CHAPTER ONE
I look down at my phone and watch with relief as the ticks turn blue. She’s typing. In the moments before her reply appears, I reflect on how profoundly tragic it is to be seeking company on WhatsApp in this situation. Truly a dark moment, even for me.
I’ve forgotten to switch my phone to silent mode and cringe at the loud message alert tone. I don’t know the etiquette in this situation—perhaps it is like being at the cinema? No one appears to notice the disturbance.
What do you mean you feel like a spare part?! Just get involved! Put yourself out there!
I glance up briefly at the scene unfolding in front of me and then back at my phone. That’s easy for her to say. Ray is an extrovert. She loves getting involved. I’ve never really been a “group activity” kind of gal.
I literally am a spare part, Ray. It was fine at first but then I just sort of became surplus to requirement.
So what are you doing?
Messaging you! I’m just…watching?
Oh god, El! I mean cool if that’s what you’re into.
I’m not into it! I don’t want to just watch. I wanted to get involved. This is my wild year! I’m being wild!
I place my phone down on the desk at which I’m sitting, a statement which, under the circumstances, feels very bleak indeed. I notice a framed, faded photograph of a man crouching down, his arms wrapped around both a golden retriever and a child wearing a pair of shorts and an enormous sun hat. I turn it facedown. The respectful thing to do. No father or golden retriever should see their child doing this.
I glance back at the couple on the bed and sigh. It would perhaps be better if they were fucking. Doing something obscene. But they’re doing only what I can horrifyingly describe as making love.
How did I find myself here—silently observing a couple of strangers having sex from the comfort of an ergonomic office chair? Well, it’s the fourth month of my Wild Year, a self-inflicted challenge born out of a drunken New Year’s Eve fifteen long weeks ago. It’s the resolution that just keeps on giving.
—
“I’m stuck in a rut,” I’d said at Ray’s house party, flinging my arm in the air hopelessly, wine sloshing out of the top of the bottle I was holding. The four of us—Ray, Jamie, Will, and I—were in the garden getting some fresh air (smoking) and a much-needed break from the people inside. I honestly don’t know why we ever bother inviting anyone else, it always ends up just us, willing them all to go home. I was especially grateful for the break from the chatter inside that night. I had been starting to feel like the only person in the room who didn’t have something exciting to contribute to the conversation—a fabulous professional achievement, a baby, a sordid affair, a divorce even. Oh, to be a glamorous divorcée! But no, I had nothing.
“Don’t be so dramatic, El,” Jamie said. He could talk. He’d borrowed someone’s faux fur coat to wear into the garden as well as a pair of stilettos that he couldn’t walk in. I’d heard him announce only moments ago that he was going to “literally die” if the rumor that we were running low on ice turned out to be true.
“I can’t believe that’s another year of my life gone,” I carried on, ignoring him. “Everything stays the same. I dated Greg for a hundred years. I feel like I’ve been doing this job I fucking hate since birth. I’ve lived in that flat for three years now and every single day I want to thro
w myself out the window.”
I’d taken a clumsy drag on a badly rolled cigarette and coughed dramatically. Ray rolled her eyes at me and took it from my hand, shaking her lighter and relighting it. I know smoking is very bad, not cool in any way, but the way Ray does it—sorry, she should be on adverts, everyone would be taking it up.
“Well, you do live on the ground floor, El, so…,” Ray said, blowing smoke into the night air.
I saw Ray lock eyes with Jamie and exchange a look, the briefest flicker of a smile.
“I’m being serious,” I said. “This is what I do! This is my life! Just the same, always, always the same. I never do anything different or interesting or, or…brave!”
It was partly incoherent, drunken rambling, but it came from somewhere real and deep and guttural. This feeling of utter stagnation so intense sometimes I’d wake up in the night gripped with it, seized by panic.
“You broke up with Greg,” Will said, dropping his own cigarette end to the ground and squashing it under his foot. “That was brave.”
I don’t think sweet Will would know bravery if it slapped him in the face. As we spoke, he popped a piece of chewing gum in his mouth so his girlfriend wouldn’t know he’d been smoking.
“It wasn’t brave to break up with Greg,” I said.
It really wasn’t. It didn’t feel brave in any way. It felt essential. Vital to being able to go on living. Like shedding the weight of the world. Sorry, Greg.
I was drunk enough in that moment that I nearly said what I really thought would be brave. The reason I feel like a coward most of the time. It was on the tip of my tongue. But I chickened out of course. Thankfully, I suppose. Or unfortunately. I can never decide. Instead I said:
“I’m going to do something about it next year.”
I poured white wine confidently and generously into my mouth directly from the bottle as the others cried out in indignation. In hindsight, I don’t believe it was mine.
“I have to do something that scares me every day, something brave, something wild. Wait,” I said, screwing up my face, reworking the math, “not every day, every month. I mean month, obviously.”
Ray laughed in my face, taking the bottle from me to pour the dregs into her glass.
“El, you couldn’t even think of twelve wild things,” she said, “let alone do them.” She didn’t mean it unkindly, she said it as a matter of fact—as surely as she knew the sky was blue she knew that Eleanor Evans was n
ot a wild woman.
It felt like a punch to my stomach. The wine threatened to make a reappearance. Is that really what she thought of me?
“I can,” I said indignantly, looking around at the others. “I can think of loads of wild things. I can be wild, don’t you think?”
Will squinted and looked into the distance, like he was concentrating on something far away and couldn’t hear me.
“Babe,” Jamie said, “earlier you told me that you’d been doing a lot of research into memory foam pillows because ‘it’s not a decision to be taken lightly.’ ”
“That’s just good sense,” I said. “You only get one neck, Jamie.”
“El,” Ray said, “you’re fine just as you are. You don’t need to do anything differently. We like you like this—healthy necked and sensible.”
It is deeply humbling to be described by someone you fancy as “healthy necked” but on that night it only added fuel to the fire.
“No, Ray,” I said, “I’m not fine as I am. I know there’s a better version inside, a wilder, more exciting one. I’m going to show you.”
“Yeah?” Ray said, looking at me in that maddening way, that twinkle in her eye, that cockiness.
I hate myself for it, but it just does something to me. Instead of grabbing her and kissing her, which is what I wanted to do, I reached out and poked her in the side with my index finger. Nursery school flirting. She didn’t respond at all, probably because she is twenty-eight, not six.
“OK,” she said, and held out her hand.
I took it and we shook.
“A year of wild things. Really wild though, El. I’m going to hold you to it. Proper out-of-your-comfort-zone stuff.”
I nodded as I watched her fingers slip from mine. The way she looked at me, amused, with pity almost, and then up at Jamie to share a knowing glance. She didn’t think I could do it. The concept cemented in my mind.
I have never wanted to prove someone wrong so badly.
I’d like to say I was overflowing with ideas for my new adventures but, actually, my immediate thought was of the new notebook I would treat myself to so I could journal my progress, perhaps a new pen. Highlighters, even. The thrill of new stationery! Yes, this was definitely something I could get into.
—
So now here I am. Aft
r a minute or two longer of waiting to be subbed in, I admit defeat, get up from the desk chair, and start pulling on my jeans. I wonder if this will remind the couple that I’m here, that I’ve been here the whole time. That I’m the person they took out for drinks. The person they kissed in the back of an Uber. That they took these jeans off in the first place. They remain oblivious to my existence.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror leaning up against the wall. Jeans undone, black lace bra chosen especially for other people to look at, my freshly cut hair disappointingly unruffled. There is a flush of red on my chest, my internal discomfort making itself known. I take a couple of deep breaths and press the back of my hand to my chest, trying to cool it down. I give my reflection a grim smile. It’s going to be a good story at least. Well, a story.
Once I’ve pulled my T-shirt back on and ordered an Uber, I hover by the bedroom door. I’d love to just walk out, but I am physically incapable of leaving any social situation without first profusely thanking the hosts for their hospitality.
“Um, I’m just going to…I’m heading off. Thank you so much for having me, um, well not having me but, um, your flat is lovely. Very”—I run my hand over the doorframe as though I might be admiring the timberwork—“sturdy.”
I hardly recognize my own voice; for some reason I’m speaking in a sort of reverent, hushed tone like a librarian.
They both turn their heads, one on top of the other.
“No,” the girl says with no conviction whatsoever. “You should stay.”
“Yeah, stay,” the man says.
“Oh, no. I have…some work to do. So good to meet you though!”
I run out of the flat and onto the street. The door slams behind me, and I burst out laughing. A passing dog walker glares at me, but I don’t care. I’m free. My heart is racing. I’m relieved at the laughter; I feel dangerously close to crying. It could have gone either way.
It’s a long way from the couple’s flat in Barnes to my own in Leyton—£55-in-an-Uber long. I check that I have enough money in my account. I do, just. Luckily, I transferred all my “savings” into my current account at the beginning of the week. That £134, the total of my assets, has now disappeared with nothing to show for it but the memory of a couple of great Pret sandwiches and the beginnings of a savage hangover.
I clutch my phone in case it turns out I need to play one of those TikToks that makes it seem like your burly boyfriend is waiting for you at home, but I don’t look at it, as I’ll get carsick. The driver appears as relieved as I am that I’m not going to be chatty and that he can
listen to talk radio in peace and so, after a few minutes of not being murdered by him, I decide to take the risk and close my eyes. I rest my head against the window and let it vibrate against my skull.
My Wild Year has not been a great success so far, if I’m being honest. I am starting to think there is a reason that up until the age of thirty I had not spent my time doing wild things, but I’m in too deep now. The idea of Ray patting my hand gently, telling me it’s OK that I failed, that maybe I could take up a different challenge—sewing or sudoku or something—is too much to bear. I want it to be like the ending of Grease, my own Bad Sandy moment, in which Ray sees me and practically falls over in shock at how sexy and cool I am. Yes, Ray is John Travolta in this scenario. Don’t think about it too much.
To be fair, it was hard to be wild in January, when this all began. It was cold, and the daylight hours are so short. There’s no real time for it. I got drunk on tequila on a Wednesday night and was so violently ill the next day that I had to call in sick for work. After that I decided that I could only really afford to be wild on the weekends.
In February I got a tattoo of a butterfly on my left hip. It is very delicate and tiny, and in truth, I quite enjoyed the experience. Going to get a tattoo is much like going to the dentist, only with far more forms to fill in. I’d taken a deep breath just before the woman began, prepared to feel what others had described as “broken glass being dragged across your skin,” but as I felt the first scratch, I was pleasantly surprised. It was methodical, sharp. When she finished after just a few minutes, I was almost disappointed. I left the shop with strict instructions to buy diaper rash cream and felt distinctly unwild.
In March I tried MDMA for the first time. The first time I have taken illegal drugs of any kind. I split a pill with Ray and felt like I was the conductor for all the electricity in the world. Like every part of my body was more receptive to touch and sound and light than anyone else’s had ever been. My shoulders relaxed for the first time in my life. I felt free of myself, my overworking brain, my tired muscles. The freedom lasted for about five hours, after which I felt crushing, and I mean crushing sadness. Anxious thoughts and made-up memories roaring through my body like flames. I am grateful for that brief window of wildness, although I am not interested in revisiting it.
So here we are. The end of April. The month of the threesome, something I have always wondered about when I’m alone. Something I previously thought could be fun and exciting. Something that other pe
ople do, exciting people. Tonight was the first date I’ve ever been on with two people. “Looking for a third,” they’d said. Well, that could not have been more accurate. I’ve never felt more like the third wheel in my life.
When I get home, I struggle to open my bedroom door. I jiggle it about and realize there is something heavy directly behind it. When the door eventually gives way enough for me to squeeze through, I see that the offending object is an enormous tent. My brother, Rob, must have dropped it off while I was out, and instead of coping with it in our hallway for a few hours, my roommate, Amelia, has dumped it in my tiny bedroom, so there is now not enough room for me to fully open my door or indeed get into bed. I gather the tent up in my arms and chuck it onto the bed. I bundle it up so that it fits on the left-hand side up against the wall. Turns out I will be sharing my bed tonight after all.
I make as much noise as I possibly can in the bathroom, hoping that Amelia is sitting in her much larger, much nicer room, boiling with rage. This is technically Amelia’s flat, or, more accurately, it’s Amelia’s parents’ flat. They bought it for her, but part of the deal is that she has to pay the mortgage, which necessitates her having a flatmate. She feels that this is deeply unjust. Since she can’t punish her parents for it because presumably they’ll evict her or take away her pocket money, she punishes me by being unbelievably passive-aggressive or, in Ray’s words, “a little bitch.”
I pull on some fresh pajamas and climb into bed next to my tent boyfriend. I give it a little kick to try to make some more space, but it springs back, bulkier than ever. I hate it already.
I am not the sort of person who likes to be outside. A brisk walk between tube stops, yes. A cocktail at a sidewalk café on a sunny day, sure. But I have never found trees and fields and exposure to the elements to be as restorative as other people claim to find them. In fact, if anything, I find the outdoors stressful. All those bugs, the wind, miles and miles of nothingness. Blisters. Lukewarm bottles of water. No Wi-Fi.
This weekend I am going camping. Because of a girl.
Ray is not just any girl though; she is the girl. She’s been my closest friend since we met—day one of our internship at the newspaper we both still work at. We were sitting in a sweaty conference room in an open-plan office, the glass walls adding to the feeling that all of us were on display to the rest of the company. That was before the budget cuts, when they moved us to a smaller, grungier office with no air-conditioning and the lingering smell of a thousand different microwaved lunches.
“Which one are you?” Ray had whispered to me.
I frowned, and Ray pointed at the handout we’d been given detailing the company’s extensive diversity program, of which we were both now a part.
“Ah.” I picked up my pen and, after a moment’s hesitation, circled the B in the LGBTQ section. I’d squirmed a bit in doing so. I don’t particularly like labels, but I quickly realized that being here meant that we were our labels first and foremost.
I passed Ray the pen to do the same. She grinned and circled L and then drew an arrow to the bit where it read “working class.”
She pointed at herself and mouthed, “Common.” She has a London accent, but at that moment I couldn’t place exactly where she was from. Later, I learned it’s South East, where her family still lives.
I grinned.
“Any questions can be asked at the end. OK?” the blond woman at the front giving the induction said loudly and pointedly in our direction.
We both nodded, biting our lips to stop ourselves from laughing.
I watched Ray while we all sat back for an inspirational talk from a former intern who had now worked his way up to an entry-level position. He kept calling us all “guys” and was sweating profusely.
Ray had short blond hair, all wavy and long on the top, which meant she had to push it out of her eyes every few minutes. She had piercings in mismatched places all the way up her ears and a smattering of freckles across her nose. She was wearing a white shirt tucked into jeans, and she had rings on some of her fingers. Plain gold bands. None of them, I noticed, on her ring finger. That pleased me for some reason and was, looking back, the beginning of the end for me and my then boyfriend, Greg. Poor Greg.
Ray’s name tag, printed out with the company logo emblazoned on it, read “Ramona,” and I had called her Ramona all day until we’d been standing outside the building chatting, about to head home.
“Do you fancy going for a drink?” I’d said, not ready to leave Ray yet, wanting to stretch out our time together for as long as possible. “I feel like I need to decompress after that.”
“Sure,” Ray said. She was so distracted trying to unpin her name tag, she pulled a thread from her shirt and twisted it around in her fingers.
“Ramona,” I said, “it’s a lovely name.”
“I don’t think that anyone has called me Ramona since I was about five years old,” Ray said, smiling. “Apart from maybe my nan.”
“Oh! Shit, sorry.”
“How would you h
ave known? I’ve had it stamped on my chest all day.”
I found myself looking at the place where the name tag had been. I just knew I’d gone pink.
“Everyone calls me Ray,” she said.
“That’s lovely too.”
Ray had looked up and flashed me a smile, and from that moment I was hooked.
Now, in the afterglow of the threesome that wasn’t, I lie on my back, my arms on my pillow above my head, and sigh. I hope to hear Amelia up and about, disturbed, but our flat is silent apart from the hum of the fridge, which always sounds like it’s right on the verge of exploding. The people in the flat upstairs are playing Lithuanian power ballads, but it’s not so bad. At this point I’m so used to it that it’s essentially white noise.
Before I switch off the light, I pick up the journal next to my bed, where I’ve been keeping track of my Wild Year. Next to April I write Threesome month! and in the “Notes” column I write, Underwhelming. Did not actually have sex, which I believe is usually considered essential to the full threesome experience. I did kiss two people in one evening though. Quite wild, actually. Good work overall. 6/10.
I read it back and then add, Would not repeat.
CHAPTER TWO
I have worked at the newspaper for almost four years. ...
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