‘Yup. A week with the McGregor clan is all it takes to eradicate my silly Southern accent. Speaking of silly, how are things with you and Lawrence?’
‘Yeah, fine. Apart from all the rows.’
She pulled off her top and realised she was now only in her bra and jeans. She didn’t bother to try and cover up though; Harry was like a brother to her. They’d seen each other half naked so many times before that it didn’t bother either of them. Or, as Harry liked to put it, she was safely inside ‘the circle of sexual disgust’.
‘But hey, everyone rows at least three times a week, don’t they?’
‘Um, no Holly. Three times a week is sex. Arguing is less, ideally.’
‘Bollards. We’re shagging less than average too then!’
Holly attempted to pull on her dress, quickly finding herself all tangled up, before remembering that you needed a PhD in contortionism to put on most All Saints dresses. ‘Um, can you give me a hand?’
‘Here you go, doofus.’ Harry began grappling with the many complicated layers. Then he deftly realigned it, somehow managing to reposition the intricate flaps and hangy-downy bits in such a way that Holly could now manage actual breathing.
‘There. Bootiful,’ Harry said.
‘Thanks,’ she said, assessing her reflection in the mirror and giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. ‘Brilliant. Shall we go upstairs?’ she said, shoving on some lip gloss. ‘Hope you’re hungry. There’s shitloads of food.’
Three hours later, 249a was at capacity. People were lining the stairs from the hallway to the kitchen, to the extent where it almost looked as though their kitchen had a one-in-one-out policy. Most of the faces she knew, but some were Daniel’s work colleagues, who were mostly the wrong side of dorky. Dressed in shirts and smart shoes, they were downing vodka like they’d never been hung-over before. Holly headed to the kitchen and spotted Daniel, his head in the freezer, wading through bags of frozen peas and fish fingers.
‘Have you seen the ice?’ he asked. ‘It can’t have all gone?’
‘No, sorry,’ Holly said. ‘Do you ever wonder whether we’re too old to have parties like this now?’
Daniel nodded. ‘Every minute,’ he said as they watched someone run and be sick into a bin.
‘Have you seen Bella?’ Holly asked and Daniel shook his head.
Moments later, Holly was pushing her way through the randoms in the hallway. She peeled two drunk girls off Bella’s bedroom door, then hammered on it.
‘I’m not here.’
‘Bella? Are you OK? Everyone’s been asking where you are. It’s me, Holly.’
‘Oh, OK. Come in. But don’t bring anyone else.’
Holly walked into the room and was affronted by a crockery-based Armageddon. Dirty plates, half-empty mugs of furry tea, and pizza boxes lined the floor, along with piles of dirty washing. At the centre of it all was Bella, lying across her bed, staring at her laptop.
‘Oi! You’re not stalking him again?’
‘I’m not, really, I promise!!!’
Bella’s fingers leapt to the screen, and minimised the tab she had open. Holly snatched the laptop off her and opened up the History column in the toolbar, which yielded about a hundred search results for ‘Sam Macnamara’, and some pages of IMDb. Holly cleared her throat. ‘Yes you are. You’re on the International Movie Database.’
‘But he’s just been released from Guildhall and I need to check up on him! See what girls he’s working with and how pretty they are!’
‘Step away from the Macbook, Isabella Allen.’
‘In a minute! Just as soon as I’ve finished looking at his new Spotlight photos; he’s had a load more done, and he looks so hot in them! In black and white, too. LOOK AT THEM,’ she said, scrolling through the pictures. ‘I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to think that that used to be mine!’
‘He looks gay in them to me.’
‘Really?’ Bella’s cheeks brightened. ‘Not edgy, hunky, manly?’
‘Gay as a Tahitian pineapple.’
Bella’s eyes lit up like a Catherine wheel. Then she stared at Holly as if to say, ‘Please sir, can I have some more.’
‘And old. Just look at those new wrinkles round his eyes. All that chain-smoking is bound to add years to his playing age.’
‘Oh, you’re a good friend,’ Bella said, smiling.
‘Seriously, friend, this isn’t good. Is your RADAR not switched on?’
‘I know. I’m a certified nut-nut. But you’d think with all the modern-day inventions, someone would invent an app to stop you Googling or Face-stalking people?’ she looked at Holly, her eyes desperate.
‘They have, you numpty,’ Holly said. ‘It’s called the application of willpower.’
‘Oh very funny. But…’ she trailed off, realising something. ‘Aha! You can’t stop me watching his reel though, can you! HAHA! I’ve got that on an actual “duvuda”! Bet you don’t know where that is, do you?’
‘No, I don’t. But, honey, you MUST stop monitoring his progress. It’s a little bit bunny-boiling, and it isn’t going to help you get over him.’
‘Get over him? Why should I want to do that?’
Holly sighed. There was a knock at the door.
‘Girls?’ came the concerned voice of their flatmate.
‘Come in. I could do with some back-up in here.’
Daniel strode in just as Bella began pressing the refresh key over and over again, her eyes widening.
‘OH flipping lord, NO. Holly, your dongle has gone flaccid! The Internet has shut me out! I was just about to see who was playing the leading lady in his new play! Daniel, please can I borrow your wireless code thing? I promise not to use it for porn.’
Daniel shook his head adamantly. ‘It’s a no from me, Bella.’
‘Please??!’
‘No way. You went over my download limit last time.’
‘Please??!’
Daniel was still shaking his head.
‘Shit, it’s not fair!’ Bella said. ‘Where is Magic Internet when you need it?’
Bella was referring to the intermittent insecure Wi-Fi they were sometimes able to pick up And because Magic Internet occasionally worked in her bedroom, she had refused to contribute financially towards getting proper broadband installed in the flat.
‘Bella, the party is in full swing, why don’t you come upstairs and actually socialize? It’s eleven thirty!’ Holly said, looking at Bella’s clock on the wall.
‘Oh that one’s really fast. It’s not as late as that.’
‘Well what time is it?’ Daniel asked, his patience waning.
Bella pointed to the alarm clock on her bedside table. ‘Let’s see, that one’s only seven minutes fast, I think. So if that one says it’s twenty past, then it must be just coming up to eleven fifteen.’
‘Bella you lunatic, why are none of your clocks set at the right time?!’
‘I’ve told you before; it’s to stop me being late!’
‘But if you never know which one is which, how does that even work?!’
But Bella was still absorbed with tapping away at her screen, pressing refresh and trying to make the Internet come to life. She sighed.
Daniel was now fractionally red in the face. ‘Seriously, Belle, what are you DOING? There’s a party going on upstairs. A party YOU insisted on having. Our house is getting crapped on from a great height. The least you could do is get up there and ENJOY IT.’
Bella’s face began creasing. Gradually, something similar to the Iguazu Falls came gushing out of her eyes, down her face and onto the bed, leaving watery deposits of mascara all over her pink duvet. And so began a tantrum-ette. To the uninitiated, a tantrum-ette wasn’t quite a full-blown hysteria fit with fist-on-floor thumping action, but it was tiptoeing over the edge of what constituted ‘normal’ adult behaviour. Amusing to watch though it was, it didn’t last long, and Bella would be back to her charming self within minutes.
Holly put her arm around her. ‘Co
me on, B. It’ll be OK. I know it must feel horrendous now, but it will get better.’ She watched in silence as her hand rose and descended on Bella’s back, in time with her sobs.
Daniel dispatched a guilty, ‘I think my work here is done,’ look at Holly, before retreating upstairs. She started brushing Bella’s hair and mopping up her face with tissues.
‘Thanks Holly,’ Bella said through sobs.
‘Hey, anytime,’ she said, delivering a big bear hug.
‘I’m really sorry for having another outburst. If it’s any consolation, I have really been trying to cut down.’
‘I know.’
‘You’re like family to me. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Aw, thanks Belle,’ she said, wondering if Bella wasn’t becoming a bit needy lately. ‘So, shall we go upstairs? I for one need a drink. Lawrence still hasn’t been in touch!’
Bella nodded and brushed herself down. They headed to the kitchen, to join Harry and Olivia, who were with Daniel’s friend Jonny – more commonly referred to as Jonny The Archetypal Public School Boy.
‘So I had some brilliant news today,’ Jonny was saying, placing some cocktail sausages onto his plate. ‘I made an offer on a little “pied-à-terre”…’ he said, raising his fingers into little animated quotation marks, ‘and amazingly it’s just been accepted!’
There was a general chorus of ‘Wow – that’s awesome!’ and ‘Well done!’ and ‘Where?’
‘Thanks!’ he beamed. ‘It’s in Victoria Park village. It’s all exposed brick, high ceilings, and it’s got this cool mezzanine level.’
As Jonny began to tell them more about his new flat, Holly felt herself zoning out. She stood up and went to open another wine bottle. Despite her best efforts, buying flats was still something she just couldn’t bring herself to feel excited about yet. She returned back to the circle just in time to hear Jonny deliver the sentence all homeowners used to make themselves feel better about stamp duty and a life devoted to choosing bathroom tiles: ‘No more throwing rent money down the drain for me now I’ve managed to buy!’ he beamed.
Holly cringed, realising that Jonny – chiselled and charming though he was – was now on the other side of a dotted line. The one separating those who had made it onto that most impossible of rites of passage, the first rung of the property ladder, and those that still hadn’t. The ones that were living in sweet denial of pensions, properties and prams… and most of all, the big ‘Three Oh’ that was hurtling towards them with relentless zeal.
‘So…’ Holly began, as she poured out more wine, ‘does no one else think it’s a bit odd… this whole “–uying” thing?’
Everyone looked confused.
‘You know. One day in your mid-twenties, out of nowhere, people start talking about “BUYING.” But they don’t say what. It’s like, now it’s okay to just say, “We’re buying”, and expect people to know what you mean. Has no one else noticed that?’
Everyone stared at her with a mixture of raised eyebrows and furrowed foreheads.
‘People are just being sensible, that’s all,’ Olivia said. ‘You know, trying to get some security for the future.’
‘And then,’ Holly went on, ‘three years later, the same thing happens. Only it rhymes. You just replace the “B” sound with a “TR” sound. Does no one think this is odd?’
‘Oh right, I get you,’ Bella said.
‘I mean, what’s next after that? Lying? Sighing?’
‘Crying?’ Bella suggested.
‘Dying,’ put in Harry, emptying the last drops of white wine into his glass, and then opening another bottle entirely on autopilot. ‘Or, D.I.Y.-ing. Whichever is worse, I guess.’
Olivia placed her empty glass onto the table a fraction too forcefully. ‘Well. I’m a long way off ANY of those things. My relationship of seven years has just flatlined, and nearly everything I own is currently residing in a small storage unit in Brent Cross. Mostly I think I’m going to be CRYING.’
As Olivia’s face coloured, Holly felt the tact police slam handcuffs around her wrists. ‘Shit, sorry, Liv. That was insensitive of me, prattling on like that. Sorry. Are you OK?’
Jonny edged closer to Olivia and draped a heavily triathloned forearm around her. Olivia turned to look into his eyes and smiled. ‘I’m fine Holly, don’t worry,’ she said, still looking into Jonny’s hazel eyes. ‘I was just winding you up.’
‘Anyway, I thought you were going to buy your mate’s flat, Liv?’
‘That’s the plan, but it’s not gone through yet. The solicitors are dragging their heels. Yawn.’
‘Oh dear. But anyway,’ Holly went on, ‘all I really meant was, we’re still young, and there’s plenty of time before we have to get all serious, isn’t there? It just came out a bit wonky. And if it helps, now that I’ve made an epic career fail, the only property I’m ever likely to be able to afford as a first-time buyer is a converted Portaloo.’
‘Hol, you’re all good now, you can leave it there…’ Olivia said.
‘I’m going to get another drink then. Can I get you one?’ Holly said, but Olivia was now engaged in an intense and prolonged session of eye contact with Jonny.
‘You OK?’ Harry asked, following Holly to the fridge.
She shook her head. ‘Not really.’
‘Lawrence?’
She paused for a moment. ‘How did you guess?’ she said, holding out her glass as Harry raided the fridge. ‘Booze me up please.’
He smiled and handed her a vodka and tonic.
‘Did you know that Bella and Liv have formed something they’re calling a “Break-up Club”? Liv keeps saying it’s just a joke, but I think it’s sort of become real, through necessity. Bella says they meet up, just the two of them, every Sunday night.’
‘The most depressing night of the week. Makes sense.’
Harry led them to an empty sofa and sat down at one end. Holly stretched out next to him, laying her head on him. It was one of her favourite places to sit – with her head resting in the nook of his shoulder.
‘What you thinking HolFace? You tempted to join the cult?’
‘Christ no! Although, if I’m honest, I do sometimes get this teeny-weeny feeling of doubt. But everyone gets that, don’t they? Who’s ever in a relationship they’re totally sure about all the time? I mean, that would be weird, right?’
‘I couldn’t be surer about Rachel and me.’
Oh yes, Rachel, she remembered, lifting her head off Harry’s shoulder. ‘Sshhh, show-off,’ she said, prodding him in the stomach.
‘Ow! Well, to be brutally honest, Hol, it sounds to me like you’ve heard the bell.’
‘The what?’
‘The sad bell. Set to go off at the exact moment you first feel those doubts. The second something in you knows maybe it’s not right. And the thing is, once you’ve heard it, there’s no way back. It’s time for the bin. Anything beyond that point is classified as denial. Or, pressing snooze.’
Shit. She did so love to snooze.
‘No, no, no. I’m just drunk. It’s fine, really,’ she said. ‘I love that man to pieces. We’ve got far too much history for me to just run at the first hurdle. And he’s so good at helping me in my career, too. Plus we’ve got Cuba coming up!’
Harry nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘Gawd, I’ve got these horrible nerves in my stomach now. They feel like butterflies, but more uncomfortable. Like an invasion of nasty ones that have gone to the dark side!’
‘So, moths, then?’
Holly laughed. ‘Yeah! Moths is right! Anyway, how is it that you know so much about break-ups?’
‘Oh, I studied for a PhD in this area… right up until I met The One, in fact.’
Holly felt a pang of envy at how content Harry was in his relationship. And then felt guilty for doing so.
‘And how is the lovely Rachel?’ she said, hoping it didn’t sound too insincere. In truth she’d never really taken to her. She’d always seemed too much of a Grazia-gra
zing-girlie-girl for her Harry. Still, there was no denying the fact that he did seem happier than she’d ever known him to be.
‘Are we to hear the pitter-patter of tiny sprogs soon?’
‘I’m game whenever she is! We’ve got to get the Big Day sorted out first before all that – Rachel’s been so busy we’ve not had time to go and look at venues yet. It’s crazy though; I’m the only one out of all my mates apart from Rick who’s not had any bairns yet! Never mind all that though. Holly, I really think that if you’re not sure he’s “the one”—’
‘Oh you’re such a girl! I’ve told you before, and I’ll say it again. The idea of THE ONE is – along with friendly bus drivers, men who put the toilet seat down, and the same two socks ever coming back out of the washing machine – complete and utter fiction.’
‘I disagree; romantic fatalism has a lot going for it! Look at Rachel and me. She just up and sat next to me on the bus to Oxford one day. Imagine if I’d got a bus fifteen minutes earlier or later? I would never have met my soulmate.’
‘Mmm,’ she said, feeling oddly moved despite herself. ‘Hey, I wonder if there are more stories like yours out there. I wonder how many other people meet the love of their lives in serendipitous ways like that?’
‘How was it that you first met the love of your life? I don’t think I know the story.’
Holly’s eyes narrowed in confusion. ‘Oh! You mean Lawrence! Well, it’s quite a silly one really.’
‘Go on.’
‘It was a dead man’s fart that did it.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘I mean, it was less “across a crowded room” and more – across a crowded bowel. We were at this bluesy dive bar in Soho. I was ordering a drink, when I suddenly became aware of this godforsaken stench. I started to wonder what it was – when everyone began turning to one another. And then people were holding their noses, realising it was a fart. But the nice thing was, there was almost a feeling of camaraderie after a while. You know, the way that normally aloof Brits actually start talking to one another in a crisis. And at that point, I turned to the person next to me to say, ‘Hey, it wasn’t me!’ but as soon as I spoke, I’d locked eyes with this gorgeous man with curly brown hair… And that’s when we got into a discussion about how bad the smell was. Lawrence had this theory that this wasn’t any old flatulence – it must’ve been a “dead man’s fart”, as he called it. Then it was my turn to be served, so I offered to buy him a drink.’
Break-Up Club Page 9
