Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (28 page)

Then it was back home, stopping en route to pick up chocolate, crisps, red wine for Hope and full-fat coke for Jeremy, so they didn’t have to move from the sofa while they watched a double bill of
Superbad
and
Napoleon Dynamite
.

Yes, they’d had a great time and were fast becoming firm friends, but every night when Jeremy was tucked up on the sofa and Hope was alone in her own bed, which still smelt of Jack because she hadn’t had time to do a wash, she felt as if she’d been hurled at great speed into the very pits of despair. She couldn’t even cry because the walls in the flat were gossamer thin. Instead, Hope would spend the night completely submerged under the duvet, fingers sometimes wedged in her mouth if she felt as if she was about to start sobbing. The secret was to lie very, very still and focus only on the sound of her own ragged breaths and nothing else, because if Hope’s attention wavered or she forgot for just one second what she was trying to forget and stretched out her legs or rolled over, she’d have five blissful seconds of feeling all right and feeling normal, then she’d wonder why Jack wasn’t curled up next to her and she’d have to remember why he wasn’t there and have to experience the pain all over again.

The pain never hurt any less. In fact, it seemed to hurt more, and the only way to squash it down was to get out of bed and pad quietly to the kitchen and make herself a huge
cheese
and crisp sandwich, which she’d wash down with a large glass of wine.

It was no wonder, then, that on Friday morning Hope was suffering from several nights of sleep deprivation and was having something of a wardrobe dilemma. It was freezing cold, the day was going to feature a lot of walking along the Thames with an icy river breeze tangling up her hair, culminating in a dinner non-date with Wilson,
and
she couldn’t fit into any of her clothes that had a waistband. Hope meditatively contemplated her muffin top, which had now been upgraded to a spare tyre, then surveyed her tired selection of school-holiday clothes. It was all very uninspiring and Jeremy hammering on the bedroom door and bellowing, ‘We’re going to be late!’ at five-minute intervals wasn’t helping much.

In the end, Hope pulled on her trusty black support-leggings, a fine-knit mossy-green shirt dress with long sleeves and a chunky black coatigan, and rummaged under her bed for hat, scarf and gloves in the plastic crate where she’d packed away all her cold-weather gear. Finally she emerged for Jeremy’s impatient inspection. ‘You look like a bruise,’ he said.

‘Yeah? Well, Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts’ Club Band called and they want their stupid red jacket back,’ Hope snapped as she checked she had her Oyster card.

Jeremy didn’t storm from hall to lounge in a huff like he’d have done at the beginning of the week. Instead he gave Hope another once-over, then frowned. ‘So, girls in London are
still
wearing Uggs? Right. OK. What
ever
.’

She knew when she was beaten. ‘Oh, piss off,’ Hope said to a grinning Jeremy, as she pushed him towards the front door.

Being dragged around a skate shop, then having to stand and watch as Jeremy fell off his board in the little skate park on the South Bank wasn’t something that Hope was particularly looking forward to. She also didn’t know how she was going to get through the day with Wilson being all
sneery
and perceptive when she wasn’t firing on even one cylinder. Her legs felt as if they were made of rubber, her jaw ached from the constant teeth-grinding and her hands were clammy inside her woollen gloves as she and Jeremy fought their way to the ticket barrier and then emerged from Covent Garden station in a tight press of people.

‘It’s so busy,’ Jeremy said, then gave a joyous yelp. ‘There’s Alfie!’

Hope looked over and yes, there was Alfie, in a bright-red hoodie the same shade as Jeremy’s jacket so they’d be easy to spot if they wandered off, along with two girls, in skimpy T-shirts, tight black skirts that could have doubled as belts, fishnet tights and Converses, who’d turned looking nonchalant into an artform. And finally, raising a hand in greeting, was Wilson, wearing dark-blue 501s, a black jumper and black leather jacket, and still managing to look less bruise-like than Hope.

The four of them were standing outside Oasis, clutching cups of coffee, as Jeremy bounded over, followed more slowly by Hope. She felt completely out of her depth, like a proper stuffy grown-up compared to the four teenagers (it turned out that Belle and Lucy were sixteen and eighteen respectively and nieces of Wilson and cousins of Alfie). She had more in common with him than she did with them, Hope thought, as Jeremy was welcomed into the fold and she was left to fall into step with Wilson, as they crossed over Long Acre and slowly walked down Neal Street, accosted by
Big Issue
sellers, chuggers and touters from the local hairdressing salons who all wanted to know where Hope got her hair cut.

She pulled her hat down over her hair that hadn’t seen the touch of a professional hairdresser in well over a year and tried to think of something to say to Wilson. ‘So, is this your sum total of nieces and nephews?’

He shook his head. ‘I left the London-based under-sixteens at home.’

What with four full siblings, two half-siblings and five step-siblings, Wilson had nearly twenty-three (his half-sister Louise was due to give birth any day) nieces and nephews scattered from London to Preston and all points in between.

It was amazing that Wilson came from such a large family yet remained so taciturn. Maybe he’d never been able to get a word in edgeways, Hope mused as the pair of them were banished from the tiny skate shop (‘Hopey, you’re just getting in the way and asking stupid questions’) and had to sit shivering outside in Neal’s Yard drinking excellent coffee from the Monmouth Coffee shop just around the corner.

Then it was a slow walk through Covent Garden to the Strand and across the Thames on Jubilee Bridge. The South Bank was heaving with people: gangs of kids on half-term, tourists wrapped up warmly as they took pictures of each other by the sculptures, lunchtime joggers weaving through the crowd and people braving the cold to sit at the tables outside the restaurants beneath the Royal Festival Hall.

There was some problem with adjusting the new wheels on Jeremy’s skateboard, which Wilson helped with, so Hope was left with Belle and Lucy who asked what she did for a living and then shied away in horror when she confessed the awful truth. In the end she left the five of them to it while she browsed the second-hand book stall, picking up a pristine Winston Churchill biography, which would make an excellent Christmas present for her dad, and a copy of
The Velveteen Rabbit
for Blue Class’s book corner. Then force of habit made her pick up a book about The Beatles, which she knew Jack didn’t have. Hope hesitated, then slotted the book back into place, and as she did it she shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the wind whipping past her, but because that small gesture seemed to prove that their relationship was dead.

It was one of those fatal thoughts that she didn’t want to think, so Hope deliberately and ruthlessly pushed it away as
she
reached for the new Jilly Cooper. Comfort eating wasn’t doing her any favours so maybe comfort reading would be kinder to her waistline.

As she was about to pay, Hope spotted a Diane Arbus biography, about whom she knew practically nothing except that she was an American photographer who’d taken gloomy but beautiful black-and-white pictures of odd-looking people. She could give it to Jeremy to give to Wilson to say thank you for going absolutely above and beyond what could possibly be termed as doing someone a favour.

Hope glanced over her shoulder. Alfie and Jeremy were finally on their skateboards. Jeremy was surprisingly adept at twisting and turning and flipping off the end of ramps and slopes without falling off. It was rather lovely to see him take such absolute delight in what he was doing, and Hope was glad to see Wilson snapping away at the pair of them on a small fiddly-looking digital camera.

Belle and Lucy were nowhere to be seen, and Hope was surplus to requirements so she drifted over to the river’s edge and gazed out over the water. To her left was the London Eye and past that the Houses of Parliament, and to her right, the City skyline: St Paul’s Cathedral, the NatWest Tower, the Gherkin and other buildings that were familiar to her, even if she couldn’t name them. It was a view that never failed to stir her, the old in harmony with the new, the city evolving and growing and changing before her eyes. Hope still didn’t really think of London as home, but when she came down to the river, she felt as if she was part of London, even as she was humbled by it at the same time.

Just looking at the cityscape and the backdrop of blue skies and fluffy clouds that looked as if they’d been painted on was making big, sad emotions well up in Hope. Emotions that made her swipe a gloved hand under her eyes to mop up tears that she couldn’t blame on the wind. She almost screamed when she felt a hand on her shoulder, but it was just Wilson who gave her one of his patented squinty-eyed,
penetrating
looks but didn’t say anything other than that their four teenage charges wanted to get sushi for lunch.

The day dragged on and on and on. There were a few moments of light relief, like Jeremy coming to the swift realisation that he
hated
sushi apart from the crispy salmon skin and despatching Hope to Pret A Manger to buy him a sandwich. She also had to bite her lip many times to suppress the giggles because Jeremy, Alfie, Belle and Lucy’s conversation consisted of one of them suddenly announcing, ‘Ha! Simon Cowell!’ or, ‘Urgh! Legwarmers!’ or even, ‘Cupcakes are so sad,’ and then they’d all make sneery comments about the item in question. The four of them were getting on famously, which was more than could be said for Hope and Wilson.

Hope had never known him so monosyllabic. Not even the first few times that she’d met him when he’d been her newish friend’s new boyfriend and Susie had already said that she didn’t think he was a keeper. What with the strain of making forced conversation, the constant threat of tears because of the stupid book about The Beatles and the wind smacking her in the face as they walked down to Tate Modern, browsed through Borough Market, then ended up at the Design Museum, Hope felt as if steel bands were slowly crushing her skull. Her head throbbed in time with every step she took and when they got to London Bridge tube it was only six o’clock. The gig didn’t start until eight, so it would be hours before Hope could go home and not sleep, perchance to dream.

Jeremy was adamant that they had time to go to Oxford Street so he could visit Niketown and take photos for the kids back home, and Belle and Lucy wanted to go to ‘Topshop and Urban Outfitters and we might as well go to American Apparel while we’re there’. It was all Hope could do not to sink down on to the pavement and refuse to take another step.

‘Well, you need to have some tea before the gig,’ she murmured weakly.

‘Yeah, but we don’t need to be there the minute the doors open,’ Alfie said scathingly. ‘And the first support band suck.’

‘Yeah, they really suck,’ Belle and Lucy said in unison, while Jeremy nodded in agreement.

‘Shut up,’ Wilson suddenly growled at the four of them. ‘Just about had enough of you lot.’

‘Yeah, but …’

‘Shut it, Alfred,’ Wilson said in a way that sent shivers down Hope’s spine but Alfie just grinned slyly, as if he was used to having his God-given name snarled at him like that. Wilson pulled out his wallet and handed his nephew a couple of twenty-pound notes. ‘Go to bloody Oxford Street, then use this money to get some dinner, and I want receipts and change.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want proof that you didn’t spend the money on tacky shit and pick and mix.’

‘We
so
wouldn’t do that,’ Lucy breathed, but Hope knew she
so
would. It was exactly what she used to do whenever she’d got slipped a tenner by an unsuspecting grandparent.

Hope reached for her own purse and put another twenty pounds in the kitty. ‘For pudding and soft drinks,’ she said with a significant glare that made the steel bands tighten. She wanted to weep tears of unrestrained joy as the four of them trooped into the tube station – until she realised that she and Wilson were the last two standing. Or drooping, in her case.

‘Shall we get a taxi?’ Wilson asked, already hailing a black cab.

Hope thought about putting up a fight because she’d been spending money like she had a huge trust fund to fall back on, but her head and feet were killing her, and in the end it was easier just to say, ‘Thank you,’ when Wilson held
the
door open for her, and sink gratefully on to the seat.

Hope pulled off her hat and rubbed her forehead, as Wilson sat down beside her.

‘I told him to go to Kentish Town,’ he said. ‘Unless you’d rather go home and I could pick Jeremy up later and drop him off?’

Hope thought about spending hours in her empty flat with not much else to do but unleash the onslaught of tears that had been threatening all day. And Wilson had already done her so many favours and she needed to man up, get over herself, take some ibuprofen and treat him to a slap-up meal. Or at least a curry and a couple of bottles of beer.

‘Kentish Town is fine,’ she said, and it was meant to come out firmly but her voice wavered and she had to swallow hard. ‘Though we’ve got
hours
before they need picking up.’

Wilson stared straight ahead. ‘Fancy coming back to mine for a cup of tea?’