Stepping between two parked cars I squat and sit myself on the edge of the curb. I hug my knees. With my bony limbs and dark eye I’m thinking I must look a bit like Gollum wearing a blonde wig. I feel my lower lip quiver. I tell myself to control it, swallow the pain, man-up and stop being such a pussy, but it’s too late and I’m crying into the gap between my knees. I cry for everything the Stranger and I will never have. I cry for this seemingly unending feeling of harrowing despondency that’s plagued me for I don’t know how long. I’m in that grey area of grief.
Life doesn’t usually feel like a Kayne West ‘That that don’t kill me, can only make me stronger’ rap philosophy, does it? Life is more like my brittle toothpick theory, where it wears you down like the bombardment of waves on a cliff-face. Relentless, unstoppable, ruthless Life Waves that won’t stop even after you break and your rock pieces crumble into the water. And before you ask, yes the mama sparrow and the hawk did live on a cliff, and yes, all my natural world analogies come from that one David Attenborough BBC1 documentary.
I’ve never felt more lonely and scared in my entire life. It is exactly the worst possible moment possible for Emma to appear hand in hand with Dublin.
She rushes out of the back gate and pulls me to my feet from the curb,
“There you are! Juan told me what happened. Why would you do something like that?” she says gently.
I don’t answer, glancing at Dublin instead,
“Can you please excuse us for a moment?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Sure,” he replies and walks back inside.
Once Dublin has left Emma looks at me, confused.
“You attacked Antonio?”
“You’re still seeing the married guy?”
I know I should wait until I’m more emotionally stable to have the ‘married guy’ heart to heart with her. I know that right now I should probably just give her a hug and take myself straight home, have a bath regardless of how filthy the tub is, and call her later. I know that after everything that happened this weekend I’m likely going a little nuts. I know it all and yet I still can’t help myself. I want to tell her my view on this situation now, right now, this very moment. Why? I don’t know. Because it will make me feel better? Not really. Because I want to help Emma? Not really, if that was true I’d wait till later. Because I’ve always been pants at communication despite working in the world’s most overly articulated profession? Maybe.
Emma takes a small step backward but straightens her shoulders, her body language declaring that she’s determined to convince me I’m wrong,
“I told you, he’s separated.”
“Oh wake up Emma and smell the bacon!”
My voice is rising. Why is my voice rising?
“What’s gotten into you?” she squeaks.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is what’s happening right now - you are acting like a home wrecking whore.”
Why did I just say that? Stop Satan, stop it right now. This is my sister and I love her!
Emma is quiet for a moment before she replies,
“I cannot believe you just said that.”
“You realise that this guy has a wife? That they promised to spend the rest of their lives together? They were probably going to start a family soon and you’re doing exactly what that American bitch did to you. How can you treat another woman like that after what Choda Boy put you through? It boggles my mind, Em, it really does. You don’t know anything about Dublin, or his wife. She might still love him and want to make it work, and you’re sabotaging that. Do you even know if he has kids? You’re willing to risk everything for a man you barely know.”
“What exactly do you mean by risking everything?” her hands are clenched at her sides.
“If it was Mum talking she’d say your immortal soul. That’s one,” I raise my hand with one finger lifted, “But there’s so much more. Two,” I raise another finger, “you will lose the respect of everyone who finds out about this, including me. Three, you risk being devalued and massively hurt should he go back to his wife. Four, don’t you think it’s a little bit risky investing in a guy who has already cheated on one wife? What’s stopping him cheating on you? He’s just a taller version of Choda Boy with an Irish accent.”
My usual tactics of intimidation aren’t working. Emma doesn’t try to run away, or change the subject. She answers calmly,
“Take no risks and you risk more than ever. I’m going to keep seeing him, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind, because since we’re being honest, I don’t want to end up like you.”
“Which is what?”
“Cynical, closed. Since the engagement you’ve shut out any chance of feeling something real.”
“Bullshit, you just caught me crying over the Stranger!”
“Don’t, Penny. I know you better than anyone and you weren’t crying over him. You were crying over yourself.”
“Was not.”
“Was too. And you’re not going to care about anyone again until you start properly dealing with what happened with He Who Shall Not Be Named.”
“I have achieved complete closure over that particular chapter of my life.”
“That is such baloney, for gosh sake we’re not even allowed to use his real name!”
Hmmm. Good point.
She continues,
“There are two ways of dealing with a breakup, the healthy way with proper food and exercise and meditation, and the bad way, with binge drinking and sleeping with any guy who pays you a compliment. Which category do you think you fell into?”
I’m furious again. I only slept with seven, maybe nine (maybe eleven...) guys after the engagement was called off. That’s not that many!
“Fuck you Em, and fuck your fucking yoga-camp-meditation-eating-nothing-but-rabbit-food way of dealing with stuff technique. I deal with things differently to you. End of.”
Stop. Stop right now before your sister disowns you.
“You’re spiralling, Penny. Look at what you’ve become, you’re attacking people now.”
“Antonio isn’t ‘people’, he’s a slightly higher evolved version of a gorilla. And don’t make this about me, I am so tired of people making everything about me all the time. Yeah, I have flaws, I snack on crisps instead of fruit, I seek external validation from men, I drink myself stupid every weekend, but it’s not like the rest of London’s twenty-somethings aren’t doing exactly the same thing. This is about you and the married guy.”
I try to calm my voice but it’s shaking and I can feel I’m about to start crying again, so I quickly blurt,
“You know that being with him while he’s still married is wrong. You know that.”
But nothing I’m saying is getting through, I can see it in my sister’s green eyes,
“If you’re going to constantly judge me, and condemn every decision I make, then I’m sorry but I don’t want you in my life. This is my life, not yours. You’re free to stuff up yours as you see fit, so please give me that same courtesy.”
“But I don’t want you to stuff it up. Don’t you see? I’m trying to protect you.” I plead.
“I’ve tried to protect you a lot more that you ever did me,” Emma replies, “we all have. But we can’t help you anymore. Pull your shit together, put on your trainers and go for a run when you get home. It’s the only healthy emotional outlet you seem to have.”
“Oh right, because your ‘healthy’ coping mechanisms have been soooooooooooo useful thus far. You owe me five days annual leave for that fucking yoga camp!”
“You know what, scratch what I just said. As soon as you get home instead of going for a run, look up ‘transference’.”
“I already know what it means, it’s the process of being transferred, I do real estate transactions for crying out loud.”
I feel smug and awesome for the half second before Emma answers,
“Not the legal definition, the mental health one.”
And for the second time today some
one I love is walking back inside the Ladbroke Arms. Someone who had come out here because they wanted to help, and who now cares about me a little less than before.
***
I feel like a train wreck as I drag myself home. Could my shambolic attempts at fixing my fight with Chloe have gone any worse? How did it spiral so badly? All I wanted was for Antonio to send Chloe an apology. That’s all. Even a text would have sufficed. Not only did I not achieve that, I alienated my sister and broke off whatever it was the Stranger and I had. Actually, that last bit was probably a good thing. Pretending that he might come round to dating me was like taking a spoon of poison every day. Slow, painful, inadvertent suicide.
I slowly put on Sex and the City and slump into the sofa, feeling haggard. I eat a quarter of the Paul chocolate mud flan thing I bought on the way back. I shove big chunks into my mouth with my hands (I don’t feel like I deserve cutlery). It’s more a loaf than a flan. It is very thick, very rich and weighs as much as a small dog (maybe it was designed for one of those mega birthday parties for popular people, the price reflected as much). Half way through the episode I wail through chocolate covered teeth,
“How could you do that to Aiden, Carrie? He loved youuuuuuuuuu!”
I determine to stop consuming the mud loaf. Flan contains sugar, and massive sugar highs are dangerous for me. I’ll start hyperactively messaging random people I haven’t spoken to in months just to hear my phone ping, because no one has sent me a message since midday. Not Chloe. Not the Stranger. Not Emma. No one. So no more mud-flan for me.
I give in and eat more anyway.
Scared I might develop rapid onset diabetes I force myself off the sofa, take out the Dyson and start furiously vacuuming the apartment, trying to find that rouge spider from earlier. I don’t find it but I do locate my missing turquoise earring on the kitchen floor, lace panties in the folds of the sofa along with used paper napkins, old pizza crusts and my Taj Mahal snow globe from my trip to India. So that’s where it went... As I dust it off I notice I’m humming Why Why Why Delilah.
I brush my teeth to stop myself from eating more flan.
I give in and eat more anyway.
I watch more Sex and the City until I reach the end of season six and have to put on the first movie (“How could you do that to Carrie, Big? She loved youuuuuuuuuu!”)
I ponder going for a run but decide not to for the following reasons: It would suck, it’s too warm, I can’t be bothered, I forgot to wash my sports bra, my iPod is in the other room, my water bottle is empty, I’m full of chocolate, I should order a curry instead.
I order a curry.
All these distractions are still not enough to stave off the Bad Feelings. It suddenly becomes all too clear that my life, with all its former purpose and aspirations, is slipping away from me in a chocolatey landslide of tragedy. How could they do this to me? How could my sister, my best friend and even despicable loverman maliciously stand by while my reasons for living slip from my grasp?
The curry arrives and I eat it and it’s delicious.
I decide that the meaning of life is chicken tikka masala. Who needs friends?
I finish the flan.
I vacuum the house again. Mid-vacuum I notice I’ve entered a hyperglycaemic seizure of spider-paranoid-cleaning, running around like a maniac singing Ghostbusters at the top of my lungs (but replace ‘ghost’ with ‘bug’). Derden derdel der dern, derden derdel der dern. Derden derdel der dern, derden derdel der dern, BUGBUSTERS!
Sugar slump sets in around midnight.
Just before crashing I remember to look up the meaning of transference.
Transference: unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. It is often manifested as rage, hatred, mistrust, parentification, extreme dependence or an erotic attraction.
I read an article on it. Freud would have called my lashing out at Emma today an unconscious recreation of an emotional trauma. I would call it the dramatic culmination of a punch in the face, a red t-shirt that meant nothing, a best friend who now hates me and a lovely sister who was the easiest target for me to vent it all out on.
Monday - Let the Bridges I Burn Light the Way
I semiconsciously drag myself into the office, wiping the sleep from my right eye. I can’t rub my left because it is caked in concealer, powder and natural glow fake tan stuff. It’s 7:30 a.m. I’m make up free besides the eye cover (which praise god has worked, my black eye is unnoticeable). I’m wearing my oversize tulip shaped pregnancy dress (the only work outfit I don’t have to iron) and I’m gripping a Starbucks extra creamy extra strong double everything frappuchino as if it were a lifeline.
I feel groggy, grumpy and on edge. I was in such a foul mood earlier I almost yelled at my nice Starbucks guy (who’s the spitting image of Michael Cera) just because the shop hadn’t updated their price list. He charged me £2.20 for a scone when the sign said it was only £2.00. Bloody outrageous!
(FYI - You know you’re in a bad way when 20p feels like an extortionate amount to get jibbed out of. Anyway, I did manage to hold in the scone-price-induced rage tornado. Just.)
As I slurp my sugary concoction I walk past Partners Corner, and can’t quite believe my eyes. It’s Angrypants. She’s been here awhile already, the empty bowl of porridge sitting beside her is testament to that. I don’t know quite what to make of it, I mean, it’s the Monday after her wedding? Hair perfectly straightened in that fashionable bob she wears, horn rimmed glasses perched on her nose, she is reviewing a report over a steaming mug of coconut tea and a punnet of blueberries. She’s the vision of a perfect worker. A perfect lawyer. A perfect consultant. Her image inspires the usual feelings of annoyance and doubt and self-loathing I get whenever I’m in her presence. Because I’m not that. I never have been, and I never will.
I walk sadly to my desk, sipping my frappuchino, trying not to get upset that this woman is so much more hard working and diligent and good looking than the rest of us are, and makes us all look like lazy jerks. And her blueberries are making me furious with myself for my morning breakfast choice, which is essentially a lump of sweet dough smothered with jam and clotted cream (Michael Cera tried to make it up to me with extra condiments), washed down with liquid cake. Although I gotta say, this frappuchino is damn good. I love the way they mix those scrumptious Starbucks brews.
I dump my heavy bag onto my desk, remove my trusty laptop and set up, glancing at the worn paper pad sitting innocently on my desk. The pages have got crinkles in the corners from my nervous habit of crinkling them. Ten minutes later I’ve written a to-do list for this morning, and it ain’t pretty:
Complete commercial section and costing spreadsheet for Hastings bid - send to SD
Sustainability in the property market - submit article for IEMA newsletter (pfft, like that’s ever gonna happen. Mention how you were shot down by senior management after suggesting we stop buying those pesky 0.5L water bottles for the kitchens)
Return PWC’s call re. Tesco end of financial year audit
Gary Morton – email asking how spacial considerations are incorporated into ATM design. Smaller the ATMs the smaller the rental fees, to be negotiated into our contracts
Julie Singh - email requesting commercial team contacts for HSBC
Get your ass down to the Polish consulate to renew your passport
Pay off work AMEX (do this TODAY! You are getting a disastrous credit rating)
Submit application for Howard Stern Award (Innovation in Legal Consulting category)
Personal Development Plan for next year, set goals, send to SD
Organise meeting with grads to help them set their goals
Look up contact deets for Ikea Category Manager and Commercial Manager. Send introductory email
Buy more Nescafe Gold, common instant in kitchen isn’t cutting the mustard
Try to forget you have no friends left
And that’s just for this morning. I sigh to myself, moving my eyes back to my screen monitor.
I am so fucking depressed. Mondays are always awful but after yesterday the world seems like an even colder, darker place. Thoughts of The Incident (as I’m now calling my attack on Antonio) plague my frappuchino flooded brain.
When did I jump from lovable hedonist to a one-woman freak show? I had asked myself that very question over and over again last night, eventually falling into a curry-induced food sleep on the sofa and enduring mean spirited nightmares. In one I was in Iceland participating in a gherkin eating competition with a group of girl scouts. I tried to wrench away their pumpkin spice raisin oatmeal biscuit tin because I thought the sugar was giving them a competitive advantage. The audience branded me a psychopath and I ended up fleeing to Reykjavik airport. On the way I got angry with a squirrel for being too shy (“Get down from that tree and entertain me!”) then the Girl Scout Nordic fanbase caught up with me and exploded sausages in my face.
And that was one of the more sane ones. Seems my neurotic douchebaggery is warping my dream space as well as my personal life.
I sigh and get back to work, trying in vain to nail my scary to-do list and avoiding eye contact with the grads because I need them to leave me alone today. I plug in my earphones and sadly bop along to Glenn Medeiros. His lovely voice doesn’t help though. Nothing helps, and by late morning I have come to the realisation that it’s grovel time.
I begin typing to Emma,
Hey sis. I am so, so sorry about yesterday. Whilst I fully understand how you don’t want to surround yourself with people who might stab you, I don’t think I’m actually insane, and I want to make it up to you. Did you want to do dinner tomorrow? We haven’t done fondue in a while? Let the Golden Age of Cheese reign again.
I click Send.
Then one to Chloe,
I’m sorry about yesterday. Hope Majnoon leaves you alone this week. Wanna share a bottle of wine soon?
It gets to lunchtime and neither Chloe nor Emma have replied, even though I see they’ve been online (the beauty of Whatsapp). I was hoping one of them would say something, even just a few words. Their rejection leaves me in an even deeper mood of misery than I was when I got upset over 20p.
Crazygirl Falls in Love Page 20
