We Met in December

I turn around.

‘Turns out that thirty is the perfect time to have my first oh my God what am I doing with my life crisis.’

I find myself smiling. ‘Me too.’

‘So she’s found herself a houseful of strays. That’s very Becky, isn’t it? She likes to think she’s all corporate law and hard as nails, but I reckon she’s just as much of an old hippy as her mum. So what brings you here?’ he asks.

‘Oh God. It’s a long story.’

Alex takes four limes from the fridge, then passes me two and a kitchen knife. ‘Chop these, then, and tell all. It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one making what everyone thinks is the biggest mistake of my life.’

He’s taken a lemon zester and made a stack of bright green furls of lime zest, and he’s putting them all together in a little grassy heap. I realise I’ve stopped chopping and I’m staring at his hands like some sort of weirdo.

‘So I did English literature at uni. I’ve always loved books, and I used to dream of living in London and working in a publishing house, but it just seemed like you had to know someone in the business or have enough money to get an internship and work for nothing, and I had student loans to pay off, and bills to pay, and …’ I pause, thinking of the responsibility of making sure that Nanna Beth and Grandpa were okay, because my mum was never around. I take a deep breath. ‘Anyway, so I’d pretty much given up on that idea – I did look, but the money was terrible, and there was no way I could afford anywhere in London to live that wasn’t basically a broom cupboard.’

He laughs. ‘I actually know someone who lived in a cupboard. His bed literally folded down at night, then he’d fold it up, close the door, and go off to work.’

‘Exactly.’ Our eyes meet for a second and we laugh at the idea of it. London is strange.

‘And then Becky came along?’

‘Not quite. Basically, I was helping look after my grandpa and then he died.’

‘Oh.’ He turns to look at me, his brown eyes gentle. ‘I’m sorry.’

I shake my head and curl my fingers into my palm, because I’m still at the stage where tears sneak up unexpectedly, and alcohol helps them along. ‘It’s okay. Anyway, my grandma – Nanna Beth – decided that she wanted to move into a sheltered accommodation place, and I’d been staying in their spare room.’ I smile, as I always do, thinking about her. Everyone should have a grandma like mine. ‘And then – when I’d moved back in with my mother, temporarily, Becky called and asked if I’d be interested in joining her house-share. My Nanna Beth kept telling me I should follow my dreams and do what I really wanted to because we only get one life, and I was trying to convince myself that actually, I was perfectly happy. Then I saw a job in The Bookseller – because I couldn’t help looking, even though I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen – and I thought I’d apply even though I had no chance, and I still can’t believe they’ve given me it. And—’ I stop and draw breath. It’s all come out in a huge garbled sentence, just the same way that it all happened. ‘One minute there I was thinking about it, and wondering how I was going to find somewhere to live and deal with my mother, and then next thing—’

‘Here we are. That feels like fate,’ Alex says, finishing my spoken and unspoken sentences.

‘It does, a bit,’ I say, trying to make a joke of it. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh I was all set. Law career on the up, nice – tiny – flat in Stokey, the lot. But I knew something was missing.’

I chop the limes into pieces, waiting for him to carry on.

‘Anyway, I kept going for a while, but it was nagging away at me. I went into law to make a difference, but I realised that most of my life was going to be spent behind a desk pushing paper around, and it was boring me to death. And – some stuff happened.’ He pauses for a second, and then says. ‘And here I am.’

‘So you’re not doing law now?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. That’s how I knew Becky – we worked together. But unlike most other people, she was brilliant when I told her I was giving up. You need a friend like that on your side.’

‘I agree,’ I say, thinking of her insistence that I come and stay here, and the ridiculously low rent she’d suggested. I’d looked up Rightmove to see how much it would cost to rent a place like this, and I’d almost fainted. Basically a month’s rent for a house this size was my annual publishing salary. When I’d mentioned it, Becky had just snorted and said something about redressing the balance, which had sounded suspiciously like something her mother would have said, so maybe the hippy stuff had rubbed off a bit after all.

‘So,’ I say, wincing slightly as a bit of lime juice squirts up and hits me in the face. ‘What are you doing now?’

‘Training to be a nurse,’ Alex says.

‘No way.’ I put down the knife and look at him. ‘That’s amazing.’

‘Yeah.’ Alex gives me that same lopsided smile and looks relieved. ‘That’s not quite the reaction I got when I told people. It was more like: Oh my God, why are you giving up a job that pays megabucks to be treated like crap, working for a failing NHS?’

Not only is he gorgeous, but he’s noble and ethical as well. He’s like a unicorn, or something.

‘Well I think what you’re doing is brilliant.’

Alex tips the limes into a cocktail shaker and looks at me, his face serious. ‘Thanks, Jess.’

I feel a bit wibbly. Like we’ve had a bit of a moment here together. Like we’ve bonded.

I pass him a glass, and we drink our cocktails and look out of the window at the Notting Hill street. He looks at me for a moment, just as I’m glancing at him.

For a second, our eyes meet again, and something inside me gives the sort of fizzing sensation that I’ve read about in books (oh, so many books) and never once felt in real life, not even in the four years I was with Neil, and he and I had talking about getting married.

I’m almost thirty, and I’d pretty much accepted that my secret love of terrible, brilliant, curl-up-on-the-sofa romantic movies had somehow cursed me. And yet here I was, looking directly into the chocolate-drop eyes of a man who looked like I’d ordered him online from the romantic movie store.

CHAPTER TWO

Jess

2nd January, Val d’Isère

‘You got room in your case for these?’

My oldest friend Gen throws a bulging Tesco bag at me and I miss the catch. It bounces off the bed of the room we’ve been sharing for the last week and falls to the floor. I bend down to get it and emit a groan of pain. Everything hurts, and my head feels as if someone has hit me with a snowboard. I shouldn’t have had that last cocktail last night. Or the one before. I stand up, holding the bag at arm’s length. It smells like something died in it.

‘What is it?’

‘Don’t ask.’ Gen shakes her head. She should be even more hungover than me, but she somehow manages to look glowing and healthy, her skin bronzed after a week on the slopes where mine is scarlet and wind-chapped. She’s tied her hair back with a band, but spirals of red curls have already escaped and are framing her face. She’s wearing an assortment of hideously clashing Nineties-style apres-ski clothes she found in a charity shop, and somehow it looks amazing on her.

I peer inside the bag and hold my nose. ‘Ugh, honking ski socks.’

‘If they ask if you packed your bag yourself, just say yes,’ Gen says.

‘And take responsibility for those?’ I shove them in a corner of my case. ‘They could probably walk home to London by themselves. Actually, I’m going to keep them,’ I say, teasing Gen. ‘When you’re a famous actress, someone will pay a fortune for them.’

‘Someone would pay a fortune for them now. There’s a whole market for smelly socks on eBay,’ says Sophie, who doesn’t miss a trick when it comes to money stuff.

‘That’s disgusting.’ I wrinkle my nose at the thought.

Being Soph, and therefore revoltingly efficient, she’s already got her bag packed, and is sitting cross-legged on her bed, back against the wall, scrolling through her phone. ‘Oh my God, Jess, that photo of us you’ve posted on Instagram is terrible. It looks like one of my legs is about to snap off.’

‘It’s not that easy to do a selfie on a ski lift,’ I say, peering at her screen to remind myself. ‘I was convinced I was going to drop the phone into a ravine.’

‘Then you could have got Fabien to zoom down off piste and rescue it,’ says Gen, making a dreamy face as she mentions our gorgeous ski instructor. ‘He definitely had the hots for you, Jess.’

‘Shut up,’ I groan. She’s been going on about it all week, and I still haven’t admitted to them that I’ve been daydreaming – and, if I’m honest, night-dreaming – about Alex, and accidental meetings in the kitchen where I’m dressed in a pair of cute PJ bottoms and a little vest top, my hair knotted up in a messy bun, just reaching into the fridge to get myself a glass of orange juice when his hands are on either side of my waist and he spins me round and looks at me with those incredible eyes and says …

‘Jess?’ Gen nudges me. ‘You’ve been on another bloody planet all week. Come on, spill.’

I shake my head and zip up my suitcase. ‘Just thinking, that’s all.’

My phone bleeps and I look down at it. Both Gen and Sophie pick up their phones at the same time.

‘Delay in coach pick-up,’ we read in unison. ‘You will now be collected from your hotel reception approximately two hours later than the scheduled time.’

‘Oh God,’ Soph groans. ‘We could have gone skiing this morning after all.’

‘Not without skis, we couldn’t,’ I point out, reasonably. ‘We handed them back, remember?’

‘Well, we can leave our bags here and go and have one last vin chaud at least.’

My stomach gives a warning lurch at the prospect. ‘D’you not think we had enough of those yesterday?’

‘And the day before, but one more won’t hurt,’ says Sophie, and we drag our cases down to reception and leave them behind the desk, collecting little tokens in exchange as they’re locked away.

Outside there’s no sign of the sun and the sky is thick with pale clouds, tinged with the faintest hint of violet. More snow on the way, it said on the forecast, after a week that had been absolutely gorgeous. The sun had shone so brightly that we’d sat at the piste café having lunch outside most days with our ski coats off, listening to the thudding bass of dance music, our skis standing upright in the snow. It feels sad to be leaving Val d’Isère, with its throng of holiday guests, swooshing past in their expensive-looking ski garb, heading up the chair lifts for another day of fun. We take a seat at the little wooden chairs outside the hotel and stretch our legs out in the sunshine. It’s strange to be back in normal clothes, after a week of clomping around in heavy ski boots.

Celebrating New Year – and New Year’s Day – in a ski resort has been amazing, but my liver feels like it needs to go on a rest cure. Not to mention my legs, which are aching so much I’m walking like a robot, and covered in bruises from a pretty spectacular fall when the aforementioned Handsome Fabien, the instructor we’d clubbed together to pay for, had tried to get us to go down a run that ended with ‘une petit noir’, except his idea of a little black run looked like a vertical drop. Sophie and Gen, who’d had more time on skis than me, managed to make it down in one piece. I’d landed at the bottom, on my bottom, followed unceremoniously by one ski clonking me on the head (thank goodness for helmets) while the other one sailed past, over the edge of the piste and into the trees.

The waiter brings our order – hot chocolate laced with cream and a dash of rum for me and Gen, vin chaud for Sophie.

‘It’s amazing that we’re all in the same place at the same time at the beginning of a year,’ I say.

‘Can’t remember the last time that happened.’ Sophie twirls a beer mat between her fingers, looking thoughtful. ‘Wonder what we’ll be doing this time next year?’

‘Maybe I’ll have had my big break,’ says Gen, who has been saying that since she started drama classes back when we were in primary school.

‘This is the year,’ Sophie says, sounding determined. ‘Rich and I are settling down. I’m going to be thirty. It’s time. And I’m knocking these on the head, too.’ She taps her glass with a neatly manicured finger.

‘You’re giving up drinking?’ I look at Gen, and Gen looks at me, and together we look at Sophie.

‘I don’t want to take any risks.’

‘You’re not even thirty. Nobody has children when they’re this age. You’re the only person I know who is like a proper grown-up, Soph,’ I say.

Gen nods. ‘They’ll make the house untidy and you’ll have loads of plastic crap everywhere and you’ll end up being one of those people who pisses everyone off in Pizza Express because you turn up with a baby that screams the place down when we’re all trying to have a nice hangover meal on Tesco points.’

‘Thanks,’ says Sophie, drily. ‘I can’t believe you spent so many years working as a mother’s help. You’re literally the most un-maternal person I’ve ever met.’

‘I am not,’ Gen protests, unconvincingly. ‘I just don’t understand why anyone would want to subject themselves to parenthood.’

‘That’s what she means,’ I say.

‘I am still here,’ Sophie points out. ‘As in sitting right here. Anyway, I won’t have the sort of baby that screams in restaurants. If it does, I’ll take it outside or something. But I’ve got it all planned out …’

There’s a split second where Gen and I look at each other and make a face, and Sophie mutters something unrepeatable under her breath before we all laugh and she carries on. ‘I’ll get married this year. Then I want three kids and I want them before I turn forty.’ She’s actually counting this out on her fingers. ‘If I have a two-year age gap, that’s—’

‘Soph, you’re so organised.’ Gen snorts with laughter. ‘I don’t even have a bloody house of my own, and you’re planning everything out. I bet you’ve got a spreadsheet on Excel with all this stuff.’

‘Shut up.’ Sophie blushes a bit so we know that she absolutely does.

‘Anyway, changing the subject.’ Sophie purses her lips, but she’s trying not to laugh. ‘I’m so excited, Jess. I can’t believe we’re all going to be in the same city. We can do lunches and go to the cinema and lovely girly stuff.’

‘We can help you do fertility dances, or whatever it is you have to do to get pregnant,’ says Gen, helpfully.

‘Did you miss that class at school?’ I say, and Sophie snorts. ‘It’s not fertility dances that get the job done.’

We all snigger, like we’re thirteen again in science class with the biology teacher drawing pictures on the whiteboard.

‘Ooh, we could help you find a wedding dress, Soph.’ I’m imagining a montage of us, movie-style, all sitting around in the changing room of a wedding shop while she pops in and out with various different flouncy meringues on before she appears, radiant, in The Perfect Dress.

Sophie wrinkles her nose and looks a bit pink in the face. ‘I’ve actually chosen one already.’

‘No way.’ My vision evaporates.

‘Oh my God! I didn’t know it was official!’ Gen shrieks with excitement.

‘It’s not. But it’s so gorgeous I decided it had to be The One.’

‘Oh my God, this is so exciting,’ says Gen, clapping her hands together. ‘Have you got a photo of it on your phone?’

‘I thought marriage was a tool created by the patriarchy to suppress women?’ Sophie raises an eyebrow, keeping her phone curled tightly in her palm.

‘Yes, yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a bit of dressing up, and that’s basically what a wedding is, isn’t it?’

Sophie opens her phone and scrolls down to show us a photo of the most perfect, understated, gorgeous dress. It’s absolutely her, and I can see why she’s fallen for it.

‘Let’s hope Rich doesn’t have other plans,’ Gen teased.

‘Yeah, he might have run off with the girl in the flat next door while I’ve been away,’ Sophie jokes, but we all knew there was no way that would happen. Rich and Sophie were the poster couple – the ones that were solid as a rock, the ones you could always rely on. Gen called them Mum and Dad sometimes, and I think Sophie secretly liked it. She’s always wanted to be settled down, ever since we were little and playing together at primary school. Rich is the perfect match for her, and it was always a matter of when, not if, they’d get married. She met him at university and they’ve been smug (not) marrieds ever since. I reach over and give her arm a little squeeze.

‘I’m so pleased for you, Soph. And I can’t wait to be on Aunty Jess duty.’

Gen pulls a face, but we both know she’s only teasing. She’s happy for Soph even though she wouldn’t like to be in her shoes. Her passion has always been acting, ever since the first time she stood on stage and played the starring role in Bugsy Malone in our primary school production. She’s worked her backside off to get where she is – she may not be famous, but she’s had a few decent roles in theatre productions off the West End, and it’s just a matter of time before she gets her big break. Gen believes in herself, that’s half the battle, I think.

‘And what about you, Jess?’ Sophie looks at me thoughtfully.

‘You’re not still in mourning after Neil-gate, are you?’

‘Gen,’ says Sophie, ‘if she was, she’s hardly going to tell us now, is she?’

I shake my head. ‘No, I am one hundred per cent definitely not in mourning over the end of my relationship with Neil.’

‘Even though your mum thought he was the perfect catch?’ Gen looks at me.

I shudder. ‘Especially not because of that.’

I hadn’t even been that upset when I found out he was cheating on me with someone else from the office – just slightly miffed that it was going to make work pretty awkward. After the initial shock of finding them together, I’d realised that I didn’t really feel anything. That was a pretty good sign that it had run its course.

‘Your mum just wants you settled down and happy,’ Sophie says, kindly.

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘and she thinks because Neil dumped me for whatshername from accounts that I’m a complete failure as a human being.’

‘That’s not strictly true,’ says Sophie, trying to make me feel better.

‘Yes it is,’ says Gen, who knows my mother as well as I do. ‘She’s weirdly fixated on the idea of Jess getting married and buying a nice house and having two-point-four children and a dog. Probably because she did the opposite.’

When I split up with Neil Mum had been absolutely horrified that I’d ‘let him slip through my fingers’. I never knew my dad – she’s never talked about him, and there’s just a blank space on my birth certificate where his name should be – and she’s absolutely determined that my life will be far more conventional than hers. It’s weird.

‘What’s she saying about you moving to London?’ Gen says.

‘She’s hoping I might meet a nice man and settle down.’

‘Ironic,’ Gen snorts, ‘that your mother never did it but she wants it for you.’

‘It’s called transference,’ Sophie says, thoughtfully. ‘Or something like that. It’s about wanting to live her life through yours, vicariously.’

‘It’s called being a total nightmare,’ I say, scooping off some of the whipped cream on my drink with a spoon, and licking it.

‘Oh she’s not that bad,’ says Gen, who has a soft spot for my mother because she’s a fellow thespian. My mother’s an actress too, but she’s never made it to London. Instead she travels a bit, and she tries various schemes to keep money coming in, in between jobs working as a voice-over artist or being an extra on film sets. She’s never really been the maternal type. It’s lucky I’ve got my Nanna Beth to make up for it.

‘No,’ I concede. ‘I think it’ll be a lot easier to have a relationship with her when I’m ninety miles away in London than when she’s breathing down my neck the whole time wanting to know what I’m doing with my life.’

The strange thing about Mum is that despite being unconventional herself, she’s completely hooked on the idea of me doing a Soph and getting married, popping out a couple of grandchildren, and finding a nice house in the suburbs. It’s weird. It also means she was Not Happy when Neil and I split up, and she thinks my plans for a new life in London are impractical and faintly ridiculous. I quote. Not that I’m still chuntering to myself over her saying it, of course.

‘She’ll be wanting regular relationship updates,’ Gen says.

‘There won’t be any,’ Sophie points out, shooting a quick look at Gen, ‘because Becky has decreed that there’s to be no relationships in the house.’

‘She can’t do that.’

‘She can do whatever she bloody well wants if she’s renting Jess a room in Notting Hill for £400 a month. I’d take a vow of chastity for that.’ Gen takes a sip of her drink.

‘Yeah but even so—’ I watch Sophie giving Gen a fleeting look.

Sophie and Gen have met Becky a few times. They get on okay, in that way that friends do when you try and combine one part of your life with another part. I’m hoping that now we’re all going to be in the same place they’ll get to know each other a bit more, and even get on a bit.

‘She isn’t banning me from having sex with anyone,’ I say. ‘Just that there’s to be no inter-house relationship stuff.’

‘Just as well. You’ve got the whole of London at your disposal. You downloaded Tinder yet?’ Gen asks. She curls one of her ginger ringlets around her finger, then lets it go so it springs back into place. Gen’s never had a bad hair day in her life.

‘Ugh, no.’ I shudder. ‘The thing is I’m not really a Tinder sort of person.’

‘Mmm.’ Sophie nods. I wonder what she means by that.

I sigh. ‘Anyway the thing is there’s a bit of a problem with Becky’s whole plan. I mean, there’s being practical, and then there’s – well, do you believe in fate?’

Gen cups her chin in both hands and leans forward. ‘Tell me more.’

‘I totally do,’ says Sophie. ‘I mean look at me and Rich.’

I think about the two of them and catch a glimpse of Gen, who doesn’t say a word but there’s a split second when her nostrils flare, which is always a tell with her, and I know she’s thinking Sophie and Rich, the most practical couple in the world?

‘Come on,’ Gen urges. ‘Spill.’ She looks at Sophie and they look back at me.

‘It’s not – I mean it couldn’t go anywhere. I’m just being silly,’ I begin. ‘It’s, um, Alex.’

‘Ahhh,’ they say, and exchange another glance.

‘What d’you mean, ahh?’ I cup my hot chocolate in both hands, holding it in front of me defensively.

‘Oh, just Alex … as in the new housemate you’ve casually mentioned about fifteen times a day for the last week?’ Sophie’s eyebrows lift and she gives a snort of laughter.

‘No,’ says Gen, totally straight-faced. ‘Alex, as in the guy who’s training as a nurse and isn’t that amazing because he’s given up being a lawyer to do something that really matters …’

‘Shut up, you two.’ I can feel my cheeks are going pink, and put my hands against them so my face is all squashed up, and I make a silly fish face at them to make them laugh and hide my blushes. I feel like I’m about fourteen again.

‘Yeah, we wondered how long it’d be before you actually admitted to us that you’ve got a massive grade-A crush on him. I mean it’s been pretty obvious. But—’ Gen pauses to beckon the waiter, before asking, ‘how does that work with Becky’s no-relationships rule in the house?’

‘I’m pretty sure that’s not enforceable,’ says Sophie, her brow furrowing. She’s a stickler for rules and regulations and things. She takes out her phone.

‘Don’t google it,’ I say, warningly, and she puts her mobile back on the table, making a face because I’ve caught her out. ‘Becky’s totally right. It would never ever work. Plus, I’m starting a new job, and I’ve got a brand-new life to be getting on with.’