This is the first time I’ve seen him since the pub, though we’ve spoken quite a bit on email, mostly about work. I have calmed down considerably and, while I’m still embarrassed about the leg-squeeze thing, I have come to realise that I over-reacted slightly. For Jeff is one of those men who loves the attention of women just for the sake of it; he loves to flirt and he’s terribly good at it. He is like a male version of Rebecca – a massive flirt, for whom flirtation is like breathing – they don’t even think about it, and they don’t mean any harm by it.
The only other man who flirts with me as heavily as Jeff does is Martin Meddlar, whom I consider to be a letch because I don’t fancy him. But Jeff is more attractive, and therefore Jeff is not a letch. Also I suspect Meddlar would follow through with me, whereas I think Jeff would not – for him, flirtation is a hobby, not a goal-based mission.
I was embarrassed because I didn’t know Jeff had a girlfriend. But if that first time I’d met him when I asked ‘Do you go to the cinema much?’ and he’d said ‘My girlfriend and I go a lot’ then I would have been embarrassed in a different way. In a way that says, ‘You don’t need to shout that you’ve got a girlfriend, I was only trying to make polite conversation.’ Though at least it would have saved me rather a lot of time spent daydreaming. The Jeff incident has reinforced what my mum always says: if a man wants to call you then he’ll call you.
Which reminds me. Daniel called me. I must call him back.
I have not called Daniel back earlier because once I call him then I will have called him and that will be that. I’ll have nothing left to look forward to. And what if he says, ‘I kissed you because I was totally drunk’ or ‘I kissed you because I felt sorry for you’ or something awfully mean about that almost-kiss on Sunday morning? Though Daniel’s not the mean type; he’s never mean at all.
When we finally break for lunch I take a deep breath, take my phone out of my bag and step outside to call him. As it rings at his end I feel my heart start to beat a little faster; I feel nervous, a little excited.
‘Hey you!’ he says. ‘I had such a great time the other night. I haven’t had that much fun in years.’
‘It was fun, wasn’t it,’ I say, thinking that this is the first time we’ve ever spoken to each other on a mobile phone. Back in the day it was landline to landline, usually with my brother or his brother trying to eavesdrop at one end.
‘I’ve missed talking to you,’ he says. ‘Even though we haven’t seen each other for such a long time, it felt like we could just pick up mid-conversation.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say, feeling a little wave of happiness surge up inside me. ‘I had a really good time too.’
‘Hey, can we hang out again? You know I’m up in London quite a lot, and you’re only a few stops from my brother. It’d be so nice to see you, to have a mate to hang out with.’
‘You must have plenty of other mates,’ I say.
‘Sure,’ he says, ‘but it’s just nice hanging out with a girl who’s a mate. I don’t have many girl mates left. Brooke’s quite jealous.’
‘What does she have to be jealous about?’
‘Nothing, obviously!’ he says. ‘Listen: I’m off to New York this weekend, but maybe we could do something next weekend? I’m with Dad next Saturday morning and then I’m meeting Joe on the South Bank at 6 p.m., but we could meet somewhere central-ish around 3 p.m.?’
I can’t think of any reason not to meet him. Other than that it’s a bad idea.
‘Shall we say Marylebone High Street at 3 p.m. then?’ I say. ‘Up at the top, near the church – we could grab a coffee and go for a walk in Regent’s Park?’
‘Perfect, see you then.’
A trip to see my parents will take my mind off Daniel McKendall.
They live out in Chesham and I get stuck in traffic from Brent Cross all the way along the M1. I wonder what Daniel’s up to in New York? I wonder if he’s thinking about me at all? Do they stay in the city at the weekends or go upstate? I turn on the radio to distract myself … thanks Radio 4, a documentary on the history of Ellis Island, helpful … And now on Money Box a discussion about the hidden costs of divorce … What’s on Heart FM … ‘Jolene’ … Consider myself thoroughly distracted.
I finally pull up outside my parents’ house at 12.30. ‘You’re late,’ says my mum, opening the front door and giving me a brief kiss. ‘I hope you’re not hungry. There’s only a few bits and pieces.’ She heads back to the living room to finish her knitting.
Every time I come round here, my mother cooks enough food for a medium-sized wedding reception. No doubt it’s her subliminal hint that my nuptials are long overdue; ‘How come Polly’s managed to find two husbands and you haven’t even found one?’ I’m not sure she’s forgiven me for that brief fling I had six years ago when she thought I was going to end up with the next James Dyson. ‘He’s not that sort of genius, Mum. He works in the Apple Store.’
My parents have gone past the point of fearing I might be a lesbian. They’ve gone past the point of hoping I am a lesbian and that I might meet a nice girl. Mum thinks the problem is that I’m too fussy. How do I explain that fussy doesn’t come into it? I just can’t settle down with a man who tries to get his nob out in a nightclub on a first date.
I take off my coat and follow my mother through into the living room.
‘Hello darling,’ says my dad, his eyes glued to the test match. ‘Good week?’
‘It is now,’ I say, walking into the kitchen and seeing lunch: a roast chicken, a huge tray of crunchy potatoes roasted in butter and olive oil, a beautiful green salad. And most importantly, a large avocado on the side! The dinner table of my childhood was a scene of combat played out over avocados. My brother’s job was to lay the table, mine was to clear. But if a meal involved an avocado then my dad – a man who normally never set foot in the kitchen – would leap to help like a Girl Scout on her first day.
If a salad crowned with those pale green jewels ever made it to the table un-pillaged, there’d ensue a series of moves and counter-moves as my family did battle for equal share. Sleights of hand, sleights of mouth, an occasional slap. As the youngest and weakest I invariably ended up with the least. Perhaps my mother was trying to teach me to assert myself via the salad bowl. Dog eat dog/dog luckily not eat avocado.
I consider cutting open the avocado and eating half, just to see my mother’s reaction, but figure that I’m going to annoy her enough once I start telling her about my latest master plan – no point antagonising her prematurely.
‘How was the wedding?’ she asks, as I set the table and she finally manages to drag my father from the cricket. ‘Don’t let me forget I’ve got a little present for Polly.’
‘It was so beautiful,’ I say. ‘I’ll send you a photo when she’s back from honeymoon.’
‘Did you meet any single men?’ she says, picking out the crunchiest potato in the tray for herself, then thinking twice and putting it on my dad’s plate. She is softening in her old age. My dad is normally the sentimental one – he cries if England win the cricket. My mum would take a crossbow to a kitten if she thought the kitten was eyeing up her space in the Waitrose car park.
‘No, Mum, there are no single men left. Though guess who I sat next to?’
‘I can’t remember who’s who …’ she says.
‘Daniel McKendall.’ Just saying his name gives me a little thrill.
‘I hope you weren’t smoking again?’ she says. Aah, she can’t remember who’s who, but she can remember I smoked a few fags with him twenty-three years ago …
‘He’s hasn’t changed at all,’ I say. I find myself wanting to talk about him to someone, anyone, just so that I can have him in the room with me. ‘We’re having coffee next weekend.’
‘Didn’t he get married years ago?’
‘Yes, but his wife lives in New York.’
‘So he is married.’ That’s one way of looking at it … But here’s another way: he was mine before he was hers.
‘Oh, forget I mentioned him. He’s just a friend. Anyway, I need to talk to you …’
‘Don’t tell me,’ she says. ‘You’re thinking of leaving your job.’
‘Don’t say it like that, Mum! I am. And I just need you to prepare yourself for the fact.’
‘You’ve been saying this for years,’ she says. ‘Forgive me if I don’t take you too seriously.’
‘I fully support you,’ says my dad. ‘Miserable sounding place. I don’t mean support you
financially
of course, but if you’ve got a good idea, you should go for it.’
‘You’re out of your mind, the pair of you,’ says my mum. ‘Don’t you read the papers? This recession’s worse than the Great Depression. You’ll be foraging for food in bins like those poor people I read about in the
Observer Food Magazine
.’
‘Mum, they’re called Urban Foragers and it’s very trendy nowadays. Anyway, why can’t I have a normal conversation with you about this? I am going to pursue an alternative, more creative career.’ I daren’t mention the word blog to her – she’ll think I’m trying to be the new Belle du Jour …
‘If you are actually serious about leaving the agency, Uncle Alfred’s looking for someone to help run his business,’ she says.
‘Mum, I have
zero interest
in the finer points of screeding. I don’t care about comparative pour rates of glue viscosities, Uncle Alfred’s office doesn’t even have the internet, in fact I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have an inside toilet, so will you please never mention Uncle Alfred’s business to me ever again!’ This is why I don’t come round here more often – I instantly revert to being a teenage brat.
‘You can’t go off to your room in a huff, dear,’ says my dad, trying not to laugh. ‘Your mother’s using it as one giant wool cupboard.’
‘Your brother’s talking about buying a second place in France,’ says Mum, pointedly.
‘Bully for him.’ I say.
‘If you are serious about leaving, darling,’ says Dad, ‘then you should sit down carefully and work out how much you need to live on and still pay your bills.’
‘Yes, of course I’ll do that. I will do that today.’
I clear the table just to cut short the conversation.
‘Make sure you take some of that chicken home with you, dear,’ my mum calls out. ‘There’s too much just for the two of us.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ I say, already wrapping it in foil.
‘Now make us some coffee and then you can help your father sort out all your piles of old junk in the spare room,’ she says.
My dad looks at me with his eyebrows raised. I shake my head.
‘Cricket doesn’t finish till around 6 p.m.,’ he says to my mum. ‘We can do it next time.’
‘Besides,’ I say to her. ‘I’m actually going to go home in a bit and do this spreadsheet.’
‘Believe it when I see it,’ she says, picking up her knitting and settling herself into her chair for the rest of the day.
Laptop out, and I’m an hour into this spreadsheet of how little I can afford to live on.
Seven hundred and fifty quid just for the roof over my head every month. And then all the normal utilities of course. And council tax will be going up again …
There’s no way I can live without a mobile phone, that would be ridiculous.
And I guess I need contents insurance … And the internet – I mean, obviously I can’t run a blog without the internet … oh, and the TV licence …
And then my car, insurance, MOT, tax, monthly costs of running …
Sweet lord, I’m surprised I can even live on my current salary. There’s no way I can give up my job. How can anyone afford to live in this city?
It’s not even like I go anywhere fancy or buy expensive clothes.
OK, let’s strip this right back. What can I compromise on and what can’t I live without?
No new clothes for a year, apart from maybe tights if I run out of pairs without holes in. I can work through all my old clothes, I’ve got plenty stashed in the wardrobe.
No eating out. Well, no eating out apart from one burrito per month plus guacamole. No cinema – I can make do with TV and I’ll get Sam to show me how to watch things online.
Stockpile cotton wool and deodorant at Costco next time Mum and Dad are going.
Drink booze only two nights a week. I won’t need to drink every night because I won’t be stressed from my day job. And no posh coffees.
Bugger. Haircuts. I could learn to cut my own hair? How hard can it be?
If I eat less, and eat only lentils, pulses and rice on weekdays, then I could afford avocados and cheese at the weekends …
Bollocks. I still need fourteen grand before I even set foot out of the house. Oh what’s the point? I’ll never be able to leave that place …
Status report:
Andy and I have been sitting in an edit suite in Soho all week trying to make this ad half-decent.
We spent all of Monday looking through the rushes of the pizzas and of Celina. Since then Andy and an editor have been painstakingly working through it all, trying to cut the footage into a polished thirty-second ad. The pizzas all looks terrific. The pizzas are not the problem. But there are precious few takes of Celina where she’s looking at the camera and saying her line clearly. In most of them she either looks glazed or fluffs the script.
‘Fast forward … a bit more … yep, pause,’ says Andy to the editor. ‘So if you cut at 2.06 and take three seconds of that shot, you can intercut with the mushroom shot from reel seven, then cut back in again on the other take, where she stumbles on the word “truth” but then finishes the line well.’
Andy is amazing. He has such great attention to detail that he’s able to shape and mould this mess into something that ends up looking totally brilliant by the time we finish late on Thursday night.
‘How on earth did you manage to do that, Andy?’ I say.
‘Oh, I love the editing,’ he says. ‘Finding those perfect little moments and picking them out. It’s like a jigsaw. And there’s always something brilliant just to the side of where you’re expecting it. You can have a shot that seems like a total disaster but then if you look closely, see, where this take finishes, Celina gives this beautiful, natural smile – because she thinks the take is over. She’s actually looking relaxed for the first time right there. And we can stick that smile on the end of the first shot and make it look seamless.’