by Austin, Lucy
I myself attempted to make peace with the past. In a fit of frustration that my life was fast becoming like a boomerang, as in nothing ever happened unless I instigated it, I emailed the, by now, mythical Joe. I was just hoping to re-establish contact in order that I might know what to file him away under. Other than accepting my friend request on Facebook, it had been a very long time since we’d been in touch. My email was nothing dramatic, just nice and short, with every single word heavily considered, along the lines of ‘I hope you are well and did what you planned to do’.
Over the next few days, I’d anxiously check my inbox, only for a week to go by and then a month. By then, I had this dawning realisation that he was never going to write back and I just felt so ridiculously foolish. Far from being able to chalk it down to experience though, consoling myself that he might have been run over by a tour bus or eaten by a crocodile, I kept coming across Joe on Facebook, with a feed that was a series of friend acceptances and endless selfies in front of glamorous Sydney backdrops, looking like he was having an amazing time – an amazing time without me. I felt like the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ in A Christmas Carol and this was not conducive to getting over him. There and then I exerted the one bit of control I still had and ‘unfriended’ him. Given he had 500+ ‘friends’, I doubt he ever noticed.
Despite all my efforts to exercise some rationale, the knowledge that in two clicks I can find out what my ex is having for his breakfast plays on my mind. So, even though to all intents and purposes I no longer know him, there he remains in this permanent present. As I sit in front of the computer on a daily basis, I have those moments where I almost crack and type in his name. What I’ve yet to figure out is how to stay away from knowing anything about him, but still keep up with the rest of our mutual friends’ movements – movements that threaten to overlap all the time.
Back to the conversation with Anna, I intercept the coffee from Paolo for fear it will suffer the same fate as the muffin that was thrown onto the table.
‘You didn’t ring Hayden did you?’ I ask her, figuring that while we’re on the subject of her extensive back-catalogue, I might as well enquire after the other fiancé. Please say you didn’t.
‘Err, no.’ Anna sounds a little sheepish. ‘I still have that lovely ring and don’t want to give it back.’ Before I have time to say anything by way of response, she then suddenly exclaims. ‘Is that the time? Darling. Have to fly. See you at my production.’
‘Break a leg,’ I say, sipping my coffee, not entirely sure if I mean it figuratively speaking anymore.
CHAPTER 13 - ALL BY MYSELF
In the next room, Claire and Linda are having a mind body spirit workshop, which as far as I can make out involves reading out self-help quotes from women’s magazines and then writing them on the blackboard as though they’ve discovered the Holy Grail. With no opportunity to chill out in my own lounge, I’ve escaped to my room and am lying on my bed, listening to music, every now and again pondering whether the dark stain on my ceiling looks a bit like Australia – there’s even a Tasmania slowly appearing.
Two years on and it only takes the slightest thing to be propelled back to that time in Oz. Whether it be a mouthful of good coffee, a glass of cheap wine, a bad day at the office – or in my case, no day at the office – it doesn’t take much for that feeling of being rejected to come back and haunt me just when I least expect it.
The fact that Joe then walked away with little more than a swish of his ponytail and not so much as a backwards glance has proved to be little consolation for those times when it’s just me sat there of an evening, feeling like that scene in Bridget Jones when she’s wearing tartan pyjamas, with only a glass of chardonnay for company. To Joe, I clearly was just a bit of fun in the sun, but to me he symbolised a cataclysmic shift in what I thought about love. And because it wasn’t a proper relationship, I don’t think I’ve ever really had the chance to move on. When he said, ‘sorry, I’m on my path’, he then followed this up by pretending that we never existed, compounding my worst fear, that even if does feel like it is true love then it still doesn’t mean it will come to anything. Because here’s the thing: It turns out that for all your emoting and overanalysing, they might just think of you as the latest shag before the next pretty backpacker comes along.
As always, hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I had known then how it would all play out, I’m not sure I would have invested so much in Joe. The trouble is that when you take the decision to handle your heartbreak by swearing off men ever after, and forgo a second date for fear of tarnishing the memories, it only serves to make the one time you did feel that connection so ridiculously significant. This state of mind I’ve found myself in now threatens to keep me single for years, well, unless I somehow get a grip and break the cycle. Right now, the subject of Joe is like having a pair of tights that are that bit too small and keep dragging down my knickers.
What I’ve also realised is that getting back ‘out there’ doesn’t guarantee anything either. I’ve seen it happen to other friends, you know, to be told to move on as there is always someone around the corner, only that it turns out there really isn’t. No wonder we get so hung up on our exes, draping all our frustrations and regrets over their memory like a mannequin, because the single years roll on by and look less likely to end the way we thought they would. Perhaps Scary Linda has the right idea – you know, being so darn grateful at finding someone that she’s going to invent a ‘happy ever after’ as soon as humanely possible, fast-tracking the romance regardless of whether she’s invested the time. I remain hung up on Joe because even if what we had wasn’t particularly tangible in any shape or form, I’m loathed to put the work in all over again.
If that wasn’t enough, with not so much as a sniff of a job opportunity, the same old unemployment cycle is repeating itself. In the last week alone, I’ve had four interviews that from the start I didn’t stand a chance of getting. The first one was at a local business park for an insurance broker who stared at my breasts and asked if I was planning to have children anytime soon, the second interview was cancelled en route, having just paid out for the train fare to London, the third one was not even with the person who I would be working for but his second in command whose job it was to do an initial cull – sort of like the X-Factor auditioning process - and the last interview was for a job that I never even applied for as the agency gave them someone else’s details. Now, I’m not adverse to the idea of piggy backing off some fabulous alter-ego better qualified than me, but not when it’s a woman called Jeanette who has spent the last fifteen years manning complaints at a call centre for erectile dysfunction.
I download all of these elaborate job specs, only to find lots of rhetoric, coupled with the use of lively adjectives and totally pointless details such as ‘they’ve got a snack machine by the ladies’. Phrases such as ‘real team player’ and ‘bags of enthusiasm’, I now realise mean that the job isn’t quite as glamorous as they are building it up to be. The recruitment agencies aren’t much better, teasing me with a suspiciously lovely sounding job, only to send me off to an interview under the misguided notion that the role is tailor-made for me. Having then found out that it wasn’t at all what I thought it was, they ring with feedback and then blame me for the impression I gave at the interview. ‘They thought you were a little bit too orientated towards that side of the role,’ they say. Or having told you to be yourself, they then provide feedback that is quite obviously critical of your personality that – let’s face it – you really can’t do much about. ‘You were a little too enthusiastic, you were too quiet, you were too, well just too alive.’
Tonight, I’m putting job hunting on the back burner, but no sooner do I sneak into the lounge to grab my favourite gossip mag, I’m cornered by Scary Linda who waves a piece of chalk right at me.
‘What about you?’ she looks straight at me, clearly in deep thinking mode. ‘Are you on a path you’ve chosen?’
Oh here we go, I think, I
just want to read about celebrities in peace and quiet.
‘She’s still not told you has she?’ Claire does this annoying laugh that instantly makes me want to swing her round and round by her hair extensions. ‘Guess what I found out. Kate’s lost her job! Ages ago as it turns out.’
Oh yes, my lovely flatmate was positively triumphant when she took a call from a recruitment consultant on my mobile the other day – so much so, she actually passed on the message and took a number.
‘I quit actually,’ I say wearily, no nearer to knowing how to dress up my status.
Linda suddenly turns round to me, her broken veins on her cheeks looking like tributaries of a river. ‘Didn’t you used to do sales Kate?’ she asks, looking excited. Uh oh.
‘A while ago, yes,’ I say, shrugging, not volunteering anything else as I’m sensing a plan is forming in Linda’s mind. I’m not going to mention that I happened to be really good at it, even if I didn’t like it very much.
‘You poor thing! Seriously, would you like a job?’ asks Linda speaking slowly, as though she were offering a toddler a treat.
While I want to say that I don’t want a job, what actually comes out of my mouth is: ‘That’s very kind of you but I’ve got a few irons in the fire’.
My vague response prompts Claire to roll her eyes. ‘I think what Kate is trying to say is that she’s very happy not doing very much,’ she says, with a smirk on that immaculate face of hers. ‘Thankfully, I have never had any reason to leave my job. I’m lucky. I knew from an early age of visiting salons with my mum what I’d be good at.’ This is not a statement I will ever dispute. With modesty fully deserting her, Claire now goes on a self-promotion roll. ‘I can’t help it. I am just fantastic at what I do.’ As though she knows what I am thinking, she then glares at me. ‘And what’s more, not everyone can do what I do you know! Have you ever done shellac nails or maintained a tanning booth Kate? No, I didn’t think so!’ Saying nothing by way of response, I just stare closely at those long bejewelled talons of hers, going cross-eyed in the process. ‘I feel sorry for you Kate,’ continues Claire. ‘You never work hard enough to be good at anything.’ Wow, I didn’t see that one coming, something of a body blow – compete with a course of electrolysis – coming from her.
As though she never said a word, Claire then opens up her book again to continue where she left off, leaving me too stunned to say anything. Perhaps she is right. After all, if you don’t fully invest in anything, how do you give things a chance and get better in the process? However, here’s my quandary: If you stay somewhere too long, how do you know what is right for you? I can’t seem to solve this conundrum, nor can I explain it to a girl with an IQ of a salad bowl, so I say nothing. If she wants to think I’m lost for words, let her.
‘If you ask me, I think it’s because you’re spending all your efforts pining for the guy with the ponytail,’ Claire declares, giving a sideways glance to Linda.
After one too many wines the other night, I made the mistake of telling Claire that I was single as I still thought about a holiday romance, going as far to point out a picture with Joe in it – the one where he’s looking at the camera and I’m just looking at him. No doubt, she has since discussed it at great length with Linda over a facial hair session or something.
‘Claire, seriously, cut it out,’ I say quietly, grabbing my magazine and heading for the door.
‘I’m just saying that you are always making bad choices,’ she shouts after me down the corridor, conveniently ignoring the fact that getting married at twenty one and now finding fault with decent guys like Wayne, makes her hardly one to talk. The only difference is that I know better than to go there, for fear her hair extensions might fall out in fury. Just as I am closing my bedroom door, positively salivating at the prospect of reading about some marriage proposal in Pizza Hut, Scary Linda suddenly looms up behind me on route to the loo.
‘Kate, have faith from my experience.’ Oh here we go. I wondered how long it was going to take her before she got on her soapbox. Five – Four – Three – Two – One. ‘You have to make a proper effort to find love. Because, before you know it.’ We’re now getting to Linda’s favourite bit. ‘Boom! It might be too late. Lucky for me...’ she trails off bowing, looking at me for the desired reaction. ‘I got my Prince Charming in the end.’
Despite her audacity at once again tackling my love life, I still find myself politely nodding. ‘I’m happy for you Linda,’ I say as I genuinely mean it, to which she just grins at me.
‘I’m so sorry Kate to rub your nose in it. When you are as over the moon as I am, you just want to shout it from the rooftops,’ she declares, her eyes suddenly welling up with emotion. Yes, we know Linda, we know.
Closing the bedroom door, I leave the two of them to continue their idle chatter well into the night. So much for these ladies having an evening of quiet reflection. Why would you though when you got the likes of me in the flat – I’m much more interesting! More worrying still is that these are not close friends telling me to move on for my own good but the likes of Claire and Linda, who are the type who would delight in telling me my bum looked big in this.
Later on, while I’m busy plucking out the middle bit between my eyebrows, I overhear Linda talking in an exaggerated whisper to Claire by the front door. ‘Kate’s having a hard time. No job, no boyfriend. It can’t be easy.’
There is a momentary silence as Claire works out how best to respond. ‘I pay my rent, I’m not required to give her sympathy too,’ she laughs, prompting a gasp from her friend.
‘Claire, don’t be mean. You are naughty,’ Linda scolds.
‘I know, I’m such a bitch!’ Claire cheerfully concedes, closing the door behind Linda. She then continues to laugh loudly down the corridor as though she said something truly hilarious.
CHAPTER 14 - ORANGE-MOCHA-FRAPPUCINO
The Globe café is particularly cold this morning, not helped by the lack of customers, just a few dedicated regulars needing their early morning coffee. Having ordered my usual, I keep my coat on and take my favourite seat facing the ocean. Every few days, I’ve been going into one of those moods where the whole world feels bleak and nothing will ever change, so I figure I might as well come here and whip out my laptop in order to hide behind the safety of my screen.
Despite maintaining this confident air, I’m running scared in the virtual world, preferring to live through my laptop so I don’t have to feel the full force of rejection. Unfortunately, when you’re in the business of not taking any risks you don’t make much in the way of progress. The usual pattern of events is that having ascertained the nature of the job from a hundred word advert, I then hide behind a generic ‘cut and paste’ email so I never have to feel my heart quicken in nervousness, not even when reading their automated rejection response back. Worse still, when I do get a confirmed interview, my first reaction is one of feeling really quite put out.
This lack of real activity is fast extending to all corners of my life, because, apart from coming into the café and an odd glass of wine at the pub, my social life mainly consists of happening to be there at the flat when Claire is conducting one of her ‘evenings’ – that or sending out emoticons in vague texts – ‘must catch up, loads to tell you,’ being my most popular phrase. In contrast to the girl who would chat to anybody in that Australian hostel, I am now that girl who hopes that an email or a text download will provide me with the genuine rush that comes from living an active life. Instead of facing the outside world head on, I am fast morphing into a person who can no longer operate in person but only through a technology prism.
Just as I’m halfway through surfing the Internet to find out what happened to the cast of LA Law, I become aware of a presence standing over me rubbing her hands together.
It’s Liv. ‘Fuck me, it’s cold today. Paolo set the timer wrong,’ she groans.
With Paolo out for the day, his second-in-command Paula is behind the counter looking ridiculously immaculate a
nd, unless I’m totally imagining it, a little too fancy for waitressing work. Sporting a silk black dress with bolero jacket finished off with a glittery Alice Band, she’s made it practically impossible for a waiting customer to ask her to do anything resembling servitude, because somehow it feels faintly impertinent. I know this as I myself have been known to do the same in temp jobs, where the role was so beneath me that the only way to handle it was to dress in my Sunday best and act like I own the place.
Apparently unaware of a Sue Sylvester from Glee lookalike standing there in a tracksuit tapping her fingers on the counter, Paula is checking her teeth in the reflection of the espresso machine as Sam walks over to where I’m sat. ‘I’m tired. Too many negative vibes,’ is all she’ll say, pausing momentarily, before plodding off, the stuffing taken out of her.
I nod towards the kitchen. ‘What’s up with her?’ I ask Liv, who then points towards Paula.
‘I think she’s had enough of the wife already,’ she says, before pausing and taking a deep breath, automatically making me nervous about what is going to come out of her mouth. ‘Listen I wonder if you could do me a favour’, she hesitates, and I feel myself stiffen, knowing she is going to ask me for something big. ‘I wonder if you could look after the café for me while I go get my bikini line done at Divine Beauty. As you can see, Lady Muck is not exactly working hard and I need Sam in the kitchen. Would you be able to help out?’
Although I’m the one responsible for booking her this appointment with Claire to de-fuzz in preparation for childbirth – prompted by her confessing that she was ‘working a hippy vibe’ down below – I’m thinking this appointment is probably a bad move. With Claire in charge, Liv might end up with no eyebrows and a half finished Brazilian as a form of payback for screwing her ex. This is hardly a life or death emergency, but this is the first time Liv’s asked me this sort of favour and I’m sort of obliged to do it.
