The Single Girl's To-Do List (13 page)

Thoroughly ashamed, I accepted that it was time for my punishment. I picked up the phone.

‘Veronica Mantle,’ she answered right away. ‘Can I help you?’

Uh-oh.

Now, I knew for a fact that Veronica recognized my number. And for the six years she had been my agent, her response to seeing that number on her screen was exclusively ‘what the fuck do you want?’ or ‘darling, I have fantastic news’, so either she’d had a recent head trauma and developed a completely new personality, or this was some hilarious joke. That only she was in on.

‘Veronica? It’s Rachel.’

Nothing.

‘Rachel Summers?’

‘No, it can’t be,’ she replied. ‘She’s dead.’

Double uh-oh.

‘Um, no, definitely not dead.’ I tried a nervous laugh but it just came out as a faint squawk. ‘Felt it yesterday though.’

‘Right.’ Veronica did not return my squawk. ‘But if Rachel wasn’t dead, she would have returned my calls before now. Or fled the country before I came over to her house to kill her.’

The last two words were so carefully enunciated, I actually turned in my seat to see if there was a Tarantino-esque hit man at the door.

‘Yeah,’ I mumbled into a steadying sip of tea. ‘Not dead. Dumped, not dead.’

‘I haven’t dumped you yet.’ Her voice was worryingly breezy. ‘Oh god no. If this in fact is Rachel and she isn’t dead, I won’t be dumping her until she’s had the mother of all roastings, cried like a baby and begged for my forgiveness. Then, if she’s really lucky, then I’ll dump her sorry arse and she won’t fucking work another day in her hopefully very short life. Have you got any fucking idea what sort of damage limitation I’ve had to do because of your fucking temper tantrum? How many arses I’ve had to kiss? I thought I was going to have to suck Ana’s dick to calm her down at one point. And she doesn’t have a dick, Rachel. So how was I going to do that? Tell me how?’

Veronica never had been one to mince words.

‘I don’t know?’

‘So no, I haven’t dumped you yet. I suggest you start your grovelling apology now and I’ll let you know when to stop, you fucking knob.’

‘I meant Simon dumped me,’ I whispered. And I’m sorry. Very, very, very, very, very, very, very—’

‘What the fuck?’

Was cutting me off mid-apology the same as letting me know when to stop?

‘Rachel, what did you just say?’

‘Simon dumped me?’

‘When?’

‘Saturday?’

‘And you went to work on Monday?’

‘I did.’

‘Even though you knew you were going to have to work with that ridiculous twat?’

Did she mean Dan or Ana?

‘Yes.’

‘In that case, what can I do for you today, my love?’

I held my phone away from my ear to check the number. Had I just redialled my mum by mistake?

‘Really?’ It wasn’t that I wanted to push my luck, just make sure I hadn’t been whacked and then slipped into some sort of personal heaven where life suddenly became easy.

‘You should have fucking called me before now.’ She dialled her volume down from eleven to somewhere around eight and a half. A good sign. ‘And you should never have fucking gone in the first place but since you haven’t fucked up ever before and that, as of right now, you are my own personal bitch, I’ll let this one go. Did you know she’s fucking Dan?’

‘I did.’ I stopped waiting for the barrel of the rifle to pop through the letterbox and turned my attention back to my tea. ‘They’re going to have to come up with a new kind of STD for them to give each other.’

‘Well, you owe him a thank you,’ Veronica replied. ‘He talked her down. I’d say send flowers but maybe a box of assorted condoms would be better. Barbed-wired for her pleasure.’

‘Nice,’ I winced and crossed my legs.

‘You’ve also got a “let’s go out and get twatted on expenses” voucher to redeem. You free later?’

She really was a great agent. If it weren’t for the fact she’d told my mum that all she really needed was to go out and get properly shagged at my twenty-fifth birthday party before blasting out ‘I Touch Myself’ on karaoke, I’d have even called her my friend.

‘I think I’m still hungover from Saturday. And Sunday.’ Still far too soon for alcohol. ‘But there is something you could help me with.’

‘You do know I can’t actually have anyone killed, don’t you?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Not that I want that getting out to the masses.’

‘I assumed people just killed themselves on your command.’ I touched the list for good luck. ‘No, I was hoping you could get me some international work. I really want to travel for a bit.’

‘Hmm.’ The keys of her keyboard clicked for a few moments. ‘I’m not just going to be able to pull something out of my arse for you on this, you know? There aren’t that many people out there who know you. Which is entirely your own fucking fault.’

‘I know,’ I said, turning my profanity filter up a notch. I hardly ever even heard it any more. ‘But I really want to get out there. I don’t care if it’s shows or shoots, studio, location, whatever.’

‘You haven’t done anything on location in years.’

If she hadn’t been an agent, Veronica would have made a fantastic mechanic. She was a teeth-sucking away from, ‘And I don’t like the look of that head gasket one little bit’.

‘Now, if Dan weren’t fucking furious with you, he’s got a job booked in Sydney in a couple of weeks. I could have pulled some strings and got you on that if he’d insisted. The editors love him.’

Oh, fuck a duck.

‘Give me a couple of days, yeah?’ She sounded confident enough. ‘And just take it easy until then. Go out, get twatted, shag some ridiculously fit moron who won’t be able to follow you home. Never been a better time to be single, Rachel. Women have the dicks now. We’re the men. We say who, we say when, we say where and we say how. Who wants a boyfriend when you’ve got bigger balls than they have?’

I said my goodbyes, chugged my cold tea and spent the rest of the afternoon trying not to think about the size of Veronica Mantle’s balls.

‘Raaaa-cheeeeel.’ I felt a hand lightly tapping the top of my head. ‘Waaaaaakey-waaaakey.’

As long as I lived, I would never, ever forgive Matthew for waking me up in the middle of a dream involving Ethan Harrison, a music stand and certain acts that 16-year-old Rachel would have been horrified by because her mum said they made you a loose woman. And that was when the term ‘loose women’ still meant you were just a bit of a slag, not Jane McDonald, a former
Coronation Street
barmaid or a Nolan.

I really didn’t feel like getting up. After speaking to Veronica, I’d spent the rest of the day cleaning out my cupboards, trekking all my crap down to the charity shop and carting three tins of emulsion, two roller trays and a selection of paintbrushes back from B&Q. Of course, by the time I’d got home and stuck masking tape all round the doorframe, I was too knackered to do anything else. I blamed my run. Marathon, practically.

‘What time is it?’

‘It’s almost ten.’ He pulled the cushion out of my hands and started bashing me over the head with it. ‘Get your arse up. We have to be there by half eleven; it was the only time they could fit us in.’

At least Matthew brought coffee to accompany his violence. I shuffled into a sitting position and held my hand out for caffeine-y goodness before I could even open my eyes properly.

‘Excellent work on the sugar-to-coffee ratio,’ I mumbled, glugging it down.

‘Since you’re still in the first few days of this process, you’re allowed a lie-in,’ Matthew grabbed an arm and pulled. ‘But really, we have an appointment.’

‘You’re not getting me fitted for some horrifying contraceptive device, are you?’ I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. ‘Where are we going?’

‘If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise, will it?’ He snatched my coffee and held it over his head.

Totally cheating.

If there was one thing Matthew loved, aside from doing it with boys, it was a surprise. Once he’d prised me out of bed and dragged Emelie away from her computer, he refused to part with any details of where we were headed. All we knew was that it was twenty minutes away and we were headed there on foot. I was so knackered by the time we came to a halt outside a pair of big black wooden doors, I was pretty certain I’d agree to whatever he had planned as long as it meant I could have a sit-down.

Which was a bit of luck actually.

The three of us were standing outside a tattoo parlour.

‘Am I really doing this?’ I asked, looking from one to the other. ‘Seriously?’

‘Totally serious,’ Matthew nodded. ‘But not you, us. I was thinking about the list and you’re right. There’s no joy in sitting around moping, so I wanted to help. This was pretty much the only one I could organize at short notice. Looks like bungee jumping is going to take a few days.’

I launched myself at him in a giant hug. ‘Jumping off a bridge with a skipping rope tied to my ankles aside, I’m actually really excited.’ I could feel all my hair giddiness rearing back up. Times a million. ‘I can’t believe we’re getting tattoos.’

‘Why do I have to get one?’ Emelie dug her hands into the pockets of her cardi. ‘I really, really don’t like needles.’

‘Because we’re doing this together.’ Matthew pulled her into the hug against her will. ‘And because you’ve already sodding well got one anyway.’

She responded with her middle finger.

‘So what are we getting?’ I asked, half desperate to get in there and get inked before I lost my nerve, half terrified. If Em already had a tat and was behaving like this, just how much was it going to hurt?

‘I thought, we should get something very deep and meaningful,’ Matthew started. ‘Like James Franco’s face. But then my artistic talents didn’t extend beyond this.’

He held out a piece of paper showing three five pointed stars intertwined with delicate twirly bits. There really wasn’t a word for twirly bits but it was gorgeous.

‘Where?’ I asked.

‘Chest.’ Matthew tapped just above his heart.

‘Shoulder,’ Em sighed. ‘I suppose.’

‘Really?’ I tried to imagine the design on my bare skin. Shoulder didn’t seem right.

‘Not as tacky as a tramp stamp,’ Matthew said, pulling up Emelie’s T-shirt to reveal an elaborate scroll design at the base of her back. ‘See?’

‘Piss off.’ Em yanked her top back down until it reached her barely there denim shorts. ‘I was seventeen, everyone was doing it.’

‘That’s how the Nazis got into power, you know.’ Matthew looked away as he spoke. ‘Let’s do this.’

‘It hurts,’ Matthew wailed ten minutes later. ‘I can’t do it.’

Emelie was seated on a stool in the far corner of the room, in silence, burly tattoo man number one starting on her third star, while Matthew lay on a bed in the middle of the room and was far from silent. ‘It really, really hurts,’ he began whining again.

Burly tattoo man two sighed and pulled away the needle. ‘I did tell you this was a sensitive area. I’m almost bloody done. So either shut up and let me get on with it or I write pussy across your forehead.’

Matthew gritted his teeth and nodded for him to continue, the self-sacrificing trooper that he was. I sat quietly beside the bed, letting him try and break my hand while I waited for one of the artists to finish up. Did all tattoo parlours have to be painted red? And did all tattoo artists have to have aggressive haircuts? The walls were covered in the artists’ previous works: seemingly there was a huge preference for crosses, roses and boobs amongst London’s tattooed community. Where were the pretty tattoos you saw on celebrities? Was the wall art some sort of test for the people who just wandered in for a Tweetie Pie on the ankle?

‘Right, I’m done,’ burly tattoo man number one announced over by Emelie’s stool. ‘Let’s have you over here.’

‘Let go,’ I hissed, wriggling my hand out of Matthew’s grip and walking bravely over to the stool. Em shuffled across to an empty seat, a little pale but at least she wasn’t screaming in agony. Unlike some people.

‘It was fine,’ she said, wincing as the tattoo artist laid the dressing over her fresh ink. ‘Not nearly as bad as I thought.’

I explained to the artist what I wanted – the same design as Emelie and Matthew, on the inside of my left wrist – and closed my eyes as he took a disposable razor to the area. Then he wiped it down with antiseptic and laid out his tools. Fresh needles. Fresh ink. Bloody great big buzzing power tool that was about to scar me for life.

‘Just breathe; it’ll only take a minute,’ he reassured me with a smile. Underneath his lack of hair and assorted skull and naked woman tattoos, he actually seemed quite lovely. ‘Really, it’s not that bad, just a scratch.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, trying to ignore my increasing heart rate and squeezing my eyes shut. To be honest, the razor bothered me more than the needle. At least it did until I heard the needle power up. It was like a dentist drill. A dentist drill was about to be applied to the delicate skin of my inner wrist. ‘I’ll be fine.’

And I was for the first couple of seconds. Then the stinging started. Followed by the undeniable sensation of a needle cutting into my skin. So it was true. Tattoos were not pricked on by unicorn horns. Damn it.

‘Are you all right?’ I heard Matthew ask. The lack of sobbing coming from his general direction suggested he was finished.

I nodded in response but couldn’t quite make words. This really wasn’t as pleasant as sitting in a salon and having someone fuss all over me for an afternoon. But I was getting a tattoo. Me, a tattoo. Next up, swearing at the teacher and smoking behind the bike sheds.

‘Well, while you’re incapacitated, I have some exciting news.’

Oh god. What could it be? He was moving to Mexico with José. He was going on
Britain’s Got Talent
. He was pregnant.

‘So, you know how me and Emelie both know your Facebook password?’

‘Leave me out of it,’ she shouted across the room. Burly tattoo artist number one frowned at the raised voices. He was obviously a delicate thing.

‘I did not know this Matthew, no.’ I gritted my teeth and prepared myself for the worse. I had a horrible feeling – a feeling that had nothing to do with the needle being dragged through my skin – that I knew what he was about to say.

‘It’s nothing really. Nothing that wasn’t going to happen anyway, I’ve just sped things along a little bit. I might have messaged Ethan,’ he backed away until he was out of kicking range, ‘as you.’

‘As me?’ My voice was unnaturally squeaky. But then, there wasn’t anything natural about having needles dragged through your skin, was there? ‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing, I just sent him a message asking if he was the Ethan Harrison you used to go to orchestra with and, you know, hello. That’s all.’

I didn’t need to see his face to know he was lying.

‘And what else?’

‘Nothing! Really.’

‘Matthew?’

‘Nothing. But, well, he replied.’

Burly Tattoo Man Number One finished up with a smile.

‘All done,’ he said, wiping off the tiny drop of blood and excess ink. ‘Keep it clean, put a dab of antiseptic cream on it a couple of times a day and you’re golden. Then kick him in the balls, that’s a proper shit thing to do.’

I thanked him with a hug, which admittedly might have been a bit much, but the post-tattoo endorphins were starting to buzz around my body. If I felt good for getting a haircut, I felt amazing for getting a tattoo. It was suddenly very clear to me how people got addicted to this.

Once we were all done, I couldn’t stop looking at the white bandage on my wrist. Matthew was looking very pleased with himself. Emelie just looked as though she was going to throw up.

‘Let’s get you outside.’ I put my arm around her waist and walked her towards the door.

‘I’ll pay, don’t worry,’ Matthew called after us.

‘Oh, you’ll pay,’ I promised. ‘Don’t you worry.’

After Matthew had settled up, we headed out for the freshest air we could find to revive Em. I led the wounded soldiers to a couple of empty benches outside the Tate Modern in complete silence. I had no idea what I wanted to say to Matthew. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but say? Nuh-uh. It had taken a little over an hour to do all three tattoos and by the time we made it over to South Bank, the sun was high in the sky, behind London’s landmarks.

‘I cannot believe you did this.’ I clutched at my dressing, focusing on that fresh tattoo buzz and not the rising homicidal tendencies I was experiencing. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘You know I try not to think where men are involved,’ he shrugged, sitting down beside me while Em took the neighbouring bench alone. She looked as if she needed a minute. ‘I thought it would be good for you. He’s cute, you already know him, he’s in another country. It’s totally safe flirtation.’

‘Just tell me exactly what you said,’ I sighed.

‘Not a lot.’ Matthew flung his leg over the bench, narrowly missing clubbing Em in the face. ‘Just the usual, good to hear from you, what are you up to, I’m doing this, blah, blah, blah.’ He passed out cans of Diet Pepsi he’d picked up en route.

‘You don’t get to blah-blah over the details when you hack into my Facebook page and email boys,’ I said, holding the cold can of cola to my bandage. ‘What exactly did you say? Word for word.’

‘Wouldn’t it just be easier for you to read it?’ Matthew suggested. ‘I can’t remember what I said, you’ve got an iPhone.’

‘No, you need to read it out loud so I’ve got my hands free to punch you at the pertinent parts. I can’t do that if I’m holding a phone and a drink.’ I huddled up next to Emelie, who was still sitting quietly, can unopened in her lap. ‘And be quick about it, it’s not warm.’

‘Fine.’ He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket. ‘Just remember before you start getting shitty, I did this for you.’

‘Whatever, just read it.’ I hugged Em a little closer and stared across the water, watching buses run up and down the roads, St Paul’s peeping out above them. Pretty.

‘Hi there, I’m not totally sure if you’re the right Ethan Harrison, it’s been so long! But if you are, I’m Rachel Summers and we were in an orchestra together when we were younger. I was just messing around on Facebook and thought I’d look you up. Give me a shout if this is you! Would be great to be back in touch. Rachel, kiss kiss kiss,’ Matthew took it upon himself to read the message out in a hilarious girl voice. Which was, of course, hilarious.

‘And he replied?’

‘He did, right away.’ He traded his girly voice for a terrible Canadian accent despite a) being seated next to a native Canadian, and b) that he was well aware that Ethan had grown up in bloody Surrey. ‘Hi Rachel! Yes it’s me! It’s so great to hear from you!’

‘You don’t need to exaggerate the exclamation points quite so much.’ I couldn’t deny it, my heart was pounding. Ethan bloody Harrison. Ethan Harrison thought it was great to hear from me. Or from a 29-year-old gay man masquerading as me.

‘Whatever, what straight man is so excited about life? “Hi Rachel, yes it’s me, it’s so great to hear from you. How’s it going? I tried to look for you on here once but I couldn’t find you. Seems like there are a lot of Rachel Summers in the UK. So what’s going on with you? Married? Kids? Still in Surrey? I moved to Toronto after A levels when my dad got a job out here. It’s pretty awesome. I’m a high school music teacher now – who’d believe it after how bad I sucked in orchestra, right? Lol!”’

‘Lol?’

‘Lol.’

Hmm. Wasn’t sure the father of my children would Lol.

‘And then just “Write me back, I’d love to hear from you.” Which is nice.’

‘I ought to throw your phone in the bloody river,’ I said. Ideally I wouldn’t have been grinning ear to ear as I spoke, but beggars can’t be choosers.

‘Do it, I need an upgrade.’ He gave me a nudge.

‘You ought to be shot.’ I picked at the edge of my bandage. ‘You reckon I can take it off yet?’

‘Yeah, it’s been ages.’

It hadn’t even been an hour.

Matthew pulled at the neck of his shirt, unfastening a couple of strategic buttons to peer at his own. ‘Ew, it’s been bleeding.’