Build a Man (3 page)

Peter bends
down to kiss me goodbye as we reach the Prince Regent.

“Sure you don’t
want to come?” I ask, suddenly wanting to spend time with him
outside the clinic. He’s so exhausted by the end of the day that we
rarely venture beyond the confines of our flat.

Peter shakes
his head. “No, thanks. Anyway,
Time Team
is on. Say hello to
Kirsty and Tim for me.” He lifts a hand and starts striding for
home like he can’t wait to get there. Which I’m sure he can’t,
given that Tony Robinson and his rag-tag crew will be digging up a
copper coin any minute now. I’ll never understand the attraction of
a bunch of men pretending to be Indiana Jones in the back fields of
Britain.

I open the pub
door and stand there for a second, absorbing the clatter and
chatter and taking in the happy faces of punters swigging beer.
There
is
a world with normal-looking, noisy people who eat
solids. I’d almost forgotten it exists.

“Ser!” Kirsty
waves to me from the corner where she’s draped all over Tim, as
usual. Five years together and they still can’t keep their hands to
themselves. She’s twice his size and I can just make out his eyes
peeping from behind her oversized earrings and waterfall of crazy
caramel curls.

Heading through
the throng – the place is heaving even on a Monday – I squeeze into
a chair across from them.

“Where’s the
old
man?” Kirsty’s necklaces clank together as she leans
forward to gulp her drink.

“Kirsty!” I
hate when she calls Peter that. Okay, Peter’s in his early
thirties, but that doesn’t exactly make him ancient . . . just
old-ish. “Peter can’t make it. He’s busy.” Busy with
Time
Team
. I don’t dare tell her that, or I’d never hear the end of
it.

“Too bad,”
Kirsty says, her tone suggesting anything but. Tim gives her a
look, the kind where he draws his eyebrows together and frowns.
He’s going to get wrinkles if he keeps doing that.

“So how are
things in the wonderful world of finance?” I ask, reaching deep
into the confines of my plasticky Primark purse where I’m sure I
saw some pound coins lurking last week. A glass of wine is calling,
but I need at least one more pound . . . got it. One giant House
Red coming up.

Tim and Kirsty
nod together.

“Pretty good.
Kirsty just closed a major deal with Centralna.” Tim smiles at her
proudly. They both work at some investment bank in the City,
Grant-Jonas-Blythe Investment, Jonas-Blythe-Grant Investment, some
combination or other. The two of them graduated at the top of
University of Maine’s Economics class, and were snapped up by
headhunters and settled into the bank’s corporate London flat
before I’d even collected my diploma. If only everything in my
world was so easy.

But I’ll make
it soon.
I will
. If not Leza Larke, then some editor is sure
to love my Jeremy pitch. They’ll be so blown away, they’ll offer me
a job on the spot, and I’ll get to work in one of those big glass
buildings and dress in trendy gear from TopShop, not these
nineteen-fifties styles I have to pull off for the clinic.

“Guess what?” I
blurt out. “I’ve got a great idea for a tabloid story. I think this
might be it.”

“Oh, yeah?”
Kirsty takes a sip of her drink and turns toward me, face neutral.
I know she’s heard it a million times before, but this really
could
be it.

I quickly
explain about Jeremy and all the operations he wants.

“Why would
someone do that to themselves?” Kirsty asks.

I shrug. “Who
knows? He just said he wanted women to like him. It’ll make a great
feature.” My excitement is building just thinking about it.

“And he’s
agreed to be in the article?” Kirsty drains her drink and leans
back.

“Well . . .” My
voice trails off and nerves shoot through me. “Not
quite
yet. But I’m sure he will. He wants to meet women, after all, and
this will be a good way to get his name out there.” I try to sound
confident but small doubts gnaw my insides. What if Jeremy says
no?

“And Peter’s
okay with this? I thought he was, like, Captain Privacy or
something.” She raises her eyebrows at me, and I flush. I know
she’s recalling the time Peter reamed me out after I regaled her
with clinic tales one night over dinner.

“Not exactly,”
I mumble, tracing a watermark on the table. I glance up, meeting
her hazel eyes. “But I’m sure he will be.”
I hope
. “Anyway,
I’ll wait until I hear back from the editor and cross those bridges
when I come to them.”

Kirsty nods,
but I can see by her expression she doesn’t believe those bridges
will ever need crossing. I know she thinks my tabloid dream is just
a fantasy – along with Peter and half the western world. But I’ll
show her. I’ll show everyone.

“I’d better
make a move,” I say, after chatting (and drinking) for another
couple hours. I stand up just as Tim returns to the table with more
martinis. The room swings around me and I grip onto the table for
support. That wine has gone straight to my head. “I’ve got to be at
work early in the morning.”

“Aw, come on.”
Kirsty waves her martini in the air, sloshing it all over the
table. “What do you care? It’s just standing behind a desk, right?
You could show up tomorrow with half a brain and the Botox Bitches
wouldn’t even notice.”

A jolt of
annoyance flashes through me. Yes, it’s true I could rock up with
minimal brainpower, and those women would tell me how clever I am
when I correctly spell their surnames (because W-H-I-T-E is really
challenging, don’t you know). But I hate that my friends think I’m
doing a job a monkey could. I’ve got to make this tabloid thing
happen – soon.

“Naw, I should
go.” I lean over to kiss her and Tim, say goodbye, then head for
the street. The air is fresh, bordering on cold, the way only an
early October night can be. I turn right and walk by Paddington
Gardens, breathing in the smell of crisp leaves to clear my
head.

Autumn always
reminds me of the beginning of school – new books, new teachers . .
.
potential
. I couldn’t wait to be done with university; to
leave Maine behind and to experience the real world. I smile up
into the light-polluted London sky. So far, I love it. And even
though I’m not exactly fulfilling my potential, I’ll get there. All
it takes is just one yes.

I turn onto our
street and fit my key into the door of the red-bricked mansion
block. It’s taken me a while to absorb the fact that I, Serenity
Holland, live
here
. The foyer is all chandeliers and mirrors
gilded in gold, and although the lift’s a rather rickety
contraption, it’s carpeted in deep-red fabric with little gold
paisleys swimming through it. I blink, and the paisleys stop moving
then start up again like sperm. God, I’m drunker than I
thought.

Turning my key
in the lock, I nudge open the door as quietly as I can. The voice
of the BBC announcer – the one whose name I can never remember but
always looks like she’s got haemorrhoids – floats through the
darkened lounge, and I can just make out Peter’s silhouette on the
sofa. Flickering light from the television reflects on the shiny
parquet floor and glints off the polished antique furniture. I
catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of an oil painting above the
sideboard and grimace, pushing my hair behind my ears to try to
look more presentable. Peter isn’t a fan of my ‘bed head’ look.

“Hi!” I say, a
bit louder than intended. I throw my keys toward the little dish on
the sideboard. They miss and fall onto the floor with a sharp
clang. Smitty looks up, annoyed, from his prime position in Peter’s
lap. I swear that animal gets more quality time with my boyfriend
than I do.

“Hey, you’re
home.” Peter’s tone is slightly sharp. “Bit late, isn’t it?
Remember, there’s work tomorrow.”

I kick off my
high heels, trying not to let the flicker of irritation show on my
face. These days more than ever, Peter’s quiet and tense after
work. I don’t blame him; I’m stressed too after dealing with the
Botox Bitches, and I don’t get anywhere as close to them as he
does. Thank God.

Easing Smitty
away, I lower myself into the crook of Peter’s arm. The heat from
his body seeps through my thin coat, warming me up from the autumn
chill.

Peter pulls me
even closer. I flip on my side and we watch as the BBC woman talks
her discomfited way through the war in Afghanistan, onto the Middle
East and then through to some disturbed weather patterns in the
North. As if that’s news.

Ah . . . it’s
so nice lying here. I snuggle even closer, thinking we should move
this on to the bedroom. It’s been ages.

Peter grunts. A
grunt that sounds suspiciously like a snore.

“Peter!” I
turn, scanning his face. Yup, he’s snoozing. Guess I should have
come home earlier; I know what he’s like after ten o’clock. Still,
I’m not going to let a little sleepiness stop me. I move my hand
down to the inside of his thigh, smiling when I feel his body
respond. Oh yes, the doctor is definitely in.

Peter lowers
his lips to mine and presses against me, and I let out a contented
sigh. I’ve got a successful man who cares about me, and a great new
life in London. Now all I need is the job of my dreams, and
everything will be perfect.

Tomorrow, I
tell myself as Peter scoops me up and carries me into the bedroom.
Just wait until tomorrow.

“Have you seen
my blue tie?” Peter yells from the bedroom the next morning as I
jam myself full of Jaffa Cakes in the kitchen. I don’t care how
early it is, there’s no way I’m facing the Botox Bitches on an
empty stomach. My tummy is rumbly enough just thinking about
whether there’s a response from Leza Larke.

“No,” I grunt
through a mouthful of crumbs, noting with fascination how several
float out of my mouth and onto the black marble counter. I grab
some kitchen roll and carefully wipe them up. Brits don’t like
crumbs. Or maybe that’s just Peter.

“Serenity.
Serenity!”

I sigh and
stride into the bedroom. “I don’t know where your tie is,” I say,
lodging the Jaffa Cake in the side of my cheek to avoid spewing
more bits.

Peter stops
rifling through his closet and turns to face me. “Didn’t you take a
load of shirts to the dry cleaner’s last week? Wasn’t my tie in
with that?”

Staring up at
the ceiling, I strain to remember. Every week seems the same around
here, the days seamlessly blending into one giant mushy time
sponge. But I sort of remember thinking I’d do something nice and
take Peter’s shirts and that tie I spilled wine on (in my defence,
it was abnormally splashy wine) to the dry cleaner’s around the
corner. The guy had given me the tag and told me to come back . . .
Monday.

Shit. Monday
last week
. Eight days ago.

“Oh, um . . .
they needed extra time to get that wine stain out,” I fib. “Sorry I
didn’t tell you.”

Peter’s face
relaxes. “Oh, okay. I thought you’d forgotten, as usual.”

“Of course
not,” I say, coughing as more crumbs make their way down my throat.
As usual? When was the last time I forgot to get the dry cleaning?
Oh, right. Pretty much always. A geyser of frustration gushes
inside me. Why can’t I remember all these pesky domestic details?
No matter how hard I try, they always slip my mind.

I make a mental
note to pick up the shirts and tie on my way home from work
tonight. Peter’s got his monthly dinner with all the other
cosmeticians (he gets so annoyed when I call them that, but
‘cosmetic surgeons’ just seems too pompous), so I’ll be on my own.
I’m planning an exciting evening of takeaway curry. Then I’ll use
lots of dishes and leave them wherever I want. It will be nice to
have a breather from Peter’s
all-dishes-must-be-washed-as-soon-as-they-touch-the-surface
regimen.

I feed Smitty
his organic cat food and mushed-up meds, then Peter and I head out
the door, into the silent corridor, and down to the street. Just
like I do when I leave the clinic, I let the sounds of traffic and
the noise of people wash over me, taking in a deep breath of that
wonderfully sooty London smell. I love this city. If I breathed in
too deeply in Harris, I’d probably get a noseful of
eau de
manure
.

We walk at
Peter’s break-neck pace to the clinic. It’s only eight-thirty and
we open at nine, but sometimes the women are pacing around out
front just waiting for us. They stare daggers at me like it’s
my
fault we’re late, even though they’re the ones who can’t
tell time.

What makes it
worse is that Peter actually apologises, then tells me to get them
coffee, tea, Ex-Lax, and any other mushy food they consume. When we
first opened, we actually had biscuits in the waiting room – until
Mrs Rhinod, a recovering gastric-band patient, binged and had to be
rushed to hospital. Now we have yoghurt.

For once,
though, I don’t mind being rushed – I’m dying to check my inbox. I
flick on the computer, nervously tapping my nails on the desk as it
boots up.
Please please please
, I chant, clicking on Outlook
and holding my breath. This could be it. The pot of gold at the end
of my pitch rainbow.

But . . . I let
out my breath. There’s nothing.
Nothing
. Not even spam.
Disappointment floods into me, and I slump onto the stool. I was so
sure this was the pitch that would launch me straight to my dream
job.

Maybe
everyone’s right, I sigh, clicking open the patient schedule. Maybe
I should give up, focus on a real career. Join the pasty-faced
zombies I see every morning on the street lurching toward the
Tube.

I give my head
a little shake to clear the depressing thought.