Chapter 25
The stew turned out to be a more emotional experience than any of us anticipated.
It was waiting on the table for Phil when he got home, and he was so grateful he welled up and hugged me in his viselike grip for a quite frankly socially unacceptable amount of time.
When Dami saw this—and how stressed Phil must have been without letting on—she welled up.
And then once Dami tasted it, it nearly set her off again, because she couldn’t believe she’d gone so long without cooking it.
Dami and Phil agree I can stay a couple of weeks while I figure out my next move, which is incredibly generous of them.
Being so up close to their relationship, over the next few days I realize more and more just how mistaken I was about them.
It transpires that Phil isn’t as keen on a giant wedding as I thought; he was just trying to be accommodating because he knows that Nigerian weddings are traditionally quite large.
Not to mention, being around Dami’s family so much of the time—because they’re heavily involved in the planning—must take a lot of energy, but he never complains about it.
And the only reason Phil moved into Dami’s tiny flat was because she wanted to keep living here.
It puts a new spin on all his shit cluttering up the place, especially when I learn he’d given up his original Pac-Man arcade game because it wouldn’t fit anywhere. That’s true love.
This agreement had been reached before she routinely worked from home three days a week, but Phil had never made her feel bad about it, claiming he gets “time to listen to a podcast” on the way to work and “time to clear his head” on the way back.
After the Intense Stew Incident, Dami insisted she would put moving into a new place back “on the table.”
As I spend more time with Phil, rather than dodging his booming voice at parties that I inevitably leave early to go and hang out with Max, I see that I was right in some ways but not in others.
He is very different from Dami. He is loud where she’s quiet and rough around the edges where she’s dainty and elegant .
. . but I was wrong about him shouting over her.
He makes a lot of the obvious decisions like what car they drive and what they watch on TV.
But he’s the one driving the car most of the time.
And he’s the one watching a series while she’s finishing up Teams meetings with the US five hours behind us.
So, fair enough? He’s made a huge effort to slot into her life and seeing what an incomplete picture I had makes me feel pretty idiotic.
It doesn’t take long staying with them to see Phil makes Damilola happy.
I wonder how I’ve managed for so long not to see that.
I don’t think it’s that I wasn’t paying attention, as such.
Technically I was watching and listening.
But I wonder if I’ve been choosing what sticks, forgetting things I didn’t want to see, and building my own reality because it was easier for me to believe my friend’s relationship was terrible.
I have this overwhelming sense of something unraveling and not being able to stop it.
Like when you’ve snagged a sweater and there’s no way to sew the fabric back together and you know, eventually, the hole is going to get so big you’re not going to be able to hide it.
At the back of my mind possibilities stir; what else have I been blinding myself to?
Every now and again Angie’s words cross my mind.
Her accusations about my selective memory have taken root and start to blossom.
Max messages me a couple of times. I sent a short reply to his Hey, where you at?
saying I was back in London staying at Dami and Phil’s and he just said, I’ll pray for your ears.
I assume relating to Phil’s general volume.
I wasn’t in the mood to make fun of the people who’d generously taken me in, so I didn’t respond.
His next message, the following day, says, Did you know that koala fingerprints are so indistinguishable from human ones they’ve been confused in crime scenes?
Mind blown. I automatically type out a witty reply like I normally would, but when I go to send it I find that I can’t.
How can we be talking about koala fingerprints when we kissed and haven’t even mentioned it?
When he said he would speak to Fran and I haven’t heard from him since?
When I went to Paris to see him and left without saying goodbye?
When I don’t reply, the next day he texts, It is possible to put a frog into a trance by lying it on its back and gently stroking its stomach.
This is Max’s version of hounding me. Two messages in a row with random animal facts that he knows I love, left out in the cold.
But for the first time in years I feel underwhelmed with his attention.
I don’t want to read into what this means and what he’s really feeling.
I just want to talk to each other like normal people.
I want to know how he interprets what happened and how we’re going to deal with it.
Is he still with Fran? Or has he told her?
Is he going to tell her? Does he want to be with me or has the whole thing made him realize we’re just friends and it’s Fran that he loves?
I can’t get any of that from talking about hypnotizing frogs.
For the first time, his not saying what he’s thinking isn’t intriguing me .
. . it’s boring me. And I’m surprised by it.
I’ve never once thought of Max as dull. Max is fun.
He’s unpredictable—you never quite know what he’s going to say or do next—and he’s a fountain of interesting knowledge.
But right now his behavior just leaves me feeling deflated. I leave him on “read” again.
Instead of spending my mental energy decoding whether or not Max’s messages about hypnotizing amphibians mean I love you, Becky or I’m confused, Becky or, indeed, really are just about frogs, I help Dami and Phil with cleaning and cooking, I binge watch The Sopranos with Phil while Dami’s working late at the office, I take long baths, I search for jobs.
On the Wednesday after I arrive, Dami finally sets up a meeting with her boss about her workload.
The following two evenings, she puts her laptop away at 7 p.m. It’s not going to be some miraculous overnight shift—she still works until 10:30 the other nights—but I can see that getting even a couple of nights free of Dami’s emails is making both of them happier.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Phil takes an overly involved interest in my job application process.
Every night he asks me what I’ve discovered that day and I find the lack of anything to answer so humiliating that I eventually start applying for stuff just to get him to leave me alone.
In the week that I’ve been here I must have sent off nearly thirty applications.
I’m not sure I’m interested in most of them and even less certain that I’m qualified, but at least I’m doing something.
On Sunday evening, Phil and I are just about to play season two of The Sopranos.
He’s trying to be “helpful” in that annoying way people do when they tell a nervous person to “not be nervous.” He’s in the middle of pointing out the obvious, like suggesting job sites I’ve tried a thousand times and generally making me want to hit him over the head with something very large and heavy, when he accidentally says something useful.
“So, what are you qualified to do?” he asks, after I’ve shot down three different suggestions of things I was wildly unqualified for, including “skydiving instructor.”
“Marketing,” I say through gritted teeth. “But the point is that I don’t want to do marketing . . .”
But he’s already pulled up the computer and is googling jobs in marketing. “Brand marketing,” he booms. “Product marketing. Publishing and media marketing. Entertainment marketing.”
“I don’t . . . ,” I dismiss. Then I back up. “Wait, entertainment marketing?”
“Uh-huh.” Phil clicks. “There’s a job on this entertainment site at a ‘leading marketing agency that works with production companies, studios, and networks to create global campaigns that build, engage, and entertain audiences.’”
“So like . . . movies and stuff?” I repeat brainlessly.
“Yuh. Their website is so cool, check it out! They’re hiring!” Phil nods eagerly and ushers me over. I click through all kinds of programs and movies that I’ve seen and loved.
My heart starts hammering. I like films. I love films. I’ve watched them all.
From action to horror to romance to mystery, from old to new; if there’s anything I can do it’s sit back and enjoy a film.
Is Phil telling me there is an actual job out there that sort of combines my skills and my one, singular interest in life, i.e.
, being entertained while shoving snacks in my face?
Someone out there is actually employed to market television?
I’d completely dismissed marketing because I’d assumed all marketing jobs were like mine.
But I guess of course that’s rubbish. You can probably market all sorts of stuff.
Books. Hair products. Clothes. FUN stuff.
I’m so excited I can barely pay attention to the TV for the rest of the evening. There is a job in existence I genuinely like the sound of and might be able to do.
When Phil’s finished watching, I get the laptop out and begin crafting my application.
It’s like my own personal Iliad. I take care over the structure of every sentence and nuance of every word.
I try to strike that balance between confident and cocky.
I try to sell every single one of my skills without making it sound like a long, boring checklist of things I can do.
I try to convince them of my passion for cinema without overdoing it.
There is one fly in the ointment . . . The dreaded reference section.
When I get to it, I feel any small drop of hope drain out of me. Having had only one job, the only person I can ask for a reference is Margaret. And having called her a “cog in this soul-guzzling corporate machine” I’m not sure she’s going to be in the mood to talk me up.
UGHHHHHH.
I try to tell myself it doesn’t even matter whether or not I get the job. I have identified something I actually want to do and might actually be able to do. That’s progress.
By the time I’m done it’s nearly midnight. I must nod off on the sofa, because the next thing I’m aware of is Dami covering me over with a blanket.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispers.
“S’OK, I should move,” I murmur into the edge of the couch. “Did you just get in?”
“Uh-huh.” She grimaces. “Emergency in one of our key accounts.”
I nod and push myself up. She sits next to me, putting her hand on mine. “Your phone lit up a minute ago,” she says. “It was Max.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Some diagram about the best way to eat an alligator?” Her inflection rises at the end of her sentence. Dami and Max never saw eye to eye in their sense of humor.
I can’t help but laugh. Because it’s funny, but because it’s pathetic too. Pathetic that we can’t seem to have a conversation like two grown-ups. Apparently we’re going to be forever exchanging memes and loaded glances.
“Becky, I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Dami says softly, “but how do you want your future to look? Do you want to be with Max?”
“Yes,” I say, although with more hesitation than I would have said it a few weeks ago.
“What is it that you like about Max?” Dami asks.
“Um . . . he makes me laugh,” I say.
“That’s good.” Dami nods. “What else?”
I think for a moment, surprised by how difficult I find it to answer the question. I don’t often analyze why I like Max. I just do. Like, why do old people suddenly decide they like bird-watching and Werther’s Originals? Because the world has ordained it to be so.
“I . . .” I search my mind. “He keeps things interesting. I’m never bored.”
“But what makes it interesting?” Dami probes.
“Well, it . . . you know. I guess never really knowing when he’s going to show up, but knowing that he will. Or not quite knowing what he’s actually thinking . . . it feels like anything could happen.”
What I don’t say is that actually, recently I have been finding that aspect of his personality less interesting.
I thought once the veil was lifted on the fact we still have feelings for each other, we could have a real conversation.
But this thing has happened between us and we’re exactly the same as ever.
“And what about when you’re with him? Do you like yourself?”
“That’s hardly a fair question. I rarely like myself,” I answer.
“What is it that you don’t like?”
Is Dami considering a career change into therapy?
“Um, I guess . . . I spend too much money on stupid shit. I spend half my life drunk. I don’t have anything I really care about.
I stopped putting any effort into things and started making fun of people who do.
” I feel myself getting choked up as I say that last part.
It’s something I realized only when I went back into We Work, You Win, and after the reality check from Angie.
“And does Max facilitate those things?” Dami says.
“I mean . . .” I think through every usual interaction with Max. Sitting in dingy Scintilla, bitching, wasting my money, wasting my time. “Yes. But that’s not on Max,” I add.
“No, that’s not on Max,” Dami says. “But he doesn’t help anything, does he? He doesn’t encourage you to move forward.”
“No, but . . .” I feel a reflex defensiveness. “That’s because he likes me as I am. He doesn’t need me to change. That’s a good thing, right?”
Dami looks thoughtful for a second. “Personally, I think couples should take the bad with the good. I don’t think they should relish the bad.”
It’s too late and I feel too emotionally fragile to interrogate what she’s suggesting. Dami must see it in my face because she says, “Look, it’s late. I don’t really know Max. But from what I’ve seen, he doesn’t seem to offer you much except helping you stand still.”
I nod. I really, really don’t want to stand still anymore.
Dami kisses me on the head and goes to bed.
I sit on the sofa for a bit. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about Max yet, but I know something that I can do.
Using a sizable chunk of my remaining funds, I book an open-return train to Manchester first thing in the morning.