Would Like to Meet. Polly James
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make practical use of it.
“Holes,” he says, as he scoops the ice up off the counter, wraps it in a tea towel, and then orders to me to press it against the giant bump that’s been forming on my forehead while he’s been considering the physics of the situation.
“You look like one of those body-modification loonies,” he says, when he removes the ice pack ten minutes later, then stands back to admire the effect. “Except they prefer holes in their bumps, so it looks as if they’ve got doughnuts in the middle of their foreheads.”
“Don’t change the subject,” I say. “Tell me about your father.”
“Well, I told him about the dryer,” says Joel. “And he said if you call him tonight, he’ll arrange to pop round and fix it tomorrow if that’s convenient for you. I said it would be, seeing as you never go anywhere, other than to boring evening classes and to Pearl’s.”
Honestly, that’s so not true – and how did Dan know I wouldn’t be able to fix the dryer? I’m not totally incompetent, and I can manage perfectly well by myself, thank you very much. Or I could, if I didn’t have to share a house with the number one tool thief in the country. I’ll prove it, now.
I attack the dryer with renewed vigour, adding a carving fork and a pair of kitchen tongs to my arsenal of tools, along with a pack of bamboo skewers. None of them succeed in removing the back of the machine, but the skewers keep snapping off inside it so that, before long, it starts to resemble a porcupine. Then the carving fork skids off the plate hiding the motor, causing a shower of sparks to fly and me to get an electric shock.
“Phone Dad,” says Joel. “Please, Mum. Before you kill yourself.”
He picks up my phone, keys in a series of numbers and then passes the phone over to me. I sit and fume, while I wait for Dan to answer.
“Hello,” says a voice, after what seems like hours. “Daniel’s phone.”
Since when is Dan called Daniel? And, more to the point, it may be Dan’s phone, but why’s a woman answering it?
It’s all very well for Joel to say the sex of Dan’s landlord makes no difference, but it makes all the difference in the world to me. She’s one of Dan’s colleagues, after all – he told me so – and I bet he only left me because he wanted to get involved with her. Maybe he didn’t even wait ’til then? He could have been having an affair with her behind my back for months, or even years. I can’t remember how long it’s been since he stopped paying me any attention, so it could have been decades for all I know.
“Well, that would make more sense,” says Esther, when I ask her opinion during this morning’s coffee break. “I mean, if Dan was having an affair before he moved out. Seems logical to me.”
Sometimes, you can go right off Esther. I preferred Joel’s opinion, the one he gave me when I went a bit nuts last night after I finally managed to speak to Dan.
“Don’t be stupid, Mum,” he said. “His landlady’s a right dingbat, and fugly too. I met her earlier on tonight, so I should know.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me about her, then?” I said, “That would have saved me from sounding like a nutcase when I spoke to her.”
Spoke isn’t really the word, though screeched quite possibly is. I blame that on the shock.
“What do you mean, Daniel’s phone?” I said to the mystery woman in the aforementioned screechy tone. “He’s not called Daniel, and who the hell are you to be answering his phone?”
“I’m his landlady,” said the woman. “And there’s no need to be so rude. I can only assume you’re his wife? Or ex-wife, should I say?”
That last bit stunned me into silence, but by the time I felt able to reply, intending to be ruder still, there was a scuffling noise and the woman said, “Oh, all right. If you’re sure?”
She must have handed Dan the phone straight after that, because then he began to speak.
“Hannah?” he said. “Are you okay?”
Oh, my God, I hadn’t realised how long it had been since I’d heard Dan’s voice. Maybe that’s why it sounded so different to how I remembered it. Different, and better, too. Dan’s always had a nice voice, but last night it sounded smoother, and deeper, and – oh, I don’t know – warmer somehow. It was hard to listen to, whatever the reason, so I made Joel take the phone.
“You make the arrangements,” I said. “I’ve got something urgent to do.”
When I’d finished dealing with the emergency – which mainly involved crying myself into a state of semi-asphyxia, due to shoving my face so far into my pillow to muffle the noise – it was past 3am, and Joel was sitting on the floor outside my bedroom door, as if he was my bodyguard, except for the fact that he was fast asleep. I woke him up when I fell over him on my way to the loo.
“She really is just Dad’s landlady, Mum,” he said, “so be cool when he gets here tomorrow night to mend the dryer. Please.”
I agreed, but Joel looked unconvinced by my reply.
“Cool is my middle name,” I said.
* * *
I make it home from work in a panic just before Dan’s due to arrive. I don’t know why, but it seems important to look my best tonight, despite the fact that he hasn’t noticed what I look like for years. Even when I’d really made an effort, the best he could usually do was, “You look fine.” That wouldn’t have been so bad in itself, if he hadn’t always qualified the compliment by adding, “for a woman of your age.”
That’s such an insult, isn’t it? I think it’s even worse than I used to now, because of a question I read at work today, from a man who wanted advice on how to save his marriage. It only needed saving in the first place because he said he couldn’t face having sex with his wife any more, because her appearance now “repels” him. That was bad enough, but then loads of other men joined in, saying they had exactly the same problem, because their wives had also aged so much! I scrolled through hundreds of their horrible comments before I finally found one from a female user. “Do you guys look the same as when you married your wives?” it said.
That shut the men up, and made me laugh, but now I want to look good when I see Dan – or as good as possible, anyway – but then Sod’s law ensures I don’t. I haven’t even managed to change out of my work clothes when the doorbell rings, and Joel shouts, “Mum! Dad’s here.”
There’s a whooshing noise inside my head, and I suddenly feel boiling hot (by which I mean hot hot, not sexy hot), and my legs start to feel all funny. I’ve got pins and needles in my fingers, too and I’m oddly breathless, again not in a sexy way.
I wish I could lie down until I feel a bit more normal, but I’ve got to go downstairs straight away. If I don’t, I’ll look as if I can’t handle seeing Dan – and then he’ll have the upper hand – so I make my way down very slowly. It’s not easy to appear nonchalant while you’re clinging for dear life to the banister, though I do my best.
“Hi, Hannah,” says Dan, at the same time as Joel says, “Well, I’m off out. See you guys later.”
He makes his escape so fast that I can’t stop him, and now I’m all alone with Dan.
“I brought my bike inside,” he says. “Hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t want to risk it being nicked.”
“Bike?” I say, as if I can’t see a shiny new one right in front of me, blocking my path to the kitchen and the tumble dryer. The bloody tumble dryer that’s the whole reason I’m having to stand