Love, and Other Things to Live For Read online

  I felt him bite down hard on my bottom lip in the back of the taxi as we came to an abrupt halt outside his building. A harsh handbrake manoeuvre made by the taxi driver so we’d get the hell out of his car and continue this elsewhere. We stumbled out onto the pavement and as we reached the bottom of the glass-fronted building I knew that beyond this point was no man’s land. If I wanted to back out, now would be the time to speak up.

  As he slammed me into the wall of the lift I momentarily forgot who we were. I could feel his heart beating – or was that mine? I was trying to be sensible. I was the girl trying to get back on her feet, the feet that were now wrapped around his waist as he lifted me into the air. I could smell the remnants of aftershave on his neck, his forehead balmy and sweaty as I kissed it. We didn’t make it to his apartment. Instead we gave in to ourselves and fell together in an entwined heap on the carpeted floor of the corridor. And even if it was just for tonight, he was mine. As he pulled me to my feet and led me to his doorway I picked up my underwear and forgave myself. Start again tomorrow. Like sampling an indulgent chocolate cake in the midst of a diet plan, just start again tomorrow.

  Six hours later, the sun had risen, and I lay in his bed wide-awake. Carefully and calmly, I made a slight gesture to move: beating him to the punch, avoiding the vacuous apologies from both of us, of a busy day ahead filled with lots of things to do.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he said, smiling as he pulled me back into his warm body.

  ‘I need to…’

  ‘What?’ He smiled. ‘What do you need to do that’s so important?’

  ‘I need to phone someone,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’ he quizzed with his eyes still closed, the curly tuffs of dark hair on his chest rising and falling as he spoke.

  ‘My… dentist,’ I said, beginning to smile.

  He wrapped his arms around me, cocooning me in the smell of the night before. By now, the sun was streaming across the bed and we were drenched in it. It wasn’t love. It was two people not wanting love, which somehow seemed even more perfect.

  Effect…

  Present day. Using clues from the past to plot a strategy for the future. It was a balmy afternoon and as I looked out onto the rainy London street, I could feel the dryness in my eyes from my tears that morning. A dull, fuzzy headache served as a mental reminder of the sharp pain I felt inside, deep within the concave cavity that had once carried my heart. I noticed people on the pavement below unaffectedly going about their day – doing their best to ignore the torrent of water around them. The British are quite fearless when it comes to rain; things just seem to carry on as normal. I looked at my watch. Still no sign of the van but I could now feel the vibration of my phone in my back pocket and assumed that it was the removal men offering an explanation.

  It was Amber. I let it ring out. I waited for the ping. I could handle a message, but I wasn’t yet prepared for a conversation. The text read:

  Dinner with Sean and me?? We are DYING to see you

  On this busy street, on this particular afternoon, I was waiting for a transit van to drop my things off at the flat I was moving back into with Amber after a brief spell of living in heaven with Charlie. They were supposed to be here at 4.30 p.m. and as there was still no sign at 6 p.m, I decided to put the phone back into my jeans pocket and hopped my way up the stairs to our flat. I looked around at my new yet familiar home. The home I had shared with Amber and had to move out of, in, shall we say, a rather immediate manner: full of smiles, giggles and promises. Instead of once being our girls’ world that we used as a hideaway from the rest of the universe, it was now the flat I had once left to move in with him. The one I had left in the hope of building a life with someone I now felt I no longer knew.

  I opened my phone, still at that stage of expecting to see a text from him, for which I hated myself, and instead texted Amber:

  Yes, definitely! Can’t wait – I’ll meet you there.

  My thoughts were basically that if I filled the text with enough hearts and dancing girl emojis I would perhaps deflect the scent of how devastated I was to be moving back here. I walked into my empty room that was once filled with all the objects of my life and sat down on the edge of the bed, the bare beige walls almost consuming me. The fact that nobody else had moved in yet showed just how quick the decision was made to leave – and how even more quickly it was made to return. It was all too quick. I had it coming to me.

  After two cups of tea and a sort through my piles of mail I plucked up the courage to start opening a few boxes that I had managed to squeeze into the back of the taxi: just work things, thank God, it seemed that all the sentimental stuff was still in the van. I pulled out a large, leather portfolio of black and white photographs, the ones I’d taken in the second year of my law degree and had been so excited to put together and hawk across the city. I laid out my portfolio and fingered the plastic covering. It was bubbly now and the dog-eared corners were ageing… nothing at all like I remembered. Along with forgetting who I was for a short time, it seemed I had also forgotten what I wanted to be.

  This would be my priority now: my only option of survival. I reminded myself about the one golden nugget that I’d learned since all this had unravelled: something that nobody had told me at the start. There will be sacrifices. I call it spinning plates. It’s a balancing act that usually consists of the metaphorical weighing scales whereby your love life succeeds and your career goes down the pan, or your career booms while your love life’s shot to shit. Or in my case right now, both, crumbling in my hands at the exact same moment. I smiled at the irony.

  And wasn’t it funny that the moment when I knew I had to end it was the exact moment I’d never wanted to stay more.

  As I poured a glass of water and pulled myself up to sit on the kitchen worktop – an annoying trait which Charlie didn’t mind but Amber always hated – I could see one good thing about being on my own: I could finally do as I pleased. Prove to myself that I could. Prove to my parents that they were wrong. The continual back and forth motion with Charlie – the euphoric highs and desperate lows – were now over. It was time to create space for myself and for the new, to give myself the opportunity to get it all wrong. Fuck things up to the nth degree. Barefooted and barefaced amongst the boxes, I was willing to risk all that was certain in my life for the very possibility of wanting something more.

  The restaurant was heaving. I’d strangely missed the noise, the crowded bar, the way you had to navigate through the masses just to meet your friends, to breathe. As soon as I caught sight of them I felt relieved.

  ‘Sit yourself down, Jessica Rabbit,’ Sean said with a warm smile. ‘I mean, I knew it wouldn’t last long but three months? Jesus, Jess, I’ve got cheese in my fridge that I’ve had longer.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, nodding dutifully. ‘Get it all off your chest now, will you? And we were actually together for nine months,’ I declared proudly as I walked around the oblong table to kiss Amber. ‘And what do you mean you didn’t think it would last long?’

  Amber pulled me in and looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘You did the right thing, bubs,’ she said boldly.

  I knew she was right but the pain in my stomach was still fighting the concept – it made a deep, heavy lurch as I sat down at the table, causing me to wince.

  ‘Seriously, though, are you okay?’ Sean quizzed.

  ‘I need to find a job. And quick,’ I replied.

  ‘Our rent’s due on Thursday,’ Amber remarked, before hesitating. Her voice shrinking to a gradual fade as she saw my expression.

  ‘She only moved out three months ago, I think she can remember when your rent’s due,’ Sean said, rolling his eyes.

  I reached out to sip my water, my hand paused on the glass, as a thought I had buried caught up with me.

  ‘Is it really as bad as it looks?’ Amber said, placing her hand on my wrist.

  ‘Well, let me fill you in, shall I?’ I pushed the water aside and exchanged it for wine. �
�I’ve left my boyfriend’s home…’

  ‘Ex-boyfriend,’ Sean muttered.

  ‘Ex-boyfriend,’ I quipped. ‘Half my possessions are on my bedroom floor while the other half are under house arrest in a transit on the other side of Westminster that has the word “penis” written on the side in dirt. So in answer to your question, things have definitely been better.’

  ‘He’s such a dick,’ Sean spat.

  ‘He’s not, though,’ I said, sipping my wine again. ‘Things just didn’t work out.’

  I reached for the bread basket, realising I hadn’t eaten at all that day.

  As I buttered a piece of fluffy white baguette I felt a hand on the back of my chair.

  ‘Jess – fancy seeing you here, how is everything? How’s Charlie?’

  A bomb of silence dropped on the table.

  It was Sasha, the PR hound who lived two floors beneath him. She obviously didn’t have anything better to do than keep track of the comings and goings of the building.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine, he’s fine, I think. Well, I don’t know actually because we’re not together anymore – we split up about a week ago.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said, giving me the same vacant look that I’d seen several times over the past seven days. ‘Well, sometimes these things just don’t work out. He’s pretty handsome, though. That’s got to be tough.’

  I nodded in agreement, to both parts, with a small smile that indicated that it was her cue to leave. I wanted to vomit as the overpowering smell of her perfume lingered in the air. I remembered the sweet, distinct floral smell from the building’s lift.

  ‘She’s definitely going to drop by his place tonight as a “shoulder to cry on”,’ Sean said, watching her leave. ‘She couldn’t get out of here quick enough! I could actually see her smirking – who does that?’

  ‘Well, good luck to her,’ I said, mustering a fake smile. ‘Maybe she can handle him better than I could.’

  ‘Maybe she’s got that condition,’ Amber said drily. ‘I saw a documentary about it: when somebody delivers some bad news, they can’t help smiling.’

  ‘Or maybe she’s just a cow,’ I said, bluntly.

  ‘So, just to clarify,’ Sean said, ‘are we allowed to say his name?’

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ I replied.

  ‘Because she just did and you look like you’d been shot.’

  ‘I’m okay, really!’ I protested. ‘It’s all for the best. Please can we just talk about something else?’

  ‘I won’t even mention his name,’ Sean said, running his forefinger across his lips.

  ‘And don’t remind me how attractive he is either,’ I said, searching for the emergency cigarette I’d borrowed from the doorman on the way in. ‘All anyone’s been saying to me is how attractive he was. It’s pathetic,’ I muttered.

  ‘He was,’ Sean said as Amber shot him a look of outrage. ‘I’m sorry. But he absolutely was.’

  After we’d eaten, I could still feel the remnants of the food stinging the roof of my mouth.

  ‘So what else have I missed?’ I said, looking at Sean to change the conversation.

  ‘Amber’s in love. A bit,’ he said coyly.

  ‘Oh please,’ she said, as cool as ever. ‘Today’s idea of love is closing your Tinder account.’

  ‘And have you?’ Sean said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Course not,’ she replied. ‘But I definitely go on a lot less.’

  I stared at her until she gave me more answers.

  ‘His name is Patrick,’ she said.

  ‘Patrick,’ Sean repeated drily. ‘He’s definitely over fifty.’

  I laughed.

  ‘He is, yes!’ She downed the remainder of her martini defensively and tried to get a waiter’s attention for the bill. Sean and I glanced at each other like two schoolgirls banished to the front of the bus. She was too cool to be drinking with us and as a result was forced to hang around with the fifty plus Patricks of the world.

  ‘Is he retired?’ Sean asked.

  ‘No, you fucker!’ Amber cried. ‘And that’s it! I’m done! No more questions!’

  The next morning Amber shuffled into my room in her dressing gown balancing two cups of tea. As I blinked through last night’s make-up, for a brief moment I had forgotten where I was. The room looked bigger without my stuff in it. She sat down on the end of my bed as I noticed a small damp patch right above the window frame.

  ‘We have damp,’ I said, gesturing to the wall.

  ‘I know,’ she nodded, lying down next to me. ‘I’ve missed coming and getting into bed with you of a morning. I even had to buy my own shampoo, and razors…’

  ‘I knew you used my shampoo.’

  ‘I knew you knew,’ she said, leaning her head against the rickety wooden headboard. ‘I know it’s hard, Jess, but it’s for the best. You can’t be with a man like that. You’re too… nice.’

  ‘I hate that word,’ I said, reaching for my tea.

  ‘He was part of a scene that’s just not for you – believe me, I’ve been there.’

  ‘It’s knackering, you know, pretending to be someone you’re not all the time.’ I looked down into the rim of my mug and could see the faint brown mark from all the drinks that had gone before it. I ran my fingernail over it in a faint attempt to remove the stain.

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to think about your own life. And now you can do whatever it is that you want to do… like shag that gym instructor you always fancied.’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ I said, quietly.

  ‘Yet,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to yet.’

  As she left the room I knew I had no choice but to trust her. Trust her optimism. Trust that she knew what she was talking about. I pulled a box towards me and began to pull the clothes out. I stopped at a dress I had bought for a job interview. It was creased. I carried on pulling out endless streams of coats, jackets, tops, shorts – any mundane action to stop me from thinking. I reached right to the bottom of the damp box and that’s when I felt it. A black jumper that had accidently been packed up in the frenzy. It belonged to him. I ran my fingers down the leather elbow pads and across a loose thread in the sleeve. A small fault within a ream of beautiful fabric, just like our relationship. In our short time together, he had created the loose threads and I had begun to pull them and before we knew it all we had was a tangled ball of wool. Using the black hair tie from around my wrist I pulled my hair up and pushed it loosely away from my face.

  ‘Don’t think,’ I said to myself out loud. ‘Just fold your clothes.’

  SUMMER

  Chapter Three – How to Get Lost in Reality

  It was hot – the kind of heat that London isn’t prepared for – when train tracks melt and people begin bulk-buying ice at the supermarket. Grassy public parks become a carpet for Prosecco bottles, factor twenty-five and supermarket plastic-bag picnic hampers. During the light evenings, a sense of heady weightlessness fills the air. Problems disperse and are exchanged for gin and tonics, despite the fact that city girls become forced to unleash their pale legs, hidden for ten months of the year beneath 100-denier tights. These heated times are unusual in Britain and must be relished during every single hour. Summers are precious to us; they’re unpredictable but always ever so fleeting.

  By summer I had weathered the storm and woken up on the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year that I was ever going to feel so shitty about myself again. Up to that point the feeling of emptiness was indescribable but a weekend spent hiding under a duvet, my computer conveniently open on his social media, had led to an intervention from a higher power.

  According to my friends I was spiralling and I needed to get back to the real world: a distraction from the dull ache that had resided in my chest every day since Charlie and I had split. I wanted to scream, open a window and shout loudly into the world, a vast release or a call to the gods to do something, something bigger than me; bigger than us. Instead I brus
hed my teeth and made my first steps back to reality; the joyous purgatory between a dream and a slap in the face.

  Since my break-up from Charlie, I had tried a number of tactics when it came to trying to give myself a reboot. First, I’d sampled staying in; reverting to the familiar by putting myself under house arrest and refusing to leave unless the house literally caught fire around me. I had stocked up on food, wine, toilet paper and bin liners. I’d tried box sets, starting the novel I’d always wanted to write, and spring cleaning my entire wardrobe by first piling the contents of my wardrobe high onto my bed, followed shortly by a deep sense of regret midway through. In the end, I just threw away half my possessions. All in all, it had been good for feng shui, bad for home economics.

  And, of course, I’d tried going out. What’s more fun than dressing up and dancing to music playing so loud that it drowns out your own thoughts and engulfs you in a different sound – the sound of fun and guilt-free solitude, Amber had asked me. True, there’s nothing quite like feeling the beat of your own heart, moving freely in a dimly lit room full of strangers, bodies in unison with the distant odour of sweet sweat lingering in the air. I’d tried more sedate nights, too – restaurants with old friends, not in one of our regular haunts, somewhere new, with no memories or sentimentality attached. Here, we indulged in two of the most delectable things human beings can do together: gossip and eat. And still, I missed him.

  But it wasn’t until I’d divulged in an evening of speed dating, a collective group of people given three minutes to sell themselves without appearing desperate, that I even considered the idea of a rebound. Not always the answer, I admit, but a strong case can be made for forcing myself to see how life could be a little different. Perhaps not with the person I thought I would be with, perhaps not even someone I would want anything to develop with beyond this one event, but nevertheless, a surefire way to thrust myself, quite literally, out there into a new beginning and leave the pain of the past behind me. And I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about something a little scarier: chemistry. An addictive feeling that can exist with or without being naked. A bond between two people that can unfortunately neither be forced or faked. But in order to see it, I had to test myself. Give someone else a chance. Everything starts from somewhere and how would I know if I didn’t at least try. In this instance, however, I did run the risk of rebounding with the wrong person. A person who made me miss the person I was hiding from even more than before. It’s a risk – a toss up between getting too attached to something that’s meant only to be fleeting, or if things do permeate, commit to something different from where you thought you once would be. A new chance, but in my book a risk worth taking if the alternative lies within the safety of the past.