by Laura Tait
Panic set in as soon as I’d finished – what if someone had seen? – but Holly was so impressed that I didn’t really care if I got caught. A few days later my artistry featured in the Mothston Herald, appearing on the letters page with praise for our enterprise from a pensioner named George Riley.
‘I found a copy when I went home,’ says Holly. ‘I should have brought it with me.’
As we keep walking a wistful look comes over her. I follow her gaze but it leads to nowhere in particular in the distance.
‘What are you thinking about?’
At first I wonder if she has heard me because it takes her about thirty seconds to reply.
‘Do you believe in fate, Al? That some things are meant to be and others aren’t?’
It seems like a strange thing to ask. I glance at her again but her focus remains off in the horizon.
‘I believe that everyone is meant do a certain thing, to follow a certain path. Whether that’s fate or not, I don’t know. I think it’s just a concept people use to give things meaning.’
Holly doesn’t say anything.
‘What about you?’ I ask.
She thinks for a moment. ‘There was probably a time when I did.’
‘And now?’
‘I think life’s just a million different coincidences and accidents that lead you to where you are. Not very romantic; but true, I think.’
Holly brings us to a halt outside a pub called The Woodman. She peers through a dirty window but a shake of the head tells me she doesn’t fancy going inside.
‘Fuck it,’ she says, finally coming back into the moment. ‘We should get a six-pack and go to the park instead.’
‘A park?’
‘You know, trees and grass. Sometimes they have swings, too.’
I examine her face, trying to establish the source of her newfound abandon, but I never could work her out.
For the first time since we saw the STOP sign Holly turns my way. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she says. ‘Let’s get drunk. What are Bank Holidays for?’ She invites me to link arms. ‘It’s not as if I have to get home to Richard. He said he was too tired to come around after helping his mum decorate her new extension. Bless his cotton socks.’
‘Fair enough.’ I hook my arm into Holly’s with a contented grin. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘All dry,’ I say, inspecting the ground near an ancient oak tree with the flat of my hand, and for the next hour or two we sit cross-legged in Greenwich Park drinking cans of cider and talking about the old days like we’re drawing our pensions already. The sky shifts through the spectrum of purple and blue but the air remains still as we remember familiar names and the week our families spent together in Camber Sands. Holly tells me that it was there she kissed a boy for the first time, and I wonder how it can be that a revelation like this still provokes jealousy in me all these years later. I’ve no idea, but it does.
We reminisce about the time Kev fell into a lake while trying to disprove the theory that geese can break your arm. Right now, here in the park, it feels just like it used to. I feel just like I used to.
I disregard the thought; erase it from my mind. I’m drunk on cider and nostalgia and the smell of car fumes mixed with freshly mowed grass. Holly and I are friends and that is all we will ever be.
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,’ says Holly, in a tone that prompts my chest to squeeze in on itself.
She draws out the moment so that I’m wondering what on earth it is she wants to know. Finally she places her hand on top of mine and says with amusement in her eyes: ‘Do you still carry wet wipes to clean toilet seats?’
‘That’s it? You want to know if I still carry wet wipes?’
She replies with laughter.
‘If you must know then, no, I don’t. Charlotte McCormack forbade me.’
‘Charlotte who?’
‘One of my exes. She’s also the reason I stopped correcting people’s grammar. She said it made me a tosser.’
Holly smiles. ‘You should have hung onto her, Alex.’
I explain how I didn’t have a lot of choice, and then I explain about Debbie and how that ended, and then it’s Holly’s turn to provide the relationship history. She talks me through all her exes with the exception of Dean. I guess I know all there is to know about him.
‘And now it’s Richard,’ she concludes, fingering the catch on her third can of cider.
When we eventually stand up and brush the grass from our legs, my head feels dizzy, and an ominous tightness begins to rise through my throat.
‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘You’ve hardly drunk anything!’
‘Three cans of cider and the best part of a bottle of wine.’
‘You never could hold your—’
I scurry to the oak tree, pressing my hands against its tired bark while my head hangs like a bell from my neck. Soon a fierce contraction zips through my body. And then again.
I’m sick three times before I look up to witness Holly standing two or three feet away, hands cupped over her mouth, eyes wide with sympathy. Once she’s sure that I’m done, she steps closer and places a hand lightly on my shoulder.
‘Do you need some TLC?’ she asks softly.
Unable to speak, I look at her, smile gratefully, and sink my head back in my hands.
And then Holly starts to sing a song. A song I recognize from sixth form about a woman who doesn’t want a scrub. The lyrics confused me at the time and they are confusing me now. There isn’t anyone else around, but her singing is loud enough for me to feel self-conscious.
‘What are you doing?’ I croak.
‘Singing. I asked if you wanted some TLC. That’s one of their biggest hits, Alex. “No Scrubs”.’
Holly bites her lip to stop herself laughing.
‘That is among the worst jokes I have ever heard,’ I tell her, turning my back to her and stepping away. She begins to sing again, even louder than before.
‘You’re about as funny as Gareth Stones,’ I yell back, but despite myself I can’t stop the laughter seeping through my lips.
And once it starts, I find it almost impossible to stop.
Chapter Twenty-one
HOLLY
I saw this documentary once about a woman who loved the Eiffel Tower.
Not loved it in a nostalgic sort of way – she was actually in love with it. She married it. True story. It’s called objectum sexualism, or something.
I remember watching it and thinking she was a bit of a mentalist, but I’ve just decided I love my bed. LOVE it. I would definitely marry it if that meant I got to stay here for ever.
My reverie is shattered by Lady Gaga.
‘Oh, eff off,’ I groan out loud, slamming the snooze button on my radio alarm.
Incidentally, there was also a woman on the programme who claimed to be making love to her stereo, but that’s just ten thousand degrees of wrong.
Urgh – this is no normal hangover – I’m actually dying. I didn’t think I was as hammered as Alex in the park, but I seem to remember defacing a To Let sign on my way home by putting an ‘i’ between the two words with eye liner and sending a photo of it to him on his mobile.
It’s only now I notice he’s replied with a picture of Queens Road, but with an apostrophe before the ‘s’. Ha ha! It’s getting more and more like old times. That’s why I decided against telling him about the note I found. I don’t want things to get weird and awkward, like they did that last time I saw him in Mothston.
Not that it’s easy, saying nothing. What did he mean? He knew I liked him and was sorry he didn’t feel the same? Were the Jason and Kylie lyrics his way of letting me down gently, of trying to cheer me up? Or was there a message in the lyrics? Was he trying to tell me he feels the same way? What would have happened if I’d found the note at the time? I don’t suppose I’ll ever know now – Alex probably doesn’t even remember it. But I just wish I knew what—
&nbs
p; OH, HOLY MOTHER OF CRAP. I wish I hadn’t looked in the mirror. I lean closer to check for leaves, given that I was clearly dragged backwards through a hedge in my sleep.
Scraping my hair into a messy ponytail, I practise the Britain’s Got Talent-worthy ability I recently discovered I possess to get dressed, apply mascara and brush my teeth all at the same time.
‘Meow.’
‘Morning, Harold. I’m LATE. Do I look remotely presentable?’
Whatever, she says. Just feed me.
The dried cat food comes out of its box too quickly and spills over the side of Harold’s bowl, but I’m out of the door by the time it hits the floor so I’ll have to clean it up later.
‘You look proper shite.’ Jemma sounds impressed.
‘Thanks.’ I sink into my chair and peer around the office. It’s like the Mary Celeste. All the computers are on. Half-drunk coffees and open newspapers lie next to keyboards. But other than Jemma, there’s not a soul to be seen.
‘Where is everyone?’
‘Martin Cooper was late for his breakfast meeting because I forgot to book his car. Again. Richard Croft is in his office, probably simultaneously typing up his own letters, answering his own phone and craving a coffee, given that his PA has only just seen fit to drag herself in. And the team are in the conference room. Melissa gathered them there half an hour ago going: “Guys, guys, can we have a quick pow-wow in the den – we need to get our ducks in a row.”’ She swaps her Glasgow accent for an exaggerated posh London one to impersonate Melissa. ‘Anyway, why were you late? Out with Alex?’ Said suggestively, complete with predictable wink.
Jemma doesn’t believe that my relationship with Alex is purely platonic. But then why would she? As far as she’s concerned we’re both single. Out of everyone, it’s hardest keeping Richard a secret from her. It’s not that I don’t trust her. She’d never intentionally spill the beans. She’s just one of those people whose face gives everything away. If someone suspected something and asked her, her voice would say no – but her face would say, Aye, they’re totally at it – and look! They did it right there on that desk!
‘Yeah, I was, and I hear you added him on Facebook. Hope you’re not going to start stalking—’
‘Jemma,’ Melissa is out from her meeting and suddenly by our desks, ‘I want to start having weekly catch-ups with the team re our strategy staircase. Can you put something in the diary, please?’
‘You’re such a wanker, Melissa.’ That’s what Jemma’s face says.
Out loud it’s: ‘Sure thing, Melissa.’
‘Great, thanks. We need to get everyone into the habit of pre-preparing and forward planning.’
‘As opposed to other forms of preparing and planning,’ Jemma mutters.
‘What?’ Melissa snaps.
‘What?’ Jemma says innocently.
‘Er, nothing.’ Melissa turns to me and smiles. ‘Afternoon, Holly!’
‘Sorry, slept in,’ I mumble. No idea why I’m even apologizing. It’s only a quarter to effing ten, and I stay late often enough. And apart from anything else, SHE’S NOT MY BOSS.
‘Oh, I’m only kidding. Do me a favour and ask Richard to ping me an email rearranging lunch, would you?’ She waves one hand dismissively. ‘He’ll know what it means.’
‘Well, thank fuck Richard will know what it means,’ Jemma says, once Melissa’s out of earshot. ‘Don’t know about you but I was really struggling to decode that message.’
I laugh, but these little lunches and meetings Melissa keeps commandeering Richard for are doing my head in. It’s happening a lot lately. I’m not insinuating they’re DOING IT or anything – I know what they’re talking about. I asked Richard about it the week I got back from Mothston.
We’d been lying between his king-sized charcoalgrey Egyptian cotton sheets in woozy post-coital bliss. His bed is like everything else in his Docklands apartment – expensive, luxurious and unnecessarily large considering he lives alone. His television screen could give the local Odeon an inferiority complex; you need a degree in physics to work out how to play a CD on the stereo system that takes up half a living-room wall; a dining table that could comfortably seat a family of twelve stands next to a wine rack containing enough bottles of high-end plonk to keep the lot of them drunk for a fortnight.
I had been lying there wondering whether I’d end up moving into his or whether we’d get a place of our own. I mean, it’s nice enough and everything – the complex had just been built when Richard moved in three years ago, and it has its own bar and gym. But there’s just something so characterless about it. It’s a fine bachelor pad, but I picture us in a house with a garden. Especially when we have kids.
I’m not sure how I went from thinking all this to blurting out my question about Melissa. The word ‘characterless’, I expect.
‘Well – and this is strictly between me and you, mind – she got wind of the merger.’ Richard folded both hands beneath his head. ‘She’s keen on being part of my new team.’
Huh! I bet she is, the manipulative cow.
‘Huh! I bet she is, the manipulative cow.’
I honestly hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but I was riled. Not only because she’s blatantly trying to get her claws into my boyfriend, but also in a professional sense. I’m his PA. And until I’m not, if she wants to speak to Richard about work matters, she should arrange it through me.
Though it’s more the trying-to-get-her-claws-into-my-boyfriend thing.
‘What’s your problem?’ Richard laughed. ‘Oh wait, sorry – I forgot.’
‘Forgot what?’
‘About you irrationally disliking Melissa.’
‘I do not!’
‘You do – you can’t stand her.’
‘No, I mean it’s not irrational. No one likes her.’
‘I like her.’
‘OK, none of the girls like her. Every bloke in the office is completely oblivious to how annoying she is, though – what’s WITH that?’
‘She’s a nice girl. Did you know she wants to get into golf? She asked if I could teach her the basics.’
‘That’s crap!’ I protested, remembering how Melissa had rolled her eyes a few days earlier when Jemma said Richard was in Martin’s office talking about golf. ‘Boring,’ she’d said. It was the only time I’d ever known her words to match her tone of voice and facial expression.
‘Aw.’ Richard draped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his chest. ‘Are you jealous of Melissa?’
Jealous of Melissa? JEALOUS of Melissa? Jealous of MELISSA?
‘What would I have to be jealous about?’
Does he think she’s better than me? Prettier? Cleverer?
‘That she might be working with me after the merger but you won’t?’
With his genitals in such easy reach, he’s lucky that was his answer.
‘Oh that. Not at all. I’ll be far too busy personally assisting your replacement to think about you.’
I changed my tone of voice to make the words ‘personally’ and ‘assisting’ sound as dirty as possible, then waited for him to get affronted so I could tell him I’m joking, then prove it by kissing him.
‘That’s all right,’ he half smiled/half yawned. ‘I’ll have some hot new secretary tending to my needs anyway.’
I’d asked for that, I suppose.
Maybe it’s Melissa and her little lunches, or maybe it’s being too hungover to have the energy to fob off Jemma about why I’m not interested in Alex, but a niggling insecurity I sometimes feel with Richard comes bubbling to the surface. Why doesn’t he want anyone to know? If I was on the outside looking in, I’d feel sorry for me. A woman approaching thirty trying to force commitment from a man who’s clearly not that into her. Who won’t hold her hand in the street or take her to meet his mum. That’s the reason I’ve stopped talking to Susie and Leah about it – Susie makes no secret of the fact she’s not convinced, and Leah does the same with her silence. When the eternal relationship
optimist can find no words of encouragement you know what she’s thinking. The only person I can talk to is Alex – he just listens, and doesn’t judge. No one else sees what Richard is like when it’s just the two of us there, and he is that into me. He couldn’t be more affectionate.
But it’s like that tree in the woods debate – is a relationship real if there’s no one there to see it?
I’ve never really given it another shot since my failed attempt at The Talk the Friday I left for Mothston. Richard’s even busier than usual with work, and I’ve been seeing more of Alex, which has kept my mind occupied.
But it’s getting beyond a joke. I stand and . . . woah. I sit back down again.
‘Head rush,’ I respond to Jemma’s inquisitive look, before I attempt it again, but in slow-mo.
‘Baby?’ I close Richard’s door and sit opposite him at his desk, clutching the notebook I grabbed from my desk to maintain the facade. I need to think of a topic that will lead seamlessly into the conversation. Can’t just blurt it out and put him on the spot.
‘Let’s tell everyone. About us, I mean.’
Oops.
I try to look casual and breezy, like I have only a slight passing interest in what he’s going to say, while all his possible responses run through my head.
‘Fantastic Jazz!’ he booms.
OK, not ALL possible responses had run through my head.
‘Are you a fan of Jazz? JazzEast . . . are you a fan?’
‘What are you on about, Richard?’
He explains. One of our clients is JazzEast – an annual open-air Beer and Jazz festival in Shoreditch – and Richard is proposing to promote this year’s event by giving out paper fans to sweaty commuters with the email address on. He’s trying to come up with a slogan to get printed on them.
My eyes scan his office for inspiration, skipping over the copies of Men’s Health and GQ littering his otherwise tidy desk, and falling on a motivational poster behind his chair, in which four men are lined up in a rowing boat holding oars.
