by Gill Sims
Still quite pissed, but nonetheless a bit hopeful, I looked at my emails, at all those messages I hadn’t bothered opening for the last couple of months, unable to bear the depressing news that another ten people had downloaded my app and earned me another £7.
It turned out no less that 14,290 people had bought it! There was also an email from one of the app review websites I had sent it to saying they were going to feature it in one of their articles, which is probably how so many people came to buy it.
I was astonished, and overjoyed. Simon was working late, so he wasn’t there to discuss what we should do with this splendid windfall. Go on the holiday of a lifetime? Buy twenty pairs of Louboutins? Ten pairs of Louboutins and a weekend in Paris, just the two of us, walking hand in hand by the Seine, and a week at Center Parcs en famille?
I opened another bottle to celebrate while I mulled it over. We could use the money to buy a nice car that didn’t smell vaguely of rotting apples. Although there’s not much point while the children insist on viewing cars as mobile bins.
Finally, reluctantly – and almost unbelievably for me – remembering how stressed and worried about money Simon has been recently, and even more so than usual after the credit card got racked up so much over Christmas, I decided that I would just put the money into paying off the credit card. Actually, that would pretty much wipe the card debt.
I decided I would not say anything to Simon, I would just leave it as a lovely surprise, so when he checked to see what the minimum payment needed this month was, he would just find the balance gone and when he asked what had happened I could just casually say, ‘Oh, well, darling, you know that app I created that you said wouldn’t make any money and was just a stupid pipe dream of mine? Well, it’s only gone and paid off the credit card, hasn’t it? Also, look how frugal and prudent I was to use my money for that, instead of squandering it all on Louboutins LIKE I WANTED TO! What price stupid Ellen who can’t manage money now, eh?’ and then I could be all smug and he would be delighted that there was one less drain on our eternally overstretched finances.
Buoyed up by a surfeit of red wine, I transferred the money before I came up with a better idea and convinced myself to do something more exciting with the cash.
When Simon came home he looked shattered, and it was all I could do just to smirk at him and not blurt out what I had done, even when he grumbled about me being so pissed on a Tuesday night.
It also occurred to me that if my app had made that much money in a couple of months, then it might make a bit more! My sensible and prudent decision may yet be rewarded with a fabulous holiday and stunning shoes that I can’t walk in. I think it is fair to say that I am very, very pleased with myself tonight, though I may be slightly less pleased when I am hungover tomorrow and thinking of all the exciting things I could’ve done with ten grand.
MARCH
Friday, 4 March
Not a dicky bird. Not a sausage. Diddly buggering squat. That is what Simon has had to say this week about the astonishing news that our credit card has been paid off, as if by magic. Why hasn’t he said anything? Has he not noticed? Has he noticed but assumed it is some sort of error or glitch which will turn into something else he has to sort out because his feckless wife is so useless with money? Does he fear what I will answer if he asks me how I paid it off, announcing that I have gone on the game or taken to defrauding little old ladies out of their life savings? It is rude to say nothing.
Something out of the ordinary did happen today, though. My car was in the garage (oh, the bliss of not wondering if my card will be declined when I go in to pay) and the children were going straight to Sam’s after school for a sleepover, so Simon dropped me off at work. I was going to get the bus home afterwards, now that it is March and I will not sit on the top deck of the bus crying pitifully to myself about all the sob stories I have made up about the people behind the windows I pass and comparing their lives to my own.
Since I didn’t have to pick up the children, I stayed on for an extra couple of hours at work, to miss the screaming schoolkids on the bus, but when I got to the bus stop it was starting to rain and there was fifteen minutes before my bus was due so I nipped into the pretty little gallery across the road, which sells lots of beautiful things that I can’t afford, and also nice cards, which I can.
I thought I might as well have a mooch around before stocking up on cards, as I had time to kill, and as I was standing admiring a very sweet little bronze of a sleeping dormouse and thinking that even if I had a spare £450 I wouldn’t spend it on something quite so small, the only other person in the gallery, a very large man, came over and stood beside me.
I don’t like people in my personal space. I don’t even like Simon to lie too close to me in bed, unless there is a good reason. For actual sleeping, I have my side and he has his side, although he stoutly maintains that I am the one who does not adhere to my side and tries to take over his as well. I think this is perfectly reasonable of me. But given I do not even like the father of my children to invade my space, I have definite actual issues when strangers do it.
This man had the whole place to wander round, why was he muscling in on me and my overpriced dormouse? Was he trying to steal my bag? He looked very respectable, but I remembered the time I was on the Tube with Simon and there was a very disreputable ruffianly sort in the carriage as well, and I clutched my bag to me and hissed to Simon to keep hold of his wallet, because I Did Not Like The Look of the disreputable man, who we soon discovered was an undercover policeman, when he pinned a most dapper chap in a suit to the floor and slapped a set of handcuffs on him for nicking a nice lady’s purse.
I was taking no chances with this man. I started to move away, but not before I had turned to him and given him a hard stare that Paddington Bear would have been proud of.
Instead of looking abashed and moving on, like he was supposed to, like a proper British person would, he stopped and beamed at me. Oh God, I thought, I am going to have to be polite to some tourist and then I’ll probably miss my bus trying to give them directions somewhere because I am too British not to, and it’s Friday night and I’m child-free and all I really want to do is go home and have a bath, with an enormous gin, to blot out the thought of what my sister-in-law may have done in my bath, and then put on my pyjamas and eat crisps in front of the television. Bloody hell, it’s a child-free Friday night and that is the height of my ambition? I am turning into Simon. Bugger, the man was saying something.
‘Ellen Green! I thought it was you, and I would know that “please fuck off and leave me alone” glare anywhere.’
‘Charlie?’ I said. ‘Oh my God! Charlie! What are you doing here?’
Charlie Carhill. I have not thought about Charlie Carhill in almost twenty years. Correction, I have refused to think about Charlie Carhill in almost twenty years. I treated Charlie appallingly and I have been ashamed of how I behaved ever since, so I put the thoughts of Charlie in a little box in my head and just didn’t think about him, because when I did, I felt hot and cold and uncomfortable about myself. And now here he is, standing in front of me, and actually looking rather attractive and, somewhat unbelievably, given the history between us, astonishingly pleased to see me.
Next thing I knew he had enveloped me in a bear hug, before releasing me and saying, ‘I can’t believe it! It’s so good to see you.’ And just like that, I remembered how nice Charlie was, and how genuine and how he never, ever held a grudge, and so I said, ‘It’s wonderful to see you too, but what are you doing here?’
‘I work at the hospital up the road. St Catherine’s?’
‘Of course, you’re a doctor now, and at St Catherine’s, how lovely!’ I said, slightly faintly, thinking, of course he is a doctor now, you fool, did you think he had somehow spent the last twenty years still being a shy, clumsy medical student just because that was the boy he was when I locked the box in my head and decided I simply wasn’t going to think about Charlie Carhill anymore?
�
�Yes, not been there long, but, Ellen Green! I still can’t believe it’s you,’ he beamed, to which I replied, already a little too sharp, ‘It’s Ellen Russell now, actually, and it’s definitely me, I can assure you.’
‘Are you busy?’ he asked, undeterred. ‘Are you rushing off somewhere, or have you got time for a drink?’
And because it was so nice to see him, and I was cross with myself for already being snippy at him within about thirty seconds of seeing him again, and also because it was, after all, Fuck It All Friday, I said, ‘Yes, a drink would be lovely’ and I went and had a drink with him, and then another drink, and so eventually I got home a little half-cut and considerably later than I had originally intended.
Simon was in the kitchen reading a magazine and drinking wine when I got in. I had already texted him to tell him I was going for a drink after work, but I hadn’t said more than that.
‘Did you have a nice time?’ he asked.
I opened my mouth to say ‘Oh dear GOD, Simon, you won’t believe who I met and who I had a drink with!’ but for some reason I just said, ‘Yeah, it was okay. You know,’ and shrugged, implying it was just a standard Friday night drink with some colleagues.
I had meant to tell Simon I had run into Charlie; I had thought all the way home about what I would say, about how it was such a bizarre coincidence, and how wonderful it was to see him, but at the last minute, I just didn’t.
Maybe it was because Simon never really knew Charlie, and the thought of trying to explain who he was, where he had fitted in, would also have reminded me of how I had behaved to Charlie, and I didn’t want to be reminded of that – not tonight when Charlie had so clearly forgiven me for being such an awful bitch.
‘Hey!’ said Simon. ‘It’s Fuck It All Friday and we don’t have any children in the house. Do you want to go out for a drink? Or have you eaten, we could go for dinner?’
How unlike Simon to willingly venture into the world of people. It would’ve been rude to say no, even though I very badly wanted to take my bra off, so we went out and ate pasta and drank more wine, and we even held hands, and somehow, the right moment to mention that I had met Charlie never quite seemed to come up.
Saturday, 5 March
Sam was supposed to be introducing Mark to Hannah and I properly tonight. I tried to persuade Simon that we should get the older Baxter girl at number 34 to come and babysit so he could come too, but apparently two nights out in a row was far too much for someone of Simon’s advanced age to contemplate and he claimed that he was in urgent need of lying on the sofa and watching Wheeler Dealers in his oldest fleece.
‘You must remember I am ancient and decrepit now, darling,’ he said, ‘whereas you are still a woman in her prime.’
‘Fuck off, darling,’ I said. ‘You’re only a year older than me. And what is this “woman in her prime” nonsense? You make me sound like Miss Jean Brodie.’
‘Mmmm,’ said Simon, attempting to grab me, and getting That Look in his eye. ‘Wasn’t she a bit of a goer?’
‘Put me down!’ I said. ‘If you’re not coming, I’m going to be late!’
Alas, the beloved Mark had not been able to come out and meet us, as he was suffering from an attack of norovirus.
‘I did offer to look after him,’ Sam said nobly. ‘But luckily he said no, because I am not very good with sick. He looked ghastly, poor thing.’
‘Maybe it was just the thought of meeting us, making him turn green?’ suggested Hannah.
‘Yes!’ I cackled gleefully. ‘Our reputation precedes us.’ (I’m pretty sure it hasn’t actually, I’m almost certain I have never done anything untoward in the presence of Mark’s sister, Alison, unless her children have carried home lurid tales of my own darling cherubs. But then again, her oldest boy Oscar is Peter’s hero as apparently he once did such an enormous poo that he blocked the entire school plumbing system.)
‘I hope he feels better soon, though,’ I added dutifully, before proceeding with the proper gossip of the night and excitedly demanding that Hannah guess who I had run into yesterday.
‘No, not him. Not her, why would I pleased to see her? Go on, guess, you’ll never guess!’
‘Well, if I’ll never guess, why are you making me guess?’
‘Oh, you are rubbish at this! All right, I’ll tell you. Charlie! Charlie Carhill! Isn’t that bizarre?’
Hannah looked very odd. ‘What do you think you are doing, meeting Charlie Carhill?’
‘I didn’t meet him. I was in that gallery on the High Street, and so was he and he recognised me and said hello, and so we went for a drink.’
‘A drink. Just you and Charlie? For Christ’s sake, Ellen, what were you thinking? Can’t you leave him alone? What happens now, are you going to start playing games with him again? Don’t you think you did enough damage there?’ Hannah hissed this last sentence across the table with such venom that I actually recoiled.
‘Hannah, I haven’t seen Charlie for almost twenty years. I can go for a drink with him if I want to, and it’s none of your business if I do, I just thought that maybe you’d be interested to know I’d run into him, and you might want to hear what he has been doing since we left university. Actually!’
Sam’s eyes had grown increasingly saucer-like throughout this exchange, and now he could no longer contain himself, he was practically bouncing up and down in his seat as he squeaked, ‘WhoisCharlieCarhillandwhatisgoingonandwhat didEllen DOOOOOO?’
‘She broke his heart!’ huffed Hannah.
‘I did not!’ I protested indignantly. ‘I did nothing of the sort, I couldn’t help how Charlie felt about me, and I couldn’t help that I didn’t feel the same way.’
‘Oh, no, no, of course you couldn’t, could you? None of that was your fault at all, was it? Not leading him on for two years, letting him think he might, just might, be in there, and then finally going to bed with him, which I never understood why you did, and then the very next night, there was poor Charlie thinking he had finally got somewhere with you, only you stood him up and went off with Simon. He saw you, you know, leaving the Pear Tree with Simon that night. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, you kept him dangling for another fucking year, ringing him up every time you had a row with Simon, pouring your heart out to good old Charlie, so he was always hoping that maybe you and Simon were about to finish and he’d finally get his chance with you. You were horrible to him, Ellen. And you left me to pick up the pieces.’
‘Ooooh, Ellen, you slut,’ put in Sam. ‘Two men in two nights! And keeping this chap on the side when you were seeing Simon, naughty, naughty, naughty!’
‘Shut up, Sam,’ said Hannah and I together.
Sam tutted to himself. ‘I’m only trying to help!’ he muttered.
‘What are you talking about anyway, you had to “pick up the pieces”? You barely knew Charlie,’ I said, incredulous at this unexpected fury from Hannah.
‘I did know Charlie. I was there the first night you met Charlie, in Freshers’ Week. I was there at dinner in halls with you every night in first year, and Charlie too, and when you didn’t bother to turn up because you’d got a better offer, Charlie and I would eat together. When you decided to ruin Charlie’s life on a whim, I was the one he talked to about it. I probably knew Charlie far better than you because you never talked to him about himself, all you ever talked about was yourself when you were with him. You treated Charlie like some sort of dog! Actually, I’ve seen you with your dog, you’re nicer to dogs than you were to Charlie.’
This stung somewhat, because there had been a certain dog-like quality to Charlie’s unswerving devotion which I had rather enjoyed, even if sometimes it was all I could do to stop myself scratching him behind the ears and asking him if he was a good boy, or rubbing his belly. I was not proud of this, though.
‘I did not ruin Charlie’s life on a whim!’ I retorted angrily, the niggling shame of how I had behaved causing me to react badly to Hannah’s accusations, ‘and it was eighteen years ago! Wh
y now, all of a sudden, are you so enraged by the thought of Charlie and me having a drink? You never said any of this at the time, and I don’t see what bloody business it is of yours now.’
‘I didn’t see you much then, Ellen,’ said Hannah sulkily. ‘When you started seeing Simon you were so wrapped up with him you didn’t have time for anyone else, unless you wanted something from them. Like you wanted Charlie to make you feel adored and worshipped when you fell out with Simon.’
‘But all the rest of it. What good friends you and Charlie were. How awful you thought I was. You never told me any of that then. And I didn’t lead him on, I really didn’t: I liked Charlie. Just not like he liked me.’
‘Why did you sleep with him then, when you had no intention of it going any further? If you weren’t leading him on. And it wasn’t just a shag, was it? You were Charlie’s first. You must’ve known what that meant to him, and then you joked to me about it afterwards. You joked about poor virgin Charlie and his sweaty palms, fumbling with your bra. “Charlie don’t shag” I think was what you said.’
‘Ooooh, ELLEN, you deflowered him, you heartless wench!’ breathed Sam.
‘Shut up, Sam!’ we said in unison again.
‘I don’t know why I slept with him, when I knew it was never going to go further,’ I said. ‘I slept with a lot of boys who were never going to be my one true love. And I had no idea he had never done it before until we were in bed. What was I supposed to say, “Oh, sorry, mate, pop back for another go when you’ve lost your V plates”? Would that have been better? Told him I wasn’t going to shag him because he’d be crap? FUCK, I was DRUNK! I thought I was doing a nice thing. I dunno, I thought maybe if I slept with him, he’d actually just get it out of his system. Move on, find a nice girl. And you were the only one I told about that, because I was under the mistaken impression that we told each other everything. I didn’t realise you were so offended by my poor taste, because you had a jolly good laugh when I told you about other disastrous shags, like that engineer who kept his condoms in his calculator case. Didn’t know Charlie was a special case and our union was SO BLOODY SACRED! So I’m very fucking sorry that I’m such a slag and not more like you.’