1
7.34 p.m. Friday, 14 February
Location: A truly horrible bar designed to make everyone feel like they will never belong anywhere in life. There’s a gold-plated moose head on the wall, a giant, fake-gold chandelier, mirrors everywhere, and uplighting. What kind of monster do you have to be to install uplighting?
I am sitting still, very still. I’ve arranged myself into the perfect casual-but-attractive pose at the bar, with my best side (the right) facing the door. It’s not terribly comfortable, but that’s all right because MWCBTO (Man Who Could Be The One) should be here any second, and if films have taught me anything – and they have taught me everything – love at first sight is key to all this happily ever after stuff.
A few minutes pass and I remain frozen, peripherally aware that the barmaid is watching my best Madame Tussaud waxwork impression with curiosity.
‘Are you all right?’ she asks eventually, smiling awkwardly as she wipes around me with her J Cloth.
Am I all right? Well. That’s quite a big question. It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m sitting alone on a stool even though stools are my nemesis – seriously can anyone climb on or off a stool with any elegance, and will they show me how because I won’t be able to go to the loo all night – waiting for a potentially no-show blind date. My face is shiny and flustered, and I didn’t bring my blotting patches. Oh, and there is also nervous sweat leaking into my eyes. She probably doesn’t want the whole stream of consciousness, though, so I nod cheerfully instead, and ask for more alcohol (if I’m going to be stood up, I might as well enjoy myself ).
She smiles, ‘Will a white wine do?’ I grin, still nodding. ‘You look very nice by the way,’ she adds, pouring liberally without a measure (for which I am eternally grateful).
‘Thank you,’ I beam at her, thinking nice won’t do. Balancing carefully on one bum cheek, I hitch my skirt up a bit higher and pull my top down a little lower. Nobody wants nice.
As if by slutty magic, my phone vibrates. It’s him!
It’s not him, it’s Sophie:
Are you OK? Xxxxx
I roll my eyes. Everyone’s worried about me, constantly asking if I’m OK. I’ve had a grand total of eleven messages today from friends and family checking I’m ‘doing OK’ and ‘sending love’. Jackie – fucking fifty-two-year-old Jackie from work whose best friend is in prison for stealing from their local bingo hall – Jackie feels sorry for me. It’s so great hearing how much my loved ones think being single on Valentine’s Day when you’re nearly thirty is worse than death. I make eye contact with the golden moose. Actually, yeah, maybe this situation is worse than death.
My sister, Jennifer, set this date up. She said – and I’m quoting directly here – If I leave it to you, you’ll die alone. And I won’t come over and stop the cats eating you. I won’t do it; I have enough on my plate. So she arranged tonight with Martin, who is apparently not great looking but you’re desperate and he will do for you. So that’s exciting. He used to work as some kind of sexy-sounding tax lawyer with Jen’s husband, Andrew, and has been single for just a couple of months. But Jen says that’s when you have to pounce. Any longer and they get snapped up. Martin and I have exchanged a few very formal tax-lawyer-y type texts (honestly, I felt like he was going to ask for my National Insurance number at one point) and he chose the bar and time. I didn’t really clock that it was V-Day when we set it up but it’s impossible to forget now, what with all the sad texts. Plus the second I was out the door I saw a couple holding an actual heart-shaped pink balloon. They weren’t even ashamed. There’s only one day of the year those heinous people are allowed to emerge and today is that day. It’s like witches on Halloween, but their magic power is making everyone around them puke.
A few more minutes pass and I send MWCBTO another text.
I hope you’re not lost! I’m sitting at the bar getting trashed alone! I look super cool!!!
I go back and delete a couple of the exclamation marks. And then I add a winky emoticon in case deleting the exclamation marks makes the message too serious. I press send and check the time. The tax lawyer is nearly thirty minutes late, which seems very un-tax-lawer-y of him. If he’s this chilled out about timekeeping it almost gives me hope that he won’t be like a tax lawyer. I sigh, wondering at what point I should give up. God, maybe he’s here, but his phone has died? Maybe he thinks I haven’t turned up. I have no idea what he looks like because I made a point of not looking him up on Facebook because I thought ADVENTURE and now I hate myself.
This is so humiliating. Should I actually ring him? No, that would be more awkward than climbing up on stools. That’s not how our generation does things – we are the people of text and emoticons. I’d communicate solely through links to Buzzfeed articles if I could. Well, I almost do.
I wait another five minutes. I’ve now WhatsApped, texted and – don’t judge – even sent him an ‘amusing’ Snapchat asking where he is. I steel myself, and make the call. Straight to voicemail. That is a mega bad sign. Should I leave a message? I’m really bad at . . . too late.
‘Oh! Hello! Um. It’s Ellie here. Eleanor Knight. Jennifer’s sister? Andrew’s wife’s sister? Andrew, who you worked with in 2010 and stayed friends with on Facebook and then his wife messaged you on Facebook about going on a date with her desperate sister? That’s me! I’m in the bar, I think we did say 7.30, didn’t we? I’ve had two and a half wines, which seems like a lot but they were small. Ish. Large-small. I hope you’re OK. Call or text me when you –’ His voicemail cuts me off, which is totally fair because I would’ve cut me off too. Why do phones even let you make calls any more? It’s like they want you to fail at life.
Maybe he’s dead! I think happily. Maybe he got hit by a car on his way over here because he was carrying a stupid fucking heart-shaped pink balloon that gave him tunnel vision so he stepped out into the road without seeing the Mini Cooper hurtling towards him. I picture the balloon floating serenely away into the night sky, away from the bloody carnage below.
That would mean he hadn’t stood me up and also that Jennifer couldn’t be annoyed with me for ruining this.
The barmaid is back. She has a shot in her hand. ‘Here,’ she holds it out. ‘Drink this and forget about everything. This is about a man, right? A man behaving like a bastard? You need this.’
I laugh and take the tequila. ‘Will you do one with me?’ I ask. ‘I’m being stood up on Valentine’s Day, which I think is pretty glorious, don’t you?’
She grabs another glass. ‘Could be worse,’ she says cheerfully. ‘I got dumped yesterday by text. He texted me. While I was here, working. I told my boss and he said, “Oh dear. But at least it means you can work on Valentine’s Day tomorrow”.’ She smiles, grimly. We do our shot.
‘How long were you together?’ I ask, wiping sticky tequila off my chin – and most of my make-up with it. It’s too late now for love – or even lust – at first sight with the tax lawyer. ‘I’m Ellie, by the way.’
‘A year,’ she says, pouring us another shot. ‘And he ended it over text. He said he wasn’t ready for the commitment and he wished me well. He. Wished. Me. Well. And he put a crying emoji.’
She shudders and I shake my head. ‘I’m so sorry, what a shit.’
We do the second shot.
A gruff voice interrupts. ‘Not all men are shits,’ says the man next to us, who looks a lot like he might be a shit. He’s bright red from too many sunbeds and is wearing a deep-pink, deep-vee T-shirt. The result is a blending and clashing of colours that makes him look both naked and mid-major-arterial-stroke. He goes on, ‘Maybe he dumped you over text because he was afraid of you being a bitch about it.’ The girl he’s with looks mortified, and I can’t tell if it’s at her date’s interruption or just a general sense of being seen in public with a human beetroot.
‘Thanks for your input,’ I say, grimacing, ‘we actually didn’t say all men. But the guy who’s standing me up right now, and the one who dumped – sorry, what’s your name? – over text are definite shits.’
The barmaid is nodding a lot. ‘Shits,’ she says, and then adds just to me, ‘Cassie.’
‘Did you even consider that maybe it’s your fault?’ he says, squinting disapprovingly at my stomach as he gives me the once over. I pull my skirt back down. ‘Maybe all your feminism and high standards are getting in the way of finding a proper, decent guy to look after you,’ he finishes proudly, like he’s solved life for us. All we have to do is accept our traditional role as nice, quiet women and let a man run everything. Simple. I picture this man getting his bones crushed by a Mini Cooper as Cassie and I gape at each other, speechless.
A woman the other side of me leans over and, smiling sweetly at Pinky with No Brain, says kindly, ‘You’re a stupid arsehole.’
It’s well put.
He shrugs – probably hears that a lot. ‘Feminist bitches,’ he mutters, turning back to his date to find she is gathering her coat and bag. She glances apologetically at us as she storms off, the arsehole in pursuit, drink in hand, bellowing that ‘those girls started it.’
Cassie laughs and gets us a bottle of wine. ‘I’m having a break,’ she shouts to no one in particular and walks round to climb up on the stool beside me.
‘Thanks for that,’ I say to the woman on my left, offering her a congratulatory high-five. The man she’s with is laughing hysterically. ‘Isn’t she fantastic?’ he says, wiping tears and smiling proudly at her. Cassie agrees, grabbing two extra glasses and sloshing wine into them for all of us.
The couple are called Fred and Sarah, and they’ve been together four years. They are the rarely seen, practically extinct type of pairing that actually doesn’t feel the need to tell everyone at all times how in love they are. David Attenborough is set to make a whole series about their Genuinely Happy Relationship next year. In fact, they’re only out on Valentine’s Day by accident. Sarah is incredibly cross about it, she just wanted to go out and get drunk with her best-friend-boyfriend. By the time they realised their mistake, they decided the need to get drunk was even more urgent than before. It’s immediately apparent that they are very drunk, and – I’ve just realised – so am I. We celebrate the realisation with another shot and I tell the group about my blind date. Sarah points to the sky like a cartoon character – a drunk cartoon character – and slurs, ‘Shall we ring your arsehole and leave a voicemail?’ She grabs my phone and I watch through a fog of tequila as it rings on loudspeaker.
As before, it clicks straight through to voicemail, and Cassie introduces herself by shouting ‘Hello, shithead’. Fred starts giggling again as Cassie continues. ‘Ellie is fantastic and you are a shithead, and you shouldn’t stand people up because that makes you a shithead.’
All important, relevant points and I take a turn: ‘I am very cross about this, Marty. Can I call you Marty? Because Martin’s a bad name. It makes you sound like a tax lawyer or something. Oh, guys, guys! He is a tax lawyer!’
We all start giggling again and Sarah shouts ‘Arsehole,’ before hanging up. A small, sober pang in my stomach tells me I will regret doing that tomorrow, and I know Jen will shout at me, but right now I don’t care. I just don’t care.
‘Do you like being single?’ Cassie asks me a couple of hours later. Sarah and Fred have left to forage in the wilds of London for halloumi kebabs, so it’s just us left, sitting on crates in the stockroom behind the bar, eating Nutella out of a jar with plastic forks. Do I like being single? It’s one of those questions I get asked a lot. I’ve been on my own for pretty much a year now, and to begin with the answer was easy; of course I don’t mind, I love it! After ending a four year relationship with a guy called Tim, I couldn’t have been more excited about the prospect of being on my own. Do you know how depressing it is, having to say that name during sex? Nicknames were obviously out because saying ‘Timmy’ out loud in bed is, I’m pretty sure, an actual sex crime, and he really didn’t like being called fuck monkey. One time I did that and he stopped and asked me if anything was wrong. He said he was worried we weren’t ‘connecting’ during our ‘lovemaking’ any more. Not really surprising, when he used the word ‘lovemaking’. So after we split up I went on the most brilliant sex rampage. There was Guy With Cute Dog, Cries When He Comes, Stole My Cutlery, Dead Wife Guy (although he could also have been called Cried When He Comes), Long And Thin Dude (penis, not body) (but that too). And The Horny Doctor, who should have to re-take his medical exams because he did not seem to understand basic anatomy. As I explained to my best friends, Sophie and Thomas, it was important not to use their real names because much like a stray dog, you don’t want to get too attached.
At the beginning, everyone kept saying; Oh brilliant! and Good for you and Just have fun, you deserve it and Did his wife really die? But that attitude has really shifted in the last few months. Everyone’s started wearing a permanent look of concern over my singleness, asking me if I’m happy, asking me if I’m lonely, asking me if I think maybe my standards are too high. Which I’m really trying not to hear as Do you think maybe you’re uglier than you think? They’ve been tiptoeing around the subject, like it’s something I must be upset about, like I’m a problem that needs to be solved. Texting me on fucking Valentine’s Day to check I haven’t hurt myself. I thought I was OK – great even! – being on my own, but it’s making me question myself. Making me think there must be something wrong with me. Why am I alone? Am I completely unlovable?
I suddenly feel a bit miserable. The Nutella tastes like glue in my mouth and I feel a wave of nausea overtake me. I want to get out of there, but Cassie’s looking at me, waiting for an answer.
‘I don’t know,’ I say honestly. ‘I don’t feel lonely. Loneliness was only ever something I felt when I was in the wrong relationships. And on nights like this, I feel like I never want to date again. But love is supposed to be the happily ever after, isn’t it? The ending we’re all supposed to want.’ We go quiet.
My phone vibrates with another text. Which of my pitying friends is it this time?
It’s him! The bastard tax lawyer, at last. I read it. And then read it again. The words are blurry. I’m very drunk.
Hi Eleanor. I’ve just seen all your texts. I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, we were meant to be meeting tomorrow. I said the 15th.
Oh.
I check our messages.
Right.
Saturday.
The day after Valentine’s.
Oh.
Another text comes through:
Hmm. I’ve just listened to your voice messages. I was having dinner with my grandparents so I had my phone off. Let’s forget about tomorrow, shall we?
Yeah, that’s fair.
On the way out, some guy offers to ‘pity bang’ me and by the time I get home to my sad, shithole of a flat, I’m wishing I’d said yes.
From: Alan Knight
To: [email protected]
CC: [email protected]
15th February
Alan Knight
106 Castle Rise
Judfield
East Sussex
TN22 5UN
Dear Eleanor and Jennifer,
I hope this “email” finds you well. It’s your dad here.
As you know, I’ve been seeing a “therapist” lately and I wanted to let you know it’s going very well. She is very nice and has a lot of framed “certificates” on her wall. I’ve “attached” some pictures of them for you. As part of our conversations, she suggested I start writing a “diary”, and I’ve been enjoying it so much, I decided I am now going to write a “novel”. I started last night and it’s going very well. I am very proud of both of you and love you equally and thought you might like to read the “novel” as I go along. Here is the first “chapter”, which I wrote last night. I stayed up until 10.30 p.m.!!!!!!!!!! Do not tell your Aunt Susie or Psychic Sharon because they said could they come over for tea and I said I was having an early night.
Love you both and I’m very proud of you both.
Best wishes,
Dad
75 HUES OF TONY
A novel, by Alan Bernard Knight
Once you’ve seen Tony Braxton, you can never forget his face. He has intense eyes that are like liquid coffee with no milk in it and an erotic nose. His mouth is that of a man who knows all the words in the whole dictionary but also knows to stay silent when his wife is having one of her difficult moods which she does actually have quite a lot even though Tony handles it really well. He may be almost sixty, but his physique is that of a much younger man who doesn’t worry about the gym very much but can hold some weight in his stomach area without looking like he’s let himself go even when his grown-up children say he’s let himself go. To sum up: he is very handsome and gets a lot of compliments on his calves. He uses the step machine in his living room while he’s watching the telly almost every day.
Tony has been going through a difficult stage in his life recently. His wife, Anita, has been extra moody and has even talked about leaving him which is clearly a strange idea – just look at his calves! He’s been incredibly sensitive with Anita’s moods and has had two separate and very lengthy – at least fifteen minutes each – conversations with her last Wednesday and Friday during the advert breaks of The Chase to discuss why she would do such a thing. But alas, he has not been successful. Tony arrives home that Friday evening after a long day at work, ready for nut roast and chicken night to find Anita’s bags gone and a letter with Tony written on the front waiting for him by the landline telephone, which he still uses because he used to work for BT and he doesn’t want landlines to die out altogether.
The letter from next to the landline is devastating. Anita wants a divorce and while she appreciates that he is the best man she could ever meet and he has always been very helpful around the house, unfortunately she no longer feels she deserves him and feels she should look for a lesser and probably much older man without an erotic nose to cook nut roast for. Tony is very, very upset. He is secure enough in his masculinity to have a little cry but first he remembers that he’s really quite hungry so he goes to look around the kitchen for food.
Inside of the kitchen that he went into, he is surprised to find his neighbour, Wanda, waiting for him in a very casual way leaning on the kitchen counter. She is wearing a very fetching jumper that Tony recognises from the Boden catalogue that he recently read on the toilet. Wanda says hello and looks immediately down to Tony’s calves, which are on display because he’s wearing shorts because it’s been quite sunny even though it’s only February. He can tell she is impressed and he knows that either a compliment is coming now or else Wanda is about to tell him why she’s here.
‘You have such shapely calves, Tony,’ says Wanda. ‘And let me now tell you why I’m here.’
He was right.
‘Anita told me she was leaving you, which is a strange idea, just look at your calves and your liquid coffee eyes. I thought “poor Tony” and rushed straight over to cook dinner for you. What would you like?’ Tony thinks about it for a good five minutes while Wanda makes it clear that she admires his very attractive thinking face. At last Tony makes his decision and tells Wanda his decision and it is that he would like nut roast and chicken for dinner. Luckily for them both, they have all the ingredients for this dinner because it is nut roast and chicken night, so Wanda immediately springs into action, moving around the kitchen like a beautiful Nigella Lawson, who Tony has often admired basting her chicken. Tony is hoping Wanda will also be like Mary Berry because Tony usually likes cheesecake to follow his nut roast on a Friday evening. Anyway, when it is finally ready, Tony and Wanda sit down to eat dinner together in front of the telly, and then Wanda says something that is set to change Tony’s life FOREVER even though he doesn’t yet know that.
‘Tony,’ says Wanda. ‘Would you like to come to my book club tomorrow?’
Their eyes meet and Tony senses that his life is set to change FOREVER.
END SCENE
2
10.10 a.m. Monday, 17 February
Location: My actually-quite-nice office at design firm The Hales. It’s big and airy with glass walls. At one end of the open plan office there’s a big TV screen and sofas for, y’know, totes casual coffee breaks. There’s also a table football that literally no one has ever used but it helps gives the place a real media-twat vibe.
I’ve been staring at an InDesign document on my computer screen for the last forty minutes, achieving new levels of nothingness. Every time I try to focus on work, I feel another awful, hot flush of humiliation about Friday night creep up my neck. When I woke up late on Saturday, still fully dressed, with eyes glued together from congealed make-up, I had a grand total of eight missed calls from Jennifer and four furious voicemails, all reminding me in very specific terms that I am a pathetic loser who ruins – quote – everything. My hangover was next level, and as I crawled to the loo to be sick, pieces of the night before came flooding back. The flashbacks kept coming throughout the day as Jen tried to ring me several more times and I kept ignoring her.
I didn’t need to hear her tell me I had failed again. That I’m stupid. That I’ll be alone forever. That Martin is a perfectly good name.
And I really didn’t need anyone else’s help with the looming self-hated.
Oh fuck, Jackie’s coming over to my desk. Jackie is the office manager and sees herself as my ‘work mother’. She’s always telling people this, but the only real evidence of this familial relationship is our constant bickering, the way she tells me what to do even though she has nothing to do with my department, and the fact that we basically hate each other. Other than that, she’s a pretty standard human being: married, two teenage boys, thinks I’m broken because I’m single. Standard. She’s that co-worker everyone hates because she won’t stop looking at your computer screen when she’s near your desk. Reading your emails, scanning whatever you’re working on (for me that means Instagram stalking. . .
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