Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Christmas Eve 4:15 p.m.

Outside on the street, Portobello Road is getting busier and busier with people frantically doing last minute shopping and heading to pubs and bars in order to toast their happy lives with plastic cups of hot wine that tastes of Glade PlugIn.

‘I have one more task I need to do,’ Adam says as we set off down the road, weaving in and out of tourists, shoppers and Christmas Eve revellers.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I have plans of my own.’

‘You said you were going home to eat noodles alone.’

‘Yes. That’s my plan.’

‘That’s a terrible plan. Where’s your festive spirit?’

‘Christmas is a commercial construct, designed to make idiots spend as much money as possible.’

‘I expect Jesus would be very disappointed to hear you say that.’

Why won’t this guy leave me alone? He’s an adult. Why can’t he just, I don’t know, hire someone to help him. Why is he treating me like some sort of servant? I’m about to ask him these questions when my phone rings and buzzes from my coat pocket.

I pull it out and glance at the screen. It’s Marcy. ‘Hey Marcy!’ I say super cheerily. ‘Everything okay?’

I cross my fingers that Jemima Crossley Jones’ design emergency has been fixed so that Marcy can come and take care of her irritating son herself.

‘No, it’s a total nightmare,’ she declares, dashing my hopes in one dramatic announcement. ‘We’ve managed to restore the lighting back to an elegant pink and purple, but the DJ has apparently double booked and the replacement they’ve sent hasn’t, by the looks of him, had a gig since Duran Duran were the hot new thing. So now I have to find a last minute DJ with some modicum of credibility while Jemima has the mother of all meltdowns and stress eats the entire party’s supply of gluten-free breadsticks!’

‘Yo, Mum!’ Adam calls out from beside me.

‘You’re still with Adam?’ Marcy asks. ‘I thought he’d be home by now.’

‘Yes!’ I say, pressing jollity into my voice. ‘I thought I’d be home by now too…’

‘I tried calling him, it just went to voicemail. Will you put him on the phone, please?’

Pursing my lips together I hand my phone over to Adam.

‘Mother!’ he says brightly. ‘How are you? We were just buying your gift!’

He pauses for a second and then says, ‘Yes. Very much.’ And then ‘Another few hours, ideally… they already have plans… Yes, the flight was tricky but I have many many painkillers... Okay… Thanks, Mum. I’ll put her back on now.’

‘Hello?’ I say, once the phone’s back at my ear.

‘Hi, yes. Phoebe, I’d be very grateful if you could stay with Adam just a little while longer. He says he has things to do and you were only going to go home anyway, weren’t you?’

I think of going home. The silence, the darkness, the binge watching horror movies and those lovely warm slippery microwaved noodles. It sounds perfect. And, I sense, a prospect much further away than it was thirty seconds ago.

‘Yes, but I was —’

‘He’s had such a tough time these past few weeks. What with his fiancée cheating and the leg, and now his new book tanking. He could do with a little kindness.’

Fiancée? Shit. I though it was girlfriend, not fiancée. And his new book has tanked? I’ve seen it in at least three local book shops. I side eye him. He’s tapping something on his phone, looking perfectly happy. Why is he acting so happy when his life seems terrible right now? Maybe too many painkillers?

‘If you could just help him out I would see it as a great personal favour to me.’ Marcy says and although she is not outright, I sense an undertone of ‘Do this for me and I’ll owe you.’

I picture myself in my own personal little office. No Jim. No Ellie. Although I don’t mind Ellie that much. No Horace the creepy IT guy who always looks at my boobs or Tracey the overtly sexual admin assistant. And then I imagine training with Marcy, little by little, learning to design rooms and spaces with the elegance and economy that she does.

‘No problem, Marcy,’ I say with competence in my tone and dreams in my head. ‘You can definitely count on me.’