Chapter 2
Chapter Two
A llie put her key in the lock of the door to her flat, grateful that for the moment at least, she still had the means to pay for a taxi home. She did what she always did when she got home, which was to pat her front door, say hello to one of the most important things in her life and offer up a little gratitude that it was hers. This ground-floor flat had been in her life for the last five years, and for those five years it had been the only thing to have brought her constant pleasure. She never fell out with it, even when the plumbing went wrong. She never had to wait for it to call, second-guess what it was thinking, wonder if she was seeing it enough or too little. And she didn’t have to worry that it wouldn’t be there when she needed it. She shook off the thought of her beloved childhood home, and all the memories it contained, which her mum had sold, seemingly hours after Allie had left for university. Allie had paid the deposit for her flat with the advance from her second publishing deal and it had been the true love of her life ever since. On the ground floor of a converted Victorian villa, she had two beautiful bedrooms, one of which she used as her writing space, and a small but sunny private back garden. It was big enough that she could sit outside and enjoy the sunshine but small enough that she didn’t actually ever have to worry about doing anything grown up, like gardening. And the garden had the added bonus of sporadic wifi connectivity; so, Allie could shut herself out there in good weather and write without the temptations of Google, Snapchat or just plain old online shopping.
Allie stepped through her front door and immediately bent to take her shoes off. She leaned against the pale grey wall of her hallway and rubbed one ankle and then the other, her mind wandering back to the corridor of the V a broken-down train and delays on the line had propelled her towards a place that both served alcohol and had working toilets. And that was where he had been, several pints in and watching some completely incomprehensible – to Allie, at least – rugby match with his friends. The alcohol had made him bold enough to offer to buy her a drink, and the delays on the line had made her accept. And now here they were, two years later, with really nothing to show for it.
He had thought her sexy and quirky (his words, not hers) when they met. He’d never dated anyone who didn’t have an office job, actually Allie thought he may not have ever dated anyone who didn’t work in finance. But he was strangely proud of her ‘alternative’ choice of career, probably because she had been mainly solvent, self-sufficient and owned her own flat. It really said it all that this was what Dominic was looking for in his ideal woman. And Allie had been looking for her happy-ever-after and had been sufficiently disheartened by her earlier attempts at finding it, to consider that perhaps it was lurking in the mind and body of a city boy Durham grad.
Dominic ran one hand through his hair, causing that side of his hair to lie flat against his head while the other side stood up in a messy blonde thatch. Allie had to stifle a laugh. She wanted nothing more than this conversation to be over, for Dominic to leave and for her to be able to get into her bed on her own. If she laughed at him, she might have to tell him why and how she really felt about things and that would just prolong what was already a painfully awkward situation.
‘Allie,’ Dominic started, ‘I, erm, I have something I need to say.’
Allie considered putting him out of his misery, telling him that she already knew, that she felt the same and could they please speed things up a little so that she could get into her pyjamas. But she was also curious to see just how Dominic might spin this, so instead she crossed her arms, regarded him coolly and allowed him to flounder a little longer.
‘I feel like we’ve grown apart.’
Allie raised one eyebrow. He was going down that cliched path.
‘I feel like we both want different things.’
Her other eyebrow shot up and she had to stop herself from telling him that she was fairly sure they had wanted different things all along, but that somehow during the last two years she had lost herself sufficiently enough to consider that maybe she really did want summer outings to Henley, autumn weekends at Twickenham and a plan for 2.4 children and a loft conversion somewhere out past zone six.
‘It’s not you, it’s me.’
Allie did a little cough and put her hand to her mouth to cover the expression on her face. Dominic shuffled awkwardly and Allie wondered if he’d find it easier if she cried.
‘So erm, no hard feelings right?’
Allie exhaled heavily. ‘Oh, Dom, really? That’s the best you can do?’
Dominic shrugged and tried to meet her eye but failed. ‘I’m not very good at this.’
‘What? Breaking up with your sort-of girlfriend? Ending an already dying relationship?’ she questioned archly before feeling bad as the air seemed to go out of him.
‘It’s fine, OK?’ she reassured him. ‘I’m fine. Just, you know, disappointed, I guess?’ Allie had been feeling disappointed in Dominic for the past two years but this was the first time she had allowed herself to voice it. ‘Maybe you should just go,’ she suggested, Dominic half opened his mouth as if about to say something else but she cut him off. ‘Look I’m really tired, so maybe we can work out any practicalities another time?’ As she said it she thought how few practicalities they really had to sort out, how depressingly un-entwined their existences were.
Dominic nodded slowly and gave Allie a small sad smile and for the first time she felt a pang of something. Not sadness, exactly, but nostalgia for the feeling of being attached to someone, having someone to talk to at the end of each day. His phone buzzed in his pocket.
‘You need to get that?’ she asked.
A slight flush rose in his cheeks. ‘No, no, it’s just my Uber.’
So, he wanted a quick getaway, too? Allie felt a little less bad for ushering him so speedily out of the door and she couldn’t help but admire his immaculate timing and his attention to detail that meant his Uber arrived just as she was asking him to leave.
‘Ok, well, bye then.’ Dominic walked past Allie, briefly placing his hand on her shoulder as he did so. She couldn’t help comparing the lack of electricity in his touch to that she had felt with Will earlier.
‘Oh, Dom?’ she said as he reached her front door. He turned and the look on his face told her he half expected her to beg him to stay. ‘Can I have my key?’ Dominic’s face fell as he reached in his pocket. He held the key up and then put it in the little dish on the table by her front door. And then he walked through that door and was gone.
Allie stood for a moment and then a thought occurred to her about the immaculate timing of Dominic’s departure and the expression that had crossed his face when he had received the arrival message from his Uber driver. She walked into her bedroom, which overlooked the road. Going to the window, she pushed apart the shutters and watched Dominic walk down the front path. On the street in front of her flat she saw a red sports car, which couldn’t be his Uber, because Uber didn’t send red sports cars. But it was the only car that she could see that had someone sat in the driver’s seat. Allie shifted her position to get a better look, her interest now piqued, and sure enough Dominic walked towards the car and opened the door, illuminating the inside of the car. Allie watched for a few more seconds before turning away and throwing herself on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling thinking that it was unusual for an Uber driver to be female, and that if Allie was an Uber driver she’d probably wear something super comfortable like a sweatshirt and jogging bottoms to drive around in, because it couldn’t be very practical to be wearing such a tight and low cut top for hours on end. And as Allie rolled herself up in her duvet and pulled one of her pillows over her head, she wondered how much extra you had to tip an Uber driver to be kissed on the lips like Dominic had just been.
* * *
The first thing Allie felt when she woke the next morning was relief, relief that Dominic had gone, relief that it was over. But as she stood and waited for her kettle to boil and watched the birds fight over some crumbs in her back garden, she began to feel anger that she hadn’t had the guts to end things sooner. Allie poured the boiling water into her tiny one-person teapot, angrily sloshing the water over the work surface and wondering if she would ever have someone in her life who would make it necessary for her to get her bigger teapot out again; her anger only increased as she castigated herself for getting maudlin and over dramatic about teapots.
Taking her tea to the large farmhouse-style table, she sat on one of the benches and pulled her laptop towards her. Maybe this could be useful? She was actually feeling something for once, even if it was mild rage rather than burning ardour. Allie’s hands hovered over her keyboard, waiting for inspiration to strike. She waited for some time, refusing to allow herself even a sip of her tea until she had at least written a sentence. But then her hands started to cramp and her tea started to get cold and, in frustration, she pushed her laptop away and picked her mug up, cradling it in her hands as she looked out the window.
Aimlessly, Allie picked her phone up and started scrolling. It was a complete energy, time and emotion suck and sometimes Allie wished she had the strength to be like one of those worthy writers who disengaged from their phone and social media when they wrote. But she wasn’t and so here she was, scrolling through her feeds and making sure to like the latest picture of her literary agent’s four-month-old munchkin. When Mary Beth had announced she was pregnant, Allie’s first reaction had been to panic, but in hindsight it was probably a good thing that Mary Beth was on maternity leave and not constantly breathing down her neck and asking where her manuscript was. Allie wasn’t sure if this was a chicken and egg situation though; had Mary Beth been breathing hard enough, perhaps Allie might have managed to produce something – anything – by now. But Mary Beth was happily ensconced in nappy land and had better things to be dealing with than a neurotic, self-centered author and as she had signed off with a strong belief that Allie knew exactly what she was doing, and a brief introduction to the agency assistant who would help out should Allie need anything urgent, Allie now found herself freewheeling towards professional Armageddon.
Perhaps she ought to call Martha who would likely have some advice to give her on both Dominic and the writing situation, but then she decided that the kind of advice Martha would give would be good advice, and Allie didn’t want good advice, she wanted someone to commiserate with her. And while Martha had many strong points, commiserating was not one of them.
Obviously, as her sister, Martha was an essential part of Allie’s life. Who else could sympathise about their parents, recall ridiculous minutiae from their childhood, and still fight about an incident from twenty years earlier? And who else would Allie be able to speak to as her true, authentic self, and know that despite this, Martha would still always answer her calls? But despite all the positives, Martha didn’t do wallowing, she didn’t believe in sitting with uncomfortable feelings and analysing emotions. Martha believed in getting up and getting things done. Whereas Allie believed in long baths, mulling things over, and taking her time with decisions. Which was why Martha was a scientifically driven pharmacist working in clinical research and drug design and Allie was an English graduate who liked to play with words. Or not, as her current situation suggested. Allie looked accusingly at her laptop and leaned back as far as she dared on the kitchen table bench pondering once again her predicament as to what she was, if she wasn’t a writer.
Allie’s phone buzzed with a message from Jess, politely reminding her that they had arranged to meet in the pub that evening and could Allie please not be late this time because Jess really didn’t want to have to make small talk with Tom’s colleagues. Allie had met Jess their final year at university; Jess was a year older, studying languages and was returning from a gap year in Spain. She was tanned and healthy-looking, the way no one could ever manage naturally if they spent their summers solely in the UK. Jess only knew the other returning language students, and Allie had recently broken up with her university boyfriend and was determined to put him and his obnoxious group of friends behind her. Jess announced that this was the perfect moment to make lifelong friends, deeply suspicious as she was of people who met their BFFs during freshers week; because who made their best decisions when they were drunk and anxious and sleep deprived? It was the friends made in your final year that counted, she said. The ones made when you had a bit more of an idea of who you actually were, and were still hopeful for the future, the light not yet extinguished from your spirit by job interviews and corporate soul snatching.
Yes, Jess was what she needed tonight. Jess would give her some good advice and comfort. Fortified with that thought, Allie rallied and opened up her laptop again. She would talk to Jess. Tonight. But not before she had written 2,000 words.