‘Well, they look pretty real to me,’ Ben replied, lifting his glass and holding it towards her in a parody of a toast. ‘Cheers!’ he grinned. Bo watched him take his first sip, feeling frustration rise like bile in her throat. She stared at the cocktail in front of her, taking in the condensation running down the sides of the glass, and the delicate twist of orange zest which had been painstakingly placed on the meniscus of liquid. For a split second, she fought the urge to pick up the drink and pour it over Ben. But even in her fury, she couldn’t bring herself to cause a scene and endure the embarrassment and commotion that would surely follow. Instead she did the next best thing, rising from the leather banquette and extricating herself and her belongings, with some difficulty, from behind the table.
‘Where are you going?’ Ben asked, shock written plainly across his face.
‘Home,’ answered Bo. She pulled on her coat, strode past the bar and headed out into the damp chill of the city streets.
Chapter 4
Bo was woken the following morning by the shrieking siren of a passing ambulance. She rolled onto her side and blinked in the grey light of her bedroom. Staring blankly at the woodchip-covered wall beside her bed, a succession of images, each one more mortifying than the last, flashed through her mind: the supercilious smile of the brunette with the clipboard; Ben’s expression of appalled disbelief during her fumbled attempt to extract her things from behind the little table; the bitchy, sidelong glances from the preening girls at the bar as she strode past, pink-cheeked and flustered. She cringed and buried her face in her pillow, as if hoping to eradicate the memories by physical force.
Bo’s rumbling stomach forced her, eventually, to lift her head from the pillow and glance at her alarm clock. It was eleven o’clock and, apart from a packet of crisps she had picked up on her way back from Shoreditch, she had not eaten since lunch almost twenty-four hours earlier. With a groan, she flung an arm sideways to the bedside table and fumbled amongst the clutter for her phone, torn between hope and dread that Ben might have tried to contact her. There were no messages or missed calls, however, so she flung her duvet back and pulled on her dressing gown.
The flat in Holloway did not have much of a kitchen – certainly nothing like the spacious, country-style kitchen-diner in her parents’ house, with its bespoke, solid wood units, granite worktops and Aga. Instead, Bo and Kirsten made do with a cramped L-shape of shabby units, a tarnished sink, and a low-grade freestanding oven with a clunky gas hob and smoke-stained glass door. The window behind the sink was inaccessible behind a metal security grille that had been screwed to the frame, itself caked in the greasy residue generated by years of cooking in the poky space. As if to compensate for the lack of ventilation, an old-fashioned circular extractor fan had been built into the window pane, a simple contraption of spinning plastic blades operated by a string pull, which proved totally ineffective at extracting either steam or smells, but was highly effective at allowing draughts in.
Bo peered inside the bread-bin, which was empty but for the remnants of a loaf of supermarket white, the crusts dotted with green spots of pin-mould. With a sigh, she filled the kettle and leaned back against the worktop, allowing her eyes to settle on the wall-shelf which heaved with recipe books, takeaway menus and countless out-of-date coupons and vouchers. Sensing that needed something to take her mind off Ben and the humiliations of the previous evening, she plucked a cookbook from the shelf and laid it out on the worktop. She made herself a cup of coffee and flipped through the grease-spattered pages in search of a recipe to cheer herself up.
Bo had discovered the joys of baking as a twelve-year-old when, faced with the prospect of a never-ending school summer holiday, she decided to attempt a simple Victoria sponge recipe from her mother’s well-thumbed edition of Delia. There was something about the activity of baking which Bo had found intensely rewarding; she could still remember the glow of satisfaction she had felt as she smeared the circles of sponge neatly with jam and whipped cream before placing them together and dusting the golden dome with icing sugar. She was hooked, and spent the rest of that summer working her way diligently through her mother’s cookbook collection. As a teen, baking had seemed to offer an escape from the emotional turmoil of adolescence, with its insecurities, anxieties and constantly shifting friendships. As an adult, Bo still found baking the ideal displacement activity to take her mind off her problems.
‘Morning.’ Kirsten stood in the doorway in her pyjamas, her mussed-up hair and pillow-creased face indicating that she had not long woken up. ‘God, I feel rough this morning,’ she croaked, shielding a yawn with her forearm.
‘Heavy night?’ Bo enquired, measuring out a teaspoon of vanilla extract and tipping it into a bowl of eggs and sugar. Kirsten nodded.
‘Impromptu office drinks. We went to a new Brazilian place in Islington. The caipirinhas went down very easily,’ she said with a grimace. ‘Something smells good,’ she murmured, peering hopefully past Bo at the bowl of melted butter and chocolate simmering over the hob. ‘What’re you making?’
‘Chocolate brownies,’ replied Bo, whisking the eggs and sugar together in a mixing bowl. Kirsten looked visibly cheered by the prospect of freshly baked brownies for breakfast. She dropped a teabag into a mug and poured in water from the kettle.
‘You didn’t stay over at Ben’s last night, then?’ she asked.
‘Nope,’ Bo replied crisply, adding flour and cocoa to the egg mixture before tipping in the melted chocolate.
‘Everything okay with you two?’ Kirsten probed, stirring her tea. Bo fought with the urge to confess to Kirsten that, although she wasn’t sure if things were okay with Ben, she was certain she had made a fool of herself at an achingly trendy cocktail bar. But instead she poured the glossy brownie batter into the baking tray, forcing back the tears which she could feel ready to spring to her eyes.
‘Nothing that a gooey chocolate brownie won’t fix,’ she said at last, with a shaky, sideways smile. There followed a moment’s silence, during which Kirsten watched Bo slide the baking tray into the oven and slam the glass door shut with a flourish.
‘Pleased to hear it,’ Kirsten said, with a supportive look.
A little later, while the brownies were in the oven and the sink was filling with hot, soapy water, Bo’s mobile phone buzzed on the worktop. Her heart racing, she hastily wiped her hands on a grubby tea towel and grabbed her phone.
I was an arse last night. Been a shit week. Sorry.
She stared at the text in a state of inner turmoil. This was what Ben did when he knew he had pushed her too far; he apologised (invariably by text), blamed his behaviour on work stress, or tiredness, then moved on as if nothing had happened. In the early days of their relationship she had seen his willingness to apologise as an encouraging sign. At least he was willing to acknowledge his own shortcomings, she reasoned. She had, in turn, been quick to forgive.
‘That’s one of the things I like about you, Blu-ray,’ he’d told her once, when she had agreed to overlook a blithely dismissive remark about the work done by her department. ‘You’re easy-going. You’re not one of those girls who holds onto a grudge, festering over something trivial for months.’ Although he had clearly intended it as a compliment, rather than feel flattered, Bo was left feeling as if she’d had no choice but to accept his apologies, because not to do so would make her unreasonable – another one of those girls.
The oven timer started to beep, and Bo set her phone back down on the worktop, leaving Ben’s message unanswered. She removed the baking tray from the oven and gave it a gentle shake. The mixture didn’t wobble, so she lifted the brownie carefully out of the tray and placed it gently onto a cooling rack, before picking up her phone to stare at Ben’s text again. She recalled his brazen appraisal of the brunette with the clipboard, his contemptuous comment about the women from payroll and his casual dismissal of her suggestion that they go for a pizza. He had indeed been an arse, and it riled her that he thought an offhand apology b
y text would be sufficient to make up for it. She had begun to suspect that Ben’s apologies were merely a means to an end – the price he needed to pay for her acquiescence – and that he didn’t feel any genuine remorse for his behaviour at all. She leaned over the slab of brownie and her mouth started to water as she inhaled its warm cocoa aroma. Perhaps, she thought ruefully, she had identified the problem: Ben wanted to have his cake and eat it.
Galvanised by the thought, she wiped her hands and picked up her phone. Yes, you were, she tapped out, pressing ‘send’ before she could lose her nerve. Craving reassurance, Bo grabbed a knife from the wooden block on the counter and cut herself a generous slice from the corner. She took a big bite, feeling the crumbly top layer give way to the warm gooey middle. She closed her eyes as she chewed, allowing the taste and texture of the brownie to envelop her like a warm hug.
She set about washing up the bowls and utensils but, like drips from a leaky tap, her righteous indignation at Ben began to drain away as she scrubbed and rinsed. On the worktop, her phone remained stubbornly silent. Pausing to gaze through the grimy window, the image of Ben’s appalled face when she had stood up to leave came unbidden to her mind. She felt a sudden stab of panic to the stomach. Had her text been too harsh? He had apologised, after all, and maybe he really had had a shit week.
Only now did she recall her irritable mood when she left the office, that she had been tired and bad-tempered before she even stepped foot inside the speakeasy. The preening girls at the bar had irritated her long before she had noticed Ben checking them out over her shoulder. She felt queasy, as if the brownie she had just eaten was on the verge of coming back up. She was still cross with Ben for his snide dismissiveness and brazen disregard for her feelings but, in the cold light of day, she felt embarrassed about the way the evening had ended, and suspected that she might have over-reacted.
‘Shit,’ she hissed, wiping her hands on a tea-towel and grabbing her phone.
I was in a bad mood too, she typed, Sorry for walking out.
Almost immediately, three dots began to flash inside a speech bubble on her screen, indicating that Ben was typing. Nervously, she bit her lip, riven with doubt as to whether she had been mature to accept her share of the blame for the evening’s disastrous denouement, or whether she had merely backed down for the sake of keeping the peace, just like she always did. Seconds later, the phone buzzed.
Never seen you throw a strop like that before, Blu-ray. Kind of sexy.
Bo felt a jab of some intense emotion, but whether it was relief, desire, or anger she wasn’t entirely sure.
*
Later that morning, when she had showered, dressed, and eaten a second slice of brownie, Bo pulled on her trainers and coat and headed out. She slammed the front door shut and climbed the steps to the neglected area of crazy paving which passed for the house’s front garden, although it functioned primarily as a storage area for the many wheelie bins and recycling boxes belonging to the property. In the four years that she and Kirsten had occupied the house’s basement, Bo had frequently bumped into their neighbours when emptying their bins. They had exchanged nods and smiles in the way that seemed to be considered sufficient by Londoners in terms of neighbourly relations, but their relationship had never progressed any further than polite civility, and she had never set foot inside any of the other flats.
The autumn sun was weak and watery, and low clouds scudded across the sky, throwing sections of the pavement into shade as she walked towards Holloway Road. There, she crossed at the pelican crossing and headed into the bright orange frontage of Sainsbury’s. A blast of warm air from an overhead vent greeted her as she stepped through the sliding doors causing perspiration to prickle uncomfortably on the back of her neck.
As Bo loosened her scarf, a toddler with a shock of blonde curls wailed nearby, her back arched and limbs rigid as she tried to resist her mother’s attempts to force her into the plastic seat of a supermarket trolley. The girl’s mortified mother attempted to bribe her into compliance with a plastic pot full of grapes, which the toddler met with a howl of rage. The mother, with a shamefaced expression, whisked a packet of Iced Gems out of her bag, at which the tantrumming infant immediately fell silent, holding out her hand to claim her prize. Bo smiled at the now-quiescent toddler who was triumphantly shoving a fistful of the sugary biscuits into her mouth.
Sainsbury’s was full of the usual diverse crowd characteristic of her part of north London: Asian women in headscarves, moustachioed Turkish men, and stout Afro-Caribbean grandmothers, all of them wearing expressions suggesting they would rather be doing anything other than their weekly shop. Bo meandered between the aisles, absentmindedly throwing bread, milk and other essentials into her basket whilst mulling over Ben’s text. She wanted to strike the right tone with her reply, something light enough to show that she acknowledged her own share of the blame, whilst at the same time letting him know he was not off the hook entirely. Dropping a roll of cling film into her basket, she wondered whether Ben ever agonised to the same extent about the texts he sent her. She suspected not.
Back at the flat, she dumped the plastic shopping bags on the dining table and drew her phone from her bag.
Call that a strop? That was nothing ;-)
An anxious few moments followed, then the phone buzzed.
Is that a promise?
With the lines of communication open once again, they continued to text back and forth throughout the afternoon. When Ben asked what her what she was up to, she sent him a photo of her brownies, cut into neat squares and stacked in a pretty Cath Kidston cake tin (one of many items borrowed from her mother’s kitchen).
Quality time with these bad boys, she typed. I made them this morning.
I had no idea you were a domestic goddess, Blu-ray, came Ben’s response, followed quickly by, Save some for me.
Bo felt a glow of gratification. She had never told Ben about her passion for baking, assuming he would laugh and make some scornful allusion to her being a frumpy housewife.
I’ll bring one into the office tomorrow, she promised.
Are you free for dinner on Monday? He replied. How does Pizza Express sound?
Bo smiled at her phone, feeling happier than she had done for weeks. Maybe Ben had listened to her after all.
Chapter 5
On her journey into work the following Monday morning, squeezed between an overweight tourist and a youth whose white earphones were leaking a frantic drumbeat, Bo felt cautiously optimistic about her evening’s plans with Ben. She had devoted a great deal of thought to analysing the events of Friday night and their subsequent exchange of texts, and felt hopeful that Ben had, for once, taken her frustrations seriously. Why else would he have suggested going to Pizza Express? That, surely, had been intended as an olive branch.
As if to reward his efforts, Bo had selected one of the choicest brownies from the batch for Ben: a corner slice, with two sides of crispy edges. It was nestled inside her handbag, and every now and then she heard the rustle of its foil wrapping as the tube rattled on through the dark tunnel.
‘Morning, Chloe. Good weekend?’ she asked, stepping out of the lift into the Aspect reception area.
‘Epic weekend, thanks,’ Chloe replied brightly, her orange-tinged face lighting up. ‘It was Gemma’s twenty-first. We got a VIP table at Legends in Loughton. Her boyfriend’s the bar manager. He laid on cocktails, Champagne – the lot!’ Chloe’s heavily made-up eyes were wide to emphasise the magnanimity of the gesture. ‘We were rat-arsed by nine o’clock!’ she giggled, sliding her chair sideways to retrieve the day’s mail from the far side of the curved desk. Bo mouthed a silent ‘wow!’ to indicate that she, too, was impressed by Gemma’s boyfriend’s generosity.
Bo headed past reception into the office, noticing immediately that Ben’s chair was empty and his computer was switched off. Trying to quell the stab of disappointment, she carried on to her own department, where she found Hayley perched on the corner of Natasha�
��s desk. They were speaking in low, urgent voices.
‘Have you heard?’ Hayley demanded immediately upon catching sight of Bo, ‘Tash thinks marketing is on the hit-list for redundancies.’ Hayley was a gregarious twenty-three-year-old who had spent a year working on reception prior to her promotion to marketing assistant. She thrived on putting herself at the hub of office gossip and was permanently on the look-out for snippets of intelligence with which to alarm her co-workers. Hayley was, in Bo’s opinion, prone to over-dramatics.
‘Oh, really?’ Bo answered distractedly, her mind still on Ben’s vacant desk. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘Something Claire said on Friday,’ Natasha chipped in, with the grave air of one imparting worrying news, ‘about how she was having to "fight our corner” with the directors.’ Bo had been unzipping her coat but paused momentarily to glance at her colleagues. Natasha was an earnest-looking, studious sort of girl, and Bo was inclined to pay more heed to her concern than to Hayley’s.
‘Is Claire in today?’ Bo asked, clocking the empty desk next to her own. Hayley shook her head and flicked her long dark hair off her shoulder.
‘She phoned in earlier. She’s working from home. Rosie’s got chickenpox, apparently. Either that or she doesn’t want to answer awkward questions.’ She gave Bo a significant look. ‘I’m shitting myself,’ Hayley concluded bluntly. ‘I was made redundant at my last place. If it happens again people are going to start thinking there’s something wrong with me.’ Bo began to unwind her scarf, conscious that her colleagues’ faces were both turned towards her expectantly, awaiting her opinion. Bo draped the scarf over the back of her chair and gave a slightly helpless shrug.
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