Chapter 43
In the event, the win Lisa and I had turns out not to be a one-off. I have another win with Rose in our next fixture, then win both of my matches again the following week.
I realise that before each event I never seem to get any less nervous.
But I now have a drill, which goes something like this.
I wake up in the morning and if my stomach is churning I tell myself I’m not allowed to be anxious until lunchtime.
When that time comes, I don’t fight the feelings.
I let them fly, do their worst. Then I accept the idea that this is just who I am and that, whatever happens at the match tonight, it will all be forgotten by tomorrow.
It doesn’t just take the sting out of the whole thing.
It allows me to reframe this variant of stress as a positive one.
Something I should welcome. Because it means I care – and this is exactly the thing that will fire me up, carry me through and just occasionally make me win.
I cannot tell you how stupidly good it feels when that happens, to high-five my partner and bask, albeit temporarily, in our shared elation.
Even if the rest of the day has turned to shit, this single inconsequential triumph is enough to make everything better. And I mean everything.
So I don’t freak out when I receive a photo of my daughter taking part in her new favourite sport: rock climbing. In the space of three days, she has gone from enthusiastic to obsessed, thanks to a handsome Dutch instructor she has been spending a lot of time with lately. A few months ago,
I wouldn’t have slept for a week after learning this, lying awake so I could trawl the internet for last year’s statistics on bouldering-related deaths.
Now, after satisfying myself with a brief glimpse of his professional website, I wean myself off Find My iPhone and leave my daughter to it.
Even if I don’t entirely buy the idea that their relationship is platonic.
I’m hardly in a position to push the issue when I have this thing going on with Sam.
We have been texting each other every day of his trip and, once he’s back at his hotel in the evenings and connected to the Wi-Fi, I can usually expect a flurry of texts, each one causing a delicious fizz in my stomach.
I am rooting through my tennis bag one evening and discover a pair of sunglasses that he’d let me borrow on the night we’d played tennis, as I was struggling to serve against the sun. I’d absent-mindedly put them in my own bag rather than returning them.
When I message to apologise and let him know I’ve got them, he replies saying, ‘No problem. Now, I’ve got an excuse to see you the moment I get back x’.
Just thinking about him makes me feel happy and light in a way I haven’t for years, like I’m harbouring some distant holiday-romance feeling that is lasting long after our return from La Manga.
The other feeling always comes back sooner or later though.
That niggling conviction that something about this just isn’t right.
Occasionally, it creeps up slowly; at other times it hits me like a freight train – like one morning when I wake from a dream about Sam, not Ed, and feel itchy and unsettled for the rest of the day.
Just like Nora suggested, I try not to think about where this is going. In my head, I am trying to reconcile myself with the ‘friends with benefits’ concept, even if that doesn’t feel like an idea I am brave enough to discuss with Sam himself.
The week Sam is due home, I offer to collect Bella from Scouts as Jeff and Andy both have late meetings and when I drop her off, my brother refers to Sam as ‘my boyfriend’.
‘He is not my boyfriend,’ I say.
Jeff frowns. ‘Then what is he?’
‘He’s just Sam,’ I say, irritated.
‘What does that even mean?’
‘Why does it need to mean anything?’ I ask.
Jeff looks at me like I’ve completely lost the plot. But I refuse to be pinned down by my brother or anyone else. I am just happy to be sleeping at night and for my list of irrational worries to have dwindled to a mere handful, if that.
‘You’re in a good mood,’ Kayla says, as we’re heading back to the office after walking to the sandwich shop together at lunchtime the next day. ‘Lottery win?’
I’m hit by a flashback of Sam kissing me on my doorstep before he left for Malawi and something pleasant twists inside my core. ‘I won my tennis match this week. Almost as good.’
Strictly speaking, this may not have been what put the smile on my face, but it’s true: my winning streak has left me feeling like I can’t imagine tennis not being in my life again.
It’s become my drug of choice, the crutch on which I lean.
Even accounting for its capacity to drive me quite mad with frustration, picking up a racquet is the one thing guaranteed to make my day better.
‘If you say so,’ she says, scrunching up her face. ‘Well, you’re not the only one feeling positive today.’
‘Oh? Developments on ?’
‘Yes,’ she says, triumphantly. ‘I’ve cancelled my subscriptions. Every. Last. One.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely. I deactivated them last night. Took me hours.’
‘How many were you on exactly?’
‘All of them,’ she says. ‘I feel liberated. But also a bit sad and scared, I’ll admit it.’
‘What are you worried about?’ I ask.
‘Oh, the usual. That I’ll be lonely for the rest of my life. Also that, at twenty-eight, I am never going to see any action ever again and will end up a lonely, horny old crone.’
‘There are worse things than being alone, you know.’
I still believe that. No, I know it. Even if, the moment I think it, Sam pushes into my thoughts again.
Kayla and I reach the entrance to Fable & Punk and, as we enter the double doors, Angus is coming out.
The sight of him stops us both in our tracks.
He is wild-eyed and pale, his hair askew like a mad scientist after his test tube exploded.
‘Everything all right?’ she asks.
He registers us both and blinks. ‘Not really.’
‘Angus, what is it?’ I ask.
‘I’m being booted out.’
An interim restructure takes place over the next two days, the details of which seem to make no sense to anyone except those in head office.
Various senior Fable & Punk staff are put on ‘gardening leave’, their responsibilities shuffled and dealt out like a deck of cards.
Some are picked up by various shadowy figures at Barisian. Others are piled onto the rest of us.
Meanwhile, I head to London on Friday for a meeting with the woman I now report to, for the time being at least. She introduces herself with a regal handshake as Jacinta Fox-Jones.
She’s a couple of years older than me, tall and attractive, with high cheekbones and slightly horsey teeth.
She is dressed as a modern-day Sloane Ranger, in subtle tones of cashmere and silk, an expensive scarf tied elegantly at her neck.
I have never met her until now, but I do know that she was promoted to a group role after a successful stint as CEO of The Neutral Company, a firm that has grown exponentially under her tenure, thanks to significant investment and a massive social media campaign.
I’d never say this out loud – especially not now – but their stores leave me cold. I know some people love that stylised and muted look, but I find ‘bland and intimidating’ a more accurate description, most suited to the kind of homes where you’re terrified to move in case you break something.
Still, I can’t argue with their numbers.
‘Between you and me, the firm was going to the dogs beforehand,’ she tells me, as we make our way across the office. She walks very fast and talks very loudly. ‘Total lack of vision, that was the problem. Very similar to the situation at Fable & Punk, I think – no offence.’
‘None taken,’ I lie.
‘How long does it take to get here from Manchester?’
she asks.
‘A couple of hours, that’s all.’
‘Oh, what a pain.’
‘It’s fine, really.’
‘I think I went there once,’ she muses, with a little frown as she tries to recall why. ‘Long time ago though. It rained.’
I almost apologise.
She’s not particularly relaxing to be around, but in the hour we spend together I do start to warm to her.
No, it’s better than that: I’m impressed by her.
She’s sharp and single-minded and, after an incredibly productive meeting, I start to feel a glimmer of genuine hope that the magic she worked on The Neutral Company’s bottom line can feasibly be replicated at Fable & Punk.
The only question is whether or not I get to be a part of it.