Would Like to Meet

The stillness of the house is a bit depressing, so I heat up some more of Joel’s ageing pasta sauce and eat it without spaghetti, but with a spoon. Then I take my sketchbook into the garden to make the most of what little daylight is remaining. I know it’s boring, and solitary, and all that, but for the rest of today I’m going to do something that makes me feel good, and drawing fits the bill.

I spend an hour or so sketching – first the violas, from every angle, and then the dormant lilac tree, though that just looks like a collection of twigs. Now I’m at a bit of a loss to know what to draw next, seeing as most of the garden is still in bleak post-winter mode, much like me.

I stand in the centre of the overgrown lawn and turn around in a circle, looking for inspiration, and then I decide to draw the house. That turns out to be quite testing – getting the perspective right when I’m so out of practice – but when I stop concentrating on how depressed I am, and start concentrating on what I’m looking at, eventually I get my hand in, and the result is pretty good. In fact, the process proves so enjoyable that I feel miles better by the time the light starts to fail and I go back indoors. I haven’t drawn anything for years, apart from stupid website banners and icons, and now I can’t imagine why I ever stopped. Was it something about being with Dan, even though a love of art was the first thing we shared? The whole thing suddenly strikes me as so odd that, if we hadn’t split up, I’d be asking his opinion about it right this minute.

But we have split up, and now I’m miserable again … until I walk upstairs to the bathroom and find a message Joel must have left for me before he went out.

There’s a large piece of paper on the floor of the landing, which looks as if it’s been torn from one of my sketchbooks. On it Joel has drawn a self-portrait in charcoal, showing him wearing a very penitent expression along with an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place on a rap musician. Beneath his feet, which are encased in a pair of extremely elaborate trainers, he’s scrawled, “I’m sorry, Mum”. It’s all a bit smudged due to the charcoal, but the drawing isn’t bad at all, and I’m just wondering whether to suggest Joel reconsider his decision not to go to art school when I hear the front door slam, and then him shouting, “Mum?”

I go downstairs intending to demonstrate that all is forgiven by giving him a hug, but he shrugs off my attempt.

“Have you been annoying Dad?” he says. “Or doing something stupid?”

“No,” I say.

Joel glares at me, then says, “You must have done. Dad says he’s taking that secondment he was going to refuse because he ‘needs some space’. So now he’ll be moving miles away at the end of the week.”

I’m so nonplussed, all I can do is to stand there, my mouth gaping open as if I was a fish, while I rack my brains for why Dan would need more space from me. Maybe he objected to my drunken texts – unless he realised I was hiding behind the bush in his garden the other night? I should’ve killed that bloody dachshund, as soon as the damn thing started to bark.

Spring

Chapter 12

It’s March the 21st today – the first day of spring – but I can’t say I’m enjoying it, so far. It’s pouring with rain when I wake up, and I seem to be pouring, too. I thought all that unpredictable crying had finally stopped after the apricot tart meltdown in M&S a week ago, but this morning I can’t seem to stop because of this secondment thing. If Dan’s not even living in the same town as me any more, then that must mean he’s really gone for good.

Joel’s still pretty fed up, too, though at least he’s stopped blaming me for Dan’s decision now.

“I know it’s a bit shit about Dad moving away, Mum, but maybe it’s for the best,” he says, as he plonks a cup of tea down on my bedside table. “It isn’t easy, bumping into each other all the time, not when you’ve split up. Izzy walked past my shop yesterday and even that was awkward.”

He doesn’t mention Ruby, so presumably Izzy only counts because she’s Joel’s “official” ex-girlfriend, rather than a random naked person on a landing. I don’t say anything, anyway, as I don’t know what to say. “A bit shit” is the understatement of the year, unless it’s being used to describe this cup of tea. Joel never waits for the kettle to boil.

I sit and sip the lukewarm sludge while tears roll slowly off my nose and into my cup.

“You’re in no fit state to go to work, are you?” Joel says, after a while.

I agree entirely, but I’ve got no choice. The Fembot was off sick on Friday, with some sort of unspecified virus, and if she’s still claiming to be unwell today I’ve got to cover for her at the stupid strategy meeting after lunch.

Joel asks what I mean by “claiming to be unwell”.

“I’m not convinced she was genuinely ill,” I say. “She’d already asked for Friday off to have a long weekend at a spa, but the MD refused because we’re too busy. Then she rang in sick that day.”

“Well, if she’s been faking it, then your problem’s solved,” says Joel, passing me a box of tissues. “That’s the great thing about imaginary illness syndrome. You can just say you’ve caught it from her, and then she can’t prove you’re lying without admitting she was too.”

I admire the genius of Joel’s reasoning but go to work anyway, not only because he didn’t inherit his disregard for authority from me, but also because I need to check whether Esther’s got over the Mr Flobby incident at the club by now.

Her face is no longer blotchy, which is a plus, but she’s still in a foul mood with that horrible man, and with me.

“It comes to something,” she says, “when a man thinks someone decades older than you is more attractive, doesn’t it?”

It’s not decades, plural, it’s only one and a half (if Esther’s referring to me, as I assume she is), but I bite my tongue. I suppose I can’t blame her for being upset, so maybe she’ll feel better if I tell her about Dan’s secondment? Then she won’t think she’s the only one whose love life most resembles a pile-up on a motorway.

“Are you serious?” she says, once I’ve finished speaking. “Dan’s gone to Birmingham? Bloody hell, he must have been desperate to get away.”

She doesn’t add, “from you” but it feels implicit, and I’d forgotten how much Esther hates Birmingham, too. It’s where she was living when her last relationship ended badly, though that’s all I know about it, apart from the fact that she now detests anyone with a Brummie accent.

Maybe Dan will hate Birmingham as much as Esther does, and then he’ll come back sooner than planned?

Esther says she thinks that’s unlikely, as she walks back to her desk, humming, while I feel the tell-tale prickle of tears and head for the loo.

By the time I return to my desk, I’m in a much better frame of mind, mainly because I’ve just called Eva who said she’s coming to see me after work.

“It’s time to put Hannah Pinkman Moves On into action,” she explained. “After that, you’ll be too busy having fun to even think of crying.”

* * *

Joel sends a text just as I’m leaving work to tell me to hurry home because he’s locked himself out, so I power walk all the way while talking to Pearl on my mobile. I get horribly out of breath, but Pearl doesn’t notice because she’s too excited. She’s set up her online dating profile and has already been offered loads of dates. I’m impressed, until she admits her profile photo “isn’t one hundred per cent accurate”.

“What d’you mean?” I ask, trying to keep talking-while-walking

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.