‘Oh, I wish it were that simple.’
At that, she lowers herFrankiemagazine slightly, her eyebrows inviting me to elaborate. I decide not to tell her about Ted or Naomi or even Johnny– I could probably use a blank-slate friend in this city.
‘Not much to tell. Not yet, anyway. I’m Esther, by the way,’ I say.
‘Cool. I’m Jodie.’
‘How do you feel about alcohol before midday?’
‘Agnostic, but I make the occasional exception.’
Jodie works in advertising, and as she talks about her pet cat Sushi and her all-girl club night, I realize she has a sort of cool insouciance running through her that about 98 per cent of women would part with a vital organ for. I shouldimagine the entire Greater London area fell madly in love with her.
‘One thing you need to know about Toronto,’ Jodie says as I lean in to drink up any and all intel. ‘You better like brunch, because we’re serious about it. And driving anywhere sucks. Everywhere in Toronto is an hour from Toronto. And we also like apple pie with a slice of cheddar on top.’
‘You what now?’ I shriek, while the guy four seats over cranes his neck to figure out the commotion.
‘I know, I nearly brought the entire population of Kensal Rise to a standstill when I pulled out that one.’
Midway through the flight, Jodie pulls out a joint and wets a wad of napkins with some water. ‘For the smoke detector,’ she says, winking, as she heads to the back of the plane. The wait for the smoke alarm to go off feels as if it goes on for a month. But no, Jodie arrives back to her seat, a little buzzed, and everyone else is none the wiser.
Are all the girls in Toronto as effortlessly cool as this?
When the plane lands, Jodie pulls what looks like a genuine fur coat out of the overhead storage. It’s hideous, but somehow looks wonderful on her. A passenger from three rows down glares at her.
‘Nice fur!’ I say, trying to sound cool about it.
‘Well.’ She makes a face, looking me clean in the eyes. ‘It’s second-hand vintage, so anyone who has a problem with me wearing it can eat my shit, really.’ She shrugs in a way that’s both impressive and petrifying.
Arriving at Pearson Airport, striding into the baggage hall next to Jodie, I feel more alive than I have in absolute ages. The sight of new cafes, and the 7-Eleven sign, gives me such a fluttery feeling of newness. It’s as if I’ve aged backwards.Setting fire to your stinking bin of a life and jumping into a whole new one. People really should do it more often.
At the taxi rank, I wave goodbye to Jodie, who is heading to Scarborough.
‘Find me on Facebook,’ she sings over her shoulder at me as she walks away. I mentally file the name away, resolving to do just that at the merest sniff of Wi-Fi.
Within an hour, I’ve flopped into a bed in a mid-range hotel room on Bloor Street, itching to leap with absolute abandon into the rest of my life, but only after a good long nap. Thoughts of Ted, and that he could be nearby, pull me into the best sleep I’ve had in a long time.
I resurface in the quietness of dark. The clock on the bedside table says ‘7.14’. Is it morning or night? Given that it’s October, I have trouble figuring out which way is up. The euphoria of running towards Toronto has dampened into something else. A niggling realization that while I left my old life behind, maybe a lot of the old me has also ended up coming on this trip, too.
I decide to email Naomi as a way to anchor myself, telling her I have finally arrived in Toronto.
‘Hi, friend,’ she emails back. ‘Had to head out to Edmonton yesterday morning. Will explain when I see you. Back next week so let’s check in with each other then. Excited to see you!’
Not fucking excited enough, I say to myself as a look at the screen. I have this hotel room booked for two weeks and was planning to look for a house-share near Ted’s house after that.
Never mind, I think to myself, trying not to let this first hurdle bother me.Blue-doored buildings on Bathurst will be my first stop tomorrow morning.
I can already sense that Johnny will be mounting a searchback in London, despite me explicitly telling him not to. In the event that he does, I’ve thought of a way of giving myself some time. Googling hotels in Scotland, I use Facebook Places to check into the Poet’s Inn in Glasgow– it doesn’t seem to matter that you are on the other side of the world and nowhere near Scotland. Then I go to Instagram and search for hotel images with the #poetsinn hashtag on Instagram. Sure enough, I find a selection of holiday snaps from several braggy randomers. Screenshotting them from Instagram, re-filtering them and cropping out any holidaymakers, I then post them as an album of my own on to Facebook. ‘Rest & relaxation, sorely needed,’ I caption them. If Johnny is going to look anywhere, he may as well start looking north.
The newness of the city and the cleanness of a new life have woken something in my body; so much so that I feel horny for the first time in what feels like years. That impromptu ride on the kitchen worktop aside, whole civilizations have risen and fallen since my libido went into its slumber.
But now, I feel like watching some porn. A little sex safari for the brain, I tell myself.
But then, I have an even better idea. I check the ‘casual encounters’ section of Craigslist, reading about guys like ‘24M’ and ‘46M’ who want no-strings, instant sex somewhere in this city. Guys who want to meet in hotels, they’ll pay. Guys who aren’t getting it at home, or want to use a strap-on, or are looking for lactating women.
My God, it’s like a poisonous mushroom,I think, appraising the photo of one erect penis. Another photo of a milky torso makes me recoil. Jesus, not if it were my last night on earth, mate.
All these men wanting something animalistic anduncomplicated. I look at the headless torso and think of the girlfriend he is very possibly leaving at home tonight. Going from zero to jagged breathlessness on the bed takes all of forty-five seconds.
