Rebound (2 page)

‘Existential questions? What: “Who am I? Where am I going to?” How much have you had to drink?’

‘I’m serious, Anna. Slow down. Spend some time with your friends. Your dog.’

‘Wispa’s never complained.’

At the sound of her name Wispa gets up from her bed, stretches and wobbles towards me.

‘Because she loves you unconditionally.’

‘That’s the best kind of love.’

‘There’s no such thing as unconditional love, unless you’re a dog.’

‘Which reminds me . . .’ I put down my half-full glass of Rioja. ‘I need to take her out.’

Wispa reads my body language and is already by the front door.

‘Catch you tomorrow, hon.’

‘Try to stay single till then.’

‘You interested?’ I love teasing her.

‘I told you, you’re not my type. Too high maintenance.’

‘I thought that was exactly the type of girl you went for.’

‘True,’ Bell sighs. ‘Maybe I should try this single thing myself.’

Bell’s list of disastrous flings with psycho girls is as long as a basking viper. And equally venomous.

It’s a mild and humid night. It’s too dark to go on the Heath, so I walk down Swain’s Lane, along the cemetery. I stare at my favourite statue, an angel with big wings, looking
radiant and serene in the semi-darkness of the graveyard. My iPhone pings. A message from Peter from Promax, the most effective speed-dating agency of the media world. Just kidding. I mean the
glitzy media event, with the awards night that is a wet dream for all the TV promo-makers and marketing guys in the world. Back to Promax Peter. He is a Creative Director at some sports channel,
charming, good-looking and with that air of keen and urgent availability so characteristic of married men with small kids. We talked, we flirted, we exchanged business cards, and here he is,
texting me sexy on a Friday night. Tempting, but no. I delete the message. Wispa dashes down the dark street, as if she’s seen someone she knows. She gave up chasing foxes and cats a long
time ago and now the only thing that gets her going is the sight of a human friend. But the street is empty, there is no one there, and she trots back to me panting, her pink tongue lolling about
happily.

Unconditional love. A feeling I don’t believe in, perhaps with the exception of Wispa. But her love is also conditional: she wants my presence, walkies, her food. Well, it’s as close
as it’ll ever get to being unconditional. Am I getting too jaded for a true, overwhelming, spellbinding emotion that would make me do things I wouldn’t normally do, promise things I
wouldn’t normally promise? I read somewhere that parental love is unconditional, because parents feel compelled to love their children, no matter what. I probably caught a glimpse of that
when, after my dad had dumped us and disappeared with some blonde floozy, my mum stood by me, fighting like a wounded lioness, so I always had everything I wanted as a child, even though money was
tight. It all ended when she died of breast cancer at the age of forty, a wounded lioness till the very end, trying to look out for her cub even when she had no energy to look after herself. It was
shortly after her death when I – a spoilt and angry teenager – realized that from then on I would have to earn love; it would never come free again.

Bell is right. I have to slow down and spend some quality time with my friends and my dog. Invest a little. I pat Wispa’s head and walk on, hoping my resolution will last at least till
Monday.

I wake up full of energy and good intentions. Saturday mornings do that to me. Just when you don’t have to get up early and rush to work, you’re awake at the crack
of dawn, your head buzzing with ideas. My good mood lasts through the morning coffee, a lovingly made blueberry, raspberry and banana smoothie, and a reheated croissant. It all goes downhill from
there. I open the front door and find a battlefield of take-away food cartons, smeared bits of unspecified green substance, torn sanitary pads and a small spiral turd right on my doorstep. Foxes. I
have a love/hate relationship with London foxes, but at this moment all I feel is pure hate.

Once that is cleared I step out onto the pavement in front of my house and feel a crunch of broken glass under my shoes. Pulling Wispa away, I look around. Yep. Just when you think you’ve
done your penance for the day, fate dishes out something even better. The rear passenger window of my BMW has been smashed in. I go back to the house, grab my phone, lock Wispa in and come out
again. I cautiously look into the car, half-expecting a homeless urchin curled up on the back seat. The car is empty, crystals of broken glass scattered everywhere. I open the front door and check
the storage compartments. Nothing seems to be missing, not even the few coins that used to be handy for parking and became obsolete when most of the London boroughs introduced card and phone
payments. That is strange. I take another look and then I remember. James’s teddy bear! It’s gone. I almost ring him to tell him his
peluche
is missing, then I remember that I
dumped him the night before. Who would want to steal a teddy bear from the back of a BMW in Highgate? A desperate mother driven to distraction by her needy offspring? A spoilt brat who
doesn’t have enough toys to fill a landfill? I shrug my shoulders, but then a sudden thought hits me. Could it have been James? Taking back his toy because I didn’t want to play with
him any more? No, that’s ridiculous, he’s not that kind of a person. He might be too cute for his own loafers, but he’s not vindictive. Oh well, it looks like the charity shop
won’t be getting a brand-new teddy bear after all. Phone calls to Autoglass and my car insurer seem to take forever, but by midday the matter is on its way to being fixed. My morning good
cheer is well and truly gone by now.

What better to improve a foul mood than a brisk walk on the Heath with your dog? Wispa agrees it’s the best idea. We walk down Merton Lane and enter the Heath by the ponds. It’s a
glorious afternoon. There are people milling around with their dogs, a few still silhouettes of the guys watching their fishing rods, serious joggers with greyhound expressions on their faces and a
handful of birdwatchers visibly excited by something invisible in the bushes on the other side of the pond. Wispa and I quickly march up the hill, putting distance between ourselves and the crowds.
At the top of the hill we turn right towards Kenwood. It’s quieter and darker in the woods. I love this part of the Heath. It’s never crowded and the thick bushes and old gnarly trees
give it an air of seclusion and mystery. I sit on the bench dedicated to ‘someone who loved this place’ and close my eyes. Bell is right. I need time to process all the things that are
happening in my life. It seems I’ve lost control over the direction I’m heading in, and I’m following a pattern of accidental twists of fate, both at work and in my private life.
Opportunities, sideways moves, promotions that got me to where I am at work as Head of On-Air, Programming and Creative for a major TV company – not bad for a girl from a scabby little Essex
town. But is that it, professionally? And then there is my personal life. My personal mess, as Bell calls it. The sound of a twig breaking under a boot interrupts my thoughts. I open my eyes. A guy
with a shaven head and elaborate tattoos on his bare arms passes my bench and disappears into the bushes. I’m just about to close my eyes again when I see another guy, in washed-out jeans
with a small rucksack on his back, following the first guy. Surely not . . . I’ve heard the stories of gay cruising grounds on the Heath, but I thought they were further in the woods, towards
Spaniards Road. The second guy disappears into the same bushes and I’m suddenly overwhelmed by curiosity. I check on Wispa, who seems obsessed with gnawing on a big tree branch, then I get up
and gingerly approach the bushes. At first I see nothing except the mass of greenery. Then I hear something. I move towards the sound. And there they are, the guy with a rucksack kneeling in front
of the tattooed guy, who stands with his back to a massive old oak tree, eyes closed, a look of intense pleasure on his face. A twig cracks under my foot and I quickly move back, losing sight of
the men. I turn round and face Wispa, who is watching me with her ears pricked up, tilting her head slightly as she always does when she is curious.

‘You and me, kid,’ I say quietly, and pat her head. ‘Let’s find you a proper stick.’

Saturday night and I’m not going out clubbing, I’m not meeting a man in a swanky bar, not even hooking up with friends at the Flask. I’m going to have a quiet
evening at Bell’s. We’ve been promising it to each other for months and now the time is right. I pack Wispa and a couple of bottles of wine – Shiraz for me, Viognier for Bell
– into my newly glazed and valeted car and set off on my short journey through Hornsey and Finsbury Park to Stoke Newington, where Bell has a flat just off Church Street. I like Stokey, used
to live there before I had a salary big enough to just about afford a move to Highgate. It’s changed a lot since then, Clissold House having received a massive facelift, the park turning into
a posh nappy valley, with stay-at-home mums sipping their decaf lattes, their offspring asleep in fancy prams. Church Street itself has been desperately hanging on to a few decrepit buildings and
residents, being slowly pushed out by new cafes, organic grocers and a few second-hand shops dressed up as ‘vintage’. I nostalgically think of the good old times at the smoky Vortex,
replaced now by Nando’s.

Bell opens the door with a glass of wine in her hand. Her evening started some time ago.

We finish her excellent chorizo and spinach risotto and move onto her spacious leather sofa. I’m grateful she hasn’t mentioned James.

‘Do you consider yourself a failure?’ Bell is opening a second bottle of white for herself.

‘A failure in what?’ I’m not sure I want to get into this conversation.

‘In everything. In life.’

‘It all depends on your point of reference. What do you measure it against? Your mother’s dream for her only child? Ambitious plans you had at uni? They’re all pies in the
sky.’

‘So we’re all failures by default. I personally don’t have a problem with it. I practise it every day.’

Bell is not doing that badly. Having left the teaching job that was driving her insane, she retrained as a massage therapist and has a respectable group of clients who adore her. She
doesn’t commute to work, she works when she wants to and is her own boss.

‘Oh, come on. I know a lot of people who’d swap with you right now.’

‘Hey, don’t take my failure away from me. It’s mine.’ She pours some wine for me. I watch Wispa snore blissfully at our feet.

‘I think it’s about being happy with what you have. Being in the present.’

‘So you’re happy?’ I know she’s edging towards the subject of James. Or the absence of him.

‘I think I am.’ I hesitate. ‘At least I feel free.’

‘You don’t miss him?’

‘Well, to be perfectly honest, I did miss him this morning.’ I know this will annoy her, so I pause, but she doesn’t take the bait. ‘Someone had smashed the window in my
car and I nearly rang him to ask for help. I suppose I’ll have to toughen up . . .’

‘I thought you’d toughened up enough during your divorce.’

‘God,’ I groan at the thought of my psycho ex-husband Andrew. ‘Please don’t remind me of that creep. Thank goodness I don’t have to go through the same with
James.’

‘How’s work?’ She changes the subject at last and tops up my glass.

‘Work?’ I yawn and shrug my shoulders. Wispa lifts her head and looks at me questioningly. It reminds me of the look she gave me on the Heath.

‘Do lesbians go cruising?’ I ask Bell, and watch her eyes go round with surprise and then amusement.

‘Cruising?’

‘Yeah, you know, in the bushes, I don’t know, loos and stuff . . .’ I’m already regretting having broached the subject.

‘That’s cottaging.’

‘Whatever.’ I shrug again. I don’t want to continue this. But Bell presses on.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, it’s nothing, it’s silly.’

‘What?’ She nudges me and I know she won’t let go until I tell her.

‘I went to the Heath with Wispa this afternoon and I saw these two guys having sex in the bushes.’

Bell makes a face.

‘No, it wasn’t like that . . . I mean, they weren’t doing it in the middle of an open field. I actually spied on them . . .’

‘You did what?’

‘I crept behind a bush and . . .’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was curious, I suppose.’ Embarrassed, I take a gulp of my wine. ‘And then . . . I kind of got into it . . .’

‘You JOINED them?!’ Bell nearly knocks her glass over.

‘No, no, no. No. I just . . . understood what they were about. Why they were doing it.’

‘Anna, let me tell you.’ Bell sounds drunk and serious at the same time. ‘Lesbians don’t go cruising. They don’t run around the Heath looking for another dyke.
WOMEN don’t do it. We don’t stick our minge in some glory hole and wait for a stranger to poke it.’

‘Sorry!’ I raise my hands. ‘I was just asking.’

‘And let me tell you WHY we don’t do it. Because we’re wired up differently to men. Because our testosterone levels are much lower. Because our needs are different.’

‘Bell, I get it!’

She stops ranting and takes a sip of wine. ‘Anyway,’ she winks, putting her glass down, ‘it’s about time you climbed down from that fence you’ve been sitting on for
as long as I’ve known you and join me on my side.’

‘I know, Bell, I know.’ I lean over and kiss her on the cheek. ‘If only it were that easy.’

‘But it ain’t,’ she says, and pours us more wine.

The next morning I’m greeted in Bell’s guest room by a hangover from hell. Wispa drags me out for a short stumble around Clissold Park. I pick up some freshly baked
croissants in Church Street and by the time I’m back at Bell’s she’s standing in her kitchen by her coffee machine. She looks as bad as I feel. We don’t talk much, which is
fine. It’s good to have a friend you can have a laugh with, but also be silent when you feel like it.