‘What won’t always be like what?’
‘You and me.’
So we’re you and me in his head too . . . And yet he can’t spare me ten minutes for a coffee . . .
‘Why do you have to rush off?’
He freezes. Now’s the time to let him speak.
‘Is it a work crisis, Adam?’
‘Can you do tea later? I’ve got a split shift, I can bike over at four p.m.?’
Answering a question with a question: that is a definite sign, not a good one. Ignore it at your peril.
‘I can’t do tea today,’ I say, my voice hardening.
‘Breakfast then? Thursday?’
I shake my head.
‘Shit. I have to go,’ he says, looking pained. ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise. It’s such a bad time . . . but things in my life will be a lot clearer in a few weeks.’
‘Whatever,’ I say, and he’s out the door and on his bike before my shoulders have even finished shrugging.
It’s fine: the sun is almost warm, I can stroll to work through the tree-lined squares of Fitzrovia. The daffs are out, the crocuses too – buds wide open like newborn chicks, drinking sunshine. And I’ll have time for a proper catch-up with Fabrizio. It’s not Adam’s fault there now seem more hours in the day than there were before I met him.
It’s really fine: Adam doesn’t owe me a thing. I’m an idiot for having invested so much mental energy in his direction, but I can’t blame him for my daydreams. Do I need to be told, at my age, that Santa doesn’t exist?
And it’s fine because I reckon Adam has some issues. I’m sure he was having a row with that caller just now. And he’s always moaning about his job and it’s never good to be with someone who’s unhappy in their work, it just isn’t . . .
I knew it would fall to pieces sooner or later: better sooner – less of a disappointment, right? A short little slap in the face from reality never did anyone any harm.
The start of a relationship is fragile because it’s made of pure hope: easier to crush than a shell.
‘I don’t understand why you’re so upset,’ says Sophie, pouring me another glass of wine as I clear our dinner plates.
‘It’s not like we were properly dating. I know it sounds ridiculous but I felt connected to him. I know about his family, his career, the name of his dead grandma’s dead dog – but I guess all that is meaningless, just data, purely what a person chooses to tell you about themselves.’
‘Laura, I understand why you like him. I don’t understand why you think it’s suddenly over?’
‘If it had been the other way round, I’d at least have stayed for a coffee. Maybe it was something I said, I was rude about Declan O’Brien, and I teased Adam about his review . . .’
‘Surely he’s not that thin-skinned?’
‘He said something weird, like “there are things in my life that will clear up soon . . .”’
‘He’s talking about his work,’ she says, reaching under the table for the cake box she’s brought over – Battenberg 2, Chocolate Boogaloo.
‘Do we need forks?’
‘A knife wouldn’t hurt.’ She follows me into the kitchen. ‘What’s Zoolamber got stashed in here anyway?’ She opens a cupboard and starts inspecting the contents. ‘What’s she doing with a king-size bottle of Xylitol?’
‘If Paltrow eats it, so does Amber.’
‘Egg white crisps? They sound like the opposite of everything a crisp should stand for, and what on earth is Astaxanthin?’
‘A son of Zeus . . . Do you want a cup of tea? You could sample Amber’s Golden Rot and Knobgrass? Golden Rod and Knotgrass. Contains birch leaves and horsetail?’
She steers me back through to the wine. ‘Don’t look so worried. Adam sounds lovely. And that phone call will be nothing to do with you.’
‘Maybe he met another girl before he met me, and that’s who he was with on Sunday? I thought it was weird he didn’t ask to see me on his day off . . .’
‘Then he would have cancelled before the date,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘So he came back to tell you he couldn’t stay? Or he sent a text?’
‘He came back, flustered, looking shifty.’
‘At least he came back.’
‘Soph, only you can see the glass half full in being stood up mid-date. He offered to pop over for tea but I said no and I haven’t heard from him since.’
‘He’ll be in touch, it’s just a teething problem. You shouldn’t have been so sharp with him about tea,’ she says, finally opening the cake box.
‘You’ve fixed your marzipan!’
She cuts through the icing to reveal a patchwork of cherry and chocolate squares. ‘Dark chocolate, makes it less sweet but the frangipane balances it out. I’m going to try again on Thursday with milk chocolate. Laura: I understand why you’re holding back; after James I thought I’d never trust anyone again.’
‘It’s more complicated than that . . .’
‘Give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘I don’t understand why you don’t think his behaviour is weird?’
‘But he’s done nothing wrong.’
‘Well, I’m obviously not explaining myself properly.’
Because if I was, I’m pretty sure she’d agree something’s not quite right. But if I try to put it into words, I admit it does sound a little paranoid.
15
Roger’s having a meeting in his office on Wednesday morning and while I’m making drinks my phone rings. For a moment I dare to hope it might be Adam but it’s Kiki, calling from upstairs, with a message to come and see her.
‘Are those new?’ I say, spying a pair of hot pink suede boots in the jumble under her desk, toes pointing inwards like they’re dancing to the Bee Gees.
‘Forty pounds down from two hundred and eighty in Selfridges’ sale, the joys of having size two feet,’ she says, taking her red biro from behind her ear and making a note on the page in front of her. ‘Maximum respect, Laura, you’ve ripped these guys a new one.’
‘Thanks,’ I say half-heartedly.
‘I’ve got a few tweaks, so sit. OK, first up this needs revising:
‘2. Next time Kevin’s rifling through his iTunes, ask him to pick a song that doesn’t refer to women as bitches – us bitches get uppity so easily.
‘You think Kevin The Teenager’s too dated a reference?’ I say.
‘Not the problem. You’re revealing you’re a woman.’
‘How did I not notice that? OK, put the full stop after the first bitches.
‘Yeah, but having an issue with the word bitches in a Jay-Z track makes you sound like a politically correct pseudo-feminist – I’d rethink it. Right, point twenty-four:
“Describing your Earl Grey Long Island iced tea as Rohypnol in a glass is funny if you think rape is funny. Less so if you don’t.
‘You don’t need that second sentence,’ she says.
I look at the page – she’s right, as always.
‘Then this whole section about water:
“25. Can your Water Waiter really not take an order for Diet Coke? The Water Waiter oughtta . . .
“26. Let’s spend a minute with the Water Waiter (if only his name was Walter, but no: Stefan.) Stefan described your fourteen waters’ provenances. Tahiti, Cumbria, the Dolomites . . . I’m quite loyal to Thames Water but Stefan explained that ‘House water’– triple filtered in-house – was the closest thing if I was ‘on a budget’.
‘Down to here:
“33. Still on that water: £8 for a small bottle of in-house tap water? Next time: put your hand in my pocket and steal directly – much quicker.
‘Halve it – and that colon is superfluous.’ She scribbles it out, then tips her head as she reconsiders. ‘Actually, keep it. Then these:
“41. Rock salmon is not salmon from Rock in Cornwall.
“42. It is also not ‘Rock and roll’ salmon – nice try, waiter number three.
“43. It’s OK to not know the answer �
�� but don’t lie!
‘Amalgamate to one – and finally:
“92. Semi-open kitchen – great to see the chefs at work. Less great when you have a kitchen run by a head chef who seems unable to control his team or even his frying pan.
‘It’s quite vague,’ she says, turning to me with a questioning look.
‘Kiki, they were all over the place, you could feel the chaos in the air.’
‘So put something more specific?’
‘At one point there was a mini fire – the saucier must have let some cream run on to the solid top. I actually started feeling sorry for the station cooks, they panicked . . .’
‘Put the fire in?’
‘You know what? Don’t. I need to keep word count down, and lose the word “head” from “head chef”.’ It’s the least I can do.
‘So it’s worse than that Chelsea burger place?’
‘Same owners! The Russian one wanted Kanye to play at his one year old’s birthday.’
Kiki mimes a fake vomit on her desk so convincingly it makes me feel sick just watching.
‘You should have heard the girl on the table next to us, moaning about how her dog wouldn’t fit in her Hermès bag,’ I say.
‘Have you seen this?’ Kiki types ‘handbag – dog – California’ into Google, then clicks on a photo of a labradoodle strutting down Hollywood Boulevard on its hind legs, carrying a handbag on its front paw. ‘I can’t believe the sub didn’t go for a WAG joke in that headline,’ she says in disgust. ‘Amateur! And check out these poodles doing the conga!’
‘Gotta love the Internet.’
With Kiki’s revisions, the review will go down a few hundred words, though not enough to placate Sandra. I tinker with it till the end of the day, my heart growing heavy. Part of me thought Sophie was right and Adam would be in touch. She was probably right about me refusing to meet him for tea, it will have come across as harsh; still, I had my reasons. Though I can’t work out now if it was instinct or pure paranoia – post-Tom I get the two confused.
I take my phone out to double-check Adam hasn’t texted. No, nothing. I feel the disappointment afresh, a dull flip in my chest. Maybe I should text him to say I could do tea after all?
No. I shouldn’t have had breakfast with him in the first place: this serves me right. My phone weighs heavily in my hand, my thumb hovering over his name. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to say hi? My thumb taps insistently on the phone like a heart beat. I put my phone back in my bag, then take it straight out again, hold my breath and press delete, and delete his messages and his emails.
All gone.
And I feel so disappointed in him, or in the situation, or perhaps in myself, that when I find an email later from JPM asking me for a drink tomorrow at the most over-priced, pretentious bar in London, I say yes please, that would be lovely.
16
‘Good shoes,’ says Azeem, as he spies me putting the finishing touches to my outfit: dangly earrings and a pair of purple suede heels: minimal effort, no point trying to compete with the Beckham-clad Botox-faces at Marabou. ‘Hot date?’
‘Lukewarm, at best, Az.’
‘Luke Warm’s a lucky guy.’
‘Not remotely funny, even by your standards.’
‘Meow.’
‘Sorry. I’m in a grump. Where are you off to, anyway?’
‘Blues Kitchen with the ad boys. Come for a swift one?’
‘I’m waiting for a call back from Stationery World . . .’
‘Living the dream, Laura.’
I’m really pissed off with Jess. Ever since our row I can’t help but notice the boring parts of my job now feel even more tedious. I’m in no rush to meet JPM – far from it, I only said yes out of despair. Still, Az is right; there’s more fun to be had on a Thursday night than waiting for a call about missing lever arch files. I’m clearly irritable about Adam; it’ll pass.
The phone rings a moment later. That’ll be the files. ‘Roger Harris’s office, Laura speaking.’
‘Laura speaking, it’s Azeem speaking. I’m downstairs.’
‘Don’t tell me: Bradley’s back.’
Azeem once called in hushed tones to tell me Bradley Cooper was in reception. He must have been in to see the TV guys upstairs! I raced down, only to find it was Jimbo, our 18-stone bike courier, wearing baggy meggings and a sweaty Mötorhead Live at the NEC T-shirt.
‘No Bradley – but there’s a package on front desk with your name on it.’
‘Roger’s tickets for his seminar next week, they said they’d bike them over.’
‘I don’t think so. Not unless they’ve warmed them up and stuck them in a cake box.’
Bless her! Well, that’s a chocolate lining to a grey day. I’m tempted to eat Sophie’s cakes while they’re oven-fresh but I strongly suspect I’ll need a healthy dose of sugar and fat to cheer me up in about two hours’ time.
I’m going to kill Jess.
Technically you could call JPM handsome; his face is well structured, his hairline good for a forty-three year old. But there’s nothing attractive about him once we start talking, or rather he does.
And I would have left by now, I would, but I am conducting an experiment to see how long it will take him to ask me a single question, even if that question is ‘Laura, what do you think of me?’ I may well see in my 40th birthday sitting on this Philippe Starck Perspex Ghost chair, if the piles don’t kill me first.
So far he’s covered his career: highest earning trader at Paribanque, retired at thirty, now investing in emerging markets. Also covered: the stunning refurb of his Fulham pad: glass staircase from kitchen to ground floor, floating glass staircase to the roof terrace, retractable glass roof. Lots of glass . . . even a flatscreen TV in the shower. (Sounds like a fire hazard to me.) Also, his cars: his Mercedes SLK, and the VW Touareg – he needs space for his golf clubs and actually it’s the same body frame, doors, et cetera as the Porsche Cayenne. It’s practically the same as the Porsche. (If only his T-shirt said My other car is a Porsche I might warm to him. But no; it says Hollister.)
He’s currently talking about his ex. He can’t bring himself to say her name, but refers to her only as The Ex. I am so tempted to ask whether the bloke she was shagging had a flatscreen TV in his shower too, but Jess would never forgive me.
‘I was married less than a year and my ex walks away with two point three?’ he says. ‘How is that fair?’
I nod.
‘You’re divorced too, right?’ Oh, if only that counted as a real question I could leave, but it’s rhetorical so it doesn’t count. ‘I hope you didn’t fleece your ex like The Ex fleeced me.’
‘We were together nine years, married for two – but I didn’t take a penny.’
‘Are you serious?’ Aha! A question! Now I can go!
‘I used to earn the same as Tom. Besides, the day money actually helps mend a broken heart . . .’ I shrug.
‘Your sister didn’t mention you were a hippy.’ He looks unimpressed. ‘And now you’re a journalist?’
‘What?’ I put my mojito down a little too forcefully.
‘Your sister said you write for a newspaper?’
‘Did she indeed?’ I pick the straw out of my glass, my thumb pressed over the top, then release the cocktail, drop by drop, back on to the crushed ice. ‘Well, I’m a secretary.’
‘I thought you were a writery type?’
‘Yes: I write emails and letters.’
‘That’s temporary, presumably?’
‘No.’
‘But I’m sure your sister said you do something with food?’ All of a sudden it’s Twenty Questions – I’m so killing Jess, twice.
‘I just like to eat.’
‘Oh. Do you want some food?’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks. I should be getting on.’ I pantomime look at my watch: I can’t believe we’ve been here less than an hour.
‘I consider myself a bit of a foodie. This place does great small bites, nothing too heavy.’ He gl
ances at the menu, snaps it shut and beckons the waitress over.
I reach forward to look: pretentious, over-priced fusion food, designed for customers with made-up eating disorders.
‘We’ll have four mackerel kimchee rolls and an eel ponzu ceviche but does that have soy? No soy,’ he says to the waitress.
‘Are you allergic to soy sauce?’ I say.
‘It has wheat in it.’
‘Are you coeliac?’
‘Wheat is bad for you.’
‘Could we have the avocado salad too, please?’ I say to the waitress. JPM’s gaze moves from her cleavage to my thighs then swiftly back as he realises I’ve clocked him.
‘And do your noodles have wheat in them? They do? Terrific, egg fried noodles with crispy duck.’ I smile warmly at her. ‘And extra sweet chilli sauce, please.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll pay for them,’ I say, catching his look of disapproval.
‘Did you know avocados are full of fat? And one bite of duck has three hundred per cent more grams of fat per hundred grams than skinless turkey breast meat.’
‘Oh, please tell me more about skinless turkey breast meat?’ It is possibly my greatest achievement as an adult female that I manage to say this sentence without it sounding sarcastic.
‘Really?’
‘Absolutely! I’m super interested. Like, is that nutritional analysis based on the breast being . . . boiled in water or fried in a non-stick pan?’
‘Griddle pan, I think. I suppose you could poach it.’
‘I shall try that!’ Next time I give a flying rat’s tit what you think about my weight.
‘Do you not . . . are you not . . .?’
‘Not what, JPM?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he says, then blows out the air in his cheeks. ‘Do you ski?’
‘Ski? No.’
‘I just did my Advanced Off-Piste All Terrain in Verbier. I did Tough Mudder last year.’
I shrug my total lack of interest.
‘Have you not heard of it?
‘Hmm, I did read a piece about the modern male mid-life crises. Men nowadays either have an affair, buy a menoporsche or do the fitness thing.’
‘Did you just say men-o-porsche?’
‘Yes, it’s an expression. Have you not heard of it?’
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