The Assistant. S. K. Tremayne
piquant.
Are you looking for:
1 Hook-up?
2 New friends?
3 Short-term dating?
4 Long-term dating?
At the bottom there’s an option for Are you open to non-monogamy?
Ouch. Part of me would like to answer the last question: I certainly was, as that is the truth. But it is surely too truthful: it was me that started it, it was me that lit the long sad fuse that led to our divorce. I started it with funny sexy Liam, the barman and would-be actor. Liam’s initial approach was entirely innocent, a throw-away compliment about my journalism, on Twitter, from a guy I’d never met. Then we became Facebook friends, and Instagram pals, and WhatsAppers, and within a few days of online chat I was sending this smart, witty, diverting guy endless sexts and nude selfies, because I was bored, because my marriage was stale, because I was foolish, because it was fun even as I knew it was wrong – so I can hardly blame Simon, my husband, for having an affair with Polly the pleasant nurse after he discovered my three months of virtual infidelity.
I’ve heard since that Polly doesn’t like me so much; I am the ex that looms a little too large in Simon’s life. But what can I do? She’s right to dislike me. Or it is, at least, totally understandable.
Sadness descends. Alongside memory, and guilt. Staring at the OKCupid site, I feel, quite suddenly, as if it is asking me too many questions. What’s it going to ask next? How do you feel about your father?
Leaning forward, I put the laptop to sleep. Like stroking a cat that instantly snoozes. I’ll finish this profile later. I need air, darkness, freedom.
‘Electra, I’m going for a walk up Primrose Hill.’
The blue ring dances in response. It whirls around fast, then even faster, as if something is inside it. Something maddened, and angry. Definitely alive. Is it meant to do this? The sensation is unnerving – but I’m not quite used to the tech yet. I need to read the online instructions. It is probably designed to react this way.
The blue light spins to a stop. And blinks out to black.
Picking up my coat, I go into the kitchen and make a mug of hot coffee, then, carrying this, I head for the door. I need the anonymity of the endless streets. The great and indifferent city.
I love the size of London for this reason: its vastness. No one cares who you are. No one knows your secrets.
The wind is satisfyingly bitter in its cold; carrying a vivid rumour of snow. Wrapping my multicoloured don’t-run-me-over scarf around my face, I cross the junction of Parkway, the social divide that separates the posher end of Camden from the ultra-poshness of Primrose Hill, which hides like a snooty and castellated village behind its canals and railways and the expanse of Regent’s Park.
I am still clutching that mug of hot coffee. It’s for our local homeless guy, who usually sits on a wall on the other side of Delancey Street, between the pub and the railway cuttings. He’s a tall black guy in his fifties with a sad, kind face, and wild hair. When I first moved in, Tabitha told me he’s from the homeless shelter on Arlington Road, and that he likes to shout about cars. I like cars. Do you like cars? Mercedes, that’s a car. Cars!
For that reason, she calls him Cars, he’s the Cars guy. Apart from that, she simply ignores him. In the last few weeks, however, I’ve got to know him. His real name is Paul, though in my head I can’t help calling him Cars, like Tabitha. Sometimes, on cold nights like tonight, I go outside with a mug of hot tea or soup to keep him warm, and then he says I am pretty and should have a husband, and then he turns and starts shouting CARS CARS CARS! and I smile at him, and I say, See you tomorrow, and I walk back inside.
This evening, however, is too cold even for Paul: he has stopped yelling Bentleys! and he is huddled in a corner of the railway wall, barely speaking. But when he sees me, he emerges, smiling his blank sad smile.
‘Hey! Jo! Did you guess I was cold how did you do that?’
‘Coz it’s totally bloody freezing. Shouldn’t you go back to the hostel? You could die out here, Paul.’
‘I’m used to it.’ He shrugs, eagerly taking the coffee. ‘And I like watching the cars!’
I shake my head and we smile at each other and he tells me he will give me back the coffee mug tomorrow. As ever. He often forgets, so I have to buy new ones. I don’t mind.
Waving him goodbye, I walk on.
A taxi shoots past, orange light bright, glowing, desperate for business. I wonder if Uber will kill off London cabs before the internet kills off paid journalism. We’re both on our last legs: positively racing towards annihilation, hurtling into the dark London drizzle. But I don’t want to die yet. Not when I’m about to write that killer script. Probably.
Waiting for the traffic lights to change, I jog, impatiently, to keep warm. I know where I’m going: my exact route. I walk it almost every evening. Regent’s Park Road, then up the hill, then the main street of Primrose Hill village, then curving round Gloucester Avenue and home. It takes me roughly forty-five minutes. I wonder if people have learned to recognize me by the sheer regularity of my patrol: Oh, here comes that woman who always walks this way. What is she looking for?
As I cross the road, I have an idea: I’m going to ring Fitz. Who I met through Tabitha, years ago. Yes. Slender, darkly greying, smartly charming, cynical-yet-theatrical Fitz. We could go for a drink somewhere. Get an Uber to Soho gay bars, where he is usually found; I like the way everyone in these bars will abruptly stop drinking and sing lustily to the chorus of Andy Williams’ ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’.
I Love You Baaaaby …
Passing the grand pastel houses by St Mark’s church, I pluck my phone from a warm pocket and dial with cold fingers.
Voicemail.
‘Hi, this is Fitz, you’re out of luck, darling. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.’
That’s his usual voicemail message. Deliberately camp. I laugh, quietly, into the dewy cold wool of my scarf, then scroll further down my contacts. Who else can I call? Who could I drink with? Tabitha is in Brazil. Carl is out of town working. Everyone else … Where is everyone else?
They’ve gone elsewhere, that’s where everyone else is. The truth of this bites deeper every time I open my phone contacts. My drinking pals, my peer group, my beer buddies, the sisterhood, the tribe of uni friends: they’ve dispersed. But it’s only since I divorced Simon that I’ve realized just how many of my friends have dispersed: that is to say: got married, stayed married, had kids, and moved out of London to places with gardens. It is, of course, what you do in your thirties, unless you’re rich and propertied like Tabitha. Living in London in your twenties is hard enough – exacting but exciting, like glacier skiing – having a married life with kids in London in your thirties is essentially impossible, like ascending a Himalaya without oxygen.
I am one of the last left. The last soldier on the field.
Crossing Albert Terrace, I start the walk up Primrose Hill as my fingers pause on J for Jenny. She’s probably about my only childhood friend left, Simon apart. Jenny used to be around my house all the time, for playdates and sleepovers, then her parents divorced and she moved away, and I pretty much lost touch, though Simon kept a connection with her because they ended up working in the same industry.
Jenny is employed, in King’s Cross, by one of the biggest tech companies. That’s how Jenny and I reconnected: when I was writing my big