The Way It Never Was (8 page)

CHAPTER 8 -
THE WAY IT NEVER WAS

Being out of work is fun at first, but then you realise that you’re no longer living out of a suitcase in a backpacker hostel and you have more pressing matters, like paying the bills on a flat you happen to own. So, no sooner do I get myself out of the Globe where I have spent an unproductive day surfing for unsuitable jobs and avoiding eye contact with an irritated looking Paolo (having bought only one coffee the whole time), than my phone rings. I automatically pick it up in the hope that it’s about one of the twenty jobs I applied for today but alas no, it is only Stan asking how my job hunting is going. My heart sinks as he’s already left three messages over the last week that I’ve not been in the mood to return.

‘Everyone keeps asking me that, I have nothing to report,’ I snap, as I’m not sure what is more exhausting, job hunting, or talking about it. I really have to ignore myself when I’m in this state of mind. All I can think of is him and Anna sitting on the sofa in front of some meal that she pretended to cook, watching a romantic comedy, with her interjecting with ‘Poor Kate’ every five. ‘I’ll be sure to send a circular when I get a job, promise.’ I say, as I’m feeling grumpy and am in no mood to explain myself, not even to one of my best friends, because only I know how it truly feels. Then I feel guilty for being mean. ‘It was good to see you guys for dinner the other night, thank you.’

‘Anytime. Sorry about setting you up, again.’ he blurts out. ‘The date wasn’t my idea. It’s Anna. She’s obsessed with finding you someone.’

I jangle my keys around and sit on the steps of my building watching someone get a ticket on their car. ‘She means well. Seriously, I’m fine, really.’ I am glad this is the phone or he could see from the rash on my chest that I’m bending the truth a little. ‘Mr Right it turns out is definitely not in the entire city of London or on a holiday to Afghanistan that matter,’ I joke, omitting the fact that this is probably not through lack of men but because I turn down most opportunities that come my way. Over the last two years, I’ve had several nice guys ask me out and yet I never seem to progress beyond three texts, or a drink induced kiss that barely keeps sexual frustration at bay, only for it to then fizzle out. I realise in today’s dating world that three texts do not a relationship make, but why invest anymore if I only get my heart broken?

‘Kate, you need to get over that bloke – you know, give other men a chance.’ Stan never refers to Joe by name, just ‘that bloke’.

‘Stan, I have to ask, where are you?’ The noise in the background is sounding very much like he’s at a football stadium.

‘I’m at Gatwick, coming back from a meeting in Zurich,’ he shouts. Yes, my friend happens to have a rather good job where you travel all over the world and have a fast-track card for customs.

‘Look,’ I interrupt, ‘I don’t really know what to say. If Joe hadn’t been on the other side of the world, it might have properly taken off and I then wouldn’t have to be set up on Monday blind dates.’ I add this last bit just to make a point.

‘But would you really still be together?’ Stan says. ‘I mean, how do you know? From what Anna tells me, he didn’t treat you very well.’ Standing up and turning my key in the lock, I wonder why on earth Anna is voicing her opinion about Joe to Stan when she never talks about him to me.

‘How on earth do you know what he was like?’ I say, opening the door and wiping my feet.

‘You never met him.’ And just as I’m thinking I’ve been cut off because I’m at the bottom of the stairwell, Stan comes back on the line.

‘Come on Kate, guys who pass up the opportunity to go out with you must be pretty stupid,’ he says, his voice softening. ‘He could easily have come home but he didn’t. It says a lot.’

Stan is talking absolute bollocks! If Joe hadn’t had that one-off career opportunity, he would have come back and taken on a job in London. That’s why I’m in this mental limbo, needing that same connection, that same feeling, and continually blaming myself for losing it in the first place. The fact it didn’t work out and that he kissed like a washing machine is neither here nor there – as far as I’m concerned, it was cut off in its prime.

‘Whatever Stan,’ I say. ‘It doesn’t change the fact that I have never felt that way about anyone before and probably won’t again.’

Walking up the stairs past Linda’s flat with its welcome mat outside, complete with umbrella stand and flat tyre, I decide to snap out of my funk. As much as the memory of Joe is a big, scary animal that I’m still obliged to feed on a regular basis, even I get bored with the subject.

‘Anyhow, enough about me! Glad it’s going so well with you and Anna though – nearly a year huh?’ Dazzled by the sun streaming through the window, I stop on the landing to look at the sailing boat going across the horizon and allow a wave of gratitude to wash over me. Day in day out, I barely ever acknowledge where I live and the vista that is right in front of my flat. If I’m not careful, I’ll behave like I did in Sydney and not bother appreciating the view. ‘You do know that in twentieth first century terms, the length of your relationship is the equivalent of a decade?’ I add, to which he sighs in a rather world-weary manner.

‘Yeah, it seems to be ticking along. Most of the time she’s amazing.’

There it is – that word that Stan uses to describes his girlfriend.
Amazing
. Surely, ‘Amazing’ should be used to describe the solar eclipse or the Grand Canyon or the feeling you get when you’re doing a parachute jump.
Amazing
. And while Anna is one of my closest friends these days, I have a little problem with such a big word being used. Sure, she’s a fun girlfriend but she is not amazing.
Amazing
builds rockets to the moon and pays off third world debt.
Amazing
does not make really damp trifles.

‘However, you never told me about Anna being engaged twice,’ points out Stan. I wondered how long it would be before he found out, as Anna when pressed on the subject of her past, has always been a little vague. ‘She just casually mentioned it to me the other night, as though I would be cool. Got to say, I wasn’t that impressed.’

Since we got back from Australia, Anna has been busy in the dating world, or should I say, busy with the business of trying to get hitched. Cut to the present day and she’s now got two ex-fiancés under her belt.

The first fiancé was Rob. A pastry chef by trade, she’d met him on a tour bus in New Zealand, just before she’d flown home from Sydney, prompting him to spontaneously follow her home. Initially, Anna was all hearts and flowers at the well, the sheer
macho
-
ness
of Rob. ‘One minute he’s making choux pastry, the next he sets up pig roasts on my patio!’ Anna proudly said. She soon changed her tune however, when her neighbour rung her complaining that he’d been distracted from his Jeremy Kyle show by a homesick Rob having a pee in his front garden, clearly thinking he was in a national park. He was then sent packing back to New Zealand nursing a broken heart and a resting pulse rate that was unacceptably high for his Ironman competition.

Anna’s second engagement was to Hayden an Irishman who’d played rugby for years and chatted her up at her local one Saturday night, when she’d been single from Rob for all of a week. I only met him a couple of times, but do remember he had these most enormous cauliflower ears that distracted me from my train of thought. Not long afterwards, Anna found out that he’d been buying jewellery for his secretary that she thought was meant for her. Anna then did a lot of dating. Now I consider one date every six months something of an achievement but not Anna who positively packed it in. Notable highlights included a ski-instructor named Franz who cried at the drop of a hat, a farmer Kelvin – oh and frugal George, who emailed her after she dumped him asking if she could still get him the wrist-watch she’d promised him for Christmas. Shortly after that, she slept with my brother too but it’s probably best we skip over that part.

‘Anna’s got history, but it’s her business,’ I clear my throat.

‘You’re right,’ he agrees, as I now stand impatiently outside my flat, in anticipation of bursting through the cellophane of a ready meal, wondering how I can get off the phone without hurting his feelings.

‘I miss chatting you know,’ Stan ventures. ‘We used to talk every day. It was never like this before.’

He’s completely right. Regardless of whom Stan was dating, it felt like second nature to speak two or three times a week. He then started going out with Anna and just like that, the calls stopped.

‘Stan, friendships have to change,’ I say, sounding genuine enough. ‘Anna’s funny about her men having female friends. And she likes having me to herself too. You just have to accept it.’

I know I’m right about this. My disappointment of no longer having him as my good mate has been long since been overridden by the general irritation that comes from being closely monitored on Anna CCTV. Quite honestly, it’s made my friendship with Stan no longer fun. We can’t banter, we can’t take the piss and we can’t use each other as a sounding block because Anna is closely watching us. If we do speak, like we are now, she makes me feel like I’m doing some illicit activity. Worse still, she has made me self-conscious about it as though there’s some sort of ulterior motive on my part.

‘Besides…’ I trail off as a loo flushes at the other end of the line. ‘Have you’ve just taken a pee in a toilet while chatting to me?’ Stan says nothing and laughs. I then lean against my flat door and stare at the wall in my hallway, which is looking distinctly grubby in the cold light of day. ‘As I was saying, Anna once said I treated you like a surrogate boyfriend and needed to get a life. I think she may have been right you know.’

What with the ex-fiancés, my brother – and the million dates in between – there was always so much activity going on in Anna’s camp where as in mine, not so much. The queen of fussiness, since I lost whatever it was I had with Joe, my list of requirements for a boyfriend grows even longer – it’s a list Stan says I’ll never ever tick off. If someone does like me, I find fault, just like you do when you go house hunting and complain about the cosmetic stuff like the wallpaper or the light fittings. I then slag men off for being too available, or I attribute their interest to there being something wrong with them. I push back because quite frankly, what is the point when it only ends in tears and you then have to spend months trying to get over it, but are unable to as that involves having to get out there and kiss a load more frogs (who might not kiss properly). This way is safe. The strange thing is that lately I’ve been wondering if Joe himself would even make the grade, so high are my standards.

All of this indifference in my attitude towards men was okay when I had Stan as my friend, as I had male companionship without any of the relentless grief or the blinding lust. Okay, it was never going to be ideal, but having Stan meant I was still in touch with the opposite sex. And I admit I could have happily stayed that way if Anna hadn’t come along, surely serving to highlight that I wouldn’t actually know what a functional relationship felt like if it came and bit me in the arse. It’s been rather safe to hold a torch for someone called Joe who lives on the other side of the world. Unfortunately, this melancholy is signing me up to a life of psycho analysing memories that are getting more hazy as time goes on – that or I’m fast reinventing the truth of what happened, to the point that I can’t think straight.

‘I presume you tell Anna you phone me do you?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, sure I do,’ comes the reply. I might be imagining it but I swear Stan slightly hesitates, which makes me think he is lying.

‘Not that it matters, but you know how funny she gets,’ I say. Surely, he must have figured out by now what the rest of mankind has known for years. Anna may not wear a belly chain anymore, but she expends a disproportionate amount of time implementing complicated tactics to keep her men hanging on. She’ll spend three hours flirting with someone else, yet still demand an apology from her boyfriend as though it was his fault in the first place for not rescuing her. Or she’ll ask for flowers and then complain when she gets them that he picked red and she hates the colour. She’ll talk a lot about the importance of her acting, but then still make it very clear to her man that he has to stick with his steady job to pay for her nights out. You get the picture. Anna does not operate in a straightforward way, so the rest of us must fall in line.

‘Look, I can ring who I want Kate,’ Stan blurts out. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been rubbish of late. We’ve always been friends. Always will.’

‘Absolutely! Listen, I have to go. Speak soon,’ I say cheerfully, letting myself into my flat, wondering why all of a sudden Stan is being sensitive about the change in our friendship dynamics. What with all the calls, the texts, what on earth is going round that brain of his? On paper, he has it all – a good job, a beautiful (albeit high maintenance) girlfriend – and a very expensive wine cooler in his kitchen filled with actual wine. What does it matter? Why can’t he let things go the way they’re supposed to go?

CHAPTER 9 -
OPEN PORES

I don’t hear anything. Great, perhaps Claire has taken that exfoliated arse of hers down to Scary Linda’s flat below. Perhaps, I’ll finally have the place to myself instead of having to share space with a flatmate who conducts her entire social life from the comfort of my increasingly dog-eared couch.

‘Shit!’ I wince at the pain from the splinter in my foot. Okay, so I’ve still not quite got round to properly finishing the flat renovations, but it’s a big improvement from how it was when I first bought it and found myself physically recoiling at the amount of work to do. Flea-ridden carpets were chucked down five floors in preference for wooden flooring, walls were stripped bare and skirting boards were sanded down. I just lost momentum.

My favourite room in the flat is the lounge. It’s painted a garish raspberry shade with a big blackboard across the entire back wall, now filled with positive mantras and sayings that I don’t quite get but sound good. With an orange bathroom, and a stripy wallpaper in my bedroom, the only room in the flat that isn’t painted a garish shade of something is Claire’s bedroom, but that was before she decided to put up a giant Andy Warholesque print of her face fifteen different ways, having had her request to put it up in the lounge turned down. While I love what I’ve done with the place, all these little features do is serve to invite comments from Claire about the bad paint job, and constant complaints from the tenants below about the noise of the floorboards overhead, the most popular expression being that ‘it’s like a herd of fucking elephants up there’.

My flat is the only commitment I have ever made to anything – it’s the one thing that makes me feel like a proper fully-fledged adult. Without my mortgage, I truly think I would be getting ready to buy a plane ticket somewhere, still thinking I had it all in front of me and believing in the possibilities around the corner. With my flat, I get to look responsible to potential employees, a bit more grown up to friends. I can attend a residents association to complain about the hallway, forget to put a recycling bin out on the right day, or search for a large set of keys at the bottom of my bag in an exasperated manner. My flat means everything to me. It’s just a little on the shabby side.

Hopping down the hallway in pain from the splinter, I jump out of my skin upon finding Scary Linda in the dimly lit lounge, lying across my sofa as though she were on a sun lounger, in a baby pink Divine Beauty salon tracksuit. In addition to her face lathered up in a green mask, she’s got an overly straightened Brazilian blow-dry and is sporting cucumbers over her eyes. Inhaling the pungent scent from not one but three scented candles, I then happen to notice the phrase written above her on the blackboard. ‘
There
is
no
such
thing
as
ugly
,
just
lazy’
.

I cough loudly, prompting her to lift up one of the cucumber slices. ‘Hi Kate,’ she says. ‘How was your day? Any luck on the man front?’

Now, if ever there was a good sport, it’s Linda, happy to lie there in a sea of complacency, only there because Claire cajoled her into it. My flatmate then comes out of the bathroom with rollers in her hair, singing to herself in that way you do when you think you’re really good – like an opera singer attempting karaoke. Depending on her mood, the tunes vary but are mainly sung square on to the bathroom mirror with a hairbrush, finishing off with a
Zoolander
pout and a kind of shooting gun sort of gesture with her hands. I know this because I have spied her doing it when she thinks I’m not there. At school, Claire was always going on about her wonderful singing voice, and I remember thinking at the time she had better sound like Mariah Carey to justify such boasting. She’d insist that some poor girl with buckteeth play Lisa Loeb’s ‘Stay’ on her guitar, only to burst into flat song.

When I first bought this flat, I wanted to live on my own, a plan unrealistic at best, downright stupid at worst. However, the reality of forking out for the monthly train fare and having to pay all the bills by myself soon hit home and there was only one option: I had to find a tenant fast. So began a succession of flatmates, each one a worthy anecdote in their own right.

The first was Sarah, an evangelical advocate of raw food, who barely had the energy to venture outside of the flat. There was then Aimee who sat in the lounge on the landline every single evening ‘shhing’ me while she spoke to her Mum. I then thought I should try living with a man, so I rented out the room to Dillon, a rather intense musician. This was a bad idea as Dillon never washed and spent his evenings jamming in his room to
Nirvana
, only emerging to stink out the bathroom. When he wasn’t leaving skid marks in boxers on the bathroom floor, I’d arrive home to find the hallway stinking of beef stew and apple crumble in jiffy bags, food that his mum had posted to him in vacuum packed containers as it turns out he couldn’t so much as boil an egg. Lucky for me, he got too homesick and moved his smelly self back to his mum’s.

And last but not least, there was Sienna – the game changer herself.
Oh
Sienna
. On paper she seemed just fine but two weeks in, she had not only committed the almighty crime of hogging my mini grill every evening, she got herself a boyfriend, Pete, who stayed over most nights – including sacred Sunday when you can barely hold a conversation and just want to watch crap on the telly. Being the landlady, I should have been more assertive so Sienna knew who was in charge. However, I had been worn down by all the tenants of old and was hoping that Sienna’s boyfriend sitting on our couch with his feet up on my coffee table was a temporary thing. I admit it, initially I felt a little sorry for Pete as he was a smooth operator, giving me compliments about my hair – that or telling me I must have a great palate as I had not just ketchup but pesto in my cupboard. It was on the umpteenth time of politely offering him an alcoholic beverage that was always accepted, I suddenly realised that this was not in fact normal and viewed him the way you do a person in a documentary. He was still living in the belief that his business wasn’t a failure and that any minute he was going to be able to open up his nightclub once again. What he was planning to do precisely I have no idea, but he was never going to build an empire sitting on that ever-increasing arse of his in my lounge.

Pity then gave way to frustration, as it soon became like having a boyfriend living with me, only that they wouldn’t even go off to the bedroom to leave you in peace, but sit there on the sofa monopolising the TV remote. Night after night, the two of them sat there, me the green and hairy one. And then Pete got his own set of keys and started to let himself in on route somewhere to ‘take a steaming dump’ as he called it, or to use up all my hot water. He would have drunk all our wine if it was about, but luckily we were immature enough never to have any actual wine on the wine rack. Tongue tied and nervous, I became the girl who just couldn’t face confronting Sienna, so I reasoned with myself that it just had to get better. The weeks that followed involved me locking myself away in the bedroom as though I were in a bedsit, only to hear him and Sienna in the lounge laughing and drinking.

The situation finally resolved itself but I’m ashamed to say, not through any assertiveness on my part. I just happened to burst into tears when having a coffee with Liv and Stan one day. I confessed that somehow I had found myself a guest in my own flat. Stan just told me to stop stressing and have a quiet word but not Liv – she went nuts! She marched up those stairs and chucked Pete’s
Planet
Hollywood
jacket out the roof window to make a point, which then got stuck in the guttering where it still remains to this day. Whenever I see Pete at the pub, he’s as friendly as always. Sienna – not so much.

With Sienna now gone and leaving me somewhat traumatised, I knew I had to be more discerning in my search for a flatmate to avoid a repeat situation. This quest coincided with newly single Claire putting on Facebook that she was looking for somewhere to live. Okay, so she wasn’t very nice at school – in fact, she never actually had a proper conversation with me until her wedding day – but all these years on, it seemed so churlish to bear a grudge, so I spontaneously emailed her to say that she could rent a room off me. Admittedly, I had not seen her in the flesh for some time but figured she would have changed by now? Perhaps she was a little less mean as an adult. Unfortunately, she wasn’t.

I’m about to disappear into my room to change into loose clothing but then I think better of it. Staying in a cheap suit that has given static shocks all day makes me feel part of the happy working population. Besides, Claire, the Joan Collins to my Linda Evans, is always done up to the nines as though reality TV might ring the door at any minute, so I shall do the same. These girls don’t need to see my unemployment laid bare; my mental wellbeing reflected in dubious fashion choices. They don’t need to know that I’m fast turning into one of those people who pretend they have somewhere important to go but really go and sit in the park – or in my case, the Globe.

Claire just uses evenings like these to take full advantage of having a captive audience, even if it consists of only one other person. Credit where credit’s due, the evening theme does vary. Sometimes, she makes Linda try out a new line of shellac nails that prevent her from clapping properly, other times she threads Linda’s eyebrows to make her look permanently surprised, or like tonight, gives her a face mask that renders her unable to talk for an hour – ideal for Claire who likes nothing better than to monopolise the conversation. Claire has also been known to err in the realm of mind body spirit and concentrate on the inner self, whether it is by trying her hand at palm reading or doing numerology on Linda to mixed success. To be honest, Claire’s not changed much. At school when she wasn’t doing her makeup in the mirror, she was sitting and reading her teen diary out loud with a stream of consciousness that wasn’t so much teen angst, as created with her audience in mind.

Over the last couple of months, Claire’s been going through various faddy diets that have her holed up in the bathroom for hours. This week she’s doing sugar-free baking that from the kitchen cupboards we share, involves a whole host of strange ingredients and rather alarmingly, a distinct lack of raising agents. Having tasted a few crumbs here and there, it is fair to say that Claire’s efforts are simply not a patch on the full fat sugar loaded real thing – not that she is concerned. She says if she weren’t such a brilliant beautician, she’d own her own sugar and gluten free cake shop in order to channel her talents. Lucky for us, she’s good at what she does.

‘I’m all about philanthropy Kate, I need to commit to help people’s inner wellbeing.’ The way she articulates her lofty ambitions, it sounds almost romantic, like people who talk about ‘boho’ and ‘blended’ families.

‘I’d murder some shortbread I would,’ a fresh-faced Linda murmurs to me coming out of the bathroom, as an oblivious Claire opens up a large Cath Kidston tin in excitement.

Dramatically, as though she were on an infomercial, she sniffs at a deflated bake that is looking more than a little sorry for itself: ‘It’s a crunchy nut cheesecake with rice malt syrup and a ground nut base,’ Claire offers by way of explanation, as even she knows it is not entirely clear from the appearance.

‘Wow!’ I exclaim, desperately thinking of something to say without insulting the cook.

Claire just looks at me witheringly, as though knowing I am lying, and tips her head to the side to tighten up one of her rollers. Deciding it’s probably best to not say another word, I just keep my head down and concentrate on piercing the cellophane of my ready-made lasagne to put in the microwave.

‘Too bad there’s not enough for you,’ Claire snaps, before walking out the room with her creation. She’s right as there is barely enough for one.

In the time we’ve been living together, Claire has never tried to include me in her social life. Ever. And now Scary Linda has bought the flat downstairs, it’s like school all over again, with the cliquey girls in my face every single day. Most of the time, I am philosophical about it as I know they are not on my wavelength, but every now and again, when the umpteenth random person has come through the door and Claire has greeted them with an over the top full on body hug, squealing at the top of her voice, it stings a little.

‘You wouldn’t guess what happened today,’ Claire says munching. ‘I was opening up the salon, and there is this guy who’s staring at me, just standing there. Like Wayne did at school remember? Literally. Stalking. Me. So, I ask him what he wants and you know what he says? You are not going to believe this. He shouts you are the sexiest girl I have ever seen. You. Are. Gorgeous! So I say to him, “You. Are. Kidding. Me. How sexist are you? I’m not just beautiful you know, I do have a brain”.’ Listening intently to this gripping anecdote, Linda asks for another piece of cake, only to find her request denied, as apparently Claire needs to save some for her lunch tomorrow.

Plating up my food, I eat it standing up and contemplate all the stories that come out of Claire’s mouth. There are so many of them I’ve lost track as to what is true, what is bravado and what is good old fashioned porky pies. Once again, I find myself playing a submissive role I never thought I’d be playing in a flat I happen to own. Just when will I stop doing this? I used to be pretty well versed in striking up random conversations with the best of them, but as I currently have precious little to say without launching into a self-defensive monologue, conversing with other people is proving a bit of a challenge.