In the living room, Matthew had worked a miracle of his own. By the time Emelie and I arrived home, the locks had been changed, all of the photos had been taken down and every single thing of Simon’s was stashed in bin bags in the basement. If only he was down there with them. It was impressive; the place was spotless. Turned out I actually owned a vacuum cleaner. You learn something new every day …
‘You really do look great.’ Matthew made me do one more spin in the last outfit of my impromptu fashion show before patting the seat next to him on the sofa. I really didn’t want to sit down: my new hair had made me slightly hyper. ‘I love it.’
‘It’s not too Cheryl after the divorce?’
‘Not even,’ he reassured me. ‘You feel all right?’
‘Good actually.’ I looked around the room trying to work out what had been hidden away. It was strange, like playing that party game when your mum takes something away from the tray and you have to remember what’s gone but you can’t see it, you just know something is missing. ‘Honestly, really good.’
‘Hold that thought,’ he lied. ‘So, while you were out, Simon called.’
And just like that, I felt like shit again.
‘Did you speak to him?’ I tucked my hair behind my ears. Dress schmess.
‘He wasn’t really up for a chat.’ He immediately brushed my hair out from behind my ears. ‘He wants you to give him a ring.’
‘Right.’
I peered down at my shoes. I needed new shoes to go with my new hair. And a new boyfriend to go with my new shoes. And we’d fall madly in love, get engaged and have a baby and then bump into Simon at a mutual friend’s barbecue and he would realize what a mistake he’d made because I was so wonderful and then he would throw himself off a bridge. Now who could I get to have a barbecue?
‘You don’t have to call him,’ Matthew interrupted my fantasy. ‘I could call him. Or you can just text him or something.’
‘Or I could call him and tell him what a massive bastard he is,’ Em shouted from the kitchen. I could hear the kettle whistling already. She was ever so good. ‘Please let me call him.’
‘No, I can do it,’ I stood up. And sat back down. And stood up again. ‘I can call him.’
There was no question as to whether I physically had the ability to call him, but the mental strength? Turned out to be something else altogether. As I dialled the number, I started to feel a little bit sick. But it had to be done. Not calling him now I knew he’d been in touch meant it would just be hanging over my head. My pretty red head. I could do this. Redhead Rachel could absolutely do this. Emelie delivered my cup of tea and Matthew sat beside me on the sofa, a warm, heavy hand on my shoulder. It was only a phone call. Just because the last words we’d exchanged were during awkward break-up sex that I’d thought was awkward reunion sex at the time, why would this be strange?
‘Simon speaking.’ He answered, as always, on the second ring.
‘S’me.’
Eloquent to the last.
‘Rachel?’
My voice was a little bit quieter than I would have liked but I wasn’t crying. Because I had red hair. Redheads didn’t cry. Probably.
‘Yep, Matthew said you called?’
If only we had videophones. He couldn’t even see how amazing I looked. Actually, this was an iPhone, we did have videophones … could I still hang up and call back?
‘I can’t actually talk at the moment,’ he sounded tired. ‘I’m busy now. I called you an hour ago.’
‘Well, we could maybe get a coffee later or something?’ I replied before I lost my nerve. That’s what people who weren’t about to slash their wrists because their boyfriend had callously abandoned their five-year relationship did, wasn’t it? Coffee. Coffee or gin. Or whiskey. Mmm, whiskey.
‘Or a drink?’
‘Tonight?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Tonight.’ Was it me, or did he sound a bit annoyed?
‘Can’t. Busy.’ Definitely sounded a bit annoyed.
This was an interesting turn of events.
‘Right, because Matthew said you wanted me to call you back.’ I tried to control my increasing rage. Redheads had fiery tempers; this absolutely was not my fault. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I’ll email you tomorrow, I’m at the cinema,’ he hissed. ‘And I’m going away on this work thing tomorrow so it’ll be the afternoon probably.’
He was at the cinema? He was at the bloody cinema? He had run out on me and stolen my toothpaste and now he was at the cinema? Couldn’t help but wonder what he was seeing.
‘I don’t want an email, I want you to talk to me.’ Red Rum. Red Rum. ‘What is going on, Simon?’
‘Look, I’m hanging up,’ he upgraded from a bit annoyed to pissed off. ‘I just wanted to stop round and get some stuff but it’s a bit bloody late now. There’s nothing to talk about.’
‘There’s nothing to talk about?’ Ooh, that was a bit shrill. ‘Five years together, you suddenly up and decide you’re done with it and there’s nothing to talk about?’
‘Rach, we’re not getting back together,’ he replied. ‘There’s no point trying to get me out for a drink, thinking I’ll change my mind and come home. So just give it a rest.’
I was actually lost for words.
But Simon clearly wasn’t. ‘I’m twenty-nine. I don’t want to “talk about it”,’ he ranted. For someone who didn’t want to talk to me, he seemed to have a lot to say right now. ‘I don’t want to go to Sainsbury’s because it’s Saturday; I don’t want to have tea with your mum because it’s Monday, and maybe, I don’t want to get married, knock out two kids and die from complete and utter boredom. Now I’ve got to go, I’ll email you tomorrow or we’ll talk when I get back.’
I hung up before he could and handed my phone to Matthew.
‘What a knob.’ Matthew tightened his grip on my shoulder. ‘What a complete and utter knob.’
‘Calm down, Matthew, he can’t talk, he’s at the cinema,’ I replied with bitter sarcasm.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I could call back but he’d probably just turned his phone off. I could go to every cinema in London and check every single screen until I found the bastard, but then what? Obviously there was always physical violence but I’d heard that was never the answer. Even if it did feel like it would give me some degree of satisfaction.
‘I know what to do.’ Em passed me a cup of tea and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I held both for a moment. Whiskey was the last thing I needed but I’d seen Mad Men. Or at least some of Mad Men. Redheads didn’t drink tea when they were angry, they drank whiskey. ‘Get your laptop.’
I pulled out my ancient MacBook, inherited from Paul two upgrades ago, and passed it to Em before alternating sips of tea and bourbon. Hmm, interesting. Tennessee Tea. Probably wouldn’t catch on.
‘Matthew here has done a fabulous job of getting all knob-head’s stuff out of the flat but now it’s exorcism time.’
‘Are we going to burn his stuff?’ I asked hopefully.
‘We’re not going pyro just yet.’ She opened up the computer and brought up Facebook. ‘We’re going to erase him.’
‘You’re going to kill him?’
‘Not quite,’ she replied. ‘You’re going to wipe him out of your digital existence. You don’t want to be logging in and seeing his face every two seconds. Oh. Ah.’
‘What’s up?’ Tetley’s and Jack Daniel’s actually went together better than I’d expected.
‘He’s sort of beaten me to it.’ She turned the screen to face me.
Simon Mitchell is no longer listed as being in a relationship.
Simon Mitchell is now listed as single.
I couldn’t stop staring.
‘He’s changed his relationship status on Facebook?’ I said. ‘What is he, fourteen?’
‘You’ve got quite a lot of messages.’ Matthew pointed to the little red icon at the top of the screen. ‘Maybe we need to go on a bit of a PR offensive.’
r /> ‘No.’ Another swig. ‘I’m not lowering myself. I just want him gone.’
‘Done and done.’ Em started tapping away at the keyboard.
It was one thing for him to want to break up with me; it was another thing for him to tell the entire internet. It was just so final, so public. Surely I should be allowed to tell people in my own time? Now 417 people had all been told that I’d been dumped without my knowledge. I hadn’t even told my mum. Bloody Facebook – and to think I’d enjoyed The Social Network. Clearly Mark Zuckerberg was the devil. Why was there no official rule about this? Or at least an episode of Sex and the City? There was an episode about what to do when your boyfriend has skid-marks; there should definitely be one about this. It’s not as if they achieved anything else in the second movie – surely ten minutes could have been spent clarifying what happens when your boyfriend tells the entire internet that he’s finished with you. Carrie Bradshaw, you selfish cow.
‘What can we do?’ Matthew asked softly.
It took me a moment to realize that the strange raspy sound I could hear was my own breathing.
‘Not a lot anyone can do, is there?’ I bit my lip. ‘I’m just going to have to get on with things.’ One more swig. ‘And get drunk.’
Forty-eight hours ago I’d been a blonde with a boyfriend. Now I was a redhead with a drinking problem. By Saturday, I was set to be a bald smackhead.
Amazing.
By the time I’d calmed down, Emelie had removed any and all traces of Simon from my computer. Matthew had blocked his number from my mobile and I was drunk. Em had said I needed to build up my alcohol tolerance.
‘I need to go to bed,’ I announced, halfway into the third episode of Come Dine with Me. ‘I have work in the morning.’
‘Me too.’ Em rubbed her forehead, looking a little the worse for wear. She’d really gone above and beyond and joined me in the Jack Daniel’s fest. ‘I have a meeting. Somewhere. About Kitty Kitty lunchboxes. I really should go home and get some clothes.’
Matthew was reading text messages on his phone and pulling a concerned face. I knew better than to ask who they were from and what they were about. I rarely ever felt better for the graphic detail he was happy to share.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that Emelie hadn’t actually left my side since Saturday morning. Matthew as well. If I hadn’t been feeling so shit, I’d be feeling pretty lucky.
‘You don’t have to stay, either of you.’ I barrelled into her, face first, with a massive hug. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t have work – if she’s leaving, I’m staying.’ Matthew looked at me, looked at his phone and then back at me. ‘You’re stuck with me tonight.’
‘I do love you.’ I clambered across Em to give him a hug all of his own. ‘You’re both amazing.’
‘True,’ he said, ruffling my hair. ‘It’s definitely bedtime for you though, red.’
‘I have red hair,’ I said, rolling off his lap into a graceful pile on the floor. ‘It’s pretty.’
‘And tomorrow you’re going to have a hangover.’ He picked me up and carried me off into the bedroom. If only he were my lovely boyfriend and not a giant homosexual. Sob. ‘What time do you need to get up?’
‘Dan’s collecting me at ten,’ I said with a hiccup. ‘S’fine.’
‘I’ll get you up at nine then.’ He deposited me on the bed and kissed me on the forehead. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Night,’ I whispered to the empty room. All I wanted to do was sleep. Sleep and have the room stop spinning. I rolled onto my front and shoved my face into the pillow. My fingers found the soft edges of Simon’s abandoned T-shirt and curled around it, holding on tight. This would be the first night I was actually sleeping alone. I mean, Simon hadn’t been in my bed before Friday for weeks, but he hadn’t moved out. His things were there even if he wasn’t. I’d never felt alone. The bed had never felt so big and cold and empty. These were the things I was going to have to get used to. Going to bed alone. Getting up alone. Remembering to buy loo roll because no one else would. All my single friends complained about these things endlessly but I’d never given them a second thought. Food shopping stopped being a trolley full of ingredients just waiting to become a wonderful shared meal, and instead became an embarrassing Ben & Jerry’s, Lean Cuisine for one basket full of shame. There was no one to drive you to the doctor’s. You missed endless movies because you had no one to go with. Not that singledom had slowed Simon’s movie-going habits down.
Accepting that sleep wasn’t coming any time soon, I turned on the bedside light and grabbed my handbag from its home on the back of the bedroom door. The bag had been my mum’s in the Eighties. It was electric blue, slouchy leather with an endless number of pockets and ridiculously long shoulder strap that meant it bounced around my knees when I walked. Emelie hated it. Matthew once referred to it as a transsexual horse’s nosebag. I loved it. I had ever since my dad had given it to my mum for Christmas when I was four. It had gone in the loft after the divorce, along with everything else that meant bad memories, but she’d finally handed it over two years ago during an epic clear-out and I hadn’t let it out of my sight since. It might have helped if my sight had been a bit clearer at that exact moment. I swung the bag off its peg with more momentum than necessary, succeeding in not only getting the bag free but also knocking myself in the nose and flat on my back across the bed into the bargain. I should probably stop carrying around three different books in there when I blatantly wasn’t reading any of them.
‘Bugger,’ I muttered, pressing my palm against my eye.
The pain slipped away quickly, either because it wasn’t as bad a knock as I thought or because I’d drunk half a bottle of bourbon – either way, I opened my eye and peered inside my bag. Inside, safely tucked away in one of the many zippered pockets, was my list. As far as I could tell, I had two options. I could lie here in the dark, drunk and depressed, and ultimately cry myself to sleep, or I could remind myself that I wasn’t a hopeless, boring loser. Or, at least, that I didn’t have to be.
There was something a little sordid about changing your life based on notes scribbled on a wine-stained napkin but, right at this second, it was either Simon’s T-shirt or Rachel’s list. And, to be fair, I’d had my life changed for me already. This was just a case of taking control. Today the hair, tomorrow the world.
I took my phone from the nightstand and quickly snapped a photo of myself in all my red-haired glory. God bless the iPhone 4 and its frontal camera. Why was I even so upset? Hadn’t I cut off my hair today? Hadn’t I coloured it red? Hadn’t I called Simon without breaking down and begging him to come back to me? I wasn’t boring. I wasn’t whatever he thought I was. With one last hiccup, I pulled Simon’s T-shirt out from under the pillow and tossed it to the end of the bed. Tomorrow, it was going in the bin with all the rest of the rubbish. Clutching the list to my chest, I lay back and closed my eyes. I’d fall asleep eventually, I just had to lie here and …
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Come on, Red, get up.’
Being violently shaken by a gay man was never one of my favourite ways to wake up on a Monday morning, let alone when I’d consumed half a bottle of Jack Daniel’s the night before.
‘No, Nana needs her rest,’ I groaned, pulling a pillow over my face. ‘Jesus Christ, my head hurts.’
I prised open one eye to see a man’s hand setting a mug of tea down by my face. Trying to open the other eye only resulted in a shooting pain all the way down my cheekbone. And I was fairly certain there was some drool. Definitely a little drool.
‘Oh. My. God.’
‘Yeah,’ Matthew said slowly. ‘You might want to have a shower and, I don’t know, put on all your make-up before you leave the house.’
‘I never wear make-up for work,’ I protested, trying to sip the tea without making the throbbing in my eye socket any worse.
‘I know,’ he replied in the same voice. ‘Little bit of cover up here maybe.’
/> He reached out and poked my face.
‘Shit!’ I wailed, spilling the tea all over the floor.
‘What did you do to yourself last night?’ Matthew pulled back one of the curtains to get a better look at my eye. Not that there was a shortage of offensively cheery sunshine in the first place. ‘Looks like you snuck out to Fight Club.’
‘I don’t know, hit myself with my bag,’ I groaned, trying to turn over on to my back but feeling like an upturned cockroach. No, a cockroach was too good for how I felt. Maybe if someone had stood on that cockroach with a Doc Marten boot and pulled three of its legs off before kicking it across the room. And this was why I never drank whiskey. ‘What time is it?’
‘Just after nine?’ He squinted at the clock on my phone. ‘You’ve got an hour.’
‘But I need to sleep.’ I tried to sit up too quickly and got a wave of nausea for my trouble. Back down, Rachel. ‘Or be sick. And then sleep.’
‘Want me to call in sick? You know you get a couple of freebies in this sitch.’
I tried to imagine Dan’s reaction to my pulling a sickie an hour before the shoot was due to start. If he didn’t come round here and kill me, my agent surely would.
‘No, I have to go.’ My stomach churned promisingly as I writhed around onto my back. ‘Did Em get home OK?’
‘Em didn’t get home, she’s on the sofa,’ he replied. ‘It’s not pretty. I’m cutting you both off the whiskey.’
‘Doesn’t she have a meeting?’ Bed was so lovely. Why couldn’t we all just live in bed? Just because it hadn’t really worked out for John Lennon didn’t mean the idea wasn’t worth revisiting.
‘Oh, she’s up,’ Matthew said with a smile. ‘She’s been up most of the night. I recommend that you try not to breathe on your way through the living room. Or use your eyes. Or make any noise. In fact, it might be worth going outside and breaking in through the back window.’