Twenties Girl

“No!” Sadie appears in front of me, and I stop in surprise. “That’s not what I meant! You can’t be intending to spy on them.”

“I have to.” I look at her, perplexed. “How else am I going to find out if Marie’s his new girlfriend or not?”

“You don’t find out. You say, ‘Good riddance,’ buy a new dress, and take another lover. Or several.”

“I don’t want several lovers,” I say mulishly. “I want Josh.”

“Well, you can’t have him! Give up!”

I’m so, so, so sick of people telling me to give up on Josh. My parents, Natalie, that old woman I got talking to on the bus once…

“Why should I give up?” My words fly out on a swell of protest. “Why does everyone keep telling me to give up? What’s wrong with sticking to one single goal? In every other area of life, perseverance is encouraged! It’s rewarded! I mean, they didn’t tell Edison to give up on lightbulbs, did they? They didn’t tell Scott to forget about the South Pole! They didn’t say, ‘Never mind, Scotty, there are plenty more snowy wastes out there.’ He kept trying. He refused to give up, however hard it got. And he made it!”

I feel quite stirred up as I finish, but Sadie is peering at me as though I’m an imbecile.

“Scott didn’t make it,” she says. “He froze to death.”

I glare at her resentfully. Some people are just so negative.

“Well, anyway.” I turn on my heel and start stumping along the street. “I’m going to that lunch.”

“The worst thing a girl can do is trail after a boy when a love affair is dead,” Sadie says disdainfully. I stump faster, but she has no problem keeping up with me. “There was a girl called Polly in my village-frightful trailer. She was convinced this chap Desmond was still in love with her and followed him around everywhere. So we played the most ripping joke on her. We told her that Desmond was in the garden, hiding behind a bush as he was too shy to talk to her directly. Then, when she came out, one of the boys read out a love letter, supposed to be from him. We’d written it ourselves, you know. Everyone was hiding behind the bushes, simply rocking.”

I can’t help feeling a reluctant interest in her story.

“Didn’t the other guy sound different?”

“He said his voice was high from nerves. He said her presence reduced him to a trembling leaf. Polly replied that she understood, because her own legs were like aspic.” Sadie starts giggling. “We all called her Aspic for ages after that.”

“That’s so mean!” I say in horror. “She didn’t realize it was a trick?”

“Only when the bushes all started shaking around the garden. Then my friend Bunty rolled out onto the grass, she was laughing so hard, and the game was up. Poor Polly.” Sadie gives a sudden giggle. “She was foaming. She didn’t speak to any of us all summer.”

“I’m not surprised!” I exclaim. “I think you were all really cruel! And, anyway, what if their love affair wasn’t dead? What if you ruined her chance of true love?”

“True love!” echoes Sadie with a derisive laugh. “You’re so old-fashioned!”

“Old-fashioned?” I echo incredulously.

“You’re just like my grandmother, with your love songs and your sighing. You even have a little miniature of your beloved in your handbag, don’t you? Don’t deny it! I’ve seen you looking at it.”

It takes me a moment to work out what she’s talking about.

“It isn’t a miniature, actually. It’s called a mobile phone.”

“Whatever it’s called. You still look at it and make goo-goo eyes and then you take your smelling salts out of that little bottle-”

“That’s Rescue Remedy!” I say furiously. God, she’s starting to wind me up. “So you don’t believe in love, is that what you’re saying? You weren’t ever in love? Not even when you were married?”

A passing postman shoots me a curious look, and I hastily put a hand to my ear as though adjusting an earpiece. I must start wearing one as camouflage.

Sadie hasn’t answered me, and as we reach the tube station I stop dead to survey her, suddenly genuinely curious. “You were really never in love?”

There’s the briefest pause, then Sadie flings her arms out with a rattle of bracelets, her head thrown back. “I had fun. That’s what I believe in. Fun, flings, the sizzle…”

“What sizzle?”

“That’s what we called it, Bunty and I.” Her mouth curves in a reminiscent smile. “It starts as a shiver, when you see a man for the first time. And then he meets your eye and the shiver runs down your back and becomes a sizzle in your stomach and you think I want to dance with that man.”

“And then what happens?”

“You dance, you have a cocktail or two, you flirt…” Her eyes are shining.

“Do you-”

I want to ask, “Do you shag him?” but I’m not sure it’s the kind of question you ask your 105-year-old great-aunt. Then I remember the visitor from the nursing home.

“Hey.” I raise my eyebrows. “You can say what you like, but I know there was someone special in your life.”

“What do you mean?” She stares at me, suddenly tense. “What are you talking about?”

“A certain gentleman by the name of… Charles Reece?”

I’m hoping to provoke a blush or gasp or something, but she looks blank.

“I’ve never heard of him.”

“Charles Reece! He came to visit you in the nursing home? A few weeks ago?”

Sadie shakes her head. “I don’t remember.” The light in her eyes fades as she adds, “I don’t remember much about that place at all.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t…” I pause awkwardly. “You had a stroke, years ago.”

“I know.” She glares at me.

God, she doesn’t have to be so touchy. It’s not my fault. Suddenly I realize my phone is vibrating. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it’s Kate.

“Hi, Kate!”

“Lara? Hi! Um, I was wondering… are you coming into work today? Or not?” she adds quickly, as though she might have offended me by asking. “I mean, either way is great, everything’s fine…”

Shit. I’ve been so absorbed in Josh, I’d almost forgotten about work.

“I’m on my way in,” I say hastily. “I was just doing a bit of… er… research at home. Is anything up?”

“It’s Shireen. She wants to know what you’ve done about her dog. She sounded quite upset. In fact, she was talking about pulling out of the job.”

Oh God. I haven’t even thought about Shireen and her dog.

“Could you phone her back and say I’m on the case and I’ll call her really soon? Thanks, Kate.”

I put my phone away and massage my temples briefly. This is bad. Here I am, out on the street, spying on my ex, completely abandoning my work crisis. I need to reorder my priorities. I need to realize what’s important in life.

I’ll leave Josh until the weekend.

“We have to go.” I reach for my Oyster card and start hurrying toward the tube. “I’ve got a problem.”

“Another man problem?” asks Sadie, wafting effortlessly along beside me.

“No, a dog problem.”

“A dog?”

“It’s my client.” I march down the tube steps. “She wants to take her dog to work, and they’re saying no, it’s not allowed, but she’s convinced there’s another dog in the building.”

“Why?”

“Because she heard barking, more than once. But, I mean, what am I supposed to do about it?” I’m almost talking to myself now. “I’m totally stuck. The human-resources department is denying there’s any other dog, and there’s no way to prove they’re lying. I can’t exactly get into the building and search every office-”

I stop in surprise as Sadie appears right in front of me.

“Maybe not.” Her eyes sparkle. “But I can.”