“Great. I’ll be there soon. Can’t wait!” He hung up.
“He hung up on me,” I informed Kennedy, who was staring at the tin of dog food in my hand and wagging his tail in a slyif I play my cards right, there could be foodmanner.
“I can’t believe he hung up on me,” I told him as I forked some pieces into his bowl. Within seconds, it was out of the bowl, and he was eating it on the floor and making a mess. I sighed. “Do I want Ollie to come here? I should clean.”
Two hours later, post me showering, post Kennedy getting a bath, post the bathroom being put back together and Kennedy sulking under my bed when I tried to dry him, post the rest of the house getting a frantic cleaning (which mostly consisted of me throwing paper in cupboards), I deemed us acceptable for guests.
“Kennedy, sit still. Try and look calm and demure.”
He was parked in front of the fridge licking his bollocks. “Demure, Kenny.” I eyed the cats, who were asleep on the sofa. “Good. Stay like that. Don’t move a whisker.”
I heard a car in the driveway. Ollie, because he was a prick, drove a Jaguar. Sorry – let me expand that properly – because he was a prick with too much money, Ollie drove a Jag. A 1983 V12 XJS. It was supposedly sleek and powerful and sexy and lots of other words.
The only thing I could tell you about it was that it was a nice maroon colour.
I’d had to stand in field after field, after industrial brownfield site, after driveway on cul-de-sacs in Essex, after used car lots in Walthamstow, after motorway service centres, while Ollie searched for his dream car the year before we’d split up. He’d always wanted a classic Jag, and he was at a time in his life when he could afford it (i.e. no longer subsidising me), so he was going after his heart’s desire.
“Isn’t it beautiful, Ard?” he said about the car on the driveway of a particularly BNP-looking man’s house in suburban Essex one Sunday afternoon, which had also been the hottest day of the year.
“It’s a nice colour,” I offered as I fanned my T-shirt, trying not to show how it was sticking to my sweat-slicked torso.
They had gone back to discussing prices, and the man’s wife had come out and offered me a drink and told me how nice it was that I had accompanied my friend on hisjourney. “Making sure that it’s not a bad decision and he doesn’t get in trouble with the missus,” she’d said, giving me a wink.
“Lady, I am the missus” was what I absolutely did not say. Instead, I laughed blithely and silently wished he’d fucking buy it or not so we could leave. It was his money; he could do what he liked with it. As long as it didn’t affect the week in Portugal we had booked as a holiday, he could buy a gold-plated shredder to stick £50 notes in.
Back in the present day, Ollie emerged from that same car. “Hello!” he called as he got out. I hadn’t seen him in about three months. Not since we’d run into each other at a cocktail party where my boyfr … the person I was with had threatened to have him ejected in a coke-fuelled temper tantrum. Previous to that, we’d had dinner in London in the weeks after I’d moved down here. He’d asked me to come back to London, and, more importantly, take him back. I’d said no.
Let’s say, considering we had dated for five years, lived together for four-and-a-half years and been in love for somewhere in between those two amounts of time, our last few meetings had been strained.
It was his fault, I told myself. He was the one who’d slept with the twenty-two-year-old from his work. Who’d sent dick pics and lied to me and brought him to our flat to have sex with in our bed while I was away.
What had I done wrong? Oh, there’d be something – most people cheat for a reason, even if that reason is as shallow and callous asI was bored, instead of something deeper likeI had met my soulmate,the sex was mind-alteringly good,they made me feel alive, or my mother’s preferred reason with all of my stepdads: “He was a drunk who got a bit punchy-punchy when he’d had a few.”
He’d told me I hadn’t seemed to need him any longer. I had hated that. What was I, some fledgling who’d fallenfrom the nest and needed Oliver Ross, Lord of CrossFit, Vice-Captain of the Durham University Rowing Team, Head Boy of Dumfries Grammar School, Patron Saint of Protein Powder and Tough Mudders, to look after him?
When I met Ollie, I’d gone from being a broke waiter to getting my first job as a reporter at a finance magazine. Verity had got me the job, and even though I was earning shit money, I had business cards and could claim expenses. I was on my way.
Ollie in his swish suits, with his £100 holdall for his gym kit that went everywhere with him; with his uni friends who booked a villa in Nice every August; with their country pub Sunday lunches, and visits to Royal Ascot; his parents in their big house who commuted to Edinburgh and stayed at their pied-à-terre during the week; he was never the right fit for me.
His parents could tell – “Oliver told us you were from Poland, but your English is very good. We’d even looked up a few phrases in case, hadn’t we, dear?” – his friends could tell – “Ollie said you worked in finance … oh, you report on finance. Well, all the same, right? Except for the size of your pay! Hahaha!” The only person who didn’t seem to realise we were doomed from day one was Ollie.
“Hello, stranger,” he said, whipping off his sunglasses and grinning at me.
He stood in the May sunshine at the bottom of the path, wearing his boat shoes, blue chinos, light blue dress shirt, and with his tousled light brown hair catching the light. His confident smile made my heart soften a bit. I did love him for much of those five years. Perhaps from the moment that we sat down on our first date.
He hadn’t been to my house before, so I gave him the tour. The living room was deemed “very nice”.
“It hasn’t been decorated since World War One,” I replied.
“Yes, but it’s … homely?” he offered.
The kitchen was next. “Is this finished?”
“Mostly. There is a bloke from one village over, but I’m bottom of his list. He’s due to come back again in a few weeks and do the last bits.”
“Weren’t you getting this done over the winter? How is it still going on?”
There was a story I didn’t want to tell him. “And, these are the animals,” I said, changing the subject. Oliver liked animals – in theory – so I all but threw the cats at him and let Kennedy go wild. “What’s upstairs?” he asked as Kennedy sniffed his crotch and tried to get his nose into the pockets of his trousers.
