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2. NO-MAN’S-LAND

I was a little late to work the next day, so my usual desk was taken. I waved at Owen, who I usually sit with, across the grey no-man’s-land of desks and chairs. I could feel other people looking up at me from the trenches, so I ducked down into the nearest seat, next to Stan, one of the press officers. I usually try to avoid Stan, because he breathes loudly and eats crisps all day. An unsociable combination. This morning he’d gone for salt and vinegar rather than cheese and onion, which was a blessing.

I couldn’t concentrate on logging the new emails and letters – my session with Nicky was still playing on my mind – so I pulled out the latest letter from Eric, the Bomber Command vet, written on thin, yellowing lined paper in shaky blue biro, and started drafting my reply.

You’re not supposed to draft a stock response to government correspondence – you’re supposed to treat each letter writer as an individual. There are guidelines that tell you how to address a Baroness (‘Baroness Jones, not Lady Jones; it’s important to distinguish Baronesses from women who become Ladies when their husbands become Sirs’) and how to refuse an invitation to a Minister (‘Unfortunately, pressures on her diary are so great that she must regretfully decline’). Sometimes you take letters to the Minister for their signature. Sometimes, if the letter isn’t addressed to the Minister, you sign it yourself. Some people write back over and over again, so working on the correspondence team is a bit like having lots of self-righteous pen pals. Eric, the Bomber Command veteran, wasn’t self-righteous, though.

The care home staff are under so much pressure that they don’t have as much time to spend with us as they used to. I think the cuts to social care are a crying shame. Older people are an easy target, because once we reach a certain age, we’re hidden away out of sight.

Most of the old dears at my care home don’t get any visitors at all. That just breaks my heart. I’m lucky – I have a daughter who comes and sees me twice a week. She’s very good. But it’s very lonely getting older. I miss Eve, my wife, more than I can tell you. She died four years ago. Have I told you about her already?

Lovely Eric. He reminded me of my granddad, who I missed every day. When I was at university, Granddad had written to me every month or so, in wobbly, old-fashioned handwriting, telling me stories about his allotment and his cats, always slipping a ten-pound note into the envelope. I had usually been too busy getting drunk to write back. So I took extra care with my letters to Eric. I typed out the old lines about difficult choices and austerity, and then I asked him to tell me more about his wife, because I knew what it was like to be lonely. I caught myself thinking: At least he had a wife. And then I realized that being envious of a bereaved care home resident was taking self-pity too far, and decided to pull myself together.

I finished my letter and I was wrangling with the printer – usually you have to put the headed notepaper in face down, with the letterhead closest to the printer, but someone had fiddled with the settings – when I saw Owen heading to the kitchen for a coffee. I decided to corner him.

I glanced into the hallway to check that no one was about to interrupt our conversation and asked, ‘How long has it been since you had sex?’

Owen spends most nights gaming, and most of his lunch breaks reading comic books, and not a lot of time with members of the opposite sex. So I thought his response to my question would make me feel better. I was wrong.

He glanced at his watch. ‘Two and a half hours.’

‘You had sex this morning?’

‘That’s right.’ Owen crossed his arms and smirked.

‘No need to be so smug about it.’

‘But I am smug!’ said Owen. ‘Do you know how long it had been before I met Laura? Four years.’ He grabbed my arm and gave it a little shake. ‘Over four years. I hadn’t had a shag since I was twenty-four!’

I felt slightly better after that. ‘I haven’t had sex in three years.’

I could see Owen trying to arrange his face into an expression of sympathy. ‘Poor you,’ he said.

‘So. Who’s Laura?’

He shrugged. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks.’

‘Great.’ I nodded and smiled, as convincingly as I could.

‘She does roller derby. She has tattoos all over her thighs.’

‘I don’t think I need to hear about her thighs,’ I said, lowering my voice as a group of Fast Streamers walked past the kitchen, speaking to each other in low voices as if they knew something we didn’t, which they undoubtedly did.

‘Sex is great,’ he said, smiling to himself in a way that let me know he was thinking about Laura’s thighs. Or what was between them. Grim. ‘I’d forgotten how good it is.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Don’t rub it in.’

The sex chat made us late to our team meeting. Owen and I huffed into the glass-walled meeting room, breathless, saying, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ as we sat down.

Tom didn’t look up. He had a very passive aggressive management style – that’s what I’d have liked to say in the annual Staff Engagement Survey, but our team was so small I thought he’d trace the feedback to me and passive-aggressively punish me for it. Probably by making me answer all the correspondence about Brexit.

There were three of us on our immediate team besides Tom: me, Owen and Uzo, who was smiling up at me kindly now. Uzo was always smiling at me kindly. She’d been working on the correspondence team for twenty years and had the least ambition of anyone I’d ever met. Whenever I messed up, she’d say things like, ‘Don’t worry, girl. You won’t care when you’ve worked here as long as me,’ and I’d go and quietly hyperventilate in the toilets. She did have a lovely collection of statement necklaces, though.

‘As I was about to say,’ said Tom, still not looking up, ‘they’re bringing in a new Grade Six.’

Owen and I looked at each other.

‘What, another senior manager?’ said Owen.

‘Yes, Owen,’ said Tom, smiling his tight smile.

‘Above you?’ said Owen.

‘Yes,’ said Tom, his smile tighter still. ‘Above me.’

‘But we thought you were going to be promoted,’ said Owen.

‘Yes, well. So did I,’ said Tom. He fiddled with his tie.

‘Fuck,’ said Uzo, which, to be fair, was what the rest of us were thinking.

‘And I have it on good authority that the new Grade Six is hardline on swearing in the workplace.’

‘Shit,’ said Uzo.

‘That was a joke,’ said Tom.

‘What’s his name?’ asked Uzo.

‘Her name,’ said Tom, ‘is Smriti Laghari. I’m pleased to see you were paying attention during unconscious bias training.’ Sarcasm was another of Tom’s management techniques.

Owen took out his phone and started Googling Smriti. ‘She’s with Private Office at the moment. Used to be a banker.’

Groans from around the table. Former bankers were the worst for trying to make the Civil Service more efficient, which often meant getting rid of people and cutting ‘luxuries’ such as having enough desks for people to sit at.

‘According to LinkedIn, her interests include Cardiff University, Pineapple Dance Studios and the London Amateur Violinists’ Network,’ continued Owen.

‘I can play the cello,’ said Uzo. ‘Maybe we could form a quartet. Ha!’

Tom closed his eyes a moment, as though trying to gather his strength. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘We just need to cut down on the backlog before she gets here. Let’s show her what a brilliant, efficient team we are. Shall we?’

We stared at him. He had never used the words ‘brilliant’ or ‘efficient’ to describe us before. Nor, it’s safe to say, had anyone else.

It was dark by the time I left work. I called my mother as I walked down Victoria Street to the Tube, trying not to slip on the lethal rotten leaves that covered the pavement.

‘It’s me,’ she said, as she picked up.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘I called you.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’m a bit distracted. I’m on the computer, doing the Sainsbury’s shop. They have a very good offer on olive oil, if you need any.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, imagining her in the lovely warm kitchen in leafy North Oxford, my dad at the table next to her, reading his undergraduates’ essays and grumbling about how badly academics are paid these days. I suddenly wanted to be there with them. ‘How are you?’

‘Awful, if you must know,’ she said. ‘The neighbours are digging out the basement and doing a loft conversion.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’

‘A nightmare. Nothing but dust and banging. And the mess in the street. They’ve thrown away the Victorian doors!’

‘Not the original features!’ I said.

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Julia,’ she said. ‘The house is going to look ridiculous. And it’s not as if they need more space. There are only four of them! They’re knocking down all the walls downstairs to build an entertainment centre.’

I was approaching a new tower block on the corner of Vauxhall Bridge Road. It looked like a middle finger, mocking me.

‘Sorry, darling,’ said Mum. ‘You caught me at a bad time. They just came round for a chat about the party wall and called our kitchen “quaint”. What can I do for you, anyway?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m about to get on the Tube.’

‘Wait, darling. What were you calling to tell me?’

‘Nothing much. Just a new Grade Six joining our unit.’

‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘What does that mean?’

‘She’s going to be in charge of our department. It sounds like she might want to make things more efficient.’

‘I’m sure you’re very efficient, darling.’

‘No, I’m not. And I’m a contractor, so I’m easy to get rid of.’

‘No one has said anything about you losing your job yet. Have they?’

‘No.’

‘Well then. Anyway, it’s not as though you’re the Health Secretary.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Come on, darling. You know what I mean. You’re selling yourself short, staying in that job.’

‘I’m not qualified for anything else!’

‘Rubbish! You could train to become a Pilates teacher. Or an osteopath.’

‘You think osteopaths are quacks!’

‘Fine. A barrister then!’

‘Be serious.’

‘You could! You could go to law school!’

‘Who’s going to pay for that?’ I said.

‘Or edit books, like Alice does. You have exactly the same qualifications as her.’

‘Yeah, because that’s a great way to make money. She’s been doing it for five years and she still has “assistant” in her job title.’

I heard her sigh.

‘I miss dancing, Mum,’ I said.

‘Of course you do,’ she said. ‘But I did warn you.’

That felt like a low blow, but it was true. Mum had been a ballerina too, and had done all right for herself – a stint at the Royal Ballet, dancing as soloist in a couple of Kenneth MacMillan productions – but it’s hard to have children and keep dancing, so she retired soon after meeting my dad. ‘You’ll be washed up at thirty,’ she had told me, when I got into ballet school. ‘You’ll feel guilty every time you eat a potato. And you’ll never meet a man who isn’t a homosexual.’ But I was sixteen, and when you’re sixteen thirty is ancient, and anyway, being washed up is sort of glamorous, the way being addicted to painkillers is glamorous. I didn’t think I’d be over the hill at nineteen, though. The summer after I graduated – after, against the odds, I’d been hired by the English National Ballet for their production of The Nutcracker – I broke my ankle turning a pirouette on a sticky floor during class and that was the end of that.

I think it was Martha Graham who said that a dancer dies twice and that the first death – the one that comes when you stop dancing – is the most painful. I didn’t know what I was, if I wasn’t a dancer. I didn’t know who I was, either. I felt like the only good and interesting thing about me had been taken away. I still felt like that, sometimes.

‘Look, darling,’ said Mum, ‘I know it’s hard. But I find a lot of satisfaction in doing walking tours. It appeals to the performer in me. You could come home for a while and try it out, see if you like it.’

‘That’s never going to happen,’ I said.

‘Well. The option’s there if you need it.’

I didn’t say anything. The idea of moving home and working at my mother’s walking-tour company made me want to die.

‘I’m not leaving London. All my friends live in London,’ I said, really wallowing in it now. ‘Not that it matters. They’re basically all in relationships. Everyone has someone except me.’ My voice rose to a squeak. ‘I thought I was independent. But I’m just really sad.’

‘Your therapist told you that, didn’t she?’

‘She’s very intuitive.’

‘You’re just feeling sorry for yourself. If you want to meet someone, go online! Isn’t that what everyone else is doing these days?’

‘Last time I went on a Tinder date, the bloke talked for half an hour about why Dysons are the only vacuum cleaners worth buying. And he made fun of how quickly I eat.’

‘Well, darling, you do tend to bolt food down—’

‘Plus I kept getting—’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Just – horrible messages.’

Mum whispered, ‘Dick pics?’

‘Yes,’ I said. And then: ‘How do you know about dick pics?’

‘They were talking about them on Woman’s Hour,’ she said. ‘Repulsive!’

‘Exactly.’

‘Still, darling. You can’t complain until you’ve really put yourself out there.’

‘That’s what my therapist said.’

‘Maybe she’s not completely hopeless then.’ She sighed again. ‘Listen, I have to go. If I don’t pay for this shop in two minutes I lose my delivery slot. Do you want to come up for dinner tonight?’

‘No thanks, I’m OK,’ I said.

‘All right. But you’re coming for Dad’s birthday?’

‘Yes.’

‘He wants a nice shirt or a biography of Hitler.’

‘OK.’

‘Take up gardening. It’ll do wonders for your anxiety levels.’

‘I don’t have a garden.’

‘You can always come over and help me with the pruning.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

‘Are you feeling better?’

It took me a moment to reply. ‘A little bit.’

‘Remember, being alone isn’t the same as being lonely. Believe me, being single is a damn sight better than being with someone who makes you miserable.’

In the background, my father muttered, ‘I heard that, Jenny.’

So I gave in, and that Friday, I ‘put myself out there’ for the first time. I’d been watching a lot of US box sets on Netflix, which led me to believe that sitting alone at a bar knocking back shots was acceptable, even attractive, behaviour; it always seemed to lead to handsome strangers saying ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ and whisking you upstairs for well-lit sex. But it didn’t quite happen like that for me.

I live in Manor House, which is convenient if you like the Piccadilly line and Finsbury Park and kebab shops, but not if you’re looking for a ‘putting yourself out there’ location. I decided to walk down to the Rose and Crown in Stokey; I’d seen Jarvis Cocker there once, and I’ve always found him attractive, despite the age difference. Apparently he used to live in Paris, and I thought his voice would sound sexy saying ‘Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?’ or perhaps something slightly smoother. Not that I expected him to do all the chatting up.

I felt quite powerful when I was getting ready to go out. I’d never been to a pub on my own before. It seemed like the sort of thing a grown-up, sexy, independent person might do – I could see myself swishing in, stilettos clacking, leather skirt squeaking erotically, as I signalled authoritatively to the barman for a shot of vodka. Now, I didn’t own a leather skirt, and I always find it hard to get a barman’s attention, but whatever. I was a good-looking woman taking charge of her own destiny! Maybe I’d find someone I sparked with. Or someone who didn’t laugh when I did my ‘sexy’ face – I’d settle for that at this point.

I put on my good pair of underpants (not as faded as the others) just in case I got lucky, and my most flattering jeans. I didn’t have a clean bra, but hopefully the lighting would be low if I got to the point of taking my top off. I considered wearing heels, then remembered that I’d once bruised my coccyx dancing the ‘Macarena’ in a pair of wedges, so I went for trainers instead. I brushed my hair and nodded to myself in the mirror. ‘Looking good, Julia,’ I said out loud, panicking momentarily before I remembered that Alice was out at a book launch and wouldn’t hear me chatting myself up. (A low point.)

I left our flat and marched down Green Lanes towards the pub listening to the ‘Young, Wild and Free’ playlist on Spotify, my heart beating louder than the music, my breath white in the cold night air. I was alive! Anything could happen!

And then I was at the Rose and Crown and the whole thing suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. The windows were steamed up with the breath of everyone having a lovely time inside without me. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d turned back.

I pushed the door open and did my best to swish my way to the bar. It wasn’t easy – the pub was packed with tight-knit groups of friends, laughing at in-jokes, not looking particularly open to being chatted up by lone women. There was no sign of Jarvis anywhere. I sat at the bar and drank a large glass of house red incredibly quickly, trying to catch someone’s eye, but I was hemmed in by tall men leaning over me to order drinks, knocking into me with their rucksacks.

One man did notice me – an old bald man with a very red nose at the other end of the bar. As he raised his pint to me, I looked away, and then realized that I probably looked just like him – a lonely borderline alcoholic, albeit younger and with more hair.

I rummaged around in my bag for a bit after that, trying to look purposeful, a ‘Where are my paracetamol?’ expression on my face – and then my phone buzzed with a text from Alice: Where are you, Jules? Me and Dave going to a party with some of his friends, want to come?

I ran all the way home, my vision jarring as my feet pounded the pavement in that fun way it does when you’ve had some wine and you’re about to have a lot more.