‘Dude,’ exhales Hamish.
So far today he’s unleashed his entire collection of male terms of endearment – that I’d conveniently forgotten he used to love – on me, and suggested that I have issues with personal hygiene, which really is not how I was hoping this reunion would turn out. I need to steer us onto more solid ground. I need to dazzle him with my brilliance.
‘So,’ I rally with my most winning smile. ‘Hamish. How have you been?’
SEVEN
Something’s not right, I think despondently as I surreptitiously check the time on my phone. We’re over an hour into the flight, cruising above Germany, and Hamish isstilltalking. He’s barely come up for air as he walks me through the last ten years of his life. I should be feeling that dizzy, giddy feeling I remember from when we first met all those years ago back home in Cornwall. My heart should be soaring. This is the moment I’ve dreamed of countless times over the past decade. Spent hours fantasizing over. Only now it’s actually happening and it feels distinctly unlike a fantasy.
Something is off.
‘So, yeah, man, I was having a really tough time,’ Hamish is saying as I turn my attention back to him, try to focus on his words. ‘And I came to the conclusion that I just don’t belong in the corporate machine.’
‘The corporate machine?’ I repeat. ‘Sorry, I must have missed a bit. Weren’t you just telling me about your part-time job at a beach bar?’
‘Exactly.’ Hamish bobs his head up and down solemnly. ‘It was just too much. One day, while I was pulling pints, I looked out across the ocean and I thought to myself, “Hamish, you should not be shackled by this monotonous nine-to-five”.’
‘You worked nine to five in a beach bar?’ I ask, surprised.
‘I’m elaborating,’ Hamish admits. ‘It was more of a five till ten p.m. shift, Tuesdays to Thursdays. But I just couldn’t be chained by it any longer. It felt so repetitive, like I was a cog in a machine, stuck. I couldn’t get out. I felt so limited. You know what I mean, right, Nee?’
Nee. I’d forgotten how much I used to love that nickname, all for me. So why does it now sound jarring, like he’s just throwing out random body parts mid-conversation? I busy myself trying to make understanding noises but, truth be told, I’m starting to fret that Hamish and I are no longer on the same page.
‘Isn’t that just the working world though?’ I suggest tentatively. ‘There are always going to be days when you feel bored or frustrated.’
‘Yes!’ Hamish agrees feverishly. ‘Bored and frustrated,exactly. So I quit.’
‘Oh! And what have you been doing since.’
‘Well, that was a few weeks back and then I flew straight back to the UK to see the family. I haven’t thought about what’s next for Hamish, yet. It’ll come to me. I have been busy making necklaces out ofobjetstrouvés I find on the beach.’
‘Objets trouvés?’
‘You know, like hidden treasures?’
‘Do you mean … beach litter?’
Hamish tuts. ‘No, I meanobjets trouvés. People love them, I’ve sold at least three necklaces now. So that could be a career option. Or I might buy a campervan and travel around Aus, just me and my surfboard.’
I’m temporarily blinded by the giant red flags waving right in front of me. Firstly, I’d conveniently forgotten that Hamish likes speaking about himself in the third person. Secondly,objets trouvés?! Thirdly, I thought this beach bar job he was talking about was from years ago. I knew he planned to work in a bar when he first got to Australia but to discover that he’s been doing this for the past ten years of his life?
I fidget uncomfortably with the flap of my seatbelt.
I’ve been focusing on my career since I first moved to London. Before I even set foot in Kat’s office as a junior PA, I knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life. Planning events, launching brands, making people’s dreams come true. And I’ve been working flat out at it ever since. One day, I hope to run my own events planning company and with a good track record, I’m looking to set something up in the next few years. I’ve already started working out the finances, figuring out what business loans I can get, where my office might be. I’ve got a mood board full of ideas for my dream office and quite often I’ll find myself doodling designs for company branding.
All to say, I think I’m pretty ambitious.
So to hear that Hamish found his part-time job at a beach bar on the Australian coast too corporate is … unsettling, if I’m honest. Does that make me a snob, I wonder uncomfortably. Drive and determination underpin my day-to-day and here’s Hamish, a decade on, still pottering around doing the same thing he was doing back when we were twenty. I know I shouldn’t judge him like this. It’s totally unfair of me. Not everyone is motivated by career, I remind myself. And Hamish’s passion is for surfing. So, really, it’s very cool to hear that he’s still managed to keep his passion as his main focus, right?
Right!
And also, hearing him talk about the ocean is spellbinding. His eyes have lit up, and it doesn’t matter that he’s wearing turned-up jeans and sandals which ordinarily would give me the ick.
‘Some of the sunsets I’ve seen,’ he’s saying, the lightest Scottish twang left in his voice after years away. ‘Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you’ll see migrating humpback whales on the horizon as the sun goes down. Magical.’
‘No way! I’d love to see that.’
‘Maybe you will.’ He turns his striking gaze to me. I inhale, remembering how good it feels to have those dazzling blues all to myself.
