One
Two months earlier
“ of the main reasons a gecko might shed its tail is due to bullying; if this happens, remove the bullied gecko from the vivarium and isolate it until the tail has regrown in order to avoid infection.”
I sigh. Now that I’ve reached the infectious lizard-skin-shedding bit of my writing marathon, I decide more wine is required. Reptiles Monthly pays well, better than any of my freelance writing. Still, it also involves building up an unexpectedly detailed anatomical knowledge of the mating habits of various types of turtles, scale-sores in grass snakes, and the less well-mannered aspects of a python’s dining rituals.
I head to the kitchen to top up my wine mug. Yes, mug. The dishwasher’s on, and I’m not Audrey Hepburn. I cast my mind back to my university self – the great aspiring film critic. All heavy eye shadow and faked attitude (and tan). To be fair, she’d probably be quite pleased with wine in a mug at 6pm on a Saturday. It’s very Shoreditch. The penguin pyjamas, messy hair, and unicorn-shaped slippers, possibly slightly less so. As for the fact that instead of championing Iranian cinema to the masses, I’m wordsmithing the grooming needs of scaly pets for a little read periodical… well, probably better not to dwell on what she’d make of that.
The beginning of my spiral into self-judgement is mercifully interrupted by the melodious bells of my phone. My heart immediately betrays me, and I get that familiar little pang that it’s Chris… that he’s had a change of heart and decided to get back in touch finally. I hate how quickly I dive for my phone, my mind full of the happiest of memories while skilfully suppressing the bad ones.
It’s my mother.
“Hello, Mother,” I mutter ungraciously.
“Hi, darling! Have you been drinking?” Instantly suspicious, my mother has a knack for picking up on the smallest of slurs in my voice.
“No. I’m working,” I mumble grumpily. “What is it?”
“I’m just phoning to say hello and, you know, check on how you’re doing.” Since Chris and I broke up six months ago, the awkward “How are you doing?” calls have significantly increased.
“I’m fine!”
She pounces. “You hesitated.”
“Really, Mum. I. Am. Fine. Totally, 100% fine,” I lie, wiping the corner of my eyes with my penguin sleeve. Why does someone asking how you are always weaken the floodgates?
Speaking of floodgates, it seems my mother’s penchant for drama has been unleashed in a tsunami of maternal concern.
“Well, your father and I wanted to check you’re OK. Being on the breadline in the world’s most expensive city, you know… When are you going to start writing for a proper paper? I know you can do it. Chris managed it; why don’t you give it a try?”
The reference to Chris and his fancy job as a sub-editor at The Economist is too much, and I let out an involuntary moan.
“Mum… Please don’t bring Chris into this. He’s a different kind of journalist.”
“Yes, a salaried one. With a pension. Could you…?”
“No, I couldn’t! His background and trajectory are totally different. I studied film. I want to write about film. It’s not the same.”
“Yes, but you’re not writing about films, are you? You’re writing about reptilian orgies or some such nonsense.”
“Mum, that was a significant piece on the mating habits of the very endangered Tunisian Fringe-Fingered Lizard. They don’t have orgies. It was a very important project to try and increase their numbers, and as a vet, I thought you would appreciate its importance! I can’t talk to you about this anymore. I need to get on with my writing.”
I manage to hang up five minutes later after promising to come home for the weekend soon to discuss My Future ? with her and Dad.
The thing is, I really loved Chris. We’d been together for five years, and I genuinely thought he was the one. God knows it was hard to meet new people in my hometown of Nowheresville, Cheshire, but when I met Chris, I just had this feeling . I knew. For most of my life, the only person I’d been able to talk to about writing was Bea, but everything changed after uni when I got a six-week internship at the Knutsford Gazette , our local newspaper, and Chris was at the next desk. Similar age, same dreams. I’d never really believed that sort of fairytale nonsense before (even though I’d faked it well during a brief stint writing horoscopes), but when he asked for my number in my final week, my stomach flipped. I knew, I just knew, that he wasn’t going to ghost me or mess me around. It turns out our parents knew each other, too. He attended the private school in Chester, but my mother and his were in the Knutsford church choir, and his parents had even been to Mum and Dad’s house for dinner. It was meant to be.
Everything was going so perfectly. We’d planned our big move to London and started excitedly making job applications. It was all so sweet and supportive; we’d read each other’s applications and edit each other’s writing samples. He was always just a bit ahead, but he was still my biggest supporter. And I didn’t mind that he got the first job he interviewed for, the one I spent so many hours coaching him on that I neglected my own interview prep. He became a reporter for some small but worthy Ezine on environmentalism, while I ended up getting an admin job at a charity. It didn’t matter, though; he still met me after my first day with prosecco and a smile like I’d won the Booker prize.
For me, the break-up came out of nowhere. He’d taken me to the Christmas markets in Krakow for the weekend to celebrate just after he’d got his foot in the door at The Economist , and I genuinely thought that now at least one of us had ‘made it’, he was going to propose. I’d spent all evening cooing at the wooden toys in the gorgeous little market stalls and squeezing his hand in mine as we walked through the winding streets, stopping to kiss at the beautiful displays of twinkling lights we passed. Every time we reached a secluded spot, I’d wonder: Is this it? Even when we headed back to the hotel, I still assumed he’d propose before our flight left the next day. I remember that evening so clearly.
When we got in, I started excitedly unpacking my shopping. I’d bought his mum a beautiful olive wood globe, and I showed it to him, thrilled. He seemed a little muted, but I assumed he was just tired, so I left him to it when he went to take a shower. When he got out, with wet hair and wrapped only in a towel, he seemed in a better mood, so I walked over to him and nuzzled into his chest. He pulled me close to him, telling me he loved me as he kissed trails down my body.
The next morning, I woke up and rolled into him, surprised that he was already awake. It was usually next to impossible to wake him in the morning unless you had a strong cup of coffee in hand and preferably a bacon sandwich. I ran my hand along his chest, hoping for a repeat of last night, but he didn’t react. I started kissing him, but it was like kissing a statue, so I stopped.
“Chris? You OK?”
“Alex… I think we should break up.”
It took me a minute to work out what he had actually said, and then I was immediately hit by a punch to the stomach. Sadness, fury, disbelief, disappointment, extreme hurt. For a second, I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, so I did both. I can’t remember how long I cried for, but it felt like hours. In between shaking sobs, I remember him reassuring me that there was no other woman and that he cared about me. Still, he just didn’t see things the same way I did or want the things I wanted, and now that he had his dream job, it was time to sort out the rest of his future, and he just didn’t see that future happening with me.
When, a few weeks later, I saw pictures of a new woman on his Instagram, I felt like a fool for still crying into my cereal. The relationship had been over long before I’d known it was over. It didn’t last with her, but the visceral pain I felt when I saw that picture will stay with me forever.
I was furious with him and humiliated. Angry with him for wasting five years of my life. Furious with him for doing this while I was far away from my family and friends. Humiliated that I, like an idiot, thought he was about to propose.
But then there was also that little voice inside my head whispering: Why would he want to partner up permanently with me? He was right. His career was going as planned, and he was smart, well-travelled and stylish. I still dressed like a student, spent my time lurching between all the freelancing writing gigs that no one else wanted, and putting my foot in it with Chris’s similarly smart, well-travelled and stylish friends. Who would want to marry this mess?
I’m feeling pretty low after Mum’s career pep talk and the memories it conjured up, so I take another slug of wine and contemplate my fate. Mum’s right that I’m not doing what I always wanted to. Still, I am writing. It may not be startlingly original prose about cinema, but times are tough. Along with being the features writer for Reptiles Monthly (does what it says on the tin), I also manage the staff magazine for Sparkle Toothpaste, LLC. (that’s a real page turner) and I had been ghostwriting the TV tie-in novels for the Galactic Unicorns? , the children’s literature equivalent of Sunny Delight. Sadly, Galactic Unicorns had never completely captured the hearts of sprogs across the globe, and both the cartoon and the future books had been pulled two months ago. Not only will nobody ever find out if Loyal Majestic ever triumphed against Princess Gloom and her interstellar bats, but it also means that I am down a ￡15,000 contract for the year to keep the wine in my mug and me in my range of highly sexy pyjamas.
I top up my drink again and phone Bea, my best friend from home. Bea is thoroughly wonderful, the sort of best friend everyone needs. We don’t see each other nearly as much as we should now that I live in London and she’s still at home, working for the local branch of the RSPCA in Knutsford. She sees my parents more regularly than I do, a fact my mother never tires of reminding me.
Bea and my mum bonded over their mutual love of animals, Bea having once smuggled half the stray dog population of Cheshire into her dad’s garden shed when she was eight. Even now, Bea always has a forlorn animal in tow that she’s fostering, and my mother, being a vet, absolutely laps this up. Despite us now living in different places, nothing’s really changed with Bea. She’s the one person I don’t speak to for weeks, and then we are able to pick up exactly where we left off. She never judges me, no matter what (although she often ‘advises’ me). She’s the one person I’ve never felt the need to exaggerate to or withhold anything from.
She sometimes worries that I’ll replace her with some Shoreditch-chic girlfriend or forget her as I lead my sparkling London life… if only she’d seen me try my conversational hot topics ( Murder She Wrote and whether olives are zombie grapes) on some of Chris’s female friends – all of whom seemed to speak five languages and know someone at The Times – she’d know she had nothing to worry about. I can’t afford even the tiniest sparkle in London, let alone anything resembling glamour. My rent and bills take up most of my meagre income, and then food takes care of the rest. Also, not working in an office (thank God – neither my wallet nor my sanity could afford the rush hour commute) means that I have little opportunity to meet girlfriends, apart from the women my flatmate Adam brings home.
He’s a blond and muscled personal trainer – so there are a few. While none appear to speak five languages, they’re just as put off by my conversational gambits. Adam and I have lived together for three years now. He’s also my cousin. He’s my Aunty Sheila’s – Mum’s sister – son, and our mothers are super close, so Adam and I were pretty much brought up almost as siblings. He definitely pulls off the annoying older brother role with style.
Bea answers on the second ring. “Bea! I may have consumed the best part of a bottle of wine, half a pizza, and a multipack of miniature Mars Bars. And I’m in my penguin pyjamas. And I’ve just had a horror call from Mum. But apart from that, I am surviving!”
“Oh, my sweet darling,” she says sympathetically, immediately seeing through my slurred bluster. “Tell me what’s been happening.”
I immediately unload the sorrows of the world upon her as she listens, occasionally interjecting with consoling noises and appropriate expressions of indignation. Even I manage to muster a small chuckle, and before I know it, I’m laughing away at her tales of scandal in Knutsford. Somehow, an hour has passed, and I’m feeling decidedly more cheerful.
I know Bea’s worried about me though, because she offers to come down to London for the weekend. This is concerning for two reasons. Bea is a self-proclaimed ‘small-town person’ and is proud of it, but more than that, she claims to loathe Adam. Her feminist credentials don’t allow her to be civil to someone who has occasionally been known to invent suave personas to seduce women at parties. Despite this, I’ve caught her eyeing his muscles when she thinks I’m not looking.
“I love you for the offer, Bea, but really, it’s OK. I promised Mum and Dad I’d come down in the next few weeks, so why don’t I choose a date, and then we can have a wine night?”
She agrees happily, and I briefly probe her knowledge of reptile keeping before we hang up. It’s limited. Apparently, she prefers to rehabilitate cuddly pets and leaves the scaly ones to the others.
Having done all I could with linguistic flair in the world of reptile keeping, I look again at my emails. Nothing from Empire , Film or any of the other magazines I’ve harassed recently. Optimism overthrowing cynicism for a moment, I check my junk mail. It’s not full of ten increasingly desperate pleas from a major newspaper to find out why I am ignoring their requests to be their film critic. It’s just the usual smattering of discounted Viagra and malware attempts. I’m not sure if it’s just the surging return of my usual cynicism, but the wine mug’s looking half empty instead of half full. I top it up again and bravely click through to the job sites for journalists and writers.
Some projects appear beyond me ( Galactic Unicorns doesn’t get you through the door at The Guardian ), but I start to make a list of a few other jobs. Saga Magazine is looking for a consumer affairs writer, and then there’s the usual array of small organisations looking to offer magic beans for a writer’s sweat and tears. Nothing seems remotely close to keeping me in my high-falutin’ lifestyle of a poor person living in a child’s bedroom in zone three of the capital, but suddenly, I spot the gold at the end of the rainbow. A gig that promises more than even animated magic horses have ever coughed up.
I click on it and start reading: Ladditude Magazine (circulation 200,000) is offering a contract for an engaging and empathetic writer (“Check!” I hiccough quietly to myself) to man an advice column for its readers.”
“I give great advice,” I mutter before realising I’m speaking to the wine mug. Excitement building, I continue reading: Ladditude’s new Agony Uncle will share his best tips and wisdom with Ladditude’s diverse readership. Exploring everything from the pressures of being a modern man to health and fitness tips, the Agony Uncle will be a big brother voice of authority and compassion. ”
Uncle? Brother? So much for the magic unicorn gold. Bloody men. I’m on the precipice of my ‘down with the patriarchy’ rant. The frequency of these rants (which count as some of my most original and surreal creative outputs) has seesawed in the six months since Chris and I broke up.
There’s become something very Academy Award acceptance speech about them. I’ve taken to speaking dramatically into my wine mug microphone, complete with melodramatic gesticulations. However, I’ve reached the point where they’ve become circular and boring, and the imaginary Oscars musicians have started to serenade me off-stage right, so instead, I settle for bravely logging into my bank account. It’s a torturous adventure into Mordor, an exploration of emptiness and desolation that has increased significantly since my rent went out of my current account yesterday. I still haven’t quite seemed to grasp that this happens with a terrifying regularity every month, so it always feels like I’ve been sucker punched in the ribs when I log in and discover I’m down another ￡650. I keep hoping that one day I’ll log in and be one of those people who mistakenly has ￡5 million placed into their bank account. Except in my case, they’ll never realise, and I’ll move to an idyllic Tuscan vineyard like in Under the Tuscan Sun and change my name by deed poll, and they’ll never track me down. And then I’ll fall in love with a sexy Italian man, and we’ll ride off into the sunset together in his vintage car. I’m losing myself in blissful fantasy until I foolishly scroll further through my online banking app and notice the wasteland has got even bleaker, thanks in part to a karaoke night with Bea the night after the school reunion last month and an impulse buy of fresh lobster when I had delusions of Adam and I hosting a fancy party. And H?agen-Dazs. And prosecco.
The dangers of online shopping. Who even buys lobster online? Can I still cancel? I take a slurp from the mug and log in to my account to try and save myself from my impending bankruptcy by crustacean. As the evening has darkened and my ￡6 bottle of wine has grown tastier, my screen has grown correspondingly hazier. I jab at the app a few times optimistically before arriving at a ‘Thank you’ message. Buoyed by one task successfully completed, I consider my next productive step. The wine mug is helping me consolidate my life choices. As I scroll through more freelance gigs, I keep getting pulled back to the most lucrative one, Ladditude’s Agony Uncle.
The sound of the key in the lock interrupts my productivity. The last thing I need is to bump into Adam’s latest conquest, undoubtedly several years younger than him and several light years more stylish than me. I hear him doing what he thinks is his sexy voice, husky mockney, in the hallway. Something chirrups in response, and at first, I think he’s lured home a cockatoo until I realise the sound is the titter of some early twenty-something.
He offers her wine, and then I hear the expletive when he spots the space in the fridge where the bottle had been. I glance guiltily at its new home on my desk. It has gone to a better place, to be fair. It’s found a more deserving beneficiary than a twenty-two-year-old suspected member of the parrot family. In the living room, I hear Spotify on full blast. Deprived of wine, Adam has embarked on stage two of his seductive strategy – songs that his plentiful nightclub experience tells him make women want to writhe around sweatily against his torso. The cockatoo twitters with delight, and I just know it’s going to be a long night. I take a few slurps of my contraband wine and crank up my Country & Western break-up songs list on Spotify. Two can play that game.
As I’m slow dancing with my dressing gown, swirling around the room and draping the arms around me romantically in what I presume is a majestic fashion, I open my laptop, and the following things might have happened:
· I check Chris’s Instagram again, and after scrolling back through hundreds of photos accidentally like one from several years ago
· I start drafting a letter about sexism to Ladditude
· I check in to make sure my wine mug is well-provided for
· I start drafting an application letter to Ladditude
· I pass out gently on my bed, snug in my penguin pyjamas
· Audrey Hepburn reincarnated.