by Jenny Colgan
She nodded sternly. ‘Yes. But this is a very efficient business. Naturally, we don’t put up with any hanky-panky.’
‘No, ma’am,’ I said.
She loved the ‘ma’am’ thing, I noted instantly.
‘Well, we’ll be letting you know,’ she said, rising imperiously to her feet.
‘Thank you very much, ma’am.’
I practically walked out backwards.
I hung around that night, desperate for the phone to ring before I had to head up the hill – possibly for the last time.
‘… Then I thought I’d say, “Tash, I’m sorry you didn’t get better womb nutrition and have no prospects, but just LEAVE ME ALONE!”’ I announced for Josh’s benefit.
‘And, for the boys, I thought I’d pity them too. Kind of like, “Isn’t it a shame you’re just so deeply ignorant?”’
Josh was chopping vegetables, but he stopped to look up at me. ‘You don’t think that’s a little … well, you know, deeply deeply fascist?’
‘I think it’s only fair after what they’ve put me through. Really, I’m very humanitarian.’
‘Ah yes, Mr Gandhi.’
‘Exactly. I mean, it’s not as if I’d ever have the balls to say any of it.’
‘You could try, if you feel that strongly about it.’
Kate wandered in, and waved approximately, too exhausted to talk.
‘Yes, and die in the attempt.’
I thought for a bit.
‘Josh, you know, I lie all day long and think horrid things about people. Do you think I’m morally bad?’
Josh turned on the food processor for a minute to think about it.
‘Don’t turn on the food processor to give yourself time to think about it! You should know immediately!’
‘I don’t think you are.’ This was from Kate. That was unexpected. ‘I think you’re normal. Lying all day long and secretly wanting to kill people is human nature.’
‘Hmm, I don’t know if I want to kill them, as such.’
‘I don’t …’ Josh’s forehead creased up in concentration. ‘I don’t think bad things about people. Or at least I don’t think I do.’
Kate and I glanced at each other and Kate rolled her eyes. It was true actually. Josh was really quite ‘good’, in a primary school sense. The only reason we didn’t hate him too was that he was a very easy tease and he cooked.
‘Yes, but you’re sickeningly nice,’ said Kate. ‘You’re different and weird.’
There was a moment’s pause.
‘No, actually, I am thinking nasty thoughts about somebody now,’ said Josh, turning the food processor back on. Kate and I shared a rare moment of bonding and grinned at each other when, thank God, the phone rang.
‘JOSH! TURN THE FOOD PROCESSOR OFF!’ I yelled, flapping my hands up and down.
‘Oh yes, just boss around sweet old, pushed around “he’s too nice” Josh,’ he grumbled.
‘SHUT IT!’ I yelled, just as Kate picked up the phone.
‘Holly Livingstone’s office,’ she said sweetly as I winced and lunged for the receiver. She held it at arm’s length.
‘Yes, she’s here … May I ask who’s calling?’
I jumped up and down on the lino in frustration and made clawing motions with my hands.
‘I’ll just see if she’s free.’
Finally she handed the phone over.
‘Hellayer!’ I said in my best posh telephone voice. ‘This is Holly Livingstone.’
‘Hellayer!’ said the voice back, so I instantly knew it was Big Lady.
‘This is Mrs Bigelow’ – oh, that’s why I hadn’t been able to remember her name – ‘of That Special Someone. We’ve decided to offer you the post of Floral Executive. Nine to six, five days a week, alternate Saturdays off.’
Then she named the salary, which although more than I was getting for shift work down at NCG was still, I could practically guarantee, lower than that of every single person I went to college with, even that enormous girl with egg down her front and her glasses stuck together who treated English as if it wasn’t her first language, even though it was, and the Art Historians.
‘Great! That’s great!’ I stuttered, then remembered I was supposed to be the kind of person who would be fielding job offers constantly. ‘I mean, I think that will be suitable. When would you wish me to start?’
‘Saturday?’
Oh no. Saturday was my Natural History Museum date.
‘Will Monday be all right? I wouldn’t like to leave my former employers in the lurch.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, flustered. ‘Of course, I absolutely agree. Employee loyalty is extremely important here at That Special Someone.’
So it was settled. Kate nearly slapped me for not renegotiating my salary offer when it would clearly be all such a high-ranking employee would deserve.
I debated with myself briefly whether to just blow off New Covent Garden completely, but couldn’t quite bring myself to do so, and pedalled in an insouciant three-quarters of an hour late.
‘You wouldn’t have got away with those kinds of hours during the war, you know,’ muttered Johnny as I swung into the forecourt.
‘Actually, I’m sorry – I got bombed on the way here and had to stop and rescue some orphans from the rubble. Is that OK? Also, I quit.’
‘Well, just get in there and get started.’
‘Johnny, didn’t you hear me? I just quit. I’ll work tonight, then you can pay me and I’ll be off.’
He stared at me, surprised.
‘So, you’re off then.’
‘That would be my definition of “to quit”, yes.’
He nodded his head slowly.
‘What are you going to do?’
I decided to brighten up his evening.
‘I’m going to join the army.’
‘Are you really?’
‘Absolutely. Going to continue with your valiant efforts to protect this country through the twin poles of duty and flowers.’
‘Ah, get away with you, you liar.’
‘I’ll miss you,’ I said.
He shrugged at me. ‘No, you won’t. In you go. Go clean up the daffodil line.’
I parked the bike and tiptoed into the vast shed.
‘TinBits!’ yelled one of the boys. ‘Where have you been? Wanking behind the melons just hasn’t been the same without you.’
It gave me a grim satisfaction to realize how little I was going to miss this place.
About halfway into the shift, the moment I’d been dreading arrived. Tash sidled up to me, her yellow teeth glinting.
‘Bit late tonight, weren’t we? Didn’t learn to tell the time at college then?
I didn’t say anything.
‘Forgotten how to talk as well?’
Oh God, I was too old for this.
‘Piss off, Tash,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m leaving.’
‘WHAT did you say?’ she said. ‘Hey, lads, did you hear this?’
I pretended to ignore her, and picked up my first box. Inside, I started trembling.
‘Miss Degree here just told me to piss off. Didn’t you?’ she said, pointing at me.
‘Tash, I really don’t want any trouble. It’s my last night, so you can go and find someone else to pick on, OK?’
‘Oh, diddums. Don’t want any trouble?’ She pushed her hand up under my box, so the flowers scattered all over the floor.
‘You think you’re just a bit too good for us here, don’t you?’ she said.
‘No,’ I said, meaning: ‘Yes, I hope so.’
‘Catfight!’ shouted one of the lads.
‘You think you’re just a little bit special; a bit above all this.’
‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ the lads picked up.
‘No, I don’t,’ I said, but caught my breath in surprise when she pushed me. The blood started to rush in my ears, but I certainly didn’t know how to fight. I leaned down to pick up the box, and she kicked me in the shoulder.
After that, everything seemed to rush. Immediately the boys and the other drooling girls formed a circle round us, and I was trapped. I got to my feet, wondering what on earth to do. Tash was looking at me, laughing.
‘Not quite so up on the smart remarks now, are we?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, leave it, Tash.’ I was trying to be reasonable, but my voice came out all shaky. Then, suddenly, like one of those flying vampires in the movies, she launched herself at me. I was falling backwards, and someone was clawing at my face and hair. A jumble of thoughts rushed through my head, not the least of which was: How embarrassing; my first fight at the age of twenty-eight.
My focus swam back in, and I realized she was sitting on top of me, getting ready to punch me. The boys were yelling, and I thought what a turn-on this must be for them. I tried to twist her off, but she slapped me hard on the side of the head. Oh God. My heart was beating a million miles an hour.
‘JUST FUCK OFF!’ I screamed. ‘FUCK OFF!’ She slapped me again, hard, then made her hand into a fist and drew it back to punch me.
She crunched into me with such force that my head rattled off the concrete. I was stunned by the violation and thought I was going to pass out; I wanted to. I couldn’t see anything, but suddenly she seemed to float off me; the weight was lifted and I wondered if I’d died and was having an out-of-body experience.
The next thing I knew, Johnny was pulling me up, brushing me down and exclaiming, ‘Girls fighting! I don’t know.’
‘I told you I was going to the wars,’ I snivelled, then realized I was crying, and there was snot and blood and tears all down my face. Tash was being held back by two of the lads, who were killing themselves laughing.
‘BITCH!’ she shrieked at me. ‘PATHETIC BITCH.’
I certainly wasn’t going to respond in any way that was going to antagonize her. In fact, I wasn’t going to stay another second.
‘I’m going home,’ I sniffed to Johnny.
‘We’ll have to get you cleaned up a bit, don’t you think? Could be quite a nasty shiner.’
‘NO!’ I said. ‘I’m going home NOW!’
‘Do you want me to phone someone to come and pick you up?’
‘No … I’ve got my bike and I just want to go HOME.’
‘All right then …’
He walked me to the bike, clearly concerned. Then he asked me to hang on a minute, nipped into his office and came out again with an envelope, which he handed to me.
‘Take care of yourself,’ he said. ‘You’re not as tough as you think you are.’
‘I think I’m as tough as a small mouse,’ I said. ‘And I’m still not as tough as I think I am.’
He clapped me avuncularly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t cycle too fast.’
I didn’t cycle at all, but wheeled my bike down the hill, crying and feeling very sorry for myself indeed. The road was quiet at that time of night, with only the occasional car flashing past me. I was glad. I didn’t want to be seen.
The house was cold and still, as usual. And after last week’s débâcle, I certainly wouldn’t be popping in to chat to Addison. Sniffing, I went off to the bathroom to clean myself up. I could feel my left eye very sore and swollen, and there were scratches over my eyebrow and down my cheek.
As I crept past Addison’s room, I spotted an amazing thing. Usually his door was tightly shut, a warning against any interruption. Tonight, however, it was open – just a tiny, tiny crack, barely noticeable, but definitely open. Was he out? No, it was just that my ears had become so inured to the tapping I didn’t hear it unless I was listening for it. Plus, of course, he never went out. And given that he did everything on purpose … he must have left it open for a reason. Could it be … could it be possible that he wanted to talk to me?
Desperate for some human sympathy, even of the completely mute kind, I pushed the door a little more. He was there, as ever, transfixed by the computer screen. As I walked in, though, he moved his swivel chair a little, turning away from the screen and towards me.
‘Addison …’ I said in a very small voice, and immediately burst into noisy sobs. ‘Addison!’
His face registered shock as he saw me, and he stood up. For the first time I noticed how tall he was, how long his legs were. I gazed at him, my lower lip wobbling uncontrollably.
‘Look at you,’ he said softly.
‘It wasn’t my fault!’ I snorted.
‘Did you get mugged?’
‘Ehm, no, I was in a fight … but it wasn’t my fault.’
He nodded, as if it didn’t surprise him for a second that I’d been in a fight.
‘Come on,’ he said, and I followed him into the bathroom. Completely helpless, I let him sit me down on the side of the bath and dab my wounds with TCP. Although my insides were still churning and I was very upset, nonetheless there was definitely something thrilling about Addison touching my face. This was practically a date. Then I caught sight of my face in the mirror.
‘Oh my GOD,’ I moaned. My eye was twice its normal size, and as pink and purple as a prize fighter’s.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Addison comfortingly. ‘Sit still.’
‘I can’t … I mean, I’ve got a date and a job and – oh GOD. Ouch! Where did you go to medical school?’
‘If it stings, that means it’s doing you good.’
‘Yeah, a bee said that to me once.’
‘Ssh,’ he said, uncoiling an Elastoplast on to my right cheek. ‘It’ll be a lot better in the morning.’
‘Will it be gone in the morning?’
‘Ehm … no, but it will be better.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, still gazing at him, my eyes still wet. For the first time ever, he smiled straight at me. I felt faint.
‘Get some sleep.’
‘OK.’ I toyed with the idea of feigning a few internal injuries so that he’d have to undress me, but remembered the other night and wisely decided against it.
I slept for ten hours, all the adrenaline flushing its way through my system. When I woke up the next afternoon, I rediscovered the envelope Johnny had given me. Inside were practically two weeks’ wages.
Josh couldn’t believe I’d been in a fight. He was unbelievably jealous. We’d decided that beer was really the only response to my ordeal – or white wine spritzer, if you were Kate – and the three of us had repaired to a new pub round the corner which, ideally for my benefit, mistook having the place in practically complete darkness for atmosphere.
I had pondered long and hard about whether to try and smother my eye – now vicious shades of yellow and green – in foundation, but this had only made me appear even more like a startled panda bear than I normally did, so I’d nitched that and gone the other way entirely, making up my right eye with dramatic eyeliner and green shadow. From a distance, it wasn’t too bad; I just looked like I’d escaped from a glam rock band, and sufficiently tarty and hard that you wouldn’t want to get any nearer. Close up, I was terrifying.
Kate, once she’d established that I hadn’t been raped or anything, could barely stop laughing. And Josh kept asking me stupid questions about whether or not the blood had rushed to my head. I pointed out that it had, and that it kept on rushing, straight out of my nose, and could he possibly be a bit more sensitive about it?
‘Yes, these playground warriors can get a bit uptight about their traditional fighting techniques,’ chided Kate. ‘Watch out, or she’ll give you a killer Chinese burn.’
‘Ha ha ha,’ I said, but stopped with my mouth hanging open as this unbelievably gorgeous guy loomed out of the darkness right in front of me.
Forgetting for a moment that I was tarted up like Marilyn Manson, I immediately tilted my profile up towards him, so that I could feel even more stupid when he swept right past me and went up and introduced himself to Kate.
Josh shot me a look of utter horror – how could this chap simply walk up to a group and introduce himself to a complete stranger? Then he sat back and waited for Kate to give the guy a
good rude brush off. Josh really doesn’t know much about women.
I mused for a moment that, if it weren’t for my black eye, Mr Deeply, Deeply Suave – who was wearing a grey cashmere top and a Burberry trench coat which matched Kate’s exactly – would have been after me first, but I couldn’t even kid myself: I got the nerdy scientist guys, Kate got the rich ones. He even seemed familiar, in an American way.
Sure enough, he was American, and soon Kate was giggling away – not one of nature’s gigglers, but she was giving it her best shot – and chatting happily to him, and the very next moment a bottle of champagne had miraculously arrived out of nowhere and he was pouring her some. Not us, only her. I assumed she would remedy this deeply unfair state of events immediately, but when I looked at her I noticed she had subtly adjusted her body language so it seemed as if she hadn’t even come in with us. And their heads were bent very close together. I was sure, still, that I’d seen him before.
Josh scuttled his chair round to me, muttering crossly.
‘I’m sorry, but we appear to have been barred from the international Burberry convention,’ I said to him, and he grunted. Then his face lit up.
‘I know, why don’t we have champagne? We can have fun, right?’
Kate and big beautiful thingy suddenly let out a pealing laugh.
‘Josh, their definition of fun is probably comparing international money markets. But I would very much like another Becks, if you’re buying. And some salt-and-vinegar crisps, which are essential medicine in the treatment of black eyes.’
Ridiculously, as the bar was trying to be trendy, it sold those cute teeny bottles of Moët & Chandon, and Josh returned laden with my beer, the crisps between his teeth, and a quarter bottle of champagne to himself, which he sipped morosely through a straw. I couldn’t help laughing and had to restrain myself from rubbing him on the head with my knuckles.
‘Don’t worry!’
‘How can I not worry? I’m twenty-eight years old and I haven’t had a girlfriend for three years!’
‘Or a boyfriend.’
‘Would you stop with that already.’ He pouted. ‘Some of us just … take a bit longer to get round to things than other people.’