The Way It Never Was (10 page)
Read The Way It Never Was Online
Authors: Lucy Austin
‘So Kate, what would you say your weaknesses were?’ asks a petite girl with a large forehead – Anna’s friend of a friend, Victoria Flannery Veakins – swivelling round in her chair, with a waist you could span with your hands, and a low cut top that makes her boobs look like squashed tennis balls.
I’m trying really hard not to stare at her ‘rack’, so I concentrate on maintaining eye contact. With as much sincerity as I can muster, I tell her that my attention to detail can make me something of a perfectionist and I regularly forgo valuable sleep in preference to working incredibly late. It’s probably the worst answer in my repertoire, but my delivery is quite honed and right now, I’m out of fresh ideas. I am like a ball in a pinball machine trying to fall into any hole, only to find myself hurtling towards the bottom every single time.
It is two o’clock in the afternoon and instead of indulging in an afternoon power nap like I have sneakily been doing in my unemployed down time, I’m sitting in a London recruitment consultancy. Located in the heart of the West End, it’s the kind of place that has fancy signage and technology, but on closer inspection has shabby paintwork, a dirty carpet and keyboards that look like they could do with being dunked in a bucket of bleach. Vicky FV looks at me with a very bored expression, and it’s pretty obvious that whatever rubbish I come out with doesn’t really matter. She’s going to judge me on the 45 words-per minute typing I just did and the paltry grade achieved on my spreadsheet exam – my poor score blamed on not being allowed to use the shortcut keys. Not performing well under pressure is a hangover from childhood, where, having been fantastic in practice, I’d then feel all eyes on me and tense up, effectively meaning I’ve never particularly excelled in anything. When I wasn’t mucking up a piano recital in front of an audience, I was consistently hitting the ball in the net despite being chosen for the tennis team. Oh yes, when the pressure’s on, I appear to forgo ‘fight’ and ‘flight’ in preference for ‘freeze’.
I wish this snooty girl would just jump up from her seat and throw my bulky CV up in the air and shout in a hearty voice: ‘Bollocks to all of this paperwork! I just want to know what your star sign is and whether you love watching
Desperate
Housewives
.’ Instead of listening to whatever is coming out of her cherry lipstick covered mouth, I treat her as you would an air stewardess demonstrating flight emergency procedures – I tune out.
When Victoria’s mobile goes, she leaps at it on the first ring, just as I’m getting into my element talking about how I’ve always wanted to be a PA [secretary] on a [very mediocre] salary. After a good three minutes of ‘ah ha-aha-aha’ interspersed with flirty giggles, she then hangs up and looks at me for a minute as though she has suddenly had a mental blank as to who I am. She tells me how lovely it was to meet me and that they’re interviewing lots of candidates. If I’m successful in the first round, I’ll go through to a second round. Having made the final cut, I will then be given six more tests and on passing, I will then meet the Managing Director. He will then analyse my psychometric test and work out if I have a role in their company. I will then do a day’s trial and he’ll then make his decision.
Not
too
many
hoops
to
jump
through
then
.
Walking out of the building I’m ready to drop, yet the adrenalin is still pumping away, probably fuelled by all the fibs I’ve just told about my aspirations, and the internal brainwashing that comes from not telling the truth. Hell, I’ve not only re-invented the past but I’ve started to believe that I really want that sort of job again. What’s sadder still is that it turns out that unemployment has been more of a constant than all of the jobs I’ve ever had. You see, for all the horrible uncertainty, the world of unemployment is like having a job where none of this bullshit applies and I feel the wheels of imaginary progress turning. At the start, I’m riding on a wave of excitement and unlimited possibility. Perhaps this time, I will have the impetus, feel that enthusiasm again to do something I like. In full autopilot mode, I then extend my overdraft and order cheap, boxed wine with the view to staying in. I then make a pilgrimage to the local bookstore to read up on some self-help books by random American life coaches with far too many teeth.
Then, gradually the nonsense of being without purpose hits home and bit-by-bit, the reality of not having any money coming in, or a job to hang my identity on starts to wear me down. Heady days of optimism and endless possibilities are replaced by pessimism of mythical proportions about what will become of me, the chatterbox inside my head insisting that I’m useless, a waste of space, doomed to hating every job I take. At this stage – the one I’m in right now – I panic, only to find myself examining paintwork in a soulless recruitment agency, just like this one.
Walking slowly through the city streets, I’m in no particular hurry and would love to loiter a while longer in London, feel some of that optimism that seems to abandon me as soon as I get back to my flat. Tonight, Claire has invited not just Linda but four other girls from her salon to have their tarot cards read by the lady herself, who unbeknownst to me can actually read a book – yes one with pictures and everything. When I left for London this morning, she was ironing her gypsy scarf to go on her head and had already written a load of pointless words on the lounge blackboard, probably to prompt her while she’s predicting her friends’ future – or rather, the future she wants them to have. Having had more than my fill in Australia, the prospect of a load of girls all talking about their destiny is not that enticing, so I might just kill some time until the embarrassing bit is over.
Talk of the devil – a text from psychic Claire herself: ‘Oz man called again for you.’ No kiss, no smiley face, no nothing. Why do I insist on reading into texts like they are a substitute for a proper conversation, where anything less than three ‘XXX’ means that someone is in a mood with you? I can’t understand why Claire can’t fuse her two brain cells together and extract some more information from this man, like perhaps a contact number. Since mystery man’s last call, I’ve wracked my brain and just can’t think who it might be as I don’t know any Aussie men. The irony’s not lost on me that during my time in Sydney, I hung around with every other nationality but Australian. And so the mystery continues.
My phone vibrates again, another text, this time from Liv. ‘You fancy coming over to drink wine? Need you to get sloshed on my behalf.’
Comments like this have me worried about Liv and the whole pregnancy thing. Lately, her optimism has taken something of a battering, probably because she’s staring down the prospect of being a single mother. The girl from old is spontaneous at the drop of a hat, full of stories about her worldwide adventures. Every story she ever told, every man she kissed after knowing him ten minutes, all involved her thumbing a lift and seeing where it took her. The adventures! The danger! The thrush! Now, the nearest Liv gets to impulsiveness is choosing a cookie sample over a croissant sample right at the last minute. The poor girl can hardly be impulsive with a baby growing inside of her so she is going against her natural instinct, which in-turn is making her tearful and fearful about everything ahead.
Liv came over to the flat the other day to have a moan, having found out that Mr Happy still has no intention of being involved their child’s life – supporting my theory that he is in fact Rod Stewart in disguise and already shells out for seven other kids. On this particular occasion, it was Claire who was begrudgingly playing gooseberry in her bedroom, having opened the door to Liv with ‘hello single mum’. Now, Liv would normally tell Claire to go and shove it where the sun don’t shine, but overwhelmed with misery she just nodded and did a silent ‘talk to the hand’ gesture. Then she sat on my couch and cried really loudly.
‘And the worst part is I’ll never fall in love again,’ she blubbed. ‘Who is going to take on a single mum! Who?’
I don’t know what to say to her because it’s hard enough meeting someone as a single person, let alone presenting them with a bit of baggage to contend with. Granted, early courtship has moved on since school lunch break dating and now mostly consists of Facebook updates and sending texts all day long, but when exactly is the right time to bring up the rather large fact that you have a child?
‘I would go back to Canada but I have so much money tied up in the café,’ she sobs. ‘I’d lose it all. Besides, I don’t think my parents are too impressed with the situation. I’ve tarnished the family name. They had big ambitions for me. Working in the hospitality industry, with a baby on the way is not what they had in mind.’
Oxford Circus is now heaving and I’m walking as quickly as I can towards Selfridges while texting yes to Liv’s evening invitation. At my favourite department store, I can pretend I’m buying something for a free makeover and then read all the magazines in the stationery department with the same objectives in mind. I think that’s my problem in general – I like to look but I don’t like to commit. Now, it would be easy enough if I could just stand in the stream of people walking purposefully and be carried in the right direction. However, attempting to walk against the crowds is another matter and I’m not very good at it.
I cut through to the street I used to walk down on the way back from working at Jam Jam. Passing the man handing out free papers, I smile at him as I used to see him everyday, but he just looks right through me. His blank expression says it all; he sees too many people.
‘Did you get my other text?’ Another text from Stan jolts me out of my thoughts. I might be imagining it but these days he’s coming across as a little needy. I didn’t know what to say to his text asking me to meet him so I ignored it and I don’t know what to say to this one without appearing rude. I’ve barely got enough head space for my own life, let alone trying to work out what’s going on with him.
A little while later, I’ve given up hanging around in London as it’s too easy to spend money, so I catch my train home and sit there staring gormlessly out of the window opposite some man with loads of bloody tissue stuck to his stubble. I’m waiting for the adrenalin of the interview to wear off, that or the internal berating I give myself about the answers I gave to the bland questions. I can’t read or sleep, in fact I can’t do anything but stare at this man and his butchered shaving efforts. The overhead announcer appears to be enjoying his public speaking as he hasn’t stopped talking up the buffet cart since I boarded, going on about ‘teas, coffees, snacks’, as though there is an a la carte restaurant instead of a squeaky trolley pushed by a weary looking attendant.
My phone vibrates and does a very long loud American ring – the kind of ring that you get in films when it’s dark and no one is home. It just rings and rings and shaving man starts shaking his bits of tissue in irritation. By the time I get to it and quietly remove myself from all the tutting around me, my LED light is broken so I can’t even see who it is. It had better not be a cold caller looking to sell me an organic vegetable box. Lately, I’ve been feeling sorry for everyone, myself included, and have far too many direct debits of miniscule amounts going out to charity.
‘Kate speaking,’ I lean against the train toilets, only for the door to automatically open up in a spaceship kind of way, along with the all-too-familiar stench of wee.
‘Me,’ a voice booms. ‘Need to talk to you. Got some news.’
On the other end of the line is Anna, who always acts as if she is starring in an episode of
Dallas
and bypasses normal greetings. Prone to blowing hot and cold, some weeks she rings me none stop, other times I don’t hear back having left messages, only for her to then pretend that her phone wasn’t working even though she has clearly been on Facebook, charting her every bowel movement. Anna is a strange one to be honest – she pretends everything is straightforward but often behaves anything but. I’ve never been entirely sure what motivates her.
‘Cool, fire way,’ I say. ‘Word of warning though, I am very close to a train’s toilet bowl with a strong flush, I might cut out.’
I place my folder containing CV under my arm and start pacing up and down the carriage. ‘What job are you doing at the moment?’ I ask, knowing that Anna’s currently temping.
‘Same job as last week sweetie,’ comes the reply. ‘Dressed as a banana to promote a new health drink.’
Although Anna’s another one who on paper has not exactly reached the pinnacle of her career, as a jobbing actress she has enough confidence to blag it for those times when she’s dressed like a piece of fruit and handing out fliers. She doesn’t mind what drama she does as she gets to hang it under the umbrella of ‘performance art’, while I have to take jobs with ‘administrator’ in the title. And let’s face it; administrator just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Holding the phone with my shoulder, I rummage around in my bag to find the stale remainder of a rather earnest muffin I couldn’t quite finish the other day. I’m all for making a gesture towards health but let’s face it, if people really wanted rabbit food they wouldn’t be buying a cake in the first place.
‘So what’s new?’ I ask, as Anna’s funny mood at the dinner party made me curious.
‘That’s why I’m ringing. I have something to tell you and I hope you’re going to be okay with it.’ The word ‘news’ is bound to prompt my heart to skip a beat. ‘Stan’s going to ask me to marry him!’ she shrieks.
Taking a deep breath, I feel dizzy, so I slump right outside the toilet door just as someone clambers over to me to use it. Surely, Anna has to be joking? I mean, I can only go on the recent barrage of texts and missed calls but Stan doesn’t strike me as a man ready to propose – in fact, he seemed like someone wrestling with finding out his girlfriend had a couple of engagement rings under her belt. Then again, maybe that’s why he’s trying to get hold of me, to tell me first that he’s going to propose. Oh no!
‘Really?’ I know I should say something else or squeal in excitement but I really don’t know what to say.
‘Well, he’s not asked me yet, but I think he will. We had an honest chat about all our past relationships and I think it brought us closer together,’ she gushes and I audibly breathe out a sigh of relief.
So
,
it
hasn’t
happened
yet
.
I have to remember that this is not the first time Anna has mentioned a possible engagement before it’s actually happened. After all, there’s a reason she’s accrued a couple of ex-fiancés along the way. I have my theory that she tells everyone she is practically engaged and that the proposing bit is just a formality, in the hope that it will then get back to the boyfriend who will feel under such immense pressure that he does just that. I’ve never taken it awfully seriously. Until now, that is.
When I told Liv about the last time Anna hyped up a relationship, she laughed. ‘Geez, it’s like being pregnant isn’t it? You are either engaged or you’re not.’
I can’t help but feel that she’s going to be like those women who send out a group email to announce they are going to start trying for a baby. Anna clearly likes the media circus as much as the event.
‘Listen, how do you err, know he wants to marry you?’ I say as I think it’s a fair point. From where I’m standing, Stan does not seem like a man about to propose and I want her to argue her case.
’Well, lately, he’s been incredibly moody and critical, like he’s got something on his mind. The other day, I thought it was going to happen, as he said he’d been thinking about the future, but then he seemed to hesitate and copped out.’
I’m so caught up in her own interpretation of events I look up just in time to quickly grab my bag off the train floor and hop out at Broadstairs.
‘Well, how do you feel about it?’ I ask with caution, not wanting to encourage her to say anything more, for fear of sending her into a proactive tailspin.
‘Well, he’s a good guy isn’t he? Far too good for the likes of me.’ The way she says the last bit, it sounds like a joke but deep down I think she knows it isn’t. ‘You think that he’s too good for me don’t you?’ she snaps as though reading my mind.
‘No, of course not,’ I say hurriedly, a second too late.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter really does it? Anna says, her tone of voice becoming shrill. ‘It’s only a matter of days. I know Stan is mad about me.’ Anna always seems to have one hundred percent certainty that every man will be crazy about her, always emphasizing how he feels about her but not emoting much the other way round.
‘And I take it you are in love with him too right?’ I say, pushing my ticket through the machine, noticing that Anna doesn’t answer right away.
‘What’s not to like? He’s good looking, successful, caring. Proper marriage material,’ she elaborates, not really answering my original question. ‘I think I should stick with him, even if we don’t really have much in common – well apart from you.’ She then does that irritating laugh that she used to do around the boys in Sydney.
Jittery, I walk down the hill past Claire’s salon that has a new poster of the lady herself advertising those flammable hair extensions. The Globe’s sign gets nearer and Anna carries on chatting as I tune out again, too preoccupied with her using the phrase ‘sticking with’ in the same sentence as Stan. I’m feeling like something is coming to a head, like trouble is stirring. My friend is a catch: he is not a compromise that you have to ‘stick with’. What happens if she hurts him? How will I remain friends with both if they break up? Will I have to be a bridesmaid? All these questions play out in my mind as Anna talks on. Finally, she comes up for air.
‘You are still coming to my play aren’t you?’ she asks expectantly.
Oh
shit
,
the
play
.
Conscious that once I set foot in the café all ears will be in on the conversation, I stand outside trying to wrap up the call, but then decide that what the hell, there are so few people in there and that lot always have a face on them. ‘Sure, I’m coming,’ I whisper, giving a thumbs-up sign to Paolo who just frowns and shakes his head.
Resplendent in a twin set with plaid trousers cutting her right in half, Paula too eyeballs me from behind the counter, while helping herself to biscuits from the jar, one for her and one for PJ who has that kind of runny nose that needs sorting out.
‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic,’ Anna huffs. What does she want me to do precisely, whoop with joy at the thought of sitting through another one of those plays where nothing ever happens and I have to sit upright for fear of falling asleep?
Quietly listening to Anna chastise me, I then point towards a very lonely looking muffin and do the thumbs-up again for my second baked good of the day. ‘Look, of course, I’ll be there,’ I say wearily. ‘Woo hoo. Can’t wait.’
‘Where are you now anyhow?’ Anna says, the first question she’s asked me since she rang.
‘At the Globe,’ I reply. ‘But I was actually up in London today. I had that interview with your friend Victoria. Thank you for that. One of many I saw.’ I add that last bit as it makes my day sound busy and I don’t feel quite so at the mercy of her charity.
‘Thank God for that. Glad Victoria is going to find something. It seems like ages since you were on the pay roll. You must be tearing your hair out,’ she scoffs, devoid of a filter, relishing yet another opportunity to be direct – or as Liv would say, ‘fucking mean’. Lately, I’ve been questioning why I remain friends with Anna. I mean, it’s not as if she wants to help me move forward in a productive way, what with bad blind dates and appointments with snooty recruitment people. Deep down though, I know why I persevere – she’s going out with my best mate. She’s also my last link to Joe. If I lose her friendship, I lose all evidence he ever existed. You see, when you meet someone on the other side of the world and have experienced not so much as a whiff of proper romance since most people think you’ve just made him up. Anna was a witness to that time – well, her and Liv. However, unlike Liv who positively hates the guy and is always very impassioned on my behalf, Anna never so much as mentions Joe and discourages me from talking about it.
‘You got any plans for the weekend?’ I ask, to which Anna tells me all about her rehearsals, just as Liv appears from the kitchen and heaves herself into the chair opposite me.
My pregnant friend looks drained and in need of our evening ahead chilling out. She’s about to say something when she sees I’m on the phone. I do the one-minute sign, as Anna is busy telling me about some Hollywood audition she is determined to land. Liv asks who it is and I mouth back ‘Anna’, which is then met with a grimace.
Liv
really
does not like Anna – never has, never will. When pressed on the subject she just says that Anna is just one of
those
girls
. I will never forget the memory of my second New Year in Sydney, where Anna and Liv argued in front of some random man who was just minding his own business, busy downing his pint in order to escape.
‘He’s mine Anna, you saw me looking at him,’ Liv shouted, which was then met with Anna’s pointy finger right in her face.
‘Can I help it that he fancies me and not you?’ Anna replied and then made the unwise decision to do the ‘talk to the hand’ gesture at Liv, who promptly kicked her in the shins in a proper school playground kind of way.
Time does not heal all wounds and whenever Anna is so much as mentioned, Liv sounds like Muttley the dog, growling under her breath. I’ve solved this by making sure I only see them individually and if necessary, lie about my whereabouts to preserve the other one’s feelings – which as it happens is a lot easier now we’re no longer living in a ten-bed dorm.
Anna is now busy telling me about rehearsals when she suddenly stops talking. ‘Is that Liv in the background?’ she asks, upon hearing Liv yelling expletives at Paolo. I reluctantly admit that it is. ‘Perhaps I should meet up with her to talk through everything you know, before I embark on a new chapter with Stan.’
Oh
dear
god
,
that
wasn’t
the
expected
response
.
‘Send her my best,’ Anna says, and I shudder at the very thought of doing so, for fear of inciting a hormonal rant – that or a muffin squashed into my face. ‘Hope she’s in a good place.’
Uh
oh
, I think. This can only mean one thing – she’s in ‘Zen Positivity’ mode. Every now and then, Anna does a module for this course that has a syllabus that’s as secretive as the freemasons, but one that openly demands that she parts with money on a regular basis. She tends to only do it when she is single or has stuff on her mind, so it surprises me to hear her talk about it, as from where I stand she seems pretty sorted. She then proceeds to tell me all about the latest exercise that involves facing up to regrets – which, let’s face it, for the majority of us would probably take a whole lifetime to deal with. Unfortunately, a side effect of doing this ‘soul searching’ is that she goes where you don’t need to go too often – the ex-files. My heart sinks as she then compounds my worst fear.
‘I rang Rob in New Zealand’.
Not
Rob
. ‘He wasn’t too happy to hear from me though, said he wished I would go away and just leave him alone. How rude!’ What on earth did she expect?
‘Who else have you rung?’ I enquire, openly grimacing, hoping she’s not got too trigger-happy.
‘Everyone I ever liked or came up against at one point or the other,’ comes the reply.
That’s
a
hell
of
a
lot
of
people
.
I myself attempted to make peace with the past. In a fit of frustration that my life was fast becoming like a boomerang, as in nothing ever happened unless I instigated it, I emailed the, by now, mythical Joe. I was just hoping to re-establish contact in order that I might know what to file him away under. Other than accepting my friend request on Facebook, it had been a very long time since we’d been in touch. My email was nothing dramatic, just nice and short, with every single word heavily considered, along the lines of ‘I hope you are well and did what you planned to do’.
Over the next few days, I’d anxiously check my inbox, only for a week to go by and then a month. By then, I had this dawning realisation that he was never going to write back and I just felt so ridiculously foolish. Far from being able to chalk it down to experience though, consoling myself that he might have been run over by a tour bus or eaten by a crocodile, I kept coming across Joe on Facebook, with a feed that was a series of friend acceptances and endless selfies in front of glamorous Sydney backdrops, looking like he was having an amazing time – an amazing time without me. I felt like the ‘Ghost of Christmas Past’ in
A
Christmas
Carol
and this was not conducive to getting over him. There and then I exerted the one bit of control I still had and ‘unfriended’ him. Given he had 500+ ‘friends’, I doubt he ever noticed.