Cass looked up at the ceiling as she tried to work out my question.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I don’t think so.’
Sipping my tea, I stared at the magazines and poster board on the floor.
‘What’s all this?’ Cass asked, pointing at the mess with a perfectly polished black Chelsea boot. ‘It all looks a bit Blue Peter.’
‘I was trying to make a vision board for what I want my life to look like,’ I replied, shaking my head sadly. ‘But I got distracted by a story about how much Gwyneth Paltrow spends on facials every month. Do you know I’ve never had a facial?’
Cass held up a forefinger to make an unspoken point, put down her tea, then dumped the contents of her tote bag onto the settee between us. Every self-help book I’d ever heard of, as well as several I hadn’t, lay in front of me. Keeping the Love You Find, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, The Five Love Languages and something called Why Men Love Bitches, a theory I had heard much about but had never been able to make work, myself.
‘These are for you.’ She waved her hands over her bounty.
‘I had assumed they weren’t for you,’ I said, picking up Why Men Love Bitches. ‘Unless there’s something you want to tell me about your relationship.’
‘They’re not all about relationships,’ she replied, filtering through the pile until she found what she was looking for. ‘This one is great. Becoming Your Truest You.’
‘Do you feel like you are too nice?’ I read aloud from the back of the book in my hands. ‘This no-nonsense guide reveals why a strong woman is much more desirable than a yes woman who routinely sacrifices herself.’
Cass nodded sagely along with each and every word.
‘I don’t think this one’s for me,’ I said, tossing it back in the bag. ‘Let me have a look at Think Like a Man. I like the chap on the front, he looks like a laugh.’
‘These helped me a lot,’ she said, defensively, piling the books in her lap and shielding their nonexistent ears from my criticism. ‘You can take the mick but you don’t know, they could help. You’re the one making a vision board, after all.’
‘Trying to make a vision board,’ I corrected. ‘Trying to work out what to do with my relationship, trying to work out what to do with my job, trying not to throw myself out the window.’
‘At least you are,’ Cass encouraged. ‘Trying.’
‘As in making an effort or as in testing your patience?’ I asked, scratching my head. ‘Because I’m not sure.’
‘If you wake up with all the answers tomorrow morning, could you give me a call?’ she said, draining her tea. ‘Because I’m married with a baby, I haven’t got a job, and I still haven’t got a clue what’s going on.’
‘Then there’s very little hope for the rest of us,’ I said, smiling at my current favourite friend. Not that it was a competition. Except for when it was. Downstairs, Daniel Craig hurled himself at the broken cat flap and meowed impatiently to be let back in.
‘That’s my cue to leave,’ Cass said, folding up the canvas tote and slipping it neatly inside her handbag. ‘Promise me you’ll at least have a look at them.’
‘I promise,’ I said with a Brownie salute.
‘That’s the wrong hand,’ she replied, tiptoeing over my craft station. ‘And remind me to send you the number of my cleaner.’
‘And a cheque to pay that cleaner?’ I called as she disappeared down the stairs.
It was funny how everyone seemed to have selective hearing these days.
13
‘Oh, wow, I love what you didn’t do with your hair.’ David kicked open the door to the staffroom with a coffee in each hand and a Waitrose bag swinging around his wrist. ‘I feel so special when you make an effort for me.’
‘Thanks, I knew you’d like it,’ I replied, bouncing my hand on top of my straggly bun before grabbing one of the coffees from my seat behind the reception desk. I’d been awake until three a.m. reading Why Men Love Bitches and slept right through my alarm. If it weren’t for the furry three-legged alarm that jumped on my face and demanded to be fed at seven thirty every morning I was at home, I’d have been late.
‘We’re really quiet this afternoon so, if we don’t have any emergencies, I think I’m going to leave a bit early if that’s all right with you?’
‘No problem,’ he said, flipping through the diary on the computer to check. ‘Where are you off to?’
‘I’m doing … paperwork,’ I replied.
David’s eyes lit up like Blackpool and I knew I should have come up with a more convincing lie.
‘The only paperwork you’re capable of is a BuzzFeed multiple-choice quiz. What’s going on?’
‘Nothing,’ I insisted. ‘Paperwork. If I’m going to take over the business, I’d better learn, hadn’t I?’
I was not going to do paperwork. My late-night self-help session might not have taught me much about relationships but it did convince me of one thing. Sitting around cutting out pictures of cherry blossom and geishas, then sticking them to a bit of cardboard, wasn’t going to help me get anywhere with Adam. And the only thing I had achieved by cutting him out of my life was cutting him out of my life. All the books agreed on one thing and one thing only. Communication. We needed to talk. We used to talk for hours when we first started going out. The books were right: we needed to talk. We needed to resolve this before he forgot all about how amazing it was to be part of us.
So obviously, as soon as I’d fed Daniel Craig, I texted my hairdresser to see if she could do me a quick shampoo and blow dry before I invited myself over to his house for an unscheduled pow-wow. The element of surprise was important: the less time he had to prep, the better. You had to think about these things when you were dating a semi-trained lawyer. Reaching up to pat my greasy hair, I longed for simpler times, the days before I felt the need to pay someone twenty-five pounds to wash my hair before any vaguely important life event, but there was nothing I could do about it now.
David stared at me for another minute, not saying a word.
‘I’m doing paperwork,’ I repeated. Until I knew what was going to happen with Adam, I really didn’t want to discuss it with anyone. ‘Didn’t you want something?’
‘Mr Beavis is here.’ David’s mouth turned down at the edges. ‘Nasty old bastard.’
‘Well, technically we’re more interested in the nasty old bastard’s cat,’ I explained, setting my coffee on the shelf and wiping off my hands on the front of my scrubs. ‘And, you know, his money.’
‘Gotta get dem dollar, dollar bills,’ he nodded, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. ‘Do you need me in here? Or can I go and key his car?’
‘Key away but I can’t imagine he’ll be in here long and I’m not bailing you out.’
‘I never get caught,’ he replied, sneaking backwards out of the door. ‘I’m a car-keying ninja.’
I considered whether or not he was joking for a moment, but really, I didn’t want to know. I couldn’t put anything past David.
‘Morning, Mr Beavis,’ I said as David opened the door for a short, squat old man and made not-so-subtle vomiting gestures over his head. ‘How can I help you and Valerie today?’
‘Oh.’
He stopped short of the examination table, clutching his cat carrier to his chest and looking me up and down in a manner that did not seem entirely appropriate to the situation. I glanced down at my top to check nothing was hanging out. Nope, all present and correct and nothing about my person that could possibly be deserving of the look on his face.
‘Mr Beavis?’ I asked when he failed to move. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m supposed to see Dr Addison,’ he said, face as sombre as the grave. ‘My appointment is with Dr Addison.’
‘That’s me,’ I replied, a sunny smile fixed to my face. ‘Do you want to get Valerie out on the table so I can have a look at her?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I want to see Dr Addison.’
This was not the first time t
his had happened. There were a certain number of people in the village, older people to be entirely honest, who could not get their head around the idea of me as a vet. Half of them because they still thought of me as the little girl in bunches, running around the surgery with a bag of pick and mix, and half because they believed that having a vagina rendered me incapable of putting a thermometer up their pet’s backside and telling its temperature. Even now, after all these years, it was still a problem, as if the Spice Girls, Margaret Thatcher and The Vicar of Dibley had never happened. And while I rarely name-dropped Margaret Thatcher as a poster girl for feminism, I couldn’t help but think if she’d wanted to put a thermometer up a dog’s backside, Nigel Beavis would not have tried to stop her.
‘I am a vet, Mr Beavis,’ I said, trying not to sigh. ‘Fully qualified and everything. I don’t know if you’ve heard but my dad has actually retired.’
‘Good lord.’ He coiled his arm around the front of the cat carrier to shield Valerie’s eyes and took a step back. ‘Are you closing down?’
‘No,’ I said, cupping my chin in my hands and resting my elbows on the table. ‘But I’d better find a man to cover for me when I’ve got my monthlies, hadn’t I?’
He wasn’t crying but he was definitely close.
There was something about living in a village that brought out the best and the worst in people. I loved the sense of community, having people I knew around every corner, but there were also times when I would have happily driven the entire population off the edge of a cliff, lemming style. When you did all the same things and went to all the same places as your parents and your grandparents before them, it was hard to shift your perspective.
And it was even harder if you just couldn’t be bothered.
‘Please can you put Valerie on the table,’ I asked, pulling a fresh pair of rubber gloves out of the box on the side. ‘Let me take a look at her.’
‘We’ll come back when Dr Addison is here,’ Mr Beavis said, chin held high. ‘No disrespect meant, but Valerie likes who she likes and I don’t want strangers fiddling with her.’
‘Mr Beavis, I’ve known you my whole life,’ I reminded him, snapping my gloves against my wrist. ‘And my dad is retired. I’m afraid Valerie is going to have to get used to some unfamiliar fiddling sooner or later.’
Valerie yowled inside the cat carrier and it was impossible to say whether she was cheering for me or against.
‘But he hasn’t completely finished yet, has he?’
Ah, selective hearing at its very best.
‘No,’ I admitted slowly. ‘He’s still doing a couple of hours a week while we work out the handover.’
‘Then we’ll come back when we can see Dr Addison,’ he said again, either totally unaware or totally unconcerned with how offensive he was. ‘No disrespect, mind.’
I watched in disbelief as he trundled out of the examination room, Valerie clawing at the back of her cat carrier, meowing wildly as they went. Clearly not as picky about who ‘fiddled’ with her as Mr Beavis would like to think. I yanked off the gloves and chucked them at the wall, missing the bin entirely. Stupid man. Stupid village. Stupid me for staying here. And this was what I was supposed to sign up to, for the rest of my life?
‘Bugger,’ I breathed, splaying my fingers out on the cold metal table and trying to take deep, calming breaths. ‘Bugger bugger bugger.’
‘Are you OK?’ David popped his head around the door. ‘Did you do him with the slow release poison?’
‘I keep forgetting we’ve got that,’ I replied, flicking the tubing of my stethoscope. ‘Beavis wouldn’t let me and my vagina look at his supposedly sick cat.’
‘You use your vagina to diagnose the animals?’ he asked. ‘Wow, I never knew that.’
‘We don’t tell you everything,’ I said, rewinding my bun tightly. ‘Did you key his car?’
‘He walked,’ he said, looking as disappointed as I felt. ‘But if it’s any consolation, you’re free for the next hour. Want to sit on the back wall and watch me have a fag?’
‘Yes,’ I said with a heavy sigh. ‘Yes I do.’
‘Come on then.’
He held out his arm and I took it. Maybe I should stop encouraging him to get out and meet people and just marry David. We could sit in our front garden and grow old together, shouting at people and bemoaning what passed for fashion in this day and age. David already did both of those things, so I’d be learning from a master. Of course there was the problem of him being a twenty-four-year-old he-slag with a not-so-secret boner for my best friend but surely anyone could be dragged down to my level if I was persistent enough?
‘He’s a doddering old fool,’ David said as I followed him out into the back yard. It was a beautiful day, all fresh crisp air with just enough late-summer sun to take the edge off.
‘Don’t pay any attention,’ he pulled a packet of Marlborough Lights out of his clown-dog pocket and sparked up. ‘He’s a foul, irrelevant old grunt. Your dad’ll kick his arse.’
The rush of cigarette smoke didn’t really go with the idyllic English country garden I’d been trying for when I bought that apple tree in a barrel, but beggars can’t be choosers and if I was planning to spend my twilight years as a grumpy old hag, I needed to start putting the time and effort in now.
‘He’s not a Year Seven bully, I shouldn’t need to get my dad to tell him off for me,’ I said, tilting my face up into the sunshine. ‘I want him to come in and say, please could you look at my cat, O wonderful veterinarian who studied for donkey’s and gets up at six a.m. every day to make sure Mittens’ diabetes is under control, hardly ever gets a full day off and constantly smells a little bit like cat piss.’
‘Mittens?’ he asked, post-inhale. ‘Shit, did I miss a patient?’
‘Mittens is a nonexistent example. Shit like this is why I don’t want to be stuck here forever. Shit like this wouldn’t happen in a big city,’ I explained. ‘It would be nice to be appreciated for once, that’s all.’
‘I appreciate you.’
‘Not by you.’
‘Your dad appreciates you.’
‘My dad takes me for granted, it’s a different thing.’
David took another drag and blew it out slowly. ‘What do you want? A medal?’
‘A million pounds, my own private island, and to always be a size ten, no matter what I eat,’ I replied. ‘And forty-eight hours with Roger Federer.’
‘He’s married,’ David said. ‘And you wouldn’t want him if he shagged around on his missus because that’s half the reason you like him.’
‘It is,’ I admitted. ‘That and the fact that he owns his own cow. Maybe I could be his personal vet?’
‘You know what I do when I feel as miserable as you look?’ he asked, grinding his cigarette out on the stone wall and knocking it into the car park. I shot him a look of disbelief, which he brushed away. ‘I’ll get it in a minute. You know what I do when I’m as pissed off as you look right now?’
I thought for a moment.
‘Listen to Justin Bieber?’
‘He’s relevant now and you know it,’ he replied before clearing his throat to recover himself. ‘No, when I’m feeling shit, I go on Tinder and I swipe right a few times and then I watch the matches come rolling in.’
‘With all due respect,’ I said, pulling out my hair tie and letting my manky hair fall around my shoulders, ‘I don’t think a one night stand is the answer to anyone’s problems right now. Except for possibly Mr Beavis. Or Valerie the cat.’
‘Not for a shag.’ He held out his hands, offended. ‘It’s an ego stroke, that’s all. You go in, you swipe left, you swipe right, after a couple of minutes someone swipes right on you and, ta-da, all of a sudden, all is right with the world.’
I took my phone out of my white coat pocket and stared at the black screen.
‘So, I’m feeling crappy, I’m second guessing ten years of career choices and I’m suddenly uncertain about the man I thought I was going to marry bu
t you think I’ll feel better if I allow a load of strangers to objectify me on a dating app?’
‘More or less,’ he replied. ‘Only it’s mutual objectification. So it’s OK!’
I had to admit, this was a lot quicker than Cass’s suggestion of reading every self-help book on earth. Instant online gratification versus four hundred pages on why I should start being a complete cow and demanding Adam pay for my dinner every time we left the house.
‘I’ve never even been on an online date,’ I admitted as David took out his own, matching phone and started jabbing away at it, squinting at the screen against the late summer sun. ‘I think I signed up for one of them years ago but I don’t even remember my username. God, I have to fix things with Adam, don’t I? I can’t do this, David. I can’t start dating again now, I don’t even know how to set up a Tinder account.’
‘You don’t need to,’ he said, waving his phone under my nose. ‘I’ve done it for you.’
And there it was. My face in a pulsating red circle. It was looking for my matches, no, wait, it had found my matches. Bruce, 39, Mark, 45, Jonathan, 45, Joey, 44, Roger, 52.
‘How?’ I demanded, watching as David flicked through faces faster than I could fathom. ‘How did you do that?’
‘When you get around to changing your Netflix and your Just Eat passwords, I’d change your Facebook password as well,’ he said. ‘Joey4Pacey4eva? You should be ashamed. You have two degrees.’
‘Shut up,’ I watched as the men kept flashing by. Josh, 45, Amin, 38, Will, 37. ‘Wait, why are they all so old?’
‘Uh, how old are you again?’ he asked, taking the phone back and fiddling again as I gave him a thunderous look. ‘Just give me your max oldest, max youngest.’
‘Forty and thirty,’ I said, confidently. ‘Never married, no kids, good hair, nice teeth.’
‘No fat chicks?’ David suggested. ‘You might want to dial it down a bit, Liv. We’re looking for an ego boost, not your soulmate. Although, even I wouldn’t kick this one out of bed for eating biscuits.’
He handed me the phone and I actually gasped out loud. There on the screen was an actual god. Tall, bearded, thick brown hair with glowing green eyes that stared straight out of the screen and right into my pants. Henry, 36, obscenely good looking and apparently, single. Or at the very least, available, according to the internet.