Pretending: The brilliant new adult novel from Holly Bourne. Why be yourself when you can be perfect?

by Holly Bourne

  Matt arrives late because the Central line was being the Central line. ‘I’m so hot I think I’ve sweated out my soul,’ he says instead of hello.

  ‘You have a soul?’ See! A joke! I’m capable of making jokes.

  We have a Monday morning catch-up meeting. Everyone’s favourite thing. The fundraisers are trying to pretend everything is going to be fine, even though we lost out on a key bid last week. The IT team have fixed the bug in our CMS system but, in fixing it, they have found a new one. The press release team have found someone from Love Island who may want to be our charity ambassador but they’re asking for money to do it. I update them on volunteer uptake numbers for the next big training drive we have planned for the autumn. There’re not as many as we’d hoped, but that’s because we don’t have the budget to advertise. We finish and I have another coffee.

  ‘You all right for your shift?’ Matt asks me. ‘I’ve got another bloody meeting now, but I’m free at lunch if you need to debrief.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say. Maybe it’s true.

  It’s not true.

  At half eleven, I get my third cup of coffee which is probably a mistake because I already feel jittery as it is. I put on my cupped headphones so no one bothers me, and I open up the inbox. Twelve questions to get through. That’s not so bad. I fly through the first three, all of them run-of-the-mill, everyday type questions.

  Message received: 04:42

  I’m in love with my best friend, do I tell her?

  Message received: 08:57

  Am I pregnant? I’ve taken a pregnancy test and it says I’m not but where the hell is my period?

  Message received: 11:07

  I watch gay porn sometimes but I don’t think I’m gay. But maybe I am? I don’t want to have sex with a man, but does my porn mean something? Help me pls.

  I pull up template answers. I write back that you should weigh up the hurt of keeping your feelings a secret against the hurt of the possible rejection and ruining of the friendship. I write that periods can be late for any number of reasons but, if they’re really worried, they should go to their GP. I reassure them that many straight men watch gay porn and your sexuality isn’t something you should feel under any pressure to define. I’m in the groove. I’m doing OK. It’s all going to be fine. Work is fine. It’s a great distraction actually. I’m glad I …

  Message received: 12:02

  This is a weird one but my gf is being really offish because the other morning she woke up to find me having sex with her. I thought it was a sexy way to wake her up but she said it’s made her feel a bit strange. I’m sorry cos i didn’t mean to upset her but i also think shes overreacting a bit. I wouldnt mind if she woke me up with a blowjob would i? How can i make her see that its not a big deal?

  My stomach is the first to go. Like someone’s tied a tonne weight to it and then dropped it off a cliff. Then my hands start wobbling. I feel the rug being tugged out from under all my rationality. White rage pumps through my blood. With each beat of my fluttering heart, the anger pulses harder and harder and then I’m typing. Pure, putrid rage. Anger filling me from the tip of my toes up. I can’t any more. I can’t any more. Why won’t they stop? Why do they never stop? It’s not fair. How dare he? HOW DARE HE? I’m typing without thought or reason or time to get myself together. I’m done, so done. Aren’t we all done? Aren’t you? Because I am.

  You are a fucking disgrace. You have RAPED someone you claim you love and now dare to be upset that she’s upset about it. Why are you all such dicks? What’s wrong with you? WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? I hope you die. I hope you fucking die. Because if you did the world would be better because at least then there’d be one less of you, fucking women up and then making their pain all about you. Go die now please, you pathetic cunt of a human being. I feel so sorry for your mother.

  I stand. Matt is still in his meeting.

  I hit send.

  Oh well. Whoops. Butterfingers!

  I start giggling to myself. ‘I’m just getting some lunch.’ I smile at Katy like nothing untoward has happened. ‘Do you want me to get you anything?’

  She looks up and catches my smile, beaming it back. ‘Oooh, where you going?’

  ‘Probably just the corner shop.’

  ‘If you bring me back a Twister I’ll love you forever.’ She reaches to retrieve her wallet from her bag.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. One Twister coming up.’

  ‘Thanks April, you’re a legend.’

  I give her a double thumbs-up.

  I feel light when I step outside into the relentlessness of the glaring sun. I laugh out loud, startling the line of tourists waiting to get into the Sherlock Holmes museum.

  I’m probably going to be fired, I think, as I look up at the sky, but I don’t even care. It’s totally worth it.

  I don’t get lunch. Or a Twister from the corner shop. I just walk around the park, beaming at everyone. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ I say to a mother feeding the ducks with her children. She’s not sure how to reply to this uncustomary London bout of friendliness and just ignores me. But I feel better for being nicer, they can go fucking fuck themselves if they can’t be polite back. I walk off.

  It’s so goddamn hot. Not even the tears that I’m now crying are cooling me down. They keep coming. Falling down my face, splashing into my dress. It’s quite an accomplishment to cry and walk at the same time – requires real determination – but I’m pulling it off. My feet hurt in my sandals, the heat making them swell and the straps rub, and I can’t believe I’ve just done what I’ve just done …

  What the hell have I just done?

  I’m so fired.

  So totally fired.

  I sit on the empty bench dedicated to Gladys. I put my head between my knees. I’m not ashamed of what I did. I imagine that boy opening my reply and I feel good that he will read what I’ve written. Even though it’s unethical blah blah blah. He needs to read it. He has to be told. They all need to be told. I think of that poor girl and what she woke up to and how confused she must be and how confused she’ll always be because he did what he did. I just detonated my life like a landmine but it’s worth it. Even though my job is the only thing in my life I ever feel good about. It’s where I’ve carefully allocated all my worth and self-esteem and sense of self. It’s what rebuilt me after Ryan, the way I felt I was in some control of it, able to make sense of it in some way. And I’ve ruined it but I’m glad I said it, but I don’t want to have ruined it …

  Matt finds me soon enough. He sits down. ‘Oh April,’ is all he says.

  ‘I’m not sorry.’

  ‘Your response didn’t reach the user. I saw it and cancelled it before he was able to open it. I’ve sent the template perpetrator reply instead.’

  My whole body stiffens. I dig my nails into the soft wood of Gladys’s bench. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘I think, in time, you’ll be glad that I did.’

  I wipe under my eyes. I can’t think of anything to say. I can’t think how or what to feel.

  ‘What’s happening April?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘These questions come up a lot, and you’ve never done this before. What’s going on? You can tell me. I’m your buddy – in both senses of the word.’

  I wipe my eyes again. I guess it’s worth pointing out that today’s question isn’t, indeed, anything that remarkable. During training, they dedicated half a day to perpetrators who use our services to alleviate their guilt. It’s a tricky ethical one. Some of them just want to be told that what they did was OK, even though they know it isn’t. Some of them get off on telling services about what they did. Some of them haven’t even done anything but get off on pretending they have. And some of these questions may come from victims, using a story to ‘test’ a service before they feel brave enough to open up. I’ve been trained in how to spot these questions immedia
tely. I’ve been trained to treat them as genuine users who want help, because there’s no way of knowing that they aren’t. I’ve been trained in handling the difficult emotions these questions evoke. They’re never easy when they come up. I often push them straight over to Matt and need a long walk and some deep breathing. But not today, not any more.

  ‘I just can’t do it.’

  ‘Do what? Your job?’

  I shake my head and wipe a stray tear using my finger. ‘Any of it. Just waking up and living my life when it’s all too much and there’s no point anyway.’

  Matt hangs his head, quiet. I don’t fill the silence either. We sit and look out at the scorched grass that looks like crushed Weetabix. I can’t remember what it was like for grass to be green.

  Eventually he says, ‘I’ve had to tell Mike. You know that, right?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘April, you know I had to.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  He looks like he’s about to reach out and take my hand, but he stops himself. Instead he raises his face to look right at me. ‘Look, I know we’re just colleagues but I also think this job makes us more than that. If you need to talk about anything, I’m here. I’m a friend.’

  I look into his eyes behind his thick glasses and I’m glad there is at least one man in this universe that I can believe is good. Of course he’s fucking gay, but it’s a start. ‘Thank you. I don’t know what’s going on with me.’

  ‘Burn out?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess that’s a good way of putting it.’ I look up, the sun making my eyes crinkle to slits. ‘I don’t think I can go back in there, Matt,’ I say. ‘Everyone’s going to be talking about me.’

  ‘They won’t. I’ve only told Mike.’

  ‘It will get out. Everyone will think I’m crazy.’ I mean, I am crazy. I’m starting to realise just how crazy after years of blocking it out and pretending otherwise. Only since becoming Gretel and having to withhold so much have I realised the true extent of it all and how much I leak it out, like a malfunctioning madness sprinkler.

  ‘Anyone who works for a charity is a bit crazy, that’s the law.’

  I manage a smile.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone, April. I promise.’

  We lock eyes again. ‘You’re a pretty good buddy, you know that, yeah?’

  ‘Right back at you.’

  ‘Will you go and get my stuff? Tell everyone I’m not feeling well?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Mike said to take the rest of the day off. He’s organised for Carol to come in tomorrow though.’

  My smiles fades. ‘What?’

  ‘April, you’re amazing and I’m very fond of you, but you can’t call a user a rapist and not get called in for an extra supervision.’

  ‘But he is a rapist!’

  ‘April—’

  ‘Thanks for getting my stuff,’ I interrupt him, needing to get rid of him before I cry yet more new tears. ‘I’ll wait here if that’s OK?’

  He wants to say more but he doesn’t. ‘That’s fine. I’ll be back in ten minutes.’

  I’m left alone until Matt returns. I don’t cry actually, just stare at the sky quite a lot, trying to remember what overcast feels like, what needing a cardigan feels like, what sanity feels like.

  We hug when he gets back. I thank him again. Then I slouch my way to the Tube and back to the flat that I left not so very long ago and lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling again.

  It’s time to get ready for Joshua. I peeled off my work clothes the moment I got in, so I collect them off the floor and step back into them. I check my phone. There’s an email from Chrissy, reminding me of the upcoming hen do.

  ‘You can fuck right off you smug, fucking prat,’ I find myself saying out loud, and then laughing hysterically.

  I email back. ‘Can’t wait!!!’

  I get back on the Tube. I practise smiling like I might mean it. I imagine a different day from this day, and wonder what Gretel would’ve done. ‘Isn’t this weather the best?’ she would say. ‘I had lunch out in the park. It was lush.’ I get off at Leicester Square and fight my way through the sweaty throngs of tourists who don’t know where to go or how to find out, weaving through them with the directional arrogance of a seasoned Londoner. I dodge past the M&M’s shop and wonder why and how it is a) allowed, and b) so popular. I see Joshua waiting for me outside the cinema, and enjoy watching him for a moment in screensaver mode. An anonymous face in this city too full of anonymous faces. He looks up and spots my face. A grin splinters his in two. He is genuinely happy to see her. He cannot hide that at all. I walk forward, smiling back. We meet. We kiss. He slings an arm over my shoulder, and steers me towards the entrance.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming about this all day …’ he starts, leaning over to kiss my neck. ‘The air con, I mean.’

  ‘You’re hilarious.’

  ‘You know that’s not the only reason.’

  We kiss again and cause a little bit of a blockage on the packed pavements. I push him away like I don’t want to push him away. ‘Air con. Now.’

  ‘Whatever you want, O Demanding One.’

  ‘Not demanding. Just hot.’

  He kisses my face. ‘So, did you have a good day at work?’ he asks, just as we push through the double doors and have our skin erupt into welcome goosebumps.

  ‘Today?’ I ask. ‘Oh yeah, it was great. I had lunch in the park. It was lush.’

  The Top 5 Most Common Lies I’ve Told Men

  1) ‘I’m fine.’

  2) ‘I don’t mind.’

  3) ‘That’s fine.’

  4) ‘Oh, I hadn’t even thought about it.’

  5) ‘Yeah, of course I did.’

  Carol has her special voice on. Her soft as a feather dipped in three-minute miracle voice. Her ‘I’m here for you’ voice. Her ‘you can tell me’ voice. It’s quite hard to hear above all the fans whirring around us, fruitlessly combating the heat.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I said, how are you feeling today, April?’

  I cross my arms. ‘I think we both know I’m not feeling great. This wasn’t a scheduled supervision, was it?’ It’s not like me to be so spiky. But I’m not really sure who me is any more. Not so very long ago, I used to be hopeful and optimistic, a tad dramatic but in a cute, jolly way. Now I’m apparently a psychopathic compulsive liar who can’t stop crying.

  ‘Do you want to talk to me about what happened yesterday?’

  I shrug into the wind of the fans. ‘I just couldn’t take it any more.’

  ‘Take what?’

  Seriously, it’s like she’s put her vocal cords into the wash with extra-strength fabric conditioner. It makes me feel as fragile as thin glass. Like I need to be handled with special cotton gloves. ‘I’m so bored of pretending,’ I say. ‘How are any of us making it through each day without screaming? Do you not think that’s a miracle? Don’t you just want to scream and scream until your voice is gone?’

  She makes a note. ‘It sounds like you are dealing with some very strong emotions right now.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’ I stare right at her.

  She doesn’t take the bait. ‘April,’ she says, kindly. ‘In our last session we talked about your mental capacity to handle this role, and I suggested the strain may be too much. After yesterday’s indiscretion, what are your reflections?’

  ‘I know you’re going to take me off shift,’ I reply. ‘Let’s not pretend I have any autonomy.’

  She leans forward. ‘April, I’m not here to decide what happens about your role. That’s between you and your CEO. I’m here to see if you’re all right, because, from the sound of things, you’re not all right.’

  I start laughing in a witchy cackle until my throat closes up. Then a rush of sadness crashes over me. It hurts to talk. ‘I think I’m going crazy,’ I get out. ‘It’s not just work,’ I tell her. ‘I’m dating a man and I’m pretending to be a totally different person. I’m pretending my name is Gretel. I
t’s totally out of hand and fucking nuts and yet I’m still doing it. I don’t know why.’ And, under the breeze of half a dozen fans, all the things I’ve been doing spill out. From the messages with Joshua, to the first date, to the having sex and the giant flashback, to last night and pretending it’s all fine going to the cinema, and even sleeping with him again, despite the fact my whole life has disintegrated. Carol’s nodding and putting on her listening face, but you can tell she’s excited by what I’ve just said.

  ‘I don’t feel like any of my life is mine right now, does that make sense?’ I tell her. ‘So it doesn’t matter that I’m lying to some dude about who I am, or calling out rapists at work. It doesn’t seem real.’

  Carol puts her biro down and looks genuinely sorry for me. Which I wasn’t expecting at all. More a telling-off lecture about why being a psychotic catfishing liar isn’t appropriate. ‘When you were assaulted,’ she says, ‘part of you was taken from you, totally without your permission.’ I sniff and clumsily try to push a tear back with the back of my hand. ‘Some disassociation is to be expected if you’ve not had much treatment. April, do you really think you’ve properly processed what happened to you?’

  ‘It’s in the past, I can’t change it,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing I can do. I just want to move on and be happy.’

  How do you process what happens to you when that happens to you? Is it even possible? I changed the day Ryan did that to me, and I can’t go back to before. I left him, and I wrote about it in my diary, and I got my body working again, and I wouldn’t let him win, and yadda yadda yadda, heal heal heal, fight fight fight, survive survive survive, don’t let it define you, embrace the scar, use it to make you stronger, wank wank fucking wank. I’d just rather not have been fucking raped by my abusive boyfriend in the first place, ta very much.

  Carol passes me a tissue as I keep sniffing. ‘I just feel all these emotions all the time,’ I tell her, through a tight throat. ‘I wake up and it’s there, like a giant ball of energy spitting into my face, and I don’t know what to do with it so I just keep pushing it away. It’s not like I’m in denial about what happened. But I can’t cry all day every day, even though I want to. It’s not realistic. I don’t know how to make all these emotions go away …’