I tell this man that I’ve had thirteen enquiries and am interviewing my first one tonight.
‘Thirteen?’
I wait for him to sound impressed. ‘Unlucky for some,’ he says.
After our walk, Mari, the dogs and I set off to work. On the Underground, heading to Sloane Square, Mari nudges me hard in the ribs. ‘Look at them,’ she gestures to the people sitting opposite us, with things stuffed in their ears.
‘Shh,’ I urge.
‘They look half-dead!’ Mari doesn’t suffer fools gladly but she does suffer from a loud voice. ‘No stimulation,’ she tuts.
One of them stares at her.
Thankfully Mari shuts up and takes out her book. As the train rattles on, it occurs to me I’ll need to give the house a good clean before Mr Haddock arrives tonight. I hope he’s nice. Then my mind wanders back to the man in the hat again. I don’t know why, but I have one of my strange premonitions that he is going to become an important person in my life. The next time I see him I’ll ask if he wants to have a cup of coffee. I hope he joins our group again.
Mari and I step off the train. I pick up Ruskin, zap my Oyster card against the barrier and push us both through. ‘What’s your dog called?’ I had asked him, when he didn’t volunteer the name. Though he was friendly, there was something reserved in his manner too, which I found attractive.
‘Trouble,’ he’d said in that quietly spoken voice.
8
Roy is twenty minutes late. I mustn’t drink any more, I say as I pour myself another glass of wine. I scan the sitting room, shoving Ruskin’s dog comb and chewed-up toy rabbit into one of the cupboards. I hang up my summer coat, kicking the dog lead and bootjack out of the way. I look at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing my dark denim jeans with a black top and a leopard-print scarf holds back my hair.
I jolt when there is a knock at the door. Keep calm. Heart thumping, I put on my best smile.
I open the front door. ‘Oh, Gloria.’
She skirts the sitting room, whispering, ‘He’s not here is he?’
‘No!’
‘Why don’t I hide in the loo?’
I press a hand against her back and direct her out of the door.
‘We need a code,’ she says halfway across the road. ‘If Mr Fish is weird open and close your shutters a few times.’
As I wait another ten minutes, the phone rings. It’s Jonnie, this guy I met at my old job, asking if I want to meet up tonight. ‘I can’t,’ I tell him, but suggest meeting up next week. ‘Sure,’ he says enthusiastically. I know he has a soft spot for me, I only wish I felt the same.
Soon my phone becomes a hotline. Dad calls, then Anna, asking if I want to grab a pizza and go to the movies.
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’m about to meet Roy Haddock, my Monday to Friday man.’
‘Roy Haddock,’ she says thoughtfully. I can hear laughter in her voice.
‘You never know Gilly, maybe Mr Roy Haddock is the man of your dreams,’ she suggests.
‘Oh, Anna!’ I protest, but then think again . . .
‘We met on the Monday to Friday site,’ I say during the wedding speeches, clutching the microphone proudly.
I am standing next to Roy, who looks as handsome as James Bond. The marquee is set in the grounds of an English manor house, the ceiling lined with stars, the tables decorated with candles. I am wearing a simple but elegant ivory dress. ‘After Edward,’ I begin, ‘I was convinced I’d never meet that special person again . . . not until Roy came along.’
Sighs. Admiration. Wonderment.
‘If I’m completely honest,’ I say, placing a hand on my heart. ‘I was slightly put off by his name . . .’
Roy nudges me playfully.
‘And his lateness.’
Friends and family laugh and clap as they cheer me on.
‘But when I opened the door . . .’
‘Hello!’ A tall man stands by his metallic bicycle sporting a purple crash helmet and shorts that show off his muscled legs. He has hair the colour of a carrot. ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says.
Wipe that disappointed look off your face and welcome him in, Gilly.
‘All right if I leave the bike in the garden?’
‘Sure,’ I shrill.
‘Good stuff.’ He pushes it through the sitting room and Ruskin barks at this rude invasion. ‘Hey, buster,’ he says. ‘What’s this little cheeky chap called?’
Frantically I look up to Gloria’s bedroom window but she’s not there. Roy parks his bike against the crumbling wall in my garden.
‘Bikes are a nightmare ’cos you can’t leave them outside any more. No place is safe.’
‘Don’t you have a lock?’ I suggest, thinking there was a perfectly good lamp post that he could have tied the bike up to.
‘Yeah, but thieves just cut through the chains now, don’t they.’ At this point I panic about how long Roy is planning to stay. It would be very unlucky indeed if during the brief viewing of No. 21 a thief were lurking, ready to saw through his bicycle chain. Roy returns to the kitchen and picks up an apple from my wire fruit basket. He polishes it against his sweaty T-shirt as though it were a cricket ball.
I offer him a drink. He asks for a glass of water.
‘Cheers. Nice place,’ he remarks with a few nods. ‘You lived here long then?’
‘Four years, on and off.’
‘Why do you want a lodger?’ He winks at me.
I need to pay my council tax. ‘I just thought it’d be a nice change,’ I say brightly.
His T-shirt reveals him to be a Manchester United fan, and for a terrifying moment I imagine him switching channels from How to Look Good Naked to Match of the Day.
‘Shall I show you round?’
‘Great.’ He leaps out of his seat. ‘Show me the way.’ When I walk on ahead of him I have this sneaking suspicion that he could be checking out my arse.
‘It won’t take long,’ I joke. ‘So, as you can see, this is the sitting room.’
‘Nice,’ he acknowledges.
Ruskin follows us as I show Roy the small loo on the ground floor followed by the bathroom on the upstairs landing. I stop dead. My washing is still hanging on the drying rail over the bath, rows of knickers on display. ‘Sorry.’ I blush. ‘On we go,’ I say, scuttling out of the room.
‘Don’t worry,’ he winks. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve seen a pair of smalls.’
Oh God. ‘What do you do, Roy?’
‘I’m a teacher, maths and science. For my sins,’ he adds.
Immediate alarm bells ring. Their hours aren’t long enough. I don’t want someone pitching up at five in the afternoon. Maybe all I want each month is a cheque through the front door – but no Roy attached to the payment.
‘I got posted to this school in Ealing,’ he continues, ‘but my missus wasn’t keen on moving and it’s too far to commute from Devon.’
‘Oh, I see.’ But all I can see is Roy sitting on my sofa marking textbooks.
I take him up upstairs into the spare bedroom. It’s a small room with a painting of a Spanish olive grove on the wall, shutters and a double bed with a spotty blue duvet cover.
He sits down on the bed. ‘Comfy.’ He smiles suggestively. I look away.
What am I going to do? I’m not going to show him my bedroom. He’s a bit of a creep, isn’t he? How can I say no? I might have to tell him that on the odd occasion he will have to share the bed with my father, and that my father suffers from bowel problems. Incontinence. My father will need the side closest to the bathroom. That ought to do it.
He jumps up, rubs his hands eagerly. ‘So how’s about tomorrow then?’
‘Tomorrow!’ I shriek.
‘Yep. Whenever suits the lady of the house.’
‘Oh, Roy, I’m not sure. You see the thing is . . .’
‘I’m a really easy person to live with,’ he interrupts, ‘you’d hardly know I was here. All I want to do when I get back from work is put my trackie bums on and
chill out, you know what it’s like,’ he says as he winks at me again. One wink breeds another. It’s a disease.
At this critical emergency point my mobile vibrates in my pocket, alerting me that I have a new text message. I ask him if he’ll excuse me for just one minute, quickly dashing out of the bedroom and downstairs. I have a message from Anna. ‘How’s Mr MTFM going? X’ Will call her later. Right now I have to sort this out, I think, hearing Roy coming down the stairs.
‘Come over NOW,’ I text Gloria. ‘Pretend u r interested in No. 21’. SEND.
Roy rejoins me and settles himself comfortably on my sofa when someone knocks at the door.
‘Sorry, Roy, I was going to say, I have this other person interested in the room too, so . . .’
‘Oh.’ He springs up and chucks the magazine onto the floor. ‘Sure. I’ll get my bike.’
I feel guilty as I watch him wheel his chariot across my carpet but then again, could you live with someone who said trackie bums? No, I didn’t think so. Ruskin doesn’t want to either.
I open the front door and Gloria bursts in, dressed in her shapeless T-shirt, black leggings, flip-flops and silver hair tied back in an Alice band. She couldn’t look less like a Monday to Fridayer if she tried.
I shake her hand. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ I say, mouthing, ‘thank you.’
‘What a charming house,’ she enthuses, bustling in. ‘I’ll take it!’
Roy pushes his bike past us. ‘Can you let me know as soon as you can?’ he asks, giving Gloria a curt nod on his way out.
‘Of course. Thanks so much for coming over.’
‘No problem.’ He mounts his bike and pedals off into the hinterlands of Hammersmith.
I turn to Gloria, relieved.
‘Choosing a lodger and living with someone is like a marriage,’ she insists. ‘You rarely marry the first man you go on a date with, do you?’
Good point.
‘Don’t worry, Gilly. Only twelve more Roys to go.’
And on that note, we polish off the rest of the bottle of wine, order some Thai and watch How to Look Good Naked.
Later that night, in bed, I can’t sleep.
Is Gloria right? Will I find the perfect Monday to Friday man? If so, why do I have such an uneasy feeling about allowing a stranger into my house?
9
1985
‘I have this uneasy feeling,’ Mum says to the health visitor, when Nick, Anna and I return home from school. Megan is lying on her fleecy rug in the sitting room, toys scattered around her. Mum said Anna could come over for tea before we go off to Brownies together later on in the evening. I’ve just been made chief Elf and I’m taking my House Orderly test tonight; one of my main tasks is polishing a brass doorknob. I can’t wait.
‘She should be sitting up by now, surely?’ Mum insists, as we clamber past Megan and the grown ups and into the kitchen.
‘Mrs Brown, you’re being an over-anxious mother,’ she says. ‘I see it all the time.’
‘But Megan’s seven months old.’
‘I’m sure everything is fine. She’s a happy little baby. Look at her.’
Mum doesn’t say anything.
‘Try not to worry,’ the health visitor stresses as she puts on her coat.
‘Gilly!’ Mum calls up to my bedroom, after the health visitor has left. ‘Can you come here!’
I emerge at the top of the stairs, pen in my mouth, brow furrowed in concentration.
‘Please.’ There’s desperation in her tone.
Reluctantly I follow Mum into the sitting room and crouch down next to Megan, who looks up at me, smiling. Her dimpled legs look like doughy baguettes and she’s wearing soft pink shoes, designed with felt piglets.
I stroke Megan’s dark hair. Everything about my baby sister is big. She has a round face, the shape of a full moon, deep-blue eyes, chubby arms and legs, a mass of thick hair and a wide smile. Dad says she’ll be a super-model when she grows up.
‘There’s something wrong,’ Mum says. ‘I’m worried, Gilly.’
‘Why?’
‘Watch.’
Mum lifts Megan into her arms, holds her briefly, then places her gently back down on the rug. ‘Did you notice anything?’ Mum asks, staring at me.
‘Like what? She’s fine.’ Impatient, I get up. ‘Can I go now?’
But Mum asks me to watch again. Exactly the same thing happens. I shrug.
‘Sorry – go, poppet,’ she says distractedly. As I am about to leave the room I watch Mum picking Megan up again, rocking her in her arms and then putting her back down on the rug and watching carefully, as if Megan’s about to do something different this time, but she doesn’t. She just flops back down like she always does. I hover by the door.
‘Go,’ Mum says. ‘I’m sure I’m just being silly.’
I nod.
‘And Gilly?’
I wait.
‘Don’t mention this to your father, OK?’
10
It’s Sunday morning. I was out last night, on a date. Anna set me up with one of her work colleagues called Harvey and we went to a new restaurant in Soho. The atmosphere was great, and unlike my last date, who’d turned up in a white top tucked into cord trousers, the overhang of his belly on display, Harvey had style. I am going to thank Anna for this one, I thought, as we flirted at the bar. There was chemistry, no doubt about it, but that was soon killed off when, at the end of the evening, he produced his calculator, saying I owed more because I’d eaten a pudding and he hadn’t.
The telephone rings. Normally Mum calls me from Australia at this time of the day, but it’s Susie. Along with Anna, Susie is one of my closest friends in London. She’s married to Mark, who works in property, and they have two children: Rose, three years old and my god-daughter, and Oliver, who’s four months old.
Susie was one of the first friends I made in student halls. We met in the communal kitchen area, where I was about to cook my boil-in-the-bag chicken and Susie was heating something up in the microwave. She had her back to me and was dressed in a miniskirt and knee-high boots. Her hair was short, almost cut in a boy’s style, but when she turned I could see how much it suited her elfin features. The microwave pinged and out came a little white tray filled with brown mush. She peered down at it and we both laughed. ‘Fancy a pizza?’ she said.
She lives in Balham, has worked in insurance, but is now a full-time mum, but luckily has no intention of leaving London just yet.
‘Gilly?’ Susie says with hesitation.
I don’t like the sound of this already. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know how to tell you this.’ She pauses. ‘I was out last night . . .’
‘And?’
‘Oh God. I heard that Ed got married yesterday. I’m so sorry. Gilly? Are you there? Are you all right?’
Susie asks me what I’m doing today, telling me that she’s meant to be seeing Mark’s granny, but he can easily go on his own. ‘She had an accident recently. She can’t feel her feet but insists on driving, so what does she go and do? Drives into her porch and knocks the whole thing down.’
I can’t help laughing nervously. ‘Oh God, did she hurt herself?’
‘No! Not a single scratch. Anyway, I don’t have to go, if you want to come over.’
I tell her I’m meeting up with Nick and the children in the park.
‘OK. Good. I just didn’t want you to be on your own.’
‘I’ll be fine,’ I assure her, stroking Rusk, curled up on my lap. ‘Honestly, Susie, no one’s died, I’ve still got so much,’ I say, not wanting to scream that I’m so lonely and I hate it that he’s married someone so quickly. Bastard. I curse my father for his stiff-upper-lip treatment. He didn’t like it when Nick and I showed too much emotion; he’d send us to our bedrooms to calm down.
‘Gilly, you don’t have to be brave, not with me,’ Susie says.
‘I know,’ I stammer. ‘Yesterday?’ I say out loud, thinking.
‘Gilly?’
‘Good.’
‘Good?’
‘It was raining.’ I smile.
‘Oh, Gilly. It was pouring,’ she adds.
I put down the phone. Married yesterday? Ed hated rushing into things. Proposing, engagement and marriage all within a year was not his style. Maybe he met her when he was still with me? I shall never know.
The telephone rings. I pray it’s not my brother cancelling me. I don’t want to be alone today. It’s Nick, telling me Hannah has caught some bug and Matilda has got lice. There’s an epidemic at school.
‘Keep still, Tilda!’ I hear Nancy scream in the background.
‘Come on, Ruskin,’ I tell him. ‘It’s a shitty day, but we mustn’t sit inside and mope about Ed. I deserve better than a coward who didn’t have the courage to tell me face to face, don’t I? Yes I do. Come on, let’s hit the park.’ Ruskin wags his tail as I get his lead and looks up at me with love in his eyes. ‘It’s just you and me today, just the two of us, my angel, and we are going to have a ball.’
As Ruskin and I enter the park the August sky threatens another thunderstorm. I walk past the playground area, water dripping off the swing seats.
Ruskin plunges happily through the muddy puddles.
In the distance I see someone wearing a hat, trainers and a cord jacket. It can only be him. My heart immediately lifts as I watch him chasing his dog round and round in circles. ‘Trouble!’ he calls desperately.
When I reach him Trouble and Ruskin do the usual sniffing of each other, though this time Ruskin takes it a step too far. At my age I shouldn’t be embarrassed, but I find myself pushing Ruskin off Trouble’s back. He laughs, saying they’re playing piggyback. I ask him what he’s doing out here on such a miserable afternoon.
‘I could ask the same of you,’ he says before replying, ‘I’m trying to train Trouble, but she’s not interested, as you can see.’
I come into my element, remembering puppy-training school all those years ago. ‘Plenty of treats because bribery works, and I only have to mention the word chicken or squirrels and he’s by my side. Watch.’ I demonstrate and he seems impressed when Ruskin bolts over to me, ears alert.
Monday to Friday Man Page 5
