Chapter 1

ChapterOne

I’m calling it.This year is officially my most rubbish yearyet.

Olive Brewster’s Most Rubbish YearYet.

My top fivereasons for this declaration are as follows:

Reason Number One:My brother Alex and his girlfriend Donna are kicking me into the teeny box room of the house we share. Donna wants to use my big room as a studio for her new scented-candle business. She hasn’t even started making any scented candles yet! But apparently they ‘want to be prepared for when it happens’ and need me ‘not to be a dick aboutit’.

Reason Number Two:I’m twenty-seven years old and I work as a fishmonger in Manchester Indoor Market. It was supposed to be a temporary job to help me pay my way through university. Nine years later I’m still here. It’s not terrible, I suppose. But it’s not exactly captivating either. The regular customers are pretty sweet and I know the job back to front, but mostly I’m skint and spend way too much time elbow-deep in cod, avoiding eye contact with all the fish who still have their heads and are definitely staring atme.

Reason Number Three:I haven’t had sex in almost ten years. Not even a tiny bit of sex. The entire world tells me it’s something that would make me feel amazing if I did it. But I’m entirely convinced that sex is a really dumb idea. I’ve seen first-hand how it makes people lose control, become selfish, turns them into reckless boneheads ruled only by their peens and vajeens. I don’t want to be like that! I like my life simple. Safe and sure and certain… and sex-free. Or at least I thought I did… Because the thing is, last month I watched Atonement for the first time, and you know that scene where Keira Knightley and James McAvoy do it standing up in that posh library? Well, it gave me a rather pleasant and curious sensation in my very own vajeen. A rather pleasant and curious sensation indeed. My sans-sex lifestyle has never, ever bothered me before. My first time was fumbly and awkward and not something I was eager to repeat. Plus, I’ve not met anyone I fancied in years, so it’s never really been an issue. But… now I’m starting to wonder. What if everyone is right and I’ve been missing out? I can’t get the thought of that steamy library sex out of my mind. I think of it multiple times a day and it won’t buggeroff.

Reason Number Four:Last month I did one of those Buzzfeed quizzes that let you know which Harry Potter character you are. I got Buckbeak. Yeah, I know. I couldn’t remember Buckbeak either. Not even one of the main players. Not even a human. I mean, why even include that as a possible result on the quiz? It’s just hurtful. I only thank God that I wasn’t in Hufflepuff. Ain’t nobody want thatshit.

Reason Number Five:My best friend Birdie is dying.

* * *

‘Are you all right,dear? You look like you’re about tocry.’

I’m tugged out of my melancholic daydreaming by the customer I’m serving – an elderly fellow called Norris who comes to the market every single Thursday afternoon to buy a peppered tuna steak for his supper. He’s been coming here for as long as I’ve been working at this place. Always Thursday afternoon, always a peppered tuna steak. I find the routine of his turning up so regularly, always choosing a certain dish on a certain day very comforting. He’s a man after my own heart. Where possible, it’s nice to know what to expect! Birdie objects when I say this. She reckons the fun of living is all about the unexpected. But I’ve experienced the unexpected and let me tell you, I am not about thatlife.

‘Oops, sorry, Norris.’ I smile at him. ‘My mind was somewhere else! Tuna steak, yes?’

I reach into the chilled counter to grab the fish fillet when Norris’s gravelly voice stopsme.

‘Actually, love, I think I’ll go for a seabass today.’

I freeze, my hand dangling mid-air inside the counter, my eyes sliding across to my colleague Tall Joan and then to my boss Taller Joan. They don’t seem to notice that Norris, who has been getting the same tuna for time immemorial, has suddenly changed his regular order to seabass.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask suspiciously, wondering what on earth has caused Norris’s unforeseen change of habit. ‘Are… are you… is everything okay, Norris?’

I think my question comes out more accusatory than I intend it to, because Norris frowns, his thick white eyebrows lowering so much that they almost obscure his heavy lidded blue eyes. ‘I just fancied something different is all, Olive. Nice to switch things up once in a bluemoon.’

Nice to switch things up? The last time I switched things up was in 2010 when I bought some coloured contact lenses on a ‘whim’ and people thought I had glaucoma.

‘Oh.’ I say, fumbling over his new order. ‘Cool. Totally! Great!’

Something different.

Fancythat.

* * *

On my wayhome from work that evening, I button up my plum-coloured duffle coat and wander through central Manchester towards the tram stop that will take me back to the rural suburb of Saddleworth where I live. The sky is still blue and bright, the springtime weather crunchy and fresh like a Granny Smith apple right out of the fridge. I amble through Piccadilly Gardens, saying hello to the friendly florist with her pretty pop-up flower shop. At Café Milo, I stop, as I do each week, to pick up a big cup of tea, cheese and ham baguette and custard tart for Mickey, the homeless man who can always be found on the benches by the fountains.

I smile as I approach the busking cello player outside Superdrug. He’s there playing for the commuters every Thursday night without fail. I toss a pound coin into his cellocase.

‘Thanks, Olive!’ he yells cheerfully as Ipass.

‘Cool cello playing, George!’ I call back, giving him a thumbs up. I have Fridays and Saturdays off work so I won’t see him again until next week. ‘Have a brilliant weekend, George!’

‘Youtoo!’

I’m about to reach the tram stop but, before I do, a smiley-faced woman jumps right in front of me and blocks my path. Who is this person? What does she want from me? Why is she in my face, smiling so loudly? If I were a cat, I’d be all puffed up right now, fur on end, hissing, all ofthat.

‘I’m not looking to invite Jesus into my life at the moment,’ I explain, concluding that a person so smiley can only be someone who has recently discovered the lord and wants me to do thesame.

‘Ha ha! Good one!’ the girl says, handing me a paper flyer printed with the words ‘Secret Comedy!!!’

‘Secret Comedy, three exclamation points?’ I ask, intrigued. ‘Why is the comedy a secret? Who is it a secretfrom?’

‘It’s just a marketing trick,’ the girl explains. ‘Secret stuff is all the rage nowadays, right? Secret bars and secret speakeasies, secret gardens, secret cinema, secret pot brownie in your bottom desk drawer at work for when your boss is talking about Excel macros and you wonder how long it will be until your head pops off with boredom, you know? Haha.’

‘Oh!’

‘Anyway, it’s a free improv comedy show we’re putting on. And there’s usually an open mic session afterwards, if you’re up forit?’

I feel a little frisson of interest somewhere deep in my stomach. But it’s Thursday night and that’s always The Big Bang Theory night with Alex and Donna who are obsessed with The Big Bang Theory. We have dinner and then we watch it together as a family. They’re expecting me to be there. And even if I wanted to go to this secret show, I really need a shower because, let’s face it, eau de seafood is not a good bouquet on anyone. Plus, I can hardly go to a comedy club on my own. That would just be strange. What if more strangers tried to talk to me? Or the comedy folk peer-pressured me to getting on the open mic? And somehow I decided that that was the time to spew out all of my worried thoughts about poor Birdie into the ether. And someone in the audience shouted ‘What do you think this is? The damn therapist’s office?’ And everybody laughed at me, instead of with me. And I became the joke of Manchester and probably the entire secret comedy world at large?

‘Ah, it’s all a bit last minute for me, to be honest,’ I say eventually, backing away from smiley woman. ‘But thanks for the invite!’

The girl shrugs and wanders off to some other Manchester commuter, chirpily convincing them to come to her gig, expecting them to abandon their prior plans on a weeknight, like that’s such a simple thing to do. I watch, and for a moment wonder, enviously, what it would be like to be her. Brave enough to stand in front of people and be funny. Confident enough to approach strangers and boldly ask them to come see it! Someone completely unafraid.

With a wistful sigh, I turn on my favourite distracting 90s pop playlist, reach my tram stop and wait patiently for the tram to arrive and take me back to reallife.