by Anna Maxted
Later on I ring work. I choose my words with care. I don’t stretch the truth. I merely tweak it. ‘Laetitia,’ I declare solemnly, ‘I’ve seen the doctor and he’s gagging to put me on anti-depressants. The thing is, it’ll mean sick leave, and I’m reluctant to leave you in the lurch. Especially as we’re so short-staffed. But I’m sure if I take this week as holiday and rest, I’ll be fine. Would you be okay with that?’
Laetitia grants me this week and next week off without a whimper.
Lizzy is the first to ring. ‘Helen!’ she peals. ‘Are you okay?’ Alarmed at her tone – which suggests my death is pending – I reply, ‘I’m fine. Why?’
Lizzy blurts, ‘Laetitia told the managing editor, who told the beauty director, who told me, that you’re unstable and you’ve got to keep away so you don’t contaminate the office!’
As I predicted this, I say cheerily, ‘Laetitia is a large, lowing moo cow who should learn to keep her trap shut.’
Silence. Lizzy whispers, ‘So is it true?’
I squeak, ‘No it isn’t! I’m fine. I’m just tired. I burnt your death-kit yesterday. It helped.’
Lizzy nearly bursts through the earpiece with joy. ‘That’s wonderful!’ she shrieks, ‘Was it amazing? spiritual? intense? a release?’ Lizzy – amid a host of other talents – is mistress of the superlative and I immediately fret that the posting ritual wasn’t as emotionally extreme as specified.
‘It was quite intense,’ I say warily, ‘but I was nervous about being caught by a grave warden.’ I know Lizzy is about to reply ‘A what?’ and I can’t be bothered to begin that conversation so I add swiftly, ‘It was good. I feel much better inside, but also ill, if you see what I mean. Sore throat. Probably from the smoke. So I’m taking time off.’
The Blyton gene kicks in and Lizzy sighs, ‘Oh good for you! The pain is probably psychosomatic. I’m sure you got masses off your chest.’
This happens to be an expression I loathe so I exclaim, ‘I hope not – with my figure I can hardly afford it.’
Lizzy ignores me and resumes, ‘Just relax and consolidate what you’ve achieved.’
This makes me imagine myself as a nesting hen. I yawn and say, ‘I plan to sleep.’
Lizzy – who’s even more evangelical than normal – says, ‘That’s fine, but you mustn’t sleep more than nine hours. If you do and you’re still lethargic you could be lacking iron. And have you heard from Tom?’
I reply stiffly, ‘No.’ And then, ‘What about Brian?’
‘Oh no!’ says Lizzy, who never looks back.
In the following days I take calls from my mother (‘fresh air, darling, and drink milk’), from Tina (‘I’ll bike you crisps’), from Luke (‘I saw Tom the other night and he didn’t mention you. Has Tina mentioned me?’), and from Nana Flo.
‘Cecelia tells me you’re poorly,’ she says. ‘Is it your monthlies?’
If I wasn’t lying flat when I answered the phone I would have keeled over in shock. As it is, I want to burrow into the ground like a mole. ‘No,’ I say, making a grim face. ‘No. I had a sore throat but now I’m fine, Nana. I’m having a holiday from work.’ If not my relatives, I add silently. There is a long pause, so I say, ‘I’d like to visit. Maybe when I’m better?’
Nana replies shortly, ‘I’ll be here.’
After speaking to Nana, I keep myself to myself for ten days. I stop expecting Tom to call, which means I stop lifting the receiver to see if the line’s dead. I sleep ten hours every night plus a leisurely afternoon nap (mainly to spite Lizzy) and – for the first time ever – I have a manicure. It is exquisitely dull.
I also spend a lot of time on the heath extension. I take A Taste For Death and a blanket and a bagel and a tube of hairspray to spray at muggers and sit on a wooden bench and eat and read and watch people walk their dogs. And I stare at the sky a lot. In the evenings I play darts in my front room – I’ve got the nails for it – to the sound of the Sandpipers. Surprisingly, the song ‘Guantanamera’ reminds me of my father – I can only imagine that he must have liked it. At first it makes me cry but I play it twenty times in succession and become immune. (Listening to the lyrics also helps.) Two days before I’m due back at work I tire of bellowing ‘One hundred and aaaytee!’ and decide to be more active. I ring Tina and ask if she wants to go ice skating.
‘Ice skating?’ says Tina in a tone that makes me wonder if I accidentally said ‘Potholing.’ I tell her I saw it on TV and it’ll be glamorous and fun. She surrenders, but ‘only because you’ve been a recluse for the last fortnight’. Two hours later, the pair of us are slithering around Queens Ice Rink on rubber legs and getting cut up by eight-year-olds.
‘I’m getting the hang of it now!’ says Tina, arms flailing like a windmill.
‘I’m knackered and boiling and faint from exertion,’ I gasp after nine minutes of staggering. ‘I need some Kendall’s Mint Cake. I assume they sell it at the bar.’ We hobble to the edge for a breather, which leads me to an exciting discovery. ‘Look! I can skate backwards!’ I crow, clutching the siderail and clonking into it.
‘I want to do that,’ declares Tina, pointing at a teenage madam in a glittery skirt and white boots who has positioned herself at the heart of the ice and is spinning like a top.
‘Go on then,’ I say.
‘You go on,’ says Tina.
‘But,’ I bleat, ‘she’s got white boots and I’ve got these blunt blue things. And she’s on the smoothest bit of the ice. My bit’s scuffed up. And I’m wearing a puffa jacket and padded trousers. I’m incapacitated.’
Tina huffs. ‘Dressing like a doughnut has nothing to do with it. Don’t make excuses,’ she says.
‘Fine!’ I exclaim. ‘Fine! You’ve pushed me too far! Just watch me!’
Approximately three seconds later I am wobbling to the lockers with a bruised ego and a cold wet bottom. Tina is staggering along behind me like a small yeti. ‘Your ha ha legs literally ha ha ha flew right out from ha ha ha under you,’ she cries, crippled with glee, ‘you looked a right berk!’
In my prissiest voice I reply that I am not a penguin and therefore am going home to change into civilian clothes and drink a hot chocolate and walk on the floor like a normal human being and if she has nothing nice to say then I suggest she say nothing at all.
But in truth I rather enjoyed it.
Chapter 47
YESTERDAY I RETURNED to Girltime, paid my electricity bill, rang Nana Flo to check she was alive, took the work experience girl for a coffee after Laetitia made her cry, asked the bank to extend my overdraft (it refused), bought bleach and cling film, traipsed to three shops in a hapless search for a mobile phone earpiece, made an appointment with the optician (number plates are blurring again), attended a features meeting (suggested fifteen ideas to show up Laetitia), booked the Toyota in for a service (the garage was getting shirty), and thought, now I see why Dad always boomed, ‘Schooldays are the happiest days of your life!’
I muse on how draining it is to be a grown-up, and think back to my schooldays. I remember reading aloud from Henry IV and being laughed at by the entire English class for pronouncing ‘discretion’ discreeshun. And hating netball. Then I think, give me debts and a trundly car any day. At least I owe and drive badly how I want. And I’ll never have to sit another exam. At college my tutor used to say, ‘When you get the exam paper I want you to look around the room and smile knowingly to yourself. It’ll psyche out the opposition!’ I followed his advice and I’m sure the opposition would have been psyched out except they were all miserably smiling knowingly to themselves too. This psyched me out and I got a 2.2. Never again. Thankfully I ignored my father and I didn’t try to become a lawyer. (The law’s reputation is bad enough.)
I take a large swig of espresso and feel calm. As if I’ve let something go.
Laetitia is safely engrossed in Tatler so I start making a list of who I took orders from aged ten (my mother, my father, Brown Owl, nine teachers, Michelle, equals thirteen) and who I ta
ke orders from aged twenty-seven (Fatboy, Laetitia, the bank, the garage, Lizzy sometimes, equals four and a half but feels like eighty-four and a half). Which means that technically I am just under two-thirds less downtrodden than I was seventeen years ago. I have nearly twice as much control. No, three times! I always was a klutz at fractions – another point in favour of the present. I must go to the theatre more.
I shove the list in a drawer, then return to fretting over the first ever feature Laetitia has been coerced into commissioning me. She was most reluctant and reminded me of a spaniel I once saw being dragged into Tom’s surgery on its bottom. Tina saw us exit the meeting and e-mailed me remarking that Morticia looked red in tooth and claw and was it because she’d missed her rabies injection? I replied, ‘Rabies antidote rendered powerless by potency of subject’s venom. Morticia irate because after years of meek submission the deodorant monitor has turned.’
Tina messaged back, ‘Like it. But caged animals lash out so go easy. Victim Support number here, if needed.’
In a burst of flamboyance, I retorted, ‘Save it for Morticia. Her broomstick’s busted! Her goose is cooked!’
This was such a kick-ass thought (albeit untrue) that I struck the enter key with a loud pank! and Laetitia looked up. ‘What are you doing?’ she snapped.
‘Research for my feature on bullying,’ I replied happily. Laetitia swelled like a puff adder with PMT, but turned back to Tatler without another word.
Tina and I have a drink after work to, as she says, celebrate. I’m not so sure. Laetitia would rather publish a feature written by a spider monkey than anything composed by me so my picture-byline is far from won. ‘But since when did you care?’ asks Tina.
I shrug. ‘Since I became bored of dressing as a tampon.’
Tina nods wisely, and says, ‘Makes sense.’
I add gloomily, ‘And I need a raise. I’m sick of not being able to afford my lifestyle.’
Tina snorts, ‘Well one feature won’t swing it!’
‘Tina!’ I squeak. ‘I am being positive in the face of doom. You’re not being helpful.’
Tina replies, ‘Sorry. What I meant to say is, you go, girl! Keep at it and maybe in a year you’ll get a rise that’ll allow you to upgrade deodorant.’
I grimace and say, ‘You never know. Maybe if I get a feature printed in the mag I’ll be headhunted.’
Tina replies, ‘That would be impossible.’ Actually what she says is, ‘That would be nice,’ but it comes out in the tone of ‘That would be impossible.’
I slump – bar stools are made for slumpers. ‘How are you about Adrian now?’ I begin, but Tina shakes her head and crunches hard on an ice cube.
‘Don’t want to think about it,’ she says.
I see the tension in her jaw and say hurriedly, ‘Have you heard from Luke?’
This elicits a half-smile. ‘I’m resisting,’ she says. ‘He’s a doll but I need a break.’
I sigh and say, ‘It must be great to be pursued, though.’ Then I think about what I’ve just said and stammer, ‘I mean, by a nice bloke.’
Tina gives me a playful kick which – from a steel-toed Prada shoe – feels about as playful as a kneecap.
‘Ow,’ I say, as Tina exclaims, ‘You were being pursued by a nice bloke. I don’t get why you’re not together. And you seem so laid back about it. Did you go off him?’
I think of Tom and feel a pang. I growl, ‘No, I didn’t go off him! I’m pining here! Haven’t you noticed I’m off my Dime bars? I can barely eat for lolling and moping like a great big plank. The only reason I’m not whining on about it is that I’ve bored myself.’
‘Bloody hell!’ says Tina. ‘I didn’t realise! Why didn’t you say?’
My bravado dissolves and I say sadly, ‘There’s no point. The look he gave me when Jasper said he was my live-in boyfriend. You wouldn’t wish it on anyone, even Laetitia. It was as bad as when I tried to eat a plastic grape out of Vivienne’s fruit bowl.’
Tina looks piqued. She says, ‘But Jasper was only kipping on your floor! Have you rung Tom and explained?’
I sigh and say, ‘I’ve agonised about calling him a million times. But there is no explanation.’
Tina clunks down her beer bottle so fast a small plop flies out. ‘Yes there is!’ she cries.
‘No there isn’t!’ I exclaim. ‘Whether we were shagging isn’t the issue. It’s that I’d invited Jass to stay at all.’
Tina frowns. ‘But why?’
I say, ‘It’s to do with me needing Jasper there. It was stupid.’
Tina huffs, ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she says. ‘Tom’s a sorted out bloke. He’ll forgive you one—’
I interrupt with, ‘No, it’s not that. It’s not that. There were multiple mistakes. I know he’s a, sorted out, but it’s not that. It’s to do with’ – I pause to search for the correct word – ‘trust.’ Tina falls silent. I say – feeling only a tad Mills & Boon and wishing I was wearing something more suitable, a cape perhaps? – ‘It’s not so much to do with him not being able to trust me. It’s about me not being able to trust myself.’
Tina looks queasy and says, ‘Stop it, you’re churning me up.’ But she means it kindly.
She then does her best to cheer me by flimsifying the conversation – which makes me feel like a grizzling toddler being desperately bounced on a knee. Tina watched Men In Black on video last night and don’t tell Luke, but she’s defected from Rob Lowe to Will Smith, who is definitely the prototype of man. This, as we both know, is the cue for me to say what I’ve been saying for the last decade: I discovered Will Smith’s potential way back when he was fuffling around as The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and I was spreading the word years before he got A Grade famous and all the fickle hoi polloi jumped on the stargazing bandwagon, and if anyone has the right to Will Smith’s perfection it is me and only me. ‘If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a million times,’ I say primly, ‘and anyway, Rob’s like the Escort. It would be disgraceful to desert him after all these years, just because you got a whiff of a Porsche Boxter.’
‘Just checking,’ grins Tina.
After she leaves I sit on the bar stool and wonder if I should phone Tom. As a fantasy it’s a kick. I imagine a tearful reunion, me flitting towards him across a buttercup field, my hair – blonde for the occasion? – streaming in the light breeze, the sun shining golden upon us, Tom love-struck and smiling and tall, me not treading in a cow pat, and no ramblers. But if I made it reality the dream would crumble. Buttercups and breezes apart, I do not want to announce myself and be snubbed. But faint lady never won fair knight. Well actually she always won fair knight, but these days knights are lazier and ladies more proactive. At least, if I rang him, I’d know. Maybe it’s better to know, and pine with conviction. I’ll phone him.
In a bit.
If I go home now, I’m honour-bound to call Tom. So I’ll do something else. What? A walk? Better not – I could sprain an ankle. The theatre – oh tut, everything’s started. Nana’s? There are limits to my masochism. After five minutes during which I realise I have no imagination I decide on something that I’ve never done before. I will eat dinner, in a restaurant, by myself. And, unlike those friendless men who inevitably order paella then spill it down their grey suit, I won’t take a novel to shield me from the horrified stares of paired people.
And the venue can’t be Spud U Like. It’s got to be proper. Preferably, fashionable. My solitude must be flaunted. I’ll walk into Garfunkels, head high, and demand the centre table! No – even better – a window seat! Let them try to squirrel me away in a dark corner and I’ll sue them for discrimination! The might of Alex Simpkinson will crash down upon them like a ton of writs! And I’ll eat three courses! I’ll string it out, chewing every mouthful fifty times! I’ll laugh aloud at my own thoughts, should I find them amusing! Helen Bradshaw will carry the banner for lone dining females!
Then a stocky man knocks past me, spilling my drink, and I realise I am sitting on a highly uncomfor
table bar stool with flushed cheeks (all four, I imagine), and sweaty palms. I think, I’ve virtually dined! I’ve as good as done it! I may as well go home.
I force myself into the first place I see which happens to be the Noodle Bar. I stomp in, glaring and quaking, angrily plonk myself down in the window like a large pink dummy, order plain noodles from the utterly polite waiter, ignore everyone, stare fixedly at my mobile phone until the food arrives, wolf down the noodles in one minute while feigning fascination at the menu and feeling like the biggest geek in the entire universe, pay cash and bolt.
Triumph! I think, puffing from the effort of running away from the Noodle Bar faster than I’ve ever run from anywhere in my life. Now I can phone Tom.
I ooff-ooff-ooff to get my breathing straight. I tilt my head from side to side until my neck feels less like concrete. I sing ‘La la!’ to ensure my voice is working. Urgh, I stink of garlic. Hot, foul-mouthed, and trembly-fingered, I flick to Tom’s number in my address book. ‘Come on!’ I bleat to myself. ‘You just ate alone in a restaurant! This is a cinch!’ I place the book on the sofa, and sit on its arm. Then I dial.
Brrt-brrt! Brrt-brrt! Brrt-brrt! Brr—
I smirk with fright.
‘Hello?’
The phone is suddenly slidey in my hands.
‘Hello Tom?’ I gasp.
‘Who’s this?’
