‘I almost booked one in the spa. Thought you were never going to move your backside off that floor.’
We exchange a smile, and I immediately fill the silence in case it turns awkward. ‘See you tomorrow then. Bright and early. Well, I’m sure you will be anyway. I personally need to sleep for a thousand years.’
As I move to climb out, he puts a hand on my thigh. I pause, glance down and shoot him a questioning look. My mouth dries as he uses his index finger to trace a heart above my knee. ‘Easier to perfect on here,’ he murmurs, turning my blood to syrup. He leans towards me but I hesitate to meet him halfway. While it feels fitting we should end a day in the countryside in a clinch, I’m still smarting from Horrible Halloween. So I clap him on the shoulder like a sixty-year-old golfing mate. ‘That was ace. Apart from the bit at the end. Three cheers for Vince, eh?’
I should go. I intend to go. But the thing is, that bottom lip is quite dreamy. And when it touches mine, he sends his tongue in with backup, his kiss gentle at first, then more commanding. As I relax into it, he starts to ramp things up, undoing his seat belt and reaching out to take my face in his hands. I let him deepen the kiss even further, enjoying the sensation of being wanted. Being wrapped up by a man is far more enriching experience than being coated in cling film and even Swiss chocolate can’t compete with the taste of him. Honestly, if you mixed up Lindt, CadburyandGreen & Black’s, stuck it all under a mahoosive heat lamp and coated a male model in the concoction, you wouldn’t get my attention right now. I forget everything before today, and in a normal car we might progress this further, perhaps flipping the seats. But the most expensive vehicle in Shepherd’s Bush is a natural contraception as there’s so little wiggle room. I’m about to invite him into my flat when he looks at the time, declares the Ferrari is about to turn into a pumpkin, tips me out and drives away.
I float into the house, heart light as marshmallow, and it’s not because I lost three kilos today.
Chapter 25
When I wake, we exchange a few texts. I tell him I’m tucked up warm in my bed and he replies he’s freezing his balls off serving hot drinks to customers like Ungrateful Chocca-Mocha. Before I get up, I study the social media schedule the editor has sent me for his #MustSayYes campaign. Apparently marketing loved it. He asks me to start engaging with his tweets and Instagram posts as soon as I see them in my feed.
While I’m online, I pick up the planning for the Happiness Fair, scanning hashtags for speakers based in London, and putting a call out for stalls on a local Facebook forum. I file away a receipt for the hall booking, and the instructions for how to open up on the day. And then I get dressed. When I pass the van an hour later, Joe is busy and only has time to smile and wink. Fine by me, I have an early appointment with Vince.
‘I managed to fill up your POP chart,’ he announces as soon as I arrive. ‘It was fun!’ Vince produces two sheets of paper he has stapled together. ‘Pleasure or progress– you can probably guess what my bias was. I wrote down everything I did for every hour of the day like you said to do, apart from when I was sleeping. I chose a red pen for pleasure and a green one for progress in case you are wondering.’ He’s not kidding about writing everything down. He’s even recorded his toilet breaks.
The chart immediately shows me how unbalanced his life is. While weaving in one or two of my suggestions for upping his contentment factor, he’s coloured more or less the whole chart red. I raise an eyebrow and he raises a grin. ‘I thought you might have some questions. It seems I’m not big on progress.’
I look at the figures he’s put next to his scrawl so we can work out how he gets his kicks and whether he needs to get them in alternative places. I remind him the idea is to reach an equilibrium between enjoying things for enjoyment’s sake and achieving things long term. ‘It’s like a set of scales. Everyone needs to find a balance that works for them. For example, Eva has a compulsion to overwork with her endless websites. Yet she keeps it more relaxed through wine nights with me, rubbish bin Olympics with Doodle and sexy times with her idiot boss. Too much of one colour means your equilibrium is off. You can do this chart once a week, once a month, or whenever and instantly see how your time is spent and tweak it accordingly. It’s not an exact science, obviously, as we’re using broad strokes and a rudimentary study. But it might shed some light onto your habits and whether you should develop some new ones.’
I decline a coffee as I need to keep his mind on the exercise. ‘It’s pretty obvious to me at first glance, and I hope to you, that your entire chart is based on pleasure, but your activities don’t seem to bring you much of it. You’ve written Oculus Rift down and attempted to play it?’
‘Yeah, the Rift– well, I walked the plank, killed some men in black, and flew around the world. I did it all in about half an hour and rated it a one because it didn’t bring me much pleasure. I couldn’t give it any marks for progress either I’m afraid, as I never made it onto the second level.’
‘In any of the games?’
He shrugs. ‘Well, obviously there’s not much skill in walking a plank or jumping out of the lift on a high-rise building. It’s not like you get better over time.’
‘Maybe you should choose a game that taxes you more both mentally and physically. Isn’t there one with lasers and music, or could you find the equivalent of my zombie running app? Even a short burst of movement reduces stress hormones like cortisol, while increasing happiness hormones that work like endorphins. Active fun is far better than passive entertainment. Maybe think about volunteering, taking up a new hobby or challenging yourself to a new goal if you’re constantly feeding the pleasure zone but it’s not doing anything for you.’
Glancing at my Twitter feed, I notice I’ve been tagged into some of the paper’s tweets for the #MustSayYes campaign. One person has said yes to a divorce, which is provoking some controversy, and a ninety-year-old has agreed to skydive with her grandson. I retweet and throw in a few suggestions of my own. But seeing how quickly fires flare up on such a big account, I’m careful with my words.
I drag my attention back to Vince. ‘Right. So, the virtual world did nothing for you. Let’s look at the real world, shall we?’ I choose a red-coloured box that has ‘guitar’ scrawled over it. ‘Learning an instrument is progress, isn’t it?’
‘Except I didn’t make any. That was the day I bought it. I rated that a pleasure even though I’m not big on shopping. Although I did restring it.’
‘Why would you restring a day-old guitar?’ I say, watching the divorce tweet gather pace.
‘I read somewhere you should do it regularly.’
‘Only if you’ve played it!’ OK, new regime. I reach into my bag for a pen and scrawl four letters across his sheet.
‘G.O.Y.A.’ He reads over my shoulder. ‘What’s that?’
‘Get off your ass. Do something. Learn something. Be present and engaged. Make progress.’
‘Like you are right now?’
I put down my phone. ‘Sorry, I appear to be embroiled in an existential Twitter crisis about saying yes to ending a marriage.’
‘You can’t use existential and Twitter in the same sentence.’
‘What’s that one?’ I ask, pointing to the letters J and O, coloured in red, with a five on the pleasure scale.
‘If I spell it out I think you’ll blush,’ he says. And then my whole face goes the colour of his car when I work out what the letters stand for.
Allowing us a quick break, I pick up a voice message from a speaker who wants to pull out of the Happiness Fair. Annoyed, I edit her out of the schedule on my phone. Vince brings us over a cup of coffee from his fancy machine. ‘Do you know if Joe enjoyed his day out? He dropped the keys through my door in the middle of the night. He enjoyed my credit card judging from the bill.’
