on, bought the product. Singledom, a new relationship: you have to repackage your contents and sell them all over again, body and soul.
These not very inspiring thoughts are rolling round my mind as I twang a violet triangle of something that appears to be made out of fishing net and an elastic band. My phone goes. Ben. Now his number has his name. There’s that shiver.
‘Hi, Rachel! How are you? I wanted to say thanks for helping Simon out with that story.’
I’m blushing. I’m actually standing here, looking at tiny pants, with a burning face because they’re juxtaposed with Ben’s voice. Sex and the City this ain’t.
‘Good thanks. And no, thank you for introducing us. That’s a great story and it’s not done me any harm at work. I owe you.’
‘No worries, it solved a problem for Simon. He didn’t know how to go about contacting your paper. He thinks journalists are feral creatures. He was scared stiff.’
Crazily confident Simon?
‘I’m struggling to imagine Simon being scared stiff.’
‘Imagine him being scared flaccid then.’
‘Nooo, my eyes are bleeding!’ I giggle, aware of the firework of happiness that starts fizzing in my chest at the slightest return of our old rapport.
Ben laughs. ‘He was quite complimentary about you. He said you had “sass”.’
‘He means I was rude.’
‘I told you, he needs a bit of fight. He likes it. Anyway, I have something else to ask of you.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah, I was wondering if you were free to come to ours on Saturday night. Liv wants to do a “meeting people in Manchester” dinner party. We’re bourgeois bastards nowadays, y’know. Liv particularly wants to meet you.’
‘Right,’ I say, feeling the fear. Why would Olivia particularly want to meet me, unless it was to do a risk assessment? He could tell her she absolutely doesn’t need to worry. MI5 Threat Level: Brew Up, Kick Back. Oh God, oh God – what does she know? Reason tells me she has the official history, and this invite is proof of that. Emotions are telling me to use this thong as a slingshot to fire my mobile into the bargain briefs bin and run for the Peaks.
‘You will come?’ Ben says, into my silence.
‘Sure.’
‘I don’t want to kill your cool single Saturday night stone dead. I know we’re old boring marrieds.’
‘Are you kidding? I’d love to come.’
‘Honestly? That’s great.’
Although I meant love with a substantial dollop of bloody shitting self, Ben sounds so pleased that it almost becomes true.
‘I’m a fan of eating. And I’m in awe of anyone who’s prepared to make food for visitors,’ I say.
‘You’re a good cook, aren’t you?’
‘Nah. I gave up when I moved in with Rhys. He was the cook.’
‘Ah.’ Awkward pause. ‘And Liv asked, do you want to bring anyone? A date?’
This is the moment where I’m supposed to have a wacky idea about hiring an escort for appearances’ sake. I consider it for the maddest of moments, then firmly dismiss it. One of Mindy’s chiselled internet Romeos, it transpired, used to work as an escort. Worse, he wore the ‘Canadian tuxedo/Texas two-piece’ of double denim. With cowboy boots. And awful shirts. Ivor nickname: Bri-Nylon Adams.
‘Er. No.’
After I ring off, I guesstimate my sizes and buy a handful of stuff in safe black. It’s a beginning.
23
I returned for the second year with a light tan that I was trying to prolong with Nivea tinted body lotion. It was from a fortnight in Paxos, a gift from Rhys.
While my friends from home had boyfriends the same age who were pot-washing and berry-picking, I had a grown-up one with an actual real proper full-time income who whisked me away for impromptu package holidays. My parents were less delighted: Rhys turned up at our local with a bag packed for me, losing me a week’s pay in hand and a job for walking out mid-shift. He’d forgotten I needed my passport though, so we still had to run the gauntlet of my mum and dad’s disapproval at the devil-may-care attitude to temporary employment and foreign travel.
I excitedly outlined the whole drama to Ben at the launderette’s, as I loaded the drum with my clothes. Normally, the start of the second year and ‘living out’ would herald having a washing machine. Ours was broken, and the lack of turnaround time between holiday and back-to-uni had left me with a dirty laundry backlog. Ben had volunteered to sit with me during the spin cycle and then go get a coffee. He was house sharing with the lads from the flats, and although he’d filtered out the worst of them, the best of them still wasn’t exactly panning for gold. (For example, even he’d admitted it wasn’t advisable for me to use their Zanussi unless I wanted to return from the coffee to find them all wearing my smalls on their heads.)
‘How did he have a bag packed for you without telling your folks?’ Ben asked, as I boasted about sapphire seas and cultural sightseeing.
‘Oh, it wasn’t my stuff. He went to Boots and bought me a toothbrush and got me a bikini. And some other things.’
Actually, it was a comically stripped down, in more than one sense, male fantasy idea of what a woman might need on a surprise sunshine getaway. The detour to my family home had the benefit I could get the things I needed without hurting his feelings.
‘Right.’ Ben glanced down at what was in my hand and with some horror I realised it was a school-girlish broderie anglaise bra that was a good few shades away from Daz bright. I hastily bundled it into the machine, slammed the door and fed it with coins.
We sat down together on the slatted wooden bench.
‘The look on the warlock of a landlord’s face when I left,’ I crowed. ‘It was great.’
‘Sounds it. Greece with Rhys,’ Ben said.
‘It was amazing!’
‘Sure. Lots of sun and … swimming and stuff?’ Ben rubbed his chin.
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. I knew I was being insufferable. I was in that vile realm of ‘all broadcast, no reception’ smug coupledom where I couldn’t stop.
The bell on the launderette door jingled and a girl entered. A girl in the same way an Aston Martin Vanquish is a car: it was Georgina Race. This was a name that any male of the undergraduate population was incapable of uttering without the accompanying exhalation. She was instantly identifiable by her sheet of incredible shiny copper hair, a colour so intense it was as if she walked the planet with a Royal Albert Hall follow-spot on her. It was impossible for your eyes to slide past her – and once they were on her, there wasn’t much to quibble with, as my dad would’ve said. She had a porcelain, doll-like face that looked as if it had been sketched for the cover of a Mills & Boon paperback. You could absolutely imagine her in a ragged blouse, wilting in the bulky arms of the arrogant Prince Xaviero.
Georgina was on my course. She had perfected the art of the lecture hall entrance, standing at the front of the room and scanning the half-empty rows for a spare seat, knowing every male in the place was trying to will her near. Ben would usually nudge me, clasping his hands in a ‘prayer’ gesture under the desk, to which I’d make a hand-shaking ‘wanker’ gesture in return. They were all shit out of luck, though: rumour had it she was dating some soap actor in London.
This crisp September morning, Georgina was looking equally crisp: she had an apple-green scarf knotted at her white swan throat and a short swingy patterned dress that