Pink and yellow fingernails, sipping smoothie wrapped in paper napkin.
Chin in hand, eyes closed, purple tie.
Striped polo shirt, grey trousers, keeps shrugging.
Straight long shiny hair, large Yonex tennis bag, reading texts:
Pippa’s asked us over tonight and I’m afraid she’ll pop the godparent Q. Sent 17:25
They may well ask. Saying no would be tricky. Received 17:34
She must know something is off. Esp after the wknd! Sent 17:35
Don’t see we have a choice. She is one of your oldest friends. Received 17:38
I don’t think we’re in a good place to say yes. Sent 17:42
Getting tube now. Sent 17:42
Lets talk about this later. Sent: 17:45
Ok, what do you want for supper? Sent 17:46
Leopard-print dress, spotted bag, scrolling BlackBerry.
Black jacket, black trousers, black shoes, blue shirt, shaved head, holding stopwatch:
Glasses tucked into V-neck, wedding-band tan line.
Sunglasses atop head, sunglasses on face.
Navy suit, white shirt, no tie, sweating.
00:03:55. Someone will swim that fast one day. But it would mean the 1500m in something like two minutes. Maybe not. Tomorrow get closer to 50:00:00. Take an extra half hour at lunch. If I can do 50:00:00 can certainly do the 1500 in 21:00:00 or 20:00:00. 20:30:00. Beat Tim that fucker.
Purple trench coat, engagement ring, trainers.
One small handbag, one large handbag, glaring at floor.
Pret A Manger paper bag, leggings, golden headphones.
Green-and-blue top, grey-and-black shoes, red-and-brown handbag.
Blue tent dress, large breasts, scrolling iPhone:
High-heeled booties, two handbags, red lips:
Why did he say that movie wasn’t good. I wanted him to think it was good. Embarrassing that I told him my mum and I cried at the end and spontaneously started hugging. Was he making fun of me. God, he’s so fucking smug. ‘Yeah, well it’s a small movie, you can’t …’ ‘Compare it with a good movie?’ ‘Yeah, well it’s a small movie you can’t …’ ‘Be moved by it? Put it in the same league?’ Fuck. I just want to keep having that conversation over and over until he says what I want. But what do I want him to say. He feels just like I do and then what. Then we sit there feeling the same way. Am I going to get to Ikea this weekend. It’s going to suck and I’m not going to find what I need anyway. Am I going to be thinking about texting him all weekend. Dammit. I should just text him now. I’ll suggest we see it again, together. I’ll insult his taste in movies so he’ll be a little threatened. But he already insulted mine.
When we played that game about what bad movies you like what did he say, Elf. And Music and Lyrics. But that made me like him. We need to move on to food, we need to get to a restaurant and do something less cerebral. I just want to get him drunk. I already know he likes me I think. But he’s senior and it would be bad, still, bad in a fun way. He’s not the director. Ikea. I don’t want to buy Ikea furniture any more. When does it end. When do I stop buying Ikea furniture for god’s sake. I want stuff like in Nathalie’s place. Older, heavy stuff. But her husband’s rich. Leo’s a teacher. Leo. Leo loathes Martin. Of course. Teases me about him. Have to stop flirting. Marriage feels like it’s crumbling.
Counting passengers, blowing small chewing gum bubbles:
Fourteen today.
Twenty-five yesterday.
Twenty Friday.
Sixty-two Thursday.
Forty-six Wednesday.
False eyelashes, knee-high boots, texting:
Sure, let’s have dinner next week.
Dinner next week sounds fun!
Yes to dinner next week, I’m there. Name a place.
Longing to have dinner next week.
Dinner next week 4 sure. Shall we try the new Ottolenghi?
I can only do Weds and Thurs for dinner next week.
Would love to have dinner next week. Thursday?
Fuck yeah dinner next week! Sounds good. Or I can make dinner at mine?
K!
Dinner next week sounds fun!
Curly blonde hair, pale arms, reading opinion section of newspaper.
Knuckles in mouth, legs crossed.
Keys attached to belt, loud voice.
Grey cardigan, soft voice.
Scowling, fingers interlaced, overstuffed backpack between feet.
Swiss army backpack, chewing gum:
You know that your time is coming round/So don’t let the bastards grind you down … Cool. Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby … Achtung! Oh, misspent youth. Cried the poet. (Use that in an email to Selena.) Summer of ’92 … Corfu. The royal send-off for family holidays. Mummy all bent out of shape. Sorry Mummy. Animal spirits, and all. Elisabeth from Hamburg in a bikini, blonde and bashful. Elisabeth from Hamburg out of her bikini. Bashful always just the first gear. Didn’t know that then. Sand and pubes and snogging ’neath the lofty skies. Father makes three. Crazy German on the warpath. Protect the face, protect the balls, hide the boner … The samurai achieves all his goals, while running butt naked for his life. Mum, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any sorrow … I didn’t mean to cause you any pain. Elisabeth, Elisabetta, where are you tonight. Wedded to some fat welder in Hamburg, no doubt. Better him than me. Does Selena want me to marry her. Do I tell her I’m liable to get shit-canned tomorrow. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. Very helpful, dude. We’ll see you in HR tomorrow. ‘Bono, employment at this company is contingent on meeting rigorous professional standards of civility, courtesy and respect. Your conduct today has led us to question whether you are the right fit for us going forward.’ Bono staring, inscrutable behind shades. ‘And furthermore, ordering ten thousand pizzas onstage while making unauthorized use of a company credit card is an indefensible breach of protocol.’ Bono lights a cigarette and smiles. I could see myself as a writer. Comedy mostly. TV first, Hollywood later. Then maybe direct. Aston Martin cruising down Sunset Boulevard, heading home to the Hollywood Hills. Hot babe in the seat next to me, model-actress-brain-surgeon type. Her name is Charlene. No, Ramona. Whatever. First Oscar acceptance speech will go: ‘Firstly, I’d like to thank all the losers at Timmerson-Bodley International, whose small-mindedness led me to leave behind a sad career in financial services to make the whole world laugh and cry and sing. And secondly.’ Secondly.
Black-and-white wrap dress, tapping fingers as though on a piano.
Tidy bun, long eyelashes, colour blocking.
Blue shirt, both arms above head holding on to pole.
Black pencil skirt, grey scrunchie, reading a copy of Mrs Dalloway:
… It has flowered; flowered from vanity, ambition, idealism, passion, loneliness, courage, laziness, the usual seeds which all muddled up (in a room off the Euston Road), made him shy, and stammering, made him anxious to improve Something was up, Mr Brewer knew; Mr Brewer, managing clerk at Sibleys and Arrowsmiths, auctioneers, valuers, land and estate agents; something was up, he thought, and, being paternal with his young men, and thinking very highly of Smith’s abilities, and prophesying that he would, in ten or fifteen years, succeed to the leather armchair in the inner room under the skylight with the deed-boxes round him, “if he keeps his health,” said Mr Brewer, and that was the danger – he looked weakly; advised football, invited him to supper and was seeing his way to consider recommending a rise of salary, when something happened which threw out many of Mr Brewer’s calculations, took away his ablest young fellows, and eventually, so prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War, smashed a plaster cast of Ceres, ploughed a hole in the geranium beds, and utterly ruined the cook’s nerves at Mr Brewer’s establishment at Muswell Hill.
Septimus was one of the first to volunteer … so prying and insidious were the fingers of the European War, smashed a plaster cast of Ceres, ploughed a hole in the geranium beds, and utterly ruined the cook’s nerves at Mr Brewer�
��s establishment at Muswell Hill … Septimus was one of the first to volunteer. He went to France to save an England which consisted almost entirely of Shakespeare’s plays and Miss Isabel Pole in a green dress walking in a square. There in the trenches the change which Mr Brewer desired when he advised football was produced instantly; he developed manliness; he was promoted; he drew the attention, indeed the affection of his officer, Evans by name. It was a case of two dogs playing on a hearth-rug; one worrying a paper screw, snarling, snapping, giving a pinch, now and then, at the old dog’s ear; the other lying somnolent, blinking at the fire, raising a paw, turning and growling good-temperedly. They had to be together, share with each other, fight with each other, quarrel with each other. But when Evans (Rezia, who had only seen him once, called him ‘a quiet man’, a sturdy red-haired man, undemonstrative in the company of women), when Evans was killed, just before the Armistice, in Italy, Septimus, far from showing any emotion or recognizing that here was the end of a friendship, congratulated himself upon feeling very little and very reasonably.
Knees wide apart, picking cuticles.
Penny loafers, left penny missing, doodling on a copy of the Metro:
Pressed pink shirt, spotless tote bag, green earplugs.
Blue shirt, pink tie, sunglasses like the front of a car.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Jason Logan, Miranda Purves, Michael Schmelling, Helen Conford, Sarah Chalfant, Luke Ingram, and James Truman.
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First published in Penguin Books 2013
Copyright © Leanne Shapton, 2013
Front cover: Leanne Shapton
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ISBN: 978-1-84-614692-3
Waterloo-City, City-Waterloo Page 3
