Izzy and I spend the rest of our break sitting on a bench on the edge of the market square eating our lunch and talking about ‘Project Donna’. We’ve not thought of an official name but that’s because ‘Project Donna’ so far only consists of the concept and a strategy for breaking the news to Duncan. He’ll be okay because he’s so busy with work and I’m probably worrying more than is necessary, but apart from the ‘blip’, the no-baby blip, things are great and I don’t want to change that.
We, Izzy and I, have agreed that I’m not going to sugar-coat it, it’s only a month after all. No favourite meal, soft lighting and wham! Maybe we’ll do that anyway, because we do, but I’ll tell him while we cook or before we get engrossed in the TV or something. The sooner the better. Like pulling off a plaster. That was Izzy’s idea.
Chapter 5 – Breaking The News
Duncan takes it better than I’d expected. I break the news as soon as we get inside his house. We’d already arranged for me to go over there and we arrive at the same time so rather than faff about talking small talk, I do it.
“And you’re really okay with this?” I ask as he’s tucking his car keys into his jacket pocket hanging up on the rack above the hall radiator.
He turns round and plants a kiss on my right cheek. “Of course. William’s asked so…”
“Not really asked but yes, I suppose I have a choice.”
“But you want to do it.”
Although I’d thought of little else the whole afternoon, I really wasn’t sure. Part of what was holding me back was Duncan but as he’s taking it so well, I didn’t need to worry. So why am I? Out of sight, I tell myself then go with Izzy’s more positive ‘absence makes the heart’ and all that. I guess we’ll see one way or another.
He pulls me towards him and kisses me passionately. I feel myself melting as if the radiator behind him is turned up to full. “I love you,” he whispers into my ear and I’m almost a puddle as I whisper the same.
We walk hand-in-hand into the kitchen and set about making dinner. It’s lasagne, and regardless of how busy he is, Duncan always insists on making meals from scratch. I should be like that, being a ‘health expert’, but I’m not and feel all the more of a fraud for it. I’m a convenience queen and think that if Messrs Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury want to help me out by doing all the work for me, why should I resist? I’m like Izzy in that respect.
But Duncan’s right. It means we spend more time together and it’s fun. And there’s no doubt it keeps the flame alive, not that there should be anything to dampen it, not after only a year. I think too much.
The meal cooked, the conversation returns to Hemel Hempstead as Duncan pours me some Merlot. It’s a McGuigan Bin, which isn’t overly inspiring as it makes me think of the Irish boxer and ‘bin’? But it sounded nice when Duncan bought it from Amazon.
“Rich and full flavoured,” I recall as Duncan pours some into his own glass. “Aroma of red plums with herby notes to balance. This Merlot shows great fruit flavours of blackberry, raspberry, cherry and ripe red plum. These are nicely integrated with soft caramel and vanilla oak characters to create a smooth, soft and easy-drinking red wine.”
Duncan laughs and takes a sip. I should know what I’m talking about because any kind of food and drink comes under my ‘health’ banner, and there’s been enough speculation about whether red wine is good for you or not over the past few decades so it’s a column I can repeat, updated of course, quite often. Not that I do; there are always plenty of other topics to talk about.
Like Izzy, I write six columns a week. Again, like her, I can do them in advance. I can cheat easier than her dating because I could carry over a lunch or dinner to another day. While she had to be very careful about not giving away what she was doing, I can be very open about mine and for that I’m grateful.
“And you’ll be back at the weekends,” Duncan says, picking up our earlier conversation.
“Or you could come to Mum’s.” He could. She adores him and vice versa. She’s as pleased as anyone that I’m finally ‘off the shelf’, not that I wasn’t when I was dating Mike but she didn’t like him at all. And on reflection, I can’t say I blame her.
“I could. I’d like that.”
“Are you rostered to do any Saturdays next month?”
He purses his lips and squints as if deep in thought. It’s his practice, so technically he can work whenever he likes, or not, but he’s a very fair boss and of course, who really wants to work at the weekends, especially when they have families?
It’s so easy to come back to that topic. Families. Children. Babies. However hard I try, I can’t help thinking about it. It’s really silly but… No, I’m going to keep busy. I will be busy; planning and doing these thirty-one dishes. I smile, a grin almost, and Duncan puts down his fork, lasagne barely touched. He stands and my eyes follow his. He walks around the table, holds my hands in his, lifts me from my chair and leads me upstairs.
Chapter 6 – Preparation, Preparation, Preparation
We resurface an hour later, both grinning. It’s not only patched but I think cemented any cracks there were in our relationship. We did a lot of talking in between… I blush.
We know we want to be together, we’ve talked plenty about our future. We’ll leave it to fate. I’ll go off to Hemel for the month then we’ll resume life thereafter. We’ll both be busy; Duncan’s reminded me he had a couple of seminars in London in May, as well as training a new senior member of staff so the month will fly by. I hope.
So, I’m back to being bouncy Donna… no, Tigger D, as Izzy so fondly refers to me, and I’ll make the most of the new experiences the temporary relocation will bring.
A list. I need to write a list. Not quite a shopping list as Izzy did but I will have to make sure I have everything I need. Other than a toothbrush, there’s nothing of mine at my mum’s house.
Duncan’s gone to work early but we had breakfast together so I’m sitting here, still in my pyjamas, surrounded by empty dishes which I’ll pop into the dishwasher but first things first. I grab a notebook and two pens, one blue, one black, in case I need to split the list for some reason. I don’t know why but girl scout and all that.
What do I want to achieve this month? That’s a good place to start. A balanced reportage. Interesting places without it being restaurant reviews; Izzy was very careful of that with her pubs. For her it was all about the dates; for me it’ll be the dishes. So I start my list… of lists:
– List of things to take: suitcase, laptop, phone, chargers, clothes etc. Enough for a week or the whole month?
– List of pubs and restaurants in Hemel Hempstead: lunch (alone or with colleagues) and dinner (with Mum? With Aunt Jan and Uncle Pat?). Breakfast?
– List of pubs and restaurants in Tring. Definitely with family. Not breakfast unless the weekend, not practical.
– List of types of dishes. Not as mad as it sounds. Aunt Jan and Uncle Pat are vegetarians so something to bear in mind.
– List of places around the area. Why stick with Hemel and Tring? Repeat places or go somewhere just once? It would make the project more interesting but possibly more complicated.
I draw a little arrow to the left of the list of places to point to underneath Tring then think how much easier it would have been to make this list of lists on my computer. I have to type it up anyway – but I’ve started so I’ll finish, like a dog with a b– Buddy. What’s going to happen to Buddy while I’m away? Of course Duncan managed before I came on the scene but he’ll be away too at his seminars.
Then my brain takes me to images of skinny skirt-suited professional women flocking around him, talking about the things that make sense to him: diseases… aspergillosis for example. Poor William. He was heartbroken when his parrot, his Baby… I sniff. I have to think of something else. When did I become so insecure?
Come on, Tigger D. Bounce. I think of Duncan and our interlude last night and my smile returns. A big… no, huge grin in fact. It always does the
trick.
So… back to the list. What have I got so far? Things to take… places… dishes. What else? I have no clue. I’ll just wing it. That’s what Izzy did and she was fine.
I look at the microwave’s clock. Oops.
Not really time to dump everything in the dishwasher but I do it anyway. Duncan prefers the place neat and tidy (don’t they mean the same thing?)… clean and tidy then, and it’ll only take a few seconds. His house, you see, is very much a bachelor pad. Lots of black, grey and white. He doesn’t have many possessions, or rather he has the usual amount but lots of storage so everything’s neatly hidden from view, unlike my flat, which is… well, not.
I look around the open-plan lounge / dining area and nod. Possibly not up to Duncan standards but I’ll probably be home first anyway. Home. I like the sound of that. I have an ongoing lease on my flat and only have to give six weeks’ notice but if I’m away for a month… No, too soon. Wait for life to return to normal.
After a shower, I feel much better, almost back to normal. It does that. Not sure how but it does. It’s like it washes the blah away. PMA. Positive mental attitude. Yes. PMA.
Chapter 7 – Tick, Tick, Tick
Tuesday 24th April
I’m whistling when I get to work and Mike gives me a strange look. I stop whistling as I stare at his jumper. The jam (I’m hoping) stains are still there so he’s not only wearing the same jumper – not very surprising as it’s his security uniform – but he’s not noticed it needs washing. I had such a lucky escape.
I give him the briefest of smiles, and walk on, whistling again. The last track to play in my car was Queen’s Somebody to Love, one of my favourites, and it’s become my earworm. Izzy and I used to sing it at the top of our voices whenever it came on at Chicago’s. Happy days. We were both single then, and looking, and it was very much our mantra. Everyone else in the bar… club?… was singing too, and it was such a wonderful experience. Strangers became friends for a few minutes, a couple of hours – we didn’t just stop at Queen – then were lost again as we all went our separate ways. It’s a shame really that life’s like that but there we go.
I get a smile from Frosty when I walk past reception. She’s on the phone, sounding her very professional self, so it was probably a slip… or leftover wind from breakfast.
Izzy’s at her desk but on the phone. There’s no evidence of a drink in her vicinity so I go to the kitchen and make something for both of us. She likes chai tea – her own – work doesn’t do anything other than cash and carry PG tips, so I make one of those and a coffee for myself.
She’s off the phone by the time I rejoin her.
“Eh up. How are things?” she asks me in a fake northern accent. Northampton’s a dozen or so miles south of the Watford Gap, a service station known as the unofficial north / south divide, so we’re still considered the south.
I think about last night and give her a goofy grin.
“Oh… like that? Good on ya.”
I can feel a blush flooding my face. I open my mouth to speak but shut it again.
“I’ll see you later,” I finally blurt and scuttle to my desk.
I’d forgotten to print off the email from Hemel and hadn’t taken my work laptop to Duncan’s… because I had no intention of doing any work, so couldn’t remember everything it had said. I thought it would help me with compiling my list, the paper version of which I dig out from my bag as soon as I’ve deposited my mug on my coaster.
I log onto my computer and bring up the email without looking for any new ones. I print it double sided and highlight the important things: the collecting ID, log ins etc. I google the address and am relieved that it’s on the edge of the town centre, not far off from the gardens whose name I can’t remember and the Kodak-building-cum-nice-apartments. Not that I know whether they’re nice or not but the building’s blue and it can’t have been that long ago since it changed.
I google it. Wikipedia tells me that Kodak vacated in 2005 and that it’s called the K D Tower – no relation to the singer Lang presumably, and converted over a decade ago so longer than I thought but I only drive past… ish; I see it when I get to the bottom of the long hill from the M1 motorway, before turning left so I don’t actually go that near it but it cuts an impressive figure nonetheless.
As you can tell I’m easily distracted but I’m going to have to be focused for the next month… or rather the next few days then next month. So checklist. Ah, one thing I didn’t put on my list is who I have to tell. Right…
Duncan. Tick.
Izzy. Tick.
My mum. Tick.
Er… I do have other friends but no one I absolutely positively have to tell right this instant. I look at the list of three names and I feel quite sad. This really isn’t like me. I’m usually the life and soul and that in itself makes me feel sad. I then come to the conclusion that this ‘thirty-one dishes’ project couldn’t have come at a better time.
It’s nearing the end of April yet I’m feeling as if summer’s been and gone, and I have only a cold harsh winter to look forward to. I need the proverbial slap round the face and I know just the thing.
Chapter 8 – Izzy Pick-me-up
Unlikely as it may seem, because she’s more sensible and serious than I am, Izzy is the cure for all my ills… she and Duncan usually. So I abandon the list and head over to her desk.
I can feel my brow furrow… as my dad would have put it; he was quite old-fashioned, more so than my mum who’s a young sixty-six. “Clickety click,” I whisper and laugh. Izzy’s on the phone, for a change, and she’s smiling. She’s looking at me so I don’t know whether she’s smiling at me, or laughing or to whoever she’s talking to on the phone.
The reason for my brow furrowing, by the way, is an object Izzy has in her left hand, her right is still cradling the phone. The ‘thing’ is quite difficult to describe. It looks like an animal, no a large bug. I shiver.
I stand by her desk and wait. I’d offer to go to the kitchen and make a drink but it’s too warm for a hot one and we had the last of the Cokes yesterday. We have to supply them – work gives us water and two flavours of cordial but they get a bit repetitive after a while – so I can nip to Sainsbury’s on the way home, or better on the way in tomorrow or I’d be taking them back to Duncan’s and knowing him, and me, they’d probably stay there.
Izzy finally comes off the phone and grins broader.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“One of my suppliers. I usually email them when I receive something but this…” she points to the ‘thing’ “arrived with no instructions. I thought it was easier to give Renu a call to see if it’s similar to the one they sent me last year.”
I’m torn between asking what the ‘thing’ actually is but am now more fascinated by the name she’s just mentioned. “Renu?”
“Yes. My contact there. She’s really sweet. Product development for the tech company who supplied this. Never met her, of course, as they’re based up in… Newcastle, I think. New something.”
I wasn’t expecting a ‘she’. Interesting. I want to rack my brains for other possible ‘New’s in that part of the country but the only one I can come up with is America’s New Hampshire so I’m now back to the ‘thing’. “And what is ‘this’?” I point to the bug.
“Oh, a grasshopper.”
I wasn’t far off then.
“Except this one, Renu tells me, isn’t wind up but USB generated.”
“And you’ve got to test and review it?”
“Uh huh.”
Although I’m not technology minded… at all, I’m a little green. More fun than testing a new shade of lipstick, ‘boldest’ mascara, or revolutionary diet that everyone who’s A-list (or Z-list) is following. “Drink?” I ask and point towards the kitchen.
“Erm…” she says and looks down at her almost-full glass of summer fruits squash.
“No problem,” I say and debate whether to have the same or orange.
“Can�
�t really join you at the moment, sorry.” She points to her screen. I’m guessing she has too much work to do.
“No problem,” I repeat and stand there, not sure whether I do actually want a drink or if I should just return to my desk with my proverbial tail between my legs. I really don’t know what’s got into me lately but not even my Izzy-pick-me-up is working… probably because she didn’t actually pick me up.
I don’t have a drink on my desk so I head for the kitchen to get one anyway. It won’t be the end of the world if I get half a glass and it sits on my VW campervan coaster until it goes warm… which would be a lot quicker without the air conditioning turned on.
“Come on, Donna,” I tell myself as I crack into action. “You’ve got less than a week until you have to go AWOL.”
“Everything going well with that?” a voice behind me says and I squeak.
I turn round and there’s William, waiting in line with a mug in his hand. I move back, squash in my left hand, glass in the other.
“Don’t let me stop you,” he says and smiles.
Janine, his PA, used to get most of his drinks but he seems to have been more liberated, or at least capable, since he started dating Izzy. She’s a good influence all round. There are still professional boundaries of course but his rougher edges seem to have softened. Hoorah for that. Not that they were really ever that sharp. I’d never heard him shout but more formidable, you might say, forthright…? No, garnered respect. I sound more like my parents, my dad anyway, every day.
“Thank you, yes,” I reply, to his earlier question. “Arrangements made, plans drawn, that kind of thing.” Despite me having no clue as to what dishes I’ll actually be eating, or where, I figure I still have plenty of time to make, draw, those plans.
Boy, am I wrong.
Chapter 9 – All Systems Go
The Serial Dieter Page 3