The Happiness Recipe
Stella Newman
Previously published as LeftoversA wonderfully uplifting novel about friendship, hope and the power of pasta.According to a magazine, Susie is a ‘Leftover’ – a post-Bridget Jones 30 something who has neither her dream man, job, nor home. She doesn’t even own six matching dinner plates.According to her friend Rebecca, Susie needs to get over her ex, Jake, start online dating – or at least stop being so rude to every guy who tries to chat her up.But Susie’s got a plan. If she can just make it the 307 days till her promotion and bonus, she can finally quit and pursue her dream career in food, then surely everything else will fall into place. If only her love life wasn’t so complicated…A sharp, witty and refreshing novel about love, friendship and enjoying what's left on the table.
STELLA NEWMAN
THE HAPPINESS RECIPE
Copyright
Published by AVON
A Division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published as ‘Leftovers’ in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2013
This ebook edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Copyright © Stella Newman 2013
Cover design © Becky Glibbery
Cover illustration © Shutterstock
Stella Newman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9781847562715
Ebook Edition © April 2013 ISBN: 9780007478446
Version: 2018-06-25
To George Hanna, with thanks.
‘We’ve arrived at the top of the staircase, finally ready to start our lives, only to discover a cavernous room at the tail end of a party, most of the men gone already, some having never shown up – and those who remain are leering by the cheese table, or are, you know, the ones you don’t want to go out with.’
Kate Bolick, ‘All The Single Ladies’, The Atlantic magazine
Contents
Title Page (#u90d572d2-0f0d-50bb-8a7c-d0797073f738)
Copyright (#u8dabab48-c8fd-55a3-af2e-e3b00d26be56)
Dedication (#u09d44b1a-dcda-5ad1-8556-39a7c41932ea)
Epigraph (#uf7b1c3b3-1c74-5e07-932f-8532000a26a0)
w/c 5 March (#u7476e186-e162-5ac5-b127-7bc531a3ffd2)
w/c 12 March (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 19 March (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 26 March (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 2 April (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 9 April (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 16 April – three weeks to airdate (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 23 April – Shoot Week (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 30 April – one week to airdate (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 7th May – Airdate! (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 14th May (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 21st May (#litres_trial_promo)
w/c 28th May (#litres_trial_promo)
One year later (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
Read on for an extract from Pear Shaped (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
I am a Leftover.
Well, according to this ridiculous quiz in Style and Food Magazine I’m a Leftover:
Bridget Jones is so mid-90s! Today’s 30-somethings manage hedge funds, plan mini-music festivals and bake macrobiotic Red Velvet cupcakes, all without breaking a sweat! Answer these four questions to discover which tribe you belong to:
1) Work – Do you:
a) Run your own multi-million pound start-up, mentor young entrepreneurs in your lunch break and still find time for power pilates and a blow-dry before end of play.
b) Have a trust fund – you don’t need more cash; even so, you’ll be launching your first shoe collection in Harvey Nicks this spring.
c) Plod along on a treadmill non-career doing long hours for average pay while younger, more thrusting colleagues are promoted all around you.
2) Love and Sex – Are you:
a) Blissfully married to a man you still find ferociously attractive (the sex just gets better every year!) and tiger-mothering four kids under 10 who perform Mozart quartets together.
b) Heavily loved-up with your DJ boyfriend, and having loads of rampant, gymnastic sex, sometimes in public but mostly in Mr & Mrs Smith hotels.
c) Still recovering from your last failed relationship, living a non-voluntary celibate existence because your sad, jaded aura can be spotted from space.
3) Your weekends are spent:
a) Flicking through the FT’s ‘How to Spend It’ with one hand, buying Lanvin on Net-A-Porter with the other, only pausing to bake gluten-free alfalfa flatbreads.
b) Glamping, and on mini-breaks in Copenhagen/Babington House, religiously avoiding wheat and dairy.
c) Planning what you’re going to do if you ever stop feeling so goddamn lonely, while eating and drinking too much of everything.
4) Your role models are:
a) Nicola Horlick, Karren Brady.
b) Kate Moss, Florence from Florence + the Machine.
c) You have no role models. You have given up all hope. All that’s left is anger.
Mostly As – You’re an Alpha Alfalfa!
Mostly Bs – You’re a Gluten-free Glamorista!
Mostly Cs – You’re a Leftover!
Quiz by Khloe B
Well, Khloe, I have four things to say to you:
1) I am due to be promoted this Christmas, which is now only 307 days away. (It’s a week after Valentine’s, and we’ve just brainstormed our XtraSpecial Xmas poster concepts: Turkey Cran-Apple-Stuffing Ball Pizza anyone?)
2) Everyone has failed relationships. Perhaps not quite as fail-y as mine; still, your mistakes, your failures – they make you who you are, don’t you know?
3) Eating alfalfa is about as much fun as eating a handful of baby’s hair. And gluten-free? I happen to be a huge fan of gluten: bread, cakes, pasta. Some of my best friends are pasta. So no, Khloe, there will be no gluten-free alfalfa flatbreads.
4)Who actually spells Khloe with a K? Someone who doesn’t know how to spell Khloe, that’s who. Is your role model a Kardashian?
And another thing, Khloe: anger has nothing to do with anything. You shouldn’t try to pigeonhole people, that’s all. It’s stupid. Really stupid. In fact I’ll tell you something else that’s stupid: quizzes like this. Stupid quizzes in crappy magazines. Sorry, make that stupid kuizzes in krappy magazines.
I am not a bloody Leftover.
w/c 5 March
Monday
Show me someone in London who loves a Monday morning and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t take public transport, doesn’t work at NMN Advertising, and doesn’t make ads for Fletchers pizzas; pizzas that you wouldn’t feed to a dog. Not unless you’d been having an ongoing Mafia feud with that dog and his entire family for several generations. Even then you’d probably only feed that dog a single mouthful of pizza before taking pity on him and reaching for the Pedigree Chum.
This morning the tube was delayed, so I was delayed, and by the time I reach the glass revolving doors of NMN, just off Charlotte Street, it’s already 7.34 a.m. Free breakfast, courtesy of NMN, runs strictly from 6.30 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. Free breakfast is one of the few perks still left in this office. Obviously there’s no such thing as a free breakfast and these breakfasts are a trap, designed to lure you in to work prematurely. However (and it is an important however): Sam, Head of The Post Room, has proved beyond doubt that the egg and bacon croissants NMN use as bait are worth coming in early for.
For a bloke who’s spent ten years dossing around in a mail room, Sam’s remarkably good with computers. Last summer he was so bored, he created an interactive 3D model on his Mac. He programmed in all the variables:
Croissant Induced Happiness versus Joys of a Longer Lie-in
Relative Density of Commuters on the Northern Line 06:00 to 08:00
Financial and Emotional Costs of an Inferior Breakfast from Somewhere Else
Then he did some sums and an A3 colour printout: the croissants won. I had never even considered putting egg mayo and bacon into a croissant. Fried egg and bacon between two slices of a fresh white sandwich loaf? Sure, that’s a classic. But egg and bacon crammed into a seductively flaky French buttery croissant with melted cheese on top? If I were Robbie Doggett, NMN’s Head of Creative Thinking (and King of Trying to Be Down With the Kids even though he’s forty-nine), I’d say OMG, or hashtag ooh la la brekkie.
I don’t say either. I’m thirty-six, I don’t txtspk out loud, I don’t wear £200 customised Nikes and I don’t spend all day Tweeting shite. I would simply say ‘great croissants’; but I can’t, because it’s four minutes past the freebie and they’ve been removed. Instead I head for the mail room.
Sam’s sitting in his swivel chair wearing his favourite Bowie t-shirt and distressed jeans. (‘Distressed’, due to the fact that he’s worn them constantly since 1993; unlike Robbie Doggett’s jeans, which are made to look distressed by a team of under-age Cambodian fabric workers who are, I suspect, genuinely distressed.)
‘Seven letters, spice from crocus …’ Sam says, looking up from the crossword and giving me a brief once over. Sam is annoyingly cute: green eyes, light brown wavy hair, and a permanently amused smile that’s the result of him being privy to every last thing that goes on in this agency. It’s a good job he’s lazy, rude and smokes all day, which work against his natural attractions and mean I don’t have to fancy him. Much.
‘Hold on, I know it, Sam, I do … nutmeg?’
‘One letter short.’ He shakes his head in mock disapproval. ‘And there’s me thinking you might be hungry …’ He points his finger at a stash of goodies hiding under a paper napkin on his desk.
‘You saved one for me! You can be such a charmer …’
‘I didn’t save one for you, I saved one for whoever solves eight across,’ he says. ‘Come on, Suze, sixth letter’s an O, you’re always good on the food questions …’
‘O … o … Saffron. It’s saffron.’
He nods, then slides his chair over to the pile of goodies and whips the napkin away like a toreador. Not only has he saved me a croissant, he’s also snaffled a chocolate muffin. Best of all, he’s ordered in some of those nice Muji fibre-tip pens that are strictly contraband in our new cost-cutting regime, and a brand new pack of turquoise Post-it notes!
This is what my life has come to: elation over a pack of stolen Post-it notes. (It’s been a bad couple of years.) I could almost hug him, but Sam doesn’t do touching at all – unlike every other man in this building who does far too much touching.
‘Thanks Sam, I owe you.’
‘Yeah, yeah … just bring me in some of that chocolate pudding next time you make it.’
‘Which one? The roulade?’
‘Which one’s that?’ he says.
‘Round, in slices, had raspberries in it last time.’
‘Oh no, not interested in fruit. The one with the brownie bits on top.’
‘Ultimate death-by-brownie cheesecake bake?’
‘Yep.’
‘You didn’t think it was too sweet?’
‘No, it was good. Death by brownie. Good way to die. Better than car crash or drowning.’
‘Happy Monday to you too.’
Monday morning means updating The Status Report:
w/c 5th March
‘Project F’ – client briefing – venue TBC
Brief creative team
I live my life in w/cs. Week commencings.
For example, I know that w/c 23rd April we will be shooting our new TV ad for ‘Project F’ whether I like it or not. And I do not.
Devron from Fletchers is briefing me tomorrow. We haven’t even started the project yet, but according to the timing plan we’re already two months late. Devron keeps changing his mind about the brief. It’s probably going to end in disaster, but hey – ‘Tight deadlines are what keep this business fun!’ That’s according to my boss, Berenice: a woman whose idea of fun is Excel. Excel the spreadsheet, not ExCel the conference centre, though she is a woman who loves an industry conference. Networking is one of her middle names: Berenice Robot-Psychopath Networking Davis.
Which reminds me, w/c 4 June I’m being roped in to The Tasty Snacking Show, again. Last year Fletchers forced me into fancy dress to publicise their new ‘Pizza Spagnola!’ range. Words can’t describe the humiliation of getting stuck in the ticket barrier at Earl’s Court tube dressed as a Spanish sausage. Take my word for it, there’s no obvious place to stick an Oyster card when you’re a chorizo.
W/c 16 July – a week in Centre Parcs Cumbria to brainstorm Christmas 2015.
W/c 3 September, birthday week – I shall be on holiday, somewhere hot, preferably with a man but more than likely with Dalia. (That’s if I can persuade her to be parted from her on-off-off boyfriend for long enough to board a plane.)
W/c 17 December – get my bonus, pay off my debts and finally get promoted to the board, thus proving to my parents that I am not a failure and I am not a quitter. Then quit. Work out my three-month notice period in a state of sheer unadulterated bliss, every day a rainbow. Release myself into the free world just in time for spring and start doing what I was put on this earth to do. (I’ll have worked out what that is by then. Definitely.)
My whole life spent, living in the future.
The one good thing about Mondays? They go fast.
The hours are eaten up by a sequence of pointless, infuriating, navel-gazing meetings:
Team Meeting, Floor Meeting, Department Meeting, Production Meeting and finally Meeting-Planning Meeting. Yes. Just when you think it’s safe to go back to your desk at 6.30 p.m., the account directors have a meeting just to talk about the rest of the week’s meetings. Still, tonight we’re finished by 7 p.m., and I race out of the door before Berenice can make her usual hi-larious joke – ‘half day, Susannah?’
With any luck Upstairs Caspar will be out for the night. If it wasn’t for Caspar my home would be perfect. I live in a cosy one-bed flat on the fifth floor of Peartree Court, a six-storey U-shaped block with a little square of garden in the middle, with, yes, a tree, with pears on. It’s in Swiss Cottage, a pleasant area of North London that is not remotely Swiss, nor full of cottages. The flat belonged to my granny, who left it to me and my brother when she died seven years ago. My brother now lives in a big house in Chester where his wife is from. I give him half the mortgage equivalent every month and I get to live here.
Peartree Court is looked after by Terry the Caretaker. If he wasn’t in his sixties and missing two important front teeth we’d be in business. He’s a total sweetheart – he’s even given me a secret key to the roof terrace. It has amazing views of the whole of London. Residents aren’t supposed to go up there – health and safety. But as long as I’m discreet and don’t let myself get spotted by the busybody Langdons on the third floor then Terry’s fine. (The Langdons actually complain every autumn when the pears start to fall from the tree. They don’t like the mess of everyday life. Then again, who does?)
Terry’s kind to all the old people in the block and tolerant of all the 4x4 driving yuppies who move in every time one of the oldies kicks the bucket. Yuppies like Caspar. Love thy neighbour’s not working out too well for us. Caspar moved in just over a year ago. He is an actuary. I don’t actuary know what this means, other than that at thirty-one he can afford two cars (Porsche, Range Rover) and has enough free time to play a lot of tennis. I frequently bump into him in the lift in mini-shorts, thinking he’s Nadal. Except unlike Nadal, Caspar is pasty, blond and snotty. Grand-slam snotty.
I know this because two weeks after my ex, Jake, ripped out my heart, Caspar ripped up his carpets, installing tropical hardwood flooring instead. Due to the acoustics of this flooring I hear Caspar flob up whatever’s in his throat every single morning at dawn, like vulgar birdsong. Caspar spent four years in Hong Kong and he informs me that in Chinese culture it is a good thing to loudly hack up one’s phlegm. Good for him; not so much for me.
Along with the coughing there’s the shagging – his, not mine, obviously. Never optimum to hear your neighbours getting it on. But Caspar’s sex life … it’s so terribly audible. And it’s always the same routine: Michael Bublé goes on the Bang & Olufsen. Then I hear Caspar bang and olufsen. I’ve repeatedly asked him to at least put some rugs down, but he tells me that my ears are too sensitive. So now I’ve resorted to whacking up the volume on my Adele CD – it’s that or else I hear everything.
The only part of his routine that ever changes is the girl. He has a taste for drippy blondes, and because he’s a rich, cocky little bugger he seems to have no trouble pulling. Sometimes I see him strut to his Porsche, an interchangeable girl scurrying a few metres behind him like an obedient little mouse. I never ever want to go out with a man who marches ahead of me down the street.
Tonight I’m in luck: Caspar’s out, which means some peace. I head straight for the kitchen: the only thing that can undo the damage to my soul that a Monday at work has done is a good dinner. The cupboards in here are a bit of a mess – I’m rubbish at throwing things away – but behind the Hobnob tubes and huddles of geriatric spices I find exactly what I’m looking for.
My grandma always told me that a bowl of pasta is the answer to most of life’s problems. She was Italian. Statements like that always sound a little more profound in a foreign language: Un piatto di pasta e’ la risposta a quasi tutti i problemi della vita. All you have to do is pick the right pasta for your circumstances. For example, tonight I’m tired and feeling lazy. So nothing too complicated: a tomato-based sauce, thirty minutes’ cooking time, max. However today, being Monday, was dull, so I’m craving a little lift. The solution? A bit of chilli in the sauce, and a pasta shape that conjures up excitement: fusilli. Lovely and twirly, like a kids’ fairground ride.
I check in the fridge and find a pack of bacon that’s a week past its use by date. My mum brought me up to believe that a use by date is arbitrary – a random sequence of numbers and letters, designed to trick you into throwing good food away before its time. It might as well be in Cyrillic. If it looks fine and it smells fine then it is fine.
I fry a red onion in butter and olive oil till it’s soft and starting to turn golden, then add the bacon and a pinch of red chilli flakes and stand over the saucepan inhaling like a teenage glue-sniffer. After five minutes I pour in a tin of tomatoes, a pinch of salt and sugar, reduce the heat to a low simmer and head to my bathroom.
Make-up comes off, I have a bath and I even manage to apply a Liz Earle nourishing face mask, which promises to brighten my tired, dull complexion. If only Liz could make a potion to brighten the other parts of my tired, dull existence …
OK. Pyjamas: on. Baggy, slightly moth-bitten cashmere sweater: on. Horrendous yet cosy Ninja Turtle slippers, a gift from my brother in 1987: on (I’m serious – I never throw anything away). Pan of salted water for the pasta: on.
Eleven minutes later – absolute happiness. Twirly pasta with a spicy tomato and bacon sauce with loads of melted cheese on top. Eaten on the sofa in front of an episode of 30 Rock. Just me, Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin.
My grandma was right about the pasta. My mother was right about those use by dates. And all is right in my world.
Tuesday
All is about to be a little less right.
When I reach my desk the light on my phone is already flashing. It’s 7.42 a.m., which can only mean one person: Berenice. I have been summoned. Always ominous with Berenice; she has a way of making you feel like a mass-murderer just by saying your name on an answering machine. I suspect one day I’ll break down in her office and admit to kidnapping Shergar, shooting JFK and hiding Lord Lucan under my bed.
I rush to the ladies’ to check in the mirror. Could be worse: Tuesday morning bed hair gets pulled back into a bun. Make-up is fine; the early days of the week always see fresh mascara. Catch me on a Friday though and chances are it’s Thursday night’s face. I’m wearing a respectable M&S knee-length burgundy dress that could pass for Jaeger, in the dark. No cleavage or knees on show – extremely important, in light of Berenice’s latest paranoid fixation … Jolly good – I look like a tired, non-sexual, overworked thirty-six-year-old woman who is not having much fun. A carbon copy of Berenice, only five years younger.
I take the lift up to the fifth floor. Her PA must be at Early-Bird Zumba so I hover awkwardly outside Berenice’s office, waiting for her to notice me through the glass wall. Maybe Sam’s right, I think, as I look at the crown of Berenice’s head. Last week Sam informed me that Berenice has her colour done every nine days at that place off Sloane Square where Cate Blanchett goes to when she’s in town. I have never seen a trace of a dark root in Berenice’s hair. It is always perfect: placid, unthreatening, shoulder-length blonde. Not sexy blonde. But grown-up, good taste, all-my-glassware-comes-from-Conran, ash blonde. Personally I favour brown. Slightly unruly, all-my-glasswear-comes-from-Ikea-or-was-borrowed-from-my-local-pub, mousy brown.
Sam also told me that Martin Meddlar, our CEO, gets his hair bouffed at Nicky Clarke once a week and puts it down as a work expense. When I asked Sam how he came by this business-critical information he merely raised an eyebrow and said ‘Exactly!’ (Either he’s hacking into Finance’s expenses file, or he’s hacking into London’s chi-chiest hairdressers’ Hotmail accounts. He’s capable of both.)
I glance over to see if Martin and his bouff are in their vast corner office, but no, the plush leather chair is empty. Generally Martin comes in at 11 a.m., lunches from 12 p.m. with a senior client, then returns slightly drunk at 3.50 p.m. just in time for his driver to take him home at 4.00 p.m. on the dot. (‘The A40 gets totally gridlocked after 4.30 p.m.’)
Berenice must sense movement, as she finally looks up and beckons me in. She’s been the head of my department for six years and yet I still feel slightly sick with fear every time I have a meeting with her. ‘Susannah, take a seat,’ she says.
My name is Susie. I know it’s the same name. I know it’s not a big a deal. But the only other person who calls me Susannah is my mother when I’ve done something earth-shatteringly wrong (borrowed her car and forgotten to reset the rear-view mirror; failed to be a successful and married dentist like my brother).
‘Fletchers OK?’ says Berenice, staring down at her notepad.
Good morning, Susie. Are you well? You look a little tired. I know that we work you terribly hard, but we do so appreciate your labour on behalf of our bottom line. Would you like a cup of tea? A posh biscuit? Maybe even some eye contact? To be honest, I’m happier without the eye contact. There is something hostile in Berenice’s grey eyes that I can only assume is the by-product of her being bullied by Martin Meddlar. That’s just a rumour – he’s only ever been nice to me. Too nice, in Berenice’s opinion – hence my dowdy dress. Anyway, allegedly he bullies her, and she bullies me: a pretty little daisy chain of bullying that entwines the three of us.
‘Fletchers is great,’ I say. ‘Spanish pizza sales are up twenty-three per cent, and the digital campaign’s tracking well.’
She nods. ‘How’s Jonty getting on?’
Aaah, Jonty. The I-d-iot she’s allocated to help me out with print ads. The lazy, cocky red-jeaned idiot who is Berenice’s best friend’s godson and therefore couldn’t possibly be an idiot.
‘Yup. I think Jonty’s enjoying himself.’
‘Glad he’s helping you out. Now. I know you’re looking to progress by year end.’
‘Yes, absolutely,’ I nod. ‘I’ve been an account director for six years now, so I’m definitely ready …’ And have been for the last two years since I first asked you for a promotion and you first waved a little carrot near me, before smashing me with a stick of Fletchers pizza.
‘And I believe Devron at Fletchers has mentioned Project F to you already.’
‘Briefing’s tomorrow. What’s it all about?’
She flinches. ‘I can’t share that information, I’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement.’ I bet if I asked her where her PA keeps the Earl Grey teabags she’d say she’s signed an NDA on that too.
‘Berenice, can I just check, it is still a pizza brief, isn’t it?’ It had better be. Pizzas are bad enough. (I’ve also done time on Jumbo Pasties and Asian Cuisine, which for some reason included Polish dumplings.) Just please, please, please don’t put me on Dog and Bog. The worst possible fate for anyone here is to be moved to Dog and Bog. (Household department: pet food and loo roll.)
She sighs. ‘Basically it’s their biggest launch of the financial year. Super-high-profile, game-changing, mega-strategic. Lots of … fun.’ She says the word ‘fun’ like other people say the word ‘herpes’. She squints at something on her notepad. It’s the only thing on her desk other than a white porcelain vase with a narrow neck that is currently strangling a single pink orchid. My desk looks like a crime scene. Berenice associates messiness with stupidity, which might explain why she always talks to me like I’m nine years old.
‘Susannah. This is your opportunity to prove yourself. It’s time to put clear blue water between you and your peers. That’s if you want to notch it up to the next level. You’ve got people like Jonty at your heels, champing at the bit for projects like this.’
My peers? Jonty thinks spaghetti grows on trees. He actually does.
‘This project will define you,’ she says. ‘If you get this right …’ She looks at me with almost a smile. Of course she will not say ‘If you get this right I will promote you’ for that would amount to a sentence (in mid-air, if nowhere else) for me to clutch onto in my darkest hours. Two years ago Berenice said ‘If you prove yourself on pizzas …’ She never finished that sentence and I never pinned her down; cowardice stopped me. Well, cowardice has not served me well – it’s time for a change of tack.
‘Are you saying that if I get this right then at Christmas you’ll promote me?’ I say, as softly and gently as a human voice can deliver a sentence.
Her almost-smile disappears instantly. ‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
‘I don’t mean to push you, but I’m just trying to be clear what I need to do to …’ What was her awful buzz-word? Mirror her awful buzz-word, speak Berenice back to her. ‘What I need to do to notch it … to the next level …’
She stares at me as if she’s trying to decide between two identical shades of white paint, neither of which are satisfactory. ‘I need you to exceed my expectations. I need to see a step-change in your performance. I need to be convinced you’re ready for this. You are ready for this, aren’t you, Susannah? I need to see that you’re hungry. Are you hungry?’
‘Oh I’m hungry, Berenice. I’m hungry.’
I’m always hungry.
I’m the hungriest.
‘Can we go and eat?’ I say to Rebecca as I hover over her desk at the end of the day. Rebecca and Sam are the only two reasons I’ve stayed borderline sane at NMN and arguably that border has been crossed a few times of late.
‘Not bothered about food but I could murder a drink,’ she says, pointing to a presentation on her screen titled ‘Shlitzy Alcopops – Nurturing The Brand Soul’.
‘How can you always drink on an empty stomach?’ I say.
‘I’m a professional,’ she says, shutting down her computer and grabbing her coat. ‘Where’s good on a miserable rainy Tuesday?’
‘Hawksmoor? Killer cocktails and their burgers are meant to be amazing.’
‘First round’s on me,’ she says. ‘Let’s make it a double.’
Is Rebecca a Leftover then? She’s thirty-three, single, does a bullshit job, drinks a little too much. She happens to be gorgeous: she has huge brown eyes with naturally long, thick curly lashes. She never needs to wear mascara, but when she does, people just stare at her as if her eyes can’t be real. Plus she’s curvy, and leggy! Honestly, if I didn’t know her I’d hate her. But I do know her. So I know that along with being naturally beautiful, she’s also funny, kind and loyal.
What I don’t know is why she’s single. Other than that she’s playing a numbers game and hasn’t found that mythical ‘one’ yet. And with Rebecca it definitely isn’t for lack of trying. Well, who knows what’s around the corner?
‘Best Piña Coladas in London, hands down,’ I say, fishing a yellow cocktail umbrella from my glass and sticking it behind my right ear. Perfect! A little friend for the pink one behind my left.
‘Try this,’ she says, holding out her Martini glass. ‘It says on the menu that it’s an anti-fogmatic, and that in the 1820s, doctors recommended it be drunk before eleven in the morning.’
‘And you’d be drunk before eleven in the morning, Berenice would love that … Did the barman say he uses coconut sorbet in this?’
‘I wasn’t listening to him, I was just looking at him.’ She grins. ‘Did you see his body?’
‘Becka, he’s like twenty-two years old.’
She shrugs. Rebecca has no qualms about letching over younger men. I don’t do it for fear of looking like a cougar, but Rebecca’s not yet old enough to be branded a cougar. Besides, the barman couldn’t keep his eyes off her either.
‘Let’s do Piña Coladas every Tuesday,’ I say, taking another swig of my drink. ‘This is almost like being on holiday!’
‘This place is great,’ she says, taking in the dark wood panelled walls and old-fashioned table lamps.
‘Isn’t it? We’re two minutes from all that tourist crap in Covent Garden but we could be in a New York speakeasy. Where’s my burger, how long since I ordered?’
‘Never mind the burger, I think we’ve got company,’ she says, smiling her perfect Juicy Tubed smile at someone behind me.
Bingo. It never takes more than a couple of drinks in any social setting before Rebecca has attracted male attention. She’s the perfect wing-man. (Wing-woman sounds weird, like a low-budget super hero; Wing-Woman! She has wings and she’s learning to fly!) ‘Pulling partner’ isn’t right either technically, as Rebecca invariably pulls and I don’t. But that’s because she always gets the hot guy and leaves me with the sidekick. Fair enough, I guess I’m the sidekick too. Still, even the leftovers don’t want other leftovers.
And here we go again.
‘Can we buy you beautiful ladies a drink?’ says the better-looking one to Rebecca.
‘Have a seat,’ she says. ‘I’ll have a glass of champagne, my friend Ella Umbrella over there will have another Piña Colada.’
‘No, I’m fine, thanks,’ I say. I’m tipsy already – two strong cocktails on an empty stomach have done me in.
‘And a couple of Jäger Bombs too,’ says Rebecca, giving me the look. The look that says ‘Don’t complain your life is boring if you refuse to join me in Living It Up and Getting Pissed On A School Night. Booze! Boys! What more could you want?’
‘Rebecca! You know they don’t agree with me …’
Sixty minutes, two Jäger Bombs and another Piña Colada later, I’m trying to work out where to stick my new green umbrella.
In Danny, the handsome guy, for droning on about the transfer window?
In Rebecca, for faking interest so brilliantly, thus leaving me stuck with The Douche Bag?
Or straight into The Douche Bag? I mean, come on: we both know the deal. We’re meant to politely chat and let the other two get on with flirting. But no.
I now know Jason is forty, a Virgo, but on the cusp and actually way more Libran.
He works in equities at a small Swiss firm near London Wall. He’s not being arrogant or anything but he’s bloody good at his job – it’s just a fact.
He lives in Putney, drives a BM, doesn’t much like films or books unless they’re about real life crime.
He listens to XFM, thinks Katy Perry’s got nice tits but Adele should lay off the doughnuts.
He goes down the gym – David Lloyd, Fulham – three to four times a week and does forty minutes on the treadmill at fourteen kilometres an hour ’cos he likes to look good. It’s where he met his last girlfriend, Megan, twenty-five, who was super hot, beautiful blow job lips, ri-di-culous body (the greatest arse in London), but after two years she was pressuring him to commit and he just wasn’t sure she was enough for him and he doesn’t miss her ’cos London’s full of fit birds. Mind you, you don’t want to be dating a woman who’s over thirty. There’s a reason why they’re single.
I am yet to find Jason’s redeeming features.
He thinks my name is Ella, and I haven’t bothered to correct him. Partly because he’s done nothing other than talk about himself for an hour. And partly because I’m now severely drunk. My burger hasn’t turned up and all I can think about is how hungover my Wednesday morning is going to be. I’m a little dizzy and I really should have a glass of water but Jason is now desperately chatting up the tattooed, red-lipsticked waitress and I don’t want to interrupt. She’s humouring him, playing along, because the cocktails here aren’t cheap, and if Jason orders a few more then her tip might reach double digits.
‘Oy, Danny,’ he says, pulling at his friend’s sleeve as the waitress heads back to the bar. ‘Did you clock that waitress’s mouth?’
‘Saw her tramp stamp,’ says Danny. ‘You dirty dog, Jase.’
‘I think she’s up for it,’ says Jason.
‘I think she’s a good waitress,’ I say, thinking that I couldn’t flirt with this tosser just for the sake of a bigger tip.
‘Those bright red lips! I bet she’s filthy …’ he says, nudging Danny.
‘For God’s sake, just because a woman wears red lipstick doesn’t mean she’s filthy,’ I say. ‘Where’s my burger?’
Jason takes a swig of his drink. ‘Yeah well in my experience red lipstick’s a good indication that a girl knows what she’s doing down there.’ He grins. ‘The more lipstick, the dirtier!’ He winks at Rebecca.
Good grief. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Are you actually suggesting that red lipstick indicates a girl is good in bed?’ Rebecca gives me a warning look: you’re drunk.
He shrugs and looks at his mate with a raised eyebrow, as if he’s said the most intelligent thing short of E = mc
.
‘Because, Ja-son, if that’s true, then why don’t you run off and join the circus?’
‘What?’
‘Go join the circus, Jason. Date a clown. They wear loads of red lipstick – it’s all over their face. By your logic that makes them at least twice as filthy as that poor waitress. Yeah, Jase, go and date a nice dirty clown with a squeezy plastic flower and those funny stripy trousers.’
There is an embarrassed silence, filled eventually by Rebecca. ‘Sorry guys, maybe those Jäger Bombs weren’t such a good idea …’ she says. Jason is staring at me like I’ve said something … I don’t know, what is that word now … weird?
‘You know what, Jase?’ I say. ‘Maybe you don’t have to wait until the circus comes to town. You might get lucky. Maybe there are some clowns hanging out down the David Lloyd, running on the treadmill with their long slutty clown shoes.’
I see Rebecca shaking her head more violently in my direction.
‘Gosh, clown shoes must make running a real challenge. Bet they can’t do “fourteen kilometres an hour” like you can … Oh! And step class must be a nightmare! So embarrassing, always tripping over their own feet. Poor, sexy, slightly scary clut-slowns.’
‘Clut-slowns?’ he says.
‘Clut-slowns. Clut-slowns, slut-clowns, you know what I mean!’
‘Are you a lezza or what?’ he says.
‘What?!’ I haven’t been accused of being a lesbian since I refused to snog Elliot Johnson at the school Christ-mas disco when I was fourteen. ‘Jason … You know Maggie?’
‘Maggie who?’
‘Hello? Your ex-girlfriend Maggie? Wow, fickle! Two years together and you can’t even remember her name!’
‘That’s because her name’s Megan.’
‘Oh. Was it? I thought you said Maggie? No?’
He shakes his head.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure …’
‘Anyway, “the greatest arse in London” –that one – well, Jason, I’ve got news for you, my friend: you are the greatest arse in London!’
‘Suze …’ says Rebecca, putting her hand on my arm. ‘Let’s get you some food …’
‘I think you should take your mental rug-munching friend home – get her back on her meds,’ says Jason, heading to the bar in pursuit of the waitress.
‘Yeah, send my love to …’ I rack my brain for the name of a famous clown … er … how come I don’t know any famous clown names? Now that really is embarrassing. ‘Send my love to … to Coco!’ I shout after him. Yeah. Coco. That’ll do. He was a boy clown. I think.
Danny whispers something to Rebecca and follows his mate to the bar. Rebecca just stares at me.
‘What?’ I say, twiddling my umbrella and checking whether the up-down mechanism on it works. Cool, it does! I love the fact that these umbrellas could actually function as mini parasols, for ladybirds or something …
‘Bloody hell, Suze,’ she says. ‘You need to stop doing that.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Being insane and aggressive when hot men are chatting us up.’
‘He wasn’t that hot. Anyway you fancy the barman more than you fancied him.’
‘Not the point.’
‘Come off it, he was booooring. And his nob-head friend was rude about Adele. I’m standing up for womankind. And he made that moronic comment about lipstick and I was merely trying to explain to him that … you know … you shouldn’t objectify women, and lipstick doesn’t make a girl sexy …’
‘Shall I tell you what else doesn’t make a girl sexy, Suze?’
‘What?’
‘Verbally attacking random men.’
‘Random dipshits more like …’
‘Whatever. Either way, you come across as angry.’
‘Becka, I’m only angry when I’m provoked.’
‘Look, I know you’ve had a drink …’
‘That’s your fault! You’re a bad friend! You made me have five drinks on a Tuesday night and you know I don’t get along with Jägermeister at the best of times, hideous Alpine medicine …’
‘Hang on a minute …’ she says.
‘What?’
‘The lipstick thing …’
‘No, it’s not what you’re thinking!’ I hold up my hand to stop what she’s about to say.
‘Isn’t Jake’s girlfriend a …’
‘Rebecca, it has nothing whatsoever to do with that.’
‘You’re not still looking at her stupid blog, are you?’
‘No.’
She looks at me.
‘Not really,’ I say.
‘You are. Oh Suze, why are you doing this to yourself?’
‘I’m not. There was some stupid piece in ES Magazine last week about Spring’s New Make-Up Looks. I saw her name, and then there was a little photo of her with her bloody Birkin bag like some wannabe Victoria Beckham, doing some model’s lip gloss at a show … I wasn’t Googling her, I really wasn’t.’
‘Oh Suze, she is so irrelevant.’
‘They’re still together, Rebecca. She’s posted some new pics on Facebook. God, I need some carbohydrate, I feel dreadful.’
She shakes her head and puts her arm round me. ‘Come on, you drunken, crazy fool. Let’s get you home for your meds.’
‘Only if by meds you mean two McDonald’s cheeseburgers for the road? Please, can we?’
She nods, resignedly.
She’s a very good friend.
Wednesday
I will never, ever let Rebecca order me a Jäger Bomb, ever again.
I wake up in my clothes with half a pink umbrella in my hair, a splitting headache in my left eye and the taste of McDonald’s dill pickle in my mouth. It’s fine. I’m not late for work or anything. But as I lie here in bed, talking myself out of chucking a sickie, I can’t help but think ‘Why, oh why am I still working at NMN?’
I’ve been there for six years. I moved there from BVD, an even crappier agency, where I worked on a yellow fats account. (Yellow fats = butter, anything that behaves like butter, or that you’d say was butter-y-ish if you had no taste buds/someone put a gun in your mouth. In fact a gun in your mouth would taste more like butter.) I moved agencies because I thought the problem was BVD and yellow fats. But I’ve come to realise that the problem wasn’t my old agency. It wasn’t the spreadable butter-replacement solutions. It’s this business full stop.
Oh I know what you’re thinking: daft cow, of course advertising is full of tossers! Since the 1980s, ad ‘folk’ have been second only to estate agents as figures of hate. But in recent years two things changed all that. First, bankers and politicians (never high on your Christmas card list), made a running sprint, like at the end of the Grand National, for Public Enemy spots number one and two. The guys from Foxtons slipped down to third place, and ad folk – well, we fell off the podium.
And second: Mad Men came on TV. The men were chauvinists but sexy chauvinists. The women looked like actual women. Everyone smoked and drank and had sex with everyone else in the office. The industry suddenly looked glamorous and grown up and intellectually stimulating. And suddenly people seemed to forget that Mad Men is a made-up TV show rather than a documentary, and started thinking maybe advertising wasn’t so bad after all.
Friends began asking if it was anything like Mad Men at NMN. To which the answer is surprisingly twofold: a bit, and not at all. A bit: the men are still chauvinists. Everyone drinks. Some still smoke. Everyone still has sex with everyone else in the office (apart from Sam and me). But glamorous? Grown up? Intellectually stimulating? See ‘not at all’ for details. And as for women who look like actual women? I’m one of only four females in the building who’s bigger than a size eight, and two of the others are pregnant.
Anyway – I think, as I force myself to crawl out of bed – it’s all going to be fine because I have THE plan: execute this new brief perfectly, stay out of trouble with Berenice, get my bonus and promotion at Christmas, then go and find something fun and fulfilling to do in the world of food instead. And no, I will not be serving fries with that.
It could be a lot worse, I figure as I head to the tube. At least I don’t work at Fletchers.
Fletchers is a rubbish supermarket. They’re the seventh biggest in the UK. They used to be fourth, but they’ve steadily cut the quality of their food and staff. If you go into a Fletchers after 2 p.m. on a weekday, chances are they’ll have run out of milk and bread and you’ll be lucky to find a chicken in sell by date. They’re plagued by bad PR stories: the guy on the meat counter filmed by an undercover Sun reporter picking his nose and then touching the pork belly; donkey meat in the burgers; the relabelling of mutton as lamb; the job-lot of tomatoes from China that were genetically modified in an old nuclear plant.
They’re still pretty popular with shoppers though. Why? Here’s why: firstly, you can feed a family of four for two pounds at Fletchers. Secondly, a large proportion of the British public love the Fletchers ‘brand’. Devron, Fletchers’ Head of Foods and Marketing, is on record as saying ‘If you crossed James Corden with a can of Tango and a Geordie hen night, that’s what our brand stands for: down-to-earth, honest, cheeky fun.’ And all that cheeky fun is down to the advertising we’ve done for them over the last six years. Advertising that I have, in some small way, been involved in. Good job I don’t believe in re-incarnation or I’d be coming back in the next life as a vajazzle.
Fletchers hired NMN as their agency because we are the diametric opposite of Fletchers. We look classy (from the outside at least). We are big. Shiny. Expensive. We do ads for famous beers and jeans; for deodorant that is in every bathroom cabinet in the nation.
Our offices are plush and tasteful. They reek of sobriety.
We’re not wacky, soothe the white walls in reception.
We are solid, reassure the marble tiles in the first-floor client loos. We won’t take your overpriced t-shirt brand and ‘sex it up’ so that next year the only people wearing it will be gypsies on a reality TV show. Gosh no – not our style at all.
Take a closer look, whisper the spot-free windows in the second-floor boardroom. Here, borrow this ruler so you can measure how thick the chocolate on our client biscuits is. See? Isn’t that wonderful? Everything’s going to be just fine.
(It’s a good job clients never take the lift above the second floor. Up on fourth, the creatives inhabit their own little Sodom. Management up on fifth is Gomorrah. The smell of fire and brimstone is masked by copious amounts of Jo Malone Red Roses air freshener but that doesn’t fool me.)
And then we come to my desk, here on the third floor – home of the account directors. It’s a metaphorical floor plan. Below us are the clients, when they come in for a meeting. Above us, the creatives. We are stuck in the middle of two warring factions, the filling in a sandwich that you would be well advised not to eat.
I dump my bag on my chair and take a deep breath. Right: I’ve made a decision. Today is going to be a good day. Yes, I’m hungover, which isn’t ideal. But I have a large white coffee in one hand, and a brown paper bag with buttered white toast and Marmite in the other. Caffeine. Salt. Fat. Carb. Chair. Those five nouns: what more could a girl ask for?
Even better! Jonty’s not here. He’s off on a course all week learning how to manage his workload. Bless, I don’t think he needs any help on that front, he’s given it all to me.
And in other good news Rebecca is out too, on a shoot, so she won’t be able to nab me over lunch break and try to make me talk about last night. Rebecca is one of those friends who thinks it’s important always to confront the truth. Doesn’t she realise no one ever thanks you for telling them the truth? Denial is a healthy psychological state, designed to protect us from ourselves, and should be respected accordingly.
So no lunchtime shaming. In fact, today’s lunch is going to be the start of the rest of my life: Devron’s finally briefing me on Project F and I’ll be on the road to promotion. He’ll phone me in a bit to tell me where he wants to be wined and dined. My mother is always telling me how lucky I am that I get to go to the occasional posh restaurant and not have to pay. Maybe it does sound glamorous. Except it’s not like going somewhere fab with your friends. No. It is going somewhere fab with a compulsive freeloading rude buffoon who is a stranger to the concept of shame.
Sure enough, my phone rings at 10.57.
‘S-R,’ he says. Berenice calls me Susannah. Devron calls me by my initials, S-R. He doesn’t think women other than secretaries should be allowed in the workplace and I figure it’s his subconscious mind trying to pretend I’m not a girl.
‘So Devron, where do you fancy today?’
‘Hawksmoor,’ he says, ‘in Covent Garden. Hello? Are you still there, S-R?’
‘Uh-huh …’ I say, trying to replay exactly what interaction I had with the bar staff last night … Did that waitress overhear any of the clown stuff?
‘I want steak,’ says Devron. ‘Hawksmoor. It’s a beef place.’
More than familiar with it thanks, Devron – familiar with the barman, the waitress, the cocktail menu, the cocktail menu … Actually, playing it all back in my head, I don’t remember embarrassing myself in front of the staff … However, I also don’t remember whether I took a cab or the tube home last night … Not worth the risk. ‘We can’t go to Hawksmoor,’ I say, a little too forcefully.
‘What do you mean, can’t?’ says Devron, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice. Damn. There goes the golden rule of my job. Never ever use the c-word in front of a client.
‘It’s just … we might have trouble getting a table at such short notice … it’s very popular.’
‘Janelle’s on the other line getting us one now,’ he says.
Quick … think. ‘Tell her not the Covent Garden one! There’s a new one! In Air Street! It’s meant to be … much … airier?’
‘What’re you on about? The one in Covent Garden’s ten minutes away.’
‘If you fancy beef let’s go to Gaucho’s. They do that lovely Argentinian rib-eye …’
‘Nah, been there loads. Plus, they’re Argies. Hold on … one o’clock? Yeah, Janelle’s got us in at one, in the bar area. See you there.’
I hang up and have a terrible, paranoid, hungover thought. I check my wallet. Nope. No receipt. I start texting Rebecca to ask if she paid for our drinks last night because I definitely didn’t. That’s all I need: turn up and find myself on a Wanted poster. Rebecca’s on a shoot though so she’ll have her phone off till lunch.
No choice: I’m going to have to adopt a disguise, fake moustache not an option. Off to the loo. Right, let’s see what we’ve got to work with today …
Well, one good thing about having mousy hair and bluey-grey eyes is that you don’t leave a striking physical impression at the scene of a crime. I have the sort of neutral features that you’d describe as nondescript if you were being bitchy; or chameleon-like, if you were Jake, trying to be poetic on our third date. Nothing is too big or small but nothing is special either. If I apply make-up really well I can scrub up to a 7 out of 10. If I’m tired or have no blusher on, these days I can sink to a 3.
I’ll have to rely on subtle styling. OK, hair was down, or was it up last night? It smells of smoke. Rebecca must have been smoking, so my hair was probably down, which is why it smells of Marlboro Lights. Fine: I’ll stick it up in a bun.
Yesterday I was in my burgundy dress and heels; today a navy jacket, cream t-shirt and trousers. That’s good, less showy. And I’m in flats so a totally different height, five foot six now, and yesterday I was at least five foot eight.
Face. OK, not much we can do about this. Yesterday’s eye make-up is still on, but a bit smudged under the eyes, not too bad. I could pop to Boots and buy some red lipstick – oh, the irony … Pass myself off as French … Mind you, red lipstick will only draw attention, and I always feel ridiculous wearing it, like a little girl pretending to be her mother.
Glasses! That’ll do the trick. They’re in my handbag. Hair back, glasses on, no lipstick. Totally neutral and nothing special. I could walk into a bar like this and a man would look at me for about two seconds and then not look again. It’s at moments like this that I really start to feel my age, these last few tainted years between now and forty when I can still pass for youthful. The time is slipping away from me like an egg white down the kitchen sink – a little dribble at first, then a giant whoosh, and suddenly it’s gone.
I head back to my desk, a small cloud forming: shake it off. Why am I even worrying about the bar staff approaching me? Ridiculous. Hawksmoor’s a classy establishment. Worst-case scenario they’ll take me subtly to one side, tell me they’ve added the drinks to the bill. In fact I hope they do add the drinks to the bill. It’s bad karma running out on a bill, isn’t it? By the time I’ve talked myself into and out of a panic, it’s time to go. Still no text back from Rebecca. I’ll just have to hope for the best.
Sure enough, it’s fine. When I get to the restaurant and head gingerly down the stairs, neither the barman nor the waitress are anywhere to be seen. All that panic over nothing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me sometimes. I always fear the worst – maybe as a way of preparing myself for life’s constant disappointments.
Devron’s already at the table with a bottle of wine from the priciest third of the list. He normally only has one glass, then takes the rest of the bottle home to have with his girlfriend. Berenice doesn’t mind – she’ll sign off any client-related expenses without a quibble, even lapdances at Stringfellows when the luxury car team take their client out on a mega jolly. But try to expense a taxi home at 11 p.m. on a rainy winter’s night and she’ll send round an all-staff email, titled ‘KEEP CALM AND CATCH THE TUBE! – AUSTERITY TIMES!’ naming and shaming you.
‘What are we having?’ says Devron, handing me a menu. He does mean we, not you. Devron is one of life’s sharers. Well, a one-way sharer. I too am a sharer. I want other people to try the food I love. I put things on their plates; I eat from theirs. In fact I have no problem eating from a stranger’s plate. Jake and I once had a massive row because he thought I was flirting with a man on the table next to us, when all I really wanted was a taste of his cherry pie.
However, I cannot share with Devron. When I first started on Fletchers we went to The Ivy. I was so excited, I’d never been. The waiter had barely laid down my pudding when Devron licked the entire back of his spoon like an eight-year-old boy trying to out-gross his sister. Then, as if in slow motion, he plunged it into my untouched chocolate fondant. Since then I’ve developed an over-sensitivity to him touching my food. And he always does touch it. It’s just a question of when. In the past I’ve tried different strategies to avoid him ruining our meals together. Tried pulling the plate away. Tried saying I’m developing a cold sore. Tried licking my own spoon copiously. To no avail.
‘Get the burger,’ says Devron.
‘Don’t fancy it,’ I say, looking down the menu for the least Devron-friendly dish. ‘You get the burger.’
‘I want steak. Get the burger.’
‘I had a burger last night, I’ll have grilled fish.’
‘You can’t order fish in a steak restaurant. Come on, S-R, look at how good that looks!’ he says, pointing to the table to my left.
Devron is right though. The burger looks terrific. And I am badly in need of something more substantial than a sliver of white fish. Plus, a MacDonald’s cheeseburger – perfect for a drunken snack – is as much about the excitement of unwrapping that greaseproof paper as anything. This Hawksmoor burger is in a different league: a thick, char-grilled patty of Longhorn beef on a brioche bun, all the trimmings. And it was supposed to be mine last night. Brainwave! If I keep a tight grip on it Devron won’t be able to nick any!
Devron beckons the waiter over. ‘We’ll start with lobster, then I’ll get the Chateaubriand, triple cooked chips, beef dripping chips and she’ll have a burger.’
‘Any sides?’ says the waiter.
‘Macaroni cheese,’ says Devron.
‘Good choice,’ says the waiter, sticking his pencil back behind his ear when he should be reaching for his sharpener.
‘Then bone marrow … creamed spinach … and talk me through the ribs,’ says Devron.
‘Tamworth belly ribs, sir? Tender pork, marinaded in maple syrup, chipotle and spices.’
‘Yeah, one of those with the lobster. And we’ll do puddings now – I’ll have the peanut butter shortbread, she’ll have …’
‘I haven’t even looked yet …’ I say.
‘Sticky toffee ice cream sundae,’ says Devron.
Gross. Don’t get me wrong. I’m greedy. I love food. I like to try a bit of everything. I just can’t stand waste. Maybe that’s why I never throw anything away. It’s obviously not like I was a war baby, but fundamentally it offends me to see good food go in the bin. I think it’s because I come from feeders. In my mother’s kitchen food equals love: why would you throw that away, even if it is slightly on the turn?
‘So! Big brief!’ says Devron, pulling his chair closer to the table. ‘Super-high-profile, game-changing – mega-strategic!’ I wonder if he stole this phrase from Berenice, or she stole it from him? I wonder how long I can avoid having to use it myself …
‘We’re developing a range that’s going to do-mi-nate the pizza market!’ he says. (The last ‘market-dominating’ idea Fletchers came up with was savoury chewing gum.) ‘We want TV ads, Twitter, the works. Budget’s mega – four million quid. This time next year we’ll have wiped the floor with every other retailer. Asda? As-don’t, more like. Dominos? Domi-no-nos!’
‘Good one, Devron.’ (I know. It’s bad. But if Berenice were here she’d have fake-laughed for a full minute.)
‘Our research guys report massive growth in low-cal treats, women worrying about cellulite but still wanting to nosh on comfort food.’ He gives me a knowing look as the waiter approaches with our starters. ‘Huge gap in the market and we’re going to fill it with a range of half-calorie pizzas! It’ll be bigger than Fearne Cotton’s arse.’
Does he mean Fearne Cotton or Fern Britton? Fearne Cotton doesn’t even have an arse, as far as I’m aware. (Devron left his wife and kids for Mandy, a girl he met on a boys’ night out at Tiger Tiger. By all accounts Mandy is an avid follower of celebrity culture. In an attempt to look ‘with-it’ Devron often references celebrities, but he sometimes gets a little confused.)
‘Let’s get Fearne Cotton for the campaign,’ he says. ‘Have you got her agent’s number?’
‘Devron, I think if you mean Fern Britton she actually did Ryvita already …’
He pauses, a chunk of lobster flesh half way to his mouth. ‘Oh. Well you guys can fine-tune the celeb, it was just a thought.’ He reaches for the plate of belly ribs and grabs one in his fist. ‘Well? What do you think?’
I think if you’re going to have a pizza, have a pizza. Do things properly or don’t bother.
‘How do they cut the calories so significantly?’ I say.
‘Sell punters half a pizza, ha ha ha!’ says Devron.
‘Seriously, how?’
‘Something to do with fat sprays, flavour substitutes … ask Jeff the recipe guy.’
‘What’s the name of the range?’
‘Legal are checking trademarks, I’ll confirm end of next week, but it’s a goody,’ he says, waggling a rib in the air like it’s a sixth finger, Anne Boleyn but with pork.
‘Have you researched it?’ I say.
‘No need, I feel it in my gut. Head, heart, guts.’ This is one of Devron’s favourite phrases. It’s the title of some management book he’s obsessed with and every time he wants to justify anything moronic he reels it out. His other favourite phrase is JFDI. Which is like the Nike slogan, Just Do It, but with added swearing.
I smile weakly as the waiter clears our plates.
‘Can I see the wine list?’ Devron says to the waiter, though there’s practically a full bottle on the table.
‘Don’t you like the Bordeaux?’ I say.
‘I just want to look at the list. Do me a favour? Go call Tom, fix up a meeting for Friday with him and Jeff to talk you through the range.’
‘Shall I do it after lunch? Our main courses will be here any minute.’
‘JFDI.’
There’s no reception down here so I pop upstairs and out onto the street. Opposite the restaurant is a dance studio and I pause to watch a class of ballerinas stand at the barre warming up. Beautiful. Their bodies are not like normal people’s bodies. They move so fluidly, it’s impossible to imagine them doing anything other than dancing. I wish I had an innate talent, other than the ability to eat a little bit too much.
I take my phone out to call Tom, Devron’s underling, and find a text from Rebecca: ‘I think the guys paid last night?’ Great. That’s exactly what won’t have happened. I’ve got away with it now, but still … I phone Tom and leave a message, then go back to join Devron and discover the real reason he sent me upstairs. There is now a second bottle of the same Bordeaux open on the table next to the first which is barely touched. I am witnessing a master at work. I’d forgotten that I have to watch Devron like a paranoid hawk at all times. Yet this is a new low – an act of such shameless greed that I almost have to take my hat off to him. Except he’d probably nick my hat and sell it on eBay while I was blinking.
‘Ah look, the mains,’ he says, nodding at two waiters en route with large trays.
The waiter puts my burger down in front of me. I immediately put my master plan into action: grab the burger and hold on for dear life. If Devron wants any he’ll have to fight me for it. For once he is not going to ruin my lunch. Devron looks at the burger. He looks at me. His brain goes into overdrive. Even though it’s dark in here, I swear I can see his pupils dilate. Hell, I can actually see the cogs inside his brain start to rotate. My grip on the burger tightens.
In my years at NMN I’ve learnt a smidgen about Greek mythology; board members often quote the Greeks as a way of making themselves look like intellectuals rather than men who spend all day fantasising about shagging the grads. One thing that comes to me, as my fingers sink into the bun and I struggle to contain the meat, lettuce and tomato inside, is the concept of the Pyrrhic victory. Named after a king who won a battle but lost a war, it loosely equates to a tiny gain offset by a gigantic loss. For, after two delicious bites, my over-tight grip causes the beef to slide from my bun, and Devron, quicker than a Venus flytrap, reaches out, stabs the beef and drags it across the table to his own plate. Game over, and he didn’t even blink.
‘So, Devron …’ I say, wondering how it’s possible that I’ll be paying two hundred pounds for this meal and I’ll still need to pop to M&S for a sandwich on my way back to the office, ‘this brief. Is the airtime still planned for the start of May?’ He nods.
‘OK: I’ll brief a creative team next week,’ I say. ‘That’ll mean shooting the ad after Easter and, and … and …’
‘And what?’
And the barman from last night’s just walked in.
‘And … yes …’ There he is, talking to my waiter, and now he’s turning and shit, yes, he’s looking this way. ‘And … yes … good, yes, Easter.’ Shit. ‘Easter.’
‘Yeah, shoot after Easter,’ says Devron. ‘Blah … blah … blah … timing plan,’ he carries on.
Oh God. The barman is totally staring at me, and now smiling. No, that’s not a smile, that’s a grin! He is grinning in a way that does not bode well.
‘Blah … blah … blue sky thinking … blah … blah … Nike ad …’ says Devron.
‘Absolutely, Devron,’ I say, nodding. Oh no! Now the barman’s scribbling something down … the bill!
‘Blah … blah … super-tight deadlines … share the process early …’
‘Yes, of course …’ I nod. Oh good grief no! He’s coming over. Get back behind the bar, this is not on!
He’s half way across the floor heading towards us. I’ve got to move. Right now.
‘Blah … blah … three weeks on Friday, yes?’ says Devron.
‘Sure, yes, whatever you want, back in a sec,’ I say, darting out from behind the table and heading speedily towards the toilets, head down.
Christ. Lucky escape. How long can I hide in here for? Too little time and the barman will still be lurking. Two and a half minutes? La-di-dah … Quick make-up check … Oooh, nice wall tiles in here, didn’t notice those last night. White rectangular subway tiles, very classic … Right, I think that’s about time.
I pull the bathroom door open to find the barman standing waiting for me, arms folded. He really is embarrassingly good looking: thick black hair and green eyes, with thick lashes. And that body! His black t-shirt stops at the perfect mid point of his arm, showing off perfect, not too large, but very defined, tanned biceps.
‘You again! I couldn’t believe it when I saw you in here!’ he says. Ditto.
‘Well … Sorry,’ I say, ‘but I have to get back to my table …’
‘Hang on a minute,’ he says. ‘I’m glad you’re here, there’s something I didn’t manage to give you guys last night, you ran out before I could get over to you!’
Hurry up and get this over with then.
‘Yep, sorry about that … just give it to me, I’ll sort it,’ I say, holding out my palm and turning slightly away so that Devron can’t see what’s going on.
‘Cool! I didn’t want to hand it over at the table, I thought it might not be appropriate,’ he says, handing me a little green paper umbrella. Ah, nice touch. Giving me the bill inside the umbrella, that’s a classy move. I look over to see if Devron’s watching but he’s otherwise occupied, knuckle-deep in my sundae.
‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ he says.
‘Bad luck opening an umbrella indoors,’ I say.
He smiles. ‘Go on, before you go back.’
I quickly open the little parasol, and sure enough, there’s a figure written down inside. Except there’s no pound sign. And no decimal point. And while the drinks here are expensive, they’re not that expensive. This number’s eleven digits long.
His phone number. Oh my goodness. This super-hot young barman is giving me his phone number. The game is not over yet! – I have still got it going on! I must stop being so hard on myself. Evidently I don’t look bedraggled at all. I look good. Better than good: Very Good. Sexxy. Hot enough to attract this chisel-jawed guy who looks quite like David Gandy. I don’t think anyone this handsome has chatted me up for years. Maybe I’m entering a pre-Mrs-Robinson stage of allure? A little firework of delight goes off inside me. I try not to show a reaction but I’m already grinning like an imbecile.
‘What’s her name?’ he says.
‘Susie,’ I say. ‘It’s Susie.’ Hang on. Her name? What? Whose name? Oh no.
‘Susie.’ He says it like a handshake. ‘Sorry if I was staring at you girls last night, I just think your mate’s properly beautiful. If it isn’t too cheesy, would you ask her to call me?’
I nod silently, trying to keep my smile up.
‘I’m Luke by the way. What’s your name?’
I feel a substantial part of my self curl up into a ball and start to howl, though I stay standing, one arm resting on the door frame, pretending not to be acutely embarrassed.
‘I’m also Susie actually.’ I say, realising that I’m about to pay the bill with my credit card, which clearly says Susie Rosen on it. ‘We’re both Susies.’
‘That’s funny,’ he says.
‘Isn’t it just,’ I say. ‘Ha! We’re like the Two Ronnies … you know, well actually she’s more a Sue-becka. Some people even call her … Becka … Subecka … her middle name’s Becka, that’s why … just to tell us apart …’
‘Subecka! Sounds Japanese! Well anyway, say hi from me.’
‘Will do, got to go!’ I say, heading back to Devron, who is arranging with the waiter for his two bottles of wine to be re-corked and put in a bag for him.
‘Bit young for you, wasn’t he?’ says Devron, as I sit back down. ‘It’s good ice cream, have some,’ he says, poking his spoon at my sundae glass.
‘I’m stuffed,’ I say.
‘Right: see Tom and Jeff end of the week and get scripts to me three weeks on Friday.’
‘That soon, Devron?’
I’m pretty sure the Amish can erect a wooden house in twenty-four hours. Apparently God created the Universe in seven days. But it takes our creative teams one month to write a few piddly scripts.
‘That timing’s too tight, Devron.’
‘You said it was OK a minute ago!’
I have zero recollection of agreeing to anything of the sort. And if I did it was only because I wasn’t listening to a word he was saying … OK, let me think: if I brief a team early next week I might manage it, if Robbie gives me one of the more amenable, mature creative teams. Maybe lovely old Andy Ashford.
‘Theoretically it’s possible …’ I say.
‘We’re good, right?’ he nods.
‘It does depend on the team’s availability and workload, I’ll do everything I can …’
‘You’re late on this project already.’
‘To be fair we haven’t had your brief yet. And we haven’t got a name for the range. And we haven’t seen the products either.’ So technically, Devron, I should be the one sitting across the table giving you a menacing look, not the other way round …
‘So that’s a yes then,’ he says nodding again. (Last year Devron spent a week on a ‘How to Influence People’ course. He spent five days glued to YouTube videos of Tony Blair and Obama. Now whenever he wants something unreasonable he nods like a plastic dog in a car. Horrifically, this technique seems to work.)
I nod back at him. ‘Yes, Devron,’ I say, ‘yes, that’s totally fine.’
I have a nasty feeling in my head, heart and guts, that I shouldn’t have just said that.
The first thing I do when I’m back at my desk is fill out my expenses – two hundred and forty quid with that second bottle of wine! Just once before I quit I’d like to do what Steve Pearson, Board Director on pessaries, does regularly: take the person I’m having an affair with out for lunch and bill it as a client lunch. (Sam – premier source of intel, as per usual.) I’d never actually fake my expenses; more to the point, there’s no one here I’d have an affair with. What am I even talking about? I would never have an affair full stop. Why can’t anybody ever leave anybody without another body to go to?
I wander down to the mail room to see if Sam’s around. I fancy a coffee and a gossip but he’s nowhere to be found. He’s probably in the pub with Jinesh from IT, swotting up on some dodgy new computer software that can read your emails from outer space.
Finally (and this should have been first, but I’ve put it off because it’s the least fun) I take the lift up to the creative floor to visit Robbie Doggett’s secretary, Alexis. It’s impossible for me not to associate anyone called Alexis with Alexis Colby Carrington from Dynasty. So even if this Alexis wasn’t already a cold, manipulative bitch, I’d probably project that onto her anyway. She’s lying on the leather sofa outside Robbie’s office, wearing sequinned hot pants and her favourite Patti Smith t-shirt. Sam’s the only man in the building who doesn’t think she’s the most beautiful woman in W1. As a consequence she hates him. She hates him even more since last year’s Christmas party when he asked her – in front of her new pop star boyfriend – to name a single Patti Smith song.
She’s deep in concentration, studying Grazia.
‘Alexis. Have you got a sec?’
She puts her magazine down on the floor and checks out my outfit. Her gaze lingers briefly on my belt, then moves swiftly back to the mag. ‘Hi babe,’ she says wearily.
‘Can you please ask Robbie to allocate me a team for the Fletchers brief asap?’
‘Babe, he’s shooting in New York, not back for a week.’
‘Yes. I know.’ And as far as I’m aware they do have telephones and the internet in America. It might just be a rumour but I’m pretty sure it’s true. ‘He knows the brief’s urgent.’
‘He didn’t mention it to me,’ she says, flicking over the page. She pulls her head back as if she’s seen a burns victim. ‘Look at this cellulite!’ she says, her fingers tracing the thighs of some poor A-lister as if the paper were her own skin.
‘And tell him Devron wants scripts three weeks on Friday.’
‘You’ll never get that,’ she says.
‘I’ll call him myself and explain?’
‘Babe, you know that I’m The Gatekeeper. Leave it with me.’ End of conversation.
It’s pitch black outside by the time I finish, and a particularly cold March evening with no sign of spring in sight. All I want to do is head home and have a large glass of wine and a curry, but I’m trying not to drink every night. Plus I can’t justify splashing out on a mid-week take-away when I’m meant to be saving for my eventual escape.
Theoretically I should go home via Sainsbury’s. Try to be good, buy something healthy and full of beta-carotenes and Omega 3s. Is it Omega 3s or Omega 6s? Can’t I just eat double the 3s? A piece of salmon, some leafy green veg. I could make some form of cleansing broth. If I slipped in some udon noodles, it’d be almost like pasta … I should also pop in to see my neighbour, Grumpy Marjorie. I try to see her once a month and I haven’t been round for a while. The guilt is building up.
Then again, The Apprentice is on tonight. If I go straight home I could be in bed with Sir Alan on iPlayer by 9pm. Not in bed with Sir Alan, that wouldn’t work at all.
Decision made, I walk quickly to the tube station. I promise myself I’ll go round to Marjorie’s this weekend. Or maybe next weekend. And I’ll eat green leafy veg another day.
Right. Let’s start over. Stressful day, happy pasta shape needed. Farfalle! Butterflies are happy! And there’s the other half of that pack of bacon from Monday. I was planning a vegetarian dinner after watching Devron demolish a piece of bone marrow with his fingers earlier. Still bacon’s not really meat-meat. Pigs are more like chickens than cows, when you think about it.
And I’ll chuck in some frozen peas, they’re definitely vegetables … and there’s that carbonara recipe that doesn’t need cream – just one egg and an extra yolk – but it still tastes mega creamy: easy, peasy carbonara! Perfect. Crispy bits of bacon, little bursts of fresh, sweet peas, topped with lovely salty parmesan.
My stomach is rumbling on the tube and the minute I walk through my door I start the pasta and pour myself a little glass of wine. It’s just one glass. An hour later I’m in bed and I’m content. This is the best way that this day could end. I have three things that I really wanted. Good food. Good wine. Good TV.
I am thankful for these nights, when I am so exhausted, I can almost forget that I’ve ever been in love. I can almost forget the whole concept of having another person to share my life with. The good stuff, the bad stuff, a photo of ballerinas, the story of Devron and his wine. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like to fall asleep next to someone and wake up the next morning feeling happy and calm. I’ve almost forgotten all of these things. Except in these moments in the dark before sleep comes. And who ever really does forget, really?
Jake, my ex, used to have this thing about foreign catchphrases and quirks in other languages. For example, he thought it was hilarious that the English call condoms ‘French letters’, but the French call them English hats, ‘capotes Anglaises’. He’d often try to amuse my male friends with this fact, to the point where I’d have to leave the room from sheer repetition.
Another phrase he loved was ‘Metro, boulot, dodo’. Metro = subway. Boulot = French slang for ‘the grind’, i.e. the day job. And dodo = sweet slang for ‘dormir’ = to sleep; like you’d use to a child, i.e. sleepy time. The line is taken from a poem by a French writer, Pierre Béarn, about the tedium of monotonous work: tube, the grind, sleep. Welcome to my world.
Some mornings when I’d be struggling out of bed at 5.30 a.m. for a pre-meeting with Berenice where my sole purpose was to lay pencils for her in Boardroom Two at perfect right angles to the pads, Jake would grab my hand and try to pull me back into the warmth.
‘Why do you do that bullshit job? It’s Metro Bullshit Dodo, Susie, I don’t get it.’
‘I’m thirty-three, it’s the only job I’ve ever done. I’m not qualified for anything else.’
‘Your skills are totally adaptable, there’s loads of other jobs you could do.’
And then a year later, ‘Jake: I am thirty-four. That’s too old to change careers. I couldn’t afford to go back to college now, even if I wanted to.’
‘Stop being so negative. People older than you re-train to be doctors or even architects.’
‘I can’t stand the sight of blood, and I’m not smart enough to be a doctor or an architect.’
‘I didn’t literally mean those two jobs. I meant you could do anything – even if it takes a few years to get there.’
And then last year, ‘It’s easy for you, Jake! You’re naturally talented, you love your job and you’re paid loads to do it. I am average at everything. I have no hidden talents. What am I good at?’
‘Food. You just need to figure out a way to make it into a career.’
‘Yeah right, chip shop assistant number three, minimum wage and the boss gets to grope me behind the deep fat fryer …’
‘I don’t know. You could run your own café, do a mix of English and Italian classics, just simple, beautiful stuff. You’re such a good cook, and you love all that.’
‘Do you know how expensive it is to set something like that up? And do you know how many catering businesses fail in their first year? And if you think I’m busy and do horrendous hours now, what do you think that would be like?’
‘You could write a cookbook! Or do a recipe blog, or a blog all about pasta! That girl at work I was telling you about, she’s started doing a blog about make-up …’
‘Which girl?’
‘You know … my friend who does make-up.’
‘Who? Leyla Dempsey?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The one whose dad bought her a flat in Notting Hill and a Birkin bag, and pays all her bills for her, but you say she’s not at all spoiled and she’s really down to earth? That one?’
‘Oh Susie, stop it.’
‘Stop what? No, it’s fine. I’m glad she can afford to spend her days writing about eye shadow, I’m sure it’s deeply enthralling, but you know, my dad didn’t buy me a flat and he doesn’t pay my bills and buy me handbags that cost a year’s salary in the chip shop.’
‘Well actually you do live in a flat that your grandma gave you.’
‘No, I don’t! She did not give it to me, that’s ridiculous. I pay seven hundred and fifty pounds a month to my brother, I have never asked my parents for money since I was twenty-one and I never would. Not least because my parents would tell me to get stuffed, and be a grown up.’
‘Well, why don’t you?’
‘Why don’t I what? Ask them for money?’
‘No. Why don’t you be a grown up?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Man up. Grow some balls. Stop wasting your time in a job you don’t even like. You’ve got no respect for most of the people you work with.’
‘That’s because they’re all letches or bullies. Anyway I do like Rebecca. And Sam …’
‘You’d still be mates with them if you leave. They might leave before you. Have you ever thought about that?’
‘Sam’s never going anywhere.’
‘Sam’s a loser, but he’s not the point.’
‘Don’t call Sam a loser,’ I say. ‘So your friend’s blog, presumably she doesn’t make any money out of it, it’s just some little vanity project? Oh, that’d be a great name for a beauty blog, The Vanity Project …’
‘Stop having a go at some girl you’ve never even met just because she’s got off her arse and is doing what you want to do.’
‘Are you saying I’m jealous of some twenty-three-year-old who writes about bloody lip balm?’
‘I’d say you’re clearly jealous, yes. And a bit vicious as well.’
‘I think it’s a really good idea if I go to work now.’
‘Yeah, I think that’s a really good idea.’
‘Am I seeing you later?’
‘Not sure …’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s a work-drinks thing in Soho …’
‘Oh … the whole company?’
‘A few of us, yeah.’
‘Oh. Well let me know if you pick up any brilliant tips on how to apply mascara. Am I supposed to look up or down? Gosh, it’s all so terribly confusing …’
‘Go to work.’
Sometimes I have an overwhelming urge to call him, to tell him that I’m finally going to hand in my notice, as soon as they promote me. I want him to know that at long last I’m about to be brave, jump off this treadmill, very soon. I am. But then he’ll ask me when, and what I’m going to do instead, and I don’t know yet, so I can’t, and I’ll look foolish.
And also if I call him, he’ll think I want him back. Which truly I don’t. After what happened? I couldn’t forgive him. And also she might answer. And that’s one voice I don’t ever need to hear again.
Friday
Back to ‘the grind’. Forget jumping off the Boulot, I’d jump on the bloody Metro track if I worked at Fletchers’ Head Office, I think, as I walk into their lime-green reception and develop an instant headache above my left eye.
Whoops. I forgot. As of three months ago, no one is allowed to call Head Office ‘Head Office’. Why not? Because the word ‘head’ would insinuate some sort of ‘us’ and ‘them’ hierarchy among Fletchers staff, with ‘us’ being the two hundred people who work short hours in Head Office and get paid more; and ‘them’being the eight thousand workers who work long hours and stack shelves and work tills and drive trucks and get paid less.
So Head Office is no longer called Head Office. No. It is now called The Building. That’ll fool them. Head Office is now The Building. Executives who work in The Building are ‘Friends in The Building’. The guys who stack shelves are ‘Stretchy Friends’. Guys on tills are ‘Customer’s Best Friends’. And the truck drivers are ‘Friends On Wheels’.
The worst thing about this? NMN came up with all of it over the course of a six-month consultation process, called, oh irony, ‘Cut The Crap’. Cut The Crap involved a lot of digital mood boards and much talk of empowerment. Fletchers paid us a £130k fee. Devron wrote the cheque in the same week Fletchers announced they’d no longer pay their work experience teens a minimum wage for shelf stacking, sorry, make that ‘Stretchy Friending’.
I tell reception I’m here to see Tom, get my security pass, then sit down and prepare for the wait. Regardless of who I’m meeting at Fletchers they will always make me wait twenty-three minutes in reception. I can set my watch by it. It’s a basic power play. I am an agency serf: they are the Client Masters. Therefore they will make me sit there while they’re sitting at their desks on Facebook or laughing about last night’s Made in Chelsea. And when their little egg-timer goes off at twenty-three past Meeting Time, they’ll saunter down, pick me up and never once acknowledge this whole charade. I once made the mistake of asking Berenice why we couldn’t just turn up twenty-three minutes late and I could see her right eyebrow twitching with fury as she struggled to restrain herself from slapping me.
The thing is, I don’t mind waiting. It’s a rare chance to have twenty-three precious minutes to myself. If Berenice were sitting beside me now she’d be on her iPhone, frantically mailing the office about Five Year Plans for World Domination. Thankfully she’s not, so I can relax. I consider trying to source a glass of water. Except that’s an impossible dream because I haven’t got two pound coins on me. Yes, that’s right. If you want a glass of water while you’re waiting in reception, you have to insert two pound coins into a vending machine, which then spits out a small bottle of branded tap water. The trout on the front desk will not give you tap water even if you’ve just run the marathon for Children in Need dressed as Barney the Dinosaur.
No water. So instead I sit and wait. There’s a copy of the Times on the table and I flick briefly to the food pages. In the ‘My Favourite Meal’ column, there’s a recipe from Celina Summer, some pop star’s wife who’s just launched herself as the next celebrity chef. She’s done a recipe for a chicken sandwich: chicken, lettuce, bread – no butter, not even low-fat mayo. Inspiring stuff, thanks, Celina. Oh great, and your new book, Eat Music, Dance To Food has gone straight into the charts. Still, you do look terrific in a bikini, which is ultimately the thing that matters most in a chef.
You know what? It’s all very well Jake telling me to write a recipe book, but unless you’re skinny and beautiful you’re not going to be able to compete with these food celebs. Maybe I should flirt more with Devron, persuade him to put me in the next TV ad. No - I’d definitely rather work in the chip shop than flirt with Devron. Or Tom for that matter. Grim, it’d be like flirting with a teenage boy. And not one of those naughty sixth formers at the back of the bus who smokes and gets someone pregnant. No, like the little red-eyed geek at the front of class who puts his arm around his GCSE physics paper so no one can copy him.
Speak of the devil, here he comes, like clockwork, yep, it’s twenty-three past. Although, hang on a minute, who is that man walking next to him? And I do mean man. (Tom does manage to make everyone around him look more masculine. He’s such a pipsqueak, he always looks like he’s in school uniform when he wears a suit.)
Oh, but this new man is sexy. I don’t normally fancy bald men but this guy has got something. He looks older, early forties, with a little bit of stubble, but not contrived or manicured stubble; just a little ‘I Am Not A Corporate Man’ stubble. Universe: please let him be the new pizza developer. Please: give me one tiny break.
Tom greets me with the softest handshake in Christendom. It’s like trying to grasp onto tofu.
‘Hey, Su-Su-Sudeo.’
‘Hello, Thomas.’
‘Tommo, not Thomas!’ Tom likes to be called Tommo, or Ton of Fun Tom. He turns to the guy next to him who is fixing me with very blue eyes and an intense stare, to the point where I’ve started to blush. ‘Let me introduce you to our new development chef who looks after our diet ranges. This is Jeff.’
‘Jeff. Jeff the chef?’ I say, holding out my hand and stifling a giggle.
‘You think that’s funny?’ he says, shaking my hand firmly. ‘The cleaner on the fifth floor’s called Katrina.’
‘Really?’
He nods. ‘And when I lived in New York I had a doorman called Norman.’
‘You’re making that up,’ I say.
‘True fact,’ he says, grinning. I sneak a glance at his wedding finger. Yay! No ring.
‘We used to have a gardener called Norman!’ says Tom. ‘That was in the old house. When we moved to Oxshott my mother had to let him go.’
Jeff raises an eyebrow at me. ‘Shall we head to the kitchens then? I’m sure you can’t wait to see the product,’ he says, with a trace of sarcasm.
‘Oh no!’ says Tom. ‘I really wanted to show Susie my slides that set up our brand rationale positioning.’
‘Uh-oh, Thomas. Is this another one of your Death by PowerPoints?’ says Jeff. His tone is light, but Tom bristles nonetheless.
‘This is a mega-strategic, super-high-profile, game-changing project. A lot of rigour’s gone into the thinking.’
‘Mega-strategic and game-changing? That sounds very important indeed,’ says Jeff. ‘I thought we were just trying to flog some pizzas?’
‘You don’t have to see the presentation, Jeff. I can take her through the slides and we’ll meet you in the kitchen after?’ says Tom.
Jeff looks me straight in the eye. It is a look filled with conspiratorial naughtiness. You and I are the same. We are not like Tom. Let’s have some fun.
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Jeff. ‘I might learn how to be mega-strategic and game-changing. But will it be quick? I’ve got another meeting at 10 a.m.’
‘That’ll be fine,’ says Tom.
‘Can you do me one favour though, Tom?’ says Jeff.
‘What do you want?’ says Tom warily.
‘Can we do your presentation over coffee in the canteen? The fluorescent lighting in those meeting rooms makes me lose the will to live.’
Tom weighs this up as if it’s a trap. He takes a breath, then nods. ‘OK. I’ll go and fetch my laptop and meet you guys up there. Grab me a soy chai, would you Jeff?’
‘Will do,’ says Jeff. ‘Take your time.’
We walk through the building to the central lifts. Somehow it feels like we could be on a date, walking in the park rather than in a concrete office block with giant photos of grey, veiny prawns bearing down on us. There’s a crackle of something between us that feels almost visible. I know it’s ridiculous, we only met a few minutes ago, but he is most definitely flirting with me. And not just normal flirting. Mega-strategic, game-changing flirting. Flirting in a way that is totally caveman and presumptive: I, Man, flirt with you. I fancy you. You, Woman, flirt back. You fancy me. Let’s go to the toilets, take our security passes off, and take it from there.
Of course this is probably all in my mind and yet …
‘I like your earrings,’ he says. My hand immediately moves to my ear, and I find myself twirling with my hair.
‘I’ve forgotten which ones I put on,’ I say. ‘Are they the amber ones?’
‘They’re a sort of moonstone,’ he says. ‘They make your eyes look more blue than grey. You’ve got those sort of eyes that change depending on what you’re wearing, don’t you?’
I am definitely not imagining this.
‘So is it Susie with an ie or with a zy?’ he says, as we get in the lift.
Lift, for once, could you please get stuck, please? I’ve been trapped in these buggers at least once a year for six years, and never, ever with anyone remotely attractive.
‘Susie with an ie,’ I say.
‘I once went out with a Suziii who spelt her name with three Is. She used to put little flowers instead of dots on them. It was never going to work out,’ he says.
Aha! Proof that he’s straight too. Excellent. ‘So is it Jeff with a J or a G?’ I say.
‘J, like Jeff Bridges, though obviously he’s got a bit more hair than me. Have you seen The Big Lebowski?’
‘Like ten times,’ I say. ‘I think The Dude is based on this guy Sam who I work with …’
Jeff laughs a low, deep chuckle. ‘And there’s me thinking The Dude was based on me.’ he says. ‘Did you see that film the Coen brothers did a few years back, the Western?’
‘No Country For Old Men?’ I actually thought it was a touch over-rated but it looks like Jeff loves it, so I don’t want to say I didn’t like it …
‘No,’ he says. ‘I thought it was over-rated. I meant True Grit, also with Jeff Bridges.’
‘Oh I loved True Grit, with the young girl with the plaits. So great!’
OK, enough of this time-wasting. I need to find out if he has a girlfriend. We’re now entering the canteen. Tom’ll be at his desk already, I haven’t got much time. I’d better ask some smart, open questions.
‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ I say. See if he replies with a ‘we’ …
‘Not as much as I’d like,’ he says. ‘You?’
‘Same. I don’t seem to have much time, you know, day job, and then I’m quite busy. With my friends …’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean. Work seems to take up far more energy than it used to when I was in service.’
‘The army?’ I say, looking at his chest. He’s so broad-shouldered, I could totally see him running through a muddy field in camouflage, carrying an injured colleague on his back to the medi-tent …
‘The army? God no. Why would you think I was a soldier?’
Because I’m totally carried away in some insane fantasy based on your fit body?
‘Me?’ he says. ‘I’m a total wimp. No, I meant service, as in restaurants. I used to run my own pub up in Suffolk. Local, seasonal food, nothing fancy. So, what coffee would you like, young lady? You’re not into this soy chai malarkey too, are you?’
‘Black coffee, thanks.’
‘Good, a proper drink. And any cake or a flapjack?’ he says, eyeing up the selection of goodies on the counter.
In all the years I’ve worked on Fletchers, neither Devron nor Tom has once offered me a piece of cake. I think I love Jeff. Or maybe I just don’t love Devron and Tom. Or maybe I just love cake.
‘That chocolate sponge looks delicious,’ I say. ‘But I can’t be eating cake for breakfast, it sets a bad precedent, don’t you think?’
‘Nonsense. A girl like you should totally have cake for breakfast! Besides, it looks like a giant Suzy Q.’
‘A what?’
‘A Suzy Q! Your name’s Susie and you’ve never heard of a Suzy Q?’ I shake my head. ‘Little American cakes, cream in the middle? Mos Def name-checks them? Go on, get the Suzy Q. You have to, it’s practically named after you. It’s your namesake. Your namecake.’
I let out a pathetically girly little giggle.
‘Go on, it’d be rude not to,’ he says.
‘Really?’
‘Tell you what, if I share it with you does that make you feel any less naughty?’
DO YOU HAVE A GIRLFRIEND? I sincerely hope not, because this conversation amounts to more foreplay than I’ve had in a year.
‘Deal,’ I say, grinning, and then rapidly not grinning as I see Tom waving to us from across the canteen. ‘Tom’s just walked in.’ I feel like we’ve been caught mid-snog.
‘He’s here already?’ he says. ‘Oh. Right, well I guess we’d better get back to work …’
The man behind the counter comes over to us and gives Jeff a broad smile and a high five. ‘Hey amigo, qué pasa? What can I get you guys to drink?’
‘Hey Miguel, how’s it going? Me pones dos cafes solos y un“soy chai” por favor?’ he says, rolling his eyes as the man laughs. ‘Miguel’s teaching me Spanish, and I’m teaching him knife skills. That’s a good deal, isn’t it?’ he says to me.
‘Knife skills! Did you learn those in combat too?’ I say.
‘Those training kitchens at the Little Chef can be deadly!’ he says.
‘I’m terrible at chopping,’ I say. ‘Whenever you see chefs on the telly and they’re looking at someone else while they’re chopping an onion at a hundred miles an hour – it makes me break into a sweat. I’d have my arm off if I did that.’
‘Nonsense, it’s dead easy. You just need to practise. It’s all about confidence. I could teach you some basic skills, it’d take me half an hour?’
‘When?’ I say, too quickly.
‘Anytime. You’ll have to give me your number,’ he says, grinning.
Tom is hovering a few metres away from us, glued to his BlackBerry. Nodding mostly, but also saying, ‘Sure sure, Devron. Fully strategic’ a lot.
‘So tell me – what do you do at the agency then?’ Jeff says. ‘Do you come up with the ideas for the ads?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘A creative team does that.’
‘That’s a relief!’ he says. ‘So you weren’t responsible for that terrible Perfect Bottom pizza campaign? Find your perfect bottom, we’ll give you the right stuffing …’
‘Actually I did work on that,’ I say, blushing. ‘But I didn’t come up with the idea.’
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘sorry. But they were so cheesy.’
I agree. ‘Sold a lot of pizzas though,’ I say, shrugging my shoulders in despair. ‘Double-digit growth, your boss was very happy with those ads.’
‘So what do you do exactly?’ he says, gesturing to Tom to get off the phone, and pointing at his watch. It’s 9.45 a.m. and I’m sure Jeff had to be somewhere at 10 a.m… .
I reach into my wallet and hand him my business card. That way he has my number and my email too. On the front of the card is a black shiny NMN logo, the legs of the three letters melded together so that the whole thing resembles one big, scary, slightly embossed praying mantis.
On the other side it says:
Susie Rosen
Account Director
That should actually say:
Susie Rosen
Person with the greatest responsibility in the western world
(yes, Obama, that is me, not you). The quest for world peace
is one thing. But do you have any idea how challenging it is
to ensure that there’s always a brand new bottle of Heinz
ketchup on hand for Devron’s bacon sandwich when he
comes in for a breakfast meeting?
On the flip side it should have a little note from my mum:
Really, Susannah
You should have gone to dental school like your clever
brother. I don’t care that teeth freak you out. And now
you’re wasting your life away at that agency while Marian
Bentley’s daughter’s just been awarded an OBE for her
charity work. And did I tell you Sylvia’s daughter now
heads up the cancer ward at UCH? And she’s three months
younger than you!
I’d need an A4 business card.
Jeff stares at my job title. ‘Account Director,’ he says. ‘Like accounts as in finance?’
‘No, accounts as in Fletchers is the account, I look after it. Basically I try to make sure a client’s happy with an idea; if there are any changes I then need to make sure the creatives are happy. Once that’s all happened I try to get the ad made, on time and in budget.’
‘Sounds reasonably straightforward,’ he says.
‘If only,’ I say. ‘The problem is that usually clients and creatives have opposing opinions, so it can feel a little bit like piggy in the middle.’
‘Piggy in the middle; I used to hate that game,’ he says, smiling warmly.
‘Me too.’ I smile back.
His face crinkles for a minute. ‘Actually do you mean piggy in the middle? Aren’t the two sides both on the same side in that game?’
I think about it. I’ve been trotting out this analogy for years but of course he’s right.
‘I am an idiot!’ I say. ‘I’m going to have to think of a different game where two sides attack one person … How about dodgeball, where you’re just getting hit all the time?’
‘Nah, in dodgeball there’s no one’s in the middle. I think you mean you’re a whipping boy. Or a whipping girl!’ he says, with a mischievous look.
‘That sounds a bit Fifty Shades!’ I say. ‘Oh look, Tom’s done, I think …’
Tom comes over looking mildly flustered.
‘So shall we go through these slides then, Tom?’ I say.
‘You know what?’ says Jeff. ‘I’ve got a better idea. We’re not going to get through these slides in eight minutes and still have time to talk through product. I’m doing some work on cheese next week, but let’s meet up the week after to go through the pizzas. You and me. The product should have moved on by then anyway.’
‘Good idea,’ says Tom. ‘I’ll set up a time.’
‘No, that’s OK, I’ll do it with Susie directly,’ says Jeff, smiling at me. ‘We can do it together. Just the two of us. If that’s OK with you, Susie?’
‘Yes!’ I say. ‘If that’s what you want. That would be more … efficient. And you’re so busy, aren’t you, Tom? That’s a great idea, Jeff,’ I say, meeting his look with a smile.
‘I think I should be there,’ says Tom. ‘To answer any questions.’
‘No!’ I say. ‘I mean, of course you’re welcome to come but I can email you afterwards if Jeff can’t answer something … if that’s OK with you, Tom?’
‘S’pose so …’ says Tom.
‘Listen,’ says Jeff, touching my arm lightly. ‘I’ve got to run. Great to meet you, Suzy Q. Good luck with the whips and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.’ He looks again at my business card, smiles, then tucks it into his trouser pocket.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ says Tom, after he’s gone. ‘Jeff’s quite outspoken, he’s a bit of a maverick.’
‘Don’t be silly, that’s fine,’ I say. I like mavericks, especially hot ones. ‘Do you know Jeff well then?’ I say.
‘What do you mean?’
Do you know if Jeff has a girlfriend?
‘I mean do you work closely with him?’ I say.
‘Not really. He’s only been here about six months. Right, can I show you these charts?’
If you must. And for the entire hour that Tom’s taking me through the forty-eight slides he’s prepared, the only thing I can think about is the way Jeff touched my arm. And that sly smile on his face when he put my card in his pocket. And the way he looked at me; really looked at me.
It’s been a long time since someone’s looked at me that way.
Saturday
Some Saturdays I wake up, and before I’ve even managed to get out of bed a little grey cloud comes to join me under the duvet. The weekend should be the highlight of your week, should it not? Should. Now there’s a word.
When Jake and I split up, my best friend Polly told me something her therapist had said after Polly’s first husband, Spencer, walked out on her when she was seven months pregnant:
‘“Should” is the worst word in the English language.’
Funny, because I always thought the worst word was ‘jism’.
But no: ‘should’ should be eradicated from the dictionary. (Although you see what just happened there?) ‘Should’ means you want people or situations to be a certain way. But they’re not that way at all. ‘He shouldn’t have abandoned his pregnant wife.’ But he did. ‘I shouldn’t still miss my ex.’ But I do. Weekends ‘should’ be the highlight of the week.
Yet some Saturdays when I wake up, all I can see before me is a vast stretch of time that I’m supposed to fill up with ‘stuff’. And ‘good’ stuff. Fun, meaningful, stimulating stuff. Not just lying in bed, watching DVDs, eating ice cream stuff, because that would make me a loser.
As much as I hate my day job, at least there’s always stuff to do. Stuff I’m paid to do. Pointless stuff. Soul-destroying stuff. But at least it’s stuff that I have to do or else there’ll be a repercussion involving immediate pain. If I stay in bed all weekend watching Ryan Gosling movies there’s no pain. In fact there’s the opposite of pain. But where will it ever get me?
I’m lucky though. I have good friends. Friends from school, from uni, from all over. Yet when I stand back and look at how our lives have turned out, it seems that I’m the only one still hanging out here on the ledge of singleness. Everyone else has been busy, busy, busy. They’ve been having babies and twins and sometimes up to three babies, though not all at once. They’ve been moving to bigger houses, moving to the country. Buying Farrow & Ball paints, building glass extensions, razing, gutting and expanding into loft space. The only thing gutted in my flat is me.
Of course they haven’t all had a smooth ride. Take Polly, who’s coming round for dinner later with our friend from school, Dalia. After Polly’s first husband walked out she spent two years bringing up her little girl Maisie on her own. But Polly would never think of herself as a leftover; she got on with life without a fuss. Maybe when you have a kid whom you have to put first then it’s easy, though it didn’t look easy.
And then she met Dave, and Dave is amazing and it didn’t bother him in the slightest that Polly wasn’t young and perfect and baggage-free. He proposed after three months, down on one knee, singing Sinatra’s ‘All of Me’, in their local curry house. The wedding’s in six weeks’ time and I cannot wait to dance away the ghost of Spencer and celebrate Polly and Dave’s union. If anyone deserves all the happiness it’s Polly. And men like Dave restore your faith in the universe. Shame there’s only one of him in the universe.
And then of course there’s Dalia: successful and gorgeous and thick as four short planks where men are concerned. ‘Better to have loved and lost …’ That is so entirely not true when it comes to Dalia and Mark. Honestly I think Tennyson would have developed writer’s block when faced with making sense of the on/off relationship between Dalia and that douche ‘property-developer’ (i.e. trumped-up estate agent) Mark Dawson.
Perhaps, after considerable pondering, with quill in mouth, Tennyson might have come up with the following:
‘Better to have never loved. In fact better to have stayed home watching TOWIE repeats than to have wasted so much time at the beck and call of an odious man-boy who tells you, through word and deed, that you’re not quite good enough for him. Where is thy self-respect, girl? The man is clearly a cock-head.’
But I don’t suppose Tennyson would have used a word like cock-head.
So yes, there are worse things than being single. And there are worse things than being alone.
The girls are coming round at 7 p.m., and even though Polly’s meant to be on a pre-wedding diet, she’s asked me to make spag bol – her favourite. Dalia is off the carbs, since Mark poked her in the thigh a few weeks ago and just shook his head. But it pains me that a paunch-laden forty-four-year-old man dares criticise my friend’s weight. She’s been shrinking ever since she met him.
So I’ll make the spag bol. And if Dalia wants to eat the bolognese sauce on broccoli instead of spaghetti, that’s up to her. But after a glass of wine she’ll probably be herself again, at least for a while. And I’ll make the brownie pudding. Then I can take some in for Sam on Monday morning.
First things first though, chores: put the laundry on, tidy the flat, do the recycling. I head to the recycling bins round the corner armed with my cardboard wine delivery box, filled with bottles. Thank goodness no one I work with lives in my area and has ever witnessed me at these bins on a Saturday morning. Every time I stand here I curse myself for not having removed the thick tape from these boxes back in my flat, and yet I never do. Because now, not only do I look like an alcoholic (six glass bottles smashing the message home) I also look like I’m drunk. I mean, like I am currently drunk at 9 a.m., not just I am a drunk. I try to tear the tape but it won’t come off so I try to pull the box apart but it’s tougher to rip than the Yellow Pages. I stand wrestling with it like an old souse in a pub brawl. I grunt a bit, pull and shake it, then try to bash it through the slot, even though I’ve tried this twice already and I know it doesn’t quite fit. Then I jump on it, kick it, manage to tear a tiny corner off it and end up grunting again, before throwing it in despair onto the pile to the right of the bins where all the less civic-minded people simply dump their cardboard in the first place.
I’m exhausted. That’s more than enough interface with the real world for one day. I return home, put Prefab Sprout loudly on the stereo in a pre-emptive move against Caspar and head to the kitchen to start making dinner. It’s barely breakfast time, I know, but the key to making a bolognese this delicious is to start as early as possible on the day you’re going to eat it. (In an ideal world, you’d make it the day before, so that the flavours can develop overnight, but work tends to get in the way.) For best results, the sauce needs to cook for at least six hours, preferably more. If you can leave it to its own devices in the oven on a very low heat for twelve hours, you’ll have the best bolognese you’ve ever eaten in your life, and I can guarantee that or your money back.
Everyone has a recipe for bolognese that they love. And in Italy, every region has a slightly different recipe. In some areas they sweat the vegetables in butter and olive oil – they insist it makes it sweeter than olive oil alone. Some people don’t even use celery, just carrot and onion as the base. Then there’s the dairy brigade who insist on cooking out the meat in milk, to help cut through the acidity of the tomatoes. Others swear that white wine, not red, is the key to perfection. And don’t even start on the subject of tomatoes. Fresh or chopped or passata or puree? All of the above, or no tomatoes at all?
Every Italian swears that theirs is the best recipe. What’s more, if you don’t make your bolognese in the same way they do, that means your father must have been dropped on his head when he was a baby and your grandmother was probably the town slut. Naturally I use my Italian grandmother’s recipe, and I know for a fact that she wasn’t the town slut. I know this because shortly after she gave birth to my mother, my grandfather ran off with the actual town slut, a woman by the name of Lucia Mollica, which means ‘crumb’ in Italian. Which seems fitting, as my grandmother took all of his money, along with my infant mother, and left him with just a loaf of bread in the kitchen and a note saying ‘Don’t eat it all at once’. She boarded a train, then a boat, and ended up in Glasgow, where her uncle ran a successful ice cream parlour, in which one Saturday, a year later, she met my ‘real’ grandfather. Until the day she died, whenever she saw or heard the name Lucia, Nonna would curse both her first husband and his mistress in the most lurid phrases you’ve ever heard come out of the mouth of a pensioner. (My grandfather had taught her to swear like a Glaswegian navvy, so she was pretty professional.)
Nonna’s recipe isn’t difficult but it does require two ingredients you can’t buy off the shelf: love and patience. First you have to chop your vegetables into very fine dice. And of course you can’t use a food processor, because the ghost of Nonna is watching, and she wouldn’t like it. Cook the veg in olive oil for at least half an hour, on a heat so low you have to keep checking that the gas is actually on. Then add garlic, and sweat some more. In a separate pan, dry-fry some pancetta – salty pig meat being the base for so much that is good in this world. Then in the same pan, brown some beef mince, then half the amount of pork mince again. Add it to your soffrito along with a bottle of passata, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. And then the secret ingredient that truly makes this dish: an entire bottle of red wine. Pour that in, put a lid on the casserole dish and put it in the oven for the whole day, stirring every couple of hours.
This is the perfect dish for a day like today. The weather’s miserable, I’ve got nothing better to do, and I can justify not setting foot outside again with the excuse that I have to babysit the dinner. At around 4pm I rouse myself from a mid-afternoon doze and head for my A4 files of recipes. They’re the one organised thing in my flat. I’m always fiddling with recipes, and the only way that I remember these tweaks is if I’ve scrawled them on a piece of paper. Aah, here we go: chocolate brownie cheesecake bake. It’s one of the more obscene puddings in this file, but I’ve never met anyone who didn’t go back for seconds. First you make the brownies, and Lord knows there are as many brownie recipes as there are Hindu deities. Normally I’d go straight to my friend Claire’s recipe, which produces the ultimate squidgy yet chunky brownie. But the brownies in this pudding need to stay in neat squares so I use a Nigel Slater recipe that is foolproof and produces a more cake-like brownie, better fit for purpose.
While the brownies are in the oven I make the cheesecake base – full-fat Philadelphia, mascarpone and vanilla, whipped together and poured onto a base of crushed dark chocolate digestives mixed with melted better. That’s my favourite part of the whole process – spreading the biscuit base out into the tray with a spatula, like it’s wet sand. The brownies come out of the top oven and in goes the cheesecake for forty minutes, then the heat goes off and the cheesecake stays in the oven to cool and set. I give the bolognese a quick stir, then head back to the sofa for another little lie-down. I can’t wait to be an old lady when all this mid-afternoon snoozing will be deemed socially acceptable.
The girls are due at 7 p.m. so at 6.30 p.m. I open a bottle of wine and start drinking – I might as well air the wine before they get here.
Polly’s the first to arrive at 7 p.m. on the dot.
‘You look amazing!’ I say, as I open the door and give her a hug.
‘D’you think?’ she says, handing me a bottle of Prosecco.
‘You’re glowing.’
‘Really? I’ve been on the Perricone, lots of oily fish. I feel like a penguin.’
‘And your hair totally suits you longer.’
She reaches up and touches her neck. ‘I’m growing it for the wedding. You don’t think I’m too old for long hair, do you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, you’re thirty-six. You didn’t drive by the way, did you?’ Polly, Dave and Maisie now live in a small village near Marlow in Buckinghamshire. It’s only forty minutes by car, but if she’s driving that means I’m drinking alone, which isn’t good for anyone.
‘My one night out and you think I’m drinking Evian? Dave gave me a lift in and I’ll get a cab back. Is that smell what I think it is?’
I nod.
‘How long has it been on for?’ she says.
I check my watch. ‘Just over eight hours.’
‘I cannot wait, I’ve been looking forward to this all week! Will you email me the recipe? I want to make it for Dave.’
‘I’ve got some copies of it, I gave one to Terry the other day,’ I say, retrieving the recipe file I’d just returned to the hall cupboard.
‘I’m so sick of eating mackerel,’ she calls out from the kitchen. ‘Shall we start this Prosecco or wait for Dalia?’
‘He who hesitates … plus, it’ll help the crisps go down more easily,’ I say, opening a packet of Kettle Chips.
And it’s just as well we don’t wait for Dalia. Because twenty minutes later she sends me a text apologising profusely saying she can’t make it, and she’ll make it up to me another time, promise, kiss kiss.
‘Look at this,’ I say to Polly, showing her my phone. ‘She doesn’t even bother making excuses any more because she knows we won’t believe them.’
‘At least she’s got the decency not to pretend she has a migraine, I suppose,’ says Polly, handing the phone back to me and shaking her head.
‘You would think she would at least pick up the phone rather than just text,’ I say. ‘It’s rude.’
‘Mark’s probably there with her and she can’t bear to drag herself away from his side for twenty seconds.’
‘Do you reckon the sex is as good as she makes out it is?’ I say. ‘I’ve always thought Mark looked like the sort of man who would be entirely about his penis and not much else.’
‘Me too!’ she says. ‘But apparently it’s so amazing she says it’s like a drug.’
‘Huh,’ I say. ‘Well none of the drugs I’ve ever taken turned round and asked me if I wanted Botox for my birthday. Did she tell you about that?’
Polly nods. ‘She’s incapable of being on her own, though,’ she says. ‘She’d rather have someone than no one. I just wish that someone wasn’t him.’
‘I keep on telling her a man isn’t the be all and end all.’
‘That man’s just the end all,’ she says.
‘Let’s not talk about it, it’ll just make me angry, and I’ve had a bad enough week as it is … Ooh, although I did meet a man.’
‘A man?’ says Polly. ‘An actual real live man?’
‘Hang on, I’ll just put the pasta on and then I can tell you all about it.’
Two bowls of pasta, two bottles of wine and two helpings of cake later, I’m trying to remember all the reasons why I think Jeff is going to be my new boyfriend.
‘And he noticed those earrings I bought in New York, the five-dollar ones from Old Navy that actually look quite expensive.’
‘The moonstone ones?’
‘Yes, and he actually knows what a moonstone is, but he’s definitely not gay because he went out with another girl called Susie … with three Is … oh, and then he said that this chocolate sponge was my namecake, like namesake, because it’s like a Suzy Q apparently. Isn’t that funny? He’s funny as well as handsome … and he used to live in New York and he’s learning Spanish, and we like the same films, and he loves food!’
‘Sounds perfect,’ she says. ‘Apart from one big thing.’
‘What?’ I say, suddenly worried that she has found a clue in something I’ve said that reveals he is not single. ‘Polly?’
‘It’s obvious what the problem is, isn’t it?’ she says, waving her wine glass in the air.
‘No,’ I say. ‘What’s obvious?’
‘The name, Suze, the name.’
I breathe a sigh of relief.
‘It’s up there with Tarquin on the list of worst men’s names ever.’
‘It’s nowhere near Tarquin,’ I say. ‘It’s a totally fine name.’
‘Jeffrey?’ she says. ‘How many sexy Jeffs or Jeffreys are there? There’s plenty of unsexy Jeffreys. Geoffrey from Rainbow. Geoff Capes, Jeffrey Dahmer. Yep, serial killer name,’ she says, shuddering. ‘Or a man in a golfing jumper. A golf-playing serial killer.’
‘Jeff Bridges. He’s a sexy Jeff. My God, have you ever seen a photo of him when he was young?’
She raises an eyebrow suspiciously.
‘And Jeff Goldblum, kind of,’ I say. ‘Anyway, I’m in no position to be fussy about names at this stage of the game. If Nimrod Mcfartwhistle asked me out, I’d be hard-pressed to say no.’
‘Does he have a beard?’ she says.
‘Jeff? Why do you ask?’
‘It’s a beardy name.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No beard. A little bit of stubble, but good stubble. And very very blue eyes. Just like Daniel Craig but with a less craggy nose. And he’s bald.’
‘So nothing like Daniel Craig.’
‘Same eyes,’ I say.
‘Thank goodness he’s not called Craig,’ she says.
‘What’s wrong with Craig?’
‘Who calls a baby Craig?’ she says.
‘Who calls a baby Spencer?!’
She laughs. ‘Fair point.’
‘So more importantly, tell me what’s the latest on the wedding!’ I say. ‘I’m so excited, I can’t wait!’
Her face lights up. ‘The dress is sorted – Nanette’s done the most amazing job ever – and I’ve found the perfect shoes, and they were a total bargain, forty quid in a shop in a village down the road from us.’
‘Colour?’
‘Silver,’ she says.
‘Comfortable?’
‘Hell no! And the head-dress! Unbelievable. I found a woman on eBay who’d inherited her aunt’s – Edwardian lace, totally beautiful, a hundred and ten years old this thing, worn once, and she only wanted sixty-five quid for it! And Dave and I have finally made our minds up about the food …’
‘Are you going to tell me anything or are you keeping it a surprise?’
‘Definitely a surprise. Although I think you’ll like the cake.’
‘Tell me about the cake at least?’
‘No way!’ she says, ‘the cake’s the best bit. Just be warned, the whole thing’s not going to be as posh as first time round – the venue’s just a little restaurant in Farringdon near the registry office. But all the money’s going into food and booze this time!’
‘Poll, I don’t care if you guys get married in Nando’s, I’m just so excited for you. You deserve this more than anyone.’
She squeezes my hand. ‘I swear, Suze, it’ll happen to you when you least expect it.’
‘Oh Polly. I’ve been least expecting it for a very long time now,’ I say, smiling.
She takes another sip of her wine and pours the rest of the bottle into her glass. ‘Oh. And you’ll never guess who’s RSVPd and is coming without a certain evil other half …’ she says, looking at me with a mischievous grin.
I put down my glass.
‘Daniel McKendall’s coming?’ I say.
‘Daniel McKendall’s coming, and he asked if you were coming too.’
Daniel McKendall: best mate of Polly’s brother.
I’ve known Daniel McKendall since I was twelve. We were born on the same day, in the same year. And from the age of thirteen through to fifteen, he was my best male friend and my sort-of boyfriend.
‘I’m going to open another bottle,’ I say, getting off the sofa and heading to the kitchen. I fetch myself a glass of water and drink it slowly, trying to figure out why even now, after all this time, just the sound of his name still has an effect on me.
‘Bring me some booze immediately!’ she shouts from the sofa. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any cider in the fridge, have you?’
Polly and I spent far too many of our teenage years drinking cider, wearing DMs and listening to The Cure. She was a proper bona fide Goth, hair dyed Naples Black, scary eyeliner, the works. I was just copying her because I was in awe of her, and because the DMs offended my mother in a way that I found hugely gratifying. Although there was no way I’d have got away with dyed hair living under my parents’ roof. They’d have put me up for fostering.
‘Polly, I haven’t touched cider since I disgraced myself at your eighteenth. If you really want a blast from the past I can offer you Malibu, or I still have some Galliano left over from New Year’s Eve 2004. It looks like fluorescent urine but it tastes far worse …’
‘Malibu,’ she says. ‘And have you got any bad shit in the cupboard? I’ve chucked all the sweets out at home and I need something full of fat and sugar.’
‘Chocolate raisins, jumbo Chocolate Buttons, peanut M&Ms, take your pick,’ I say.
‘Bloody hell, you’re better than the Texaco. Buttons!’
I take the booze and the chocolates back through to her.
‘Did I tell you Brooke’s been living in New York for the last four months?’ she says, taking a glass from me. ‘Without Daniel …’
I take a sip of neat Malibu, wince at the sweetness, and pretend I haven’t heard her.
‘She said she can’t bear to live in England any more because of the weather,’ she says, with a raised eyebrow. ‘Says the rain gives her headaches. More like it makes her hair go curly. God, she’s such a spoiled princess,’ she says, ripping open the packet of Buttons.
‘It never rains in New York, does it,’ I say, finding two Buttons that are stuck together. Almost as good as the mythical Kit Kat finger that’s all-chocolate, no biscuit.
‘Anyway, her family are so bloody rich they can probably blow the clouds away like the Chinese did at the Olympics …’ says Polly.
‘What do they do again? Finance?’
‘Property, they’re minted.’
‘So she’s moved back there and Daniel’s still out in Kent?’
‘It’s only fifteen minutes on the train from Waterloo, Suze. That’s less than an hour from here, door to door.’
‘Have they actually separated though?’ I say, trying not to sound a tiny bit hopeful.
I last saw Daniel five years ago, in the pub on Christmas Eve. Even then there’d been problems in his marriage. He’d flirted with me just enough to make me feel human, but not to the point where I felt like he’d meant anything by it. More just for old times’ sake. Still, I remember when the clock had struck midnight, and we were all drunkenly hugging and kissing and singing carols, he’d given me a look filled with so much sadness and affection, I’d had to look away. Because I’d felt something.
‘They’re not separated yet,’ she says. ‘But it can’t be long now. They’re basically living separate lives. Apparently even before she moved back to the States she’d had him sleeping in the spare room for over a year.’
‘A year?’
‘That’s what my brother said.’
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘They’ve got a little boy, haven’t they?’
‘He’s nearly ten now. He’s in New York with Brooke, the two of them rattling around in some Upper East Side penthouse …’ she says, looking slightly less triumphant.
‘But how does that work?’ I say.
‘How indeed,’ she says, with raised eyebrows. ‘Daniel’s been flying over there every other weekend, but that can’t make sense longer term.’
‘He must be knackered. Why doesn’t he just move to New York? I’d love to live in New York,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that pretty selfish of him?’
‘No! It’s selfish of her! He’s trying to get his business off the ground, he’s been plugging away at it for years and he’s finally doing OK. And you know his dad’s not well, he’s been in a home since last summer. Plus his brother’s struggling through a hideous divorce. Daniel’s got all that on his plate and then Brooke drags their son out of school a year before he’s due to finish primary, so that she can swan around Barneys and get her nails done every day.’
‘Bad timing. That must be hard for him,’ I say, filing him back in the folder labelled ‘unavailable’.
‘Yeah, it’s shit, by the sounds of it,’ she says, shaking out the last of the chocolate. ‘I think he’s pretty messed up about the whole thing but you know what men are like, he says everything’s fine. Maybe you can offer him a shoulder to cry on at the wedding. I’m putting you next to him at dinner.’
‘Don’t do that, Poll,’ I say. ‘He’s married. And I mean, what’s the point?’
‘The point is, that marriage is as good as over. And it would be helpful for him to have an old friend talk some sense into him,’ she says.
‘I’m supposed to give him marriage guidance? I’m hardly a role model for successful living. No, stick me next to someone single.’
‘I’ll check with Dave to see if any of his mates are, but I don’t think there are any single men coming,’ she says. ‘Apart from my brother, and he only seems to date women in their twenties nowadays. He’s such a City Boy.’
‘I remember he always used to steal the five-hundred-pound notes in Monopoly,’ I say, laughing. ‘Don’t you have any single men on the list at all? Anyone – waiters, ushers, someone in the band?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not that I can think of. Right, I’ve definitely had too much to drink, best call me a cab.’
I haven’t thought about Daniel McKendall for years. Well, a few years at least. We’re friends on Facebook, but the fact that I haven’t even casually stalked him shows how low on my radar he is.
I remember Daniel’s parents back in the day, must be over twenty years ago now … They were so much more exotic than mine. Daniel’s mum, Krista, was a crazy Danish hippy; his dad, Robert, was a Scottish guitar teacher. When we first met, his parents were still listening to Joan Baez and smoking a lot of weed. (My parents listened to Vivaldi and to this day have never smoked a joint. When my mum found out I’d been smoking Consulate round at the McKendalls’ house, she went ballistic. ‘It starts with cigarettes, then you get hooked on the harder stuff. You’ll be round the back of King’s Cross, turning tricks for heroin if you don’t cut that out right now!’ If there’d been a ‘rat on a rat’ anti-nicotine hotline in the eighties, my mum would have shopped Daniel and me, taken her ten-pound reward, and still had a smile on her face when she put dinner on the table.)
Going round to Daniel’s big, ramshackle house and twos-ing menthol cigarettes that we’d stolen from Krista McKendall’s crochet handbag was the most exciting, bohemian thing I had ever experienced. Daniel and I used to take a picnic blanket, sneak up onto the roof and spend hours lying on our backs, blowing smoke rings and staring up at the clouds. All that time, imagining what we would do with our lives.
Up on the roof we’d pretend things could stay the way they were forever. In our future it would still always be five in the afternoon on a perfect summer’s day, with the sky so blue it felt like a child’s drawing. Our parents would always stay young and strong and good looking and healthy and we would never have to think of them as actually being human. There would always be cold lingonberry lemonade so sharp it made your tongue curl waiting for us in Krista McKendall’s fridge, if only we could be bothered to go down to the kitchen. Homework could wait. Tidying our rooms could wait. For now and always we would stay lying, side by side on this green and blue tartan blanket, looking up to the sky. Best friends who just happened to also like kissing each other.
Daniel and I were always happiest when we were together, just the two of us. The best days of my teens were spent with him. We had so much in common, and because we were born on the same day he used to joke that we were twins, separated at birth. ‘The exact same day, that can’t be coincidence! Look at the facts: your grandfather was Scottish and so was mine. It is technically possible.’
‘He wasn’t my actual grandfather,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, but he was the only one you ever knew,’ he said. ‘And look at the other things that are identical: both crap at art. You eat Breakaways the exact same way that I do, that must be genetic!’
‘Clearly we’re not twins. Your mum’s Dutch. I wish I had her bone structure, she looks like Julie Christie.’
‘For ten points, what’s the capital of Denmark …?’
‘Oh. Copenhagen. Sorry, your mum’s Danish. I do know the difference, but you’ve got to admit they’re confusing, they are quite close to each other. Anyway, why would you even want me to be your sister? That’s messed up.’ If we were siblings that would mean that all the medium petting we were doing up on that roof was technically incest. I’d read Flowers in the Attic though – maybe it wasn’t so bad.
‘What?’ he said, looking confused.
‘Think about what you’re actually saying! Brothers and sisters don’t do this. Oh God, just think about my brother … Gross! What’s wrong with you? You’re a pervert!’ I said, pushing him away from me.
‘Jeez, you’re the one who’s sick! I wasn’t thinking about it like that! I just meant … If you were my twin you wouldn’t have to go home at night. You could stay here with us. You could live in our house! We’d go on holiday together. We’d have fun all the time. That’s what I meant.’
‘Ah, so you’re a romantic pervert at least. Well that’s OK then,’ I said, moving back towards him and kissing him on his beautiful mouth.
That’s the thing about Daniel – he had an innocence about him. He always seemed a little bit lost but underneath that he also had a quiet confidence. Daniel was the first boy I fell in love with. Not just because he was good looking and tall and could blow double smoke rings. But because of that combination of sweetness and strength. And because, from the very first moment I met him on a hot July day in Polly’s garden, I felt like I had always known him. He was the first boy I could truly be myself with, the first boy who made me laugh.
And then life got in the way, good and proper. Krista McKendall, that wild, crazy bohemian, ran off to Surrey with a balding accountant named Albert. And Daniel’s heartbroken, cuckolded father took his boys back up to Edinburgh to be near their grandparents. And that was the end of that.
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