Page 102 of Who’s That Girl?

Bloody hell, it’s nearly six o’clock! I stare at the electronic digits in shocked disbelief. I’ve been hours. I didn’t just lose track of time, I lost a whole day! It slipped away without me even noticing.

Because you were having fun, chimes that little voice inside my head.

Automatically I feel a sharp stab of guilt. I’m not supposed to be having fun. I’m not supposed to be rediscovering the thrill of flea markets, going on walks with cute barmen or getting whiskery kisses from granddads; I’m supposed to be mourning the loss of my relationship and looking for my watch.

Which is still missing, I remind myself.

I focus back on it. Where was I before I got sidetracked? Ah, yes, retracing my steps … My mind spools back. If it’s not in my flat or the pub, then I must have lost it in the club – which will be closed now, I tell myself quickly, feeling relieved – or my old house.

Turning the ignition, I stick the car into gear and pull away from the kerb. I’ll drive over there now. Maybe it fell off my wrist when I was digging around in the fridge for some milk. I have a flashback to the unidentifiable foodstuffs lurking inside and a shudder runs up my spine. On second thoughts, please God don’t let it be in the fridge. I don’t think I’m brave enough to stick my hand in there again.

I start heading north towards the flyover and it’s not long before I see the now-familiar signs for the diversion. Though of course I don’t see any workmen, I notice, filtering into the single lane past the large diggers and cranes that are sitting empty. Typical. In the middle of cursing this peculiar habit of British roadworks appearing overnight in an explosion of orange cones and freshly dug holes and then just sort of sitting there for days on end, causing huge traffic jams, my phone rings.

‘Hello?’

‘I tried you at home, but you weren’t there,’ accuses the voice on the other end of the line.

‘Oh, hi, Mum,’ I say automatically. ‘Thanks for the card, and the vouchers. I meant to call you last night when I got in, but it was too late.’

‘So did you have a good time on your birthday?’

I think about last night. I’m not sure if ‘good’ is the right adjective. ‘Yeah, it was, um –’ I try to think of the right one and settle on – ‘interesting.’

‘Any surprises?’

‘You could say that,’ I murmur, remembering me at the club, on the dance floor, talking to Olly, his tattoo …

‘I knew it!’ she gasps victoriously down the line, cutting off my train of thought. ‘I said it to your father. Didn’t I say it to you, David? Didn’t I?’ She’s hollering at my father, who I can hear grunting in the background. I can picture them now, her on the phone in the hallway, him in the living room trying to read the paper in peace.

‘Knew what?’ I say in confusion. God, what is my mother going on about now? I pull up at the traffic lights on the diversion.

‘Now, now, don’t keep us all waiting!’ She laughs shrilly. She sounds almost giddy and for a moment I wonder if she’s been drinking. She has been known to have a couple of port and lemonades before dinner. Or tea, I should say.

‘Mum, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I say, a little impatiently. Oh good, the lights have changed. I put the car into gear.

‘The proposal!’ she gasps. ‘What other kind of surprise do you think I’m talking about?’

Suddenly it registers. When Mum said ‘surprise’, she thought … and I thought …

Oh shit.

My heart sinks. I’ve got to tell her the truth. Only it’s going to be like telling a lottery winner there’s been a mix-up and actually they don’t have the winning ticket.

‘So?’ Mum’s voice nags. ‘Are you going to keep your poor old mother in suspense?’

Deep breath. Here we go. ‘We broke up.’

There’s silence and then—

‘What?’ She’s almost speechless with shock.

I quickly take advantage of the fact. ‘Actually, I broke up with him. It wasn’t right, Mum,’ I try explaining quickly. ‘I thought it could work, I really wanted it to work, but it didn’t, it couldn’t, and when I stopped trying to convince myself and took a moment to look hard at my relationship—’

She cuts me off. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

Taking the same short cut as always and turning into the side street, I reflect upon the past week’s events. Bumping into my twenty-one-year-old self, hanging out together at a concert, going clubbing, breaking up with my boyfriend …

‘Quite possibly,’ I admit, whizzing past the parked cars. Maybe Mum’s right. Maybe I have lost the plot. Maybe I’m making a total and utter mess of my life and I’m going to really regret this.