Chapter Sixteen
‘Aaaand just let your muscles relax into Savasana – final resting pose. Be here for five minutes, maybe longer if you don’t have anywhere to be …’
Anika expels a sigh up to the ceiling, half wishing she didn’t have plans today. She’s slightly annoyed that by the time she remembered, it was too late to write anything in the diary. But at least she’ll get to see her mum.
Anika is impressed with herself at having unfurled her yoga mat every day for the last five.
She grudgingly hauls herself up from the floor, tentatively contracting her core muscles.
They still ache, but not unbearably. She makes a mental note to add some lines to her next diary entry about making her exercise routine even more potent.
The serenity generated by the yoga starts to seep away as Anika stands critically in front of her wardrobe twenty minutes later, trying to decide what to wear to her mum’s house.
Nella’s eyebrows will undoubtedly raise up to graze the hem of her headwrap when she sees her daughter’s new hair, so Anika doesn’t want to provoke any further critiques for her sartorial choices.
Her mum and Philip’s multi-bedroom property in north London is the kind that seems homely and only mildly impressive, until you look on Rightmove and see the number of zeros their postcode adds onto house prices.
Nella has been lady of the manor for the last three years, after meeting Philip at a charity auction.
She’s Philip’s third wife. Third time’s the charm?
It’s still strange to think of her mum as ‘rich’, and being around Philip’s family – the eight-year-old twin boys he co-parents with his ex, and the adult daughter he had with his first wife who died – makes Anika wonder what she missed out on in comparison.
Like having a father around. Like having a brother …
Taking a deep breath, Anika holds a shirt experimentally in front of her, looking in the mirror and trying to determine if her bra will be visible through its gauzy material.
‘Fuck’s sake, you’re a thirty-year-old woman,’ she tells herself.
But who is she kidding? She changes into a comfortable denim dress and her brand new bright-blue Nikes, then nods at her reflection.
Right. Let’s do this, I guess.
‘Would you like a couple more roasties, Anika?’ Elizabeth asks, tucking her silken auburn waves behind one ear and smiling earnestly. Anika’s fingers scrunch into her pink curls momentarily, a reflex.
‘I’m all right, thanks. Pretty stuffed.’
Anika isn’t sure why Philip’s daughter is trying to pile more on her plate when as far as she can tell, nary a carb has touched Liz’s lips in her twenty-six years.
She watches as the slender woman turns to her little half-brothers, both of whom nod eagerly at the potatoes balanced on the serving spoon, Jonathan earning a warning stare from his father as he snatches an extra one off Royce’s plate.
Anika swallows, thinking about her own brother again.
She tries to picture herself in her father’s house, Nelson’s dark fingers entwined with the pale digits of his wife, Eloise, the remnants of a Sunday lunch spread out before them.
It never happened, obviously, but if she and Kwesi could have grown up together, would they be close now?
Regret assails Anika again, because they could have formed that bond later in life – until she ruined that one opportunity …
Elizabeth’s fiancé, Dylan, reaches over for the Sancerre and pecks his partner’s cheek as she delicately chews a green bean, refilling her glass and his own. He doesn’t offer Anika any despite being directly beside her, so she reaches for the bottle pointedly and offers it round.
‘Nella says you’re back to work tomorrow, Anika?
’ Philip enquires from the head of the table, leaning back to allow his stomach to crest upwards.
His pale-yellow polo shirt strains against its curve.
He reaches over to rub her mother’s forearm and Anika watches proprietorially, though, in fairness, Philip has never seemed less than utterly smitten with her mother.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she says, offering the table a weary smile.
‘I had a check-up on Friday and the doctors gave me the all-clear to go back.’ The idea of returning to her old job feels sort of wrong, like stepping into wet shoes.
The docs also told her she had to make an appointment for a scan, but she’s ignoring that part so far.
‘Be nice to get back into the swing of normal life, won’t it?’ Elizabeth says. ‘What a relief!’
Routine and reversion are exactly what Anika doesn’t crave now. Things have got to be different; she just needs to figure out exactly how. The diary …
‘It’ll keep me busy, I suppose,’ Anika replies.
‘That rent won’t pay itself, eh?’ she adds with a chuckle, then realises that it sounds like a dig.
Philip had set Liz up with a one-bed in Belsize Park while she figured out ‘what was next’ after finishing university.
Elizabeth’s cheeks redden prettily and Anika feels a bit bad again.
Nella nods. ‘Eh hehn. We don’t want you to become idle.
’ Anika stifles a smile, unsure if that’s a sly joke in solidarity.
She knows her mother felt bad about Anika needing loans to get through university and how glad she was when her daughter secured evening bar-work during her time there.
But Anika really did understand that her mother worked herself to the bone to provide for them.
For about ten months before meeting Clive and moving down to East Sussex, Anika’s mother took evening shifts as a hostess at Angelo’s, a fancy Italian restaurant up in town.
The bank where Nella was employed as a secretary faithfully for over a decade – the scene of her earlier affair with Nelson Lapo – reduced her hours, so Nella decided to take on another job on top of it.
On the days when her mum was at the restaurant, if Anika wasn’t packed off to a friend’s house for a sleepover then Nella would have Mrs Thorne, their night-owl neighbour, come and check on Anika every couple of hours.
Anika saw the concern in her mum’s eyes at leaving her by herself.
Nella would rush home by midnight, exhausted.
As much as Anika enjoyed having free rein within the four walls of their flat, by bedtime she would be staring into the darkness, afraid of being alone, or what would happen if her mother never came back for some terrible reason.
The minute she’d hear her mother’s key in the door she would fake sleep, knowing that the first thing Nella would do would be to look in on her.
She could hear her mum sigh in relief every time the shaft of light from the hallway fell across her daughter’s bed, as if she thought that one day Anika might disappear.
The thought makes Anika shiver slightly.
Nella met her ex-husband, Clive, at the restaurant, which led to them moving out of London for that five-year spell when Anika was in her tweens.
Was it sad that Nella only managed to lift herself into higher echelons via these wealthy white men?
Anika tries not to feel resentful – some of what’s missing in her life is her own fault, after all. Particularly when it comes to family.
Nella starts to clear up the plates, giving the young boys a look that animates them into helping.
Anika recognises it well. To avoid more stilted conversation at the table, she stands up to help, too.
Plonking down a platter containing the juddering chicken carcass from the roast onto the countertop of the spacious kitchen, Anika wipes her hands on a nearby dishcloth.
‘I need to be heading off soon,’ she says, and her mother looks disappointed.
‘You sure, darling? There’s banoffee pie …’
That did used to be her favourite. It occurs to Anika, with a small jolt of surprise, that her mother probably made it specially. It’s one of the few desserts she can rustle up herself and it’s steeped in nostalgia from when it was just the two of them.
‘Oh, thanks, Mum. Yeah, of course, I’ll have a bit of that before I go, then,’ she says, walking over to give her mother a peck on the cheek.
‘After that I should probably get home and rest before I have to get up for work tomorrow,’ she says, somewhat guiltily given that due to her ‘phased re-entry’ she isn’t due into the office until 10. 30 a.m. the next day.
‘OK, sweetheart,’ her mother says, patting her shoulders. She pauses. ‘As long as you are certain that you’re feeling good enough?’
Anika smiles and nods at Nella. ‘I am. Honestly, I’m good. Better than good.’ It astounds Anika just how much she means it.
An hour later, she steps through the gates at the Tube station, heading for the southbound platform.
A train pulls in as she arrives and she finds a seat.
As she does, an alert she’s set up for when Cam Asiedu updates his Instagram flashes on her phone screen, and she quickly opens it, swallowing down her embarrassment.
Her heart flutters as she looks at the candid he’s posted from behind the scenes at a photoshoot, sitting on a stool and grinning towards the photographer in a mustard-yellow denim two-piece utility suit, his eyes squinting in mirth. He looks good.
‘Ugh, get it together, Neeks,’ she mutters to herself under her breath.
Pulling her bag onto her lap, she rummages for the diary, fanning herself with it for a minute before flicking open the pages.
She reads over what she’s written in the days since the hospital.
Almost everything so far has come to pass – so there’s at least one way to try to secure a future that she actually wants.
She clicks open her pen.
Monday 23rd July
First day back at work, and I strolled into the office looking and feeling strong, confident and ready to assert myself.
Nobody asked any awkward or nosy questions about what happened, but even if they had I’d have been able to handle it.
I was calm, cool and collected, literally – no sweat patches or shiny forehead despite the world melting down.
Going back to the grind should’ve been a drag, but out of the blue I heard about an opportunity at SpinRadio and I emailed Ashley Worth about it – skipped out any middle-men and went straight to the head of station.
And amazingly, we’ve set up a meeting so I can explain why I’m a good fit for a sidestep.
The role is as good as mine. All of that and I got to clock off at 4 p.m. for my phase-in, and without a single meeting being foisted on me.
I’m viewing every day as an opportunity and it’s working. I’ve left behind those parts of my brain that say I ‘can’t’ do this or I ‘should’ do that. It’s all about me now, and going for what I want.
Anika studies what she’s written. She briefly heard Nia talking to one of the station managers about a new upcoming vacancy before her journey off into the A&E-unknown, so it’s not entirely outside the realms of possibility.
In all honesty, Anika will be happy even if just the no-meetings part comes to pass. Baby steps.
Or giant ones. She’ll see how it works out.