Crappily Ever After (8 page)

‘I’m not going to be at the party, so why would I care?’ he had said.

At the end of the service, I walked over to the coffin and popped a half bottle of whiskey at Harry’s side. He looked peaceful – a cliché, I know – but he really did. A small smile seemed to have been playing on his lips when he went.

‘I’ll miss you, old bugger,’ I smiled sadly, ‘don’t go terrorising those poor angels too much.’          I kissed his cold cheek, feeling the roughness of bristle from an overdue shave that never arrived.   

Things settle back down at the Care Home and I don’t hear from Paul again. I heard that he was spotted out with another poor unsuspecting soul, both looking miserable as they drank their pints. I swear off men for a good long while. Instead, I seem to have a different view of life. Maybe, after Harry, I realised how quickly it can be snatched away, but I’m not sure. I start by quitting smoking. I give away my last fourteen cigarettes in a pack to Bessie, along with my ashtray and lighters. I also stop drinking for a few weeks as my resolve to stop smoking weakens terribly when I add alcohol. I walk the forty minutes to work and back, more for something to take my mind off cigarettes than anything else, and find I am quickly shedding the pounds too. I have no appetite. There are good days, when my intention is to live my life as fully as I can, and others when I’m angry and flop into bed pulling the covers over my head, not wanting to talk to anybody.

Everything reminds me of Harry.

After a few weeks of feeling really low and grumpy due to nicotine withdrawal (OK, I admit it, borderline psychotic) things start to look up again. I spend my time seeing movies and going to the gym with friends. I’m beginning to feel more positive than I’ve been in a long time. Like a tiny stream of light has appeared from behind a dark cloud after days of storms.

After a couple of months hiding out like a recluse, seeing only non-smoking friends and allowing myself a maximum of two wines total on a weekend night, I decide it’s time for the re-launch. I’ve gone from a size fourteen to a ten, so Jess and I hit the town for some power shopping. For the first time since I was a teenager, I enjoy buying clothes. Instead of being bright red in the face, struggling to button up a fourteen whilst grunting like a stuck pig, I slide easily into a size ten jeans and they sit snugly on my hips. I want to cartwheel through the changing rooms. The last time I had gone shopping I had, to my shame, got stuck in a slinky satin top. Mortified, I struggled for ten minutes with my arms over my head, stuck from the chest up, before I gave in and shouted on the pre-pubescent stick insect assistant to help me. Chewing her gum loudly in my ear as she attempted to release me, she eventually ripped the seam and pulled the top free. Just in time for me to notice three of her colleagues disappear, giggling, around the corner. Of course I had to pay for it even though, technically, she had ripped it.

Why do they allow these foetuses to work in clothes shops? It doesn’t make me want to go in there. Flaunting around in their size six clothes with ridiculously trendy names as they shout across a crowded store.

‘Jaz, can you check if we have this in a size fourteen – or maybe a sixteen, actually – for this customer?’ While looking disdainfully at me through a too-long fringe.

I want to be served by women whose arses are bigger than mine and who have shared the experience and humiliation of being stuck in a garment. I want them to say in hushed tones that they have the same trouble as me finding trousers to fit. I mean, the average UK size is a sixteen. I’m not alone here in being a real woman.

I do not want to hear the size six brigade tittering behind their hands and saying in mock awe: ‘It
really
suits you.’

Wait ‘til you hit real womanhood, sweetie, with your boobs swinging round your knees. So now I want to walk back in the manner of Julia Roberts in that scene from
Pretty Woman
:

‘Big mistake. Huge!’ I want to smirk as I flaunt my new look at them. I figure they won’t know the relevance of my statement. Probably haven’t ever watched a movie that wasn’t Disney. So I stick to getting my own back by dangling my arm out of the changing room curtain, shouting: ‘Service please, would you happen to have this in an eight?’ It’s fairly lost on them, sadly. In their minds anything over an eight is obese.

Laden with shopping bags, I head for the final part of my re-launch preparation – a new haircut. I exit an hour later with glossed, long choppy layers. It’s just what I needed. Twirling around in the street, Jess and I squeal at my reflection in a shop window. Much to the annoyance of people attempting to pass by. Serving staff in the shop look at us curiously.

‘Now, lunch,’ states Jess and we head to our local to chill out and discuss which of our new purchases we will wear tonight. As Jess hurries back from the bar, with two glasses of Pinot Grigio, she pushes my head down to near table level.

‘Stay there,’ she hisses.

She rummages in my River Island bag and chucks a pair of boot-cut jeans and a slinky top at me. She takes off her skyscraper heels and throws the lot in a carrier along with my makeup bag.

‘Toilet, now!’ she orders. ‘And don’t come out ‘til you’d make Kate Moss look like a complete dog.’

‘Eww, gross! I’m not putting on “still warm” shoes. Reminds me of that time we went bowling, I swear I got a verruca…’

‘I don’t have any verrucas – now seriously, go!’ Jess hisses, giving me an almighty shove. I have no idea why I am doing this, but I also know there will be a good reason. Even if temporary insanity is the cause.

I exit the bathroom ten minutes later, having preened myself thoroughly, and walk down the stairs to find Jess sitting at the table shoeless. She grins widely and points to the bar, where Sean and a sulky-looking Charmaine are waiting to be served. I teeter past as quickly as I can on four inch heels and sit down.

‘What the hell are they doing in Edinburgh?’ I ask.

‘I overheard Sean saying they are through for the day to fix up some gigs for The Magic Mushrooms,’ whispers Jess. ‘You have
got
to go over.’

‘No!’ I look at Jess in horror. ‘And let them have one up on me as they flaunt their relationship? I think not.’

‘Lucy, you look amazing. She looks like the side of a house and, by the sound of things, all is not rosy.’

I listen closely to their muffled words. Indeed, it does sound like Charmaine is having a go at Sean over something. I take a deep breath, pull in my tummy and head over. Jess claps her hands with glee.

‘
You
said that we would have one drink and go. You’ve had no luck in finding a gig and I’m tired. We’ve done five bars now and I’m not having you throwing up in my car again on the way home. You either come now, or I’m leaving on my own,’ threatens Charmaine.

Sean looks tired. I try not to smile. I note the solitaire engagement ring on Charmaine’s finger. Knowing Sean, it’s not a diamond. It’d be from a Lucky Bag if he thought he’d get away with it. He storms off to play the bandit.

I order another two glasses of Pinot Grigio and smile sweetly at the gorgeous barman, Callum, who has been flirting outrageously with Jess and I since we came in. Charmaine turns in recognition of my voice.

‘You!’ she stares at me in disgust.

I look at her in confusion. ‘Sorry, do we know each other?’ I ask politely.

‘Charmaine!’ she exclaims, looking me up and down. ‘You used to go out with Sean. Don’t make out you don’t know me,’ she says indignantly.

‘Sorry,’ I smile. ‘I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.’

I saunter back to my seat as Charmaine heads over to Sean, shaking her head and pointing in our direction. He walks toward us, smiling:

‘Lucy, oh my God, you look great!’ he announces, giving me an approving once over. ‘Oh. Sorry, I realise who you are now,’ I whisper to Charmaine.

Jess dashes to the bar where she is waving her arms and chatting enthusiastically to Callum. I smile at Sean and ask how he’s been.

‘Just been signed up for three gigs in Edinburgh,’ he says smugly. Charmaine shoots him a ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ look.

‘Only went to five bars. Had to turn two down and take the best three. You know how it is.’

Suddenly, I am swept backwards. Callum plants a kiss on my lips and says:

‘I’ll only be half an hour longer, gorgeous. Then I’m all yours. I’ve booked the restaurant for 7pm. You were right, when I gave my name, suddenly there was a table after all, Sir.’ Callum turns to Sean: ‘I don’t
usually
like to name drop, but a rich music biz Daddy does work wonders.’ He smiles knowingly and walks away.

Sean’s face is a picture. ‘Who… who is that?’ he stutters.

‘Like the man said, he doesn’t like to name drop,’ I shrug. ‘Sorry, I can’t help.’

With that, Jess and I wave sweetly to Callum and gather up our bags. We’ll have lunch somewhere else.

‘Sean, it really was a pleasure. Best of luck with the gigs and Chantelle, good luck, sweetie.’ I glance pointedly at Sean when I say this. She’s going to need it.

‘It’s Charmaine!’ she screeches after us in disbelief.

Laughing loudly, we walk out into the sunshine, leaving an open-mouthed Sean and a silently fuming Charmaine staring after us.

                                                             Chapter Six

I head in to work on Monday morning, after a hectic Saturday night and a very relaxed Sunday. I never got out of bed, other than to answer the door once and for a couple of calls of nature. Just read, watched TV and ordered a pizza. I arrive at work to discover we have lost another client in the Home – Bessie. For a lot of people the mortality rate in this job is not easy to accept – three of our people in as many months – but I admit, I have a philosophical approach to it all. There have been a couple of issues since Harry went, but nothing serious. Muddled up shifts and a couple of sick days. Nothing that the other staff don’t do. I walk into a supervision meeting with Ellie, precariously balancing two coffee cups with a plate of biscuits on top of one. Ellie looks troubled. Getting straight to the point, she kindly informs me that, with the best of intentions, she is referring me to go on a bereavement management course. I roll my eyes and tell her I’m fine. I’m coping! She looks at me intently and says that the course will do me no harm anyway, and it may help me. I agree to do it – I have to. The company is very into preventative measures. Of what, I’m not sure. Nipping things in the bud is how it’s referred to. They don’t want people off on stress leave, I guess. Understandable really and great in theory, but not when you’re coping as well as I am. I’m just wasting their money and my time. But I sit and listen, making the right noises until I can head back to the clients. I decide to go out at lunchtime and call around a few agencies for nanny work. Hopefully, the prognosis will be better when the people you care for are younger…     

I speak to Elaine at Edinburgh Nannies. We had a flyer handed out to us from her agency

when we all graduated. She came in to do a talk and seemed friendly enough.

‘We’re really slow at the moment, Lucy,’ she says. ‘But why don’t you pop in and register in case something comes up?’ I head down after work and fill in an application form that makes
War and Peace
look like a pamphlet. Exhausted, and with a cramp in my wrist, we discuss the options.

‘Just in: family with five children, newborn to nine years in Corstorphine. Laundry, cooking and some light housekeeping.’

‘No way.’

‘OK. Shared care with mum, twin boy and girl, two-months-old in Haymarket. 7am to 7pm.’

‘Good God, no!’

‘Buckstone. Weekend nanny…’

‘No!’

Elaine looks defeated.

 ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Sole charge, four-year-old boy, in nursery mornings, hours 9am ‘til 5pm…’

‘I’ll take it,’ I say firmly. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘Islington,’ says Elaine hopefully.

‘Don’t know it,’ I shrug. I thought I knew Edinburgh inside out.

‘Islington… London,’ ventures Elaine.

‘Oh no you don’t,’ I eye her suspiciously. ‘I know your game, trying to palm me off with London jobs because you get more money for them. Bet you have loads for Edinburgh really. My life is here, my home, all my friends, I’m not too far from my family.’