About a Girl Read online

  So much for her being the nice sister. Along with her hair and boobs, Mel had also inherited our mum’s ability to sniff out blood, and once she got a whiff of something not right, she did not let go.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything at the christening’ – Amy always told me it was good to start a lie by making yourself look good ? ‘but I’m not actually working there any more.’

  ‘Then where are you working?’ The two of them stared at me as though they already knew the answer but just really, really needed to hear me say it.

  ‘I’m not working anywhere,’ I said quietly. ‘I got made redundant.’

  Mel gasped. Liz reached out and snatched Tallulah from my arms in case unemployment was catching.

  ‘You know that one isn’t yours, don’t you?’ I asked.

  ‘Mum!’ Liz grabbed our passing mother’s arm, her face completely white. ‘Tess lost her job!’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ I pressed my hand against my forehead and prayed to whoever might be listening to strike me dead on the spot. I could not handle this right now. Silently I cursed Amy for dragging me up here and wished a plague on Charlie’s house for driving the car. My mother stopped dead in her tracks, her face frozen in horror, and just in case people hadn’t heard Liz, she dropped a full glass of red wine onto the tiled floor. It shattered into not really that many pieces (definitely not crystal) and splattered everyone around us with cheap red plonk.

  ‘Tess, what is she talking about?’ Ignoring the fact that she’d just ruined about seven people’s tights, my mum looked as though she’d just had a stroke. I really hoped she hadn’t. ‘What does she mean you lost your job?’

  ‘I was going to tell you after …’ I waved my hand around the very quiet room. ‘I got made redundant.’

  And with that, the whispering began. Everyone knew someone who had been made redundant, but Tess Brookes? Her who had moved away to That London? With her fancy job? Scandalous.

  ‘But your promotion?’ Mum’s face was still a very worrying shade of grey.

  ‘No promotion,’ I replied. Thank goodness I hadn’t overreacted. This was exactly as horrible as I had thought it would be.

  ‘I cannot believe you would embarrass me like this,’ she said through gritted teeth as she looked around at anyone but me. ‘I cannot believe you would come here and announce that like it’s nothing. I cannot believe you wanted to embarrass me in front of all my friends.’

  I dipped my head, pretending my eyes weren’t stinging, and watched the puddle of her spilled wine bleed across the floor towards a white paper napkin and slowly stain it a dark ruby red. There were so many things I wanted to say. I hadn’t planned to tell her like this. I hadn’t wanted to embarrass anyone. Liz told her! It was just like being fifteen again; Liz was such a grass. But just like when I was fifteen, I knew there was no point answering back. She wasn’t finished.

  ‘Don’t just sit there crying. What did you do?’

  Damage done, Liz got up, switched babies with Mel and flounced away, muttering something about needing to change Harry. Mel gave me a quick supportive squeeze on the shoulder and followed. Just like being fifteen. Where was Amy when I needed her?

  ‘I didn’t do anything ? they were just laying people off,’ I explained. It didn’t help that I didn’t actually know what had happened myself. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘Well, people don’t just lose their jobs for no reason, Tess,’ she carried on while a random sixteen-year-old who probably went to my old school started mopping up the mess around us. ‘I should have known something was wrong when you came out dressed like that.’

  She had a point there. She should have known.

  ‘I can’t believe this. After all I’ve done for you.’

  ‘What? After all you’ve done what?’

  Ahh. There was Amy. And as my best friend stepped up to my mother, the whispering was replaced by a low clinking of glasses, occasionally punctuated by the popping open of packets of McCoy’s.

  ‘What exactly have you done?’ she asked, forcing her way in between me and my mother, hands on skinny hips, and stamping a very little foot. ‘Aside from bully your daughter for the last twenty years?’

  Amy and my mum were exactly the same height. For years I’d wondered who would win in a fight, and at last it looked like I might find out.

  ‘I know this is going to be hard for you, Amy, but please don’t involve yourself where you’re not wanted,’ she replied. Ahh, interesting. She was playing the responsible mother card.

  ‘Can we not do this?’ I asked as calmly as possible. ‘We can talk about this at home. This is … Katniss’s day?’

  Nope, that just did not sound right.

  ‘Oh, we will talk about this at home,’ Mum replied, giving Amy the frowning of a lifetime. ‘We’ll talk about when you decided it was all right to start lying to your mother. And Amy, I think it would be a good idea if you stayed at your house tonight.’

  Before Amy could reply, my mum turned on her sensible heel and marched away. As the door to the pub slammed, the silence broke and the party went back to full volume with a new lease of life now they had something scandalous to talk about. Thank goodness me losing my job had served a purpose.

  ‘Sorry.’ Amy dropped into my lap and rested her head on my shoulder. Because that would quiet those lesbian rumours. ‘I couldn’t listen to her going on at you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you only made it marginally worse,’ I said, patting her on the head. ‘She was going to find out sooner or later.’

  ‘I suppose. Sorry I made you come in the first place, then,’ she sniffed. ‘I thought coming back and checking out all the losers would remind you how awesome our lives are.’

  I looked at her in disbelief. She shrugged. ‘How awesome my life is?’

  ‘OK.’ I groaned and stood up straight, ignoring the looks and smirks around the room. ‘I’m going to go out for a walk. Get some fresh air. Are you all right? I saw you dancing for Mrs Rogers earlier. Nice moves.’

  ‘Can you stop worrying about me for one minute and worry about yourself?’ she said, brushing down her in-appropriately tiny red dress and straightening out her glossy black bob. ‘When am I not fine?’

  It was true. She was always fine. So I gave her a smile and, ignoring all my Cloverhill classmates, I pushed my way over to the fire escape and escaped.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Behind the Millhouse was the mill pond, a tiny body of water just big enough to have a good side and a bad side. Naturally, the bad side was where all the cool kids hung out and drank cheap, rank booze, while the good side was where the nanas brought their grandchildren to throw bits of old Hovis at the scabby ducks. I had spent so many hours throwing Hovis at those ducks, with and without my nana. After a slow and steady lap of the pond, I found a bench somewhere in between the two poles, my confused ensemble not really fitting in with either crew. The kids had clearly clocked me as too old to hang out with them and too uncool to buy them more bargain vodka, and the grandparents did not want their precious children talking to a lady dressed as a stripper on her way to work in a call centre. I didn’t care. I didn’t really feel anything. My brain was so full of so much, I couldn’t do anything but sit on the bench, try to ignore the splinters in the backs of my thighs and make occasional squeaking noises. I wondered if there was some terrifying astrological event I didn’t know about, if all Capricorns were going through something equally traumatic, but it just wasn’t possible. Kate Middleton was a Capricorn ? there would have been something on the news if her life was turning as all-encompassingly shitty as mine. There would have been a tweet.

  Stretching out my fingers, I stared at the backs of my hands as though I had a laptop in front of me and tried to switch into work mode. I was best in work mode. If I were still an employed, functioning member of society and my shambles of a life was a campaign, how would I pitch it?

  The biggest problem was the sheer number of problems. I didn’t have a
job, I hated my flatmate, my mum hated me, I was in love with my best friend, my best friend was not in love with me, and on top of everything else, even when you peeled away those key issues, I had absolutely no life. Not a single quirky characteristic that could be spun into an adorable side project. As a brand, I was less desirable than Skoda; even I would struggle to spin me. But it wasn’t impossible ? I needed rebranding. All the successful companies struggled at some point. Even Apple nearly went bankrupt once. And if someone could make Old Spice cool again, I could certainly save myself.

  But what was the Tess Brookes brand?

  This was why I’d never had an online dating profile ? it was too hard to describe yourself. I was loyal, conscientious, creative and logical. I could always see the solution to a problem; I always knew how to make a client happy. Unless the client was me, apparently. Visually, I didn’t have a signature look unless you counted bad hair and massive boobs. (Hopefully no one did.) There was no one thing that would make someone sit back and go, ‘Oh, that’s so Tess.’ I didn’t have a favourite band, a favourite book; I dipped in and out of whatever was on the TV when I turned it on. I could describe every single demographic out there, I could tell you what made someone buy Coke over Pepsi and then switch back again, but I couldn’t tell you whether or not I preferred polka dots over stripes. I knew too much about everyone else and nothing at all about myself. How could I convince someone to buy me when there was nothing to buy?

  ‘There you are.’

  I looked up to see Charlie striding along the edge of the pond, a frown on his face. His pretty, pretty face.

  ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘To be fair, I didn’t get that far.’ I glanced around. I wasn’t more than five minutes away from the pub. I was sad, but I was also very lazy. ‘You missed an awesome scene.’

  ‘I know, I heard. I was in the gents.’ He sat down beside me, took off his jumper and draped it round my shoulders. ‘But afterwards you missed Amy grabbing hold of the baby and singing “Circle of Life”, so I think we’re square.’

  ‘Jesus, I’ve only been out here half an hour,’ I laughed, trying not to be upset that I’d missed what sounded like an incredible Lion King homage. I did love a Disney movie. There! That was something I knew about myself. I was a twenty-eight-year-old unemployed single woman who loved animated movies made for children. If we were at work, I’d be trying to sell me some cat food and a lovely cardigan about now. Maybe I should just change my name and run away ? that would be a pretty decent rebrand.

  ‘Well, I was worried about you,’ he said, nudging me with his shoulder. ‘Been a shit week, Brookes. How are you still sober?’

  ‘Didn’t bring any booze.’ I waved my empty hands at him. ‘Schoolboy error.’

  ‘Thankfully’ – Charlie produced a half-bottle of vodka from behind his back ? ‘I am not a schoolboy.’

  ‘Oh, you clever man,’ I said, gratefully accepting the bottle and taking a deep drink. I had never been a very good drinker. I loved a drink, but drinks did not love me. The two mugs of wine I’d enjoyed on Monday, post-sacking, were the first alcoholic drinks I’d had in a month, but while we were rebranding, I had to consider all my options. Maybe the new Tess would be a drinker. Maybe she’d learn how to make elaborate cocktails and have her friends over for parties. Maybe she’d be a whisky drinker and keep a decanter on her desk like Don Draper. Or maybe she’d do a shot of cheap supermarket vodka by the duck pond and retch in her own mouth.

  ‘Keep it down.’ Charlie rubbed my back and took the bottle from me. ‘Keep it down.’

  ‘Oh, bugger me, that’s disgusting,’ I coughed, feeling the burn in the back of my throat. Maybe if I was going to be a drinker, I shouldn’t start with four-quid cava and vodka that cost less than a Tube ticket. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’ Charlie took a shot without wincing and passed the bottle back. The sun was already setting across the pond, and the bad side was getting considerably more traffic than the good. ‘So, what are we going to do with you?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ I replied, turning to give him my best attempt at a smile. ‘I was just trying to work that out myself.’

  ‘Well, if you were a client and I was trying to sort you out, I’d start with what you wanted out of your campaign,’ he reasoned while I took a second shot. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him rubbing the centre of his left eyebrow. That meant he was thinking. Rubbing his chin meant he was confused. Nodding and scratching the back of his neck meant he was listening but not really paying attention. There wasn’t a thing about this man I didn’t know. ‘What do you want?’

  This was why we were soulmates. He was trying to solve my problems in exactly the same way I was trying to solve my problems.

  ‘My job,’ I replied.

  ‘You can’t have your job.’ He slapped my bare thigh and I had to remember to be offended and not turned on. ‘As account manager, it’s my role to give you honest feedback and tell you what is and isn’t possible. Your old job, off the table. What else do you want?’

  ‘I really do just want my job,’ I said, clutching the warm bottle between my knees. ‘If I had my job back, I could just put everything back how it was and carry on. That would be perfect.’

  ‘If this week has taught us nothing else, it’s that things were not perfect for you,’ Charlie said. He turned on the bench until his knee was pressing against mine. ‘People lose their jobs every day, Tess. They don’t take to their beds for four days and fall apart. They turn to their friends, they go on holiday, they ? I don’t fucking know ? read the great novels or something. Write a great novel. Start a blog. Tell me what makes you happy, aside from work.’

  I tried to think about something other than his knee on mine.

  ‘You?’ I said as quietly as humanly possible.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You and Amy?’ I wanted to slap myself.

  Charlie nodded for a moment and took the bottle back from me without words. The ducks on the pond, full of stale bread, started to make their way over to the rushes looking for their beds.

  ‘I think the problem is, you’re so used to being in your head and solving the problem that you don’t know how to present it back to the client. That’s my job,’ Charlie took hold of my hand. His were almost as soft as mine, but so much bigger. I turned, flushed with vodka, proximity and my ridiculous outfit, and looked into his big brown eyes. He was adorable. ‘So here’s what I see. You are a beautiful, clever, funny woman. You work too hard, you take on too much, and you’re far too concerned with other people’s expectations. You worry too much about your friends and you live with a mentalist, but aside from that, the basic elements are all there.’

  Beautiful. He said I was beautiful.

  ‘Basic elements for what?’ I asked.

  ‘A life,’ Charlie replied. ‘You’re amazing, you know?’ He knew me well enough to recognize my near-tears whimper and started talking fast. ‘You have so much drive and ambition; you’re so dedicated to achieving your goals. All you need to do is redirect that energy to a new goal. I’m not saying you shouldn’t care about your job ? you should. It’s just that it can’t be the only thing you care about. There can’t only be one thing that makes you happy.’

  ‘Are you happy?’ I asked him, not letting go of his hand. I was a bit worried I might never let go. ‘In general, I mean, are you happy?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded slowly. ‘I’m happy. I like my job, I’ve got good mates, I like my flat. There are things I’d change, but overall I’m not complaining. Are you happy?’

  ‘Am I happy?’ I repeated. ‘I don’t think I’m really anything.’

  It was hard to say out loud, but as soon as I did, I knew it was true.

  ‘What would you change?’ I asked him, waiting to start feeling drunk. I really wanted to be drunk. ‘You said there are things you’d change.’

  ‘Oh, obvious stuff.’ He squeezed my hand and scuffed the toe of his shoe in t
he dirt under the bench. ‘I’d like my own place. I’d like Arsenal to be doing better in the league. A smoking-hot girlfriend who would do my washing so I didn’t keep running out of socks would be nice.’

  ‘I am so sick of buying you more socks. What do you do, eat them?’ I asked with the closest thing to a laugh I could muster. Bravely, I rested my head on his shoulder and breathed in. He was wearing the aftershave I’d bought him for Christmas. He smelled cool, spicy and familiar. It made my stomach melt, my fingertips tingle. ‘You’ve got loads going for you. You could get a hot girlfriend if you really wanted one. You’ve got everything.’

  ‘And so have you.’ He dropped his head on top of mine, our coppery curls meshing together, and put his arm around my shoulders. ‘You just haven’t realized yet.’

  ‘I’ve got sod all,’ I said, trying to pretend that the teenagers weren’t totally eyeing up the bottle in my hand. ‘As you have quite rightly pointed out.’

  ‘You’ve got me.’ Charlie said. ‘And I’m all right.’

  ‘Oh, don’t.’ I laughed out loud. ‘Don’t even.’

  This wasn’t the first time Charlie and I had got drunk on a bench. This was not the first time one of us had talked the other through a crisis. But it was the first time he’d looked at me with such dark eyes. The first time I’d felt his thumb gently running back and forth over the back of the hand he was holding. And the first time that I had ever felt his heart beating as fast as mine.

  ‘I’m all right, aren’t I?’ he asked. ‘Tess?’

  I felt goosebumps on my bare legs and twisted round to get a better look at him. His dark, gingerish five o’clock shadow was starting to come through and his dark, dilated eyes were ever so slightly bloodshot from getting up so early, driving so far and drinking so much. He leaned his forehead against mine and repeated himself in a whisper.

  ‘Tess?’

  Words were my thing. Words were my actual job. I used them every day, manipulated them, moulded them, made them dance around in circles, but at that moment there wasn’t a word in the world that would help me. And so instead of trying to say something funny or clever, I took a deep breath and kissed him. For a moment, I couldn’t tell who was more shocked. Neither of us moved ? we just sat there, frozen, Tess pressed against Charlie. My cold, vodka-burned lips against his cold, vodka-burned lips.