I Followed the Rules

by Joanna Bolouri

  ‘The one in the black T-shirt.’

  I spot him straight away. There are also three other mothers watching him from a nearby bench. Rose lowers her voice.

  ‘That’s Billy Murphy. He’s just split from his wife, Lindsay. I’m not surprised – she’s a stuck-up witch of a woman. Rob plays five-a-side with him sometimes. They call him “abs”.’

  ‘Yeah, he looks fit.’

  ‘Doesn’t he just? You should talk to him. I bet he’d go out with you.’

  ‘What, and be his rebound girl? No, thanks. Besides, he has to approach me first. And I smell like beef.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because of the crisps.’

  ‘No, why does he have to approach you first?’

  ‘Long story – you can read all about it next Saturday. It’s for work.’

  She looks a bit scared. ‘I don’t understand. How on earth are you going to find a boyfriend if you can’t chat them up?’

  ‘EXACTLY!’ I shout, throwing my arms in the air. ‘See? YOU get it!’

  ‘I don’t actually, but, um, I’ll look forward to reading your column.’

  Jason comes back first, followed by Grace, who begs me to pour her some juice or she just might die. ‘Having fun?’ I ask, sniffing the bottle of piss and deciding I’m at least 85 per cent confident that it’s apple juice. ‘Come and eat, and then we’ll feed the swans and see the waterfall.’

  While the kids are eating I continue to watch ‘Abs Morrison’. I’m intrigued. I’m not really into sporty types, but I’d make an exception for this one. AND he already has a child, so me having one shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Maybe Rose is right, this isn’t such a bad idea.

  As we pack up and collect the rubbish, I notice a litter bin near where he is and decide to test out Rule 2, remembering the book’s advice:

  Men will notice you – it’s up to you how this happens.

  ‘I’ll just get rid of this!’ I announce cheerily, grabbing the bag of rubbish and heading towards the bin, knowing that I’ll have to walk past Abs en route. I’ll just saunter past him, where he can see me. Maybe put a little wiggle in my walk. Here goes.

  I get closer, casually slowing down as I walk between him and his son. ‘Don’t look at him, just look straight ahead. Be cool,’ I mutter to myself, as I wiggle directly into an oncoming football. It whacks me on the side of my face, I go over on my ankle and his kid starts laughing.

  ‘HA! DAD, IT BOUNCED OFF HER HEAD!’

  ‘You all right?’ I hear him call, but it’s drowned out by the sound of my own voice: ‘Great, Cat! WELL, THAT’S ONE WAY TO GET HIM TO NOTICE YOU.’ I’m mortified. I can’t believe I actually said that out loud, so I just give Billy and his son a thumbs-up. A. Fucking. Thumbs. Up. WHO DOES THAT?

  Everyone has finally stopped laughing at me by the time we reach the duck pond. If it was deeper, I’d happily throw myself in and end it all. My ear is throbbing and I want to go home.

  ‘Where are the signals, Mum?’ asks Grace.

  ‘They’re called cygnets, and they’re right in the middle of that little island. Look closely and you’ll see them. They’re getting quite big now.’

  Rose frowns as we walk slowly around the pond, passing elderly couples and families who’ve all brought their stale loaves and picnic scraps along. ‘Trust me to cut the crusts off the sandwiches. What an idiot.’

  ‘Listen, I just got skelped in the face by a football while trying to get a man to notice me. It’s safe to say you’re winning at Sunday so far.’

  ‘Are you going to include that in your column?’ she teases.

  ‘Am I fuck . . . Jason, don’t go too near the edge. The water doesn’t look that clean.’

  Rose swiftly yanks him back before he’s head first into the pond, and we walk back towards the car, past the small but noisy waterfall hidden away at the top of a wooded area. This place reminds me of being a kid, where Helen and I would throw pennies in and wish for My Little Ponies and a VHS player, instead of the shitty Betamax we couldn’t find decent films for. We’d look for bats in the trees, throw sticks in the stream and now I’m doing the very same with my own child. If this was The Lion King, I’d be holding Grace aloft right now, singing ‘The Circle of Life’ in my best Elton John voice.

  By the time we get back to the car, it’s almost five. I turn on the radio for the kids. They sing along to ‘Happy’ by Pharrell, and Rose and I both agree how, despite his stupid hat collection, we totally would. I drop them home and continue on to our flat, where Helen is out front, unloading two large spider plants from her car. Grace gets out first and runs over.

  ‘Hi, Aunt Helen! That’s nice. Why have you got two?’

  ‘Hello, Gracey. There are two because one is for your mummy.’

  ‘Cool. We don’t have any plants.’

  Helen looks at me. ‘I know. That’s why I bought it.’

  I lock the car and join in the conversation about my plant-less existence.

  ‘We did have a plant once. It died quickly. Anyway, I prefer flowers. They make the flat smell nice.’

  ‘Plants provide clean air and it’s not toxic for cats—’

  ‘Stop trying to pitch it to me. You’re not on Dragon’s Den. I’ll put it in the living room and be sure to take my time killing this one. Thank you.’

  She frowns at me and closes her car boot. ‘I read your column. I’m happy that you’re proactively seeking a boyfriend, but I’m not a big believer in these American self-help books. Too touchy-feely for me.’

  ‘The author is Scottish.’ I reply. ‘From Glasgow, I believe, and while I’m glad you approve, I’m only doing it for the magazine. Anyway, it’s not that kind of book. It’s more about turning yourself into the type of woman a man wants . . . y’know . . . reserved . . . feminine . . . devoid of all personality and—’

  ‘Oh, don’t tell me any more, Cat; it sounds awful. Just be yourself. That’s good enough.’ She presses her car remote and turns to leave, pausing only to squint at me and say, ‘Maybe you should get a fringe? No one in this family was blessed with a small forehead.’

  ‘Fine just as I am, eh?’ I laugh. My days of being hurt by Helen’s overcritical eye are long gone.

  Grace has already disappeared inside with the door key, so I graciously take my new plant off Helen and make my way to my flat. I plop the plant down on the coffee table, wondering which spot looks best. In the end I let Grace decide. She opts for the top of the white bookcase so that Heisenberg won’t poo in it. Wise move.

  Another weekend over. I put out Grace’s school clothes, then spend twenty minutes looking for her tie, which eventually turns up wrapped around the neck of a Monster High doll. Heisenberg goes out, Grace goes to bed and I soak in the bath for forty minutes, planning my week and removing any football dirt that might still be stuck to my face and hair. I feel so fucking conflicted about these rules. On the one hand I’m happy to have a new project to keep me busy, but on the other, my first slapdash attempt to follow the rules backfired spectacularly. From now on I must approach these rules with precision, caution and, evidently, safety gear.

  Chapter Seven

  Monday rolls around and I arrive in the office, twenty minutes late but ready to take on the world, one column inch at a time. The warm morning sun has produced a little sweat moustache above my lip so I pull a tissue out of my pocket and discreetly wipe it away, knowing that, at some point, this tissue was used to wipe something manky from Grace’s face.

  Both Patrick and Gordon are sitting at their messy desks, flicking through newspapers. I can hear Leanne on the phone in Natasha’s office.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ asks Patrick, biting into a bagel. ‘We’ve all been here for hours.’

  Oh lovely – Patrick’s back. He’s dropped some yellowish bagel filling down his crumpled pink shirt and it’s making m
e feel queasy. I put my bag under my desk and sit down. ‘Liar. I had to do the school run this morning. Natasha not in yet?’

  ‘She’s out today. I think Leanne’s talking to her. Now that you’re here, what are you working on this week?’ He stares at me through small designer frames.

  Patrick is a divorced first-class cunt who enjoys Russian food, James Joyce and typos in other journalists’ articles. During working hours this man is the pin to my bubble. He likes to think he ranks higher than the rest of us in the imaginary chain of command he’s somehow had time to invent between gin-tasting sessions and masturbation marathons. He considers himself Natasha’s right-hand man – saving the world one pompous book review at a time, when he’s not verbosely critiquing art shows, theatre or anything else Kerry would politely call ‘wanky’.

  I open my diary and try to read my own scribbled handwriting. ‘Well, Patrick, if you really must know: I have two telephone interviews for that surgery piece, my column and an advertorial for some weight-loss clinic in Edinburgh. I’m also trying to get an interview with Gerard Butler. He’s over here promoting next week, but no one’s returning my bloody calls and—’

  ‘They won’t,’ interrupts Gordon. ‘I trashed that film of his last year, remember? Gave it a real kicking.’

  ‘Oh, so you did. Bollocks. Trust you to spoil my one chance to meet him. Anyway, why do you ask, Patrick?’

  Patrick looks irked at Gordon’s interruption. ‘Well, because I need someone to write about The Voice for the television section. I’m swamped and I, um, don’t have the time. Leanne and Gordon are both busier than you.’

  I smirk. ‘Ah, you don’t even watch it, do you? It offends you, Patrick, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it bloody well does!’ he bellows. ‘But ­Natasha’s insisting we include “relevant” television reviews alongside the “critic’s choice” from BBC4, and it’s not a show I’ll be able to review without prejudice. It’s unworthy of my time and talents.’

  ‘But worthy of mine?’

  ‘I assumed that as you sit at home every Saturday night, you’d be familiar with the show, that’s all. Don’t be childish.’

  I hear Natasha’s door close as Leanne makes her way back to her desk. ‘Morning, Cat. Good weekend?’

  Oh you know . . . drew faces on boiled eggs, went to the park, tried to appear alluring and got hit in the fucking face by a football. The usual.

  I smile and nod. ‘Yes, it was fine, thanks.’ I turn to glare at Patrick. ‘Apparently I watched The Voice.’

  ‘Me too. Love that show! You going to review it for P? I would but I’m snowed under.’

  ‘P’ blushes slightly and looks down at his desk. Dear lord, I bet he has a crush on Leanne. That’s why he never gives her any shit.

  Finally I agree to do it because I’m the bigger person and because he’ll grass on me to Natasha if I don’t. Cat Buchanan: reluctant team player extraordinaire.

  ‘OK, Leanne. I’m just about to write 450 words for “P” while he goes to Starbucks and buys me a LARGE Americano. One sugar. Thanks, Patrick!’

  He doesn’t want to, I can tell, but he shuffles off towards the door anyway, clutching his scuffed leather wallet and I begin typing.

  The Voice (aka Ugly people can sing too)

  There are many things that hurtle through my brain while watching The Voice and sadly none of them is a .45-calibre shell from the ­im­aginary handgun I haven’t bought yet.

  Despite the fact that I’ve only ever watched one episode, I manage to get 300 words down about the judges, song choices and contestants before finishing with a triumph­ant conclusion:

  Who cares who actually wins the show? I watch it to see the look on someone’s face when they’ve spent ages telling a film crew how they lost both nipples in a sledging accident, only to get no chair turns and a disappointed look from the ghost of the father to whom they’ve just dedicated their shaky rendition of ‘Hero’.

  I give it a once-over, then email my copy to Patrick, who mutters a disingenuous ‘Thanks’ before passing it off as his own work. Ungrateful knob. I see that the bagel filling has somehow crept from his pink shirt on to his red tie and I’m glad he’ll have to spend the rest of the day looking like a badly dressed toddler.

  Natasha fails to appear, but emails me at four to say that there were 179 comments on my column online, so this is definitely a goer for at least three more weeks. I steel myself and go to the website to check what people have been saying (something I try never to do as a general rule – I tend to get a little stabby if someone’s mean about me). Sure enough, the comments section is filled with readers arguing over the merits of the book and wishing me luck. Well, except JohnT567, who says only, ‘This woman disgusts me.’ I mentally squash his tiny avatar between my finger and thumb, thus destroying him.

  I could hang around the office for longer, but really there’s nothing that can’t be finished off at home, and I can’t concentrate on The Rules of Engagement with Leanne chattering insistently in my ear. I need to get my arse in gear with this assignment – one failed attempt involving a football isn’t going to cut it. I wish everyone a good week before directing my legs down the stairs and towards the train station. Rose has picked up Grace from school, so I don’t need to hurry, but my desire to see someone who always looks genuinely happy to see me makes me put a rush on.

  Rose is sitting at her green patio table with a black coffee and a closed Marian Keyes paperback, watching Jason and Grace play swing ball at the bottom of the garden. Neither has much luck actually hitting the ball, but they still embrace each fluke with a Wimbledon-like enthusiasm.

  ‘Who’s winning?’ I ask, sitting beside Rose and waving to Grace, who stops to yell ‘Watch this, Mum!’ before going in for a killer swing that never happens.

  ‘I have no idea.’ Rose laughs. ‘I think they’re both equally shit at it. Good day?’

  I make a groaning noise and shrug. ‘So-so. You had the garden done? Looks great.’ Sometimes I envy Rose. She lives a ten-minute walk away from us, but with her five-bedroom redbrick house with its huge back garden, it seems more like a million miles.

  ‘Rob’s friend Martin offered to do a bit of landscaping on the cheap for us, and I invested in some new pots and shrubs from that garden centre in Giffnock. I have now officially turned into Rob’s mother; you never see the old trout without a hand trowel and a bag of foul-smelling compost.’

  Grace runs over and hugs me before disappearing to the toilet, and Jason continues to practise his swing, only to hit himself in the forehead with his wooden racket. It’s the final straw, and the last thing the poor racket ever sees is the side of a plum tree as it’s smashed into pieces by an irate seven-year-old boy shouting, ‘THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE.’ Rose breathes the word ‘fuck’ and walks over to comfort her son, who’s now throwing a tantrum of massive proportions. Grace returns during this spectacular outburst and whispers, ‘He always does this when we play swing ball. Every. Single. Time.’

  Puzzled by why Rose doesn’t just take the swing ball down, I announce that we’re going home and Grace and I leave quietly. I’m grateful Grace is so easy-going – I’d never be able to cope with a kid like Jason. I turn back to look at Rose, who’s now sitting on the grass, cuddling her sulking child. She whispers something to him and his little arms wrap around her waist. I smile.

  Grace and I walk back towards our flat in silence before Grace says, ‘What did Rose whisper to calm Jason down? That she’d buy him a new racket?’

  We stop at the kerb to cross the quiet road. ‘Hmm, could be, but I think it was something else.’ I take her little hand in mine and say, ‘I reckon she told him that she loves him very, very much.’

  Grace looks at me and smirks. ‘Nah. I think it was a new racket.’

  *

  Later that evening, I’m sitting on the couch wondering about my next st
ep for the rules when there’s a familiar knock on my front door. It makes me smile.

  When I was ten, our elderly spinster neighbour Mrs Pollock died, leaving behind a house that lay empty for two years and a rickety brown garden shed that Helen and I adopted. After mum cleaned it, painted it white and removed any potential health hazards, we officially declared it to be our clubhouse – taking several days to perfect our secret knock: essentially the ‘Shave and a haircut . . . Two bits’ knock from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? For five years Helen and I hung out there, and those will always be the happiest memories from my childhood. I think Helen feels the same; twenty-six years later, she still uses the knock.

  ‘I know it’s late, Cat, won’t keep you. I just wanted to say I’m sorry I couldn’t take Grace to school this morning. Staff meeting. Couldn’t get out of it.’ She’s already sitting on the couch by the time she’s finished the sentence.

  I close the front door quietly. ‘Yeah, you already said. It’s fine – my boss wasn’t in anyway. Everything OK at the uni?’

  She takes a peek at the open Word document on my laptop. ‘Oh sure. Just the normal budget cuts and staffing problems. How’s the dating project going? Any luck yet?’ She’s avoiding looking me in the eye. She’s up to something.

  ‘No, but it’s early days . . .’ I reply suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, just showing in an interest. Y’know . . . a sisterly interest . . .’

  She’s definitely up to something.

  ‘Spider plant looks good there, Cat.’

  She’s stalling, but I’m too busy for this. ‘OK, so I’m actually working just now . . .’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she replies. ‘I’ll let you get on. Oh, before I go –’

  Here it comes.

  ‘– I was just wondering if you’re free for dinner a week on Wednesday?’

  Boom. She knows Grace goes to Peter’s on a Wednesday, so therefore I’ll be free.

  ‘I’m free this Wednesday. Why not then?’

  ‘We’re busy. Going to the cinema,’ she snaps. ‘Has to be next Wednesday. Well?’