by Luke Tredget
She begins drafting a new tweet, but doesn’t know what to say. Another scroll through the consolatory messages reminds her not a single one of them said anything positive, and on a sullen impulse she decides this would be a good time to call the project to a halt. She writes that there is now little evidence to go on, as far as she can see, and they should leave it here. She writes a second, thanking those who helped her in the search, saying it was fun while it lasted, but that was all it was – she has no ambition to initiate a global lost property service. In her third and final tweet, she says that if any of them does see any more evidence, please feel free to ‘take the lead’.
As she posts this the light around her desk darkens, and she has the sensation of people approaching her from all sides. She looks up and is surprised to see Mike, the head of HR, standing a few feet to her right, grinning, alongside Beatrice from payroll, Jessica the office assistant, and also Tom and Ben from the sports desk – all of them are encircling her in a tight ring. For a weird moment she feels an animal instinct to lash out at them, to defend herself and her territory, and it is only when she sees Paula bearing a small cake that she realises what is happening.
‘Haaaapppppyyyy Biiirrrtttthhhhdddaaaayyyy tooo youuuu!’ they begin, singing each syllable in slow motion. ‘Haaaapppppyyyy Biiirrrtttthhhhdddaaaayyyy tooo youuuu! Haaaapppppyyyy Biiirrrtttthhhhdddaaaayyyy, deaaarrrr Annnnnaaaaaaaa. Haaaapppppyyyy Biiirrrtttthhhhdddaaaayyyy toooooooooo youuuuuuuuuu!’
There is a short and diffuse applause from the small group, which Anna sees also contains Margaret from planning and Sophie from procurement – practically everyone from the skeletal Friday staff, other than Stuart. Mike is tearing black foil from a bottle of Prosecco, and Paula places the cake beside Anna’s keyboard and brings them all to attention.
‘I knew you guys were useless,’ she says, ‘but I didn’t think you’d manage to forget Anna’s thirtieth birthday.’
The group scoffs at this accusation, and there is a loud pop as Mike opens the Prosecco; he pours it into cups that Beatrice lines up on Anna’s desk, the force of the fizzy wine almost knocking over the weightless plastic. The first cup is put in Anna’s hand, and she takes a glug while looking over at Stuart’s desk; she is relieved to see that he is either in the Quiet Room or out, since his joining this gathering might tip the balance between awkward and unbearable.
‘To make up for being so lame, you all have to come to the pub and buy Anna a drink,’ says Paula. Anna is about to interrupt and say she can’t go for drinks, but Paula continues. ‘And before you start making your usual piss-weak excuses, bear this in mind: this is more than a birthday celebration. Just a few minutes ago, Anna’s first article as lead writer was signed off by the clients, and will be published in the next few hours.’
A murmur of surprise and congratulation spreads around the group; someone squeezes Anna’s shoulder from behind, another whispers ‘well done’. Anna is surprised herself. She turns to her computer and sees there is indeed one new message, from the team at Romont, entitled ‘Sign off’.
‘And an interview with Sahina Bhutto, no less! Which the clients at Romont called “tough” and “no-nonsense”. She might come across as a wallflower, but don’t be deceived – this is going to take Anna to the top of the big board, and not for the last time.’
There is another burst of applause, and Anna averts her eyes from their congratulatory faces – rather than pride she feels embarrassment, and imagines Stuart’s fat fingers tapping out the most egregious cliché: ‘heads will roll’. It would be nice to disappear, to vanish from sight, but instead the applause ends and there is a silence that she knows is her responsibility to fill.
‘Come on, Anna, give us a few words.’
‘Remind us what it’s like to be young.’
‘Or remind Mike, anyway.’
‘Oi!’
There is simply no option but to stand up and say something, and Anna takes the last sip of Prosecco and gets to her feet.
‘Thanks, guys. As Paula pointed out, I’m thirty today. I remember someone saying this is the age when you stop messing around and start acting responsibly.’
‘Shame!’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Never!’
‘It wasn’t Paula, that’s for sure!’ says Mike, and everyone laughs.
‘Whoever said it,’ says Anna, trying to smile along with the japes, ‘I decided to live by it. And that is why, unfortunately, I can’t come to the pub myself tonight, as I have a party at home and I have to go and prepare … and …’
The crowd emits shock and disapproval; Mike and Paula boo. They seem genuinely disappointed and confused. ‘But then,’ she says, making weighing scales with her upturned palms, deciding to make the disappointed faces smile again. ‘I suppose I have the rest of my life to be responsible. The rest of my life, starting tomorrow.’
*
Just after 5.30 p.m. a group of nine gather in the lobby, then head out to the street; the sky is still light but the narrow lanes are deep in shade. Paula strings them along Poland Street, talking as much as the others combined, and regularly swiping a hand at the person she is joshing at that particular moment. It is already heaving at the John Snow, with dense gangs of drinkers spilling off the pavement into the cobbled street, and inside they have to squash themselves into the corner of the bar where all the dirty glasses are stacked. Anna is pressed up against the side of a fruit machine between Paula and Mike, who buys her a pint of lager which feels giant, undrinkable, and which she holds with two hands. He asks what she’s doing for her birthday, and she tells him about the dinner party. Then he asks about Pete, and what he does, and Anna finds herself giving the standard response to this question: that Pete is training to be a teacher, though he used to work for this high-flying global firm and is an engineer ‘by trade’.
‘Why aren’t I invited to the party?’ says Paula, poking Anna in the ribs.
‘I thought you’d have more exciting things to do on Friday night,’ says Anna, trying to assimilate into the cheeky persona she assumes in front of Paula. ‘Hooking up with old flames. Making new ones.’
‘As if! London is so boring; everyone is hooked up already.’
‘Being in a couple isn’t boring,’ says Mike, and Paula replies that, while she’d like to defer to Mike’s extensive knowledge of being boring, the truth is that being attached is boring, because nothing else changes.
‘People go out, have a few drinks, go home with their partner. Nothing changes. Boring.’
Anna is conscious of not saying much and asks, just to add something, if she thinks other cities have more single people – immediately she regrets that there is nothing spirited or witty about the question. Being squashed between two senior managers is making her feel self-conscious, even more so than usual. Paula makes a speech about how Kismet isn’t so big in Hong Kong or Bangkok, how you can go out and still meet someone in an old-fashioned, analogue way.
‘Paula is just bitter,’ says Mike, touching Anna’s forearm, ‘because she hasn’t found the right girl yet.’
‘That’s not true. I find the right girl almost every week.’ Anna laughs and Mike rolls his eyes.
‘But you haven’t settled down.’
‘I settle down every night! Then I get up again in the morning. Also, I’ll settle for that.’ She points across the busy pub to a table where four men in suits are pulling on their coats.
‘We won’t all fit,’ says Mike.
‘Don’t be such an accountant. We’ll get cosy. If there’s room in the heart, there’s room for the bum.’
The whole group follows Paula to the table, Mike complaining that he isn’t an accountant. And indeed they do all fit, nine around a table for four, Anna packed so snugly between Jessica and Beatrice that it is a struggle to bring her second pint to her lips. But it is a nice feeling, to be a group of colleagues crammed together. Just after 6 p.m. she is given her second pint, which goes down easier than the first, and w
hoever bought the round also delivers several bags of crisps and nuts, which are torn open on the table. Anna crunches through handful after handful, her body applauding the salt and sugar and grease, her first food of the day.
‘Here’s a question,’ says Ben. ‘I know you can wolf something down, or dog someone, but can you cat them?’ Everyone groans; this is typical Ben.
‘You can badger them, I know that much,’ says Paula.
‘Or outfox them!’ says Anna.
‘And then slug them, right in the chops!’
‘You guys, quit horsing around.’
‘Honestly, I can’t bear it!’
Now everyone is laughing and trying to join in, and Anna feels herself drifting into a blissful, liquid state. She loses her sense of self, retreats inwardly until she feels almost like a disembodied, floating eye watching with pleasure as her colleagues jostle and throw barbs at each other. What wellbeing there is, she realises, to drink beer with these friendly, energetic people who clearly all love each other’s company, despite barely knowing each other really; perhaps it is precisely because of this that they get on so well. She continues floating inwards, feeling her eyes glazing over, until conversation turns abruptly to her. Paula once again accuses Mike of being an accountant, and he tells her to stop showing off, just because she’s soft on Anna.
‘As if,’ says Paula. ‘Anna is the straightest girl in London.’
‘Hey!’
‘No offence, darling. But you’re as straight as the Red Arrows.’
The others laugh briefly, and then attention turns to Beatrice when she accuses Mike of being the biggest flirt in the office. Anna is stunned. The straightest girl in London. She takes another sip of lager and decides to stand up for herself.
‘I’ve been with girls,’ she says, louder than intended. Everyone falls silent and looks at her.
‘You have?’ asks Beatrice.
‘Well, one girl,’ says Anna, already wishing she hadn’t said anything. ‘Not girls.’
She takes another sip of beer and looks down in her lap. Everyone seems at a loss for what to speak about, her interruption having torn through the previous conversation.
‘So,’ says Paula, clearing her throat. ‘When was this?’
‘I’d rather not say.’
‘Oh, come on. You’ve got to now.’
‘I’d really rather not, I made a fool of myself. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Rather than deter them this statement stirs their interest, and Ben says that she should tell the whole thing, that he senses this will be good. She says that she met a girl, a friend of a friend, and one night after a party they spent the night together. Beatrice asks where this was, and Anna says it was in San Francisco. Mike asks why she was in San Francisco, and she says she lived there for six months when she was twenty-five. Paula asks why she moved there, at which point Anna sighs and resigns herself to telling the whole story, from the top.
‘Alright. Have I not told any of you that I moved to America? Well, I did, just for the hell of it, for six months.’ Still they demand more back-story, and Anna quickly explains that in her early twenties she lived in Hackney with Zahra, her best friend, and was seeing this guy called Ed, but that she suddenly decided to change everything in her life.
‘Everything?’
‘Everything. So I split up with Ed and bought a ticket to San Francisco.’
‘Did you have a plan for when you got there?’
‘No plan at all. Or friends, or job, or contacts. The only thing was that Ruth, my dad’s sister, has an apartment there, which she said I could use.’
‘Handy.’
‘Right. But there was a mix-up. I arrived to find a woman already living in the flat. Ruth thought I was coming a month later, apparently. Anyway, this turned out to be a good thing. I went to a hostel and asked around online, and the next day I found a room in Oakland with a bunch of art students. This is now too much detail, right?’
‘If anything, not enough,’ says Ben.
‘Okay. So I moved into this house, which was like … wow. It was huge, on four floors, with this big open kitchen and a roof terrace. And the people were great. They’d spend their days working on paintings or sculptures, and took me to parties in the evening. I was in heaven. And the room I was crashing was best of all. It belonged to this girl called Juliette, who’d gone to Japan for a month, and it became my favourite place in the world. It was packed with books, vinyl, jewellery, antiques. Everything was so personal. It was like … it was like being in this girl’s head. There were all these … things, these strange little art pieces.’
‘What sort of things? Give details, examples.’
‘Alright. For example, she had a tiny square canvas, a miniature canvas frame just a few inches across, like a painting for a wendy house. And a wooden clothes peg was stuck to it, gripping a shiny plastic Valentine’s heart. And beneath the peg the word “remember” was painted on the canvas.’
They all frown and look at each other.
‘What does that mean?’ asks Beatrice.
‘I don’t know. That’s my point, none of it made sense. But I loved it. I could spend hours in there looking around, or reading her books, flicking through picture albums, listening to old records.’
‘You looked at pictures of her?’ says Ben.
‘Sure,’ says Anna, with dignity, as Mike winks at Paula. ‘Some were of her.’
‘And you fancied her?’ says Ben, his eyes wide, and Paula jabs him in the ribs.
‘I wasn’t aware of fancying her. I just really liked her; she seemed like a better, cooler version of me. I’d get back from work – I’d found a job in a bookstore – and would immediately want to be in Juliette’s room, even if there was a party on the terrace. So that went on for a few weeks, and then … Then I began acting strange.’
‘Strange how?’
Anna stops and has the last sip of the second pint, putting it down next to a brand new one, which she didn’t notice arriving. She can feel her heart beating, and remember being in Juliette’s room, and the racing feeling that was the same as being in raves, and the way she felt in Somerset House – that childish sense of abandon. It is thrilling, but also quite draining, to be telling this story aloud, for the first time ever.
‘I suppose things changed when I found the book. It was a notebook. I found it under her bed. I’d begun snooping weeks before. I’ll never forget it. It was a black leather notebook, and “Be Still My Beating Heart” was written on the cover in gold Letraset. Inside she’d written out hundreds of text messages, going back about a year, all between her and this guy Martin. I read it in one sitting and it killed me, the care she’d gone to, writing them in different-coloured ink, putting the date and time by each one. I also couldn’t believe how similar some of it was to Ed and me – some of the arguments they had were almost identical to ours. The final messages were only a few weeks old, and that’s when I realised: she’d run away to Japan because she’d split up with Martin, just like I’d run away because of Ed. It was uncanny.’
‘And you thought it meant something?’
‘Yeah. I mean, it felt more than just a coincidence. I felt like we were supposed to find each other. Help each other …’
Her voice has grown increasingly small saying this; she feels tired and now really wishes she hadn’t started.
‘And then what happened? Keep going. You’re doing well.’
‘Really,’ says Jessica. ‘You’re good at telling stories.’
‘Um. Well. Then I began acting really strange.’
‘Details, examples,’ says Mike.
‘Sorry. I suppose I thought about her all the time, even dreamt about her. My aunt’s flat became free but I kept paying rent to live in Juliette’s room. I started counting the days until she came back, and was working myself into a frenzy. I didn’t feel like she was going to replace me in the room, I felt like she was coming to join me. I thought, you know, we were going to be together.’
&nbs
p; ‘You mean together together?’
Anna looks down at her lap. ‘Yes. It took me completely by surprise. And at the same time felt the most natural thing in the world.’
‘So? Come on, you’re killing me here,’ says Paula. ‘She came back? You got to meet her?’
‘Yeah, she came back. Obviously I had to move out before she arrived, but the others invited me to a “welcome home” dinner party they were throwing for her. I’m not sure I’ve ever been more nervous in my life. I almost cancelled, I don’t know how many times, and on the way I stopped for a shot of tequila, just to try and calm down. Somehow I made it to Uptown, then the house, then I was inside, hugging all the others, stepping up to the terrace and there she was, sitting at the table. Not the idea of her, or a picture – the living, breathing Juliette. She looked great. She sounded … great. Even better than I expected, and I can’t tell you how frustrating it was. There were ten people having dinner and she was at the other end of the table. And I was so self-conscious I could barely string a sentence together. But she was jetlagged anyway, and after dinner she went straight to bed. So I just sat there getting drunk on white wine, hating all the others. I smashed a glass and said I had to go home. They tried to make me stay but I insisted, and said I’d let myself out. But on the way down I had another idea. I didn’t let myself out.’
