Twenties Girl

SIX

I haven’t felt as zippy as this for weeks. For months. It’s eight o’clock the next morning, and I feel like a brand-new person! Instead of waking all depressed, with a picture of Josh clutched in my tearstained hand, a bottle of vodka on the floor, and Alanis Morissette playing on a loop…

OK. That was only the one time.

But anyway. Just look at me! Energetic. Refreshed. Straight eyeliner. Crisp stripy top. Ready to face the day and spy on Josh and get him back. I’ve even booked a cab, to be efficient.

I head into the kitchen to find Sadie sitting at the table in yet another dress. This one is mauve, with panels of tulle and a draping effect at the shoulders.

“Wow!” I can’t help gasping. “How come you have all these different outfits?”

“Isn’t it glorious?” Sadie looks pleased with herself. “And it’s very easy, you know. I just imagine myself in a particular frock and it appears on me.”

“So was this one of your favorites?”

“No, this belonged to a girl I knew called Cecily.” Sadie smooths down the skirt. “I always coveted it.”

“You’ve pinched another girl’s outfit?” I can’t help giggling. “You’ve stolen it?”

“I haven’t stolen it,” she says coldly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How do you know?” I can’t resist needling her. “What if she’s a ghost too and she wants to wear it today and she can’t? What if she’s sitting somewhere, crying her eyes out?”

“That’s not how it works,” says Sadie stonily.

“How do you know what works? How do you know-” I break off as a sudden brilliant thought hits me. “Hey! I’ve got it! You should just imagine your necklace. Just picture it in your head and then you’ll have it. Quickly, close your eyes, think hard-”

“Are you always this slow-witted?” Sadie interrupts. “I’ve tried that. I tried to imagine my rabbit-fur cape and dancing shoes as well, but I couldn’t get them. I don’t know why.”

“Maybe you can only wear ghost clothes,” I say after a moment’s consideration. “Clothes that are dead too. Like, that have been shredded up or destroyed or whatever.”

We both look at the mauve dress for a few moments. It seems sad to think of it being shredded up; in fact, I wish I hadn’t mentioned it.

“So, are you all set?” I change the subject. “If we go soon, we can catch Josh before he leaves for work.” I take a yogurt out of the fridge and start spooning it into my mouth. Just the thought of being near Josh again is making me feel fizzy. I can’t even finish my yogurt, I’m so excited. I put the half-eaten pot back in the fridge and dump the spoon in the sink.

“Come on. Let’s go!” I pick up my hairbrush from its place in the fruit bowl and tug it through my hair. Then I grab my keys and turn to see Sadie studying me. “Goodness, your arms are plump,” she says. “I hadn’t noticed before.”

“They’re not plump,” I say, offended. “That’s solid muscle.” I clench my biceps at her and she recoils.

“Even worse.” Complacently, she looks down at her own slender white arms. “I was always renowned for my arms.”

“Yeah, well, these days, we appreciate a bit of definition,” I inform her. “We go to the gym. Are you ready? The taxi’ll be here in a minute.” The buzzer goes and I lift the receiver.

“Hi! I’m just coming down-”

“Lara?” comes a familiar muffled voice. “Darling, it’s Dad. And Mum. Just popped round to check you’re all right. We thought we’d catch you before work.”

I stare at the speakerphone in disbelief. Dad and Mum? Of all the times. And what’s all this with the “popping round,” anyway? Mum and Dad never “pop round.”

“Um… great!” I try to sound breezy. “I’ll be right down!”

I emerge from my building to find Mum and Dad standing on the pavement. Mum is holding a potted plant and Dad is clutching a full Holland & Barrett bag, and they’re talking in low voices. As they see me, they come forward with fake smiles as though I’m a mental patient.

“Lara, darling.” I can see Dad’s worried eyes scanning my face. “You haven’t replied to any of my texts or messages. We were getting worried!”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’ve been a bit busy.”

“What happened at the police station, darling?” asks Mum, attempting to sound relaxed.

“It was fine. I gave them a statement.”

“Oh, Michael.” Mum closes her eyes in despair.

“So you really believe Great-Aunt Sadie was murdered?” I can tell Dad is as freaked out as Mum.

“Look, Dad, it’s no big deal,” I say reassuringly. “Don’t worry about me.”

Mum’s eyes snap open. “Vitamins,” she says, and starts rooting in the Holland & Barrett bag. “I asked the lady at the shop about… behavioral-” She stops herself. “And lavender oil… and a plant can help with stress-you could talk to it!”

She tries to give me the potted plant, and I thrust it away again impatiently.

“I don’t want a plant! I’ll forget to water it and it’ll die.”

“You don’t have to have the plant,” says Dad in soothing tones, glancing warningly at Mum. “But you’ve obviously been very stressed, what with the new business… and Josh…”

They are so going to change their tune. They are so going to realize I was right all along, when Josh and I get back together and get married. Not that I can say this right now, obviously.

“Dad.” I give him a patient, reasonable smile. “I told you, I don’t even think about Josh anymore. I’m just getting on with life. It’s you who keeps bringing him up.”

Ha. That was quite clever. I’m just about to tell Dad that maybe he’s obsessed with Josh, when a taxi pulls up beside us on the pavement and a driver leans out.

“Thirty-two Bickenhall Mansions?”

Damn. OK, I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear him.

Mum and Dad are exchanging looks. “Isn’t that where Josh lives?” says Mum tentatively.

“I don’t remember,” I say carelessly. “Anyway, it’s for someone else-”

“Thirty-two Bickenhall Mansions?” The driver has leaned farther out of his cab, his voice raised higher. “Lara Lington? You book taxi?”

Bugger.

“Why are you going to Josh’s flat?” Mum sounds beside herself.

“I’m… not!” I flounder. “It must be some car I booked months ago, finally turning up! They’re always late. You’re six months late! Go away!” I shoo at the bemused driver, who eventually puts the car into gear and drives away.

There’s a kind of tense silence. Dad’s expression is so transparent it’s endearing. He wants to believe the best of me. On the other hand, the evidence is all pointing one way.

“Lara, do you swear that taxi wasn’t for you?” he says at last.

“I swear.” I nod. “On… Great-Aunt Sadie’s life.”

I hear a gasp and look around to see Sadie’s eyes beaming fury at me.

“I couldn’t think of anything else!” I say defensively.

Sadie ignores me and walks right up to Dad. “You’re fools,” she says emphatically. “She’s still smitten with Josh. She’s about to spy on him. And she’s making me do her dirty work.”

“Shut up, you sneak!” I exclaim before I can stop myself.

“Sorry?” Dad stares at me.

“Nothing.” I clear my throat. “Nothing! I’m fine.”

“You’re a lunatic.” Sadie swivels around pityingly.

“At least I’m not haunting people!” I can’t help retorting.

“Haunting?” Dad is trying to follow me. “Lara… what on earth…”

“Sorry.” I smile at him. “Just thinking aloud. In fact… I was actually thinking about poor Great-Aunt Sadie.” I sigh, shaking my head pityingly. “She had such sad little twiggy arms.”

“They’re not twiggy!” Sadie glares back.

“She probably thought they were really attractive. Talk about deluded!” I laugh gaily. “Who wants pipe cleaners for arms?”

“Who wants pillows for arms?” Sadie shoots back, and I gasp in outrage.

“They’re not pillows!”

“Lara…” says Dad faintly. “What’s not pillows?”

Mum looks like she wants to cry. She’s still clutching on to her potted plant and a book entitled Stress-Free Living: You CAN Achieve It.

“Anyway, I have to get to work.” I give Mum a huge hug. “It’s been brilliant to see you. And I’ll read your book and take some vitamins. And I’ll see you soon, Dad.” I hug him too. “Don’t worry!”

I blow them both kisses and hurry off along the pavement. When I reach the corner, I turn to wave-and they’re both still standing there like waxworks.

I do feel sorry for my parents, I really do. Maybe I’ll buy them a box of chocolates.

Twenty minutes later I’m standing outside Josh’s building, feeling bubbly with exhilaration. Everything’s going according to plan. I’ve located his window and explained the layout of the flat. Now it’s up to Sadie.

“Go on!” I say excitedly. “Walk through the wall! This is so cool!”

“I don’t need to walk through the wall.” She shoots me a disparaging look. “I’ll simply imagine myself inside his flat.”

“OK. Well… good luck. Try to find out as much as you can. And be careful!”

Sadie disappears, and I crane my neck to survey Josh’s window, but I can’t see anything. I feel almost sick with anticipation. This is the nearest I’ve been to Josh in weeks. He’s in there right now. And Sadie’s watching him. And any minute she’ll come out and-

“He’s not there.” Sadie appears in front of me.

“Not there?” I stare at her, affronted. “Well, where is he? He doesn’t usually leave for work ’til nine.”

“I’ve no idea.” She doesn’t sound remotely interested.

“What did the place look like?” I can’t help probing for details. “Is it a real mess? Like, with old abandoned pizza boxes and beer bottles everywhere? Like he’s been letting himself go? Like he doesn’t really care about life anymore?”

“No, it’s very tidy. Lots of fruit in the kitchen,” Sadie adds. “I noticed that.”

“Oh. Well, he’s obviously taking care of himself, then.” I hunch my shoulders, a bit discouraged. It’s not that I want Josh to be an emotional wreck on the brink of meltdown, exactly, but…

Well. You know. It would be quite flattering.

“Let’s go.” Sadie yawns. “I’ve had enough of this.”

“I’m not just leaving! Go in again! Look around for clues! Like… are there any photographs of me or anything?”

“No,” says Sadie at once. “None. Not a single one.”

“You haven’t even looked.” I glare at her resentfully. “Search on his desk. Maybe he’s in the middle of writing a letter to me or something. Go on!” Without thinking, I try to push her toward the building, but my hands sink straight through her body.

“Urgh!” I recoil, feeling squeamish.

“Don’t do that!” she exclaims.

“Did it… hurt?” I can’t help glancing at my hands, as though they really have just plunged through her innards.

“Not exactly,” she says grudgingly. “But it’s not pleasant to have someone’s hands poking through my stomach.”

She whisks off again. I try to damp down my agitation and wait patiently. But this is totally unbearable, being stuck outside. If it were me searching, I’d find something, I know I would. Like a diary full of Josh’s thoughts. Or a half-written email, unsent. Or… or poetry. Imagine that.

I can’t help sliding into a fantasy about Sadie coming across a poem scrawled on some cast-aside piece of paper. Something really simple and direct, just like Josh himself.

It Was All A Mistake

God, I miss you, Lara.

I love your-

I can’t think of anything to rhyme with Lara.

“Wake up! Lara?” I jump and open my eyes to see Sadie in front of me again.

“Did you find something?” I gasp.

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I did!” Sadie looks triumphant. “Something rather interesting and extremely relevant.”

“Oh my God. What?” I can hardly breathe as tantalizing possibilities flash through my mind. A photo of me under his pillow… a diary entry resolving to get back in touch with me-

“He’s having lunch with another girl on Saturday.”

“What?” All my fantasies melt away. I stare at her, stricken. “What do you mean, he’s having lunch with another girl?”

“There was a memorandum pinned up in the kitchen: twelve-thirty lunch with Marie.”

I don’t know anyone called Marie. Josh doesn’t know anyone called Marie.

“Who’s Marie?” I can’t contain my agitation. “Who’s Marie?”

Sadie shrugs. “His new girlfriend?”

“Don’t say that!” I cry in horror. “He hasn’t got a new girlfriend! He wouldn’t have! He said there wasn’t anyone else! He said…”

I trail off, my heart thumping. It never even occurred to me that Josh might be seeing another girl already. It never even crossed my mind.

In his breakup email, he said he wasn’t going to rush into anything new. He said he had to take time out to think about his whole life. Well, he hasn’t thought for very long, has he? If I was going to think about my whole life, I’d take ages longer than six weeks. I’d take… a year! At least! Maybe two or three.

Boys treat thinking like sex. They think it takes twenty minutes and then you’re done and there’s no point talking about it. They have no idea.

“Did it say where they’re having lunch?”

Sadie nods. “Bistro Martin.”

“Bistro Martin?” I think I’m going to hyperventilate. “That’s where we had our first date! We always used to go there!”

Josh is taking a girl to Bistro Martin. A girl called Marie.

“Go in again.” I wave my hands agitatedly at the building. “Search around! Find out more!”

“I’m not going in again!” objects Sadie. “You’ve found out all you need to know.”

Actually, she has a point.

“You’re right.” Abruptly, I turn and start walking away from the flat, so preoccupied that I nearly bump into an old man. “Yes, you’re right. I know which restaurant they’re going to be at, and what time; I’ll just go along and see for myself-”

“No!” Sadie appears in front of me, and I stop in surprise. “That’s not what I meant! You can’t be intending to spy on them.”

“I have to.” I look at her, perplexed. “How else am I going to find out if Marie’s his new girlfriend or not?”

“You don’t find out. You say, ‘Good riddance,’ buy a new dress, and take another lover. Or several.”

“I don’t want several lovers,” I say mulishly. “I want Josh.”

“Well, you can’t have him! Give up!”

I’m so, so, so sick of people telling me to give up on Josh. My parents, Natalie, that old woman I got talking to on the bus once…

“Why should I give up?” My words fly out on a swell of protest. “Why does everyone keep telling me to give up? What’s wrong with sticking to one single goal? In every other area of life, perseverance is encouraged! It’s rewarded! I mean, they didn’t tell Edison to give up on lightbulbs, did they? They didn’t tell Scott to forget about the South Pole! They didn’t say, ‘Never mind, Scotty, there are plenty more snowy wastes out there.’ He kept trying. He refused to give up, however hard it got. And he made it!”

I feel quite stirred up as I finish, but Sadie is peering at me as though I’m an imbecile.

“Scott didn’t make it,” she says. “He froze to death.”

I glare at her resentfully. Some people are just so negative.

“Well, anyway.” I turn on my heel and start stumping along the street. “I’m going to that lunch.”

“The worst thing a girl can do is trail after a boy when a love affair is dead,” Sadie says disdainfully. I stump faster, but she has no problem keeping up with me. “There was a girl called Polly in my village-frightful trailer. She was convinced this chap Desmond was still in love with her and followed him around everywhere. So we played the most ripping joke on her. We told her that Desmond was in the garden, hiding behind a bush as he was too shy to talk to her directly. Then, when she came out, one of the boys read out a love letter, supposed to be from him. We’d written it ourselves, you know. Everyone was hiding behind the bushes, simply rocking.”

I can’t help feeling a reluctant interest in her story.

“Didn’t the other guy sound different?”

“He said his voice was high from nerves. He said her presence reduced him to a trembling leaf. Polly replied that she understood, because her own legs were like aspic.” Sadie starts giggling. “We all called her Aspic for ages after that.”

“That’s so mean!” I say in horror. “She didn’t realize it was a trick?”

“Only when the bushes all started shaking around the garden. Then my friend Bunty rolled out onto the grass, she was laughing so hard, and the game was up. Poor Polly.” Sadie gives a sudden giggle. “She was foaming. She didn’t speak to any of us all summer.”

“I’m not surprised!” I exclaim. “I think you were all really cruel! And, anyway, what if their love affair wasn’t dead? What if you ruined her chance of true love?”

“True love!” echoes Sadie with a derisive laugh. “You’re so old-fashioned!”

“Old-fashioned?” I echo incredulously.

“You’re just like my grandmother, with your love songs and your sighing. You even have a little miniature of your beloved in your handbag, don’t you? Don’t deny it! I’ve seen you looking at it.”

It takes me a moment to work out what she’s talking about.

“It isn’t a miniature, actually. It’s called a mobile phone.”

“Whatever it’s called. You still look at it and make goo-goo eyes and then you take your smelling salts out of that little bottle-”

“That’s Rescue Remedy!” I say furiously. God, she’s starting to wind me up. “So you don’t believe in love, is that what you’re saying? You weren’t ever in love? Not even when you were married?”

A passing postman shoots me a curious look, and I hastily put a hand to my ear as though adjusting an earpiece. I must start wearing one as camouflage.

Sadie hasn’t answered me, and as we reach the tube station I stop dead to survey her, suddenly genuinely curious. “You were really never in love?”

There’s the briefest pause, then Sadie flings her arms out with a rattle of bracelets, her head thrown back. “I had fun. That’s what I believe in. Fun, flings, the sizzle…”

“What sizzle?”

“That’s what we called it, Bunty and I.” Her mouth curves in a reminiscent smile. “It starts as a shiver, when you see a man for the first time. And then he meets your eye and the shiver runs down your back and becomes a sizzle in your stomach and you think I want to dance with that man.”

“And then what happens?”

“You dance, you have a cocktail or two, you flirt…” Her eyes are shining.

“Do you-”

I want to ask, “Do you shag him?” but I’m not sure it’s the kind of question you ask your 105-year-old great-aunt. Then I remember the visitor from the nursing home.

“Hey.” I raise my eyebrows. “You can say what you like, but I know there was someone special in your life.”

“What do you mean?” She stares at me, suddenly tense. “What are you talking about?”

“A certain gentleman by the name of… Charles Reece?”

I’m hoping to provoke a blush or gasp or something, but she looks blank.

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Charles Reece! He came to visit you in the nursing home? A few weeks ago?”

Sadie shakes her head. “I don’t remember.” The light in her eyes fades as she adds, “I don’t remember much about that place at all.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t…” I pause awkwardly. “You had a stroke, years ago.”

“I know.” She glares at me.

God, she doesn’t have to be so touchy. It’s not my fault. Suddenly I realize my phone is vibrating. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it’s Kate.

“Hi, Kate!”

“Lara? Hi! Um, I was wondering… are you coming into work today? Or not?” she adds quickly, as though she might have offended me by asking. “I mean, either way is great, everything’s fine…”

Shit. I’ve been so absorbed in Josh, I’d almost forgotten about work.

“I’m on my way in,” I say hastily. “I was just doing a bit of… er… research at home. Is anything up?”

“It’s Shireen. She wants to know what you’ve done about her dog. She sounded quite upset. In fact, she was talking about pulling out of the job.”

Oh God. I haven’t even thought about Shireen and her dog.

“Could you phone her back and say I’m on the case and I’ll call her really soon? Thanks, Kate.”

I put my phone away and massage my temples briefly. This is bad. Here I am, out on the street, spying on my ex, completely abandoning my work crisis. I need to reorder my priorities. I need to realize what’s important in life.

I’ll leave Josh until the weekend.

“We have to go.” I reach for my Oyster card and start hurrying toward the tube. “I’ve got a problem.”

“Another man problem?” asks Sadie, wafting effortlessly along beside me.

“No, a dog problem.”

“A dog?”

“It’s my client.” I march down the tube steps. “She wants to take her dog to work, and they’re saying no, it’s not allowed, but she’s convinced there’s another dog in the building.”

“Why?”

“Because she heard barking, more than once. But, I mean, what am I supposed to do about it?” I’m almost talking to myself now. “I’m totally stuck. The human-resources department is denying there’s any other dog, and there’s no way to prove they’re lying. I can’t exactly get into the building and search every office-”

I stop in surprise as Sadie appears right in front of me.

“Maybe not.” Her eyes sparkle. “But I can.”