by Abigail Mann
Freddie:
I’ll be there in five mins.
Right. Five minutes. I can’t walk around the block because I might bump into him and then it’d be awkward because I need a table, or at least the cover of darkness, to disguise my corned-beef legs and scruffy shoes.
In an effort not to be a loitering loser, I go inside, order a glass of wine, and perch at a table with a good view of the door. I unzip my coat to the waist and try to visualise what I look like from outside the window. I hope it’s the image of a nonchalant woman comfortable with her own company rather than an anxious weirdo trying not to split the seams of a fifty-year-old dress. I haven’t eaten anything for dinner and the further down the wine glass I get, the more my thighs feel fuzzy.
Fifteen minutes pass, and then another fifteen. I refuse to check my phone for messages, but make sure the sound is turned all the way up. I’ve left a finger of wine at the bottom of my glass so it doesn’t get taken away by the bar staff, but after an hour, even they’re giving me sympathetic looks.
I know I’m in the right place, because there are only two Unicorn and Hare pubs in the country and the other one is in Birmingham, so unless I’ve got this really wrong, he just hasn’t turned up. Perhaps he’s been hit by a train. Or twisted his ankle. Or got caught up saving a kitten from a drain. Or maybe he’s just a bellend. I break my own rule and double check that my internet is working by sending an email to myself. Within seconds, the ‘hello’ I’d pinged off boomerangs back to me. God, this is a new low. The Lovr app hasn’t crashed either.
The crowd in the pub has swollen and someone’s arse pushes into my arm as the gaps between tables fill with pint-wielding men in their thirties. A number of televisions boot into life and there’s a small cheer as two giant rugby commentators with lumpy ears appear on the screen. Right, this has to be my cue to leave. I open up the app to tap out a pithy response, but any sign of previous interaction has disappeared completely. Bloody Rodney and his weekend server maintenance … I tip the last of the wine to the back of my throat and elbow my way outside, straining to listen as the dialtone kicks in. The call connects, but no one speaks.
‘Hello?’ I say, hearing the strain in my voice.
‘Who is this?’
‘Elissa. From work.’
‘Oh. Yes. Why are you calling?’
‘Are you doing something on the app? Some technical thing that means it’s not working properly?’
‘No. Not working today. On holiday. Margate.’
‘Right, sorry, Rodney, I didn’t realise.’
‘What’s wrong with the app?’
‘It’s a chat thread. I was using it, like, an hour ago. And now it’s gone.’
‘That only happens when a profile is deleted. Chat is deleted too.’
‘But I haven’t deleted my profile! It’s still there!’
‘Not you. The other user will have deleted their profile.’
‘Oh. Right then.’
‘I’m going now,’ says Rodney.
He’s bloody hung up on me. I breathe out a low, ragged breath and look up at the pigeon spikes lining the window frame of the pub. I turn around to face the wall, because if anyone asks me if I’m okay, I’ll turn into a shaking mess of mucus and tears and I’d really rather avoid that if I can. My phone buzzes, and I stupidly feel a little flutter in my stomach before noticing it’s Suki who’s sent me a voice note: ‘Where the fuck are you? Pull your knickers up and shift your fanny over here! There’s a warm glass of prosecco with your name on it!’ She trails off to a chorus of shouting, whooping, and cackling.
***
‘Oh, mate. That’s brutal. What a cock! My cousin, I think you’ve met her once before, has the funny eye? Yeah, she got cloaked a few weeks ago. Twat said he was at the end of the road and then, poof! Deleted his account, blocked her all over social media, the lot! I don’t know what the point of it all is, you know? To go that far and then pull back at the last minute. It makes you think, do they get a kick out of abandoning someone? The older I get, the more I think the world is full of weirdos and perverts.’ Suki drains her glass, deftly swapping it with another as a roving waiter passes close by.
‘Cloaking? Is that what it’s called?’
‘Like, Harry Potter? Invisibility cloak? Put it on and disappear? I know you’re a Hufflepuff, babe, but I thought you’d know about that.’
‘I haven’t been … by myself for that long!’
‘Say it.’
‘No.’
‘Go on. It’s delicious. It might even be my favourite word.’
I roll my eyes in mock exasperation and smile at Suki, who is wearing a suit better than any of the men’s here. ‘Single.’
‘That’s it. Look, dating isn’t always easy. You know that grungy girl I was into last year? Might have been before you started at Lovr. Anyway, I got the clap, didn’t I?’ I cough some of my prosecco back into my glass. ‘Ha! All’s good down there now, obviously. What the fuck was I trying to say?’ Suki flicks her nose and takes a swig. ‘Oh, yeah, basically, in the law of averages, at least half of the people you meet are shits, and men are the shittiest of all. So, you’ve avoided one today. Good! You’ve saved yourself from being dicked about by a manchild who won’t commit until he’s found a younger version of his own mother. Oh, look. There’s Calum. Calum!’ Suki calls over to a man with a small ponytail and a velvet jacket. ‘He’s a riot, swear down.’
Calum walks over with the air of a man unused to moving quickly for anyone.
‘Calum, Elissa. Calum’s into art. Bit of a collector, aren’t you?’ says Suki, grinning.
‘Hardly. I end up here with work a fair bit. If you loiter long enough, they throw wine at you in the hope you’re pissed enough to buy a canvas.’
‘Yeah, can’t say anything here’s taken my fancy,’ I say, turning to look at a piece hung beside me that I’m fairly sure contains real human hair, ‘pissed or not.’
‘Ah, it’s all shit, isn’t it? Art is something rich people buy in the hopes it’ll make them seem more interesting. Saying that, I think I’ve got a work of art stood right in front of me.’
Oh, Jesus. Suki is standing just out of Calum’s eyeline, which is lucky because she’s bent double in a silent laugh, her eyes twinkling with strain. She gives me a thumbs-up and retreats through the crowd, leaving me with Calum.
‘What is it that you do?’ Ah, here we go.
‘I’m a social media manager. For an app.’
‘Ah, a MacBook-wielding Shoreditchian?’
‘Not quite, no.’ I force a laugh. If it’s passing judgements he’s after … ‘How about you? Art critic? Hedge fund executive?’
‘Private investigator.’
‘Oh.’ He’s stumped me there. ‘That wasn’t what I was expecting.’
‘It never is.’
‘What a cool job. Really cool, actually.’
‘Ah, it’s all right. Sometimes I’ll get a brief that’s got some meat in it, but most of my clients are husbands or wives seeking evidence of an affair. It’s my bread and butter. I was in here tailing a guy who kept buying pieces that never turned up in the family home. Wife got a decent divorce payout, I get a good commission … that’s the job really.’ Calum smacks his lips together like he’s chugged through this story a hundred times before. ‘Social media manager then. So … you get paid to go on Twitter all day?’ I don’t attempt a rebuttal, because I’ve learnt by now that people aren’t looking for an explanation, just enough proof that you don’t work as hard as them.
‘Yes, exactly. Twitter all day! I’m essentially Donald Trump!’ I laugh at my own joke and am met with a pitying smile. I cough and drink the rest of my prosecco. ‘A PI, though! Is it tough? Do you have to do, like, training or anything?’
‘Not really. It’s not as hard as it sounds. There’s so much on the internet that as long as you’ve got a few key details, you can find pretty much everything you need. It’s those ancestry websites. People are obsessed with
logging names, dates, birth certificates … They do half my job for me.’
I run my tongue along my top teeth and think. ‘Hypothetically, if you wanted to find someone from, say, the Sixties, how easy would it be to locate them?’
‘If they’re dead, very easily. Death certificates are the easiest to find.’
‘Oh, well, I’m hoping he’s not. Dead, I mean.’
‘Is this about some sort of absentee-daddy issue? Because I can do that, just not … at a party, like.’
‘No. It’s not! It’s a friend of a friend. They fell out of touch years ago.’
‘You’re very invested for a friend of a friend.’
‘Well, I am, I suppose.’
‘Look.’ Calum pulls his wallet out of his back pocket, flips it open, and slides out a black business card with a phone number printed on the back in white. ‘If you’ve got a full name and a previous address – home or work – you should be able to find out something useful. Whether they want to be found is a whole other issue.’ He hands me the card between his first and second finger. The bravado makes me want to laugh. ‘If all else fails, give me a call. I wouldn’t want to make it too easy for you.’ Calum winks, hooks my hand around his velvet-clad arm, and steers us back towards the bar.
Chapter 25
‘If you’re gonna be sick, love, I can’t take you.’
‘Course she’s not, are you, babe?’ Suki says as she folds me into the back of a taxi and roughly pulls down the skirt of my dress.
‘Maybe.’
‘Shut up!’ she says with imploring eyes and a grin barely contained on her face.
‘What was that?’ the taxi driver says, twisting round in his cab.
‘She said Hampstead! Say you’re not going to be sick.’
‘I’m not going to be sick, mister,’ I add, trying to sound grateful and compliant, but the effect is more Victorian street urchin.
Suki taps her card on the pay sensor. ‘There! All sorted. Babe –’ she puts both hands on my shoulders and even though she’s perfectly still, I’m unsure which copy of Suki’s swirling face I should look into ‘– you were buzzing tonight. Absolutely on form.’ I hold Suki’s wrists as she tries to pull away. I have no idea what half of her garble means, but I gather I’m being sent home.
‘I didn’t do anything embarrassing, did I?’
‘No! Not at all! I think everyone got a good view of your arse when you forgot to lock the loo, but other than that? Ha! What a night. Get home safe, bud, okay? Bye!’
As the cab lurches off I try and sit as still as possible, but when we turn sharply at a junction my forehead bumps into the glass, leaving an oily smear of foundation on the window.
‘There’s water there, love. Just behind me, see?’ says the driver, whom I seem to have endeared myself to now I’ve confirmed that I won’t be vomiting any time soon.
‘Mmm, great!’ I say, reaching for a bottle. ‘Five stars for you, Mr Taxi Man!’
He chuckles and catches my eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’m a hackney cab. We don’t do ratings.’
I twist the cap off and glug the water down with such inebriated joy that quite a bit spills down my chest and between my boobs.
‘Nice gaff,’ he says as we reach Evergreen Village. I push the door open with so much force that it bounces on its hinges and closes again. Since when did simple tasks become so mammothly difficult? Right, let’s try again. I open the door and swing my legs out, except where I once had shoes, there are now bare feet which are a little swollen with welts along the toes and ankles.
I walk as quickly as possible past the porter’s office, where the door is outlined with light and the sound of tinny music videos filters through a gap in the door frame. I’m not sure if Nigel’s on duty tonight, but I’d still rather sneak through unnoticed. As I pass through the archway and turn the corner, I plant my foot on a chip of bark that hurts so much I stumble sideways and land heavily on the raised border of the green.
‘Ow, fuck!’ I hiss under my breath, biting my bottom lip as a throbbing starts up in my temples. Around the green, silver shades of moonlight reflect off Roman blinds as twitching fingers twist the leaves open, no doubt wondering why a barefooted, moaning youth is sprawled on their pristine lawn. I use the term ‘youth’ pretty loosely here. The fact that my shinbones are throbbing from uncoordinated dancing is testament to my declining physical state. I might have to borrow Annie’s walking frame tomorrow. The hospital sent it over, but she’s refused to use it and only keeps it in the shed because they wanted to charge her for taking it back to the depot.
I roll onto my stomach and stand up like a toddler – bum first, planting my feet on the floor before attempting fully vertical movement. Before I get a chance to yank Annie’s dress down over my arse, the security light screwed in under the porch throws my ‘bed knickers’ into full spotlight. With the amount of curtain-twitching going on, I’ll be reported for public disturbance during unsociable hours. I rummage around in my handbag for keys and clutch onto the brass door knocker for stability. I scrape at the doorknob in an attempt to find the lock, but it keeps jumping away from my hand when I get the key near. Click. I’m in. Where’s my Nobel-bloody-prize?
As I push on the handle, the door opens and my whole body slides along the varnished wood until I’m standing in Annie’s darkened entrance hall.
‘What are you doing back, love? Everything all right?’
‘Er, yeah! Yeah! Fine! It finished. The thing. All the art got bought. Not that I bought any. Too expensive,’ I say, sliding my big toe down the other foot to help slip my shoes off, before realising I’m not wearing any. ‘I drank a bit too much. A lot too much. Sorry to wake you up so late. I think I woke everyone up, out there …’ Oh no, I can feel my throat tightening. I can’t have gin tears tonight, not in front of Annie.
‘What do you mean?’ Annie asks, folding her arms across her quilted dressing gown. ‘Do you know what time it is?’
‘I know, I know, I didn’t think I’d be back this late. I was going to get the last tube, but—’ I hiccup and swallow the rest of my sentence.
‘You could still get the last tube, you doughnut. It’s 9.45.’ Oh no, not again. Annie starts to giggle, her pale blue eyes sparkling. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t laugh,’ she says whilst doing exactly that. Nine forty-five? I’m sure my primary school disco finished later than this. ‘Oh, love.’ Annie pats my arm and pushes an entangled ringlet behind my ear. ‘You’ve smudged your makeup.’
‘Have I?’ I sniff and switch on the hall light. I immediately regret the decision. I’ve got a rim of red lipstick that reaches far past my natural lip line, my foundation has been wiped clean off my chin, and whatever mascara I was wearing has smeared down my cheeks.
‘Oh. I look like a helpline advert.’
‘Don’t worry about that now. Bed. And water. I would say you’ll feel better in the morning, but I’m not sure you will,’ says Annie, pushing me gently to the bottom of the stairs. From the living room, her floral sofa is thrown into view, a nest of blankets and a stack of now-familiar letters strewn across the coffee table.
Chapter 26
Taking Annie’s advice, I glugged down a pint of water before I went to bed and as a result, I’ve woken up with a stomach so taut and swollen I’m visibly in the second trimester of a wee baby. Whilst I’m sitting on the loo, I flick through various apps in an attempt to figure out how a couple of hours in a Mayfair art gallery could spiral so drastically out of control. Speculation doesn’t last long after I get to Suki’s Instagram story. I remember the shots of tequila we drank that someone has usefully memorialised in the form of a boomeranged video clip, but if it wasn’t for the teal dress sparkling in the light of a camera flash, I’d struggle to recognise the person conducting a row of women to neck a line of Jägerbombs.
It’s almost masochistic to log into the Lovr app, especially with the knowledge that Rodney, Rhea, and anyone else who actually reads the data emails will be able to t
ell how many times I’ve read my messages in the past twenty-four hours. As expected, Freddie’s chat thread is stubbornly absent from view. At this point, I’ve nearly convinced myself that he was part of an abstract dream, but I’d taken a screenshot of the mistaken selfie exchange and sent it to Maggie, so I can’t have imagined it. Eurgh. Nothing evokes the Sunday blues like having your love, work, and life failures packaged up and rolled out to colleagues in the form of highly reflective briefing notes.
In an attempt to make myself feel less like a sausage wrapped in clingfilm, I get dressed and am met with the smell of toast halfway downstairs. After quashing the instant anxiety that I’m having some kind of stroke, a sense of nostalgia sweeps over me, of duvets on the sofa, Calpol, and breakfast for dinner. But there’s an equally huge part of my brain telling me I don’t deserve to feel comfort. I don’t deserve toast in a nice living room, without pleather sofas and humming pizza boxes. I don’t deserve Annie, standing by the kettle in a hand-knitted cardigan, the mauve bruise especially bright above the pillow-white wool she’s wearing.
‘I tell you, I haven’t done this since Richard used to go out in Camden in, oh, must have been the Eighties, when he was eighteen or so,’ she says cheerfully, dropping two tablets into a glass of water that fizz and froth on contact. Annie lifts the glass up to eye-level. ‘Good job they work. The use-by date were a few years ago, but what’s in ’em to go off? Here. Plain toast, too. Did you drink the water, like I said?’
‘Yeah,’ I say sheepishly, reluctant to take the glass from her, like doing so would be an admission of my excruciating hangover. ‘I’m far from being a teenager, though.’ Annie watches as I drink the water, grimacing from the flavour of stale artificial orange. I wipe my mouth on my forearm.
‘Cor, what a face you’ve got on you! What’re you being so hard on yourself for?’
I lean against the kitchen cabinet and bite into my slice of toast. Annie was right; it’s on the cusp of what I can stomach. ‘I promised you I wouldn’t do anything silly, or make you regret having me here, you know, after last time.’