Great. It was Amanda ‘La la la, I’m marrying the man I love and we’re having fifteen adorable NCT children and living in a whole house done in National Trust colours for ever and ever’ Phillips.
I beeped over the rest of it. It was definitely too early in the day to deal with that.
‘Mel.’ Phew. It was Fran. She would tell me what to do.
‘I’ve thought this over very thoroughly. If you take him back you will have to die. And ring me – we have to decide whether we’re going to bitchtastic Phillips’s engagement party … and then decide to go anyway, like we always do, and have a shitty time, like we always do.’
That must have been what Amanda’s message was about. Could I handle her and all her posh friends – whom I would hate and therefore get drunk so as not to mind talking to them, and then get too drunk and possibly end up getting off with aforesaid posh friends, thus maintaining the cycle of shame? Still, a party was a party, no matter how humiliating.
BEEP
‘Melanie, yes, good morning … um … you wouldn’t still have that brochure proof I gave you six weeks ago? The marketing chappies swear they don’t have it, but it couldn’t possibly still be with you, could it? I’ll speak to you later then. Goodbye.’
Bugger it. My boss, Barney, was terribly polite, ethical, and saw the best in everyone. Therefore everyone considered him washed up and constantly took the piss. I looked in despair at my desk. Anything six weeks old had probably mulched by now.
BEEP
‘Melanie, this is Flavi in marketing. We’ve had your boss on to us, and I really don’t think …’
BEEP. I think, Flavi, that I’ve got rather more important things on right now, don’t you? Like major emotional crises and stuff?
One message left. Did I feel lucky?
BEEP
‘Mel! Great, hey, well, what a wild weekend, huh?’
The speed with which my stomach hit the floor on hearing Nicholas’s nasal whine made me realize how much I really, really wanted to hear from Alex. Only to tell him a thing or two, of course. Or listen to him grovel. Where the fuck had Nicholas got this number anyway? I thought of Linda. She paid me back for not doing the washing-up in a myriad of different little ways.
‘Anyway, yeah, I’m pretty busy with all my friends, right. We’re off on some accountants’ night out. God, they’re nutters! But, hey, I might have some time on Tuesday night …’
Nicholas, it’s Monday now, you plank. Not that I had anything planned, but God, of course I’m not going to say yes at that kind of notice!
‘… or Wednesday, maybe … We could go out somewhere nice. Hey, give me a ring, it’s 555 8923 – just ask for Crazy Nick, they all know me here! Hyaw! Hyaw! Ciao!’
Ciao? Suddenly I felt as depressed as I’ve ever felt in my entire life – or at least, in a month or so. This was it then. I was going to get niggled at in a shitty job I didn’t care about, go to my so-called friends’ fabulous engagement parties, live with someone who thought hoovering was a positive life choice, drink sludge instead of espresso, and date men who said ‘ciao’ until I got too old and ugly to date anyone at all.
I slumped down on my desk – the enormous mounds of paper gave it a cushioning effect – and reached out to switch off the speaker mode.
‘A new message has been added to your voice mail,’ said the mechanical voice.
Immediately, I knew.
I pressed ‘2’. An annoying voice in my head was singing, ‘He’s coming home, he’s coming, Alex is coming home, he’s coming home …’
BEEP
‘Mel, hey, it’s me … like, how’re you doing?’ People in the background. I could feel that big lazy grin of his spreading over his face and therefore mine. ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning, we’re just hanging out … where the fuck are we?’ ‘The Village’ – American woman’s voice. Dirty. ‘Yeah, it’s absolutely brilliant and I am cummminngg’, he started to sing, ‘hooommmee tooooo yewwwww.’ There was laughter in the background, a couple of ‘whoops’, then a pause, then: ‘Hey, babe – I’ll be at Heathrow. Today.’ And then he hung up.
Oh. Oh! Chuffing hell. Every cell in my body renegotiated itself, and I shivered all over. Oh God. How was I going to cope? I would have to clean my bedroom for a start. And buy new pants. And start cooking again, boohoo. Could I reduce the size of my arse by – when? When was his today? Was it today or was it tomorrow? Piss! I started panicking. Why couldn’t he tell me when his stupid flight gets in? He obviously hadn’t been promoted from the space cadet corps.
Of course I would have to go. It never occurred to me otherwise. The adrenaline was coursing through my body: I felt as if I’d won; like I’d beaten America, his wanderlust and, well, any other lusts he might have experienced in passing. He was coming home. I was practically jumping up and down on the spot and decided to walk out immediately. Who would notice? Hey, it wasn’t like I walked out over emotional crises a lot! Well … maybe occasionally.
Alex was coming back! Alex was coming back! He loved me! He loved me! I looked pitifully at the beautiful handwritten note my boss had left me vis-à-vis the delicate diplomatic situation between us and the marketing department, and decided to leg it. I took a deep breath, strode out in front of the secretaries, and announced, rather too loudly, ‘Oh God, meetings all day. Ha! You know what it’s like!!!’ – then bolted, leaving them behind, hissing slightly. Free!
All the way to Heathrow I bounced up and down in the carriage like a toddler. Terminal Four was mobbed and I wandered off to buy myself a load of make-up and some magazines – who knew, he may be some time. I was just considering buying some shampoo and washing my hair when it hit me.
He’d phoned at nine o’clock. From New York. At 4 a.m. his time. And now it was twenty past eleven. Half past six in the morning? He probably hadn’t even gone to bed, never mind got up, packed, swallowed his hangover, got to the airport, checked in for two hours, got on the plane, watched a couple of films, got drunk again and got here. Yes, it appeared I might well have time to wash my hair.
I was back in the Land of Alex; the place that made me go completely out of my fucking head.
ARRRGGGH. I was the skeggiest creature in the universe. No one in the world could ever have been such a twat before. I counted it up on my fingers. The earliest he could possibly be here would be 6 p.m. I twisted about in an agony of indecision. A part of me wanted to wait, right here. A part of me wanted to get on a plane and jump out and meet him halfway. NONE of me wanted to go back to the office with my tail between my legs. What I really wanted was to turn back time and have none of this ever happen. Simultaneously clenching my buttocks and hopping up and down, I wondered what the hell to do.
Of course, when in doubt, one should always phone one’s closest confidante for their deep love and support.
‘I would say the best thing to do now is break into airport security where they keep all the confiscated firearms, confiscate one and hit him with a sniper bullet before he can make it to baggage control.’
‘Frraaannn! I’ve got to wait all day and I don’t know what to do!’
‘Grow up? Sort your life out? Start making some conscious decisions about yourself?’
‘I thought I’d read some women’s magazines,’ I mumbled.
‘Oh, now there’s a good idea for someone as sad as you. They’re full of articles on “How to keep that pathetic cheating low-down pigdog in your life happy”.’
I snuffled. As pathetic as I was, it made sense to play up to