Chapter 42
‘They should call this place Pissheads,’ declared Tim, laughing as he tore a chunk of baguette from the sharing plate and glanced around the underground space critically.
Back after his ‘research’ trip, he’d suggested they go for a drink after work at Magpie’s, their usual haunt near the office, but Jenni wasn’t in the mood for somewhere quite so noisy, and had instead suggested a recently opened bar situated in a renovated public convenience, which was actually much nicer than Tim was making out.
Jenni loved the old, glazed Victorian tiles, some slightly cracked, the stripped pine framework that marked the original toilet stalls, now fitted out with tables and benches, and the cosy lighting that, although now powered by electricity, used the original gas fittings.
Jenni was finding the cosy corner where the washbasins had once been, very soothing.
‘So, tell me what happened, then,’ Tim said, through another mouthful of bread, as Jenni told him about bumping into her ex and his wife at the garden centre.
‘And then he introduced Jelly—’
‘I’m sorry, what now?’ Tim interrupted, practically spitting out an olive. ‘Jelly?’
‘His wife.’
‘His wife is named after a children’s dessert?’
‘No, her name is actually Angelina – Jelly’s her nickname. Apparently.’
Tim mimed a dry retch. ‘I think it’s very infantilising. A worrying sign, if you ask me.’
‘She was actually very nice. She said she’d heard lots about me,’ said Jenni.
‘That’s not being nice, love. That’s a power play.’ Tim waved a breadstick at her. ‘She’s telling you to back off because she knows enough about you to take you down if the situation requires.’
‘Hmm, I suppose it was a bit sinister, now that I think about it. But—’ Jenni smacked Tim’s hand out the way of the cheese board before he finished the lot, ‘that wasn’t the worst of it. Alex told me they’re moving back home and I just know it’s into my house.’
Seeing Tim’s look of confusion, Jenni described the house she’d had her heart set on living in with Alex.
‘The bastard,’ hissed Tim, looking suitably outraged. ‘Stealing your dream house from under your feet.’
‘I know, right,’ Jenni agreed, rearing back to avoid the cocktail stick Tim was now jabbing aggressively in her direction.
‘Hang on, I’ve got an idea,’ said Tim, wiping his hands on a napkin before picking up his phone. ‘Well, for an IT expert, his social media privacy settings are terrible,’ he mused, as he scrolled through Instagram.
‘What have you found?’ Jenni asked, taking a big gulp of her G&T, grateful that Tim was spying on her behalf.
‘Evidence,’ he said far too loudly, before leaning back triumphantly in his seat.
Jenni studied the photo: there was Alex, his floppy hair falling over his eyes, next to a glowing Angelina – she refused to use the J word, even in her head – and in the background was what Jenni assumed was their new house, if the estate agent’s ‘sold’ board was anything to go by.
Jenni gave a squeak of joy. It wasn’t her beautiful old wisteria-clad house with the picturesque garden of her dreams. It was a much more modern-looking house built from red brick.
In front of the house was a square of bare grass, with an empty border running alongside a paved path, which explained why they were at the garden centre looking for non-toxic, baby-friendly plants.
Jenni felt her shoulders relax. She didn’t know why it had bothered her so much, but knowing Alex hadn’t stepped into their imagined future, and instead was carving out his own with someone new, made her feel better. She tried to explain how she felt to Tim.
‘But you don’t want to move to the country anyway, do you?’ he asked, still puzzled.
‘No, and if Alex and I had stayed together we might not have wanted to move either, but it was something we’d talked about, and so it upset me when it looked like he’d taken the future we’d planned together and had found it with someone else.’
Tim still looked puzzled, so Jenni tried again.
‘I guess it’s like how, when you break up with someone, you also break up with the future you’d imagined having with them.
So you don’t just lose the person, but the things you thought you were going to do together.
And it just sort of hit me that Alex still has that future we’d planned, whereas I’ve spent all this time just…
I don’t know… existing in the present, and I don’t feel like I’ve got a new vision of my life to look forward to.
Does that make sense?’ Jenni screwed up her face, hoping Tim understood.
‘No. Well, a bit, maybe,’ he amended, seeing her face fall.
‘Now Paul and I are married, I expect to grow old with him. I don’t know where or what we’ll be doing, but if that suddenly changed and we weren’t together, I’d have to say goodbye to all of that, not just him. And start drawing my future map again.’
Jenni nodded. ‘Exactly! Seeing Alex made me feel sad and lonely but also a bit annoyed that I haven’t been thinking about what my new future looks like without him.’
Tim stared at her over the rim of his martini glass. He hesitated. ‘I know I’ve been teasing you about it, but why don’t you contact that fireperson again?’
‘What, the one who ghosted me? I can’t just randomly DM him and ask him out!’
Tim put up a hand. ‘But why not? Perhaps he’s just waiting for you to get in touch first.’
‘Because…’ Jenni started, just as the waitress called last orders.
Tim ordered one last round before Jenni could argue.
‘This is bad, I’m going to be a complete mess tomorrow,’ she said, gulping down the last of her G&T before the new one arrived.
‘You’re at home tomorrow doing your tie-dye dunking business, though, right?’ Tim asked with a barely contained hiccough.
‘It’s not dunking, it’s a very precise process, actually,’ said Jenni, indignantly.
‘Soz, love.’ Tim took their last two drinks from the waitress with a smile.
‘Have you thought any more about where this “very precise process” is going to take place now you’re the big-shot “creative director” of the Natural in Nature range?
’ he asked, performing quotation marks around her new title at Go Big.
After a frustrating email exchange with the facilities manager, the Go Big premises had failed to reveal a room that Jenni could use for the colour testing she needed to do for the new walking range, so it was looking like her shed was going to have to double-up as her research lab after all.
Unless… talking about Ben had reminded her of their visit to the art gallery, and the memory of the large room in the unused part of the building they’d explored together suddenly came to mind.
She remembered how she’d thought, at the time, that it could be perfect for an upscaled House of Oscar studio.
Excitedly, she told Tim.
‘Genius! We should go and look. And…’ he paused with a triumphant gleam in his eye, ‘this is the perfect excuse to get in touch with the fireman again. Ask him to introduce you to the owner.’
Jenni’s stomach flipped in excitement.
Only because she might have just found the perfect space for her business to grow into, she told herself sternly, and nothing to do with seeing Ben again.
‘Okay, I’ll do it right now. I need to start planning my new future and embracing possibilities and… whatever you said.’ Jenni fumbled in her bag for her phone.
‘Um, hold on, madam. I don’t think four G&Ts down is the best time to message. I’m staging an intervention.’ Tim plucked Jenni’s phone from her hand. ‘But I am holding you to this tomorrow, in the cold light of a sober dawn,’ he continued.
‘Urgh, you’re probably right.’
‘In the meantime, tell me again about when Alex appeared in front of you at the garden centre. I love that bit. I can’t wait to tell Paul.’
‘It’s not funny, you know. I had a mud on my face, for goodness’ sake,’ Jenni said crossly, throwing the last olive at Tim who began to hoot with laughter.
It was pitch-black when Jenni arrived home.
She’d had to take the night bus home – and it had felt like the journey had taken forever as they’d had to wait for ages at Elephant and Castle for a change of drivers, but finally she was back in the safety of her flat.
Her first instinct had been to go straight to bed, but seized with an overwhelming need for food (to soak up all the alcohol, she could hear her mother lecturing) she headed to the kitchen and popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.
She was enjoying her toast with lashings of butter and Marmite with a cup of tea when the scrabble of paws against the back door announced Oscar’s arrival.
Finishing the last bit of her toast, Jenni put down her plate and pushed herself up from her seat to open the back door for him.
She was too tired to go through the charade of trying to persuade him to use the cat flap.
‘Honestly, Oscar, what would you do if I wasn’t here to let you in?’
Oscar rewarded Jenni with some vigorous purring and rubbed against her legs, pleased to see her. She bent down to stroke him, immediately regretting it as, still worse for wear, she nearly lost her balance.
Cursing Tim, and her own weakness for being unable to resist that final G&T, she straightened up carefully, but not before she felt the scratch of paper against her hand. Plucking a note from Oscar’s collar, she collapsed inelegantly back into her chair. Finally. A reply from 66!
She carefully unfurled the Post-it, squinting in an effort to focus.
Hi 38,
Pleased to report no more stolen toys.
I know it’s hard, if you’ve been let down before, to summon up the strength to put yourself through it again.
I don’t really talk about it, but when my last relationship ended I was in a really bad place.
I had other stuff going on, but finding out my ex had been cheating on me kind of tipped me over the edge.
Sorry, that’s a bit heavy! For what it’s worth, I think you should give whoever it was you went out with another chance.
In fact, I might need to take my own advice…
Be brave and good luck!
66
She was struck by 66’s honesty, and the last line about being brave really struck a chord – that’s exactly what Tim had been saying too.
Sliding a notebook she’d left lying on the table towards her, she grabbed a pen and started writing.
There was no time like the present, she thought, to let 66 know she intended to take his advice.
Jenni dragged the spare pillow over her eyes and laid there, enjoying the feel of the cool fabric on her pounding head. This was all Tim’s fault.
Now, she was paying the price.
But, hangover aside, that adrift feeling in the pit of her stomach that she’d been carrying around since her encounter with Alex had gone.
She felt… peaceful.
Her mind roved through her evening with Tim: laughing about Jelly, the relief that Alex wasn’t in her house, the decision to message Ben again.
She stopped. Why had she agreed to do that?
Her phone buzzed and, lifting the corner of the pillow, she cranked open one eye and squinted at the four WhatsApp messages from Tim that had arrived in quick succession.
It’s *not* a bad idea.
Do it.
Take a paracetamol first.
Love you!
Jenni eased herself up from the bed and walked gingerly down the corridor to the bathroom to wash away the excesses of the night’s indulgence, and feeling the power shower massage her head and shoulders, she began to feel better.
After slowly getting dressed in leggings and matching tie-dye sweatshirt, she headed for the kitchen, put the kettle on and checked Oscar’s food bowl, which was empty.
In fact, now she thought about it, he’d appeared at the back door after she’d got home last night and, she suddenly recalled, he’d had a note tied to his collar.
Oh no! She remembered with a groan how she’d felt compelled, despite barely being able to focus, to write back immediately, telling 66 all about Alex and future mapping and – God help her – she might have even mentioned something about manifesting.
Panic shot through her – please say she hadn’t put the note inside Oscar’s collar?
Jenni sank her head into her hands, reminding herself that nothing could be as humiliating as the time she’d meant to email just Amy but had instead accidently replied-all to a company-wide memo about suitable work attire – fortunately, Clive had taken her comment about the tightness of his cycling shorts as a compliment.
A muffled meow at the back door alerted her to Oscar’s presence and she rushed to open the door to let him in.
Her stomach flipped. He had a note attached to his collar.
She could only hope it was her drunken rambling letter from last night, undelivered.
With trembling hands, she leant down, released the string holding the piece of paper and flattened it out.
Bracing herself, she read the now-familiar spiky handwriting.
Oscar came over earlier this morning with a bit of string tied to his collar, but nothing attached. Perhaps he dropped it? Thought I’d better check in case it’s urgent. Here’s my number by the way.
A jolt went through Jenni. Oh, thank GOD.
Might be easier to text rather than use him as a postman!
The relief! Whatever she’d written last night hadn’t made it to 66. Jenni sank back in her chair in gratitude, her knees weak.
After a few moments, she pulled herself together and stood up.
Leaning back against the work surface, she gazed out of the window and took a sip of what was left of her tea.
There, in the middle of the grass, was a rolled-up sheaf of A4 paper.
No wonder Oscar had failed to deliver it to 66 – he would barely have been able to lift his head with the weight of the paper!
She heard a ping on her phone, alerting her to a new message – Tim checking in, no doubt, to make sure she’d contacted Ben.
She thought again about the previous note from 66. What had he signed off with? That was it: be brave and good luck.
Before she could chicken out, Jenni plonked down her mug, picked up her phone, opened Instagram, began typing and pressed send.
She’d done it, she’d messaged Ben.