‘Wow, that’s so strange,’ Holly said. ‘He was Mr Charisma at uni.’
‘I know,’ Olivia’s eyes moistened as she threw back the rest of her glass of wine. Then like Olivia Twist, she held out the empty receptacle in front of Holly, who immediately filled it up.
‘I remember,’ chimed in Holly, ‘he was that guy in Fresher’s week. The one every girl wanted to… you know, and every guy wanted to be.’
‘But it’s easy to be nostalgic about Old Ross – before he killed his personality off with a lethal concoction of daytime TV and JavaScript.’
‘So what did you do? How did it end?’ Bella tipped her head to one side, her empathy palpable.
‘Fairly predictable stuff. Me saying I thought he’d let himself go, that I just didn’t love him anymore, and we’d grown apart, blah blah… Him saying, “Shit, Olivia, I’m sorry. I wish I could just press Control Z.”’
‘No way,’ Holly said, while Bella’s brow furrowed.
‘That’s Apple Z, for the benefit of Mac Monks. As in, to undo?’ she added, and Bella’s brow un-furrowed. ‘Yes. So then I said, “Ross. I think we both know, it’s a case of Control Alt Delete now.”’
‘Well,’ Holly began, ‘it sounds like you’ve done the right thing. It must feel like such a massive shock to your system though, after seven years.’
‘It’s been brewing for a long time – it’s a relief to have finally done it.’
‘So where are you going to live now?’ Holly asked. ‘Do you want to come and stay with us?’
‘Oh thanks, but I’m staying with my parents in Hampstead for a bit; just while I get myself sorted with a new job down here. But chances are, I’ll only be allowed a week in the show home before I’ll have to be out again!’ Olivia smiled, then covered her ears as the incredibly loud smoke alarm began to go off.
Bella leapt up. ‘That’s dinner!’ She poked her head in the oven. At the sight of smoke she began turning off all the knobs and dials. Holly began prodding at the smoke alarm with a broom to make it stop. This was all done with complete composure, as though it was an everyday ritual.
‘So, everyone, dinner’s kind of a buffet type thing. Just pile on,’ Bella said, as she handed out partially-chipped plates to everyone.
‘Looks amazing, thanks,’ Holly said, spooning some of the blackened food onto her plate and assessing it for carcinogens. ‘Is Daniel not eating with us?’ said Holly.
‘No, he’s got a night shift at the hospital again, poor bastard,’ Bella said.
‘Ah, shame,’ Holly said, secretly thinking it might have been handy to have a member of the medical profession on standby, but then feeling guilty for being so mean and having done nothing to help prepare dinner. She watched Lawrence digest a whole mouthful before taking one of her own.
Olivia picked up a fork full of food, but then opened her mouth to carry on speaking: ‘But anyway, a friend of mine is just about to put his gorgeous flat in Dalston on the market, so if Ross can buy me out of our flat in Didsbury in time, I’ll be able to nab that and move straight in!’
Bella’s eyes widened. ‘Dalston? As in, East London?’
To Bella, East London was a hallowed kind of a place. Legend had it, it was where all the hot men in London were being kept. Bella had stumbled across it one day while navigating a Walk of Shame through an unknown neighbourhood somewhere North of Bethnal Green. Quite by accident, she’d found herself in a quaint little strip called Broadway Market. It was all fancy deli stalls, fit-as-fuck buskers, and dashing men with oversized spectacles on fixed-gear bikes. Ever since then, there was sometimes talk in hushed tones of ‘going East’, as if it was some kind of promised wonderland. Bella would bring up the notion of warehouse parties in Dalston once in a while, but the thought of venturing somewhere new always lost out to the easy walk home from the local.
‘Anyway, Liv,’ Holly said, feeling the need to change the subject, ‘if I can say so, you seem to be doing very well considering.’
‘You really are,’ Bella said, ‘I mean, if it was me, I’d be needing round-the-clock care to help me do basic things like getting dressed and swallowing solids.’
‘Yeah well, when you know, you know,’ Olivia said.
‘Any more, Liv?’ Holly said, holding out more food towards her.
‘Oh no, I’m stuffed,’ Olivia said, slotting her knife next to her fork and laying it to rest. Her plate looked as full now as it had at the start of the meal, only everything on it appeared to be in a slightly different position. ‘That was great though, thank you!’
Some hours later, they had retreated to the lounge. Lawrence was snoozing on the faded blue sofa in a post-gluttonous coma. Olivia sat perfectly upright next to him, staring at her phone, and Bella was picking at the yellow strips of foam that were leaking out of the sides of the sofa like oven chips. Over time, the hole had grown so large that these chips were now a regular feature of the lounge décor. Lawrence was forever coming into the kitchen after a big night out, picking them off the floor and going to eat them in his drunken stupor. Then, once Holly reminded him they had slightly less nutritional value than their real-life counterparts, he would drop them back onto the floor. But not before placing one of them on her shoulder and saying, ‘Look, you’ve got a chip on your shoulder.’ Every time.
‘We really should stitch up that hole. Can anyone sew?’ Holly said.
Naturally, Bella did not respond. Her filter for all things domestic was now so advanced, the vibrations of Holly’s speech were physically shielded from penetrating her eardrum and making the journey to the middle ear. Instead, she stood up, a puddle of chips at her feet, and began the preparations for a round of Analogue Netflix. This was a game Bella had devised some time ago, borne out of her reluctance to pay for what she called ‘special television’, and her belief that they should all learn to appreciate the one thousand films they already owned between them. In reality they spent far more time deciding what to watch than they did watching anything, so in many ways it was exactly like the real Netflix.
Bella stretched up towards the Jenga-like tower of DVDs and plucked some out at random, as Holly began laying them out on the coffee table. Bella started calling out titles.
‘OK, so what have we here… The Notebook.’
‘Nope. Boring, saccharine, predictable…’
‘It’s beautiful!’ Bella said, staring daggers at Olivia.
‘Pride and Prejudice?’
‘Too long. And too… period,’ Lawrence said, rubbing sleep dust from his eyes.
‘How about… The Curious Case of—’ Olivia began.
‘Benjamin Boring? The film that editing forgot?’ Holly said.
‘Love Actually.’
‘Um, get a life, actually,’ Holly said, and Lawrence nodded in agreement.
‘But it’s a wonderful film,’ Bella insisted. ‘So affirmative of the power of love as life’s great leveller—’
‘If I can just stop you there, Miss Bella. I’ve nothing against Richard Curtis per se,’ Lawrence began to pontificate, ‘I mean, let’s be honest, Blackadder was pure televisual perfection. But the trouble with Love Actually – nay, the whole Curtis canon – is that he’s clearly being paid by the people at Visit Britain to promote a wildly inaccurate view of London to the rest of the world. Take Notting Hill. There is no way the character William Thacker would be able to afford to live in such an attractive period property – with a gargantuan roof terrace – in the real Notting Hill. I mean, let’s be real here: HE WORKS IN AN INDEPENDENT BOOKSHOP!’