My Single Friend

by Jane Costello

‘I meant what I said about setting up a meeting to discuss PR. How about over a drink next week?’

  Chapter 11

  It never ceases to amaze me how little my mum and dad’s house has changed over the years. Mum might have replaced her nets with bamboo blinds from Ikea and the three-bar fire is now a ‘living flame’, but the house still boasts trinkets from the past that, to my bafflement, have never been thrown out. There’s the limited edition soap-on-a-rope in the shape of Kevin Keegan holding up the FA Cup (it’s never been used so the poodle perm is as lustrous as in 1974) and the ‘Green Lady’ picture bequeathed by Great-Auntie Lil – though that’s in the spare room now. There’s also an array of not-very-tasteful ornaments – wedding gifts largely – that Dad took to the Antiques Roadshow last year and discovered that, collectively, they were only slightly more valuable than a used teabag.

  ‘If it isn’t the family spin doctor,’ says Mum, as I enter the living room. I’ve popped over to say hello as it’s been longer than usual since I last saw my parents.

  As ever, Mum’s on her feet, dusting surfaces that are already so pristine an asthmatic could eat their dinner off them. ‘What have you been up to?’ she asks. ‘We haven’t seen you for weeks.’

  ‘I’ve been mad-busy at work,’ I tell her, slumping into the squashy chair in the bay window. ‘Ohmygod, what’s that?’

  The question is rhetorical as it’s perfectly clear that they have a new television in their ten foot by twelve sitting room. It’s bigger than Screen One at our local multiplex.

  ‘Good, eh?’ grins Dad, glancing up from his remote control. ‘Absolutely state-of-the-art.’

  ‘So I see,’ I reply. ‘Isn’t it a bit big?’

  ‘It was a good buy,’ he insists – confirmation that it fell off the back of a lorry.

  ‘How was it a good buy?’ frowns Mum. ‘It cost an arm and a leg.’

  ‘It should have been four times the price, Carolyn,’ he fires back.

  Mum shakes her head. ‘Your father mustn’t have noticed that we’re permanently skint, Lucy – or he’d stop filling the house with more technology than the Starship Enterprise.’

  My mum is the most sarcastic person I know. If there were qualifications in irony, she’d be an Emeritus Professor by now. This, however, is either lost on Dad or he chooses to ignore her.

  Not that her comment isn’t justified. While most dads have hobbies such as golf, football or train-spotting, my dad’s only hobby is collecting. Collecting crap, to be precise. At least, that’s what Mum thinks of it. Dad considers his trinkets as ‘life-enhancing’. If true, then between the baromic weather forecaster, the roulette table, the elliptical cross-trainer and the octagonal party gazebo with pop-up sides, their lives must be so enhanced they’re having a permanently spiritual experience.

  ‘I can’t complain,’ continues Mum, polishing the coffee-table. ‘It’s not as if I don’t get my fair share. The weekends to Paris, flowers twice a week, Cristal champagne to wash my knickers with . . .’

  Dad ignores her.

  ‘Living with your father is like having my own Milk Tray Man,’ she says. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’

  Mum and I adjourn to the kitchen and she sets about busying herself again, and not just making tea. She sprays, wipes, polishes and buffs the surfaces of the kitchen with such a vast array of cleaning products I wonder if she’s being sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.

  ‘Are you working hard?’ she asks, pouring the kettle with one hand and polishing the hob with the other.

  ‘Of course,’ I tell her. ‘You know I love my job.’

  ‘Only you don’t want to take things for granted on a salary like yours. A young woman like you, earning what you earn . . . it was unheard of in my day.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’re talking about the nineteenth century, not the eighties. You’re only fifty-two.’

  ‘Fifty-one, actually,’ she grimaces. ‘I’m just saying, you’re lucky having a job like that. Not all of us get the opportunities you’ve had.’

  I roll my eyes.

  ‘I mean it. There’s no company car and associated benefits when you’ve got a job scrubbing toilet seats.’

  I frown, feeling guilty. ‘I know. But you could work somewhere better than that cleaning company – I’ve already told you.’

  She stops and smiles. ‘It’ll be my Ph.D from Cambridge that makes you think that, will it?’

  Mum adores Dave and me. She’d do anything for us, and our childhood memories are littered with examples of this – from my eighteenth-birthday present (a battered but lovely Mini she did extra shifts to pay for), to her trip with Dave to the Reading Festival (when he was twelve and desperate to see Nirvana). But does that mean we’re spared from her biting sarcasm? Not a chance.

  ‘Look,’ I continue, ‘you don’t necessarily need qualifications to—’

  ‘Or is it all those languages I’ve got?’ she interrupts. ‘Or my stint as head of the sixth-form debating society . . .’

  ‘Now you mention it, I don’t know anyone who can beat you in an argument,’ I jump in. ‘There are better jobs than the one you’ve got. Just because you’ve been cleaning for the last twenty years—’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘Whatever. It doesn’t mean you have to do it for ever. That you’re not capable of something else. There are other jobs out there and you should go for them.’

  ‘Lucy, I’m fine with my lot,’ she says unconvincingly. ‘All I meant was that you’ve done well for yourself, and that’s brilliant. But don’t ever stop trying your best. Don’t end up like me.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’

  ‘If you ended up cleaning floors for a living I’d wring your neck, Lucy Tyler.’

  ‘Well, you can relax because it’s unlikely.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I don’t even clean the floor in my own house. Henry does it.’

  She laughs and finally sits down at the table, taking a sip of her tea. ‘How is our Henry?’

  ‘Fine. I’m giving him a makeover.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A makeover.’

  ‘I hope you’re joking.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I say. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You’re so bossy with him, Lucy. Leave him as he is. He’s happy that way.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it was his idea.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ She’s clearly not convinced.

  ‘Really.’

  She raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Well, I like Henry as he is.’

  ‘So do I,’ I say truthfully. ‘Though he looks a hell of a lot better now he’s had his hair cut. And you should see him in his new clothes. He’s transformed.’

  ‘How transformed?’ My mum narrows her eyes.

  ‘Completely. At least, he will be when he’s got his new contact lenses. And Dom says he’s got a body like a stallion.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean . . . something like that.’

  She pauses for a second as an idea creeps into her head. ‘Does he look good enough for you to get together with him?’

  ‘Eh?’ I reply, horrified. ‘Mum, I’m never going to get together with Henry. Full stop.’

  ‘Why not? He’s a lovely bloke – better than some of the no-marks you’ve brought home.’

  ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

  She puts an arm around me and grins. ‘Oh, never mind, Lucy. If you’re a really lucky girl and play your cards right, maybe you’ll end up with someone as romantic as your father.’

  Chapter 12

  ‘What time are they coming?’ Henry shouts from the hall.

  ‘In about fifteen minutes.’ I remove a bottle of wine from the fridge and pour a glass, before marking another nootrient on the Diet World chart. I know that, technically, my Nootrient Calculator gadget said each glass of wine had two points, but I’ve decided to let commonsense prevail and over-rule it. I mean, this is li
quid. Liquid can’t possibly contain two points when you can get a Milky Way for that. It’s illogical.

  ‘Aren’t you ready yet?’ I shout back at him. ‘You don’t need to go to too much trouble with your appearance tonight. You’re only practising at being a love god.’

  ‘I know.’ He comes to the kitchen door. ‘You’re not letting me loose on members of the public yet. But it’d be nice to demonstrate that I’ve made some progress.’

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ I begin, spinning round to face him. ‘Oh.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘What have you done with your hair?’

  Instead of the ‘sexy-messy, just-showered, natural look’, Henry has styled his hair with what appears to be several litres of chip fat.

  ‘Anton said I was supposed to experiment. This stuff is quite the thing, apparently.’ He holds up a tub of wax.

  I groan quietly.

  ‘That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for,’ he says.

  I grab him by the arm and pull him in the direction of his bedroom.

  ‘Do me a favour and get it right first time before you start experimenting. Give me that.’ I snatch the wax. ‘You’re only meant to use a blob the size of a five-pence piece.’

  ‘Oh, that explains it. I didn’t think such a little tub seemed good value.’

  ‘Oh God,’ I say, exasperated.

  ‘I’m definitely sensing you’re not bowled over by this look, Lucy.’

  ‘That’s very perceptive of you. And also . . .’

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I know your contacts aren’t ready yet, but why don’t you give Dom and Erin a surprise and do without your glasses?’

  ‘Because I can’t see.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating,’ I say dismissively.

  ‘Lucy, I’m almost blind. If I try to do anything meaningful without my glasses I risk injury or death to anyone within a twenty-five-yard radius.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Now,’ I continue, straightening his shirt, ‘at least you’ve dressed okay, that’s one thing.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’ He looks secretly pleased.

  ‘Don’t get too carried away.’ I spin him round. ‘Now get your head under the shower and wash off that gunk.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Then do exactly as Anton showed you.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Remember – like your lover has run her hands through your hair.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d like to meet this lover,’ he says. ‘Her hair obsession sounds a bit disconcerting.’

  ‘Hurry up, Henry!’ I giggle, as he closes his door behind him.

  Dominique and Erin arrive twenty minutes later.

  ‘I found this woman loitering outside,’ says Dominique, nodding at Erin.

  ‘I was having a cigarette before I came in,’ Erin replies. ‘I don’t like to smoke in other people’s houses.’

  ‘I thought you’d given up,’ I say.

  ‘I have. Well, had. Not very successfully, as you can see.’

  ‘What does The Lovely Gary think about it?’ asks Dominique.

  Erin cringes. ‘Don’t ask. You know what a Nazi he is about smokers. Oh, I have to give up.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I agree. ‘Though I’m sure he loves you despite your faults.’

  ‘Yeah, I think he does.’ She smiles happily.

  As Dominique and Erin go into the living room, I pour everyone a glass of wine, put some pizzas in the oven, go through to join them and put the iPod on shuffle.

  ‘How did it go after we left today?’ asks Dominique keenly. ‘I’m dying to see Henry’s hair.’

  ‘And his new glasses,’ adds Erin.

  ‘Are you going to have a stream of women battering down your door?’ grins Dominique.

  I pause and wonder how to break this to them gently. ‘This might not be as easy as we thought.’

  Dominique narrows her eyes. ‘Why? What went wrong?’

  ‘Nothing went wrong as such,’ I reply. ‘It’s just . . . this sort of thing doesn’t come naturally to Henry.’

  ‘Tell us something we don’t know.’

  ‘I think he needs coaxing out of his shell.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Lucy?’ asks Erin.

  I sigh. ‘Look, it’s obvious Henry doesn’t feel comfortable with his new look yet.’

  ‘Didn’t Anton do a good job?’ asks Dominique.

  ‘Yes, he did,’ I stress. ‘Though I suspect Henry’s interpretation of his instructions weren’t what Anton had in mind. The annoying thing is he didn’t need to touch his hair after today.’

  ‘What about the glasses?’ asks Erin.

  ‘There are no glasses. None suited him.’

  ‘None?’

  I shake my head. ‘But it’s not all bad news – he’s having contacts.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dominique perks up. ‘Well, that could be good. The Clark Kent effect.’

  ‘Perhaps.’ I bite my lip. ‘But don’t expect too much tonight. Seriously. If you’re hoping for Daniel Craig to walk in, you’ll be disappointed.’

  ‘We get the message,’ says Dominique. ‘Keep our expectations low. Story of my life.’

  ‘Good evening, ladies. Anyone care for a top-up?’

  As we spin round, Henry is at the door with a bottle of chilled Chablis. The iPod shuffles to the opening bars of ‘Love Machine’ and I do a double-take.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ exclaims Dominique. Erin holds her hand over her mouth.

  Henry has sorted out his hair – it now looks better than when he walked out of the salon – and ditched his glasses. This is the first time I’ve seen the whole combination. I’ve got to admit: he looks hot.

  Henry heads to Dominique and pours wine into her glass, pretending not to notice that her jaw is skimming the floorboards.

  ‘You look lovely tonight – both of you,’ he grins. I snigger.

  ‘Henry, you look amazing. Daniel Craig?’ Dominique turns to me. ‘He should be coming to us for lessons.’

  ‘That’s very nice of you, Dominique,’ replies Henry. I know he’ll be thrilled with the compliment, but he maintains such an air of cool composure, you’d think people told him this every other day.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to see this.’ She plonks her glass on the table and stands up. She walks round Henry slowly, scrutinizing his appearance in the sort of detail a forensic scientist might examine a corpse.

  ‘The hair, the clothes, the bod. And look at you without glasses, sweetie.’ She grabs him by the chin. ‘Never mind finding a girlfriend . . . be mine, baby!’

  ‘Dominique, you’re making me nervous,’ Henry deadpans.

  ‘You look fantastic, Henry,’ beams Erin. ‘You must realize.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it. I tried to look in the mirror, but without glasses it’s like examining an Impressionist painting.’

  ‘I can’t wait to get to work on your flirting lessons.’ Dominique claps her hands in glee.

  ‘Okay,’ he laughs. ‘But first let me change this music.’

  Henry wanders to the iPod and puts on ‘Scouting for Girls’. I have no idea whether he knows it’s ‘Scouting for Girls’ – if what he says about his eyesight is true then it may just be luck that he hasn’t put on my Teach Yourself Italian.

  ‘Now,’ begins Dominique, ‘the first lesson needs to be about disregarding your inhibitions, Henry. Unleashing your inner sexuality.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your inner sexuality.’ She says it so casually you’d think she was reading a shopping list.

  Henry looks thoughtful. ‘I must confess my inner sexuality hasn’t had an airing lately.’

  ‘Henry,’ she breathes, leaning forward on the sofa, ‘there is a deeply sensual being desperate to break free from within you – ready to be unleashed upon womankind.’

  ‘Unleashed?’ He raises his eyebrows.

  She nods. ‘And tonight is about helping you unleash it.’
<
br />   ‘Er, right.’

  ‘Don’t look so worried,’ she says. ‘You’re ready for this. I can see it – I can feel it. Goddamn it, I can smell it.’

  ‘That’ll be the pizza,’ he says.

  ‘No, it’s not that. Do you know what I’d compare you with? You are like a raging volcano, Henry – moments before eruption.’

  ‘What – several billion years old and full of gas?’

  ‘Er – I’d better check on that pizza,’ I say, and head for the kitchen before Dom catches me giggling.

  Chapter 13

  Henry was top of the class at everything when we were growing up. But he’s not at Kingsfield Primary now, and tonight, as he perches on the sofa, his expression is confused. He’s plainly not following what’s going on.

  ‘Flirting Rule Number One,’ says Dominique, jabbing her biro onto the flip-chart we created from a stepladder and a roll of wallpaper, ‘is to feel good about yourself. Do you feel good about yourself, Henry?’

  He takes a gulp of wine. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Fine, Henry? Fine?’ She could be auditioning for the part of the Drill Sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman.

  ‘We don’t want you to feel fine. We want you to feel on top of the world. Feel good about yourself and others will feel good about you. Everyone loves being around a confident, charismatic person.’

  ‘Okay. Yep.’

  ‘You’ve got every reason to be confident, Henry – because you look wonderful,’ adds Erin encouragingly. ‘Keep reminding yourself how attractive you are. If you walk into a bar looking like this, you’ll be more gorgeous than most of the men in there.’

  ‘And better dressed,’ I add.

  ‘With a hairdo Edward Cullen would die for,’ adds Dominique.

  ‘God,’ says Henry, taken aback. ‘I look that good?’

  ‘Yes!’ we all reply.

  ‘If I’m that irresistible, can’t I go into a bar and wait for them to come to me?’

  We laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Henry frowns.

  ‘You’re not that irresistible,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh,’ he says dejectedly.

  ‘No one’s that irresistible,’ clarifies Erin.

  ‘Oh,’ he says once more, perking up.