Love, and Other Things to Live For Page 2

  ‘I never thought I’d be jealous of my best friend, his older lover and a pair of gloriously soft ankle boots,’ I said, pressing my hand firmly inside one. Far from the perfect audience, I watched him walk up and down the carpeted floor of Russell and Bromley one Saturday afternoon as he looked at me for encouragement.

  ‘Just take them,’ I said, in desperation, perched on the seats designated for customers to try on the shop’s wares, ‘and then you can take me for a cocktail.’

  There’s one memory that will last beyond the drunken nights, the cinema trips, the endless stream of gossiping phone calls – the time I got a different kind of phone call one cold, rainy night in November. It was 2.30 a.m. and I was fast asleep when my phone rang loudly on the bedside table. Seeing it was Sean I assumed he’d been partying and had locked himself out again and needed a place to stay. I almost ignored it.

  ‘What do you want, Sean?’ I snapped. ‘It’s the middle of the night.’

  There was a silence. I could hear talking in the background as my eyes slowly opened and I came to my senses.

  ‘Sean, what’s wrong? Are you okay?’

  ‘It’s Paul,’ I heard, quietly but clearly. ‘He’s been in an accident. I’m at the hospital.’

  Thirty minutes later I walked down the long, squeaky corridor that seemed endless and sterile. I turned into the waiting room and saw Sean seated wearing a pale blue jumper and jeans. The sort of outfit you put on in a hurry, I thought to myself. I crouched down and put my arm on his back. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered.

  He lifted his head, his face reddened and swollen from the tears. ‘He was driving back from work and a lorry clipped the wheel arch. You know how fast he drives.’

  I sat there and held him until sunrise.

  Paul’s funeral was on a sunny Tuesday morning. It was a small affair, there were no hymns and two readings, and it was over by midday.

  Last but not least is Marlowe: graceful swan, mother earth incarnate, encyclopaedia of heaven-sent advice from the sane and grown-up world. She is perfect and I am a mess. We’d met as teenagers – two cocky, know-it-all dreamers, whose backsides were about to be spanked by life right into next Tuesday. While I’d continued this behaviour well beyond its sell-by date, she’d been forced to grow up far quicker than the rest of us. Marlowe is a class act who is seemingly unshakable navigating obstacles that would leave others screaming into their pillow. There’s an apologetic air about her, as with those who have spent their life subject to the jealousy of their peers. It’s as if they need to make it up to those around them for not being clumsy, or slightly chubby or keeping a coat on when they’ve spilled soup down their jumper. Or for being born into success, for that matter. Marlowe is constantly under the watch of her parents who seem to guide the trajectory of her life from the conservatory of their conservative city townhouse. Her dad was a famous journalist and now deep into writing his memoirs, and her mum was an English socialite, whose glamour and impeccable sense of style has been retained well into her sixties.

  Marlowe was always going to succeed in whichever field she chose to pursue so you can imagine our surprise when things took a turn for the unexpected, a few years ago, one summer afternoon in July. It was the hottest day of the year and London had quite literally come to a standstill. The smell of Hendrick’s gin filled the air, and for the first time in a long while a drought had threatened to take hold across Britain.

  We’d been invited to one of her parents’ infamous barbecues. They owned a townhouse in West London and for one afternoon a year it became home to the who’s who of the slightly elder, more intellectual social scene. At that time, we used these occasions as an opportunity to stock up on free booze before going to a club later that night, but this time things unfolded rather differently. I arrived late, as usual, and expected Marlowe to be in the garden barefoot in jeans amidst a sea of Panama hats and beige summer suits, but this time she was nowhere to be seen. I made my way through the bodies cluttering the house, loud in idle chitchat, and arrived at the bottom of the stairs where I pulled out my phone to text her. As I began to type, I looked up towards the top of the dark staircase to see her seated in a crisp white T-shirt and denim skirt, a distinct shine on her bare shins gleaming through the shadows.

  ‘Jess, up here,’ she said, signalling me into the bathroom.

  I followed her across the marble tiled floor and there it was, lying on the sink, lodged sideways between the hot and cold taps, the end of the future as we knew it and a building block of a dilemma for Marlowe. A pregnancy test that read positive.

  ‘Jesus,’ I whispered. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘Of course it’s mine,’ she snapped, grabbing it to shake it.

  ‘I don’t think shaking it is going to help, Mars.’

  She sat down gently on the bathroom floor and drew her legs towards her. I took hold of the test to double-check its result and took a deep breath to replace the ones I’d since lost. She looked up at me with glassy eyes.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she said.

  And what do you say to the perfect girl, the girl who irons her underwear, who wears white and doesn’t spill, the girl now pregnant and crying. I didn’t say anything. Instead I just sat down on the cold floor tiles next to her.

  ‘I can’t have a baby, Jess. I’m twenty-three years old,’ she whispered.

  I noticed her hands were trembling, her chipped orange nail polish rubbing against her two front teeth. Girls like Marlowe weren’t supposed to get pregnant. She was supposed to spend her days practising law, not the alphabet. I squeezed her warm hand that was still damp from tears. At that point there was a knock at the door, one of the other partygoers, oblivious and persistent, who clearly needed use of the bathroom.

  ‘Just a minute, please,’ I shouted politely.

  There was a brief pause before they knocked again.

  ‘In a fucking minute!’ Marlowe shouted through her tears.

  Together we sat side by side on the cold, tiled floor, knowing that in just one afternoon, everything had changed.

  In the modern world, there are many options open to women in the wake of an unplanned pregnancy but for Marlowe it seemed the most preferable answer would be marriage. The carefully arranged wedding was six months later and after much debate, they had promised as a family that she would have the baby first and start her career later. But as with most things in life, it didn’t really work out that way. Now George was travelling all over the world while Marlowe stays at home. That little blue line we had once gathered around with baited breath is now called Elsa.

  Before Marlowe’s parents had led her down the road of commitment and common decency, she was a permanent fixture on our nights out. She drank like a trooper, never danced but always turned up in an eclectic mix of designer and vintage clothes, accompanied by a desperate claim that she had purchased them all in the sale. We still see her, usually for relationship or career advice or when we need a sensible opinion and a healthy meal. And despite her newfound love of the quiet life she still comes out to the big celebrations: birthdays, new jobs, new hairstyles. To put it bluntly, Marlowe is the moral lighthouse in our slightly less sophisticated world. When she announced she was getting married I cried tears of joy, Amber cried tears of sadness and Sean began sketching her wedding dress.

  And finally to me, a girl who loves Mexican food and bowling and low-budget horror films, gently flying solo into the abyss: no brothers, no sisters, two parents who years ago deemed it better to carry on life apart, on separate continents in separate time zones with separate hearts. Perhaps I’m only now realising as I stand here, not quite young and not quite old, that their situation might not have been an easy one. That a family doesn’t necessarily work better together.

  I’ve learned that after a while, it can get pretty tricky to always make the right decisions, to do what everyone else expects of you and to make people happy. We discard the days, the weeks, the months, the years on the journey towards the desti
nation as somewhat unimportant compared to the magical days of a future where we aim to one day be. But they will suddenly merge together and we will realise that this day, this week, this month, this year, these little, insignificant things culminate to form our lives, all joined together, like a map of the stars but instead right here on earth: a thousand lives crisscrossing, at times colliding. But the secret is not to avoid the collision. If the horizon blurs and the plans fade, just think of the places travelled, the things seen and the strangers now known as friends: it all happened because you once made what you had thought to have been a mistake.

  Chapter Two – The Art of Intent

  Cause…

  Battle commenced one windy Friday morning last September. There was something in the air that day; I felt restless, almost as if suddenly, and without warning, my life wasn’t enough any more, any sense of pride or ambition had vanished. My mind ached like a lead weight. This wasn’t me. That was the only thing at this point that I actually knew to be true. The historical swirls of self-doubt that continually crept in weren’t going to win this time. Not that morning. Not today.

  I was at the beginning of a food shop at the supermarket across town and, as I walked briskly through the automatic doors, I stopped for a moment to look up at the final leaves on the trees, clinging on with the same sense of stubbornness. I had decided in a combined haze of high spirit and spirits to push aside the idea of law and pursue my dream of becoming a photographer. It had me taken two years at law school to arrive at that decision and the leap hadn’t felt quite as wonderful as I had imagined. The disapproval of my father, moored somewhere off the South of France with his latest girlfriend, was evident. A short conversation resulted in us both hanging up the phone, which was surprising, as I thought he might relate given he felt the exact same sense of inadequacy about family life. Naturally, I had come to the conclusion that from that point on, I was on my own.

  As I dragged the bags of shopping up the steps to our flat, I felt as if the air had been knocked out of me. The big supermarket was quite the commitment in terms of travel but a worthy respite from the express shop around the corner which, although convenient, was half the size and half the value. They even had a car park with trolley bays. I noticed this and despite not having a car was reasonably impressed. These days, I had time on my hands to appreciate such details. I pulled open the door and struggled inside, my fingers throbbing from the weight of the tinned goods. There was a note from Amber on the kitchen counter that read: ‘Please buy milk.’ I picked up the five-pound note and slid it into my jacket pocket.

  After unpacking the contents of my bags into the fridge and cupboards I noticed the grey clouds heaving above me through the kitchen window. It couldn’t rain now, I thought. My day hadn’t been productive enough to be shut indoors. Quickly I pulled on my leggings and trainers and set off into the light downpour, determined to complete a run, determined to succeed at something that day. But in a few short minutes the light shower turned torrential. I stood at the very wet news-stand to shelter from the downpour under a sky of protective blue tarpaulin. I could feel the sting of a re-opened blister niggling the heel of my foot. I crouched down precariously to slide my foot out of my trainer, briefly easing the pain. A man in a large cream mac with a money belt attached to his waist began to pay me particular attention. He had caught me lingering. It was obvious I wasn’t his usual customer. I picked up a magazine that looked fairly respectable and pretended to read it as water dripped through the plastic sheeting.

  ‘It’s not a library,’ he said, restacking his stock. ‘You want to read it, you buy it first.’

  I nodded subserviently and retrieved the five-pound note from my jacket pocket.

  As I walked home with my unwanted copy of Business Life magazine I flicked through it briefly. On the cover was a successful, dark-haired businessman named as one of the top five financiers who’d brought back the economy from the brink of disaster. He worked at Giles and Morgan. I rolled my eyes. They were the company to whom I’d submitted a series of photographs for consideration six months ago and heard nothing since. Amber’s friend Nick, who worked there as an account manager, had advised me to corner the financial sector and supply lifestyle images in return for a serious amount of cash. His words. By now the rain had ceased to a faint drizzle and I had succumbed to using the magazine as a shield on the short run home.

  ‘Come on,’ Amber bellowed into her phone. ‘Don’t be such a boring bastard.’

  She wanted to go out for drinks that night but the truth was I was in hiding. I couldn’t face another bad date, another bad restaurant, I just wanted to focus all my energy on creating my future, not further blurring my present.

  ‘Would it help if I told you that we’re meeting Nick and it might be another chance to talk about your photographs?’

  It was a predictable effort from her but it worked just the same.

  ‘Okay,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll meet you there at eight.’

  I looked down at myself in the hallway, in my comfortable bra and pants. I pulled the elastic with my index finger and readjusted my pant line. Maybe she was right – maybe I was getting boring.

  The bar was in the City, which was a strange choice for Amber, but I knew her well and could tell from the start that this place was far out enough to a) pick up new men and b) hide from the old ones. Despite the unfamiliar setting, the situation wasn’t exactly new. The bar was heaving and full of the type of young professionals I’d spent two years at university trying to avoid. I’d already lost Amber. Anyone who has ever been out with Amber has lost her, but as with most beautiful friendships between young women, I knew she wouldn’t leave the bar without me. I had one quick look around and by chance saw Nick talking to Brian, a man who I had desperately wanted to meet to quiz about photographing an ad campaign for Giles and Morgan. I walked over, briefly finishing my glass of white wine, before licking my teeth for remnants of lipstick. I had told myself that one act of self-doubt equates to at least one act of bravery.

  ‘Hi, Nick,’ I shouted, pretending to only sort of recognise him. After all, I wasn’t sure if he remembered me. He did and waved me over to the small crowd of men in suits.

  ‘Great to see you, Jess!’ he said. ‘Of course you know James…’

  I did know James, he was the deputy head of marketing at Giles and Morgan and the second person on my wish list to meet. I followed my eyes around the group, giving a quick ‘hello’ to everyone, suddenly becoming incredibly aware of myself.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to gatecrash a party and I’ve lost Amber so…’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ James insisted. ‘Stay. I’m sure she’ll pass us at some point.’

  ‘I’ll go and find her,’ Nick said, finishing his pint, ‘she’s probably giving some man a hard time on the terrace.’

  I was frozen, my feet pinned to the floor, desperate to mention my photography and at the same time terrified of mentioning my photography. And that’s when I noticed the tall figure standing next to me. As I tried to pinpoint why he looked familiar it dawned on me: he was the face on the front of Business Life magazine. The man deemed a ‘saviour’, a fact I’d later learned by actually reading the article. It had been a particularly slow afternoon and once on the comfort of the sofa I’d been entranced into reading it cover to cover. I examined his face, his green eyes and his dark hair. Just enough stubble to be attractive, but still groomed enough to know he cared. I quickly looked away. If I’d learned one thing from my mother it was not to commit to the man who should be a fling, to stop lust in its tracks and rise above the chemistry towards something more sensible. More concrete.

  As everyone continued with their own conversations I had somehow found myself drawn into this god of finance and Brian’s conversation about inflation and shareprices. I nodded intermittently with the rest of the group, playing piggy in the middle with people’s opinions about the economy. I could sense Charlie (I had since clocked his name) and the proximity of our b
odies getting slightly closer. I could feel that sense you sometimes get when someone is watching you and you daren’t look at them in case they’re looking. Well, I finally looked and he was too. I smiled a nervous smile, thinking he would do the normal thing and look away, but he didn’t. Instead he leaned over and put his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘You don’t have a drink,’ he whispered directly into my ear. ‘We can’t have that, can we?’

  As he motioned to the bartender I noticed that he had his initials embossed on his cardholder, a surefire hint in my own judgement that he was a vain, slightly arrogant City boy, but no, he wasn’t that easy to dismiss. He was nice, actually.

  ‘Going to need some help getting through this,’ he said with an awkward smile. He handed me a bottle of champagne and two glasses, an indulgence I had previously thought was usually reserved for special occasions and New Year’s Eve but for him, apparently, just a regular Friday night.

  I looked up at him and into his eyes as they stared across the room. His face, with ‘bad idea’ written all over it. I felt like the secondary school newcomer eye-flirting with the popular sixth-former. This wasn’t me. I knew he probably used this line on every single girl he met but I also knew that at this point, I didn’t care. As he stepped closer I stayed composed. I knew we shouldn’t. I knew that girls who slept with guys on a first meeting rarely saw them again. But did I even want to? I felt his hand skim the small of my back. I could have protested but I didn’t. I didn’t.