Be Careful What You Wish For

  Which reminds me of the ticket I got last week for parking on a double yellow line. I didn’t actually park there, I just left my car for a few minutes in an emergency. Unfortunately the traffic warden – a man – didn’t think that having to buy Feminax was an emergency (of course, he’s never suffered from agonising period pains) and gave me a ticket. Which I must remember to pay. I tug a pen from my bag. My memory’s like a sieve so I’m always making lists. I’ve got lists for everything. My fridge is covered with dozens of multi-coloured Post-it notes. The only problem is, half the time I forget to look at them. But I can’t write a reminder to remind me, can I?

  Scribbling ‘PARKING TICKET’ on my hand, I hear the distant rumble of a train approaching. I step back and watch it thunder into the station, rattling alongside the platform, the faces in the carriages blurred as if they’ve melted in the heat. It’s packed as usual. My spirits sink. And then, like every other night of my commuting life, the same thought pops into my head: I wish there was an empty seat.

  The doors slide open and, propelled forwards by the momentum of the crowd behind me, I pop, like a cork out of a bottle, into the carriage. Trying not to focus on the condensation trickling off the windows and down the other passengers’ faces, I work my way through the bodies vacuum-packed into the central aisle. ‘Oops, sorry . . . ’scuse me . . . sorry,’ I gabble, treading on toes until the train sets off with a lurch and I have to lunge for one of the overhead handrails.

  I cling on as we move out of the station, manoeuvring myself sideways so my nose isn’t squashed into someone’s armpit. God, I wish I could sit down. I gaze enviously at those lucky enough to have a seat, eyes passing absentmindedly across unfamiliar faces. A man with a terrible comb-over, a pretty girl with an eyebrow piercing, an old lady with salmon-pink foundation. And freeze on a man with a distinctively strong jaw, a cleft in the chin and a thatch of black hair, underneath which lurks a familiar pair of hazel-brown eyes. Oh, my God, what’s he doing here?

  My stomach does a little flip. It’s my neighbour. My exceedingly handsome neighbour. The one I always think is a dead ringer for Brad Pitt’s dark-haired younger brother. Not that I know whether Brad Pitt actually has a dark-haired younger brother, but if he does I’m sure he’d be just like this guy. Whatever he’s called. Because although I’ve lived across the street from him for the past year I still don’t know his name (which baffles my stepmother who takes it upon herself to know not just the names but the personal habits of every resident of Bath). That’s London, though. People live in the same buildings as their neighbours for years and nod in the communal hallway, but never speak to each other.

  I do, however, know everything about my neighbour, who from this moment onwards shall be referred to as ‘him’. I know that he drives a navy blue Range Rover, shops at Waitrose for food and Joseph for clothes, and orders takeout from Shanghai Surprise, the Vietnamese restaurant on the corner, at least once a week. I also know he’s a keen tennis player, has recently bought himself a white sofa and, judging by the time he opens his bedroom curtains, likes sleeping till noon at weekends.

  Not that I’m stalking him or anything. I just happen to notice him occasionally. As he turns the page of his book I squint at the front cover to see the title. Would you believe it? It’s Life of Pi. My own unread copy is currently doubling as a coaster on my bedside table. I make a decision to start it as soon as I get home.

  For a brief moment I picture myself sitting on my front steps, bathed in the evening sunlight that photographers love to call ‘the magic hour’ as it makes everyone look fabulous, engrossed in a chapter, my hair tumbling seductively over my face, a Gauloise held between my fingers in an artsy French way. When I hear, ‘Hey, what do you think of the book?’ I look up to see my neighbour smiling at me over my hedge and throw back some witty response. Before you know it we’re chatting about characters and plot and the clever use of dialogue . . .

  A sudden influx of new passengers pushes me further back against the side of the carriage throwing me back to reality. In which my neighbour has never noticed me. To him I’m invisible. But perhaps that’s not a bad thing, since I look ridiculous every time I see him. Hastily I try to hide my golf-shod feet behind someone’s briefcase.

  Take last week, for example. After jogging round the park I’d been catching my breath by the entrance, legs all wobbly, hair pasted with sweat to my forehead when who should appear jauntily round the corner all freshly shaved and perfect? Him, of course.

  A few weeks before that I’d been unloading my shopping from the boot of my car, my arms filled with a bumper-pack of super-quilted bog roll, when he’d pulled up and reversed into the space next to me. And, of course, there was the time when I’d popped outside to put out the recycling in my bobbly old dressing gown and a self-heating face-mask – the one that turns bright blue when it’s ready – and he’d just so happened to be at his window. Right at the very second my dressing-gown unravelled and he was treated to an impromptu full-frontal.

  ‘Him’ suddenly glances up, in the way people do when they feel someone’s eyes upon them, and stares right at me. Staring right at him. Oh, Christ, how embarrassing. Spotting an abandoned copy of Loot, a free-ads paper selling everything from second-hand cars to soulmates, I grab it as if it were a life-raft and bury my burning cheeks behind a page of flatshares. Pen in hand, I go through them as if I’m really interested. Just in case he’s watching. ‘Clapham Common: cat-loving lesbian household seeks like-minded sister’; ‘Earl’s Court: space in three-bed flat – share with eight Aussies’; ‘Shoreditch: open-minded artist wanted for funky, fashionable flatshare’.

  And then my heart sinks. There it is. Right near the bottom. Just a single line: ‘Little Venice: single room in flatshare, £150 a week, bills included.’ I stare at it, absent-mindedly doodling a love heart round it as I think about ‘him’. It has to be the most uninspiring, boring advert ever. Which was what I’d intended when I’d placed it three weeks ago.

  I don’t want to have to let my spare room. I don’t want some stranger living in my flat, sharing my sofa, my unused set of Le Creuset pans – my loo seat. But I don’t have much choice. When Daniel moved out he took his Bang & Olufsen TV, half of our photograph collection and his share of the flat’s deposit and its profits. Leaving me with no TV, no pictures of me with dodgy blonde highlights when I was twenty-seven and huge mortgage payments. For the last nine months I’ve been living off my savings and now I’m stony broke. The last two months I defaulted on the mortgage and the bank are threatening me with repossession, so it’s either find a flatmate or . . .

  Or what? I gaze out of the window, wishing I could see an answer to all my problems, but this is the London Underground, not a crystal ball, and all I can see is my own reflection staring back at me from the darkness of the tunnel.

  Chapter Four

  I’d always been under the impression that by the time I hit thirty my life would be more sorted. I’d have some money in the bank, a high-flying career as a photographer, and at least one pair of designer shoes – they didn’t have to be Manolo Blahniks, Kurt Geiger would do. But last year it happened – the big three-O – and I realised that while most of my friends are climbing up the ladders of life, being promoted, getting married, having their hair done at Nicky Clarke, I just keep sliding down the snakes.

  I’m up to my overdraft limit – whoosh, slide down a snake. My beloved MG Midget is in the garage after the run-in with the BMW – whoosh, slide down another snake. As for my high-flying career as a photographer – whooosssssh, there I go again, all the way down to the bottom.

  For a while back there I thought I might have had it sussed. Meeting Daniel, falling in love, buying a flat and moving in together gave me a sense of achievement. Direction. Maturity. Suddenly I had a mortgage, life insurance, a partner. Even though most of the time I felt as if I was playing at being a grown-up, everyone treated me with new respect.

  My wicked stepmother sent me recipe books, a m
ug tree and lots of Tupperware for a mysterious ‘bottom drawer’; Sanjeev at the dry-cleaner’s nodded politely when I dropped off Daniel’s Ralph Lauren shirts along with my suede hipsters. Even the doctor at my local family-planning clinic gave me an approving smile as she wrote out my prescription for the pill.

  So what if the career piece of the jigsaw was missing? All the bits for my love life were there and fitted together perfectly. Surely the rest would fall into place.

  Well, no, it didn’t. Instead it had all fallen apart rather dramatically when I’d borrowed Daniel’s Saab and discovered condoms in the glove compartment. I know – it’s such a cliché. I’d always assumed things like that only happened to characters in soaps or guests on Jerry Springer, but there I’d been, sitting at the lights, singing along to The White Stripes, rummaging in the glove compartment for a rogue packet of cigarettes. Publicly I’d given up months ago, but secretly I’d had a few drags now and again, and Jack White’s vocals always put me in the mood for a cigarette – live fast, die young, rock’n’roll and all that. But instead of a packet of Marlboro Lights, I’d discovered a box of Durex ‘assorted for maximum pleasure’.

  I can remember it as if it was yesterday. My mind froze in shock for a fraction of a second as it tried to accept that not only had I just found condoms in my boyfriend’s car, but a bumper pack of twelve . . . I’d tipped it upside-down and the condoms spilt into my lap. Correction: condom. There was just one left. And it was ribbed.

  For what felt like for ever I’d stared at it resting on my denim crotch. Feeling the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Hearing my heart thudding in my ears. I remember a bizarre urge to laugh. It was just so ludicrous. Daniel? Unfaithful? Having sex with someone else? Followed by an equally intense burst of anger. The bastard. The two-timing bastard. How could he? Finished off with a pathetic desire to break down into tears.

  Yet I didn’t do anything. I just sat numbly behind the wheel. Jack White crooning. Engine running. World turning. Until the sound of car horns had caused me to look up and see that the lights had changed. Along with everything else.

  I’d confronted Daniel as soon as I got back to the flat. At first he’d tried to deny that the condoms were his. He said they belonged to his assistant – it was all a mix-up, a mistake. In fact, he came up with every excuse he could think of. Until finally he’d confessed that he’d been sleeping with someone else – but he wasn’t in love with her, it was just sex. Just sex.

  The way he had said it had been so flippant, as if it was inconsequential, unimportant. Yet those two little words had impacted on my world as if they’d been an iron ball swinging from a bulldozer. Forget breaking my heart, he pretty much demolished it.

  Of course I got over it. People always do. And now I’m fine. Absolutely fine. I’ve got my photography, my friends, my local Blockbuster for Saturday night. And there’s always Billy Smith my cat, if I get a bit lonely. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like the odd date now and again, but I’m not one of those women obsessed with finding ‘the one’. I mean, it’s not as if I fall asleep every night wishing I could meet the perfect man who’s going to fall madly, truly and deeply in love with me. Well, perhaps not every night. Blushing guiltily I glance at my neighbour.

  He’s gone.

  Which is when I realise that the train has stopped and we’re at a station. My station.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep.

  Oh, shit. The doors are making the high-pitched noise that means they’re about to close. Frantically I begin excusing my way through the packed carriages, accidentally dropping the copy of Loot, which falls, scattering green newspaper pages all over the floor of the carriage. Oh, double shit. I scramble for them.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beeeeeeeeeeeep.

  The doors are sliding shut as I abandon the dropped pages and lunge for them. Luckily I make it on to the platform in one piece. I trudge to the escalators and glide upwards. Thank goodness the day’s nearly over. A short walk along the river and I’ll be at home, lying in the back garden, enjoying the sunshine. Er . . . What sunshine?

  Greeted at the exit by dark, angry stormclouds I wish I had an umbrella. Heavy raindrops pummel the pavement, and people are rushing everywhere, holding coats above their heads, slipping in the puddles. Everyone’s getting soaked. Myself included.

  I try holding what’s left of Loot over my head as I run along the high street, but within seconds it’s all soggy. The electric goods page slaps me in the face and sticks, smudging print about Dualit toasters across my forehead, until the whole thing collapses like a waterlogged tent, spilling inky water down my face.

  Oh, what the hell? I chuck it into a bin and continue running. The rain’s bouncing up my legs and drenching my dress, turning the pale blue cotton almost transparent and making it cling to my chest as if I’m in a wet T-shirt competition – bad enough if I was in some drunken, foam-filled club in Lanzarote, but much, much worse in my local high street. Someone I know might see me – and my nipples, which are now protruding through my dress like cocktail cherries.

  Just as I have that humiliating thought I spot my neighbour, completely dry under his sturdy golfing umbrella. He’s a few metres ahead, waiting outside Oddbins, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette and gazing into the middle distance almost as if he hasn’t noticed it’s bucketing down. How does he always manage to look so damn gorgeous?

  In a moment of madness I consider saying hi. After all, we are neighbours. As I near him my heart speeds up, like the beeping of a metal detector when it’s found treasure. Crikey, I hadn’t realised how nervous I was. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

  OK, this is it. ‘Hi.’ I smile, and for some reason decide to raise my hand in a sort of American-Indian ‘How’ sign.

  Only he doesn’t see me, or my impression of Running Big Bear, as he’s turning to a pretty brunette who’s appeared at the shop doorway hugging a bottle of wine. She ducks under his umbrella, links his arm and they set off down the street together, laughing as they dodge puddles, jump across overflowing grates and pretend to splash each other. I swear to God, it’s like something from a bloody Gene Kelly movie.

  Deflated, I can’t help wishing that it was me who was tucked under the umbrella with him, all dry and happy with a spring in my step, instead of standing here in the rain, feeling sorry for myself.

  ‘Heather.’

  A loud yell makes me spin round.

  ‘Lucky heather.’

  I see a straggle of women by the cash machine. The younger ones are dressed in tatty T-shirts and jeans faded at the knees, while their elders are wearing headscarves and holding straw baskets that are getting drenched. They’re trying to approach people in the street. Unfortunately the general public dislikes people trying to sell them things – be it insurance over the phone, religion on their doorstep, or Romany good-luck charms in the street – about as much as they dislike rain, which means that this group of Irish gypsies is being ignored. Ignored, but not unnoticed.

  Like everyone else, I’ve seen them, but I’m desperate to get home so I do what I usually do when I see market researchers with surveys, foreign students employed to give out flyers or – and I admit this with shame – the Greenpeace people who ask me if I’d like to sign up for a monthly donation. I put my head down, look straight ahead, and pretend I’ve had a sudden loss of hearing.

  ‘You’ve got a pretty face, love.’ A gypsy breaks away from the others to barge in front of me like a rugby centre forward.

  I try to dodge her, but she blocks my way. ‘Here, take some lucky heather. Use it wisely and it will bring you your heart’s desire. Good fortune will come your way . . .’ She thrusts a tired sprig tied with a fraying pink ribbon into my face. ‘Never underestimate the power of the lucky heather.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ I say firmly.

  ‘Just two quid, my darlin’.’

  ‘No, honestly.’ I try to avoid her gaze, but the gypsy is grabbing my hand. It feels coarse, the skin weathered
a dark tan in contrast to the pale freckliness of my own. I notice the dirty broken fingernails, the gnarled arthritic knuckles, the silver charm bracelet worn next to the pink plastic Swatch. It’s jangling as she waggles the heather, billing and cooing like the pigeons on the window-ledges overhead. ‘Keep it with you. Trust me, the heather will work its magic. Your luck will change. All your wishes will come true.’

  Yeah, right. Do I look like a complete sucker?

  But from the glint in her piercing green eyes I know she won’t take no for an answer and I’m getting even more soaked standing here so, to get rid of her, I give in and stuff a couple of pound coins into her sandpapery palm. And then she disappears into the rain-soaked crowds, leaving me standing in the middle of the high street, in a downpour, clutching a sprig of white heather.

  Lucky heather.

  The irony isn’t lost on me. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, I peer at the spindly, feathery twigs tied together with a cheap nylon ribbon. This is supposed to have magical powers? I consider tossing it into the bin along with the rest of the city’s rubbish, but the nearest bin is across the street, so I shove it into my bag – I’ll chuck it away when I get home. After I’ve taken off these wet clothes, cracked open a bottle of wine and climbed into a steaming hot bath.

  Dreaming of poaching myself in white-musk-scented bubbles as I drink a glass of sauvignon blanc I forget about the gypsy and the lucky heather and hurry, golf shoes squelching, all the way home.

  Chapter Five

  Dextrously turning off the tap with my big toe, I lie back on the pillow of scented bubbles. Bliss. Sheer, unadulterated bliss. Sipping my wine I inhale the delicious aroma of vanilla and cinnamon – courtesy of the miniature bottles of Molton Brown bubble bath I found recently. They were stashed away in a wicker basket along with other souvenirs of a weekend I’d spent with Daniel in a hotel in the Lake District: a ticket stub to Wordsworth’s cottage, a coffee-stained menu from a café, the little chocolates the maid had put on our pillow each night and I hadn’t dared to eat for fear of my thighs. Which, I remember, with a stab of insecurity, Daniel always described as ‘heavy’.