Emma noticed how Dexter dropped her hand, almost throwing it away from him as he crossed the street and embraced his mother. With a further spasm of irritation she noticed that Mrs Mayhew was extremely beautiful and stylishly dressed, the father less so, a tall, sombre, dishevelled man, clearly unhappy to have been kept waiting. The mother met Emma’s eyes over her son’s shoulder and gave an indulgent, consolatory smile, almost as if she knew. It was the look a duchess might give, finding her errant son kissing the housemaid.
After that, things happened faster than Dexter would have liked. Remembering the faked phone-call, he realised that he was bound to be caught in a lie unless he got them into the flat as quickly as possible, but his father was asking about parking, his mother wondering where he had
been
all day, and why he hadn’t called, while Emma stood a little way off to one side, still the housemaid, deferential and superfluous, wondering how soon she could accept defeat and head home.
‘I thought we told you, we’d be coming here at six—’
‘Six-thirty actually.’
‘I left a message this morning on your machine—’
‘Mum, Dad – this is my friend Emma!’
‘Are you sure that I can park here?’ said his father.
‘Pleased to meet you, Emma. Alison. You’ve caught the sun. Where have you two been all day?’
‘—because if I get a parking ticket, Dexter—’
Dexter turned to Emma, eyes blazing an apology. ‘So, do you want to come in for a drink?’
‘Or dinner?’ said Alison. ‘Why don’t you join us for dinner?’
Emma glanced at Dexter, who seemed wild-eyed with what she took to be shock at the idea. Or was it encouragement? Either way, she would say no. These people seemed nice enough,
but it wasn’t what she wanted, gate-crashing someone else’s family occasion. They would be going somewhere swanky and she looked like a lumberjack and besides, really, what was the point? Sitting there gazing at Dexter while they asked what her parents did for a living, where she went to school. Already she could feel herself shrinking from this family’s brash self-confidence, their showy affection for each other, their money and style and grace. She would become shy or, worse, drunk and neither would help her chances. Best give up. She managed a smile. ‘Actually, I better head back.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Dexter, frowning now.
‘Yeah, stuff to do. You go on. I’ll see you around, maybe.’
‘Oh. Okay,’ he said, disappointed. If she had wanted to come in she could have, but ‘
see you around, maybe
’? He wondered if perhaps she wasn’t that bothered about him after all. There was a silence. His father wandered off to peer at the parking meter once more.
Emma raised her hand. ‘Bye then.’
‘See you.’
She turned to Alison. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘And you, Emily.’
‘Emma.’
‘Of course. Emma. Goodbye, Emma.’
‘And—’ She shrugged towards Dexter while his mother spectated. ‘Well, have a nice life, I suppose.’
‘And you. Have a nice life.’
She turned and started to walk away. The Mayhew family watched her go.
‘Dexter, I’m sorry – did we interrupt something?’
‘No. Not at all. Emma’s just a friend.’
Smiling to herself, Alison Mayhew regarded her handsome son intently, then reached out and took the lapels of his suit in both hands, tugging them gently to settle the jacket on his shoulders.
‘Dexter – weren’t you wearing this yesterday?’
* * *
And so Emma Morley walked home in the evening light, trailing her disappointment behind her. The day was cooling off now, and she shivered as she felt something in the air, an unexpected shudder of anxiety that ran the length of her spine, and was so intense as to make her stop walking for a moment. Fear of the future, she thought. She found herself at the imposing junction of George Street and Hanover Street as all around her people hurried home from work or out to meet friends or lovers, all with a sense of purpose and direction. And here she was, twenty-two and clueless and sloping back to a dingy flat, defeated once again.
‘What are you going to do with your life?’ In one way or another it seemed that people had been asking her this forever; teachers, her parents, friends at three in the morning, but the question had never seemed this pressing and still she was no nearer an answer. The future rose up ahead of her, a succession of empty days, each more daunting and unknowable than the one before her. How would she ever fill them all?
She began walking again, south towards The Mound. ‘Live each day as if it’s your last’, that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn’t practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference. Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at … something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance.
That was her general theory, even if she hadn’t made a very good start of it. With little more than a shrug she had said goodbye to someone she really liked, the first boy she had ever really cared for, and now she would have to accept the fact that she would probably never see him again. She had no phone number, no address, and even if she did, what was the point?
He hadn’t asked for her number either, and she was too proud to be just another moony girl leaving unwanted messages.
Have a nice life
had been her last line. Was that really the best she could come up with?
She walked on. The castle was just coming into view when she heard the footsteps, the soles of smart shoes slapping hard onto the pavement behind, and even before she heard her name and turned she was smiling, because she knew that it would be him.
‘I thought I’d lost you!’ he said, slowing to a walk, red-faced and breathless, attempting to regain some nonchalance.
‘No, I’m here.’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘No, really, it’s fine.’
He stood with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. ‘I wasn’t expecting my parents ’til later, and then they turned up out of the blue, and I got distracted, and I suddenly realised … bear with me … I realised I didn’t have any way to get in touch with you.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘So – look. I don’t have a pen. Do you have a pen? You must have.’
She crouched and rooted in her rucksack amongst the litter of their picnic.
Find a pen, please have a pen, you must have a pen…
‘Hurrah! A pen!’
‘Hurrah’? You shouted ‘hurrah!’, you idiot. Stay calm. Don’t blow it now
.
She rooted in her wallet for a scrap of paper, found a supermarket receipt, and handed it over, then dictated her number, her parents’ number in Leeds, their address and her own address in Edinburgh with special emphasis on the correct postcode, and in return he wrote down his.
‘This is me.’ He handed her the precious scrap of paper. ‘Call me or I’ll call you, but one of us will call, yes? What I mean is it’s not a competition. You don’t lose if you phone first.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m away in France until August, but then I’m back and I thought you might want to come down and stay maybe?’
‘Stay with
you?’
‘Not for ever. For a weekend. At mine. My parents’, I mean. Only if you want to.’
‘Oh. Okay. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes.’
‘So. I should get back. Are you sure you don’t want to come for a drink or something? Or dinner?’
‘I don’t think I should,’ she said.
‘No, I don’t think you should either.’ He looked relieved and she felt slighted once again. Why not? she thought. Was he embarrassed by her?
‘Oh. Right. Why’s that?’
‘Because I think if you did I’d go a bit mad. With frustration, I mean. You sitting there. Because I wouldn’t be able to do what I want to do.’
‘Why? What do you want to do?’ she asked, though she knew the answer. He put one hand lightly on the back of her neck, and simultaneously she placed one hand lightly on his hip, and they kissed in the street as all around them people hurried home in the summer light, and it was the sweetest kiss that either of them would ever know.
This is where it all begins. Everything starts here, today.
And then it was over. ‘So. I’ll see you around,’ he said, walking slowly backwards away from her.
‘I hope so,’ she smiled.
‘And I hope so too. Bye, Em.’
‘Bye, Dex.’
‘Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye. Goodbye.’
About this guide:
The questions, discussion topics, and suggestions for further reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of
One Day
by David Nicholls. “A wonderful, wonderful book: wise, funny, perceptive, compassionate, and often unbearably sad” (
The Times
[London]),
One Day
was a #1 bestseller in England and across Europe.
About the book:
Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, casual acquaintances during their university years, spend graduation night together. It’s July 15, 1988, and their futures are up in the air. Dexter, the handsome, confident son of a well-to-do family, knows only that he wants “to be successful.… to live life to the extreme, but without any mess or complications” [p. 9]. Emma is determined to stay true to her left-leaning passions and ideals though she has little idea of how she’ll do it. They part the next day with vague promises to keep in touch as Dexter sets off to travel the world and Emma returns to her working-class family in Leeds to figure out what she’ll do next. Over the next twenty years, they’ll think about each other, sometimes to meet and reignite a relationship that neither can give up nor explain.
One Day
revisits Dexter and Emma every year on the anniversary of their first night together. Each July 15
th
becomes a snapshot of a particular time and place, offering an irresistible and often hilarious chronicle of the lovers they acquire, the careers they pursue, the culture that influences them, and the opportunities they embrace or squander. As their stories unfold, David Nicholls brilliantly explores the interplay of character and fate that shape our lives.
For discussion:
1. To what extent do Emma’s thoughts and assumptions about Dexter [pp. 5-6] and Dexter’s sketch of Emma [pp. 8-9] rely on facile stereotypes they each harbor? In what ways do they embody more measured reflections? How accurate are their assessments? Does their initial encounter make the reader more sympathetic to one of the characters? In what ways might the reader’s gender, experiences, and prejudices affect their feelings about Emma and Dexter?
2. What determines the path Emma follows in her post-university years? In addition to being a wonderfully comic interlude, how does her stint with Sledgehammer Theater Cooperative enrich the portrait of the time in which the novel is set? Is Emma’s explanation of why she ended up working at the tacky Mexican restaurant—”there was a recession on and people were clinging to their jobs…. the government had ended student grants” [p. 56]—honest? Have circumstances and “the city defeated her” or is she responsible for her own plight?
3. In his unsent letter Dexter writes, “I think you’re scared of being happy…. that you actually get a kick out of being disappointed and under-achieving, because it’s easier….”[p. 42]. How do Dexter’s insights into Emma compare to her own? Is he more perceptive about her than he is about himself? Does Emma underestimate her talents and potential? Despite its carefree tone, does Dexter’s letter betray certain doubts or misgivings about himself?
4. Does Dexter’s meteoric rise in television change the fundamental dynamics between Dexter and Emma? What aspects of their relationship remain unchanged? What influences the things they say and, perhaps more importantly, what they don’t say, during their afternoon on Primrose Hill [p. 60-72]? Were you surprised to find them vacationing together in Greece the following year? Who is more aware of—and affected by—the sexual tensions and temptations they both experience?
5. Is Dexter’s idle vision of his future [p. 9] realized during “the late twenties” (chapters six through nine)? In what ways is the actuality of his life an ironic comment on his expectations? Does he act in ways that undermine his happiness? Discuss, for example, his visit to his parents [pp. 120-135]; his humiliating debut on
Late
-
Night Lock-In
[pp. 176-7]; his hostile, crude manner at dinner with Emma [pp. 205-210]; and his glib excuses and rationalizations for his actions [p.190]. What glimpses are there of his more vulnerable side? Do they make him a more appealing character?
6. “At twenty-seven, Emma wonders if she is getting old” [p. 115]. Do Emma’s feelings about both the satisfactions and regrets that come with being “grown-up” ring true? What explains Emma’s relationship with Ian? Is she willingly deceiving herself (and Ian)? Despite her impatience with him and his desperately unfunny comedy routines, does she have genuine feelings for Ian?
7. At the disastrous dinner on July 15, 1995, Emma declares, “Dexter, I love you so much…. and I probably always will. I just don’t like you any more. I’m sorry” [p. 210]. Does Dexter recognize why his behavior leads to this break? Does he care? Could the dinner have ended differently?
8. Compare Dexter’s reaction to his agent’s report on how he is perceived [pp. 240, 243] and Emma’s reaction to her unsuccessful interview with a publishing executive [p. 245]. What do they reveal how each of them approaches life’s ups-and-downs?
9. “Now that she was actually involved in an affair—its paraphernalia of secret looks, hands held under tables, fondles in the stationery cupboard—she was surprised at how familiar it all was, and what a potent emotion lust could be, when combined with guilt and self-loathing” [p. 221]. What does the affair with Mr. Godalming reflect about Emma’s state of mind as she approaches her mid-thirties? What satisfaction does it give her? To what extent is she influenced by the romantic notions and expectations society imposes on unmarried women?