Chapter 3
JULY
CHLOE
‘And then we put a line here and some eyebrows and hey presto, we have a dog,’ I say, gliding the felt tip across the paper and seeing Arlo’s face light up as my sketch takes shape.
I don’t normally feel so proud of my pictures, but this might be the best trick in my aunty arsenal.
Arlo gives me the biggest hug, like a gold star for my artistic efforts, and I squeeze his little body back.
‘Can you draw giraffes too?’ he asks.
‘I can give it a go,’ I say. ‘But only if you colour him in and call him George.’
This makes Arlo chuckle with laughter as his dad appears at the table with biscuits and a cup of tea in hand.
‘Are you two talking about me?’ George asks.
‘No,’ Arlo tells him, winking at me quite obviously before picking up the series of drawings I’ve already done and running away. ‘I’m putting these on my wall, Aunty Chloe!’
‘I’m honoured, Arlo,’ I call after him. I hear him scampering away as George comes to sit down next to me.
‘See? You’re a superstar. My art skills peak at drawing a cock and balls,’ he explains and I laugh, grabbing at a chocolate digestive. ‘Thank you for this, for coming round. The boys love seeing you, but I’m also pleased to entice you out of the office and finally see your face. How’s things?’
I fiddle quietly with a mug and take a sip of tea to avoid the question.
George works flexible hours as a graphic designer so that he can be a present dad and he and his wife can live their big, busy, colourful family life.
I am always in awe of it even though I am also mildly scared by the schedule on their fridge.
I hear a baby babbling under the table and look down to see my other nephew, Thomas, smearing a biscuit down my brother’s leg.
George reaches down and lifts him up. ‘You are grim. Come and see your Aunty Chloe.’ He props him up on his lap. ‘I’m fine, George. I’m thriving and happy and I’ve been promoted to Chief Architect,’ he says, making the baby talk like a puppet and doing a rubbish job at imitating my voice.
‘That’s not a thing, Thomas,’ I retort quietly.
‘Then tell us everything,’ George says.
‘Can I say bad words in front of the baby?’ I ask him.
‘He’s very likely heard them all already but if he grows up to be a criminal then we’ll blame you,’ he replies, grinning.
I force a smile and take a deep breath. ‘Brief notes: I love my job, I’m bloody good at my job but I’ve realised I’m putting in too much, and I’m totally under-appreciated at my practice.
I also recently found out that the worst person in my office, literally freshly married, is shagging the boss, heard them doing it so…
trauma… and I’m just trying to work out if that’s the reason she has a job and wondering why I’m hanging around in a company like that. ’
My eyes glaze over as I say this out loud because, for the longest time, these words have just been thoughts floating around my head, questions I’ve asked myself repeatedly, echoing into nothing. To sound them out feels like a release at least.
‘Chloe. Jesus…’ George reaches over and grabs my hand, squeezing it tightly.
The baby’s expression even looks sympathetic.
‘Look, I don’t know anything about architecture at all but for the last year or so, you’ve been working so, so hard.
I can see how much you care about your job and I love you for it, but we’ve hardly seen you and you look tired all the time.
You’re twenty-five and you just seem burnt out. It’s no way to live.’
I rub my forehead. ‘I think I’ve only just figured that out. I’ve taken the last two days off work by saying I’ve had food poisoning, and I’ve basically slept for the whole time.’
‘Chlo…’
I didn’t just sleep. I also ate a lot of oven chips and watched 9-1-1 and became so obsessed with one of the characters that I’ve joined an Instagram fan page like some teenage fangirl.
‘You see, we’re very different. If I was going to throw a sickie at work, I’d go to a festival.
I’d get so drunk and dance until I couldn’t feel my eyeballs and shout loudly into an empty field.
Isn’t that right, Tommy boy? I’d go freaking nutso,’ he says in his most cheerful, child-friendly tone.
The baby laughs. ‘You could just quit,’ he suggests, turning back to me.
‘I have a mortgage to pay. I could get my CV out there, but it would take a while to find something new,’ I explain.
When I left the office that day, I thought about just walking.
Disappearing. But I realised that the consequences for my career would be huge.
Julian’s a terrible boss but he has influence in the industry.
Word of mouth would kill me. I am also under no illusion that there is drama with Julian and Nancy that I don’t want to get embroiled in.
‘Then take a holiday. A proper holiday! You’re entitled to one by law but it would also help your mental health. What about a city break where you can get some inspiration looking at all the architecture?’
‘Perhaps,’ I say reluctantly.
George pulls a face at me because he knows I’m the sort of person to talk about a holiday and never book one. I’ll argue it’s too expensive or I’ll talk myself out of it because I’ll be scared of things like pickpockets, natural disasters and the tanking exchange rates.
‘OH! I’ve got a thing…’ he suddenly announces, jumping out of his chair.
‘A thing?’ I reply.
‘I go to a baby group on Wednesdays. Don’t laugh.
We sing songs with tambourines and the cake is free.
’ He picks up Thomas and goes to the sideboard in their living room, pulling out leaflets, school letters, keys and muslin blankets.
‘There’s this woman there called Jess who’s just had twins – really nice girl.
She’s going on some retreat soon. It’s at this stone villa on a mountain in Ibiza.
It has a pool and you do yoga in the gardens and get fed nice food. There are goats.’
I scrunch my face up as he explains it me. ‘Yeah, I don’t think some hippy-dippy retreat in Ibiza is my thing. Is it all tie-dye and quinoa?’
He’s still looking through the mounds of paper and debris on his sideboard. ‘I don’t know. But she went to some restaurant in Notting Hill and the waitress gave her this flyer and it’s hilarious. Here, found it…’
George returns to the kitchen table and shows me said flyer. It’s bright and colourful; there are none of the serene pastels that you’d expect from a peaceful, yoga-style getaway. LOVE YOURSELF it states in big letters.
‘That’s Pedro Pascal,’ I say pointing to a photo on the flyer. I’m a workaholic but I’m not too far removed from modern life to know they’ve stolen that from a meme.
He laughs. ‘Naturally, I think it’s a sales gimmick. I don’t think he’ll actually be there. But you love Pedro. You once shared a post about him wearing tight trousers.’
‘That’s well remembered. He is a good-looking man.
But busy too. It’s very doubtful he will be at this retreat,’ I say, laughing and reading the flyer again.
‘Plus Love Yourself… it sounds like it could be one of those s-e-x retreats.’ I look down at the baby, worried that our conversation is corrupting his little mind.
‘You can say the word sex in front of the baby, you know,’ George replies. ‘It’s basically how he got here. What do you mean “sex retreat”? Like an orgy?’
‘Nooo…’ I say, blushing slightly. ‘Like some educational thing where you have to fiddle with yourself in a circle of women. It’ll be some woman with a massive bush teaching me where my clit is.’
‘That’s a thing?’ he asks, laughing. The baby looks mildly confused. Please don’t ever let any of those words be your first sentence.
‘You think I need a sex retreat?’ I say, embarrassed. I’ve been single for a while now, investing all my energy into work but maybe George has noticed that’s come at a personal cost.
‘Well, no. But what happened to that man you brought to my birthday party last year? I didn’t even hear that you’d broken up.’
‘We broke up.’ His name was Nate and he was a chartered surveyor.
He was fine but maybe that was the problem, I’m not sure you should settle for fine.
It lasted mere weeks but he also had a terrible habit of talking through films, like he was giving a director’s commentary.
Shush. Enjoy the escapism. Don’t scroll through IMDb and tell me every film that each actor has been in before.
‘And since then?’
Work. Pierre the drafter at the works Christmas do, a few half-arsed conversations on Hinge.
Not even dates or exhilarating one-night stands.
My blank face tells George as much. ‘I’m just making the point that this flyer is vague as hell,’ I say, trying to change the subject.
‘I could be signing up to anything. It could be run by a man who looks like Pedro Pascal and he might be starting a cult. I could move to Ibiza and you’d never hear from me again because I’ve become one of his wives. ’
‘You’d have to wear a muumuu, make your own olive oil and dance naked under a full moon.’
‘Well, when you put it like that. I’m sold,’ I say, smiling.
George smiles back to see me break into a moment of humour. I look at the flyer again. At least they used a good font. The goats intrigue me. Are they just wandering around? Are we milking them?
‘Isn’t Ibiza very dancey and clubby though? That’s not my vibe either,’ I explain. In my current fragile state, rubbing up against lots of tranced-out clubgoers to a thudding beat does not appeal.
‘Well, what is your vibe?’ George asks me.
I don’t reply. I wish I knew.
‘Look, all I know is that it’s cheap. Jess from my baby group is going and apparently Ibiza is very pleasant at this time of year.’
‘I wouldn’t know—’
‘That’s because you never take a holiday.’
‘You’ve made your point.’
That said, there is something about the flyer that catches my eye: it’s the small picture of the villa in the corner.
The white stone of the finca, the big barn-like doors which mean that historically the building may have been used for other purposes.
There is history there that appeals to my architectural eye.
It’s not modern, vulgar or some eyesore on the landscape.
It looks like a home, somewhere that could appeal for a short time.
‘I see the cogs whirring. You can take that flyer if you want?’ George says.
‘Perhaps.’
‘Chloe. Please. Have a break. From all of it. I beg of you,’ he pleads, looking me in the eye.
It’s a moment of sincerity amid all the banter.
‘Please Aunty Chloe, we love you too much. You’re burnt out and you’ve become a smoking, charred shell of your former self,’ he says, reverting to a strange baby voice.
‘We need you to come back rested and full of beans again. If we don’t have you, who will draw giraffes for us? Daddy can’t draw giraffes for shit.’
‘Baby Thomas, did you just say the word “shit”?’ I ask, playfully aghast.
‘Yeah!’ George replies, still in his weird baby voice. ‘I also want Pedro Pascal as an uncle. Make it happen, pretty please.’
‘Well, since you asked so nicely…’