‘A nightmare. Nothing but dust and banging. And the mess in the street. They’ve thrown away the Victorian doors!’
‘Not the original features!’ I said.
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Julia,’ she said. ‘The house is going to look ridiculous. And it’s not as if they need more space. There are only four of them! They’re knocking down all the walls downstairs to build an entertainment centre.’
I was approaching a new tower block on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road. It looked like a middle finger, mocking me.
‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mum. ‘You caught me at a bad time. They just came round for a chat about the party wall and called our kitchen “quaint”. What can I do for you, anyway?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m about to get on the Tube.’
‘Wait, darling. What were you calling to tell me?’
‘Nothing much. Just a new Grade Six joining our unit.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s going to be in charge of our department. It sounds like she might want to make things more efficient.’
‘I’m sure you’re very efficient, darling.’
‘No, I’m not. And I’m a contractor, so I’m easy to get rid of.’
‘No one has said anything about you losing your job yet. Have they?’
‘No.’
‘Well then. Anyway, it’s not as though you’re the Health Secretary.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Come on, darling. You know what I mean. You’re selling yourself short, staying in that job.’
‘I’m not qualified for anything else!’
‘Rubbish! You could train to become a Pilates teacher. Or an osteopath.’
‘You think osteopaths are quacks!’
‘Fine. A barrister then!’
‘Be serious.’
‘You could! You could go to law school!’
‘Who’s going to pay for that?’ I said.
‘Or edit books, like Alice does. You have exactly the same qualifications as her.’
‘Yeah, because that’s a great way to make money. She’s been doing it for five years and she still has “assistant” in her job title.’
I heard her sigh.
‘I miss dancing, Mum,’ I said.
‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘But I did warn you.’
That felt like a low blow, but it was true. Mum had been a ballerina too, and had done all right for herself – a stint at the Royal Ballet, dancing as soloist in a couple of Kenneth MacMillan productions – but it’s hard to have children and keep dancing, so she retired soon after meeting my dad. ‘You’ll be washed up at thirty,’ she had told me, when I got into ballet school. ‘You’ll feel guilty every time you eat a potato. And you’ll never meet a man who isn’t a homosexual.’ But I was sixteen, and when you’re sixteen thirty is ancient, and anyway, being washed up is sort of glamorous, the way being addicted to painkillers is glamorous. I didn’t think I’d be over the hill at nineteen, though. The summer after I graduated – after, against the odds, I’d been hired by the English National Ballet for their production of The Nutcracker – I broke my ankle turning a pirouette on a sticky floor during class and that was the end of that.
I think it was Martha Graham who said that a dancer dies twice and that the first death – the one that comes when you stop dancing – is the most painful. I didn’t know what I was, if I wasn’t a dancer. I didn’t know who I was, either. I felt like the only good and interesting thing about me had been taken away. I still felt like that, sometimes.
‘Look, darling,’ said Mum, ‘I know it’s hard. But I find a lot of satisfaction in doing walking tours. It appeals to the performer in me. You could come home for a while and try it out, see if you like it.’
‘That’s never going to happen,’ I said.
‘Well. The option’s there if you need it.’
I didn’t say anything. The idea of moving home and working at my mother’s walking-tour company made me want to die.
‘I’m not leaving London. All my friends live in London,’ I said, really wallowing in it now. ‘Not that it matters. They’re basically all in relationships. Everyone has someone except me.’ My voice rose to a squeak. ‘I thought I was independent. But I’m just really sad.’
‘Your therapist told you that, didn’t she?’
‘She’s very intuitive.’
‘You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. If you want to meet someone, go online! Isn’t that what everyone else is doing these days?’
‘Last time I went on a Tinder date, the bloke talked for half an hour about why Dysons are the only vacuum cleaners worth buying. And he made fun of how quickly I eat.’
‘Well, darling, you do tend to bolt food down—’
‘Plus I kept getting—’
‘What?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Just – horrible messages.’
Mum whispered, ‘Dick pics?’
‘Yes,’ I said. And then: ‘How do you know about dick pics?’
‘They were talking about them on Woman’s Hour,’ she said. ‘Repulsive!’
‘Exactly.’
‘Still, darling. You can’t complain until you’ve really put yourself out there.’
‘That’s what my therapist said.’
‘Maybe she’s not completely hopeless then.’ She sighed again. ‘Listen, I have to go. If I don’t pay for this shop in two minutes I lose my delivery slot. Do you want to come up for dinner tonight?’
‘No thanks, I’m OK,’ I said.
‘All right. But you’re coming for Dad’s birthday?’
‘Yes.’
‘He wants a nice shirt or a biography of Hitler.’
‘OK.’
‘Take up gardening. It’ll do wonders for your anxiety levels.’
‘I don’t have a garden.’
‘You can always come over and help me with the pruning.’
‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘Are you feeling better?’
It took me a moment to reply. ‘A little bit.’
‘Remember, being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Believe me, being single is a damn sight better than being with someone who makes you miserable.’
In the background, my father muttered, ‘I heard that, Jenny.’
So I gave in, and that Friday, I ‘put myself out there’ for the first time. I’d been watching a lot of US box sets on Netflix, which led me to believe that sitting alone at a bar knocking back shots was acceptable, even attractive, behaviour; it always seemed to lead to handsome strangers saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ and whisking you upstairs for well-lit sex. But it didn’t quite happen like that for me.
I live in Manor House, which is convenient if you like the Piccadilly