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  I touch the screen.

  Laurent. Ah. I can hear him saying his name in his scrummy French accent. I know it’s ridiculous to have a crush on Laurent, since every single girl who’s ever been within two foot of him fancies him too, but I can’t help it. But on the plus side, they don’t get personal emails from him on a daily basis. And they don’t have a whole week of filming with him.

  I can’t wait.

  I must admit, it was a stroke of sheer genius on my part to suggest a visit to our sister company in Paris. I justified the expense to Eddie by saying that it was important that we were more Euro-friendly. And since talking to Laurent, who runs the network in Paris, is the only discernible perk of my job, it would seem a pity not to capitalize on the opportunity of getting him to myself for a bit.

  Wishful thinking, I know. It’s just that that twinkly Gallic charm of his gets to me. Not that I could do anything about it even if I wanted to. Let’s face it, it would be a tad unprofessional to fling myself at him. Still, Paris in the autumn . . .

  I untangle myself from the tousled sheets of my fantasy and tell myself to get a grip. It’s ridiculous. Laurent is probably already married, or something ghastly.

  I must need a shag. There’s nothing more to it than that.

  I finally shut down my computer at 9.30 p.m. My head is pounding and I bolt down a few fluffy Anadins I locate in the back of my drawer. I lock up my office, say goodnight to the cleaners and wait by the lift.

  I’m vaguely humming ‘Cry Me A River’ when the lift stops at the third floor and Lianne, one of the presenters, steps in.

  Lianne is not my favourite person in the world. She’s about fifty, although she only admits to forty, and is one of those affected people who claims to have worked in ‘the business’ since television was invented.

  Yeah, right.

  ‘Ah, Helen. Everything sorted for tomorrow?’ she asks, shaking her giant blonde hairdo.

  ‘Yep,’ I lie, for the fiftieth time today. As if I’ve had time! Today I caught up with yesterday. Tonight is for thinking about tomorrow. Everyone knows that.

  ‘I’ll read through the script revisions first thing, then,’ she says.

  First thing? Why am I bothering to go home? I’ll be working all night at this rate. I suppose it’s just as well I don’t have a lover. A fat lot of good I’d be.

  ‘You’re sure it’ll be OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine,’ I say, heaving my bag on to my shoulder and easing my mouth into an utterly unconvincing smile. But Lianne smiles back. She believes me! For a moment I wonder what would happen if I ungritted my teeth and let the words behind them tumble out. Go and pester someone else, you bossy cow. Do your own script revisions. Do you hear me, you miserable shrivelled eighties throwback? I don’t care. I’ve got a life.

  Except that I haven’t.

  ‘Have a nice evening,’ she says, when the lift pings open on the ground floor.

  My flat is a complete mess when I get in and I’m tempted to turn round and book myself into a hotel. I’ve been thinking about getting a cleaning lady, but I can’t bring myself to do it. It seems too extravagant considering that this mess has been totally generated by me and me alone.

  I kick off my shoes and open the fridge. Inside there’s a Marks & Spencers ready-made lasagne, a chicken-and-ham pasta bake and a family-sized chilli with rice, all of which passed their sell-by date five days ago. In addition, there’s a family-sized bag of Italian salad which has gone brown and slimy, a deluxe Vichyssoise soup which has started to ferment and half a tub of houmous.

  Great.

  This happens every week. I turn over a new leaf and on the way home from work do a huge, expensive shop, promising myself that this week I will eat healthily every evening and no, I won’t survive almost exclusively on Marmite on toast or late-night take-aways from the Indian on the corner. But it never happens, because every time I throw away all the expired food in my fridge.

  I’ve lived on my own now for about six months, but I still haven’t learnt the basics of cooking for one. It’s really tricky. Instead I buy family-sized everything, harbouring this little fantasy that someone – I don’t know who – will turn up of an evening and I’ll open my fridge, peruse its contents and rustle up a gourmet dish in a nanosecond. I don’t know where it’s come from, because no one ever turns up uninvited. In fact, my social life is totally arranged, usually weeks in advance. Nothing is impromptu in my life any more and even if it was, it certainly wouldn’t happen in my flat; I’d be too ashamed of the mess.

  I chuck some cereal in a bowl and flick through the post. There’s nothing interesting, just bank statements and the usual junk mail that someone, somewhere deliberately targets at me. It’s a scary thing that I’m now old enough to qualify for all this stuff: credit-card holiday offers, ‘you have already won £2,000’ subscription cons, photo-developing envelopes, and nasty mail-order clothes catalogues. I fling them on the sofa and hit the answering machine. There’s a message from my brother, complaining that he hasn’t heard from me for ages, and then there’s one from Gav, my ex-boyfriend.

  I sit on the sofa and listen to him speaking on the answering machine, annoyed that the sound of his voice still ties my stomach in knots, or that I can still imagine how it was when he lived here.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. Listen, I’ve been trying to get you at work, but you haven’t returned any of my calls. I really need to speak to you, H. Will you call me? I’ll be up late, or catch me at work tomorrow. OK. Bye for now.’

  Bye for now, I mime at the phone.

  Excuse me? How arrogant?

  I mean, what does he think? That he can call me and I’ll immediately take him back? Does he have the nerve to think that I’m as lonely without him as he obviously is without me? The cheek of it! He was the one who was scared of commitment. He was the one who, after a happy two-year relationship, calmly and quite callously engineered things to get so bad that I had to finish it. He was the one who walked out without so much as an ‘I’m sorry’.

  If he wants me back, he can pull his finger out and do some serious chasing.

  Secretly I’m pleased, though. Because I knew he was making a mistake and maybe he’s realized it, too. Why else would he be calling me all the time?

  On the night he left, I watched him pack his bag, pulling books off my shelf, boxer shorts out of my drawers, shampoo and razors from the bathroom cabinet we’d put up together and I watched him in silence, my heart breaking. Because I didn’t want it to finish. I didn’t want him to leave. All I wanted was a reason. Just one reason why he’d let our precious relationship slip through his fingers.

  It was no use, though. A week before, I’d begged him to tell me whether he was having an affair or not. Another woman seemed to be the only logical explanation for his behaviour. But Gav was outraged by the idea and started ranting furiously. It seemed that any problem we had was entirely my fault and this, didn’t I know, was the last straw. How could I expect him to love me when I was so suspicious all the time? How could he be his own person with me pulling him down and smothering him? How could there ever be trust in our relationship when all the time I did things like accuse him of infidelity? It went on and on until he ran out of steam. Then he went silent. And stayed silent for a week.

  I tried to make him see things from my point of view, begged him to communicate with me, but in the end I knew I’d failed. So the only option left, without sacrificing my last shred of dignity, was to let him go.

  So he did.

  It was midnight by the time I had calmed down enough to be able to speak. And the only person I wanted to speak to was Amy. She was the one person who I knew wouldn’t judge me, who’d lift the burden of the crushing defeat I felt.

  I knew she’d been out for dinner with Jack and I knew it was late, but I held my breath as her phone rang, willing her to be in. Eventually, she lifted the receiver and I curled up on my beanbag, ready to pour out all the anger and grie
f I felt.

  ‘Amy, it’s me.’

  ‘I was just about to call you. You’ll never guess what?’

  ‘Hang on. Listen, I . . .’

  ‘Jack and I are getting married! Isn’t that great?’

  Stringer

  Thursday, 19.02

  I get back from playing squash with Martin at 19.02 and check my watch’s stopwatch feature. According to the London A-Z, it’s spot-on three miles across town from Martin’s sports club to my mother’s Chelsea riverside house and, seeing that I’ve knocked a minute off the personal record I set for the distance last week, I smile. This time two years ago, running three hundred yards, let alone three miles, would probably have killed me. Although the September air is chill, I’m sweating like a horse, so I stay put for a few minutes, staring down at the familiar cracks in the pavement outside Mum’s house, remembering how, as a child, I used to play hopscotch here with my sister.

  Mum and Dad bought this place – a Victorian three-storey redbrick – twenty-five years ago. That was 1974, the year I was born. It was because of my arrival that her and Dad and my elder sister, Alexandra, moved here. Their old place in Putney wouldn’t have been big enough for all four of us and what with the money they’d come into following my grandfather’s death, it made sense. Mum kept the building on after she and Dad divorced in 1993. Xandra and I had left home by then (Xandra in with her boyfriend and me off at university), so Mum moved herself and her belongings upstairs, and converted the lower-ground and ground floors into two separate, self-contained flats for renting out.

  I swing my rucksack down from my shoulders and, digging out my flat keys, trot down the basement steps to the front door of the flat I now rent off Mum. Once inside, I check through the mail. There are two bills: phone and electricity. It’s hardly what I need on my current salary (or lack of it). There’s a letter from my Quit4Good drugs counsellor, David, suggesting we get together for a ‘chat’ some time next month. Inside a pink envelope is an invitation to a Kids From Fame fancy-dress party that Roger’s throwing to celebrate his divorce from Camilla. I wonder, will this eighties revivalism never pass? There’s also a postcard from Pete, my best friend from university, who’s currently coaching tennis for Camp America out in California. Finally, there’s a Ken’s Gym sponsorship form for next month’s Aerobathon Spectacular in aid of Children in Need. I can imagine the aches already.

  ‘Hi, honey,’ Karen chimes, as I enter the sitting-room. She’s got a soft Cheshire accent that just kills me. She’s huddled up on the sofa. Her favourite Reebok baseball cap is pulled low over her brow, concealing her cropped copper hair. Cradled between her hands is a Sony Playstation game paddle, upon which her fingers are orchestrating a series of frenzied movements. Her eyes are glued to the television screen, where Lara Croft is busting her way through the latest Tomb Raider instalment. ‘Who won?’ she asks.

  I walk through to the kitchen and get a carton of juice from the fridge. There’s a smell of spicy food and in the sink is a used saucepan and bowl. ‘Martin,’ I call out, returning to the sitting-room and slumping down next to her. ‘He thrashed me. Nine–four. Nine–two. Nine–four.’

  Throughout the many years I’ve known Martin, I’ve never taken a game off him. He was at boarding-school with me and then we both went on to study Economics at Exeter University. Where I ended up specializing in DJ-ing and slobbing-out, he stuck with mastering the intricacies of macro- and microeconomics. Ergo: he got a first and I got a third. He’s now on the fast-track, an investment banker in the City.

  ‘Did you try that serve I showed you on Sunday?’ Karen checks.

  Aside from being my flatmate, and the secret, unrequited love of my life, Karen is my ally in the clandestine war currently being waged against Martin on the squash courts of London. The rules of engagement run along the lines of Martin being incredibly successful and me childishly wanting to get one over on him by beating him at something. Karen used to play squash at county level at school and has been teaching me a few tricks on the sly.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply.

  ‘And?’

  ‘I made a mess of it,’ I admit. ‘I got too riled. He was running me ragged. You know what I’m like when I get competitive . . .’

  ‘Don’t sweat it,’ she says, nudging me with her knee reassuringly. ‘I’ll take you through it again next week.’

  I watch Karen kicking virtual arse as I drink from my juice carton and wind down. She’s a one-off. There are no two ways about it. She’s the biggest tomboy I know. Her current outfit consists of denim dungarees and scuffed-up Reeboks. There’s a sticker-ridden skateboard by her feet. Her room says it all: Manchester United and skate punk posters on the walls; assorted football memorabilia on the shelves; clothes scattered across the floor. (My mother told her it looks like my room did when I was nine, which struck me as a particularly Mum-like observation, seeing as it was my room when I was nine.) I don’t mind about Karen being messy. The reality is that I get a buzz out of her feeling so at home. It’s cosily his and hers, although this illusion is shattered every time her boyfriend, Chris, comes over to stay.

  I developed a hideous crush on Karen over the first few months she was here, and it shows no signs of abating. My stomach flips over every time I hear her keys in the front door and sometimes at work I catch myself daydreaming about her, wondering where she is and who she’s with. Nothing has ever happened between us, however, and I don’t think anything ever will. She’s been seeing Chris since I’ve known her and I’ve never made a pass at her. As far as I know, she’s completely unaware of the way I feel. Aside from the odd whiff of sexual tension between us, I think that in her eyes our status as just good friends has been cemented and set. That’s fairly par for the course with me: falling in love with someone, then missing the boat; listening to my heart, then failing to act on what it has to say. That said, I’d be lying if I claimed hope was dead. There are times – particularly when there’s only the two of us, or when she’s grumbling about Chris – that I catch her looking at me, and I wonder if the connection jolts her heart as hard as it does mine.

  Chris is a strange one. It’s hard to be certain, but I think I’d still believe this even if he didn’t have chronic halitosis and I didn’t think his girlfriend was chocolate and envy him every second he’s ever spent with her. Their relationship has been ongoing since their first year at college. They’ve never lived together and Chris has sidestepped the several advances towards this that Karen has made over the years. He takes the view that cohabitation isn’t something they should even consider until their careers are irrevocably established. He’s been unfaithful to Karen twice with women he said didn’t mean anything to him. The first time broke Karen’s heart, the second hardened it. He’s on his last warning now. I know all this because Karen has told me. I also know that if I were going out with Karen, the establishment of my career and seeing other people would be the last things on my mind.

  Karen has been living here for six months now, ever since I decided to boost my income by placing an advert in Loot for a flatmate. The copy I submitted was fairly unspecific: ‘Twenty-five-year-old male seeks similar-aged flatmate to share spacious Chelsea flat. Male/Female. Professional/Unprofessional.’ All the same, I couldn’t believe how many people replied. Karen was the last person I saw. She was happy in her job (as a freelance journalist). Chris had just started working in Newcastle for an engineering firm. She saw him every other weekend and generally had a good time. She wasn’t symbiotic in any way. She’d neither drag me down, nor get dragged down by me. She was perfect. She moved in the following weekend. Then came my crush, and then our friendship, all of which brings us up to now.

  ‘Doing anything tonight?’ she asks.

  ‘I’m meeting up for a drink with Jack’

  ‘How is he?’ she asks. ‘Still loved up?’

  ‘Completely. Do you feel like tagging along?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Early night for me, I think Shit!’ she curses at
the screen, tossing the game paddle across the room in frustration as Lara bites the dust again. ‘Those wee nasties do for me every bloody time.’ She grabs the juice off me and takes a noisy slurp. ‘Alice popped in half an hour back . . .’

  My mother. There’s something in Karen’s tone of voice that makes me edgy. ‘On the snoop?’ I ask.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘What did she want this time?’

  Karen smiles awkwardly. ‘The usual.’

  ‘God,’ I groan.

  It’s occurrences like this that make me wish I hadn’t moved back here to begin with. I don’t mean that badly. I love my mother to bits. Truly I do. It’s just that I sometimes wish she’d leave me to my own devices a tad more. It’s not as if I don’t understand where she’s coming from, but even the biggest of life’s casualties should be given the benefit of the doubt from time to time. Deep dark secret: I’m very much the ‘after’ photo from the lifestyle magazine. I was a mess at the beginning of last year – a bloody mess – and had been fairly consistently ever since my father died in 1996.

  He died of a heart attack, keeled over on the way out of a board meeting at Sang, the electronics corporation of which he was European Marketing Director. He was fifty-nine and due to retire in six months. I loved him and when his heart broke, so did mine. Instead of looking to the future, as he’d always counselled me, I buried myself in the present. Dad was so young. The week before he died, he’d taken me out for dinner and everything about him had seemed normal. He’d nagged me about getting myself a postgraduate business qualification, and had told me that I had a good brain and should use it for something more challenging than being a DJ. I say nagged, but Dad was never a nagger, not in the traditional sense of the word. He was just ambitious for me, and I was just too young to understand.

  I inherited a pile of cash from him and bought myself a second-hand Porsche 911, rented a house in Notting Hill, got myself kitted out with some state-of-the-art decks, and set about ploughing the rest up my nose. Nothing seemed to matter. Getting wasted and forgetting myself was enough, just so long as I didn’t have to think too hard.