We Were On a Break

  ‘Mmm-hmm.’

  ‘So, you’ll sign all three copies then I’ll take them back to the solicitor, he’ll sort everything out at his end and then you’ll be the sole owner and proprietor of Dr Addison and Associates Veterinary Clinic. Isn’t that exciting?’

  He turned just in time to see me shovel an entire Hobnob into my mouth.

  ‘I know you’ll need another vet,’ he went on, ‘so I’ve asked a few of my friends if they know anyone and it turns out Dr Khan’s son is looking for a new practice, so he’s going to give me a call. Lovely man, Dr Khan, always wears a tie.’

  ‘Shouldn’t he be calling me?’ I asked, pouring boiling water straight into our mugs and bypassing the teapot entirely. Mostly out of spite. ‘He is going to be working for me, after all.’

  ‘Yes, but I thought it’d save you a job,’ Dad replied. ‘Didn’t you just tell me how very busy you are?’

  Narrowing my eyes, I dunked the teabags three times before dumping them into the sink.

  ‘Besides, I’d rather have someone I trust in there, Livvy. Your mum is chomping at the bit to get off on a cruise and I need to know the place is in safe hands.’

  ‘And what are these?’ I asked, waving my hands in front of my face. ‘Flippers?’

  ‘You’d be the first to admit you’re not exactly the most business-minded girl in the world,’ he said with a smile, picking up an old copy of Marie Claire, frowning at the cover lines and putting it back on the table, face down. ‘You’re going to have a lot more to worry about than you do now, you know, and you’d be surprised at how long the business side of things takes. You’ll really need someone to take part of the practice work off your hands so you can look after everything else.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that actually,’ I said, skimming little white floaters from the top of his tea. ‘You know admin isn’t exactly my passion, so I’m thinking about hiring an office manager.’

  Dad took his tea and considered it for a moment.

  ‘Did you make this in the teapot?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He sniffed his tea and set it on the table. ‘I’m not sure about that. This is what’s best for the business. An Addison in charge, just like there always has been.’

  ‘And what about what’s best for me?’ I asked. ‘Seriously, Dad, if I have to do all the books by myself, there won’t be anything left for an Addison to be in charge of. It makes so much more sense to get an office manager in than it does to hire another full-time vet when that’s the part I’m good at.’

  ‘Olivia, don’t shout, you’re upsetting the cat.’ Dad gestured over to DC, who was sleeping undisturbed in the corner of the room. ‘And I think your milk is off.’

  My dad really had a gift for making me feel like a child. I hadn’t been shouting but I was getting bloody close. I was also two seconds away from stamping my foot, running to my room and reminding him I’d never asked to be born.

  ‘Livvy,’ Dad took off his glasses, polishing them on the white handkerchief he pulled out of his back pocket, ‘come on now, is something else the matter?’

  ‘Many, many things are the matter,’ I replied, taking a swig of sour tea. ‘But the only thing that matters right now is you steamrollering my ideas. Dad, I’m thirty years old, if you want me to run the surgery, you need to let me run the surgery.’

  ‘Have you had a falling out with Adam?’ he asked, a too sympathetic look on his face. ‘It’s not like you to get so upset about nothing.’

  Shaking with anger, I put down my tea before it spilled. How dare he assume I was upset about anything other than the surgery? Poor little girl Liv, she couldn’t possibly be questioning his decision once it had been made.

  ‘It’s not nothing,’ I argued. ‘Can you hear yourself? You want me to take over the surgery, you want me to give up treating the animals, the part I love, to do admin, which I hate, and you want to choose who I employ to take over the part of the job you’re taking away from me. It’s not exactly a treat, Dad.’

  He pushed his glasses back up his nose and shook his head at me with a smile. Condescension, thy name is Dad.

  ‘You know you’re overreacting?’ he said, reluctantly sipping his tea. ‘I’m only trying to help. Running the surgery isn’t a game, Olivia, you can’t take on the parts you want and fob off the parts you don’t. That’s not how real life works.’

  ‘Actually, that’s exactly how it works,’ I replied. ‘It doesn’t make any sense to take me away from the animals and put me on paperwork when I can employ someone else to do it better than I can.’

  ‘I’m not bringing in a stranger to run my business.’ Dad waved his hands in the air and I realized this was possibly the most emotional I’d ever seen him without a sherry in his system. There was a reason why he didn’t drink. ‘That’s not how it’s done.’

  ‘It’s not how you did it,’ I countered. ‘But this is going to be my business. Not yours. If you don’t want me to do this the way I want, maybe you shouldn’t be leaving in the first place.’

  He gave me a look I recognized from endless arguments across the dinner table. No, you can’t go round to Abi’s after school when you’ve got homework to do. No, you can’t go to university in London when you can go to Nottingham and live at home. No, you can’t make any decisions even though you’re a grown bloody woman who has come up with a perfectly sound business plan of her own.

  ‘Right.’ Dad stood up and tapped the envelope on the coffee table. ‘I’m going to go. You can drop these round when you’ve signed them. You can bring them round after the christening on Sunday.’

  ‘Dad, sit down,’ I insisted, raking my hands through my hair. ‘I want to talk about this.’

  ‘I think you’ve made your point,’ he said, fumbling in his jacket pocket for his car keys. ‘I’ll let you know when I’ve spoken to Dr Khan’s son.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I muttered to the cat. Was I hallucinating? Why wouldn’t anyone listen to me? David was always threatening to spike my tea with ketamine, he must have finally come good on his promise.

  ‘I’ll talk to you later,’ Dad said, picking his way through my messy flat. ‘And clean this bloody flat, it’s a disgrace.’

  I waited for him to shut the front door behind him before stamping my feet on the floor, stuffing two more biscuits into my mouth and flinging myself on my back on the settee. Daniel Craig made a quiet roaring sound before stretching out his single back leg and hopping over to leap onto my belly.

  ‘That is not comfortable, you know,’ I told him as he padded up and down, his tiny feet pressing into my flesh. ‘You’ve been told before.’

  But, like everything else on earth with a penis, Daniel Craig had little interest in listening to anything I had to say. Almost everything else on earth, I thought, grabbing my phone and pulling up Henry’s message. Henry was interested in what I had to say. Henry wasn’t down my local with another woman or forcing me to hire Dr Khan’s son who might or might not, in fact, be a very good vet, but that wasn’t the point. Henry wanted to trade emoticons and pleasantries and, according to his latest message, get a drink together on Friday night.

  Closing my eyes and pulling a blanket over Daniel Craig and myself, I let myself imagine, for just a moment, how it might feel to say yes.

  20

  As if I wasn’t already entirely unconvinced by what I was doing, the train into town on a Friday night was the closest thing I could imagine to the seventh circle of hell without driving all the way down to Basildon. It wasn’t even seven and the sky was only just dark, but as the sun went down, the hemlines went up and the overpowering scent of Joop! choked everyone on the train over the age of twenty-five. So, just David and me.

  ‘You look like you’re going to throw up,’ he said as I nursed my handbag in my lap. ‘Is that the look you’re going for?’

  ‘I was hoping more for hello, how are you, please don’t kill me,’ I replied, tapping my toes on the sticky
floor as a group of females of indeterminate ages scrawled on each other’s faces with chunky brown crayons, glued to their phone screens as they blended, blended, blended. ‘Is that coming across too?’

  ‘Liv, don’t be so 2007,’ he scoffed. ‘No one gets murdered on internet dates any more. You’re far more likely to be bumped off by your Uber driver on the way home.’

  ‘So reassuring,’ I said, one eye still on the girls across the carriage. ‘Are they drawing on abs?’

  ‘The fact that crop tops came back in the same decade that someone invented an app for pizza delivery just goes to prove that there’s no god,’ he nodded. ‘It’s a terrible thing to happen to the British Isles, we’re not made for them. We’re a naturally soft people.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I pinched at my own softness underneath my coat. No one else was wearing a coat. Literally no one else on the train had anything over their brightly coloured and oddly slashed ensembles. ‘Is he going to think I’m a weirdo for wearing a coat?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But look at those girls. No coats and definitely DTF. You look … nice.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I shook my head quickly from side to side. ‘No, no, no. Nice? I look nice? I’m cancelling, I’m going home.’

  ‘You can’t.’ He pulled my phone out of my hands before I could text Henry and slapped my wrist. ‘It’s too late to cancel now. You’re going to meet him, you’re going to have one drink, and that’s all. I will be right there in the bar so you’re not on your own, no one has any expectations, and when I said nice, I meant astounding. You’re a stud, you’re fit as, you’re Sandy at the end of Grease. You’re 2016’s Khloé Kardashian.’

  ‘Did we establish where you stand on Khloé?’ I asked.

  ‘Not keen,’ he replied, watching as the girls across the train swapped their chunky brown crayon for a bright white shimmer stick. ‘But you can’t argue with that arse. Primarily because if you did, her mum would have you killed.’

  Ever since I’d agreed to my date with Henry I’d been regretting it. I’d taken out my phone to cancel at least a dozen times but Abi and David had somehow persuaded me not to. Cass had told me to cancel and, given that I’d regretted telling her the instant the words were out of my mouth, I’d told her that I had. The last thing I needed was her telling Chris and Chris telling Adam and Adam having so much as an opinion. Even if I wasn’t sure he would even care. He might be relieved – if I was out on a date, he could crack on with Legs McGee without feeling the slightest bit bad. I didn’t know when it had happened exactly, but somewhere between seeing that girl in my pub and getting on the train into Nottingham I’d stopped waiting to hear from him. The disappointment I felt every time I checked my emails and texts had become commonplace and I seemed suspiciously as though I would get used to it rather than get rid of it.

  ‘Look at them.’ I watched as the amateur make-up artists drew whiskers on each other’s faces. ‘Doing their make-up on the train. Forget Kris Jenner, my mother would slap their legs out from under them.’

  ‘They’re strobing,’ David whispered.

  ‘I know what they’re doing,’ I whispered back. ‘I read magazines, I’m thirty, not dead.’

  ‘The fact you tried to defend yourself by saying you read magazines doesn’t really support that statement,’ he sniffed. ‘Did you watch that link I sent you?’

  ‘Unless it was someone making an omelette in a sandwich bag, I did not,’ I confirmed. ‘I assumed it was porn.’

  ‘It was, I’m just asking,’ he said, brushing his black hair back over his ears and inclining his head slightly at a man sat two seats up. ‘I thought it might take the edge off your nerves.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I pressed my lips together to redistribute the colour and reached into my tiny bag for a lip balm before remembering I couldn’t apply it over my matte lips. Putting on lip balm was one of life’s few pleasures – what had possessed me to deny myself such a thing on such a stressful evening? ‘I really don’t know if I can do this.’

  David tapped the back of my hand as the train pulled into Carlton station and yet more stripy, soft girls got on, accompanied by boys in slim fit trousers and buttoned up shirts.

  ‘If you really don’t want to go, don’t go,’ he shrugged. ‘NBD.’

  But it was a big deal. There was no question about it, I was definitely rushing into this but I couldn’t spend another Friday night alone staring at Ming the Merciless while Adam paraded that girl up and down the village. And despite my best efforts, the only alternatives I’d been able to rustle up were Scrabble with my mum, misusing controlled substances with David or killing myself. This was a better option. If he could go on a date, I could go on a date. Even if I felt like throwing up, sobbing and laughing hysterically at the same time.

  Poor Henry.

  ‘He seems like a nice guy,’ I said, bobbing my head to the Justin Bieber song rattling out of the new group’s mobile phone. ‘He’s thirty-four, went to uni in London. Originally from Newcastle. Tall. Beard. All his own teeth.’

  David looked impressed.

  ‘All I knew about my last online date was how much she liked to take selfies in her bathroom mirror,’ he replied. ‘You’re so demanding.’

  ‘Different priorities, I imagine,’ I said, patting his knee. ‘Now, honestly, do I look OK?’

  ‘More than OK,’ he replied and held his phone up in front of my face. ‘Now, laugh like you just saw Donald Trump’s penis.’

  ‘Ew.’ I wrinkled my nose and the flash on his phone lit up my face. ‘That’s disgusting.’

  ‘So is that photo,’ he said, laughing. ‘No filter on earth could save that. Let’s try again. Who has a funny penis?’

  ‘Everyone?’ I suggested as he snapped.

  ‘That works.’ He showed me the screen for just a second, my face a pre-filter blur of white skin and red lipstick. ‘You’re not laughing but you look fit.’

  ‘Why do you need a photo of me looking fit?’ I asked, not really wanting to know the answer. ‘You’re not whoring me out to your friends are you? It’s too soon and, you know, they’re all awful.’

  ‘It’s going on Facebook,’ he replied, too busy filtering the picture to death to actually look at me. ‘And Twitter and Instagram. You want everyone to see what a good time you’re having. And by everyone, I mean Adam.’

  He held up the finished photo and even I had to admit it was actually bloody good.

  ‘Don’t tell me what you did to it, just post it,’ I said as we pulled into Nottingham station. ‘Are you sure you’re not gay?’

  ‘Positive,’ he replied. ‘I couldn’t cope with the stubble rash. Come on, we’re up.’

  Pulling my skirt down over my knees, I stood up and followed him off the train, out into the bright lights of the moderately sized city.

  ‘Right. We’re doing this. You go in first and I’ll be at the bar in five minutes.’

  Two doors down from Tilt, David placed his hands on my shoulders, geeing me up with his best pre-game talk. ‘If things aren’t going well, give me the signal and I’ll come and rescue you. What’s the signal?’

  ‘“David, things aren’t going well, please come and rescue me”,’ I said. It was so long since I’d gone on a date, I’d forgotten how incredibly awful it felt. Anxious and nervous and worried he wouldn’t fancy me even though I still very much wanted to go home. How had the human race survived this long when it was this difficult? ‘How’s my lipstick?’

  ‘On your face,’ he said, with a double thumbs up. ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Like the man I love has thrown me over for someone way more attractive and if he doesn’t want me any more, why should anyone else?’

  ‘Not ideal.’ David held out his hand for a fist-bump. ‘But you’re here now, might as well have a drink.’

  The bar was up a narrow staircase and lively jazz accompanied me on my way up. Bluesy guitar and a smoky woman’s voice sang a song I didn’t know, somewhere I couldn’t see, and the low rumble of d
ate night conversation kept tempo with the music and the heartbeat in my ears. It was busy already. I paused in the doorway, trying to work out if any of the men sitting at tiny tables on their own, eyes fixed on the phones, could be Henry. Four of them had light brown hair, three of them had a beard and they all looked tall, sitting down. He could have been any of them. It was the hardest and potentially most embarrassing game of Guess Who? ever.

  My eyes scanned the bar like a gussied up Terminator as I tried to spot my date until they rested on a man with light brown hair, something of a beard and piercing, bright green eyes sitting alone at a table by the window. He looked over in my direction and I felt as though I’d been pinned to the wall. Without moving any other part of his body, he raised a hand and reeled me in.

  ‘Hello.’

  His voice was calm and deep and even. I liked it.

  ‘Hello,’ I replied, pulling out my chair noisily and pulling my skirt down over my thighs. Should have worn jeans, I told myself as I rested my handbag on my knees then hung it on the back of the chair before finally settling it on the floor beside me. I pushed my hair behind my ears, smoothed out the ends and offered my date my best tight, bright smile. Fidgets R Us.

  ‘Drink?’ he suggested.

  ‘Probably a good idea,’ I replied.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ he said.

  Henry was handsome, there was no doubt about that. Truly handsome. He had the classic kind of face that my grandmother would have approved of and looked as though he should be wearing a World War Two officer’s uniform. As it was, he was wearing dark blue jeans and a light blue shirt but I had to assume he’d look just as good in a bin bag. He definitely had the shoulders for it. The beard he had in all of his Tinder photos was considerably lighter in real life, trimmed back to something that was almost designer stubble, and I couldn’t have said for sure that I would have recognized him if he hadn’t waved first. He had the rare quality of being considerably better looking in real life than he was in pictures and now, confronted with his high cheekbones, green eyes and complete self-assuredness, I didn’t know quite what to do with myself.