‘I’m not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve.’
Half an hour later, they were sitting in The Midnight Bell, an empty bottle of Shiraz and the debris of three bags of crisps on the table, as Posy reassured Nina for the umpteenth time, ‘Nobody is being dismissed, unless it’s my husband. Noah isn’t there to create problems; he’s there to give us solutions. OK?’
‘OK,’ Nina agreed, though she was still a little sulky, even after Posy had explained that since the relaunch, apart from a surge over Christmas, footfall was down, which meant that sales were down and they couldn’t make a profit on website orders alone. Nina had wanted to remind Posy of all the brilliant ideas they’d had to bring in more customers when they were planning the relaunch but Posy had a stress rash all over her neck so Nina decided it was best to leave it for the time being.
‘Honestly, being married is really hard work,’ Posy was now complaining. ‘Don’t get me wrong, like seventy-five per cent of the time, Sebastian is lovely and makes me feel lovely too but the other twenty-five per cent of the time, he’s an absolute pain in the arse. Also, I have hardly any time to read any more.’
Verity sighed long and low. ‘I know what you mean. I never thought that I could bear to have a full-time boyfriend …’
‘What about Peter Hardy, oceanographer?’ Nina interrupted. Peter Hardy who’d been Verity’s boyfriend before posh architect, Johnny.
Verity blushed as she always did when her ex was mentioned. ‘He was hardly full-time, what with him being away so much graphing oceans!’ She shook her head as if she could hardly bear to talk about him. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, I can’t believe that Johnny fits into my life with the ease that he does – you know how much I need my own space – but my reading time has really suffered.’
‘World’s smallest violin, ladies,’ Nina said, rubbing her thumb and forefinger together. ‘I thought we’d come to the pub to reassure me that I wasn’t about to be sacked, and then we’d order another bottle and bitch about Tom and it would be just like the old days before you two “settled down”, so will you stop banging on about your relationships?’
‘You say “settled down” the same way that someone else would say “venereal disease”,’ Verity noted with a small smile.
‘Or “terrible personal hygiene”,’ Posy added and Nina didn’t even mind that they were ragging on her because she’d missed this, missed them. No one was more supportive of her friends’ love lives than Nina but God, it was so boring when they all safely and sedately paired up.
‘I would rather have a venereal disease than ever settle down!’ Nina said, which wasn’t at all true but it had the desired reaction. Verity gasped in shock and Posy pretended to choke on her wine. ‘Although … I have been thinking that it’s maybe time to give HookUpp a rest.’
Very and Posy gawped at her.
‘Close your mouths, for God’s sake. It’s not that surprising that I’m sick of it, is it?’
Very and Posy glanced at each other and then began to howl with laughter.
‘It’s not at all funny.’ Nina was actually quite offended now. ‘Do you know how many evenings I’ve wasted with men from HookUpp, who always turn out to be complete losers? I told Sebastian that he needed a better dickhead filter on that app. I just know that I’m not going to find my soulmate, the other half of my heart, with the help of a dating-app algorithm invented by some spoddy geek on Sebastian’s payroll, who’s probably never even had sex.’
Posy wasn’t laughing any more. ‘I’ll be sure to mention your ringing endorsement to the other half of my heart,’ she said dryly.
Very wiped her eyes. ‘When you say soulmate, do you mean someone who’s covered in tattoos and doesn’t return your phone calls because they’re “too cool”? You know you love a bad boy, Nina, but part of the deal with bad boys is that they don’t like to be tied down either.’
‘Yes,’ argued Nina, ‘but just look at Cathy and Heathcliff. They were full of passion and romance and—’
‘Yeah,’ scoffed Posy, ‘and their love story ended really well.’
‘—yes, but it’s not the eighteen hundreds so I’m not going to die in childbirth mourning my lost love. And anyway, Cathy and Heathcliff were soulmates,’ Nina persisted, ‘and I want one of them for my very own. God, it shouldn’t be this hard to find a man who’s fiendishly good-looking, has a devil-may-care attitude and an adventurous spirit. A guy who wants to stay up all night dancing and drinking and generally being spontaneous but in the morning, he’ll get out of bed first so he can make me a decent cup of coffee.’ Nina fanned her face. ‘And you don’t even want to know what we were doing in that bed.’
Verity fanned her own face. ‘You got that right.’
‘Anyway, that’s what I want in a man and I’m not going to settle for anything less any more. But I certainly won’t be settling down with him, because settling down is for boring people with no romantic vision, and I would rather be alone than be boring.’
Very raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you saying that Posy and I are boring? Because if you are, that would be incredibly rude and hurtful.’
‘And untrue,’ Posy continued. ‘Very and I aren’t boring. We have layers and you, Nina, have no will power. Your HookUpp-ban won’t last more than two weeks, and then you’ll be back to up-swiping on any man with a tattoo.’
‘Well,’ sniffed Nina, ‘that’s very rude too. I’m serious, Posy – no more HookUpp, I’m on a serious hunt for my very own romantic hero and I’m going to delete your husband’s stupid dating app off my phone.’
They glared at each other for a moment, until Verity smacked the table with both hands, jolting them out of their glare-off.
‘Time out! Honestly, this is like a night out with my sisters. Let’s stop arguing and start bitching about Tom instead. Are we really buying this footnotes emergency?’
They weren’t buying it. Tom had been working on his PhD dissertation for years. That wasn’t even Nina exaggerating – it had taken four years for Tom to write what was basically a really long essay on who knows what? Tom wasn’t very forthcoming about his other life around the corner at UCL, where he also did some undergraduate teaching. Some of his students had turned up to help paint the shop just before they’d relaunched and even they knew very little about Tom’s PhD.
It wasn’t just Tom’s academic world that was the source of much debate. Nina interacted with him the most and knew that he lived in Finsbury Park, because she’d practically dragged the information out of him by threatening to pin him down and read out the dirty bits in the filthiest books they stocked in their erotica section. But everything else was a mystery. Girlfriends? Boyfriends? Family? Pets? Who knew, but it was fun to speculate.
‘Tom is deep undercover, deep, waiting for his handlers in Moscow to activate him,’ Verity, who was currently reading a spy romance novel set during the Cold War, decided as there was a commotion at the door of The Midnight Bell.
The three of them looked over to see someone entirely obscured by hundreds upon hundreds of flowers stumble into the saloon bar. Then this unknown person staggered to their little corner, their usual table in fact, and a familiar voice said, ‘Morland, I’m in anguish. Don’t be angry with me. You know I hate it when you’re angry with me. Also, I think there’s every chance that I have late-onset hay fever.’ Sebastian finished up with an extravagant sneeze that dislodged a few freesias.
‘I’m still very cross with you,’ Posy said calmly. ‘And you need to apologise to Nina, who is getting an employment contract first thing tomorrow morning.’
There was a pause. Nina wasn’t going to hold her breath. Sebastian Thorndyke apologise to someone who wasn’t Posy? Hell would freeze over first.
‘Tattoo Girl, accept these as a token of my esteem and abject shame, blah blah blah,’ said Sebastian and he managed to thrust several bunches of roses in the general direction of Nina.
‘Crap attempt at an apology accepted,’ Nina decided, because the roses were beautiful; a deep blood red, their petals velvety soft, their scent heady and deep enough to mask the smell of chlorine from the pool of the Health Club a couple of doors down.
‘Vicar’s daughter, you can have some flowers too.’
Verity was gifted a few bouquets of gerbera daisies, Carol, the landlady of The Midnight Bell, was very happy with a selection of stocks, imported tulips and lilies, and Posy said that they’d take the rest home with them, even though they’d only just finished their first bottle of wine.
As soon as Posy and Sebastian left, Verity was on her feet with an apologetic smile. ‘I’m not seeing Johnny tonight,’ she announced as Nina opened her mouth to accuse Verity of doing just that. ‘I really need to spend some quality time with Strumpet and I have a ton of washing to do.’
‘Just this once, I’ll forgive you for cruelly abandoning me,’ Nina said, standing up too. ‘But only because I’m meeting Marianne and Claude in Camden in half an hour. Don’t wait up.’
‘I won’t but don’t get so drunk that you can’t remember the code to the gate and end up ringing my mobile,’ Verity said as they left the pub together.
‘That happened once!’
‘Once this month, you mean,’ Verity said. ‘“You take delight in vexing me.”’
When Verity felt the need to quote from Pride And Prejudice, it meant that she was actually quite cross.
There was only one thing for it. ‘“It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive,”’ Nina quoted from Wuthering Heights, which made Verity hoot with delight because that girl had never met a literary quote that she didn’t like. Plus, Verity was a vicar’s daughter so Nina got extra points for mentioning God.
God was nowhere to be found in The Dublin Castle on Camden’s Parkway, but Nina’s two best friends were. It was easy to spot them; they both had jet-black hair (the couple that dyed together stayed together, apparently), though Claude favoured a gravity-defying quiff and Marianne preferred a Bettie Page-style pageboy. Tonight Claude was wearing a bright-red teddy boy-style suit and white brothel creepers while Marianne was poured into a leopard-print catsuit and had accessorised it with her bitchiest resting face. In short, they looked terrifying. Imposing. Intimidating. Then they caught sight of Nina coming through the door and they both smiled like loons and jumped up to hug her.
Nina and Marianne had met at a burlesque class years ago, and as well as being her bestie, Marianne was Nina’s main supplier of vintage clothing and Claude was her personal tattooist and piercer. They were also both avid readers (Claude perhaps slightly less interested in Nina’s stock these days than he was pre-Happy Ever After) so it was a very expensive, very enabley dual friendship. No sooner had Nina sat down after getting her round in, than Marianne was handing over a bulging Happy Ever After tote bag. When Nina had last seen the bag, it had been bulging with a carefully curated collection of romance novels for Marianne and now it bulged with …
‘A cherry-print wiggle dress, two pencil skirts for work and a leopard-print cardie with diamante buttons,’ Marianne said, as Nina pulled out each item. ‘They should fit, shall I add them to your tab?’
Marianne had Nina’s measurements on file though Nina really had to stop eating so much cake, otherwise those measurements might be subject to change – or she’d have to start double Spanx-ing. ‘You know me, I never say no to anything leopard print,’ Nina said as Claude pulled out a sharpie and his phone and took hold of Nina’s left arm, which was a work in progress.
Eventually it would be an entire sleeve dedicated to Wuthering Heights. They were currently halfway through; Nina’s forearm had the silhouettes of Cathy and Heathcliff embracing by a gnarled, barren tree and the quote, ‘Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.’ The tree’s branches, bowed by the wind, would continue up her arm, along with swallows flying in a stormy, bruised sky.
Nina’s mother hated it. She’d also hated the rose-and-thorn design, which Claude was covering up, and she wasn’t too keen on Nina’s other arm, which had the full Alice in Wonderland sleeve that had so enamoured Lavinia. ‘Just you wait and see what I have planned for my legs,’ Nina was fond of saying, which just made her mother crosser.
‘I have the sketch you sent over. Shall I freestyle it for you so we can see how it looks?’ Claude asked, gesturing at Nina’s upper arm, which was adorned with the barest outline of gnarled tree branches.
‘Be my guest,’ Nina said. She drank her vodka tonic one-handed, chatting to Marianne about the vintage fair her friend was attending at the weekend, then filled her in on the latest trials and tribulations of working in Happy Ever After.
‘I wouldn’t stand for having some business-studies geek stalking me,’ Marianne said. ‘How creepy!’
‘Isn’t it, though?’ Nina was relieved to finally be with people who saw her point of view.
‘Who knows where your personal details will end up?’ Claude mused as he drew delicate black swallows swooping on Nina’s upper arm. ‘Probably in a filing cabinet in Vladimir Putin’s office.’
Claude was a bit of a conspiracy theorist – Nina had once made the three-hour mistake of mentioning in his hearing how sad it was that Hillary Clinton hadn’t won the US election – so Nina and Marianne ignored him. It was best that way.
‘I could come into the shop and pester you with queries, which you could help me with in a charming way,’ Marianne suggested. ‘Then he could report back that you’re an excellent employee.’
‘Might be worth a shot,’ Nina thought, then held her glass up. ‘Talking of shots, I think it’s your round, Claude.’
Two more vodka tonics and Nina’s whole world was in lovely soft focus. They trooped into the little backroom of the pub to see a band play whiny moperock, and they sounded like every other whiny moperock band that Nina had had the misfortune of seeing in and around the backrooms of Camden pubs.
This particular bunch of moperockers, The Noble Rots, were clients of Claude, so Nina made enthusiastic noises (‘I thought you were very good! So much emotional depth!’) when they came to find Claude after their set.
They were with a little entourage, which consisted of a taciturn, dumpy roadie, an even more taciturn guy (who steered clear of Nina and Marianne like he might get girl cooties) who was their manager and two Japanese girls who didn’t say a word but stared at the four boys in the band in a creepy way that would have Noah suing for copyright. The girls had come all the way from Osaka to see The Noble Rots play second on the bill at The Dublin Castle. Nina couldn’t help but think that it was a terrible waste of airfare.
With pickings that slim, it wasn’t surprising that all four members of The Noble Rots made a beeline for Nina, after it had been quickly established that Marianne was with Claude. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ Marianne had advised the singer when he asked what starsign she was. ‘I’ve been with Claude for eleven years and you really don’t want to get on the wrong side of a man who regularly applies needles to your skin.’
After vowing that she was quitting HookUpp, it was extremely pleasing to have four able, real-life men jostling each other out of the way to get closer to Nina as they headed towards Camden High Street to get something to eat.
Nina had been spurned so many times by men like Steven, 31, writer, that she’d forgotten that she was actually considered to be quite attractive, pretty even. Or as Noel, The Noble Rots’ singer, purred in her ear, ‘You look like a nineteen fifties pin-up girl. I’d love you to be my Miss February.’
It was quite a good line but Nina didn’t do lead singers. Far too much ego. She didn’t do drummers either. Everyone knew that drummers suffered from haemorrhoids and it was impossible to put a sexy spin on haemorrhoids.
Which left the bassist and the guitarist, one on each arm. The bassist, Nick, had dirty blond hair and a dirty smile to match and bought Nina a bag of chips. The guitarist, Rob, didn’t buy Nina anything, but stared at her broodingly as she lasciviously licked ketchup off a chip.
Oh, be still her heart! Nina did have a weakness for men who stared at her broodingly. This was why you needed to meet men in a real-world setting rather than an app. So you could lock eyes with a stranger on a street, feel that tingle in your fingers and toes, get that good, lowdown ache in your belly. There wasn’t an app in the world that could make you feel like that.
‘So, you’re coming home with me,’ he said.
Nina also had an undeniable attraction for men who took charge. However …
‘I’m not coming home with you,’ Nina said firmly because Rob was going to have to work much harder than just staring broodingly and saying things in a purry, authoritative voice. Also there was the third-date rule and this didn’t even count as a first date. Despite the tingling, Nina couldn’t be certain that Rob was her soulmate, so she’d have to take him out for a couple of test runs. Though surely if he were her Heathcliff, wouldn’t she know as soon as they’d first clapped eyes on each other? Maybe this was a slow-simmer kind of deal. ‘But you can walk me to the bus stop.’
‘I suppose I could,’ Rob agreed and he walked Nina to the number 168 bus stop and leaned in closer and closer until she could smell leather and cigarettes and lager, a heady combination of scents as far as Nina was concerned, and then he was kissing her.
There was nothing brooding about Rob’s kisses. They were a little sloppy but eager, enthusiastic and her MAC Ruby Woo lipstick’s famous staying power wasn’t able to survive the onslaught.
‘I’ll message you,’ Rob said when they came up for air and the LED board above the bus stop promised that a 168 was only two minutes away.
They swapped numbers, had another brief snog, then Nina boarded her bus.
She was a little bit drunk, which meant she was also a bit more introspective than usual. Maybe that was why a little voice in her head was saying, ‘God, you’re nearly thirty and you’re still snogging at bus stops like a teenager.’ It was a very judgemental little voice. Sounded quite a lot like her mother.
‘Another boy in a band, Nina? Ugh, you’re so predictable.’
That wasn’t a judgemental little voice inside her head but a judgemental voice outside her head. Nina turned around and her heart sank even as her lips curled into a dismissive smile.
‘Gervaise,’ she said tightly, because her absolute pig of an ex-boyfriend was sitting behind her. He was with … a person of indeterminate gender wearing all black with slicked-back, bleached blonde hair, thick black pencil around each eye and a smirk. In short, Gervaise had managed to find a double, a doppelganger, a mini-me, which wasn’t surprising as he was the most egotistical person Nina had ever met. ‘Still sexually fluid, are you?’
‘Oh Nina, I’d ask if you were still hopelessly plebeian but you’ve already let me know that you are,’ Gervaise said sweetly.
Gervaise was a performance artist who Nina had met at a tattoo convention. He had come striding up to Nina in a leopard-print coat that she’d instantly coveted, told her that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that it would never work because he could never have a meaningful relationship with someone more beautiful than himself.
Nina had been instantly smitten, flattered and keen to take up the challenge. ‘How about a meaningless relationship then?’ she’d husked and Gervaise had grinned.
‘My favourite kind of relationship.’
They’d had a heady week of going to see French films, Polish art and drinking Russian vodka, then Gervaise had told her that he was sexually fluid.
‘Eh?’ Nina had asked, pushing Gervaise away because it was the third date and they were getting hot and heavy on his futon. ‘Bisexual?’
‘Oh, Nina, you’re such an innocent,’ he’d said, which no one had ever said to Nina before. ‘I mean, that I don’t believe that my sexuality is a fixed point on a graph.’ And just as Nina was about to question him further, his eyes had lit up. ‘My God, you really do have incredible breasts,’ and the moment had been lost.
Verity had said that it sounded like Gervaise planned to cheat on her with other women and men, but Nina had dismissed that because Verity was a vicar’s daughter so really, what did she know?
Quite a lot actually. Because it turned out that their relationship mostly consisted of Gervaise being unfaithful and, as Verity had predicted, he cheated on Nina with other women, other men, and once with one each at the same time. Then they’d fight about him being unfaithful because he never bothered to hide it, then Gervaise would claim that he was bereft without Nina in his life. It had all been very dramatic but also not that much fun. In the end, Verity had threatened to set up an all-night prayer vigil if Nina didn’t kick Gervaise to the kerb once and for all, which she had finally done just over six months ago.
And now here he was, on the 168 bus, looking very pleased with himself even though the last time Nina had seen him, Gervaise swore that he’d never get over her. Also, she just knew that her red lipstick was smeared across the lower half of her face.
As she repaired the damage to her face, she heard Gervaise say to his mini-me, as she was clearly meant to, ‘She’s so provincial, parochial even.’
‘Provincial?’ Nina queried sharply, refusing to turn around. ‘That’s rich from someone born and bred in the Home Counties.’
There was a sharp intake of breath from behind her. ‘Stevenage is a very depressed area. It’s practically a ghetto.’
‘Yeah, but you don’t come from Stevenage, you come from Welwyn Garden City.’ Nina pressed the bell for the next stop and clicked her compact shut, put it in her bag and stood up. She felt more confident now that her face was restored to its former glory. It was also clear that although Gervaise had treated her terribly, he still wasn’t over her, otherwise he wouldn’t feel the need to bad-mouth Nina to her replacement. Still, she wasn’t done with Gervaise yet. ‘Oh, and by the way,’ she added to said replacement, ‘his name isn’t even Gervaise. It’s Jeremy.’
She didn’t even care that Gervaise called her a ‘bitch’ as she ran down the stairs. The only thing on Nina’s mind, as she scurried down a now-deserted Rochester Street and into the Mews, was making it home safely. It was nearly midnight and who knew what might be lurking in the shadows. She held her breath as she tapped in the security code on the gate.
It wasn’t until she was creeping through the silent shop that she felt her stomach twist in the way it did when she got a letter from her bank or her mother called. Tonight, she’d met a good-looking, brooding man who’d snogged her face off and given her his number. Even counting the unpleasant encounter with Gervaise, there should be no reason for dread and doom to have settled in the pit of her stomach.
‘You’re so predictable.’ Gervaise’s words echoed in Nina’s head as she tiptoed up the stairs, even though she was anything but. She aimed to be, in the words of Emily Brontë, ‘half-savage and hardy, and free.’
So, why did this night out feel like a hundred, a thousand other nights? She was nearing thirty and yet – that nagging voice was back again – there she was, still snogging at bus stops.
She was meant to be living fast, on the edge, convention be damned, with her very own Heathcliff by her side.
And yet here Nina was, standing in her kitchen eating peanut butter straight from the jar while her flatmate’s cat wound around her ankles, after an evening spent with friends who were all happily settled down while she was still auditioning frogs.
If this was her best life, then she wanted a refund.