‘I need to send everyone my number,’ I told her, rubbing peanut dust on the leg of my only pair of jeans. ‘They updated my contacts from the cloud so I’ve got everyone’s details but no one has mine. Is there an app for that or have I got to text everyone I ever met?’
‘You sweet precious baby,’ Sumi said with a fake swoon. ‘There’s an app for everything, even I know that.’ Her nail rattled across my screen and, in just a few taps, a little green icon appeared on my phone. ‘This is what we use for group texts at work. End-to-end encryption, no one can hack it.’
It was fair to say Sumi was more than averagely engaged with conspiracy theories.
‘Hit that, connect it to your contacts and open up a group message. Then you can text your number to whomever your heart desires.’
‘How did I manage three whole years without you?’ I asked, marvelling at the wonders of modern technology.
‘It is a question I ask myself every day.’
Editing radio shows was easy, iPhones were a whole different story. This was why I didn’t dare download TikTok. Fear of the unknown.
I stared at the screen, trying to come up with just the right message. How was I supposed to say ‘Hi, I’m back in London, please don’t ask me any questions about my surprise return that was one hundred percent my choice and also I live in a shed now’ without sounding completely pathetic?
‘You’re sending people your new number, you don’t have to write an essay,’ Sumi climbed down from her stool, peering over my shoulder to see my fingertip poised over a blank screen. ‘I’m going for a wee, see if you can finish it before I get back.’
‘Good to know, enjoy it,’ I told her as she click-clacked off through the bar in her stilettos.
Hi, it’s Ros Reynolds, I typed out before I could overthink it. Overthinking was one of my greatest talents. Given the chance, I could talk myself out of literally anything in under five minutes. Instead, I took another glug of the wine while I tried to imagine what I would say if I were writing it for someone else.
Hi, it’s Ros Reynolds. This is my new number, I just moved back to London! Let’s catch up soon.
One exclamation mark, no emojis. Short, sweet, to the point and, most importantly, not pathetic. It was a winner. I tapped the little arrow in the corner and saw a small white box pop up.
Group Text wants to access contacts? I hit ‘Allow’.
Choose recipients or select all?
‘Can I get you another drink?’
I looked up to see the woman behind the bar smiling at my empty glass.
‘Could I get a water?’ I asked, my head suddenly swimming with the realization that I’d absolutely chugged an entire glass of wine on an empty stomach. Not the perfect start to a Monday night. Or was it?
Rubbing my tired eyes, I looked back at the screen. Choose recipients? I started scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking. It got very boring, very fast.
Yawning, I flicked my thumb upwards, sending the screen whirring all the way back to the top of the page. I clicked on Select All.
And then I pressed send.
‘Someone’s popular,’ Sumi said on the return from her mission to the loo. On the bar, my phone flashed with unread message after unread message.
‘Turns out a lot of people are bored and on their phones on a Monday night,’ I replied as the ‘welcome home’, ‘let’s get a drink’ and ‘who is this?’ texts flooded in. ‘I don’t even know why I have half these people in my contacts, I never text anyone apart from you, Adrian, Lucy and my sister.’
‘I am honoured,’ she drained her wine glass. ‘Shall we have another drink?’
‘Oh, go on,’ I said, pushing my water away. ‘Which way are the loos?’
‘Downstairs, all the way to the end,’ Sumi replied, already lost in her own phone. ‘Ladies on the left.’
I set off on my mission, checking my latest text as I went. Domino’s Pizza. At last, someone who was truly excited to have me back in the country.
The ladies’ loos were massive, all rose gold fixtures and well-lit mirrors, perfect if your primary reason for being there was taking excellent selfies but if you needed a wee you were bang out of luck. The room was huge but some genius had only installed two toilets, both of which were occupied as I waddled up and down in front of the sinks.
‘Two bloody toilets, what is the bloody point?’ I muttered under my breath, sounding more like my dad by the second.
There was only one thing for it and I was far too close to having an accident to be picky. Besides, we were living in a post-gender world and I was a dying-for-a-wee girl. I scooted out of the women’s toilets with my knees clamped together and cautiously opened the neighbouring door.
‘Is anyone in here?’ I called, poking my head into the gents.
No one was.
Ecstatic, I flung myself into one of the stalls, relieved to see it was spotless. Not as nice as the ladies but at least they had individual toilets with floor-to-ceiling wooden doors and each stall piped in both air freshener and music – both of which, I assumed, would be a bonus in the men’s toilets.
The idea of drinking a glass of water with every alcoholic drink was all well and good but unless you happened to be wearing an adult nappy, it really was a supreme test of bladder control. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see the screen light up with yet more returned messages. Robot numbers, failed connections and the odd and deeply unflattering, ‘new phone, who dis?’ Nestled in the middle of the mess was one text that screamed with capital letters.
Hi Ros!!! Long time no see but perfect timing??? CALL ME! ASAP!!!!
According to my contacts list, it was from Dan. But who was Dan? And why were they so intent on using every punctuation mark in their phone? Then it dawned on me. Could it be? I leaned back against the white porcelain tank, pressed call and waited for my phone to connect.
‘Ros bloody Reynolds, is it really you?’
‘It is,’ I replied happily. ‘Hello, Danielle.’
‘I can’t believe you’re back,’ she shrieked. ‘This is amazing. Perfect timing, meant to be.’
Danielle and I started out as interns at the same radio station on the same day. We were first-day-of-school friends, joined at the hip and so excited. We took our tea breaks together, went for lunch at the same time, inhaled two-for-a-fiver cocktails at the Wetherspoons across the road, starry-eyed and rosy-cheeked and still so optimistic about our first forays into the job market. At least, we were for the first three months, then we realized we really didn’t have anything in common other than the place we went to work every day. Slowly, we stopped hanging out so much – fewer lunches, far less tea and eventually, zero cocktails – until Danielle left for another job and that was that. She faded into a shadowy existence as nothing more than a Facebook friend and a number in my phone I’d forgotten I even had.
‘I would love to have a proper chat but I’m on a plane and we’re about to take off,’ Danielle interrupted without pausing for breath. ‘We should have a real catch-up when I’m back but I have the most incredible opportunity of all time, I’d be doing it myself but I’m out of town for the next few weeks. PodPad needs a producer basically yesterday and I know