Cyber Cinderella (22 page)

At last, it was done. I waited.

George returned at 10 p.m. Early, you might think, but it had allowed a nine-hour bender, a working day’s worth of drinking.

A jangle of keys, expletives sounding. I hid myself in a corner of the living room with the lights off. The doorbell started ringing, to be joined in its symphony by my mobile, followed by the landline. Percussion came in the form of coins being thrown at the sitting-room window, which was raised ground floor.

A voice came through on the answerphone. “You bitch, let me in. Let me into my house.”

So tempting to pick up, but I resisted. The mobile phone message was similar but with increased antagonism.

The coins being thrown at the window were replaced with stones. George was only good at throwing away other people’s money, not his own.

“For fuck’s sake, let’s at least talk,” the answerphone told me. “Two years, you’re going to let go like this. Where’s all my stuff? I know you’re there.”

I couldn’t bear it any longer and picked up. That was always my problem: I never knew when it was more powerful to keep quiet. I wrote too much on postcards and said too much on first dates.

“So now you want to talk, do you? It was a different story with your little friends this lunchtime, wasn’t it? Well, it’s too late,” I said into the mouthpiece, though we were only ten meters and a pane of glass apart.

“Darling, sweetheart, be reasonable,” he slurred.

“I tried to be earlier on. I told you what would happen if we didn’t talk.”

“But darling, I was at work.”

“Well, maybe work can give you a place to live.”

“This is my place to live.”

“I don’t see anything of yours as evidence.”

“My things, my stereo, my suits, they’re all in there.”

“Wrong. All your stuff is in the shed. You can keep it there for a fortnight, but then I take it to the charity shop.”

“You can’t do this. It’s my home. I’ll sue you.”

“Fuck off, George. You’ve never contributed anything to here.

I could sue you for all the money you owe me and the bills you never paid.”

“I’m sorry that I had to pay maintenance to my ex-wife and my child. I gave you all I could.”

“No, you spent all that on fags and booze.”

“You never could understand my responsibilities as a father.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, George. I know, you see, that your parents paid the maintenance and Grace’s school fees. I know you lied about that, you deliberately made me think you paid out half your salary every month, but it all went on your own debts and your habits.”

He paused. “But darling, I love you so much, you’re so special to me.”

Not enough.

“I never loved anyone as much as you. Only Grace.”

Too late.

He started pounding on the front door of the house. His voice was so loud that the words in my earpiece were echoed by those coming from outside.

“Where am I supposed to go?”

“To your bloody spa weekend with bloody Catherine and Grace. And then maybe she can take you in so you can be a family again.” I said “family” in the sort of sneering voice which George would use to utter the word when it preceded “film” or “fun.”

“You stupid mad bitch,” I heard in stereo. “You can’t forgive me for not being your stalker. Go to your Ian, your creep, your stalker, if that’s what you want. Or if you want stalking, I’ll stalk you.” I heard him hitting the window. He must have been leaning across the railings from the front door. “See, you like it. You love it. I’m stalking you.”

“You never thought me worth stalking, George.”

At the same time as he gave up on trying to break in, he gave up on me.

“Well, you’re fucking not, Izobel.” He spat out my name. “You’re just a PR girl with a pretty face. Nothing more. You’re nothing special.”

“I was never your number one,” I said. Damn it, don’t cry.

“And you’ll never be anyone’s. You’re not worth stalking. You’re a B-list person, Izobel Brannigan.”

I went to bed with earplugs in.

Chapter Fourteen

M
ags, sorry, it’s me, can I come round?”

She had sounded sleepy. I had waited until 9:15 to call her. Once upon a time you never phoned anyone before midday on a Saturday, but these days my friends got up early to go to the gym or leave London for the weekend.

“What’s wrong? Is it something to do with the site? Have you been threatened again?” She sounded mildly exasperated.

“No, it’s nothing to do with the site. Something unrelated.” I paused. The good thing about splitting up with your live-in boyfriend of over two years is that it counts as a proper reason to go waking people up from their lie-ins. The end of an affair has been legitimized by women’s magazines and pop music as the loftiest cause of depression. Especially in your thirties. “George and I are over.”

“What, you’ve split up? What happened?”

“I chucked him and I chucked him out.” I felt a surge of pride. I had turned George out of the house. I had bundled his possessions together in a great gesture of dramatic female empowerment. I hadn’t waited until he dumped me or until I’d found a replacement. I was chucking him to be single.

God, single, hadn’t been that for a while. Frantic organizing of trips to art galleries on Sundays, not having an automatic person to go on holiday with, having to go for expensive massages in lieu of free human touch at home, overdressing for parties, coming home disappointed.

I wasn’t much good at being single. I used up the most creative part of my brain daydreaming about the next person and how special they’d be. They never were.

“Oh Iz, you brave girl. Do you want to come round and talk about it?”

“Yes, please,” I sniffed, not at sadness of the end of a past shared with George, but at a future shared with no one.

Mick was dispatched to buy expensive croissants, while Maggie made me tea.

“I saw the article he wrote,” she said. “It was an absolute disgrace and full of lies. Plus it was so badly written. I thought he was supposed to be such a scribe. You should sue. Have you definitely split up?”

“Yes.”

“You won’t get back together? You promise.”

I nodded.

“Because this is the bit when I tell you what I really thought of you and George and then you go and get back together with him and our friendship is stuffed.”

“I won’t get back together with him.” As I said it, I knew my words to be true.

“And it’s not just me. It’s what everyone, me, Mick, Frank and the rest thought of him. We once held a summit meeting to work out a way of splitting you up.”

I groaned. “How humiliating. I’m so embarrassed. Frank? Camilla wasn’t there, was she? Please tell me she didn’t put her oar in. Did it ever occur to you that you should talk to me about it rather than each other?”

“That’s what I’m doing now.”

I lay back on the sofa with my head covered in a cushion.

“Here goes,” she said. “I, we, think he’s boorish and boring, he’s a snob and a slob. It really annoys me how he always talks about stuff being the new stuff, the new black and the new rock and roll all the time. He treats you like shit and you’re worth so much more than him. He uses you in order to have a place to live in and it’s not going anywhere. His daughter’s vile.”

“That’s harsh, she’s only six.”

“But so knowing. Of course, the fact that she told me that her mother would die if her arse got as saggy as mine does not in any way endear her to me.”

“She said that I looked like a cleaner in my Birkenstocks.”

“Quite apt, given the way you have to run around after her.” Maggie took a glug of tea. “He brings out the very worst in you, your insecurity, your obsession with appearances and glamour and silly parties and your concern for what’s in and what’s out.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m not criticizing you. I’m trying to tell you how much more you are than that. You’re clever and principled and profound, but you wouldn’t know it when you’re with him.”

“Or without him.”

“You can, you can. It’s just a bit buried.” With that I entombed myself still further behind the cushion. “And he drinks too much.”

“You think he’s a functioning alcoholic?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s something to be relieved about.”

“I think he’s a dysfunctional alcoholic. And you’ve got a codependent relationship with him in which you enable his drinking.”

“You read too much pop psychology.”

“I don’t need to define codependency for you as you define it yourself with the way you act. You pay the bills, you give him somewhere to live, you cover for him at work. Have you ever rung his office for him and told them he’s ill?”

“Yes, but…”

“Classic enabling behavior. All you’re doing is allowing him to spend all his money on drink and fags.”

“And Grace,” I lied.

“And Grace. But wouldn’t she be better off if her father wasn’t an alcoholic, the alcoholic you’re helping him to be? Poor thing can’t choose her father. You can choose your boyfriend and you’re much better off without him.”

“Oh.” I peeked out from under the cushion. “You’ve really got to hope I don’t get back with him after all that.”

“No, Iz, you’ve really got to hope you don’t get back with him. He’s a twat. And you know it.”

My eyes welled up but I suppressed tears with much exaggerated exhaling, blowing air out heavily like a parent making a pantomime show of filling a balloon in front of their birthday child. I did that thing of waving my hand in front of my face as if fanning myself on a hot day, attempting to blow away the tears. I couldn’t cry over George. I was the strong one, I had chucked him, hadn’t I?

Too late. I cried. Not cinematically in deference to the way Maggie lives her life, but with messy, snotty, simultaneous liquid pouring from eyes and nose.

Maggie rubbed my back as if I were vomiting rather than crying.

“Life’s so shit,” I wept. “Life’s so shit for me.”

“It’s not, it won’t be. It’s going to be all right.”

“Yes, it is. I’ve split up with my boyfriend and there’s a site with a death threat to me. And the only man I’ve fancied in months is the man behind it.”

“What? You fancy this Ivan guy?” He was not yet Ivan to her, only “this Ivan guy,” the systems bloke. I suppose he never would be familiar to her now. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“I snogged him.”

“Oh, Iz. I’m sorry. Do you like him?”

“Did like him. Yes, I really did like him. Even though he was a techie and stuff, he was lovely to me. He’s got the kindest face with huge eyes and really thick lashes. He has a long, straight nose, I’m a sucker for noses. And his body was perfect, slim but no six-pack. You know how six-packs are so disgusting as they make you wonder what agonies of boredom they’re prepared to put themselves through doing stomach crunches. And his flat is amazing and he does this art, which is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, but he’s modest about it. He’s funny too, he’s serious but he doesn’t take himself seriously and certainly not me. He took the piss out of me and I felt like I could be better by being with him. But what do I care? Now I find out he’s a git too. And you know what?” I didn’t wait for her reply. “I’ve found out that every man I’ve ever been out with has been a git. Well, not William, but that’s not because he’s not a git, because he is, but because I haven’t caught up with him yet and it would only be a waste of git time. I didn’t find out that any one of them was responsible for the site, apart from Ivan, but I did find out that they were all gits. Except, perhaps, Married Man, and him being married and sleeping with me pretty much means he has to be a git too, or at least that’s what his wife and her friends would conclude should they ever find out.”

I put the pillow on my stomach, aping Maggie’s stance on the opposite sofa, except her bulge wasn’t a cushion.

“I don’t think you’re quite right. Frank’s OK. But I understand.”

“No, you don’t. How could you? You’ve been happily trotting along with Mick all this time and he’s lovely. You’ve never gone to a party on your own and left with a stranger, you’ve never had the feeling of yet another relationship going wrong and wondering whether you’re ever going to have a normal one. You don’t have to frantically fill your Saturday nights and put on a performance should you find yourself out with a couple. You don’t have to parade your dire love life for the amusement of others. You don’t have to worry about everybody forgetting about your birthday. You don’t understand.”

“I think I can empathize. And anyway, it’s not all been an episode of
Little House on the Prairie
with Mick, you know. I’ve had my doubts. I have them all the time. His silences drive me mad. I wonder if I want him to be the father of my child or the partner to me. I’ve fancied men at work, and I’ve flirted with them too. And I think Mick has, with women I mean. I have fantasies about George Clooney. That’s how much of a frustrated thirty-something cliché of a woman I am.”

“But your fantasies and flirtations are just a sideline. When you’re single, they’re all you’ve got.” I continued to cry, yet even then I knew that I would feel good about ending it with George someday soon. I would enter the brief optimistic phase, of having fun with other single female friends and obsessing over heels and beauty treatments, of relishing the expectancy and excitement of being in that on-the-pull, every-day-is-like-Christmas-Eve time. When I knew, even then in my period of mourning, that life with George had been a permanent February. I wailed some more at the boredom of being miserable and the mourning of all the time I had wasted.

“Iz, you’re supposed to be a feminist. Surely there’s more to you than having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, I know, of course you’re right, but everybody defines you as single, the single thirty-something woman. It never used to be like that, but when we hit twenty-seven suddenly whether you had a boyfriend became significant. It was a lifestyle choice and we were no longer the same, those with and those without, different species, lining up on different sides, like boys and girls at a school disco.”

“Everybody? Your site doesn’t, does it? It never mentions George or any of your exes. It talks about your job, your studies, your day-to-day habits, and it says you’re great, irrespective of your love life.”