Growing Up Twice

by Rowan Coleman

  My work phone beeps a long single beep which means it’s an internal call and the display tells me it is my boss, Georgie.

  ‘Hello, Georgie.’ I try to remember to sound a bit croaky.

  ‘All right, darling? How are you today?’ When I read Georgie da Silva’s name on my interview letter three years ago I pictured some horsy long-faced Sloane, fished out my fake pearls and turned up the collar of my shirt especially for the occasion. When I met her and found out that she was an East End princess with a thing about new-age alternative Eastern therapy I couldn’t have been more surprised. But it’s partly her faddy experiments with crystals, feng shui and the like that make life here fun. She is a brick really, I feel bad lying to her. But not enough so I can’t live with it.

  ‘Yeah, much better thanks. I think it was one of those forty-eight-hour things, you know.’ I cough, pretty realistically I think.

  ‘Those girls giving you trouble?’ She is referring to the call-centre team I am in charge of (in theory), two of whom are actually boys. In practice, I think I just preside over the natural rhythms of their work pattern: gossip until ten, work like bastards until one, dawdle around until three and then pretend to file until it’s time to go home. I don’t mind really, my pattern is the same. As long as the calls get picked up and I don’t get any customer complaints and we meet our targets, I don’t mind. It’s not exactly the world’s most dynamic career but at least I can afford good shoes, which goes a long way towards making up for a lack of personal fulfilment any day of the week.

  ‘No, they’re a good bunch, really,’ I say.

  ‘The floor looks a mess, doesn’t it?’ she says.

  Oh no, here we go again. The paper will be blocking the flow of our chi and causing a build-up of negative forces or something.

  ‘Do you think? I’ll get them to do a tidy-up,’ I say, thinking there isn’t a cat in hell’s chance.

  ‘No. I’ve got an idea I want to go over with you. Pop over and see me, will you?’ And in a typically Georgie style she hangs up without saying goodbye.

  Emerging from my little office, I pick my way through old photocopying paper boxes full of, well, old photocopying, navigate my way around the green bags of rubbish that accumulate by the recycling bin and stop short at the fax where the orders seem to have piled up beyond the collecting tray and are now fluttering on to the floor.

  ‘Carla,’ I turn to the youngest member of the team, who is clearly going to have to work for at least five years before she’s any good at anything, much like myself at her age, ‘can you pick up these faxes and distribute them amongst the team, please?’ I turn to the floor as a whole.

  ‘Ladies, and Kevin and Brian, can you please try and remember that we are here to process sales, therefore when orders come through on the fax we need to deal with them quickly? Thank you!’ There is a general murmur and a couple of them get up from their desks and come to help Carla sort out the pile of orders. Well, Brian and Kevin actually, Carla being exceptionally pretty, with her waxed blonde curls piled up on her head and her very short skirt making the most of her very long legs. Sometimes I wish my powers extended to enforcing a dress code.

  A couple of years ago I was the one slacking behind my VDU and ignoring the hum of the faxes. I never thought I’d get to the stage where I was confident enough, efficient enough and grown up enough to run a team of people every day, it just sort of crept up on me. It’s a bit scary when I think about it.

  Georgie has her feet up on her desk and the crystal that hangs above her chair glints in the sunlight that I can’t see from my office. She is an attractive woman, and looks exactly the way I want to look when I’m her age: pretty in a mature way, with clear blue eyes that are surrounded by pleasant laughter lines when she smiles. Of course I have the laughter lines; I just don’t find them very pleasant just yet.

  ‘Ah, hello love … ooh, you do look a bit peaky.’ I nod pathetically and cough a bit. I’m not offended. I am the sort of person who does look peaky at the drop of a hat; it’s the pale complexion and dark hair that does it.

  ‘You want to get some Echinacea down your neck, that’ll sort you out sharpish.’ And she shoves a couple of brown-looking capsules at me, which I pocket with a grateful smile and a plan to dispose of them later.

  ‘Now. Hypnosis, what do you think of it?’

  ‘Well, in what context do you mean?’ I can’t figure out where she’s going with this one. The Christmas party maybe?

  ‘You know, like, helping you give up fags, stop being afraid of spiders, lose weight, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Yes, well, it certainly seems to work for some people,’ I nod. It’s best to be noncommittal on these occasions or before you know it she’ll have you enrolled in a retreat for Buddhist nuns for six weeks.

  ‘Well, anyway, hypnotherapy. I’m thinking of having you all done.’ And she waves her hand expansively towards the now seemingly orderly office floor. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Done?’ I am almost afraid to ask.

  ‘Yes, a group hypnotherapy session to make you all tidier. You know, something along the lines of seeing your in-tray full of paper making you feel compelled to process and file it. What do you think?’ she repeats.

  I’m silent for a moment. The air-conditioning makes the wind chime by the door tinkle and I can see a tiny spider busily weaving a web between the leaves of her money plant.

  ‘You see, Georgie,’ I say slowly, ‘the thing is, hypnotism used in that way might, you know, contravene the basic human right of free will – don’t you agree?’

  She looks disappointed. ‘I thought it might be a bit iffy, but I thought, well, as it helps everyone to improve themselves it might not be a bad thing? And we’ve got this American due to visit any day now, so I thought it couldn’t hurt to make a good impression.’

  ‘Yes, but there is something faintly megalomaniac-fascist-despot about that way of thinking, isn’t there?’

  ‘Well … if you say so. What about an early-morning yoga class?’

  ‘Super,’ I say, wanting to cheer her up even though the likelihood of the young ones getting in early enough or the more mature ones being arsed is slim.

  ‘Really?’ She smiles.

  ‘Great idea. Count me in.’

  She smiles again and starts flicking through her Rolodex. ‘I’ll sort someone out now. Oh and Jen, love, there are some special deals I want you to take the team through today. We’re launching them tomorrow; the targets are on the sheets.’ She hands me our new project.

  As I walk back to my desk Carla is sitting on Kevin’s desk and conspicuously holding a piece of paper as if it were her passport to flirting. When she sees me coming she gives him a little smile and goes back to her desk.

  ‘We’ve caught up on those faxes, Jenny,’ she says as I go past.

  ‘Super,’ I say, in a boss-like fashion. ‘Well done.’ And I walk back to my desk, still in awe that anyone pays attention to anything I say.

  Chapter Eleven

  One thing after another happens at work and I get in about fifteen minutes before the taxi is supposed to pick us up to go to Selin’s mum’s. Rosie is waiting for me, reclining on the black velveteen sofa in a nice pair of khaki linen trousers from Hobbs, her yellow hair in a neat French pleat and her face perfectly made up, all peaches-and-cream natural. By her feet there are three old cups of tea, two small plates with toast crumbs on and an empty foil carton that contained Chinese food some time last week. I get a little heavy feeling in my heart and I am glad the time is coming when we must finally be tidy.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, absent-mindedly staring at the TV.

  ‘Hi, how was the doctor’s?’ Aware that I won’t have time for my planned shower I sit at the three-legged table and reapply the make-up that I keep there over the make up that I put on this morning. Rosie, who would no sooner consider doing such a thing than she would eat leftover take-away out of a rubbish bin, looks at me with distaste.

  ‘You’ll
clog your pores and your skin won’t be able to breathe and then you’ll go all grey and get spots, and then when you’ve got spots and wrinkles don’t come running to me for a miracle cure. The doctor was very nice. She gave me official confirmation and a leaflet. I have to make appointments for scans and things after that. You’ll come with me, won’t you?’ She waves a bit of pink paper at me and I nod mutely, contorted, as I try to drag the mascara brush through my already-mascaraed lashes.

  ‘Oh, God, I look like a drag queen,’ I say when I examine my handiwork. Talk of the baby seems like a distant reality. Almost like our childhood discussions of what we wanted to be when we grew up.

  ‘There are three messages for you, all from Owen. One polite, one whiny, one pissed off.’ I look at the blinking red number three on the answerphone and without any hesitation I press Delete. We both watch it as it makes its little whirring and clicking noises and resets itself to nought. I had hoped he wouldn’t call again, a vain wish, I suppose, given his track record. He’s not a man who likes to be ignored. It crossed my mind in the early hours of this morning that maybe seeing him would be the best way to get him to leave me alone, but as soon as the weary sun had pushed its way through my bedroom curtains I knew it would be madness. The best thing to do is to put him out of my mind and move on. Funny really, not so long ago I would have been pacing the floor, desperate for him to call me again.

  I pick up my comb and I’m pulling it though my hair when the buzzer goes, making us both jump, as it always has every time it has rung as long as I’ve lived here.

  ‘Here he is, right on time.’ Rosie waves down to Kaled, a driver from the taxi office over the road. She has an account with the firm for work purposes and during the course of several trips took a particular shine to Kaled, whom she now asks for by name. He has even given her his private mobile number, which she does not hesitate to use much to the annoyance of his girlfriend and the pleasure of Kaled. In fact, over the last few months they have become firm and, by all accounts, platonic friends. I check my bag, keys, purse, inhaler, cheque-book (you never know) and phone, still switched on and three bars of battery showing. Still no call from Michael and the end of day four approaches.

  In the taxi Rosie sits in the front seat and chats away to Kaled nine to the dozen about the baby, the house move, Owen and anything else she can think of. It’s really nice to see her so relaxed and laughing; those two really get on well. I think they will miss each other a bit, or at least they would if it wasn’t for the fact that Rosie has already invited him to our moving-in party for the flat we have yet to acquire. It’s a shame Rosie can’t have such an easy and open friendship with all the men in her life, but then again none of us lives up to that ideal very often.

  Chapter Twelve

  The bottom of Green Lanes where the Mehmet family business and home is located is always busy and the traffic is always heavy. The many Turkish restaurants and cafés are always full, mostly of men drinking coffee and whisky and just talking.

  The accountancy firm Mehmet & Mehmet has a shop front covered by venetian blinds and a brown-and-cream sign with back lighting that Selin’s dad is extremely proud of. He had it installed the day that Selin passed her first set of accountancy exams. Selin grew up in this house and the rest of her family still live in the two-storey turn-of-the-century apartment above the building, part of a dark and ornate red-brick block complete with turrets, tower and ornate balconies that now sits uneasily over rows of newsagents, mini-marts and pizza places. As we press the buzzer Rosie and I exchange glances, feeling nervous.

  ‘Have you brought some wine?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, red so that I won’t be tempted,’ she says – she hates red wine.

  ‘And have you got the stuff?’ She winks at me and opens the blue carrier bag to show me. We are prepared.

  Ayla, Selin’s ridiculously pretty and slender sixteen-year-old little sister, opens the door to us. She has her hair smoothed back into a neat bun and two long gelled ringlets hang just below her jawbone. With the family olive skin and molten brown eyes she is a beautiful young woman.

  ‘All right?’ she says with a bright smile and kisses each of us on both cheeks.

  ‘Looking forward to the new term?’ I ask lamely, hating the fact that I sound like my Auntie Marge. As we follow her up the stairs I notice that she has literally no bottom. I guess she would think I was a mad old fogey if I asked her where she got her hipster jeans shot through with a silver shimmer. Jeans like that are a long-distant memory for my hips.

  ‘Yeah, thanks,’ she replies cheerily. ‘I’ve made some new mates already. Quite a few of the girls who’ll be in my class have summer jobs at Sainsbury’s too. They’re really cool.’ I’m pleased about that. Ayla was very shy as a child and watching her gradually come out of her shell as she grows up has been a pleasure to see. Last year she had to move school as for no apparent reason she had become the target of some bullies. Despite her best efforts to face it out and numerous trips with her parents to see the head the problem continued. Ayla had had a terrible time. She lost weight, broke out in a rash and cried all the time, until her GP tried to prescribe her Prozac. The only solution it seemed was to move her to a new school. Shy and sensitive as she was with strangers, it took her a little bit of time to settle in to the new school so I was really pleased when she made new friends and managed to take her exams despite all the upset, ready to start back at the lower sixth.

  ‘How were your GCSEs? Selin said you did well.’ That’s it. I have been possessed by the ghost of my Auntie Marge, and she’s not even dead.

  ‘I got nine: four As and four Bs and a C for maths. Dad wants me to retake it.’ She looks over her shoulder and rolls her eyes at us.

  ‘Nine?’ Rosie chimes in. ‘How can you have nine? You must be a genius. That’s bloody millions. I only got four.’ She taps me on the shoulder. ‘How many did you get?’

  ‘I got five, but we did O-levels back then, it was different.’

  ‘Yeah, much harder for starters,’ Rosie says, and it’s my turn to look over my shoulder and roll my eyes at her, secretly thinking she is right. ‘Rosie, GCSEs are equally difficult and hard,’ I say out loud.

  ‘Yeah, and don’t forget Selin got nine O-levels and an A in maths, as my dad is always telling me,’ Ayla says lightly and without malice. Damn it, she’s right. Rosie and I were just lazy and preoccupied with clothes and boys. Selin wasn’t lazy, and she was preoccupied with clothes and boys and algebra. It’s a winning combination.

  We are led into the warm and bright sitting-room, which is covered in original seventies wallpaper that has just come back into fashion. Selin comes out of the kitchen to kiss us both. She has twisted her copious black hair into an unruly up-do and is wearing her favourite red silk shirt, and she looks gorgeous. Mrs Selin, elegant and curvaceous, follows, kisses us both on each cheek and offers us some Hula Hoops in a little glass dish. Then the baby of the family – the child that was a surprise after the surprise of Ayla – Hakam, who is just eleven, is pushed our way. After vigorous and physical prompting from his mother he comes and kisses us both and then looks as if he wants to vomit.

  ‘You wait,’ his mother says, ruffling his hair. ‘In a few years you won’t be able to wait to kiss beautiful women like these two and you’ll wish you got the chance more often.’ Everyone laughs; Selin digs Ayla in the ribs and they wink at each other. Hakam, who will one day be very handsome, goes a lovely deep rosy colour and sticks out his bottom lip. I think about Michael, briefly, who seven years ago might have been going that special kind of red-haired-person pink at being forced to kiss family friends. Seven years ago I had my second-ever job as the world’s worst PA to a very tolerant boss who used to do all his own typing because I couldn’t. I was seeing a philosophy student with a beard at the time; he was a lot of laughs.

  ‘You girls sit in here and have a glass of wine. Ayla, come and help me in the kitchen.’ Ayla sighs, rolls her eyes again and follows her mum to the kitc
hen. Hakam, seeing a temporary escape route, legs it up the stairs to his PlayStation. Poor kid. Being the youngest in a house regularly full of dominating women can’t be easy.

  ‘Dad’s gone out to fetch some wine,’ Selin smiles, as she throws herself in an armchair, swinging her legs over the arm. ‘So? To what do I owe this pleasure?’ She knows that something unusual has happened as we hardly ever come to visit her. It’s not that we don’t see her all the time. It’s just that for some reason, coming back to the place where we grew up has always seemed like a pointless exercise when there is so much to see and do out there. My mum moved out of town with my older brother a few years back when my niece was born. Rosie’s mum went to live in Florida with an American she met whilst working as a tour guide at Tower Bridge. Both our sets of parents divorced in the eighties and neither of us really knows our dad any more although Rosie has tea with hers about twice a year and he gives her money. I know mine lives in Battersea with his clichéd ex-secretary second wife, who is about six years older than me. He wears a leather bomber jacket, drives a sports car and has a firm belief that his comb-over makes him look less bald. Despite my efforts to make sure he has always had a number to contact me on, he never calls me and on the few disastrous occasions when I’ve seen him since he left he patently wishes he could be elsewhere, back in the life where he can forget he ever had a former family. For a long time, I thought there must be something I could do to build bridges, but gradually I realised that he just didn’t want to know. It made me feel like an over-persistent, clingy ex-girlfriend.

  But on the way here tonight, seeing the school we all used to go to and the café we used to drink Coke in after school, hoping to get a look at the sixth-form hunks, made me smile. These places and others, like the bus shelter where I avidly kissed my first boyfriends in full view of the poor commuters, and the park in which we cracked open those first illicit bottles of Lambrusco, formed such a seminal part of my early life that they suddenly seem inviting and reassuring once again. There must be something about getting older that makes reminiscing pleasant and the country of your childhood a safe haven. Just at this moment, though, that country seems very far away. Of all the news we’ve broken to each other over the years, this must be the biggest.