‘It’s fair to say we’re not getting any prettier, are we?’ joined in Bella. ‘Every time I look into a mirror with good lighting these days, I see a new wrinkle.’
‘Me too,’ Olivia said. ‘It reminds me of being in my new flat – I keep noticing cracks in the walls! My face is getting settlement cracks and going down in value.’
‘Oh come on girls, you’re all gorgeous, look at you,’ attempted Harry. ‘Can we talk about something else please? Or else I’m going to HAVE to ask that we advertise for another male member of the club. And I don’t mean Jeremy.’
‘Seriously, what if no one gets to see me in my prime?’ Bella said, looking genuinely afraid. ‘It’s like Greg says, “Don’t waste the pretty.”’
They all turned to face Bella in slow motion.
‘W. T. F.???’ Olivia said, spelling it out like an actress in an American teen drama. ‘Who the hell is Greg?’
‘Greg Behrendt. He wrote an odious little book called He’s Just Not That Into You.’
‘Oh dear Lord,’ scoffed Holly, ‘I’d like to egg Greg, right in the face. That book is unadulterated baloney. It basically claims that if a guy isn’t chasing you morning noon and night, then he’s not interested. But the trouble is, it’s culturally irrelevant to us, as it relies on men being the type who “step up” when they like a girl. And everyone knows only American men actually step up.’
‘You’re right! British men these days are so easily intimidated. I know so many guys who would rather wait for girls to make the first move,’ Bella said.
‘That book doesn’t take into account the differences between confident, straight-talking Yanks, and the wussy, Hugh Granty spawns that us Brits have to put up with!’
‘Ah, well now, there you might actually have a point,’ Harry said. ‘If I may, I’d like to apologise on behalf of my sex as a whole. It’s true, we Brits are – barring a few exceptions – total weeds.’
‘It’s their loss,’ Olivia said. ‘I can’t be arsed with guys who fanny about just wanting to be pen pals rather than actually meet up. In the dating apps I’ve been using, the guys just want to chit-chat! I’m offering full sex, and they’re like “How was your week?” No. I have a simple rule that’s served me well: Step up or step off.’
The others did a mixture of laughing and looking intrigued.
‘Take Jonny, for instance. He may be the Archetypal Public School Boy but he’s also a classic Stepper-Upper. He sees something he wants, and he goes for it. Hot. And yet we’ve got the perfect balance. I never stay over at his, and he never stays at mine. That way we avoid the problem of intimacy.’
‘Wow. And they say romance is dead,’ Holly said.
‘It’s just practical. We both have busy, demanding jobs. We both love sex. We just don’t have time for being tired. So we don’t do the cuddling bits in between. Let’s face it, no one ever sleeps properly when they share a bed. We’re just honest about it.’
The others looked unconvinced, and Olivia did a remarkable job of avoiding each one of their eyes. ‘But enough about me, people…’ she said as Daniel walked into the kitchen and headed to the fridge, where he stood slurping milk directly from the bottle. He then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before returning the bottle to the fridge.
‘You kids playing clubs again? Aww, so sweet. Have you got membership cards now and everything?’
‘Ha ha,’ Holly said as he headed back out the room, ‘you’re just jealous. If you have a break-up with any of your ladies, you know where we are!’ she shouted after him as his laughter echoed up the stairs.
‘Um, Holly, how are you doing that?’ Bella was staring down at her phone. ‘I just got an email from you.’ She stared at Holly, who was neither using her phone nor anywhere near a computer.
‘Maybe it’s just a delayed one from the other day?’
Bella began reading. ‘Wow. You really are officially the dullest person I know.’
‘Don’t be rude!’ Holly said, leaning over her to read the message. ‘Bella! Do you honestly think I would use the phrase “Very good price”?’
Harry joined them in studying the phone screen. ‘Uh-oh. You’ve been hacked. Correction, you’re being hacked right now!’
‘Shit! My phone’s too slow, does anyone have a laptop I can borrow?’ Holly said, beginning to feel twitchy.
‘Here. Use mine,’ Olivia said, handing hers over.
‘Oh my Christ,’ Holly said, going through her sent items. ‘I’ve sent emails to everyone in my address book about “very good price” laptops. Not only that, the first part of the email is phrased in a normal way. So some people will think it is actually me, having had some kind of breakdown!’
Holly sifted through the emails. ‘Oh Christ no! Even the Head of Drama at Channel Four has got one! And OH GOOD LORD! Alain de Botton. I emailed him about one of his books, and my account automatically saved his address! Oh God.’
Harry let out a sinister laugh. ‘HA! You have spammed Sir Alain of Botton!’
Holly looked like she was about to cry.
‘You’ve spammed one of the eminent philosophers of our time!’
‘All right, that’s enough, Harry,’ Olivia said.
‘Sorry! I just like saying spam! SPAM!’ Harry said, and everyone looked at him like he was deranged. ‘WHAT? It’s only a really famous Monty Python sketch! Plebs,’ he said through laughter. ‘Sorry Hol. But really, it’s fine. It happens all the time, people know to ignore it now. You can email everyone to say sorry, or you can just leave it. Either way, don’t worry about it.’
Holly clicked back to her inbox. Buried among the emails from friends and random people she’d not seen in ages kindly informing her that she may have been ‘spammed’, there was one very frightening message which made her heart leap into her throat.
‘Hol, are you OK?’ Harry asked. ‘You’ve gone a little pale.’
She handed the laptop to him in silence. His eyes widened as he took in the email from [email protected].
‘Oh my shit. What’s he doing emailing you? It’s like he heard us slagging him off! Do you want me to open it?’
‘No. Yes! No! I’ll do it,’ Holly said, practically hyperventilating as she clicked on the message, and waited approximately six years for it to open.
‘“Dear Holly, Thanks for this. I didn’t know you cared so much about my tech needs. Love, Lawry.”’
‘The fucker! He’s just replying to the spam! Unless he’s so thick he thinks it was me! Argggghhhh! I HATE SPAM MAIL! Oh. Oh no. He goes on to say, “P.S. You have been wandering through my thoughts recently. It would be lovely to catch up and talk about laptops among other things.”’
‘Oh fuck.’ Holly clutched her stomach as though she had a sudden bout of food poisoning.
‘The COCK!’ Bella said.
‘He’s an opportunist, I’ll give him that,’ Olivia said.
‘It’s hard to know whether or not he’s serious from that,’ reasoned Harry.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ Holly stood up and started walking up and down the room. ‘How dare he do this!? I’ve buried him. I’ve put him away in a little sealed box I can’t ever go near. How dare he use this as an excuse to make contact, when he knows full well I’m not a laptop salesman!’
‘He really is a proper scrote,’ Harry said. ‘This only serves to underline our earlier points a thousandfold. He’s an absolute douche-merchant.’
‘But maybe I should email him back?’
‘NOOOOOOOOOO!’ they said in unison, and Holly looked utterly dismantled.
16. Like Buses
Some days later, Holly was sat in her office attempting to salvage something from a hedonistic weekend’s worth of Prowl footage. Meanwhile, in Camera Two of her mind, she was replaying in full the List of Lawrence’s Faults the club had made her draw up at the last meeting. ‘Anytime you’re missing him or get tempted to engage with his spam,’ they’d said, ‘you just need to visualise the list and rem
ind yourself what a numpty he was.’ Just as she was mentally scrolling through the items, from ‘unwashed hair’ to ‘financial fucktard,’ there was a knock at the door.
‘Hey,’ Luke said as she opened the door. ‘Sorry to disturb. Jeremy said that there was a scene I could take a look at. Apparently the Director’s still not happy with that stupid flaring scene. So I was going to ask if I could just see where I was going wrong, if you’ve got time to play it back for me?’ As he stretched into a yawn, she couldn’t help spotting a flash of chiselled tummy and thinking, be still my loins.
‘Of course. Let me just dig it out,’ she said, gesturing to the chair next to her.
As she tapped away at various buttons and got the scene ready, she could feel his leg making contact with hers under the table.
‘Here we go,’ she said, pressing play and adjusting the speakers.
Just being in this small amount of contact was sending tiny shockwaves to all the skin around the neighbouring area. The rest of her body felt so mundane in comparison to that small highly charged area. Could he tell? Could he see the protons and neutrons bouncing about between them? What about moving a little closer, she wondered, so even more surface area could benefit? She stared at Luke’s on-screen face, pretending that this was all in a work-related capacity. Then, she casually moved her chair a little closer to the desk. Bingo. Legs entirely in contact now, and a section of arm as well, to boot. Her heart beginning minor palpitations, she felt his leg flinch a little. She could sense his face turning to look at her, but she didn’t dare move her eyes off the screen. Was he feeling it too? This was either the hottest thing that had happened to her in ages, or this whole infatuation was entirely in her head and she was carrying on like a cheap thrill-seeking perv. Both were entirely plausible at this point, this being the most bodily contact she’d had in about a century.
Maybe there’d be a clue in his expression? Fuck it, she thought, daring to turn her head and looking straight into his enormous blue eyes. Unless she was imagining it, she and Luke were inches away from unabashed dry-humping.
‘All right, now I have to confess something, Holly,’ he said, turning his face away.
‘What?’ she asked, barely able to breathe.
‘What I did back there, that was me acting.’
‘I’m sorry?’
He looked at his shoes. ‘I don’t really need to see the scene. It was just a ruse, so I could sit in a small dark room with you again.’
Holly grinned, hearing the crowd going wild and doing Mexican waves in her head. Quickly channelling her inner Olivia, she remembered the importance of not coming across too excited. ‘Oh right,’ she said, the very model of aloofness. ‘But why would you waste my time like that?’
‘Horribly cheeky of me, I know. It won’t happen again. Maybe you’ll let me apologise to you through the medium of a date this evening? If you’re not otherwise engaged, there’s a Linklater triple bill on at the BFI. Before Sunrise followed by the two sequels.’
‘Yes, my friend told me about that! It’s the rom-com about a girl and guy that just happen to meet on a train, isn’t it?’
‘It is not a rom-com! They are clever, arty films that just happen to be slightly romantic in sentiment. Although if you’re going to be all cynical about it, I’m not sure you’re the right person to see it with…’
‘I’ll try and be open-minded. I just don’t really believe you could possibly meet the person you’re going to grow old with on a train. Especially not on the Tube in London – they’re about as romantic as rotting sardine cans!’
‘I see your point, but that’s all the more reason to come with me. I reckon I can convert you into a soppy romantic before the night is out.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘It’s a promise.’
‘Well, I’ll bet you one bottle of Pinot Grigio that you can’t,’ she said, smiling. ‘Besides I’m still in post-break-up fragility – I don’t think I can handle too much schmaltz. I might break out in a rash or something.’
‘I’ll go easy on you,’ he said, and she almost swooned at the thought of any subtext.
Seven hours later, Holly’s head was resting on Luke’s shoulder as they lay back on a sofa at the bar in the British Film Institute, sharing a pint glass of chips.
‘Did I imagine it or did I see you shed a little tear back there?’ Luke said.
‘All right, I have to admit it, the films were not entirely unmoving.’
‘Really?’
‘I bloody loved them!’
‘Haha!’
‘My favourite bit was when they’re walking up those spiral staircases, you know, right at the end of the second one. The bit when she’s holding the cat, when there’s, like, ten years of sexual tension between them, and you genuinely don’t know what will happen.’
‘Nine years. But yeah, I know. It’s all shot in real time, too. I did a film like that once. Bloody difficult it was, much more like stage acting than film.’
‘That figures,’ she said, then found herself telling Luke about her ‘Mind the Gap’ short film idea. To her amazement, he didn’t just like the idea, but he suggested ways to improve it, such as telling the story in reverse.
‘A narrative doesn’t have to be linear. You can always muck about with chronology – whatever helps bring the story to life,’ he mused, while she hung on his every word with wide-eyed wonder.
Shit, thought Holly as she listened to this very attractive man talk at length about self-shooting a film in his spare time which had cleaned up at last year’s Sundance Festival. He stopped talking and lightly brushed her arm with his fingers. How amazing it was to be with a guy who was both talented and motivated. Someone who got off his arse and made stuff happen. Shit, she thought. This was all sounding a lot like Luke really might be that rare specimen – a Manageable Kook! She began to watch a trailer in her head for a feature film called ‘Holly and Luke’ about a Creative Power Couple who do creative projects together, go to red-carpet openings and live in a big house in Primrose Hill with nannies.
‘Holly?’
‘Yes?’
‘I was just saying, have you heard any more about whether TotesAmaze have a replacement for Prowl yet? I’m only contracted for another two months of shooting, and I’ve got nothing else lined up yet. Jez said he might try and crowbar me into whatever they’re working on next.’
‘Oh, cool. No, I don’t think the channel have bought anything yet. Hey, how about we have a shit-telly-brainstorm?’
‘Yes! We both need a new job, let’s write one into existence!’
So for the next five minutes, they both sat in silence, intermittently looking each other in the eyes and sipping their drinks until they were empty. Eventually, Luke spoke up.
‘I’ve got one! So, I’m in a band in my spare time, and we’re always joking about how it’d be fun to change things up a bit sometimes, bring in guest members to keep things fresh. Or to occasionally let our drummer play for a band of a totally different genre, for instance. See what difference it makes to our overall sound when he comes back.’
‘Interesting! Or your singer could go from doing vocals in a jazz band to a metal one, and see how their style adapts?’
‘Yeah! Could there be a show in that?’
‘Sort of like musical swingers?’
‘Kinky. Yeah – we play two very different bands against each other, then swap the singers or lead guitars.’
‘We could call it Band Swap?’
‘Nice! My housemate Bella could be in it! She’s a singer!’
Holly wrote it down in her little book of ideas. ‘Right, one more, then we’ve earned another drink!’
‘Quite the taskmaster!’ he teased, and Holly poked him in the six-pack. ‘Let’s see. Most popular telly starts with the word “Britain’s” doesn’t it?’
‘Too true! That’s our first word then.’ She wrote it down underneath Band Swap. ‘Oh, this might be something!’ she said, remembering a rec
ent Bella-ism. ‘The other day, Bella was convinced she’d just heard the sound of her late tabby cat mewing.’
‘Your point is?’
‘Well. Bella’s as mad as a sack of hyenas at the best of times, but at that moment she really did look like she’d seen a ghost. Of course it’s all nonsense, but it does make me wonder if there are other instances where people think their late pets have come back to haunt them?’
Luke laughed. ‘I mean it’s obviously total dog-shit, but it could be worth passing to a researcher to see if there are any other alleged ghost pets across the country?’
‘Britain’s Ghost Pets! We’re on fire! Do another one!’
‘OK, I’ve got it. Staying with pets, how about, Through the Cat-flap? It’s basically a furry friend equivalent of Through the Keyhole, where you have to guess the celebrity owner of the house, but the difference is…’
‘That you can only see through the cat-flap! I love it! All you can see is a pet’s eye view of what’s going on in the flat. We’d pan over the hallway so the viewer can see the brand of shoes by the door; what kind of carpet they have; the type of catalogues that just landed through the letter box …’
‘Exactly!’ said Luke.
‘That’s our next drink in the bag, right there,’ Holly said, just as the bell rang for last orders.
‘Looks like I’ll have to whisk you to Soho House instead. This victory cannot go uncelebrated.’
‘It won’t be full of pretentious arses?’ Holly wanted to say but stopped herself just in time to realise that Luke was probably a paid-up member and might take offence. ‘OK. Sure,’ she said, remembering that, by contrast, the last bar Lawrence had whisked her to had been the local sports pub in Streatham.
Two hours later Holly was leaving Soho House, trying to remain calm despite the fact that they’d just been sat on a balcony within swooning distance of her childhood hero, Alex James from Blur. She was feeling proud for having contained her excitement enough to make it seem as though things like that happened to her every day.
Break-Up Club Page 21
