The Love Shack (19 page)

‘You’re-through-to-the-Lancashire-Building-Society-my-name’s-Cheryl-can-I-take-your-name-and-account-number-please.’

I glance down and realise in a panic that although I’m surrounded by a mountain of paperwork, the one on top doesn’t reference my account number.

‘Er . . . just a second.’ I rustle through the letters and find my name and address on each, but no account number. ‘Sorry about this.’

Cheryl sighs theatrically as I fling papers over my shoulder, desperately trying to locate what I need. ‘If you just give me your name and address I’ll see if the system can find you,’ she suggests wearily.

Cheryl gives the impression that she spent last night on the lash and wishes she was at home watching the
Hollyoaks
omnibus and eating fried-egg sandwiches in bed.

‘Do you want the address where I’m living or the address of the property I’m buying?’

‘Let’s try the place you’re buying.’

‘Pebble Cottage, which is at 43 Venbourne Road.’

‘Forty-three Ven—’

‘Except you have it on your system as thirty-three.’

‘Right.’

‘But that’s not correct.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘It’s not number thirty-three. It’s number
forty
-three. That’s what I’m phoning about. A survey is due to take place on Monday on number thirty-three. I need you to change it to the right number. Forty-three.’

My tone sounds like I’m telling her there’s a bomb on a bus, but she’s clearly failing to grasp the urgency of this matter. It soon becomes abundantly clear that this news has put Cheryl out
massively
. I spend the rest of the call either on hold, listening to a version of ‘Congratulations’ by Cliff Richard, followed by the same artist attempting ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ by The Prodigy, or waiting for Cheryl to tell me something other than ‘the system’s driving me mad today’.

Finally, she concludes: ‘I’ve put a note on your account so it should be okay.’

‘Great, so the survey will take place on the right house on Monday?’

‘No, we’ll have to cancel it and re-book another one.’

‘But we’ve waited nearly two weeks.’

She doesn’t respond.

‘Okay,’ I sigh. ‘Let’s re-book it then.’

‘A different department handles that.’

‘Can you put me through to them?’

‘’Fraid not,’ she says unapologetically. ‘They’re not in until Monday.’

I end the call and close my eyes in an attempt to compose myself – when the phone rings. My first thought is that the mortgage company have had a burst of efficiency and are phoning me back.

Then I see it’s a mobile number.

One I don’t recognise.

My heart seems to stop entirely as another thought occurs to me.

This is Alex. I feel sure of it.

My head explodes with thoughts about what I’m going to say, what he’s going to say, how I’m going to play this. But suddenly there’s no other option but to take a deep breath and answer.

‘Um . . . hello?’

There’s a small silence, before the recorded message begins.

‘Have you been mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance?’

I deflate visibly and end the call as my heartbeat subsides.

Gemma, it’s
really
time to get a grip.

When I log onto our savings account on Monday morning I have a pleasant surprise. Dan and I have been living with such aggressive frugality, on top of the fact that we’re now paying no rent or bills, that raking back a proportion of the missing £4k could be possible by the time we complete on the sale.

The thought buoys my mood as Sadie and I head to the canteen to prepare for our meeting later. She orders, while I find a seat by the window and spot Sebastian heading to his courtesy car, which he’s been stuck with for weeks because getting the parts for a classic Jag is so difficult.

I couldn’t claim that he’s permanently grumpy since the crash. There have been moments when he’s been perfectly civil, though I suspect he’s distracted, like that feeling people get when they first wake up thinking everything’s okay, then remember they’ve lost their job, family, house, and the cat’s puked in their favourite slippers.

‘I wish his old car would hurry up and come back from the garage,’ Sadie mutters .

‘Aren’t you worried that he might find out it was you?’ I ask.

‘SHHH!’ she hisses. ‘There’s no way he could find out, assuming
you
keep schtum. I feel so guilty though. I am going to burn in hell for this.’ A flicker of panic crosses her face. ‘Imagine if I lost my job, Gemma. The wedding budget is already out of control. How the hell am I going to pay for eighty sea bass fillets with an artichoke coulis if I’m on the dole?’

Our meeting takes place on the top floor, in the
Blue Sky Brain Laboratory
, where we’ll be sharing the amendments to our soup campaign with Sebastian. Although the client hasn’t seen the final version, they’ve loved every step so far – a water-colour animation telling a fictional, romanticised story about the soup being made by fairies, all set to a suitably indie soundtrack with whimsical female vocals.

Sadie clicks on her laptop while Sebastian, who’s been involved from the beginning, watches silently. A deepening crevice is appearing above his nose. As the commercial ends, an eerie silence descends on the room and thunderclouds like those in the final scene in
Ghostbusters
gather above.

‘So,’ I say, shuffling my pad, ‘we’ll be presenting this to the marketing team at Good Honest Soup next Wednesday, where we’re hopeful of the go-ahead.’

Sebastian sighs despondently, as if he’s on his twelfth marriage guidance session but can’t get beyond thinking his wife has a fat arse.

‘I don’t know any more.’ Sadie and I glance at each other. ‘I know this is what they said they wanted, but I can’t help thinking it’s . . . wishy washy. Airy fairy. Flaccid. Damp. Altogether . . .
meh
.’

A bead of sweat travels down Sadie’s brow. ‘They
loved
the idea,’ she breathes.

‘I mean, soup fairies.
Seriously
? I’m wondering if we’ve got this right AT ALL.’

I swallow. ‘Changing it dramatically would be difficult at this late stage.’

He shrugs. ‘If it’s not right, it’s not right.’

‘But, what if it
is
right?’ I say, feeling mildly desperate. ‘The client thinks so. Who are we to argue?’

His lip curls up. ‘I just hate all this passive-aggressive tree-hugging shit with its flimsy watercolours. It’s like, “Ooh, look at us aren’t we organic and fluffy and not like one of those nasty corporate profiteering organisations who want to make
money
, God forbid!”.’

I have a sudden and hideous feeling that this whim of Sebastian’s is going to lead to a vast amount of trouble.

‘Also,’ he says, his nose scrunched up, ‘it’s not very . . .
sexy
, is it?’

‘Well, it’s soup,’ I can’t stop myself from pointing out. ‘Sexy isn’t normally associated with soup.’

‘Then it should be up to us to make organic sexy,’ he states. ‘All I associate with this is some smelly, hairy-jumpered do-gooder who drinks twig tea.’

‘Perhaps the soundtrack is the problem,’ Sadie offers.

‘Maybe. Try it with that Robin Thicke song instead. You know – the one with the boobs in the video. Spice it up a bit.’

I feel faint.

‘Um, Sebastian,’ I begin, ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I think this is a strong campaign as it is. And I think they’re going to love it. Robin Thicke . . . it’s not them.’

Sadie glares at me, begging me to stop. But I can’t. I won’t. ‘To try and persuade the client that we’ve produced something that’s rubbish when, quite honestly, I think it’s anything but – it doesn’t make sense. Don’t you agree, Sadie?’

‘I can see both arguments really,’ she murmurs. I narrow my eyes at her.

‘I suppose we need to plough on with this,’ our boss sighs. ‘Reluctant as I am. Thank God we hit the jackpot with the Bang condom advert.’

Having persuaded Sebastian to have a radical re-think, we’ve ended up with a strong, funny ad showing a good-looking guy get to third base, before being repeatedly rejected by women who won’t go further without protection.

‘They liked it so much they’ve commissioned us to start work on a campaign for a
female
condom,’ he continues. ‘It’s a niche market, but they think it could grow. They want us to work on that too before unveiling it in front of 150 staff and key stakeholders in a couple of months.’

‘Great news,’ I say.

‘Brilliant!’ adds Sadie.

‘Glad you’re enthusiastic. Perhaps
you
ought to present it.’

My ears start ringing and the room swims in and out psychedelically. ‘Us?’

‘Well, one of you. The CEO wants to say his bit so there’ll be too many of you on stage otherwise. Gemma, you do it.’

He says this last sentence as if it’s the most trifling matter in the world. In fact, he might as well have asked me to leap from the fifth floor of a burning building with a box of newborn kittens in my arms – and land on my feet.

‘But I thought
you
presented these things,’ I gulp.

‘I would usually. But it’d be nice to give someone else a go for a change. If you’re anything like me, you’ll thoroughly enjoy the experience.’

The rest of the day is spent fighting off the thunderous palpitations every time I think about presenting to 150 people. My only distraction involves trying to get through to the mortgage company again about why we’ve heard nothing about the survey. A woman called Charmaine tells me that the surveyor arrived at the
correct
house on Monday only to find nobody was in and therefore they could not gain access.

‘Of course nobody was in! I was told by your company that it was being booked for another time!’ I squeal, loudly enough to persuade her to at least rearrange the survey for tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it.

By the time I arrive home I’m feeling above-averagely disillusioned. Belinda, on the other hand, is pirouetting around the kitchen singing what she clearly believes are the lyrics to the Kings of Leon’s biggest hit.

‘OOOHHH! Dyslexics on Fiiirrre!’

‘Hi, Belinda,’ I call out. ‘Good day?’

She spins round. ‘Productive day. I’ve finished all my copy edits on the book. Plus,’ her eyes dart away, ‘I slipped in a game of tennis.’

I let out a small gasp, like I’ve dropped my lace handkerchief at the sight of someone riding past in a close-fitting pair of breeches. ‘With James?’

A smile twitches at her lips. ‘He’s got a tremendous forehand.’

She has a ‘will-we-won’t-we’ glint in her eyes, a feeling I remember well: the excitement, the fear, the trepidation and longing. Which was precisely how I felt when Dan and I got together, even if, after those initial few weeks, I became increasingly convinced that he and I would be a ‘won’t’.

Chapter 29

Gemma

Romantically-speaking, the years after Alex were not good to me. I couldn’t muster up more than a sliver of enthusiasm for most of the men who fancied me. And the ones I did like (which is the strongest word I can bring myself to use) turned out to have the emotional maturity of a turnip; after an initial burst of enthusiasm, they went inexplicably cold.

But something about Dan told me there was no way he was going to follow that pattern. I was swept off my feet. All logic went skywards. And in a few short days – a little over a week – I let him peel away my tough-girl facade and see the real me.

I was certain I didn’t have to hold back, or worry about seeming clingy when it was so obvious he wasn’t going to mess me around.

So what did he go and do? He messed me around.

I hadn’t worried too much when Dan didn’t phone the morning after his big night out with his stockbroker colleagues. I assumed he’d simply been enjoying himself. But when the morning stretched into afternoon and evening, a familiar, neurotic knot began to form in my stomach.

I texted him the next day and heard nothing, until eventually, I received a lukewarm

Sorry I haven’t been in touch. How are you? x

I replied that I was fine and asked when I would see him again – at which point he apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. He didn’t return my texts. He just went silent. He was a ghost.

Sadie said I should phone him and demand a full and frank explanation. Allie said he was a toxic male and I should text him with a considered message, containing several four-letter words. In the end, I did neither. What I did was very hard. I wrote him a final text asking him never to contact me again, then pressed send. I felt empowered for about a minute, until I reminded myself that he was showing no sign of wanting to phone me anyway. I deleted his number from my phone. Then I cried. And cried a bit more.

After days of second-guessing what I did wrong (I slept with him too soon! I forgot to do my bikini line on date 4! I let him hear me singing ‘Summer Nights’ in the shower!) I told myself firmly: Gemma, you haven’t done anything wrong. You need to forget him.

But that was easier said than done. For weeks, I walked around like a lost soul, comforted only by a playlist I could’ve called
Now That’s What I Call Dumped – 25!

Finally, after six weeks, he called.

I didn’t return it.

He called again.

I didn’t return it.

And as impossible as it felt, the harder he tried to get in touch with me, the harder I made it for him, because I knew in my bones that this was ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ behaviour if ever I’d seen it.

I’ll give Dan this though, he persevered. The texts came thick and fast. There were flowers. He sang on my answer machine like in
When Harry Met Sally
because he knew that was my favourite film. He made me a mix tape – with ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol, ‘Something’ by the Beatles and ‘Cosmic Love’ by Florence and the Machine. I hadn’t even told him I loved it, but somehow he knew.

Then one Saturday, as I sat listening to it – because I couldn’t not listen to it – a letter slipped through my door. I opened it with trembling hands and tight throat.