Chapter 8
Eight
THE LEASE ON OUR digs ended two weeks after term did. I was due to move out the next day, but I hadn’t started packing yet. I didn’t have the energy. Instead I watched, peering from behind the curtain, as Jolly loaded boxes and bags overflowing with stuff into the back of Terrence’s car.
When the boot was full and the pavement empty, Jolly looked back at the house.
He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.
Was he searching for me? I hesitated and nearly stepped forward, but then Terrence said something and Jolly climbed in beside him.
The door slammed shut, the engine roared to life, and the two of them bumped down the road, bound for a new life of coupledom in deepest, darkest Streatham.
The next day I emptied out binbag after binbag of my belongings into an unfamiliar room in Willesden Green.
Matt and Archie had invited me to move in with them, but I didn’t want to live with anyone I knew, with anyone who knew me.
I didn’t want to hear about the auditions they were getting or them tiptoeing out for early call times; I didn’t want to catch them reciting lines through the wall or doing vocal warm-ups in the shower.
I also knew that if I continued orbiting the same old drama school clique, I’d never escape Victoria. She’d always be there, a ready question on their lips. What happened that day? Did she really kill herself? So, living with strangers it was.
My room was small, very small – more of a glorified closet than a bedroom, really.
Inside, there was a narrow linen wardrobe and a single chest of drawers.
The previous tenant had put up shelves, but they never held more than a couple of books before toppling to the floor.
Pushed up against the radiator was a single bed.
Above that was a window. When I needed to escape the close air of the room, I knelt on the bed and peered out at the house opposite’s garden, gazing at the lazy spin of an upturned tricycle wheel, a toddler tamping a mud castle, Spider-Man socks bobbing on the line.
The rent was ￡500 a month. I got a job in a cafe down the road that paid a couple of pence above minimum wage.
If I worked my arse off and took any shifts going, I could just about make rent and scrape together enough money to feed myself, although I spent some months hungrier than others.
When my parents found out how much I was paying to live in London without all the various student bursaries and loans I’d grown used to, they begged me to return home.
You’ve got a room and all your things, it’d be cheaper to get the train down to auditions (if you ever get any) than waste all that money.
I listened to their arguments then changed the subject.
I couldn’t go back. Jolly’s little pep talk had wedged itself like a drawing pin inside my brain.
If you go back there then you’ll never come back to London.
So far I’d failed at everything. To return home, back to my childhood bedroom, with nothing to show for myself but a mountain of debt, and a degree not worth the paper it was printed on, was too much to bear.
A few weeks after I moved in, Mum rang me.
She said she’d received an envelope in the post with details about graduation, and she was calling to ask which portrait package she should order and what size gown I would need and if she would need a hat, would all the other mums be wearing a hat.
I told her not to worry, that I didn’t want to go.
I told her it was because the whole event was expensive and impersonal, and also because none of my peers would be there so what was the point.
Mum said that was fair enough, that I should do whatever made me happy, but I could tell I’d disappointed her.
When I put the phone down, I wondered if I should get myself pregnant instead of trying to be an actress.
At least then she’d have something to be proud of.
At least then she’d have a grandkid, a second chance, another child to replace the complete mess of a daughter she’d reared the first time.
At least then there’d be physical proof that I’d Done A Thing, that I’d existed long enough for someone to find me briefly desirable enough to fuck.
But there wasn’t much chance to meet anyone, thankfully.
My job kept me busy. The cafe where I worked was owned by a Brazilian couple.
They were fine. Sometimes the husband would raise an eyebrow to signal the floor needed sweeping or a customer was still waiting for their bill, but mostly they just let me keep to myself.
For me, the cafe was a refuge. It was there, finally, among the napkin dispensers and ketchup bottles, that I learned how to shut off my brain.
Wipe, clear, walk, smile. Whole shifts would pass in the blink of an eye.
Wipe, clear, walk, smile. It was there I saw that although life without Victoria was unbearable, it was also, in many ways, much simpler.
Wipe, clear, walk, smile. As limp and colourless as the greasy French fries we served during the lunchtime rush.
Wipe, clear, walk, smile. There was no searching for meaning in that too-warm little room, no effort to impress anyone, no having to mould myself into what I thought some other person wanted me to be, to put on a mask and pretend.
I was free not to think, free not to yearn.
I wouldn’t call it happiness, no, but more a dulling of self, a numbing injection for the memories that tormented me.
At work I was allowed to sink, like a frog in a pot, deeper, sleepier – wipe, clear, walk, smile – hot and shrivelled, my eyes closing, with only the faintest curiosity about whether I’d ever emerge again.