below rises up to meet me. Walking back to the bathroom, I turn off the bath tap and splash my face with water. Don’t waste this weekend being melancholy, Laura – this should be a happy weekend, a celebration of what your parents had, an adventure discovering your Jersey heritage.
Pulling my bag onto the bed to unpack, I notice it feels lighter than it should. Then I see the zip colour is wrong; it’s dark grey, rather than black. I frown as I open the case; on top is a man’s white work shirt, a travel-size stick of men’s deodorant …
For a moment, I can’t comprehend what I’m seeing. These are not my things; this isn’t my bag. As it dawns on me that I have picked up the wrong case, I close my eyes for a moment. This is all I need; now I’ll have to go all the way back to the airport to retrieve mine.
As I stare down at the contents of the case, willing them to be different, I notice the paperback lying next to the pile of clothes: To Kill a Mockingbird, my lifelong favourite book, one of Dad’s favourit
es, too. I pick up the well-thumbed copy, an old edition just like the one Dad left me. Placing it on the bed, I find myself looking through the contents of the case. A strange sensation, like a cluster of clouds moving aside, comes over me, my irritation at having the wrong bag morphing into something new, something unexpected.
Beneath the book is one of those thick-knit cream fisherman’s jumpers. I love these sorts of jumpers on a man – the kind Chris Evans wears in Knives Out, or that Ryan Gosling might wear on a weekend away to a log cabin, where he’d chop wood and make gin martinis before asking if you’re up for a game of Scrabble by the fire. Beneath the jumper is a book of piano music. I love men who can play the piano, it has to be one of the sexiest skills. I briefly dated a pianist when I worked at the music magazine, and his playing alone was almost enough to make me overlook the fact that he was a complete pig … and then I read the words on the book of music and slap a hand across my mouth – ‘Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits’. OMG, what is this? This can’t be a coincidence. I take everything out of the case in a frenzy, as though the man who owns this bag might be hidden at the bottom.
There are blue running trainers and a neatly tied clear plastic bag full of worn clothes and running gear (I draw the line at rummaging through that). At the bottom of the case, in a sealed Duty-Free plastic bag, is a perfume bottle – Yardley English Lavender, my mother’s perfume. Seeing it sends goose bumps down my arm. I don’t know anyone else who wears this scent. No doubt it is a present for someone, but it feels as though it is for me – a sign from Mum. I blink away the itch behind my eye. Get it together, Laura – it’s probably a gift for the guy’s wife. Then, tucked against the side, I find an unsealed card in a blank envelope. Would it be terrible if I looked to see if it has been written in? Best not to ask yourself these questions.
Dearest Mum,
I know you wanted a beehive for your birthday – but I thought if you smelt of lavender, you’d have swarms of admirers …
Just Haven't Met You Yet Page 3
