Miss Manners

COUTURE BOOKS

First published in Great Britain by Couture Books, 2013.

This book
is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Iman Sid, 2013

Iman Sid has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISB
N
:
978-0-9576452-0-2 (eBook)

IMAN SID

Miss Manners

For my family

Acknowledgements

First of all – and most importantly – I’d like to thank you, for picking up my book today. You’re amazing!

And thank you to the incr
edibly talented Authonomy community for supporting
Miss Manners
until it reached the Editor’s Desk. Here’s to many more Authonomy successes!

A huge and heartfelt thank you goes out to my mum for supporting and encouraging me to write, i.e. buying me a
Snuggie and making me tea to keep me warm during the winter; dad for proofing my drafts on the train to and from work and texting to say he’s laughing at the funny bits, twelfth time round; brother for giving me such great advice; sister for being a tough crowd.

Also, thanks to Lucy York for all her editing expertise and Nikki
Dupin for designing such a beautiful cover.

"
Clothes and manners do not make the man; but, when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance
."

Henry Ward Beecher.

1

The City

MONDAY
, 18th APRIL

It was 9.05 a.m. on a Monday morning and I was having a quarter-life crisis.

I was sitting in my blue 1974 Mini Cooper, which had just broken down in the middle of Camden High Street. Ten minutes before I
’d been singing along to ‘Dizzy’ by Tommy Roe, and the next thing I knew I was trying to avoid the rear end of a cab that loomed large in the windscreen; I could do nothing but jam my foot on the brake pedal.

The little car bucked wildly twice before it lurched forward through the intersection amid the screeching traffic and then, after a sudden pop from the exhaust, it spluttered and came to a complete standstill right in the middle of the road.

I breathed a sigh of relief. For a split second, my life had flashed before my eyes.

I looked into the rear
-view mirror: bleary and bloodshot brown eyes, no make-up and greasy brown hair scraped into a ponytail (in fact, my hair was tied back so hard I’d given myself a facelift). A ten stone, size ten (big bones) lump of mass with one boob slightly larger than the other and a Helen Hunt forehead.

This was what the emergency services would see if I were to die right now.

Plus, I happened to be wearing a pair of my big, holey granny knickers. Probably the manky grey ones I only put on when the washing basket is full.

I c
ouldn’t believe it, I’d almost died in a car accident and all I could think about was what knickers I was wearing and whether they were presentable enough.

I hate my life
.

I pictured my own funeral and wondered who would actually bother to attend. I would have died without having achieved anything; I hadn’t fallen in love with a French artist who lived in a small flat somewhere in Paris and painted gothic cathedrals. There would only be three people present: my mother, my father and my best friend, Tara Spackman.

Then, I pictured what would be written on my gravestone:

Died trying.

Those two words said it all. But then, as if that wasn
’t already a depressing enough thought, I pictured my obituary:

Anna Borgström wanted everything, achieved nothing;

knew
everything about nothing.

A life tragically cut short by excessive daydreaming.

Anna was born to die.

That was it. Five lines that summed up twenty-five years of my entire existence – a quarter of a century.

I had spent the past three years studying for an English
literature and creative writing degree in the hope of finding my dream job after graduation. But, of course, reality was much harder than theory.

My parents tried to point out that if it was a job I was after,
medicine might have been a better idea. But not if I wanted to go into journalism.

University had provided endless activities, classes and groups for every imaginable type of artist, misfit and computer geek. I was
creative writing editor for the campus newspaper. We had one of those shiatsu massagers with interchangeable heads, a selection of board games, a ten-pin bowling set and a comfy couch that also doubled as a bed to sleep on during the deadline period. Plus, the office was always filled with the latest film and music releases, to which we could help ourselves once they had all been reviewed. I never got bored. Life was good. But I knew that this dream would soon end and I would have to prepare myself for a post-university job – a real job in the
real
world, which I tried to put off for as long as possible.

My
university colleagues, who had begun working immediately after graduation, were already minted. They had clocked in jobs at advertising firms, book publishing houses, newspapers and radio, and were getting on with their careers. And then there was me – three years of diagramming and deconstructing books, plays, short stories and poems, and for what? A BA honours suffix to place after my name on my CV and a job as shop assistant in the Harrolds toy department.

The tasks required were mindless, unnecessary and fit for a chimp. I swear I
’d actually got dumber in the two years since graduation, and there was no escape in sight.

I was stuck in a dead-end job. I needed change and I needed it fast. A challen
ge – a real challenge. A job that would motivate me to wake up every morning and look forward to the exciting day ahead. Something that involved writing. You know, book reviews, magazine articles, television commercials or even obituaries. Anything. Just as long as my three years of literary mind grind didn’t go to waste. I wanted a second chance at life. An opportunity for a new beginning.

Suddenly, the sound of blaring horns woke
me with a jump from my daymare and thrust me back into reality, reminding me that I was trapped in traffic. Because of me, the city was gridlocked. Insults were flying, angry honking echoed down every street, drivers, like petulant children faced with broken toys, pounded their dashboards in frustration.

A chunky-looking balding guy, aged about fifty and built like a rugby player with a neck about the same width as his head, stepped out of his cab and walked over to my window with an
enraged look on his face.

I quickly closed my car window for fear he would grab my throat and squeeze hard like Homer Simpson.

‘Oi! Move yer car, Madam! What do you think this is? Bleedin’ drivin’ school?’ he shouted, his face reddening as if he’d been slapped. ‘Go on, getta’ the way!’