Monday to Friday Man (3 page)

Interview One
: ‘Gilly Brown, would you like to go in?’ the glamorous receptionist asks me. This job is in the fashion business, working for a dress-design company, so I’ve gone out of my way to look the part, wearing a fitted dress with new gladiator-style ankle boots.

As I walk into the interview room, towards a stylish woman with blonde hair sitting behind her glass desk, I trip on the edging of the carpet, lose my balance and virtually fly towards her, finishing my grand entrance with a crash-landing into my seat. Straight away I know I haven’t got the job, rather like when I took my driving test and bumped up and over the pavement within the first minute.

Interview Two
: ‘What are your strengths and weaknesses?’ he asks. I’ve applied for a job in a bank.

‘I’m very good with people, but
terrible
with figures,’ I claim proudly. Why is he looking at me like that?

Interview Three
: ‘And you can work long hours, right?’ This interview is for a hot-shot advertising company and to my amazement it’s going really well.

‘Absolutely,’ I reply. ‘I will put in one hundred and ten per cent. I won’t let you down.’ Under the desk I cross my fingers. I’ve always hated that one hundred and ten per cent expression, but judging from his beaming smile, he loves it.

He stands up and leans towards me. ‘Are you hungry, Gilly?’

I glance at my watch. ‘Well, come to think of it, I am a bit peckish,’ I say, wondering where he’s going to take me for a celebratory lunch to announce I’ve got the job.

‘I meant hungry for success,’ he says quietly.

I open my eyes and find myself laughing. Oh God. I failed so badly at the last fence. Needless to say I didn’t get that job either and after a series of rejections I really lost my nerve and confidence, so when Mari asked me if I would like to replace her old assistant, I said yes immediately. I thought a temporary job could be the perfect opportunity to clear my head, earn some money, really think about what to do next and brush up on my interview skills. My friends and family had smiled when I told them I was working in an antiques shop. Anna, my best friend, who works in marketing, said she’d imagined people in the antiques industry to be short and bald with half-moon spectacles perched on the end of their noses and hunched shoulders from peering too closely at faded trademarks on porcelain.

But I like it here. Extraordinary customers come to Mari’s shop, from all over the world. Only yesterday an Italian woman swept in, modelling a Vivienne Westwood outfit with a flowing designer scarf that she’d insist on dramatically throwing across her shoulders, so much so that it would get tangled up in the antiques. Repeatedly I had to extricate it carefully from a vase or lantern, praying the material wouldn’t rip. When she attempted to walk downstairs in her killer heels, I suggested that she put on my Birkenstocks instead. You see, the shop is set on two levels. The ground floor has creaking floorboards, old kilim rugs designed to trip me up and treacherous stairs leading down to the basement. It smells
slightly
old and musty, and though everything is utterly higgledypiggledy, it has a certain charm to it. I cannot afford to work here for too long though. The trouble is I’ve asked myself again and again what I would like to do next, but I still don’t know. I don’t want to apply for just any old job; I want to find something that I feel passionate about.

Mari’s real love is acting, and when people ask her what she does, she tells them proudly she’s an actress. In her free time she auditions and performs in local theatre productions. ‘I won’t let my dream go,’ she tells me. ‘I don’t want to die with a pinched, bitter face. You have to find something that makes you happy, Gilly.’

What is my dream?

Since leaving Manchester University with an English degree I’ve jumped from one job to another as if they were hot stepping stones. I smile, remembering one of my teachers saying I was like a little butterfly, never settling in one place for too long. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a farmer,’ I’d say to my school friends one week. ‘I want lots of horses and dogs.’

‘A hairdresser,’ was the next idea.

‘Pop star.’

‘Model.’

‘Vet.’

My cv is a jumble sale of different roles, ranging from charity work to even (ironically) working for a career consultant to help others find their dream job. I could apply for another post in the locations industry; apart from the boss, I enjoyed working there for three years. My father said it was a world record. I made some contacts. I’m sure I could call them to see if they knew of any job opportunities coming up.

I gaze down at my paper. What’s stopping me? Why do I feel something is missing?

‘When you feel stuck in a rut,’ Richard had said, over a ploughman’s lunch, and sounding increasingly like an agony aunt, ‘you need to do something different. Life can be like a padlock refusing to open. One small change in the combination can finally open the door.’

‘Rusk, what am I going to do?’ I stroke him, wishing he had the answer.

‘Get a lodger,’ I hear Richard pipe up again. I jot down my monthly expenses and fret as the list goes on and on. Maybe I should cancel my gym membership. I need to be going at least three times a week to make it worthwhile.

Richard’s got a point. I should make the most of my home; after all I’m lucky that I’m even on the property ladder. Five years ago, when my mother’s mother died, she left Nick and me enough money to put down a decent deposit on a house. My grandmother was an austere, distant figure in our lives; Dad always says she left us money in her will because she felt guilty for avoiding us when my disabled sister Megan was born.

I stare at the list again. This morning my credit card bill arrived. It’s had one too many outings recently. I know I shouldn’t have bought my Birkenstocks. Plus my gas and electricity bills have gone up.

There is no doubt that I need the rent. I pick up the phone.

‘A lodger? Hang on,’ Anna whispers, ‘vile boss coming, will call back.’

Anna works for a marketing company that specializes mainly in sports and travel. Growing up, we went to the same school, formed our first pop band together with Nick called the Funky Monkeys, played and tobogganed in the snow, and Anna often came with our family when we took Megan to the seaside or the zoo.

Just as I’m about to tuck into my packed lunch, I hear the little tinkle on the door and shove my sandwiches back inside the box. A stooped old man enters, carrying a Boots plastic bag. He shuffles towards me and I quickly warn him not to trip up on the rug. ‘Can I help?’ I ask politely. He’s wearing a collection of clothes that can only have come from a jumble sale.

‘Um.’ He lingers. ‘Um. I’m looking, yes lovely things here, looking for er . . . er . . . a set of um . . .’

The phone rings and I’m wondering if I should pick it up. I notice the maroon socks inside his brown sandals. Oh, please hurry up.

‘Er . . . yes, now, what I’m after is . . . um, a set of um, er, china platters.’

I try not to laugh. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, sir, but we only sell antiques, mainly lights and mirrors.’ I gesture to the mirrors pressed against the wall. He looks lost and unsure what to do next. I guide him gently out of the shop and point him in the direction of Peter Jones.

I rush back, hearing the phone ring again. ‘Mari’s Antiques . . . oh, Anna, hi . . .’

‘Sorry about earlier. Got to be quick. I’ve just been talking to one of the guys at work and he does this Monday to Friday thing. Google it,’ she orders. She’s about to hang up when she can’t help saying, ‘I’m so relieved you’re not moving. I need you here. Us single girls, we need to stick together.’

I smile. ‘I’d have missed you too.’

‘Monday to Friday,’ I type that evening, having just returned from a night out with Anna. We went to one of our favourite Greek restaurants near her flat in Clapham.

I love my evenings with Anna. We have known each other since childhood, and she is like a ray of sunshine, someone whom I always feel better for seeing. Currently she’s single, though how long that will last who knows? Anna has no problem attracting men. She’s fair with a spattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and men fall for her husky voice and infectious laugh. ‘My problem is I become restless quickly,’ she says. Anna claims she’s had enough of men now, she positively
wants
to be single, but I know the real reason why she finds it hard to commit. She’s always been in love with Paul, one of her colleagues at work. Nothing’s happened between them because he’s married. I haven’t met him yet.

I click onto the Monday to Friday site now.

‘By the way, how come you decided to find a lodger?’ Anna had asked earlier tonight.

‘I’m going to get over Ed,’ I announced proudly. ‘If he can move on, so can I.’

‘About time!’

I tell her about Richard, and that while he was a useless estate agent, he’d made a lot of sense with this lodger idea.

‘I could kiss the ground Richard walks on! Is he married?’ she’d added.

A clean-shaven man called Miles pops up onto the screen with a beaming white-toothed smile, modelling a City suit. ‘Monday to Friday works like a dream,’ he says. ‘No long commute to work, no traffic jams! Just a simple hop and a skip on the tube, and
voilà
! I’m in the office. Then, come the weekend, I go home for real. I couldn’t recommend it more as it ticks all the boxes. It’s a no-brainer!’

Steady on, Miles. He looks as if he’s positively going to fly through the screen and land in my lap to convince me.

I scroll down to read some further testimonials from successful landlords and ladies.

‘My Monday to Friday man is a professional and a pleasure to have around,’ says Mandy. ‘What’s great is he doesn’t have a lot of baggage, so my home still feels like my own.’

Now this is important because in my small two-bedroom house there isn’t much space for anyone, let alone their baggage. One of my favourite hobbies is browsing shops and markets to find unusual things. Recently I found an abstract African sculpture of a bird in flight that I put in front of my fireplace.

There’s a box which says, REGISTER NOW! With one simple click home-owners can be accepted into the system overnight. ‘What do you think about that, Ruskin?’ I ask him. He’s lying on his back in his usual spot on the armchair, paws in the air. I go over to kiss him. ‘Would you feel threatened by a stranger in the house, my little pumpkin pie?’

Returning to my computer, I wonder if I should register now or sleep on it. I’m not good at doing anything spontaneously. I err on the cautious side. When I drive, I will drive around the roundabout twice to make sure I am going in the right direction. Ed used to be driven mad by my indecisiveness. Dad says I will go to my grave flapping about one thing or another, like did I leave the iron on or forget to double-lock the front door.

‘Gilly, just think about it,’ I can hear Richard advising me again over our pub lunch. ‘A guy can do any DIY around the house for you, fix the showerhead, change your plugs, unblock the drains, know where the stopcock is.’

‘I can do all that, no problem!’ I said hesitantly.

‘OK, but you just never know who might turn up on your doorstep. Maybe, if you interviewed enough people, you could meet Mr Right.’

‘I’m not looking for Mr Right.’

‘Oh, Mrs Right then? You bat for the other team?’

I find myself laughing when Miles pops up once more, telling me that with just one touch of a key I am making a giant leap towards a richer and brighter future.

Go for it, Gilly. Think of the money. You need it.

I click on the REGISTER NOW button and hold my breath.

There. Done it. No hesitation. Richard would be proud of me.

‘Can I ask you something?’ I’d said to him, at this stage feeling he had quizzed me enough on my private life and it was now time to put him under the spotlight. Apart from Richard being my dad’s godson I knew little more about him. ‘Why are you an estate agent, because let’s face it you’re a pretty terrible one?’

He shrugged. ‘I ask myself the same question every day.’

‘And?’

‘I still don’t know the answer.’

‘Are you happy?’

‘Happy? That’s a hard question. No,’ he’d said with ease. ‘It’s simple for me to tell you what to do,’ he confided, showing some vulnerability, ‘but when it comes to our own lives, we make a right old mess of it, don’t we?’

Life can be like a padlock refusing to open
. Maybe Richard is also searching for that one thing to make him happy?

Perhaps we all are.

4

Ten days later

I type in my password BOBBY SHAFTOE. This is a folk song our family used to sing with my baby sister, Megan, on car journeys to the seaside.

Welcome, Gilly Brown
, it says. I click on a box that leads me to my room’s profile.
Your house in Hammersmith has had 28 VISITORS but O ENQUIRIES
.

I log off, incredulous. My house and me are like a wall-flower. No one wants to dance with us. What’s going on? Surely there must be some administrative error on the system, but when I repeat the process I am told again that no one is interested. Zero enquiries.