Would Like to Meet

by Polly James

  “No,” I say. “And nor does the dryer so, tomorrow, you’ll have to take everything to the launderette.”

  Joel looks horrified, though I’m not sure whether that’s due to the failure of his stupid plan, or to the prospect of having to take his clothes to the Eezimat, then sit there for hours watching them dry. I’d find that pretty boring myself.

  Oh, shit. I didn’t always find it boring, though. Not when Dan and I got locked inside the art school’s launderette overnight and decided to wash everything we owned, including what we were wearing at the time. That night was far from boring, or from being “punishment”.

  Chapter 8

  Oh, God, this splitting-up thing must be catching: now Joel and Izzy have split up, too. He told me about it late last night when he came back from a date with her, and said it was his choice, but then clammed up when I asked him why. I try again this morning, when he finally drags himself out of bed.

  “Well, you and Dad are hardly a good advertisement for long-term relationships, are you?” he says. “And anyway, I’m fine with it.”

  He may be, but he looks a lot more bleary-eyed than he normally does after a night out drinking.

  In fact, he looks so rough that I don’t feel I can ask him to go into the loft to find my painting things, so I end up doing it myself, which is not the world’s most enjoyable experience. First the ladder wobbles alarmingly, and then I have to climb off it into the attic, which is so dark that I can barely see a thing, apart from all the horrible cobwebs near the hatch. I hate spiders – and so does Joel – so I’ve no idea how we’re going to deal with them now Dan’s not here.

  “You’ve got no choice, so just man up,” I say to myself. (That’s another thing that happens when your husband’s left you: you start talking to yourself, like a lunatic.)

  Luckily, my art stuff is in the box closest to the hatch, so soon I’m back downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table and drawing the viola Pearl gave me from the garden at Abandon Hope. My first few strokes of the pencil are tentative, but after that, my drawing becomes more fluid and the result is surprisingly good, given that I’ve done nothing but draw stupid website icons for the last ten years. The trouble is that, once the flower drawing’s complete, I can’t think of anything else to draw and – after a few minutes spent racking my brains to no avail – I realise I’ve been doodling Dan’s name, over and over, by accident.

  I scribble all the doodles out.

  “What shall I draw next?” I say to Joel.

  “I don’t know,” he says, which is no help whatsoever, but then I recall what I used to do whenever I ran out of ideas at art school: go for a walk in the countryside.

  I pack up my sketchbook and drawing materials and then I arrange to go over to Pearl’s. I may as well kill two birds with one stone, I suppose.

  * * *

  “You look terrible,” says Pearl, as soon as she opens the door to me. “I’m surprised you’ve got the energy to go for a walk. Are you still not sleeping?”

  “No,” I say, “I mean, yes, I am. But that’s actually worse – because of the nightmares I’ve been having recently.”

  Pearl raises an eyebrow.

  “Nightmares?” she asks. “What nightmares?”

  She makes me a coffee while I tell her about my recurring dream.

  “It starts with me and Joel standing on the deck of the Titanic, while Joel keeps yelling at me that Dan has disappeared,” I say, finding it all too easy to visualise the scene that replays itself in my mind most nights: dark water swirling round our ankles, the captain of the ship conspicuous by his total absence, and the deck tilting more and more alarmingly.

  “So what happens then?” asks Pearl.

  She actually seems interested, which is unusual, given how boring most of us find listening to other people’s dreams. Esther tells me about hers every morning when we arrive at work, and I’m starting to wish she wouldn’t bother, though I’d never dream of saying so.

  “Go on,” says Pearl. “We haven’t got all day, so don’t drag this out.”

  “I’ve nearly finished,” I say, “and I was only pausing to take a breath. Anyway, when the ship’s about to capsize, Joel and I spot Dan sitting in a lifeboat in the sea below, so we both breathe a big sigh of relief because we know he won’t let us drown. Then we start jumping up and down, yelling, until he spots us …”

  My voice tails off again at that point, as I suddenly get a bit choked up, so I try to cover that by slurping at my coffee, which is still so hot I burn my mouth.

  “Ouch,” I say, getting up and heading for Pearl’s kitchen for a swig of cold water.

  “Don’t change the subject by leaving the room,” says Pearl, getting up and following me. “Not when I’m still waiting to hear how this blooming dream ends – though I don’t see how you can call it a nightmare, if Dan rescues you.”

  “That’s the thing,” I say. “When he finally sees us, he waves … but then he starts to row really fast. Away from us.”

  “Ah,” says Pearl, who I’ve never known to be lost for words before.

  She remains mute until we reach the wooden viewing seat at the top of the hill that forms the outer edge of the Abandon Hope estate, the same hill that overlooks a lake situated in a public park just outside the boundary. If Pearl thinks the sight of a large body of water is unfortunate in the circumstances, she doesn’t say so, and nor do I. I just avert my eyes.

  “I want to give you some advice, Hannah,” she says, after a minute or two has passed. “From experience. When you find yourself on your own after a long time of being half of a couple, solitary hobbies like drawing and painting aren’t enough. You need to get out and meet people. You really do. I know it’s terrifying but you just have to face the fear. Take the opportunity to make new friends, whenever it presents itself, and be friendly to everyone you meet. Even people you don’t like.”

  “Why have I got to be friendly to them?” I say, as I begin to sketch the view below us. (The one that doesn’t involve the lake. I’ve got my back to that.)

  “Because they may have friends you like a lot,” says Pearl. “Ones they can introduce you to – oh, hello!”

  She’s addressing one of the men who attended her poker night, the nice one who looks like Pope Francis, not the vile Fiddling Fred. He’s approaching us from the direction of the lake, dressed in a fisherman’s jumper and a very natty cap. The sort that a ship’s captain would wear, if he was the sort of captain who didn’t abandon women and children on the deck of a sinking ship. (I know Joel’s twenty-two, but to me he’ll always be a child.)

  The man says hello to Pearl and then he smiles at me, and says, “Beautiful view, isn’t it?”

  Pearl steps in before I can tell the truth about how I feel about the sight of large expanses of water at the moment.

  “Hannah, you remember Albert, don’t you?” she says. “He’s one of my lovely fellow residents.”

  I’d forgotten Albert’s name, but Pearl’s obviously taking her own advice by referring to him as “lovely”. She definitely told me she’d ruled him out as a potential new husband after the poker game, because he was “too quiet” for her taste.

  The conversation between them isn’t exactly flowing now, which is a bit awkward, so I escape and walk to the very edge of the hill where I sit down on the grass, and start to draw the other view – the one which does contain the lake. Face the fear, and all that self-help stuff.

  “I row my boat across that lake every morning,” says a voice behind me, and I turn round to see Albert looking down at my drawing. “It’s become one of my favourite places in the world.”

  I don’t know what gets into me, but – all of a sudden – my mouth opens and I say,

  “Albert, would you teach me to row?”

  It might be purely symbolic, but imagine how much better I’d feel if I was rowing, not drowning.

  Chapter 9

  It’s all very well for Pearl to tell me to take up more sociable activ
ities, but after my first rowing lesson, Albert says I’m going to need a lot more, with the emphasis heavily on “a lot”. He claims he doesn’t mind how long it takes because I’ll get the hang of it eventually, and enjoy it once I have, but I doubt I’ll ever enjoy my other new outdoor activity: this ridiculous singles’ walking club.

  There’s mud everywhere, and I’m freezing cold and soaking wet. Turns out that Joel’s super-cool “waterproof” jacket (the one I sneakily borrowed while he was still asleep this morning) is not only miles too big for me, which isn’t a surprise, but isn’t rainproof either, which certainly is. And the bloke running this stupid group is bossier than the Fembot, which I didn’t think was even possible.

  The rest of the walkers are a motley crew as well, especially the men. There are quite a few young, fit ones dressed in lycra, which is a sartorial faux pas I might consider overlooking if they weren’t also so far ahead of me along the ridge that I couldn’t interact with them if I tried – and the ones staggering along behind me don’t look as if they’ll make it to the next stopping place alive. I hope they don’t, seeing as they’ve talked about nothing other than football and steam trains all the way so far. God knows why I ever thought this was a good idea.

  “Too right,” says a voice from somewhere nearby, though I can’t see who it belongs to. And did I really just say what I was thinking out loud? (That’s a very worrying development, especially if I do the same thing whilst at work.)

  “Over to your left,” comes the voice again. “Behind the tree. You can join me if you like – I’m going to make a run for it.”

  That idea sounds so appealing that I don’t even stop to think before I make a sharp left-hand turn, and nearly send a trainspotter flying off the edge of the ridge. Then I peer around the only tree for miles that’s managed to retain its foliage in the face of the high winds that are presumably the norm up here in the wilderness. (Joel’s useless jacket isn’t windproof, either.)

  “Hi,” says a blonde woman who’s standing with her back pressed flat against the tree. “Finally, someone else with common sense. I spotted a pub not far from that dip we passed a little while ago – d’you fancy joining me? I need a stiff drink after this.”

  I need a hot drink, rather than a stiff one, but hopefully the pub will have a coffee machine as well as alcohol. I decide to take the risk, and follow carefully in the woman’s footsteps as she steps off the path and heads towards open ground. I hope she’s got a good sense of direction, though I have no idea how she’s walking at all, seeing as her trainers have wedge heels.

  “Iz-urgh Mu-unt,” she says, when she sees me looking at her feet, but the howling of the wind obliterates most of each word, so I’m still none the wiser until we eventually reach the pub. I’m not that much wiser then, to be honest.

  “I said, ‘Isabel Marant’,” says the woman, as we stand together at the bar.

  “Nice to meet you, Isabel,” I say, which proves to be an error on a par with joining this ludicrous walking group, at least as far as my companion is concerned.

  “Not me,” she says, looking appalled. “Isabel Marant’s a designer, though I’m not sure these trainers are her most practical creation.”

  “Ah,” I say.

  Maybe Joel will have heard of this Ms Marant. I certainly feel I should have done.

  “I’m Hannah,” I say, for want of a more sophisticated topic of conversation. “Hannah Pinkman.”

  “Eva Fraser,” says the woman, as she puts out her hand.

  She pulls it back in again when she realises it’s covered in mud, which she wipes off on the bar towel in front of us. The barman notices but doesn’t object, which I can only put down to how glamorous Eva looks in her fur-trimmed parka, immaculately cut jeans and fancy Isabel Whatsit trainers. Even her hair looks good – as if it was intended to look windswept – while I resemble an ageing Afghan hound that’s spent the last hour in a wind tunnel experiment.

  I do my best to smooth my hair down while Eva establishes that the bar doesn’t serve coffee, and orders double gins for both of us. We dispose of these with indecent haste, re-order and take our refilled glasses over to a table by the window, where we make ourselves comfortable. I may feel a bit of an idiot for not knowing much about designer footwear, but this is miles better than being outside on that bloody ridge. The weather’s got a whole lot worse over the last twenty minutes, too.

  “So, Hannah,” says Eva. “Tell me about yourself.”

  Oh, I hate that question. What on earth am I supposed to say? I have a job I hate, an adult son who’s never going to leave home, but a husband who already has? The whole thing makes me sound like a walking disaster. Talking of which, I’ve just spotted one of the trainspotters outside the entrance to the pub, shaking himself off like a dripping dog. He’s purple in the face, and looks even less attractive than he did earlier, when I almost knocked him off the ridge.

  “Shit!” says Eva. “It’s the bore to end all bores. Duck – quick – before he sees us!”

  We crash heads as we both dive under the table, and by the time we’ve stopped apologising to each other, the trainspotter has chosen the lounge bar, leaving us safe in the snug.

  Eva clinks her glass against mine in celebration, then takes a large swig of gin before she begins telling me about herself. Apparently, she’s in the process of moving back to the UK, having spent years working in the USA as the editor of a glossy magazine! It’s a good job I didn’t tell her what I do for a living. Designing icons for a question-and-answer site isn’t going to sound too impressive to the newly appointed editor of the British edition of Viva Vintage, though after a few more drinks I don’t care. Eva’s much easier to get along with than she looks, and not quite as confident either, which is good news as far as I’m concerned. Over-confident people have a tendency to suck all the confidence out of me – the Fembot does it every day.

  “I’m not worried about the new job at all,” says Eva, “as it’s not going to be much different from my old one in the States, but I have been worried about making new friends. It’s not so easy when you’re our age, and you’re busy all the time, is it, Hannah?”

  “No, it isn’t,” I say, “especially when you’ve let all your old friends slip away. That’s what I seem to have done.”

  Eva clinks her glass against mine for the second time.

  “Well, in that case,” she says, “why don’t we be friends? Anyone who hates walking-for-singles as much as I do has to be a kindred spirit. Let’s arrange to meet up, as soon as poss. We can go clubbing together and see how many men we can pull.”

  I suspect Eva’s score will outstrip mine by quite some margin, but maybe I can pick up the odd cast-off here and there. Things might be starting to look up.

  * * *

  Esther says that Eva sounds “intimidating”, when I tell her how the walking-for-singles went, but I don’t let that put me off. When I get home from work this evening, I find the business card Eva gave me and then dial her number straight away, before she can change her mind about being friends with someone as unglamorous as me.

  “I’ve got an early start tomorrow,” she says, “so I can’t go clubbing tonight, but I’d love a coffee and a chat instead, if that’s any good for you?”

  “It’s even better,” I say. “I’ve made cupcakes.”

  I haven’t, but I don’t want to make Eva think I’m even less competent than I am. The Fembot let me have the ones she made for today’s cupcake photos in return for a generous donation to the charity box.

  “Great,” says Eva. “I can’t cook to save my life.”

  * * *

  Her new house turns out to be only five minutes away from mine, so she turns up at the door before I’ve finished instructing Joel to be on his best behaviour, and not to mention that I design stupid icons for a living. She kisses both of us enthusiastically, which I have a feeling makes Joel blush, though it’s hard to be sure due to most of his face being covered in beard. Then I make coffee while
Eva pumps him for information about when he thinks the hipster beard craze will finally peak, and which vintage sneakers he considers the most desirable.

  He’s still holding forth about that by the time I join him and Eva in the living room, bearing the box of cakes in front of me like a prize. I put it down on the coffee table and open it with a flourish, only to find it contains four cupcakes, two of which are iced to look like breasts in frilly half-cup bras and the other two to resemble Kim Kardashian’s naked bum.

  Eva raises her eyebrows when she sees them, as does Joel, so then I have no choice but to ’fess up that I lied. That passes off surprisingly well.

  “Always fake it, if you can’t make it,” says Eva. “I know I do.”

  She takes an enormous bite of Kim’s bottom and starts to chew. Then she tells me some more about herself, like the fact that she was christened Enid, but changed her name by deed poll as soon as she left home. She’s also been divorced for years. Quite happily.

  Everyone’s divorced these days, aren’t they? Apart from Theo and Claire, though if it could happen to me and Dan, it could easily happen to them – or to anyone. Not that we’re divorced, of course. Not yet …

  Chapter 10

  Joel looks incredulous when I tell him I’m going clubbing with Eva tonight, so I decide to go out straight from work, rather than risk going home to get ready and having to endure his probably even-more-incredulous expression when he sees me dressed up to the nines. If I am dressed up to the nines, that is.

  I have no idea what people my age wear to go clubbing and Esther wasn’t much help when I asked her advice yesterday, so I just grab my newest dress from the wardrobe, the one I bought myself one lunchtime last week, to make up for bursting into tears in the food section of M&S. (I’d just put Dan’s favourite apricot tart into my basket, by mistake.)