Two

      I trudged back into work on Monday feeling low. I always felt low at work anyway, so fortunately nobody noticed. Which they could only have done if I’d actually talked to anyone, and I never did. So, just a typical week, really.

      I had a dingy grey office with a dead plant and big piles of crap all over it where I was supposed to check copy for a stationery company in Holborn. It was a shitty job going absolutely nowhere, but it demanded minimum brain power and paid more than McDonald’s, so I sat it out. In front of the office the secretarial staff tended to hover, sniffing suspiciously. Given that all I did in my job was read, whereas they typed and answered the phone too, they were very cagey about my presence – I swear I could hear them sharpening their extra-long nails whenever I walked in. Mostly, they ignored me. But even they couldn’t ignore me for three whole days, standing peering out over Holborn Viaduct through my tiny filthy window which didn’t open, holding a postcard and looking painfully wistful.

      ‘What’s the matter, love?’

      Shirley was queen secretary, in her late thirties, with two-tone hair and attitude. Since Fran had given up on me in disgust, and Amanda would have said, ‘Oh, petal, are you going to take him back? … Well, you know best, dear, but he is a Charterhouse boy and they really do have a reputation for it …’ I was desperate for someone to confide in.

      ‘I, erm, well, it’s my boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend. Ehm, well, he left a year ago without telling me and went to America, and now he’s coming back and I don’t know what to do.’

      ‘Got any kids?’

      ‘Gosh, no.’ I was surprised, and felt horribly middle class and at the same time cross that she thought I looked old enough to have kids.

      ‘’As he got any money?’

      ‘I … well, not much really.’

      ‘Tell ’im to fuck off then. Simple, innit? What’s the point of having ’im ’anging around, treating you like that?’

      That made perfect sense.

      ‘Is that really what you’d do?’ I asked.

      ‘Every time my Stan pisses off, that’s exactly what I do. He knows he loves me, see. So he always comes crawling back. And I make him pay, believe me.’

      ‘Oh.’ I was confused. ‘So I shouldn’t tell Alex to fuck off, just make him pay?’

      ‘Up to you, love.’

      ‘Right. Right. Thanks.’

      Oh God, I didn’t know when I was going to get round to picking up my dry-cleaning, never mind considering making a sensible decision about the bastard who tore my heart from its aorta, stomped up and down on it, and gleefully reduced me to the sort of person who considered Nicholas a fantastic night on the town.

      Preparing myself a cup of my delicious coffee made with three different sorts of powder scraped off the bottom of other people’s catering tins, I switched on my voice mail, a wonderful invention which had saved me the trouble of ever having to pick up the phone and speak to anyone at work, thereby avoiding being asked to do any. I had five new messages. Gosh, that made me sound popular. I perked up a bit.

      It occurred to me, as it had done every half-hour since Saturday, that Alex might have phoned. After all, I’d hardly been hurling myself up the career ladder since he left; he knew where to find me. I got excited all over again, and drank my coffee without tasting it (a vast improvement).

      ‘Hello, Melanie darling, wonderful to see you two the other night – looked like you were on for a bit of a party after I left!’

      Great. It was Amanda ‘La la la, I’m marrying the man I love and we’re having fifteen adorable NCT children and living in a whole house done in National Trust colours for ever and ever’ Phillips.

      I beeped over the rest of it. It was definitely too early in the day to deal with that.

      ‘Mel.’ Phew. It was Fran. She would tell me what to do.

      ‘I’ve thought this over very thoroughly. If you take him back you will have to die. And ring me – we have to decide whether we’re going to bitchtastic Phillips’s engagement party … and then decide to go anyway, like we always do, and have a shitty time, like we always do.’

      That must have been what Amanda’s message was about. Could I handle her and all her posh friends – whom I would hate and therefore get drunk so as not to mind talking to them, and then get too drunk and possibly end up getting off with aforesaid posh friends, thus maintaining the cycle of shame? Still, a party was a party, no matter how humiliating.

      BEEP

      ‘Melanie, yes, good morning … um … you wouldn’t still have that brochure proof I gave you six weeks ago? The marketing chappies swear they don’t have it, but it couldn’t possibly still be with you, could it? I’ll speak to you later then. Goodbye.’

      Bugger it. My boss, Barney, was terribly polite, ethical, and saw the best in everyone. Therefore everyone considered him washed up and constantly took the piss. I looked in despair at my desk. Anything six weeks old had probably mulched by now.

      BEEP

      ‘Melanie, this is Flavi in marketing. We’ve had your boss on to us, and I really don’t think …’

      BEEP. I think, Flavi, that I’ve got rather more important things on right now,