He took his coffee out of the machine. ‘You know, the coffee? Is it pretend, seeing as it’s all smoke and mirrors round here?’
‘Oh!’ Holly said, relieved. ‘Like it’s actually just boiling water with food colouring in it? No, I’m pretty sure it’s real. It’s got a fraction more flavour.’
He smiled and took a sip. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’
Holly pressed the cappuccino button.
‘So, you’re the person who dishes out the close-ups?’ Luke delivered another of his really quite smouldering leading-man grins.
‘Well, in between being an accidental PA to the Head of Programming, yes, deciding between shots is one aspect of being editor.’
‘So I should keep you sweet, shouldn’t I?’
Holly took the plastic cup from the machine and grappled with not swearing about how hot it was. She didn’t want to shatter the illusion she wasn’t totally potty-mouthed. Yet.
‘So there’s no non-cheesy way to say this – but how about I take you for a real coffee some time?’
Holly hoped her smile covered the fact that inside, her heart was having minor palpitations. ‘I wouldn’t have said cheesy. Transparent, maybe…’
Her phone began to ring in her pocket. She looked down to see a flashing thumbnail of a girl with jet black hair and red lips holding a microphone.
‘Oh sorry. This is my flatmate, I’d better…’
‘Sure. Let me know about that coffee another time.’ Luke smiled as she turned to walk away.
Those teeth have almost certainly been bleached in a Hollywood salon, Holly decided before answering the call.
‘Hey hon, you OK?’
‘Holly! Oh my giddy fuck! The world has just ended.’
Holly sighed. The world was always ending in Bella’s world.
‘What’s wrong? Have you and Daniel had another flatmates squabble? Have you thrown the laundry rack at him again?’
‘It’s so much worse than that,’ she said, breaking into sobs.
Putting her hand over the receiver to drown out Bella’s crying, Holly headed down the corridor. She rounded the corner to her office and closed the door behind her. ‘OK. Sshhhhh. Deep breaths. What’s happened?’
But all Holly could hear now was broken speech, not unlike a child’s hyperventilating playground tears.
‘My beautiful Sammy! He’s shitting well dumped me!’
Through the phone, Bella began to rant, oscillating from desolate to indignant with every breath. One moment it was all ‘How-dare-HE-dump-ME!’, the next it was ‘He’s the love of my life, my soulmate!’
‘Oh, hon,’ Holly said, ‘I’m so sorry. Where are you?’
‘Guildhell.’
Ever since her first term at The Guildhall – a prestigious Drama School that worked its students very hard – Bella and her course-mates had referred to it as The Guildhell School of Music and Trauma.
‘Do you want me to come and meet you after work?’
‘Can’t-You-Meet-Me-NOW?’ she wailed. ‘Yes. Sorry, can I just have a chai latte extra hot please, takeaway. Thanks. Can I pay by card? Oh sorry, where’s the nearest…? OK never mind. Sorry… sorry… Hol, I’m back. Oh no, hold on, Daniel’s ringing. Sorry Hol, wait one second.’
Holly cleared her throat. Before long. Bella returned to the phone line with renewed focus. ‘Sorry Hol. That was just Daniel wanting me to buy loo roll again. The man’s obsessed! I mean – can you honestly believe he thinks he’s exempt from buying bog roll just because he poos at work?! I mean, who thinks like that?!’ Bella giggled despite her trauma.
‘He’s probably expecting one of his lady callers.’
‘Yes, that figures. But anyway! Can we do a movie and Prosecco tonight please?’
‘I really should be working late on fixing this new episode. I’m still two minutes and twenty-three seconds over length.’ She looked at Chardonnay’s tangerine face, frozen mid-pout, and thought for a moment. ‘But of course, B. I’ll pick up some pizzas on the way home.’
‘Christ, no. Shan’t be no solids passing my lips for at least a month now.’
‘Oh, right. More for me then.’
‘Actually, maybe pick up some chocolate brownie Ben & Jerry’s? I can probably digest that. At a push.’
‘Done. See you later for some Sex and the City therapy. Love you.’ Holly had an unrivalled talent for prescribing the exact most fitting episode for when her friends were going through a personal crisis of any sort. Despite being almost a decade old, many of the show’s scenarios were still so on the nail that viewings became like a workshop session.
What would it be this week? Definitely not the ‘he broke up with me on a Post-it’ one, she decided as she hung up the phone.
She grabbed the cup of black coffee that was now only partially warm, and headed down the hall towards the gargantuan corner office. She knocked on the door.
‘Enter.’
Once Holly had recovered from being momentarily blinded by the light from Jeremy’s floor-to-ceiling windows, she handed him his coffee. He took the cup without looking up from his screen, which was quite clearly displaying an inter-marital dating site. A dialogue box was open, in which Jeremy was filling out his physical characteristics with a generous dollop of artistic license. Holly stared at the back of his head, where a bald spot was forming like a threadbare patch on an old rug. She waited for him to stop typing, minimise his screen and turn to face her. When that didn’t happen, she began to talk in that garbled way she did around people she thought didn’t like her.
‘So um, thanks for your comments on the edit, I’ll remember that when I’m cutting this week’s show. Note to self, Toto, we’re not in Drama anymore!’ she attempted humour, but Jeremy was too busy writing about what a good sense of humour he had to hear her.
She tried again. ‘So, what was the “little niggle” you had to tell me about?’
‘Oh, yes. Well, the headline is that it looks like Prowl’s going to be axed after this series. I know you were signed up for two series but, should it be axed, I simply can’t justify keeping two full-time editors on.’
Holly’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh. If only I’d known that when I left my old job.’
‘This is telly, Holly. It’s about as secure as a two-man tent from Lidl in a torrential hurricane.’
‘Quite. Is there anything I can do to help my chances?’
‘Well, I’m not sure when, but at some point I’m going to have to make a call between you and Pascal…’
Holly’s heart sank. Pascal, the gay (strictly in the modern sense of the word) editor from Romford who cycled in every day at the crack of dawn, was as much a part of the furniture as the Coke-stained sofa in the green room. Incidentally, that sofa had shown Holly a much warmer welcome than Pascal ever had – she could count the number of times he had acknowledged her existence on one finger.
‘…So I’m going to need to see you both really adding value. Whether that’s getting a first pass done sooner, or coming to me with proposals for the channel that can replace the Prowl slot. Or just bringing me more coffee. Ultimately, though, it will mean you putting in a lot more of your evenings, and some weekends.’
‘I’m guessing you won’t be paying us any extra for all the overtime?’
‘I know it’s unusual, but we’re a small outfit and we have to do what we can. Of course, if you don’t like it…’
‘No! I can definitely try and help come up with some new show ideas.’
‘Great! Just email them through, any time of day, it doesn’t matter.’
‘Actually, there is this one thing I thought of yesterday, that I guess could be a documentary. I was on the Tube, listening to the old-fashioned voice that calls out all the stops, and I got to thinking how she must have been a real person once… and how there are probably a few disembodied voices like hers who may have since passed away, and how strange it must be for their loved ones to hear their voices when they’ve gone? Maybe they take the trains an
d buses more than normal – more than they need to – as a way of seeking comfort in the vocal leftovers of their lost loves? Maybe we could find if there are any real-life examples… perhaps interview them?’
‘What are you calling it, Britain’s TFL Widows?’
‘Mmm, I was thinking Mind the Gap.’
Jeremy spat out his coffee. ‘Sorry, did my email say Frappuccino?’
‘No?’
‘Thought not. And yet strangely this cappu is ice cold,’ he said, pushing the cup back into her hand, managing to spill just enough on her to demonstrate he was being hyperbolic at her expense.
‘Sorry. I’ll get you another one,’ she said, as he turned back to complete his profile. ‘So what do you think about the voices thing? Could it be a goer?’
‘I think it’s somewhere between utterly far-fetched and BBC2.’
‘That’s a no then?’
*
Arriving home after a Boozenest stop-off for emergency ice cream, Holly could hear The Cure blasting from upstairs at full volume. She walked into the lounge just in time for ‘Pictures of You’ to finish and start up again.
‘Nothing in the world, I have ever wanted more, than to feel you deep in my heart!’ Bella screamed out at the room.
The lighting was scant. Creeping into the lounge, Holly could just make out Bella sat in the far corner, in her favourite little alcove. She was cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by cushions. In front of her lay newspapers and an array of broken objects.
‘If only I’d thought of the right words, then I wouldn’t be breaking my heart!… over…’ She broke into tears, mid-wail.
‘Um… how are you doing, Bella my dear?’ Holly began, thinking again what an exquisite singing voice her flatmate had.
Bella looked up. Her face was streaked with thick black lines, indicating hours of heavy-duty sobbing.
‘Yeah. Good thanks,’ she said, the smile on her face a touch maniacal. Holly sat down and took Bella’s palm in hers. It promptly became stuck. Holly slowly unpeeled Bella’s hand to discover it was covered in a filmy substance and that Bella was now picking at the layers of skin. After a brief jolt of panic, Holly realised it was just congealed glue, as Bella exploded with tears. She sobbed in Holly’s arms for a full minute, and then broke away, not before leaving a pearlescent trail of snot on Holly’s shoulder.
‘Poor B. I’m so sorry. Want to talk about what happened?’
‘Not so much.’
‘OK. Shall we talk about all this then?’ Holly asked, looking down at the Blue Peter project that was unfolding at their feet. Was it toxic, this stuff? she wondered. Should she be calling the FRANK helpline for advice on solvent abuse?
‘I’m just trying to fix stuff. I tried to make a cup of tea earlier and I accidentally smashed this mug Sam gave me. It was so upsetting, seeing it all in sad little bits; I just had to try and mend it. See – it’s much better now.’
Holly nodded. There was a huge crack down the middle, and solidified lumps of gloop lined the area where she’d wedged the handle back on. ‘Best girlfriend in the world’ now read ‘best end in the wor’.
‘Good as new.’
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea now?’ Holly asked, reaching into one of the cupboards and taking out the only non-chipped mug. She switched the kettle on.
‘Please,’ Bella said, allowing a smile to sneak out through her tears.
As was often the way, Holly looked into the mug and saw that, like most of its peers back in the cupboard, its rim had a beard of dried-on dust, giving a whole new meaning to the old adage ‘drinking from the furry cup’. She ran it under the tap as she waited for the kettle to boil, trying to suppress two thoughts, which were: 1) why am I the only one here who notices dirt, and 2) surely I am too old to live like this?
‘Anyway,’ Bella went on, ‘I realised how strangely therapeutic it felt to mend stuff, so since then I’ve been looking for other things to fix. This Superglue, it’s fucking miraculous! You must need something mending?’ she asked, her eyes brimming with possibility. She jumped up and ran towards the cupboards, coveting like a kid in a sweet shop. ‘Let me at your broken stuff!’ she said while scanning the rows of crockery.
‘Right… clearly tea is a waste of time,’ Holly said. ‘I think another trip to Boozenest…’ She grabbed her wallet from her bag and then selected Sex and the City, series five. She’d thought hard about which episode to prescribe and had settled upon ‘Plus one is the loneliest number’, which although it sounded maudlin was actually rather uplifting at the end. She looked at Bella who was puffy-eyed and catatonic. Holly opened the ice cream and stabbed at it with a big serving spoon.
‘Here, take this and apply liberally. And, when the DVD menu page loads, just click on episode two; I won’t be long. I’ll get us a bottle of Prosecco. Don’t go sniffing too much glue.’
Bella’s eyes lit up as though this had given her an idea.
‘And when I’m back if you’re ready to talk about what happened, just say and we can pause the DVD, OK?’
Bella nodded, staring at the ice cream as though she didn’t quite understand it.
‘Better make it a box of wine,’ Holly muttered as she headed out.
Arriving home armed with supplies, Holly made a pit stop in her bedroom, to hunt down her pink duvet slippers for Bella. Hands down, they were the best thing to put on your feet in a crisis. As she got back to the lounge she could hear the Sex and the City theme music playing, but it was just the same tiny segment of it, on a loop.
Bella was staring blankly at the television.
‘B, hon! You could have pressed play! You must be so sick of that same ten seconds of music?’
Bella moved her head slowly to look at Holly. Her eyes were red. ‘Hmm? I hadn’t noticed. Now you mention it, yes, it is kind of annoying. Can you booze me up please?’ she said, her eyes desperate. ‘I don’t think I should be sober in my condition.’
‘What am I thinking? Here…’ Holly pierced open the box of wine and filled a large glass, before pressing play on the remote. ‘Get this down you,’ she said as the title credits dissolved to a shot of Carrie standing in a beautiful high-ceilinged bar in Manhattan.
Bella glugged the whole glass in one go before topping herself up again. Holly curled up on the sofa, pulled a blanket over them, and prepared to let the world drift away for a wonderful twenty-three minutes.
Or as it happened in this case, three.
‘You know,’ Bella spoke up mid-scene. ‘There were times when I thought I could’ve married that fucker! I thought he was… don’t hit me for saying this but – The One!’
Holly turned to face Bella and tried to decipher whether this had been a one-off comment, or a prelude to a whole conversation. She grabbed the remote and pressed pause, just in case.
‘Oh love, I know. I’m so, so sorry.’
‘But, now he’s gone and fucked that one up hasn’t he? Or, maybe I fucked it up,’ she said, randomly picking up foam oven chips from the floor and stuffing them back into the hole in the sofa.
Holly put her arm around Bella, who began squirting glue into the gap in the sofa.
‘Belle, you can leave the sofa broken for now. You know, it’s OK if some things go unfixed.’
‘All I know is, my life’s no longer the life it was. This whole pathway I had mapped out in my head has just dismantled itself.’ she said, sobbing again. She downed another glass of red wine like it was water. You know?
‘I know. But you’ll be OK. You just need to do some recalculating of which path to take – you know, like the SatNav says?’
Holly grabbed her pink sleeping-bag slippers and slid them onto Bella’s feet. ‘There. These should help in the meantime.’
Bella was quiet for a moment. ‘Oh, my, god. What are they? They’re incredible! They’re SO comfortable! They’re like magical duvet cherubs!’ Bella laughed, her eyes lighting up for the first time that night. ‘My feet have literally never been happier!’
Bella’s eyes glazed over as Holly remembered that Bella hadn’t seen her mum in about a decade, on account of the fact that their parents had left some years ago to go and live in a transcendental meditation retreat in New Zealand.
‘Sorry. SHIT choice of words,’ Holly said, quickly giving Bella a hug.
‘That’s OK,’ Bella said with forced stoicism. ‘I’ll try to remember what a hug from my mum would feel like. Seriously though, you’re never getting these babies back.’
‘OK. Word of advice though – DO NOT try to walk in them. No good can come from walking in them.’
Bella looked completely unfazed by this; clearly it had not been her intention to move from the sofa ever again. She glugged more wine.
‘So, do you want to tell me what happened?
Bella took a deep breath. ‘I’m so humiliated.’ Her eyes welled up. ‘I’ve started having flashbacks of the lowest low point.’
‘What was the lowest low point?’ Holly asked.
‘Well, the trouble was, the location of our break-up really wasn’t ideal. Although we’d started “the break-up chat” at his house, we both had this hideous Guildhell event in town that we had to get to. Which meant that we had to sort of, carry it on, en route? You know, while commuting together into town, on a cramped Tube carriage like normal, except that I’m bursting into tears every other second, wanting to kiss him one minute, and punch his lights out the next!’
‘No…’ Holly gasped.
‘Yes! And then to make it worse, there was one of those nice homeless guys on our carriage, giving it the whole “let me tell you a joke or sing you a song, in exchange for money or a cup of tea”, and I was like, jeez, now really isn’t the time! But then, once we’d made it to Covent Garden, I reached whole new levels of humiliation. I…’ Bella broke off, her eyes filling with tears.
‘What?’ Holly asked.
‘I begged him,’ she grunted inaudibly. Clearly the shame was such that Bella couldn’t bring herself to fully formulate the words.
Break-Up Club Page 4
