One that – for once – was not entirely of her own doing. Bloody cockwombling Alex, she thought. A fresh wave of anger and injustice engulfed her and she paced the studio saying out loud all the things she wished she’d thought of yesterday. Why did the perfect insult always wait twenty-four hours before appearing in your head?
She threw insults around like pebbles but they didn’t make her feel any better. This was all so unfair. And on top of everything, there was no milk, so she’d had to have black coffee again.
She stomped about the studio for quite some time until she got tired and the adrenaline powering her subsided, at which point she flopped into the chair. The fury that had kept her going had turned to despondency as the reality of the mess she was in truly hit home. She no longer had somewhere to live. The studio was a very temporary setup until Cleo came home; even more temporary if anyone caught her living there.
She no longer had a boyfriend – although if the latest stream of texts from Jarvis were an indicator, she would be hearing from him again very soon via his lawyer regarding what he termed the criminal abuse of his rug.
She didn’t have a job, and that meant she had zero income. She also didn’t have any savings as such – just a few quid in her bank account that she had been holding onto so she could buy Jarvis a birthday present. At least that was something.
She was also surprised to discover that, on top of everything else, she’d lost her purpose – and this was most shocking of all. She hadn’t liked her job, but then who did? Moaning about bosses, colleagues and too much work was par for the course, but when it suddenly wasn’t there it left a great big nine-to-five-shaped hole.
Regan spent a while mulling over whether to call Nigel and ask for her job back. Eventually, she swallowed her pride and rang Nigel’s number, but as soon as she’d been put through to him he went into corporate mode, listing all her faults and making it very clear that returning was most definitely not an option. She thanked him kindly and hung up.
Regan sat there staring at one particular brick in the bare Victorian wall. This brick wasn’t like the other red bricks; it wasn’t a perfect little clone like the rest. The surface of this one was rougher; pock-marked, almost. It didn’t have defined angular corners and sharp edges. They were worn and rounded, partly due to it being slightly out of alignment. It didn’t quite fit, so someone had chipped bits off it in an attempt to wedge it in, but had simply managed to scar it instead.
That brick was her. She was damaged and scarred. She didn’t fit.
She closed her eyes. She was losing the plot. She needed to get out before she went totally Jack from The Shining.
She’d been pleased that her dad was at home when she’d telephoned, and frankly delighted to hear that he was alone and she was welcome to pop round.
After the usual niceties, she followed him into the kitchen and he put the kettle on.
‘What’s up, Regan? You never come round in the daytime.’
It was like the time she got found out for smashing next door’s greenhouse; he was giving her the same look of disappointment.
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ she said, remembering too late that her defence of the greenhouse situation had started with the exact same words. ‘I thought I’d won the lottery and it turns out I hadn’t, but because I thought I had …’ He was watching her intently. She swallowed hard. ‘I dumped Jarvis, quit my job and moved out of the flat.’ She bit her lip and waited for his response.
‘Coffee?’
Not the response she was expecting. ‘Er, yes please. So …’
He shrugged his shoulders in a slow movement. ‘That wasn’t very smart. Was it?’
And the award for stating the bleeding obvious goes to Graham Corsetti. ‘I know that, Dad, but like I said I thought I’d won the lottery.’
‘Money’s not everything, Regan.’
‘I know.’ It was like being in a parallel universe. Why were parents so obtuse sometimes? And especially when you needed them to help you get to a solution ‘So what do I do?’
‘Get another job?’ His face was stoic.
‘Yes.’ That was the most logical thing. ‘What else?’
He scratched his greying temple. ‘I don’t know.’ He brightened up and squeezed her arm. ‘You’ll think of something.’
She blinked rapidly. Clearly he was not comprehending the huge shitstorm her life had become. In fact, shitstorm didn’t really cover it – this was more global shit tsunami with extra-large fans.
‘I feel like a pea in a river – too small to swim against the tide.’ She felt quite poetic and proud of her analogy.
Her dad screwed up his face. ‘You’d like to pee in a river?’
‘No. A pea … Oh never mind.’ Why was it so hard to explain? ‘It’s like someone’s slammed the brakes on my life.’
‘Hmm.’ He was pulling a doubtful face, but she continued unperturbed.
‘I mean, I was hurtling along and suddenly I’ve come flying off the rails.’
‘I see,’ said Graham, in a tone that said he wanted the conversation to end. He was a rather logical, straightforward person, lacking the encumberment of extremes of emotion – an unkind soul may have called him ‘odd’. He was still pulling a face as he passed her a mug of coffee and opened a fresh packet of cheap chocolate digestives.
‘What?’ asked Regan, catching sight of his twisted lips.
‘Well, I’m not being funny, Regan, but it’s not like your life was motoring along at a pace, now was it?’
‘Oh, thanks a bunch.’ She snatched a biscuit from the proffered packet.
‘No, what I mean is, in life’s race, you’re less Aston Martin, more Nissan Micra – slow and steady.’ He was smiling, like he thought this was a compliment.
‘Bloody hell, Dad. You’re not helping my self-esteem here.’ She’d been called lots of things in the past, but never a Nissan chuffing Micra. She knew he had a point though, however harshly worded. She’d liked to think she was pootling along taking the scenic route in life, but she could hardly claim that when on her life’s journey so far there really hadn’t been anything worth seeing – dead ends of jobs, a scrap heap of relationships and a junk yard full of mistakes. She dunked her biscuit and half of it disintegrated into her coffee. She frowned and tried to scoop it out with the other half of the biscuit, making the situation infinitely worse.
Graham was frowning. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘Cleo’s place.’ She didn’t like lying, especially not to her dad, but technically she was staying at Cleo’s – just in her studio and not in the flat where he had obviously assumed she meant, judging by the relief on his face. She knew he was secretly pleased that she wasn’t going to put him in the awkward position of making excuses as to why she couldn’t stay at his.
‘That’s good then. But you know if you’re desperate you’re welcome to stay here.’ His shoulders tensed.
‘It’s fine, Dad. It’s only temporary. Just until I get myself back on my feet.’ He looked relieved.
‘You okay for money? Because I’ve a little put aside.’
She doubted he had very much put by. He worked part-time in a newsagent’s and it was sweet of him to offer but she needed to sort this mess out on her own. ‘I’m fine.’ If she said it often enough with conviction there was a possibility that she might start to believe it herself. ‘Really. Fine.’
Three days later, she was all out of self-belief. And ice cream. All too quickly, her world had been turned upside down, and she had no idea how to right it. She knew the answer wasn’t to drink her troubles