Читать книгу We Met in December - Rosie Curtis - Страница 7

I pause for a minute outside the house and look up, still not quite believing that this terraced mansion is home. It’s huge, slightly shabby, and has an air of faded grandeur. Six wide stone steps lead to a broad wooden front door, painted a jaunty red that is faded in places and chipped away to a pale, dusky pink. Each window on the road is topped with ornate stuccoed decorations – the ones on our house are a bit chipped and scruffy-looking, but somehow it just makes the place look more welcoming, as if it’s full of history.

Next door on one side is freshly decorated, the black paint of the windowsills gleaming. They’ve got window boxes at every window, crammed full of pansies and evergreen plants. I can see a huge Christmas tree tastefully decorated with millions of starry lights, topped with a huge metal star. There’s a little red bicycle chained to the railings and a pair of wellies just inside the porch. This must be the investment banker neighbours Becky talked about. The mansion on the other side has been turned into flats, and there’s a row of doorbells beside a blue front door.

I rush up the steps and lift the heavy brass door-knocker.

‘You don’t have to knock,’ Becky says, beaming as she opens the door. ‘This is home!’

‘I do, because you haven’t given me a key yet.’ I love Becky.

‘Ah.’ Becky takes my bag and hangs it on a huge wooden coat hook just inside the door, which looks like it’s been there forever. There’s a massive black umbrella with a carved wooden handle hanging beside my bag.

‘Used to be my grandpa’s,’ she says, absent-mindedly running a hand down it. ‘This place is like a bloody museum.’

‘I can’t believe it’s yours.’

‘Me neither.’ Becky shakes her head and beckons me through to the kitchen. ‘Now wait here two seconds, and I’ll give you the tour.’

I stand where I’ve been put, at the edge of a huge kitchen-slash-dining-room space, which has been here so long that it’s come back into fashion. It’s all cork tiles and dangling spider plants and a huge white sink, which is full of ice and bottles of beer.

I think Nanna Beth would be impressed with this. With all of it. I’ve taken the leap.

‘Life is for living, Jessica, and this place is all very well, but it’s like God’s waiting room,’ she’d once said, giving a cackle of laughter and inclining her head towards the window, where a flotilla of mobility scooters had passed by, ridden by grey-haired elderly people covered over with zipped-up waterproof covers. The seaside town I’d grown up in wasn’t actually as bad as all that, but it was true: things had changed. Grandpa had passed away, and Nanna Beth had sold the house and invested her money in a little flat in a new sheltered housing development where there was no room for me, not because she was throwing me out, but because – as she’d said, looking at me shrewdly – it was time to go. I’d been living in a sort of stasis since things had ended with my ex-boyfriend Neil.

Weirdly, the catalyst for all this change had been being offered a promotion in the marketing company where I worked. If I’d taken it, it would have been a job for life. I could have afforded to buy a little house by the sea and upgraded my car for something nice, and I’d have carried on living the life I’d been living since I graduated from university and somehow gravitated back home when all my friends spread their wings and headed for the bright lights of London, or New York, or – well, Sarah ended up in Inverness, so I suppose we didn’t quite all end up somewhere exotic.

But Nanna Beth had derailed me and challenged me with the task of getting out and grabbing life with both hands, which is pretty tricky for someone like me. I tend to take the approach that you should hold life with one hand, and keep the other one spare just in case of emergencies. And yet here I am, an hour early (very me) for a housewarming party for the gang of people that Becky has gathered together to share this rambling, dilapidated old house in Notting Hill that her grandparents left her when they passed away.

‘I still can’t believe this place is yours,’ I repeat, as I balance on the edge of the pale pink velvet sofa. It’s hidden under a flotilla of cushions. The arm of the sofa creaks alarmingly, and I stand up, just in case it’s about to give way underneath my weight.

Becky shakes her head. ‘You can’t? Imagine how I feel.’

‘And your mum really didn’t object to your grandparents leaving you their house in their will?’

She shakes her head and pops open the two bottles of beer she’s holding, handing me one. ‘She’s quite happy where she is. And you know she’s all property is theft and that sort of thing.’

‘True.’ I take a swig of beer and look at the framed photographs on the wall. A little girl in Mary-Jane shoes with a serious face looks out at us, disapprovingly. ‘She’s keeping her eye on you: look.’

Becky shudders. ‘Don’t. She wanted me to come to Islay for a Christmas of meditation and chanting, but I managed to persuade her that I’d be better off coming when the weather was a bit nicer.’

Becky’s mum had been a mythical figure to all of us at university. She’d been a model in her youth, and then eschewed all material things and moved to an ethical living commune on the island of Islay when Becky was sixteen. Becky had stayed behind to finish her exams with a family friend, and horrified her mother by going into not just law, but corporate law of all things. Relations had been slightly strained for quite a while, but she’d spent some time in meditative silence, apparently, and now they got on really well – as long as they had a few hundred miles between them.

I look at the photograph of Becky’s mum – she must only be about seven. She looks back at me with an intense stare, and I think that if anyone can save the planet, it’s very possibly her. Anyway, I raise my bottle to her in a silent thank you. If she’d contested the will, Becky might not have inherited this place, and she wouldn’t have offered me a room at £400 a month, which wouldn’t have got me space in a broom closet anywhere else in commutable distance of King’s Cross, where my new job was situated.

‘Just going to get out of this jacket,’ Becky says, looking down at her work clothes; then she disappears for a moment and I’m left looking around. The house is old-fashioned, stuffed full of the sort of mid-century furniture that would sell for vast amounts of money on eBay – there’s an Ercol dresser in the sitting room and dining chairs that look like they’ve come straight out of Heal’s. I take a photo of the huge potted plant that looms in the corner like a triffid, and then I wander into the hall. It’s huge and airy, with a polished wooden banister that twirls round and up to the third floor where there’s a skylight – dark just now, because it’s midwinter, but I bet it fills this space with light in the middle of summer. There’s a huge wooden coat stand with a mirror by the interior door, and a porch with ceramic tiles worn through years of footsteps passing over them. The place must be 150 years old, at least. And – I push the sitting room door open – there’s enough space for everyone to collapse on the sofas in a Sunday-ish sort of way. The paintings on the walls are draped with brightly coloured tinsel and fairy lights, and there’s a Christmas tree on the side table, decked with multi-coloured lights and hung with a selection of baubles, which look—

‘Hideous, aren’t they?’ Becky’s voice sounds over my shoulder. ‘I couldn’t resist. They’re from the pound shop so I just went to town a bit. If you can’t be tacky at Christmas, when can you?’

‘I love it,’ I say, and I do. Becky disappears back into the kitchen and I can hear the sound of her warbling out of tune to Mariah Carey and the clattering of plates and saucepans. I stand in the hallway and look at this amazing house that I couldn’t afford in a million years, and I think back to about two months ago when I saw an advert for my dream job in publishing come up and wondered if I should take the chance and apply. And how Nanna Beth had said, ‘Nothing ventured, lovey – you never know what’s around the corner …’

An hour later and we’re in the kitchen and everything’s been laid out so it looks perfect for the housewarming party.

‘Stop!’ I put a hand up in the air.

Becky stops dead and I leap between her and the massive old oak table in the kitchen. Her face registers alarm as I reach into the back pocket of my jeans and then she rolls her eyes as she realises what I’m doing.

With my free hand, I reach across, straightening a plate and moving a piece of tinsel so it sits jauntily beside the jewel-bright heaps of salsa and guacamole. ‘There.’

Leaning over, I take a photo from above and step back, letting her put the tray of tequila shots down on the table.

‘Since when were you the Instagram queen?’ Becky tucks back a strand of hair that’s escaped from behind her ear. She’s had it cut into a sleek graduated bob, which makes her look like a proper grown-up, especially as she’s still dressed in her work clothes of grey slim-fitting trousers and a pale blouse made of silky stuff, which I would definitely have spilled coffee on within an hour. But she’s here at 6.30 p.m. looking as if she’s just got out of the shower, instead of having battled her way home through London traffic after a long day doing corporate law stuff. I’ve taken off my pink fluffy coat because it was making me feel like a dislodged tree bauble, or a pom-pom, in comparison to Becky’s minimalist chic.

‘Hardly,’ I say, fiddling with a filter and making the photo look nice before hashtagging it and hitting share. ‘I just thought it’d be nice to show everyone back home what it’s like living in London.’

‘And make a point of what a lovely time you’re having even though they all think you’re insane to give up a promotion in Bournemouth for a pay cut up here?’ she says.

I nod, and pick up a tortilla chip, breaking it in half. ‘That too,’ I admit, making a face. ‘And Nanna Beth is on there too – she’s got herself an iPhone contract. I’m her only Instagram follower so far.’

‘She’s going to be sharing selfies with all the hot doctors in the nursing home, isn’t she?’ Becky snorts with laughter.

I turn the phone so she can see it. @nanna_beth1939 has posted a string of photos of her new ground-floor flat in the sheltered accommodation unit she’s moved into.

‘Oh, bless,’ says Becky, taking my phone so she can have a closer look. ‘Look, she’s got that wooden carving you bought her in Cyprus on the mantelpiece.’

I peer over her shoulder. ‘Ahh, that’s nice.’ I’m hit by a wave of guilt that I’m going to be up here and she’s going to be down there. I’ve spent the last year living in her house, ever since Grandpa died, and it’s going to be weird not having her there every night when I get home from work.

‘She’ll be fine,’ says Becky, as if reading my thoughts. She clicks the phone off and puts it down on the table. ‘And it’s not as if you’re miles away. It’s a train ride, that’s all.’

‘I know. Just feels weird leaving her to the tender mercies of Mum.’

Becky makes a face. ‘Yeah, well, she’s not exactly … well, she wasn’t at the front of the queue when they were giving out the nurturing quota, was she?’

I snort. My mother is many things, but maternal is not one of them. I mean she’s lovely, in her own way. But I’m not sure she’ll remember to pop round every couple of days and check Nanna Beth’s doing okay in her new place. Anyway. I square my shoulders and think of what Nanna Beth told me when she’d pressed a roll of twenty-pound notes into my hand yesterday morning. It was time for me to step out into the big world and let her do her own thing. Slightly odd role reversal, I know, but our family’s always been a bit unusual.

In the kitchen, Becky’s still singing out of tune and lighting the tiny tea-light candles that are scattered around. Even when we were living in university halls, she managed to make her room look good.

There’s a clatter as someone opens the door, and a gust of air blows a couple of Christmas cards off the top of the fridge. I bend down and pick them up, catching the one-sided conversation that’s going on in the hall.

‘You said you’d be able to get away.’ It must be Emma, the girl Becky’s found to take another one of the rooms.

There’s a long pause and I hover by the kitchen door, wondering if I should pop my head round and say hello. Becky’s stirring spiced chicken and peppers, filling the room with a smell that makes my stomach growl. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.

‘What about me?’ Emma says. My eyes widen. I shouldn’t be listening in, but I’m a sucker for a bit of drama. I fiddle with my phone, trying to look as if I’m busy and not just eavesdropping. Emma’s voice is in that middle ground, somewhere between angry and upset.

‘I don’t care what she’s doing,’ she says, and this time she’s not keeping her voice down. ‘I’m not waiting around forever.’

Becky turns round, frying pan in hand. She raises her eyebrows and looks towards the door. ‘Uh-oh, trouble in paradise by the sound of it.’

I nod, and lower my voice. ‘What’s the story?’

Becky puts a finger to her lips. ‘Tell you later. But it’s very Emma. It’ll be all over and they’ll be loved up before you know it.’

A moment later, Emma appears in the room, her eyes sparkling in that suspiciously bright way that mine do if I’ve been crying and I’m trying to look like everything’s okay.

‘Hi, hello,’ she says, and leans over and kisses me on the cheek.

‘Sorry, just had to take a quick work call. You know what it’s like. They pay us nothing, and expect us to be on call 24/7.’

I smile in a way that I hope suggests I haven’t heard a thing.

‘Emma, this is Jess, the university friend I told you about. She’s taking the room on the first floor.’

‘Lovely to meet you, Jess. God I need a drink,’ says Emma, picking up one of the little shot glasses of tequila. I’m about to pass her a lemon slice, but she’s too quick for me. The whole thing is gone in a second, and she winces in disgust. ‘Ugh. Revolting. I hate tequila.’ She takes another one and downs it as well. ‘Cheers.’

I’m still holding the lemon slice in mid-air when the kitchen door opens again.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ says a low voice. I look up, and almost drop my phone in shock.

Standing in the doorway, taking up quite a lot of it, is a man. The kind of man that makes you feel like your stomach just fell through the floor. I mean I say that, but Emma’s scrolling through her phone and Becky’s running hot water over the fajita saucepan, so maybe they’re immune or something but – wow.

I press my lips together, mainly to check that my mouth isn’t actually hanging open. I suspect my eyes are cartoon circles though, and I can’t press them shut without looking a bit weird, so I just sort of stand there, making a kind of mental inventory.

Scruff of beard – check. Broad, muscular shoulders – check. Twinkly eyes – check. Bottle of tequila in hand. He’s wearing a grey shirt and a pair of jeans and he’s got a scarf hanging round his neck and …

‘Hey. You must be Jess,’ he says, stepping towards me. He reaches out a hand to shake mine, and then leans forward to kiss me on the cheek in greeting. ‘I’m Alex.’

He smells fresh, his cheek cold from the winter air against mine. I catch a faint scent of cedar wood and notice as he steps back that his sleeves are rolled up, showing off the sort of forearms that look as if he chops wood or does something outdoorsy for a living, only we’re in the middle of Notting Hill and that’s unlikely.

There’s a moment where I think I’ve forgotten how to speak, which is slightly awkward as I’m basically standing there like the human embodiment of the heart eyes emoji, suppressing the urge to put one hand to my cheek (because: phwoar, basically) and the other on his, to check he’s real (because: well, ditto). And then I remember that I’m sensible, level-headed Jess, and this is my new house and my new life and the number one rule that Becky told us all about in the welcome email was NO COUPLES. Which is absolutely fine, because I’m here to work and definitely absolutely not to fall in love at first sight with gorgeous men with cute beards holding tequila bottles.

‘Hi.’ I shove my phone back in the pocket of my jeans and try to force myself to do something practical, so I press my hands together in a workmanlike manner and say in an artificially bright voice, ‘That’s everyone, isn’t it?’

I turn to Becky, who’s halfway through what she’d later explain was a test fajita, a dollop of sour cream on her chin. She wipes it off, and tries to talk with her mouth full, so it comes out a bit muffled.

‘Everyone except Rob.’

I watch Emma, who has helped herself to another drink, but she’s added a mixer this time and she’s actually drinking it, not downing it in one. She’s sitting on the edge of the table, her long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. ‘Ah, yes. The mysterious Rob,’ she says, arching an eyebrow and smiling. She reaches over and takes a handful of tortilla chips. ‘Have you met him, Jess? I’m beginning to think maybe he’s a figment of Becky’s imagination.’

‘Yeah, Becky,’ says Alex. He shoves the bottle on the wonky wooden shelf over the kitchen sink and grabs a plate, turning to look at her, jokingly. ‘What’s the story with Rob?’

‘He is real, I promise you.’ Becky shakes her head, laughing.

‘Of course. Man of few words and many knives.’ Emma points to the kitchen counter. ‘Where are they, Becky? They were there the other day when I had breakfast then they disappeared.’

But Becky has her head in the freezer, trying to find a bag of ice, and doesn’t reply.

I take a look at Emma while she’s occupied with assembling a fajita wrap. She’s properly beautiful. She has a very attractive, angular face, with an aquiline nose and huge doe eyes. She looks like she’s made to swan about in Notting Hill, hanging out in expensive restaurants, being treated to expensive lunches. I pull up a chair at the big table and have a moment of feeling scruffy, freckled, and very suburban. Almost like someone who’s been living with their grandparents and working in an office in a seaside town a million miles from London, which isn’t surprising.

‘So what we know is this: Rob’s a chef, which means he works really long hours and we never see him because he’s home when we’re all out at work, and then out when we get back,’ Emma begins. ‘He turned up the other day, dumped all this expensive-looking kitchen kit on the table, then looked at his watch and said he had to run.’

‘Then I put his stuff in the big larder cupboard,’ Becky continues, banging a bag of ice against the edge of the table until the cubes separate. ‘Because three blocks of intimidating kitchen knives sitting out on the work surface was going to give me nightmares and I had visions of a serial killer turning up and murdering us all in our beds.’

‘I think a serial killer would probably have their own kit, don’t you?’ Alex says, looking thoughtful.

The three of them look at each other and laugh and I do too, but a split second behind. It’s weird – like being back at school or when you start a new job and you have that new-girl feeling when you’ve missed the boat a little bit. I watch as Alex, Emma and Becky make themselves fajitas from the food laid out on the table.

‘Dig in, Jess,’ Becky says, shoving the bowl of guacamole towards me.

I’m still reeling a bit from the unexpected handsomeness of Alex, and trying not to look at him. Except I can’t help taking a sneaky look when I think he won’t notice, and he glances in my direction and our eyes meet and I think that there’s a very strong possibility that I might inadvertently shout ‘PHWOAR’ by mistake because really he is very handsome indeed and the other two seem to be completely oblivious.

Becky’s telling a story about something that happened at work and the two of them are listening and laughing. Becky’s always been the most sociable of my university friends. We met in fresher’s week and we’ve been friends ever since. I studied English lit, she studied law, but whereas I left and found myself back in Bournemouth working for a perfectly nice, safe little marketing company, and ensconced in a relationship with Neil, Becks headed to London where she got a job with a law firm and started working her way up the ladder. And then it all went slightly pear-shaped for me back home, and it turned out to be a (mostly) good thing and now, I still can’t believe that this – I look out the window at the rainy street below, cars splashing past and the streetlights lighting everything with an orange glow – is my new life.

I let the evening wash over me for a while, and because they’re all so chatty, nobody really notices that I’m not saying much. Emma hands me a drink. She’s still in work clothes – very neat in expensive-looking boots and a shirt dress printed all over with tiny foxes.

‘So. When are you joining us?’ she asks.

She’s very formal, I think, watching her as I take a sip. Alex and Becky have whizzed up some sort of pomegranate cocktail with the ice and tequila he brought. It tastes like something you’d drink by the pool, instead of on a rainy December evening in London.

‘Not until after New Year. I’ve got a holiday booked with friends – we’re going skiing.’

‘Ooh, lovely. Christmas skiing.’ She looks impressed.

‘It’s not quite as fancy as it sounds. My friend Gen got a last-minute deal through a contact of hers, so we’re going to Val d’Isère on a coach.’

Gen’s friend – an actor, like her – was working in a call centre for a travel company when the deal had come through. We’d been making promises to each other for years that we’d go skiing again, after a school trip to Andorra a million years ago, and when this came up it felt like the perfect time. As soon as I’d said yes, the prospect of living every moment on a twenty-one-hour-long coach ride had started to pall slightly, but that was a minor detail.

‘Ouch.’ Emma looked sympathetic. ‘That’s a whole day on a coach. Still, it’ll be worth it for all the apres-ski and the gorgeous posh ski totty. You might meet a millionaire.’

I steal a quick look in Alex’s direction, thinking that actually, I’d be quite happy with someone like him, thank you very much, but give Emma a smile of agreement. ‘You never know.’

Becky fiddles with her phone, changing the music. She’s wrapped some silvery Christmas ribbon around her head like a halo, and starts singing along as Michael Bublé begins crooning from the speaker on the shelf above the sink.

‘Oh God, Becks,’ I groan. ‘Do we have to have Bublé again?’

‘It’s Christmas,’ she says, pulling me up by the waist and waltzing me out of the kitchen door and into the hall. She puts a finger to her lips, shushing me before I can protest. The hall is painted an odd shade, somewhere between violet and grey, and hung with a collection of floral paintings that must’ve belonged to Becky’s grandparents. There’s a huge spiky-leaved plant towering over us in the corner by the stairs. I dodge sideways before Becky waltzes me straight into it.

‘What d’you reckon?’ Her voice is an urgent whisper.

‘They seem nice.’ I try to sound non-committal when what I want to know is why on earth she’d omitted to mention that one of our flatmates was ridiculously gorgeous. ‘How’d you know Emma again?’ I ask.

‘Oh, she’s one of those friend-of-a-friend people. You know, you’re in the same pubs, vaguely know each other through a WhatsApp group, that sort of thing. I can’t remember how we met in the first place. But she was looking for somewhere because the girl she was flat-sharing was moving her boyfriend in, and I had one room left. I’d already sorted you and Alex—’ my stomach does a disobedient sort of swooping thing ‘—and it just seemed like she’d be a nice addition. Everyone’s pretty chilled out, so it should be quite a nice laid-back sort of house.’

‘She seems nice,’ I say, lamely.

‘God, I must pee,’ says Becky, and leaves me standing in the hallway.

I hadn’t noticed, but the carpet looks like someone threw up on a giraffe – it’s yellow and brown with greenish swirls and it clashes so badly with the lilac walls that it must have been the height of fashion at some point in the 1970s. Nobody could choose that colour scheme just randomly, surely?

I head back to the kitchen, realising that I’m feeling a bit fuzzy round the edges. Emma’s kicked off her boots now, and she’s sitting at the table chatting animatedly to Alex, who is sitting opposite. He pushes out the dining chair next to him, beckoning me to join them.

‘Come and get something else to eat.’

He passes me a plate stacked high with tortillas. I think perhaps it’ll soak up some of the alcohol.

‘So how do you know Becky?’ He stretches across the table for the cheese, placing it between me and Emma.

I take a tortilla and spread it with sour cream. ‘I feel like I should make something up that doesn’t make me sound as tragic as this will.’

Alex raises an eyebrow. He really does have a very nice face. Emma gets up and goes and throws a load of ice and stuff in the blender, shouting, ‘Sorry,’ as she turns it on, drowning out my words as I’m about to start explaining.

Emma tips a pink slush into our glasses and Alex tastes it, pulling a face. ‘Bloody hell, that’s like rocket fuel. I’ll make the next one, or we’ll all end up with alcohol poisoning.’

‘We met at uni,’ I say, starting again. ‘I was crying in the loos because I’d just dumped my boyfriend back home for someone who’d promptly cheated on me a week later.’

Emma laughs, but not unkindly. ‘Oh God, we’ve all been there.’ She picks at some slices of red pepper while I’m stacking a tortilla wrap with chicken and cheese and more sour cream, just for good measure. I roll it up and realise there’s no way of eating it that doesn’t involve half of it falling down the front of my top and the other half spilling all over my chin, so I end up sort of dangling it in mid-air.

‘So I took her out, bought her three vodka and limes, and told her the secret was to go out and lay his ghost,’ Becky chimes in. I hadn’t even noticed her coming back.

‘The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else?’ Emma says, taking a drink. She’s one of those people who manages to just radiate cool. If I’d said that I’d have blushed extravagantly and probably got my words all tangled up into the bargain.

‘I think so,’ I say. ‘I wish I could remember lines like that. I never think of the right thing to say until hours later, when I’m lying in bed reliving the whole conversation.’

‘God, me too.’ Alex looks at me and does an upside-down sort of smile, and the sides of his eyes crinkle a bit as he looks directly at me. I feel like we’re on the same team for a second. It’s nice. He lifts up the tequila bottle, waving it in Emma’s direction. ‘Oh go on,’ he says. ‘Throw caution to the wind. D’you want to make another one of those – whatever it was you just made?’

I feel like the world is starting to sway gently – or maybe I am. But I’m just the right sort of happily pissed where I feel like the edges have been blurred a bit and I don’t feel as self-conscious as I usually do.

The other half a bottle of tequila later and we’ve managed to persuade Becky to put on something other than Christmas music. We’re all sitting round the table, which is scattered with empty plates. The window isn’t even open, but we can hear a gang of teenagers passing, singing Christmas carols and laughing loudly. I get up and look outside, marvelling at the idea that outside there are eight million people, all living London lives, and in just a couple of weeks I’m going to be one of them. It’s just an ordinary street, but to me it feels full of magic and promise.

I turn around to look at my new housemates. Emma’s on her phone again, absent-mindedly twirling a lock of hair around her finger. I notice she has long, manicured red nails.

Alex looks up at me and grins. ‘D’you think you can cope with living with us lot?’ He starts stacking plates.

‘No,’ says Becky, firmly, tapping him on the hand. ‘I’ll do it in the morning. This is a get-to-know-each-other evening. When we’re all in and settled, we can sort out a kitchen rota and all that boring stuff, but tonight is margaritas. The night is young. Let’s play the name game.’

‘Oh my God.’ I roll my eyes at her. There’s a point in every evening when she insists we do this. Before anyone else realises what’s happening, she’s got a packet of Post-it Notes out and she’s handing them out. ‘Everyone has to write the name of someone famous and stick it on the forehead of the person to their left.’

‘And to think Rob’s missing this,’ says Alex, pressing the Post-it Note to my forehead. ‘D’you want another drink?’

I feel distinctly head-spinny already, but I nod. This is my new London life. I can drink tequila and have avocado on toast and be cool. Well, cool-ish. Cooler than I was living back home. Not that there’s anything wrong with back home, of course. I swallow a little gulp of sadness that sneaks up on me out of nowhere – just thinking about leaving Nanna Beth back there and me being all the way up here. She’s already lost Grandpa, and now I’m going, too.

‘Oh my God,’ says Becky, seeing the name written on my forehead. She snorts with laughter.

‘Am I a woman?’ I say, when it’s my turn.

‘You’re a phenomenon, I think you’d say,’ Alex replies, grinning at me.

Emma guesses hers almost straight away (I think she’s pleased she got to be Meghan Markle) and in no time there’s just me and Alex, trying desperately to work out who we are.

‘Do I have a unique blond hairstyle?’

We snort with laughter.

‘Am I a megalomaniac? Am I the best president ever in the history of presidents? Is this the biggest Post-it Note, bigger and better than any Post-it Notes that have ever been before?’

Alex has already guessed, but he’s making us laugh so hard with his terrible Donald Trump impressions that we’re all doubled over, and mine falls off my forehead and onto the ground where I can’t help sneaking a peek.

‘Am I … Kim Kardashian?’ I sit up, triumphant, waving the Post-it Note in the air.

‘Yes.’ Becky takes it from me. ‘You’re totally cheating, but you are definitely Kim Kardashian.’

‘And I am definitely going to bed.’ Emma pushes her chair away from the table and stands up, looking at the kitchen clock. ‘It’s almost eleven, and I’ve got a killer day tomorrow. Back-to-back meetings.’

‘But how can you leave us when we’re just getting started?’ Alex is standing by the sink now, brandishing a bottle of Prosecco and some sort of pink liqueur. ‘I was going to make one of my signature cocktails.’ He rummages in the fridge. I can’t help but notice his nice arms again – I’ve always had a thing about nice arms, the kind that look like they’d wrap you up and make you feel safe. Oh, and the way that when he reaches up to get some orange juice from the top shelf his T-shirt rucks up, showing a strip of faintly tanned skin.

But I am absolutely not looking at any of this, because I am here to work, and he is my new housemate, and there will be none of that here. I blame the tequila for making my imagination run away with me.

But if I was looking …

‘Night, all.’ Emma picks up her phone and heads off. ‘Have a great holiday, Jess. See you in the New Year.’

‘You got any more ice, Becky?’ Alex asks as he looks in the freezer.

‘Nope.’

I know she’s told us not to clear up, but I’m absent-mindedly piling plates and tipping leftover salsa into the bin. It’s a distraction. The alternative is sitting with my chin in my hands staring with undisguised admiration at Alex, and that wouldn’t be a good look.

‘God I’m dying for some chocolate. I tell you what, I’ll go get some and grab some ice from Tesco Express while I’m at it.’

‘We’ll clean up.’ Alex stands up from the freezer and turns around. ‘And then I’ll make cocktails. You don’t think Rob will mind that we’ve borrowed his blender thing to crush ice?’

I pull a face. ‘I dunno. I think it’s knives chefs are funny about. Anyway, that thing’s a monster. As long as we clean it out, I’m sure he won’t object.’

Alex pokes an experimental finger at the huge behemoth of a blender standing on the worktop. It roars into life for a second and he steps backwards.

‘Bloody hell. That thing could take your arm off.’

‘Back in a sec,’ Becky says, wrapping a scarf around her face and pulling on a bobble hat.

‘Don’t freeze,’ I say, looking out the window. ‘Oh look, the rain’s turned to snow.’

‘Really?’ Alex and Becky join me, looking out. The snow is falling in flurries, swirling in the spotlight glow of the street lamp outside the front of our new home. It’s disappearing as soon as it hits the wet pavement, but it looks gorgeously Christmassy and romantic nonetheless. For a moment we all stand in silence, watching it, all lost in our own thoughts.

Michael Blooming Bublé is playing in the background again.

It only takes me and Alex a moment to clear up the table, shoving the rubbish and recycling in the bins, and loading up the ancient dishwasher.

‘My last place didn’t have one,’ Alex says, unwrapping a dishwasher tablet and shoving it in. ‘This thing might be prehistoric, but it’s a luxury. No more waking up in the morning to last night’s dishes.’

‘Were you in a house-share before?’ I ask.

He pauses for a second. ‘Mmm, sort of.’

I get the feeling there’s more to it than he’s saying, but I don’t want to push it.

‘And you used to work with Becky?’

I am standing by the sink, rinsing my hands, aware he’s standing close beside me and putting glasses back on the shelf. I can feel the heat of his body and it makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. This is the tequila talking, I think. Tequila, and the fact that I have been single for a year and the only reason I fancy him is because I’ve been told there’s no relationships allowed in this house so my brain is being contrary. He is Alex, a friend of my friend Becky, and my new housemate. And he is one hundred per cent off limits. I take a step sideways, drying my hands on the dishtowel and spending an excessive amount of time hanging it back up, neatly.

‘I used to work with Becky, yeah,’ says Alex, after a long pause.

I turn around.

‘Turns out that thirty is the perfect time to have my first oh my God what am I doing with my life crisis.’

I find myself smiling. ‘Me too.’

‘So she’s found herself a houseful of strays. That’s very Becky, isn’t it? She likes to think she’s all corporate law and hard as nails, but I reckon she’s just as much of an old hippy as her mum. So what brings you here?’ he asks.

‘Oh God. It’s a long story.’

Alex takes four limes from the fridge, then passes me two and a kitchen knife. ‘Chop these, then, and tell all. It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one making what everyone thinks is the biggest mistake of my life.’

He’s taken a lemon zester and made a stack of bright green furls of lime zest, and he’s putting them all together in a little grassy heap. I realise I’ve stopped chopping and I’m staring at his hands like some sort of weirdo.

‘So I did English literature at uni. I’ve always loved books, and I used to dream of living in London and working in a publishing house, but it just seemed like you had to know someone in the business or have enough money to get an internship and work for nothing, and I had student loans to pay off, and bills to pay, and …’ I pause, thinking of the responsibility of making sure that Nanna Beth and Grandpa were okay, because my mum was never around. I take a deep breath. ‘Anyway, so I’d pretty much given up on that idea – I did look, but the money was terrible, and there was no way I could afford anywhere in London to live that wasn’t basically a broom cupboard.’

He laughs. ‘I actually know someone who lived in a cupboard. His bed literally folded down at night, then he’d fold it up, close the door, and go off to work.’

‘Exactly.’ Our eyes meet for a second and we laugh at the idea of it. London is strange.

‘And then Becky came along?’

‘Not quite. Basically, I was helping look after my grandpa and then he died.’

‘Oh.’ He turns to look at me, his brown eyes gentle. ‘I’m sorry.’

I shake my head and curl my fingers into my palm, because I’m still at the stage where tears sneak up unexpectedly, and alcohol helps them along. ‘It’s okay. Anyway, my grandma – Nanna Beth – decided that she wanted to move into a sheltered accommodation place, and I’d been staying in their spare room.’ I smile, as I always do, thinking about her. Everyone should have a grandma like mine. ‘And then – when I’d moved back in with my mother, temporarily, Becky called and asked if I’d be interested in joining her house-share. My Nanna Beth kept telling me I should follow my dreams and do what I really wanted to because we only get one life, and I was trying to convince myself that actually, I was perfectly happy. Then I saw a job in The Bookseller – because I couldn’t help looking, even though I knew it wasn’t ever going to happen – and I thought I’d apply even though I had no chance, and I still can’t believe they’ve given me it. And—’ I stop and draw breath. It’s all come out in a huge garbled sentence, just the same way that it all happened. ‘One minute there I was thinking about it, and wondering how I was going to find somewhere to live and deal with my mother, and then next thing—’

‘Here we are. That feels like fate,’ Alex says, finishing my spoken and unspoken sentences.

‘It does, a bit,’ I say, trying to make a joke of it. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh I was all set. Law career on the up, nice – tiny – flat in Stokey, the lot. But I knew something was missing.’

I chop the limes into pieces, waiting for him to carry on.

‘Anyway, I kept going for a while, but it was nagging away at me. I went into law to make a difference, but I realised that most of my life was going to be spent behind a desk pushing paper around, and it was boring me to death. And – some stuff happened.’ He pauses for a second, and then says. ‘And here I am.’

‘So you’re not doing law now?’

He shakes his head. ‘No. That’s how I knew Becky – we worked together. But unlike most other people, she was brilliant when I told her I was giving up. You need a friend like that on your side.’

‘I agree,’ I say, thinking of her insistence that I come and stay here, and the ridiculously low rent she’d suggested. I’d looked up Rightmove to see how much it would cost to rent a place like this, and I’d almost fainted. Basically a month’s rent for a house this size was my annual publishing salary. When I’d mentioned it, Becky had just snorted and said something about redressing the balance, which had sounded suspiciously like something her mother would have said, so maybe the hippy stuff had rubbed off a bit after all.

‘So,’ I say, wincing slightly as a bit of lime juice squirts up and hits me in the face. ‘What are you doing now?’

‘Training to be a nurse,’ Alex says.

‘No way.’ I put down the knife and look at him. ‘That’s amazing.’

‘Yeah.’ Alex gives me that same lopsided smile and looks relieved. ‘That’s not quite the reaction I got when I told people. It was more like: Oh my God, why are you giving up a job that pays megabucks to be treated like crap, working for a failing NHS?’

Not only is he gorgeous, but he’s noble and ethical as well. He’s like a unicorn, or something.

‘Well I think what you’re doing is brilliant.’

Alex tips the limes into a cocktail shaker and looks at me, his face serious. ‘Thanks, Jess.’

I feel a bit wibbly. Like we’ve had a bit of a moment here together. Like we’ve bonded.

I pass him a glass, and we drink our cocktails and look out of the window at the Notting Hill street. He looks at me for a moment, just as I’m glancing at him.

For a second, our eyes meet again, and something inside me gives the sort of fizzing sensation that I’ve read about in books (oh, so many books) and never once felt in real life, not even in the four years I was with Neil, and he and I had talking about getting married.

I’m almost thirty, and I’d pretty much accepted that my secret love of terrible, brilliant, curl-up-on-the-sofa romantic movies had somehow cursed me. And yet here I was, looking directly into the chocolate-drop eyes of a man who looked like I’d ordered him online from the romantic movie store.