Twelve
We leave Dad to his afternoon Pilates class. I don’t know if this kicked (extended?) in at the same time as his brunchalism, but I think Dad is morphing into a millennial. I am considering buying him avocados in town.
As we wander into Knutsford centre, I dread to think what these “designer outlets” will offer. I imagine shooting jackets and tweed and a slight smell of rain-soaked gun-dog. I’m no fashion princess (to my mother’s and Adam’s dismay), but I still object to spending an afternoon being dressed up like Camilla Parker-Bowles. I shuffle, teenager-like, behind my mother, trying and failing to muster up some gratitude for her generous offer. She keeps trying to chivvy me along, making pronouncements like “The shops should have all the new season’s looks!” to which I testily make witty responses, such as, “What season is that? Grouse season?” and chuckle at my own amusingness.
When I glance up from my huff to my eternal relief, it seems the shop does cater for the non-middle-aged farmer’s wife crowd. Happily, Mum spots a client. Parent of a pet patient? She releases me to go in and browse by myself. There is a God. Inside, the relief fades. It’s designer in the worst sense. Tiny dresses. Ridiculous sizes. Another of those places that seems to cater only for very wealthy pixies. I head further into the shop in search of apparel for actual human women.
As I look through the handkerchief-sized patches of sequins and taffeta, the shop door opens, and I hear a familiar voice. It can’t be. It CAN’T. I peek nervously from behind the rack, and it is. It’s Chris. Bloody evil ex-boyfriend Chris. And he’s brought someone with him. A perfect blonde and petite pixie with a permanent “I’ve just stepped off a yacht in St. Tropez” tan, who looks like all the dresses in the shop were designed only for her. I’d start hyperventilating and demand a brown paper bag, except that it would give away my location. I adopt a crouch and scuttle further back into the shop.
“See, I told you we have a bit of the metropolis out here in the wilds,” I hear Chris say to Pixie as she starts to browse.
There’s no other way out. I’m five racks away from discovery, complete with a ratty jumper. Suddenly, I spy sanctuary. At the back of the shop, there’s a curtain across a little changing room. I grab the first dress to hand and sneak up to the shop assistant in a half crouch. “Can I try this dress on?” I ask in a hoarse whisper. She looks in alarm at the mad bent-over crab woman in front of her, “Erm. Certainly… madam. There’s a changing room just there.”
In my new crazy crab woman mode, I nod and scuttle over to the curtain. Behind it, the space is tiny, but I’m safe and unseen. I can still hear them speaking like any loved-up, annoyingly glamorous young couple, going home to meet the parents for the first time. Must be serious, I think, as I curl over, my brain choosing to remind me how much I used to be in love. I picture Chris’s lovely mum hugging this woman in welcome and offering her a freshly baked scone as his dad tries to explain the rules of cricket to her. Bad. Bad brain.
Furthering my quest to inflict as much misery upon myself as possible, I listen for scraps of conversation. Mostly, the pixie seems to be chatting about clothes, Knutsford, and where to go for lunch. I will hunger pangs on her.
The shop assistant’s voice suddenly whispers through the curtain, “Madam, do you need a hand?” I realise the curtain stops at ankle height and that, from her perspective, I’ve just been standing motionless in the changing room.
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” I croak.
Damn. I need to try the actual dress on. I look at what I selected. It is TINY. I swear I have scarves made of more material. But I can’t continue standing still. The space is so small that as I pull my jumper off, my elbows graze the walls. Even the changing rooms are for stick insects. I take off my jeans. That should be enough ankle movement to keep her happy, I think. I then take the dress and mutter a little prayer before stretching it as far as I can and stepping in. One leg in. Winning so far.
I get the other one in and take a deep breath before trying to manoeuvre the ridiculous scrap up past my hips. This is a battle I’m going to lose, but at least the clothes assistant can tell I’m trying it on now. She can’t miss the grunts of distress. It’s really not budging past the hips. I try another deep breath and a bit of shimmying. Mid-shimmy, I hear a tearing sound. I panic and lose my grip, and the dress falls back to my ankles. I start to pull one leg out to inspect the damage, but the thing is like a noose around my ankles, and suddenly I’m stumbling.
There’s a mad hop as I try to regain my balance, but the hop turns into a fall. The next thing I’m tumbling out through the curtain into the shop. There’s a swirl of fabric and light and sound, and I reach desperately for the curtain, desperately flailing my arms around and trying to grasp anything that might help me regain my balance. I shouldn’t have bothered. I hit the floor, catching my shoulder on a clothes rack on the way down and knocking it over. Time slows again, and there I am, flat on my back in my bra and knickers with the ripped dress around my ankles, drowning in a puddle of dresses from the fallen rack around me. I wish I could say that I’d followed my Aunt Sheila’s advice and always made sure I had an attractive, matching set of underwear on in case I was in an accident and my clothes needed to be cut off by a handsome fireman, but I hadn’t. The underwear style is more aligned with the tatty jumper than with an Agent Provocateur model, and I pledge myself that if I make it through this mortification, I will dress like a Victoria’s Secret Angel – at a minimum – every day. Non-stop underwear thoughts cantering through my head, I just lie there, stunned, and stare up at the ceiling, paralysed by mortification as first, the concerned shop assistants appear, looking down at me in horror. Then, the Pixie. And then Chris.
It is the longest thirty seconds of my life. I become hyper-aware of everything. The Pixie’s immaculately neat fringe. Her expression when she takes in my giant but comfy granny pants and my basic white cotton bra that has turned beige with use over time. The million micro-expressions that flash over Chris’s face. The assistant helps me up as I muster every shred of dignity I have left before hiding behind the torn dress.
“Chris, how lovely to see you,” I trill like we’re reacquainting at a Soho book launch instead of during the most humiliating moment of my life so far.
“Are you… OK?” he asks. How familiar that expression is. I’d forgotten his ability to look so kind and concerned and so superior and condescending at the same time.
“Fine, fine,” I say, hyper-cheerfully.
“Erm, this is Madeleine,” he introduces the Pixie to me hesitantly – like putting a kitten in front of a slobbering rottweiler. I awkwardly shake her teeny, doll-like hand while using my left arm to keep the dress hanging over my body.
“Maddie, lovely to meet you. I’m Alex. I used to… I’m Chris’s… We… I’m a friend of Chris’s.”
Her eyes widen in understanding. “It’s Madeleine, please,” she corrects me snippily. “So you’re Alex? Oh. Chris has talked about you,” she says, glancing at him. “Er, are you OK?”
By now, the three of us have pretty much entered into the mutual conspiracy that it’s entirely normal to be holding a conversation in the middle of a clothes shop with a woman dressed only in tired underwear and clutching a ripped dress, the ex-lover that she sent more pleading text messages to than is acceptable, and his new… conquest.
However, we haven’t drawn in the shop assistant. “Oh dear, let me help you back into the changing room,” she says firmly, steering me back in before taking the remnants of the handkerchief dress.
I shout my goodbyes over my shoulder, and as soon as I hear the door sound their hurried exit, I slump against the dressing room wall. Oh, the humiliation. On the one hand, I’ve never been so mortified in my entire life. On the other, I can’t wait to regale Adam and Bea with this tale.
Once I’m dressed and in a fit state to emerge, the prim shop assistant shows her softer side. She has a glass of water waiting and tells me not to worry about the dress; it can easily be repaired. Still, I can’t help but notice the look of relief on her face as she waves the mad crab lady out of the door.
Out on the street, I’m relieved to see that Chris and Madeleine have disappeared, and Mum is coming out of the bakery with a couple of takeaway coffees for us.
“Darling, did you see anything you liked?” she calls.
I look at her wearily, “Mum, can we just go home?” Bafflingly, she seems to sense that today is not my day and says yes, we should probably make sure Dad hasn’t pulled a muscle doing an extendable cobra fishcake or something.
The parental radar must sense that now is not the time to pry, so mercifully, we spend a peaceful afternoon sampling Dad’s new twist on smashed avocado (he ‘uniquely’ adds chilli and is delighted with his ingenuity – I best not let him go for brunch in literally any London establishment), reading, and playing Wordle. Mum has recently discovered Wordle, and her over-competitive nature means that Dad and I pretend we don’t play when she’s around, secretly sending our scores to each other later.
That evening, I head for a long-awaited catch-up in the pub with Bea. She’s arrived before me and is frowning thoughtfully at her phone, brushing her red ringlets away from her eyes every few seconds. Bea’s hair is her most prized possession – since the age of five, when she realised she had never seen a Disney princess with her hair tied back, she has insisted that it cascades around her shoulders. She’s by no stretch a stereotypical princess in any other way, but she is adamant that her hair will never know the indignity of being scooped up into an elastic band. She has a table in the corner and, crumpled on the floor at her feet, appears to be some sort of mutant Muppet that makes Scoop look like Crufts Best in Show. She jumps to her feet when she sees me, and the warmth of her hug gives me a bit of a pang for how seldom I provoke that kind of delight. The Muppet’s head moves, and I realise it is of the canine family – an indistinguishable sub-type and probably one of the most forlorn I’ve ever seen.
I sink gratefully onto the plush sofa beside her. She already has the wine poured and the salt and vinegar crisps open. God, I love this woman.
“What is that?” I ask, gesturing at the slobbering creature at my feet.
“Oh, Barley! We’re not sure. We think he’s part spaniel, part bulldog.”
“Oh, I was only after species, to be honest.”
“How dare you!” Bea asks in mock outrage. “Look how gorgeous he is.”
“Yes…” I say doubtfully, watching him slobber on my handbag.
“Anyway, it’s your mum’s fault for getting me into animals.” Bea’s decision to work at an animal sanctuary stems from having been obsessed with unloved pets ever since she did work experience at my mum’s practice.
“Anyway. You’re looking scrawny, my love,” she says, dusting crisp crumbs off her fluffy jumper.
“Oh, charming as ever, Bea! It’s like my mum’s here!”
“Well, besties are all about truth. Have you replaced me yet with your fancy city friends?”
“You know you can’t be replaced. Believe me, I’ve tried!”
“Hmm, what about Megan?” Megan is one of the university friends I first moved to London with.
“Pregnant and moved to Harpenden for a garden and a second bedroom.”
“Well, I’m glad and also sad. And no one else?” Bea asks, playing the jealous lover with aplomb.
“What about writery people – all drinking cocktails in some posh London bar and talking about literature?”
“Sadly not. Most writery people I only know from online. And they can barely club together for Ribena, let alone for cocktails. My closest gal pal is probably Adam.”
“Ohh, him,” she says, turning the corners of her mouth down. Then she giggles, the wine clearly having an effect already. “Awful. Great biceps. But awful. Yes, I would probably sleep with him after enough wine, but I’d need a shower afterwards.”
I laugh. “Go for it. I’d love to have you in the family. But he brings as much good conversation as a Pot Noodle. No, that’s unfair. He’s alright. Just probably not boyfriend material for my best friend.”
“I’m not sure I’d be after his conversation…”
“Anyway,” she continues, “we need to find you a distraction after Chris.”
I sigh in agreement and then, laughing, say, “Speaking of Chris…” and launch into the story from earlier about the clothes shop encounter with Chris and Madeleine.
She laughs along with me. “Oh God, I can’t even imagine. You will have been nothing but queenly, I’m sure,” she says loyally. “And I’m so pleased to hear you laughing about this,” she adds in quiet afterthought.
She’s right. It is a pretty big deal that I discovered Chris has a new girlfriend in the most embarrassing way, and I am laughing about it six hours later. Enjoying how impressed she is at my recovery, I tell her about Ryan and the normal London datey bits. I leave out the whole Dear Alex thing. As she seizes upon the lovely news, I feel sad and guilty that I’m keeping a secret from Bea. Still, I can’t think of a single way to explain how I got from being slightly unconventional and a bit disorganised to somehow being the starring role in a self-created web of deceit. It’s one thing talking to Adam about it; he’s been there throughout the whole thing, but it’s another telling Bea. She would never get involved in something like this. She’s way too honest and just… straightforward. I couldn’t bear to see her disappointed in me.
I indulge her in a few more details about Ryan before the guilt of the deception combined with the lie threatens to overflow. “Anyway, that’s enough about my love life,” I say abruptly, interrupting her musings about Ryan designing me a love nest to move into back here in Knutsford. I push my misadventures to the back of my mind and force the latest out of Bea about the young RSPCA officer she’s been going “birding” with. By the time we finished off the rest of the wine and had another packet of crisps, I’d heard all about Alfie and their adventures. I can honestly say that I never knew the RSPCA was such a hotbed of flirting and lust. By the time I stagger home to bed, the world is put to rights, and I’ve sworn I’ll come home more frequently, and Bea has promised to visit me (for me, not Adam, she promises tipsily).
The next morning, I wake to the wafting smell of bacon and coffee and praise the heavens once again for Dad. He greets me with a steaming mug and a bacon roll, already clad in Lululemon, handing it to me and telling me, “Must dash!” as he pirouettes out the door.
Generally, though, there seems to be some sort of unacknowledged understanding that I’m having a difficult time, so for the whole day, my parents are particularly lovely and don’t bring up jobs, boyfriends, my impending baby-less future or even push on what happened in the disastrous twenty minutes I was left unsupervised in central Knutsford.
Instead, once Dad has returned, we spend the rest of the day in the garden, my mum and I drinking white wine spritzers and gossiping (my mother might like to publicly give the impression that she would rise above such idle speculation, but behind closed doors, she revels in gossip), while watching my dad tend to his tomato plants (you can’t have a good brunch without tomatoes, apparently). I’m simultaneously enjoying listening to the latest village scandals while also thanking the heavens that London is much too populated to encourage much interest in the lives of your neighbours.
Apparently, Molly, the school librarian, has bounced back from her divorce in spectacular fashion and went on a romantic spur-of-the-moment trip to Florence with a man she met six weeks ago on the line.
My mother utters the phrase “on the line” in hushed tones as if we’re in the 1950s and Molly has become pregnant out of wedlock at the hands of the local rapscallion. Good for Molly, I say. We end the evening in a local gastropub, my dad getting quite merry and telling me he loves me and my parents are proud of me “regardless of whether I have a boyfriend and even if I had to do a lifetime of Reptiles Monthly .” By this point, I’ve had a healthy amount of wine myself, so I just hug him and tell him I love him, too.
Sunday follows just as pleasantly, with my dad cooking a Sunday roast and sending me back to London with more leftovers than I can carry. Adam will be delighted. Despite how unexpectedly enjoyable the weekend has been, I’m still relieved to be left with my own thoughts on the train on the way home. As I sit quietly and force myself to work through the flashbacks, I’m so pleased that my reaction in the changing room wasn’t because of Chris settling down with perfect Pixie Madeleine. I was only distraught because of the ridiculous embarrassment of flashing my granny pants to the world. When I think about it properly, as I stared at his face for that long minute while I lay prone in the jumpsuit aisle, none of the raw, soul-crushing feelings came back. Instead, I just saw his receding hairline, the slight podginess eroding his jawline, and that perplexed expression I had always hated. The one he reserved for anything that didn’t fit into his very narrow view of the world. What I would have said was the worst thing possible only a couple of months ago had happened, but instead of being devastated, I felt liberated.
Just then, my phone beeps. It’s Ryan. “No pressure, but just wondering if you’d like to follow up on that drink?”
I smile and type: “Sure :).”
I’m still high on joyfulness from Ryan’s text when “I” (and I use the term loosely), get a message from him in a different format. And it’s not addressed to Anastasia or even to the real me. It’s addressed to Agony Alex. My stomach does so many backflips it seems to think it’s trying out for an understudy role in Cirque du Soleil. Sweat beading attractively across my forehead, I open the email.
Dear Alex,
I just wanted to write to thank you for your advice. I went to the Single Mingle, and I actually met someone really nice and funny. Her name’s Anastasia and we just clicked. We chatted for ages, and it felt quite natural. Usually, I would never have considered going to an event like that, but I’m glad I did. We’re planning to go for a drink, so fingers crossed it all goes well.
Cheers,
R
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. When I invariably have to let him down because he doesn’t know my actual name, I am going to be the world’s biggest bitch.
Hi Ryan, [Draft version]
That’s awesome, mate. She sounds like a keeper. It sounds like you hit it off and don’t have to worry – but a couple of tips:
Fancy candlelit restaurants may sound corny, but they never let you down
A rose is always romantic
When it comes to city breaks, you can’t go wrong with Barcelona
Go get her!
Best of luck for the future
Alex
Hi Ryan, [Final version]
That’s awesome, mate. Good for you – it sounds like getting out of your comfort zone was just the ticket.
It’s great that things went well at the Single Mingle – and it’s awesome to have confidence in yourself – but don’t invest too much in one person right now. Remember, you don’t know her from Adam! Keep that confidence in your own self-worth, and don’t put too many eggs in one basket.
Best of luck for the future,
Alex