James snorts. ‘You mean your great novel with all your choice comments about my mother?’
Note to self: never, ever write when pissed.
‘Er, yeah,’ I say. ‘Sorry about that.’
There’s a sound of rummaging from within. ‘Ring first,’ demands James.
It’s a bit insulting that he thinks I’m going to run away with it. For a minute I consider flogging the damn thing and vanishing off to Greece for half-term, but then I think about my novel. OK, so at the moment it’s only a few scribblings in Wayne Lobb’s exercise book (don’t worry, I’ve given him a replacement, which is now covered in graffiti and gum, in case you’re wondering), but I couldn’t bear to lose it. It may well be pathetic drivel like James says, but it’s my pathetic drivel and I can’t wait to be lost in my fantasy world of dashing heroes and masquerade balls.
I push the letter box open and the ring plops on to the mat below. ‘Can I have my notebook now?’
There’s a click from James’s end of the speakerphone so I move away from the door and peer up to the kitchen window. Far be it from me to call my fiancé — sorry, ex-fiancé — predictable, but I don’t have to be psychic to know that Jake and Millandra will come flying down in the next few moments.
But I didn’t anticipate that they’d come floating down like inky confetti.
For a second I’m too taken aback to understand what is happening. A snowstorm drifts down around me, little pieces dancing in the wind and scattering across Allington Crescent. Some dust the bin liners, others land like mutant leaves on the cars parked below and the rest float along in the gutter, lilac ink feathering in the muddy water. I’m frozen with disbelief. He couldn’t be so spiteful? No matter how pissed off he is, surely he wouldn’t be cruel enough to destroy weeks and weeks of my writing? To wilfully rip up my dreams and hopes as though they mean nothing?
I crouch down and scoop up a handful of mush from the kerb. The name Jake is barely distinguishable from the smudges of ink. At least, I think it’s the ink that blurs the writing, but it could be that the tears trickling down my cheeks are to blame.
All those hours, all my beautiful romantic dreams, which, although probably pathetic, have helped me to escape from a life that was getting more miserable by the day, are totally gone. Jake and Millandra are so real to me that I can practically see them. I know what they’re going to say, what they like to eat; I even know what their favourite colours are, for God’s sake! They’re my friends.
And it feels like James has just murdered them.
‘Oh dear,’ shouts James, through the letter box, where he’s been retrieving the ring. ‘It’s not very nice when something that you’ve slaved over is deliberately destroyed, is it? Still, why don’t you sit on a cactus? That’ll cheer you up.’
I dash the tears away with the back of my hand. I’m not going to sink to his level. I won’t even dignify him with a reply. Instead I crumple the few pieces that I have retrieved into a sad soggy ball and drop it back into the puddle. There’s no point in scrabbling around like a creature demented. Heart of the Highwayman, along with my home and my relationship, has gone for ever.
I’d better call a cab and load up my bin bags. Not that I’m sure where I’m taking them, since I seem to have lost my best friend as well as my fiancé.
I scroll through my mobile’s phone book, looking for people I can call on in a crisis. People who won’t mind if a red-eyed, snotty-nosed Katy turns up with her life in tatters and snivels on them for a few days, people who’ll call James a bastard, make me endless mugs of tea and dish out sympathy.
Ollie. No way. I scroll past him. If this morning’s version of sympathy is anything to go by, I’ll be suicidal by teatime.
My sister Holly? My finger hovers over the call button. Can I really face that dark flat in Cambridge, the endless fascination with maths and the long psychoanalytical conversations that Holly and her intellectual friends love to have? Since my mental gymnastics are on a par with my physical fitness, I’m not convinced I’m up for it.
Maddy? Can I bear to explain all this in front of Saint Richard? I think I’d rather stick pins in my eyes, to be honest.
Auntie Jewell. She’ll take me in without any questions asked, but is it fair at her age? How about if I only stay a few days? We can drink pink gin and talk about the war and watch UK Gold all day. That’s exactly what I need to do.
My finger dives down and dials. Heart pounding, I listen to the phone ring and imagine it shrilling in the cool black and white tiled hall in the Hampstead house. I wait and wait but there’s no answer. She could be anywhere. St-Tropez, Mum and Dad’s, or just meditating naked in the drawing room (don’t even ask).
Bugger. A cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge it is then.
And knowing my luck, all of those will be taken.
The early sunshine is starting to turn a sickly hue and the sky is swollen with lemony-yellow clouds. A cool wind whisks up the remains of Jake and Millandra and spots of rain patter softly on the bin bags. Experience tells me that fairly soon there’ll be a downpour of the type only found in London, where the rain leaves the skin gritty, cars hiss through shallow puddles and people scuttle by with their heads bowed against the spray. Not really ideal conditions to be sitting on the pavement with all my worldly goods. With a heavy sigh, I decide that I’d better move my bags away from the gutter and come up with some kind of a plan pdq, because it doesn’t look as though James is going to take pity on me. In fact he’s put the blinds down and turned his stereo up.
Cheers then.
Thanks for the past four years, Katy!
And all the blow jobs.
Bastard.
It’s a sad thing to be almost thirty years old, homeless and sitting in the gutter with the last four years of your life crammed into bin bags. I heave the bags along the pavement, almost sobbing in frustration when they tear and spew my belongings all over the tarmac. Bugger Richard, I decide grimly, I’m going to have to call Maddy.
I’m just rooting around in my bag for my mobile when there’s a hideous screech of brakes and a blast of a car horn. An ancient, bright yellow Capri complete with Dukes of Hazzard-style musical horn skims me by inches and comes to an abrupt halt. The acrid scent of burning rubber drifts on the wind and the road now has an impressive set of tyre marks. I don’t so much jump as orbit the moon several times. Thank God I got the bin bags out of the way when I did, I think, and myself too, otherwise I’d be nothing more than a splat of Katy jam. And wouldn’t that make James’s day?
I flick a V at the reckless driver who has narrowly avoided putting me out of my misery. Then the car pulls up just feet in front of me. Fantastic. Dumped, homeless and now embroiled in a road-rage attack. Whatever I did in a past life to deserve all this crappy karma just doesn’t bear thinking about.
‘Well, there’s gratitude for you!’ The door creaks open and Frankie unfurls his long limbs from within. Loud fart sounds follow as his leather trousers peel away from the nasty plastic seats. ‘Shall we go back?’
This question is addressed to Ollie, who’s leapt out of the passenger door and is surveying my bag-lady look in amazement. Fortunately the stripy bathrobe has been replaced by a faded pair of Levis and a baggy sweater, so the good citizens of Allington Crescent won’t have to blush. Unlike me, as I remember our heated row of earlier on.
‘That’s never your car?’ I ask Frankie.
‘I borrowed it.’ Frankie pulls off his Raybans. ‘It belongs to Ricky from the Queens. I won’t begin to tell you the favours I now owe him, darling. Suffice it to say that Ollie owes me big time.’
‘He does?’ I’m a bit stunned. Frankie is twirling his feather boa and Ollie is glaring up at the kitchen window. Perhaps it’s shock but I feel like I’m in a very surreal dream.
‘What’s going on?’ asks Ollie, taking in the bin bags and assorted flotsam and jetsam of my life.
‘I’m moving house,’ I tell him. ‘James has been very busy literally thro
wing my belongings out.’
Ollie shakes his head. ‘He really is a wanker, Katy. I know you’re upset but believe me, you’re well out of it.’
Actually, I feel numb rather than heartbroken. I’m more devastated by the loss of my notebook than I am about the loss of my fiancé. I expect my broken heart will come later. There’s bound to be lots of weeping into my pillow in the dark depths of the night and desperate plotting to win James back, along with the obligatory crash diet, disastrous life-changing haircut and listening to mournful Enya CDs. But right now I’m too stunned to feel anything apart from a growing sense of relief that I won’t have to be shoehorned into Vera Wang after all. Jeez. That would have been like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into the tube.
‘I’m going up to sort this.’ Ollie’s striding towards the door. ‘He can’t just throw you out like that. You’ve got rights, you know, Katy. It’s your home too.’
‘No!’ I grab his sleeve and tug him back. The last thing I want is a scene. ‘Leave it.’
‘Leave it? You’ve paid into that place. You can’t just let him chuck you out. I’m going to go and speak to him.’ Ollie hammers on the door. ‘Open up! I want a word with you!’
By ‘a word’ he means that he wants to thump him. I bet James is cowering behind the Chubb locks, chains and peephole. He’s so security-conscious that our flat makes Fort Knox look sloppy in terms of security. Ollie’s got more hope of flying to the moon this afternoon than he has of getting in there.
‘Ollie, please stop,’ I plead. ‘It’s James’s flat, not mine. It always has been.’ And as I say this I realise it’s true: everything in there has been chosen by James, has his taste stamped on it and reeks of understated expense. It’s a bummer losing my security, but there’s nothing about the Allington Crescent flat that will break my heart to leave behind.
‘Let’s get this lot into the car then.’ Ollie gathers up the heavy bags as though they’re made of tissue paper. ‘It’s going to pour down any minute.’
‘What are you doing?’
He fixes me with a look normally reserved for his thicker students. ‘I’m putting your things in the car. We’ll drive them back to Southall and sort you out.’
‘I’m fine,’ I insist. ‘I was just about to call Maddy. I thought I’d see if I could go there.’
‘Well, that’s one idea,’ Ollie says. ‘But you need to get this lot moved and make some plans. And run it by the Rev, I would have thought. So let’s take you back to mine first.’
‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Not after what you said earlier.’
‘Oh come on,’ Ollie sighs. ‘I didn’t mean any of it the way you took it. I was just so bloody annoyed. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I will in future, honest, so just put your sodding things in the car, will you? Or would you rather stand out in the rain?’
‘I’ll come back for a bit,’ I say grudgingly. ‘Just until I’m sorted.’
‘Fine.’ Ol makes light work of scooping up a bin bag. ‘It’s entirely up to you.’
I squeeze into the Capri. Catching a glimpse of myself in the rear-view mirror is a hideous experience. I need a gallon of Optrex and ten tons of Clarins Beauty Flash Balm to even look halfway to human. No wonder Ollie thinks James needed Jewell’s money to persuade him to be with me. I’m almost inclined to agree.
‘What’s all this?’ Frankie leans across, holding handfuls of what looks like handwriting-covered confetti. ‘Is it yours?’
Ollie inclines his head to look. Of course he recognises my writing. And I know that he understands exactly what James has done.
‘Bastard,’ he breathes.
‘It’s rubbish,’ I say. ‘James was right.’
‘He bloody wasn’t.’ Ollie shakes his head. ‘It was great. I loved reading about Millandra’s nipples.’
I give him a watery smile. ‘Millandra’s nipples are no more so you’ll just have to find another fantasy.’
‘Oh well,’ he shrugs. ‘Jordan on a trampoline it is then.’ Meeting my eye he gives me a wink, and despite the fact that this is a seriously shit day, right up there with the time that my pet hamster died, my spirits lift a little. If I’ve still got my friends, I think I’ll just about get through it.
As the car pulls away I crane my neck and look back at my old flat and my old life as both vanish into the past. Is it my imagination, or does the blind twitch at the kitchen window? I can’t tell.
Then the car turns the corner and we’re away.
How weird that nothing is left of yesterday’s life except a car full of black plastic. I’m nearly thirty years old and this is all the last four years amounts to. My life is easily crammed into bin liners. It’s like I was never there.
Apart a few pieces of torn-up paper whirling in the breeze, lost, aimless and useless.
I close my eyes.
I know exactly how that feels.
Late that evening I’m in Ollie’s spare room again, minus Frankie thank God, munching on a doorstep of Dairy Milk that Ol has thoughtfully provided. I’m snuggled beneath my duvet and swigging a bottle of Blossom Hill that I’ve discovered in the barren depths of Ollie’s fridge. Frankie and Ollie have gone out to a Screaming Queens gig, which means I’ve got the house to myself for the evening, apart from Sasha, who’s opted to stay on suicide watch. She’s pretty crap at it because all she’s done is launch herself on to the bed and fall into a sound sleep, paws and nose twitching and tail wagging as she dreams exciting red setter dreams that probably involve ripping up contracts and smashing Apple Macs.
‘I haven’t forgiven you,’ I tell her sternly. ‘This is all your fault. And yours!’ I call out to Pinchy, who’s floating in the bath and feasting on some very expensive fish food. ‘Both of you are to blame.’
So this is what my life has come to. Talking to lobsters and drinking wine from the bottle.
‘No way,’ I say to Sasha. ‘It’s time to sort out my life. Things can only get better, right?’
Sasha opens one bleary eye and then closes it again.
‘Well, I bloody hope so,’ I mutter. ‘Think I’ll top myself now otherwise.’
Ollie has installed me in his spare room while I ‘sort my shit out’. This might take a few millennia, as there’s a sewage farm’s worth of shit to sort.
I haven’t unpacked yet, so all my junk is still strewn around the room. It looks as though I’m about to have a jumble sale. My bags are on the floor, my clothes thrown across the bed and I’m wearing Ollie’s tracksuit bottoms and thick walking socks; just as well really because this place is freezing. It might be early spring but the temperature is unseasonably low, and in Ollie’s house central heating is a fanciful concept rather than a reality. I pull the duvet up to my chin and sigh.
James might be a pain sometimes, but there’s a lot to be said for under-floor heating.
On my lap is a spiral notepad. I’m going to make a list and sort my life out. Lists are cool! I’m really good at them. I make hundreds of them at work, detailing all the books that I have to mark, kids I need to see and things I need to buy from Sainsbury’s.
Yes! I’m fab at making lists of things to do.
Sadly, though, I’m not so fab at crossing off the things I’ve done or, if I’m honest, actually doing them.
But today I must knuckle down and take things seriously. I’m nearly thirty and it’s time I took control of my life. No more James, no more Cordelia and no more waiting for things to happen. I’m going to be proactive.
Now, just how shall I go about this? I chew the pen thoughtfully. It’s all very exciting really. If I don’t think about the gap on my ring finger and the sad sense that all my dreams have evaporated, of course.
My new life starts today. This could be my chance to be the new improved Katy Carter Independent! Single! Slim!
Once I’ve polished off this Dairy Milk, obviously.
I click my pen, put Jake and Millandra to the back of my mind, and start to write.
1. Find
somewhere to live
2. Find fabulous new boyfriend
3. Lose two stone
4. Write bestseller
There! I have a life plan. Number one is easy. Ollie has said I can crash here for a while, and now that we’ve put the strange events of this morning behind us, things are pretty much back to normal.
It’s a bit weird living in a boy house — you know, all stereo gubbins and vast telly and DVDs but bugger all in the way of cushions and lamps and homely stuff. Not that this matters because I’m not going to stay for long. Once I’ve finished this list I’m calling Mads and inviting myself over to Lewisham. Richard can hardly turn away a soul in need, can he? That’s got to be against his vicarly duty.
Number two is a bit harder; maybe that would be more logical after step number three. And two stone? I frown and put a line through that. Ol practically lives on Indian takeaways and it would be rude not to join him. Maybe I’ll make that one stone. I’ll cut out the lunchtime chips or something.
Don’t be ridiculous, Katy! I cross out one and write half. I need my strength at lunchtime. Who could battle Year 11 on an empty stomach? Just you try, Jamie Oliver. Salads, my bum! Only a massive plate of stodge gets me through until three thirty. I’ll just run up the stairs a bit more often. That should do it.
Number four. I pause. Slightly more tricky. What I really need is some time out and some inspiration. I can just picture myself striding across the moors like Emily Brontë, and writing purple prose. Or maybe I’ll just write a book all about James’s evil mother.
On second thoughts nobody would believe it. Cordelia makes Lady Macbeth look like Little Bo Peep. Perhaps I’ll ask Ollie if I can borrow the English Department laptop and resurrect Jake and Millandra. I know that the laptop is supposed to work the funky interactive whiteboard, but nobody at Sir Bob’s has managed to suss that out yet. Ollie just shows videos (‘Media studies!’ he protests when questioned) while the laptop collects dust or plays endless games of Tomb Raider. I’ll be doing Lara Croft a favour. The poor girl must be getting RSI from all those suggestive poses that Ollie loves to put her in.
Katy Carter Wants a Hero Page 9