Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

A well-rested woman is a Good Woman! A fruitful beauty sleep can be aided by a silk scarf around your hair, cold cream on your face and a glass of lightly warmed milk by your bedside.

Matilda Beam’sGood Woman Guide, 1959

I’ve been trying to get to sleep for the past forty minutes, and it’s just not happening. It’s still light outside, this bed is really lumpy, Mr Belding is a properly loud purrer and, quite frankly, my head is in a bit of a mess. Thinking about how to fix all the things in your life does not make for a happy, restful night. Anxiety snakes its way through my body, igniting every nerve ending and causing my foot to tap repeatedly against the old mattress.

Man, I need a cigarette. I know I absolutely shouldn’t because it might, you know, kill me and all that. But I need something.

I creep out of the bed, careful not to disturb Mr Belding, who is sprawled across the pillow next to me, and grab a Marlboro out of the emergency ten in my leather jacket pocket. I pull on the skinny jeans and blue lacy top I was wearing earlier and head out into the hall. It’s silent apart from the ticking of at least three unsynchronized clocks. Peach and Grandma are probably sound asleep. Pulling the key from a mahogany wall hanger, I creep out and tiptoe down the ruby-carpeted stairs. Getting through the hall without making a sound is difficult. I dip and curve and wind my way around useless objects, being careful not to trip. I do quite a good job actually. I’m like Catherine Zeta-Jones and her sexy laser-dodging in Entrapment.

Opening up the door to the building, I descend two of the front steps and sit out on the third one, stone still warm from the sun. It’s half past ten and it’s not even dark yet. A gorgeous golden-pink glow illuminates the plush private park opposite Grandma’s house. Blimey. To live here. With a park on your front doorstep. The nearest park to me in Greater Manchester is also the hang-out of crackhead Jimmy, the local crackhead, and all his crackhead buddies.

I light up, and a minute or two later I hear the door click open behind me. I scooch over so that whoever it is can get down the steps.

‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t smoke out here,’ says a Scottish voice beside me. I turn round to see the young curly-haired guy from before. The know-it-all doctor. Exactly who I wanted to see. Not.

‘Have you come outside just to tell me that?’ I ask with an exaggerated sigh as he stands in front of me, blocking my pleasant view of the park.

‘Yes. I’m afraid so.’

‘Were you, like, watching me out of the window or something?’

‘Um, no,’ he mumbles. ‘The clinic window is open and the dirty smell was wafting in. I couldn’t concentrate on my work.’

I stub out the cigarette underfoot. ‘Why are you still at work? Isn’t it a bit late?’

‘I’m studying for a summer school exam. Doctor Qureshi lets me use the building.

‘What exam?’

‘Well, I, ah, I will be doing a wet lab aortic dissection on a cadaveric porcine model in a few weeks and I want to get the theory down pat.’

‘Ooh. OK, that makes no sense to me, but it sounds hard.’

‘It is.’

‘Porcine … does that mean pig?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re operating on a pig?’

‘Porcine models are preferable for trainees, who are prone to making mistakes. Wouldn’t want to practise surgery on a human. At least not yet.’

‘Ew. Is the pig going to be alive?’

‘No. It’s a cadaver.’

‘Poor thing.’

He guffaws out loud as if I’ve just said something hilarious.

‘Why can’t you revise at your house?’ I ask.

He rubs his eyes. ‘My housemates are newly-weds . They’re doing what newly-weds do and it’s tough to concentrate with all their … sounds’

‘What sounds?’ I ask innocently.

‘Love sounds, etcetera.’ He frowns and then stares pointedly at my cigarette on the floor, the last orange embers dying out to grey.

‘Gad. What is it now?’

‘You can’t just leave that there.’

‘Jeez. No swearing, no smoking, no leaving something on the floor for A TINY MINUTE. Who are you? The … Life Police?’

‘Um, no. But it’s littering. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this is a really nice street. It should be kept that way.’

‘God, man.’ I pick up the cigarette with the tips of my fingers, mosey across the empty road to a racing-green litter bin and drop it in. I cross back over, indicate the now clear spot on the floor and put my hands on my hips. ‘Happy now?’

‘Yes, thank you. You’re keeping Britain tidy.’

I glare at him, willing him to leave me alone. I really would like to get back to my one-woman pity party on the stoop.

He fiddles with his white coat for a moment.

‘Would you, ah, would you like a wee cup of tea?’ he says eventually. ‘I could actually do with a break.’

He shuffles from one foot to the other and puts his hands in his pockets. The tips of his ears turn red.

Aaaah, I know that look. The doctor totally fancies me. Blue lacy top – works every time.

I squint at him. He’s quite cute-looking, I guess. Bit short, but nice glossy dark, curly hair and warm, long-lashed brown eyes. Nerdy. But really quite cute.

I suppose a little kissing might be a reasonable way to cheer me up, help me relax after the stress of the day.

‘You got any booze?’ I say.

He looks surprised. ‘Er … Doctor Qureshi is Muslim, so no. No booze.’

‘Fair enough. Tea will do.’

He nods brusquely and we go back into the lobby of the building. He opens up the door to the clinic and we walk in, past a posh waiting room with lots of big comfy-looking tub chairs and oil paintings of gross squelchy- hearts on the walls.

We enter a small dark room. The windows are flung open, and a light breeze makes the blinds turn from side to side so that they look as if they’re doing the twist. Along one wall are two hefty filing cabinets, and in the centre of the room is a desk covered in textbooks and papers with scientific diagrams of heart stuff on them. I hop onto the corner of the desk and dangle my legs down.

‘Is this your office then, Doc?’

‘It is.’

‘It’s teeny. How do you treat people in here? I can barely fit in. What if you have to treat a larger person? What if you have to treat a wrestler?’

‘I don’t actually treat patients on my own, so a cupboard-sized office isn’t a problem because nobody is in here but me. I’m a part-time assistant. Mostly admin, to be honest, but it looks good on my CV while I’m doing my specialist cardiothoracic training, and I get to be around a genius surgeon every day.

‘Why the white coat, then, if you’re just here to do admin?’

Jamie goes a little pink in the cheeks. ‘I’m still a doctor.’

‘Yeah, but you’re not doing any doctoring here.’

‘I, ah … I suppose I like how it looks,’ he admits with a self-conscious shrug before pouring bottled water into a small kettle.

I laugh. Jamie responds with an embarrassed chuckle.

‘So you’re going to be a heart surgeon too?’ I ask, as he pulls two mugs from his desk drawer. One of them is an NHS mug and the other has little pink hearts dotted all over it. Man, this guy loves hearts so much.

‘Yeah, that’s the plan.’

‘Sounds like hard work.’

‘It bloody is. But I love it.’ He rubs a hand over his five o’clock shadow. ‘What’s your profession, Jess?’

Hmm. What is my profession? Best friend dragger-downer? Grandma-botherer? Future best mate of crackhead Jimmy? Who the fuck knows any more?

I swiftly change the subject to something much easier.

‘You don’t have to actually make the tea, you know,’ I say, indicating the boiling kettle.

‘Excuse me?’ Jamie turns round. ‘I thought you said you want—’

‘We could just get straight to the kissing bit?’

‘I’m sorry?’ He drops a spoon; it clatters onto the floor. ‘I don’t quite … ’

‘Come on, Doc. Didn’t you invite me in here because you fancy me?’

He stutters and fiddles with a teabag. ‘Er … well … yes. I suppose I did, but—’

‘It’s fine. Chill. I’m not like most girls. You don’t have to woo me and all that fluff.’

He raises his eyebrows and looks down at his feet.

After a very long and awkward moment, I sigh and hop down off the desk.

‘Listen, Doc. Thanks for the offer of tea and all—’

But before I can finish the sentence, Jamie has scuffled over and gently pushes me back onto the desk.

‘That kissing bit sounds rather nice,’ he says, taking hold of my hand.

‘Yeah,’ I shrug. ‘It usually is.’

And so we do the kissing bit.

* * *

Doctor Jamie is standing in front of me while I’m sitting on his desk. We’re snogging. Like, really full-on snogging. He’s pawing every inch of my body as if he’s never had a woman before. He pulls back and looks at me with a serious expression. I don’t know, maybe henever has had a woman before. He is pretty awkward. Maybe I’m his virgin voyage. Gad. Maybe he’ll want to cuddle afterwards. Must find a way to escape before that happens.

Either way, I can’t deny that having sexy times is, as I expected, the most excellent distraction from the whole failing-at-life thing.

Jamie runs his hands down my back and pulls me off the desk so that I’m on my feet. Grabbing my bum, he draws me closer to him. I feel his hard-on press against me and get a flutter of excitement. He runs a hand through my hair and tugs a little on my ponytail.

Oooh, OK. Definitely not his first time. Though I hope he doesn’t tug much harder, else he’ll pull out my hair extensions and that would really ruin the moment. Wait, stop,give me my hair back.

‘I’ve never done anything like this,’ he murmurs, panting and pink of cheek.

‘Like what?’ I breathe, kissing his neck.

‘Not knowing a person before … but you … I can’t believe this is happening. How the hell did we … ? At work, of all places … I can’t believe what is happening right now … ’

He trails off and steps back to unbutton his shirt, eyes glassy with le horn.

‘How are you finding it?’ I say, using his shirt collar to yank him back towards me.

‘Super.’ He nods decisively. ‘Excellent, actually.’

We start kissing again and things move at speed. It feels so great to let loose, to not feel worried and guilty about things, to feel the comfort of surprisingly strong arms around me. Isn’t sex fucking brilliant?

We stumble into another room connected to Jamie’s office, some kind of examination/storage room with a high single bed covered in blue paper and tons of boxes and metal trolleys

I unbuckle Jamie’s belt and he tugs off my blue lacy top and my bra. He presses his palm against my boob and lets out a groan. Pulling down his trousers, he steps out of one leg, still kissing me with an eagerness the level of which I have not encountered on my sexual adventures thus far. The other trouser legs seems to be stuck. He hops around a bit trying to get it off.

I laugh. ‘Hurry up, Doc.’

‘I’m trying. Trust me.’

Leaning forward at the waist, he clutches the bottom of the trouser leg, but then somehow bends too far and topples over into a metal trolley.

‘Owww!’ He falls to the floor and a bedpan boinks him on the ear.

‘Holy shit, are you OK?’ I hurry over and try not to laugh. What a twit.

‘Ouch,’ he says, rubbing his elbow and then his ear.

‘I hope you’re more coordinated than this in the operating theatre.’

‘Ouch!’ He says again, pouting up at me pointedly and grumpily clutching his arm.

‘Show me the damage.’

He rolls up his shirt sleeve to reveal an emerging bruisey bump on his elbow. His eyes are watering.

‘Fucking hell,’ he groans.

‘You can’t say fucking hell in here,’ I say in a ropey Scottish accent.

He gives me a wry smile.

‘Shall we stop?’ I indicate our state of undress.

‘No. No,’ he says valiantly. ‘I think I’ll make it.’

‘So brave.’

Then, without another word, he scrambles back up and kisses me as if his life depends on it.

* * *

It’s just after 9.30 the following morning and Doctor Jamie and I are frantically trying to get dressed and cleaned-up before Jamie’s boss arrives and the clinic opens up at ten. We pretty much did sex the entire night through. Well, until about five this morning, when we slumped onto one of the clinic beds, exhausted and dazed. It was good, too, in a surprising kind of way. Doctor Jamie had sex the way I expect he does most things, with deep concentration, a touch of awkward politeness and lots of enthusiasm.

‘I can’t find my bra!’ I mutter, wriggling into my top in a panic. ‘Dammit. I love that bra.’

‘It’s here.’ Jamie grabs it from beneath the sheet of the clinic bed and flings it my way. ‘I used it as a pillow.’

I don’t have time to take my top back off and put the bra on, so instead I just wrap the strap around my wrist.

‘I have to go. I think breakfast was, like, two hours ago,’ I say, dragging my skinny jeans up my legs as quickly as it’s possible to drag skinny jeans up legs, which isn’t very.

Jamie nods and runs his hands through his wet curls. ‘OK, yeah. Uh … are you around for the rest of the week?’

I think about explaining to him that I’ll be leaving tomorrow and that I’ll probably never see him again because my life is in turmoil and I have zero friends in the world and what does that all say about me? But the mood is light and I don’t want − let alone have the time − to explain my shitty situation to a one-night stand.

‘Sure, sure. I’ll be around.’

‘Good. Right. I’ll, er, call for you, shall I?’

‘Call for me?’ I grin. ‘OK, I’ll ask my nan if I’m allowed to play out.’

He goes pink at the ears again. I chuckle. ‘See you later,’ I say more kindly. ‘I enjoyed us doing “it”.’

He waves me off with a very big I’ve just had a great deal of sex grin on his sleep-crumpled face.

Bless.

* * *

I hurry back into the lobby and up the stairs. Why are there so many stairs? The muscles in my thighs burn with each step.

‘Ow. Ow. Ow … Ow,’ I hiss to myself as I make my way up. Must do a warm-up next time I intend to make lurve for an entire night.

Ow.

God, I’m so late.

At the sound of the door opening, Peach comes running out of the kitchen and into the hallway of doom, a pretty floral saucer in her hand. ‘Where have you been?’ she whispers, sidestepping an old KitchenAid, her eyes wide with apprehension. ‘We thought you’d left! Mrs Beam’s been very upset.’

‘Oh sorry. I, er, I just went for a … early morning run.’

‘A three-hour run?’

‘I like to run.’ I shrug a shoulder casually. ‘Anyway, Mr Belding is still here, and all of my stuff. I wouldn’t have left them behind!’ I hop over a cardboard box full of brightly coloured poster paints.

Peach purses her plump lips, a small frown gathering at the top of her freckle-covered nose. ‘Be careful not to trip over again coming through here. Mrs Beam is having her meeting in the drawing room with the lady from the publisher. I don’t think it’s going well at all and disturbing them might make it worse.’

Drawing room? What is this, the olden times?

‘Why isn’t it going well?’

Peach’s eyes flicker towards the ‘drawing-room’ door. ‘I’ve only popped in and out with tea a few times but, from what I gather, the publishers aren’t here to make an offer to reprint Matilda’s books at all, they’re here to tell her that they’re absolutely not interested in republishing her books and that she should stop sending them letters about it. It seems they only sent someone in person out of respect for their history with her.’

‘Oh, that sucks.’ I feel a spike of sympathy. Publisher rejection. Grandma and I have that in common.

‘It is an awful shame,’ Peachy squeaks, fiddling with the end of her plait. ‘Lord knows what we’re gonna do now.’

‘Something will come up, I’m sure. It always does.’ I pat Peachy’s arm briskly. ‘As for disturbing them, don’t worry about that. I’m a pro at this hallway now. Check it out.’ I twist sideways in order to angle myself past a dismantled pewter bedstead and before I’ve even taken one step, some sticky-out part of my body nudges a wonky table, off the top of which a bowling ball comes rolling, dropping onto the floor with an almighty thud.

‘Fuuuck,’ I hiss.

Peach puts a palm to her cheek. ‘Oh mah goodness.’

The drawing-room door immediately swings open and out glides Grandma, wearing a sage-green twin set and pale gold scarf-slash-shawl. She looks so relieved to see me, overwhelmingly so, until her eyes drop downwards and she spots the hot pink bra dangling from my wrist. Then her gaze travels slowly back upwards to what I suspect is the hairstyle of someone who has blatantly just been mega-shagged. She presses the back of her hand to her forehead.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ she says beseechingly. ‘I thought … I thought—’

‘Sorry! I was just out, you know, running.’

‘Running? Running away? Running where?’

‘Just … around. I like to run.’

She gives me the same worried look she was giving me yesterday. I cross my arms with a prickle of annoyance. And then, as if things couldn’t get any more ridiculous, a head pops up from behind Grandma’s shoulder. It’s a familiar head with beautifully highlighted hair and a hugely impressed, dazzling grin.

‘Jessica Beam? How wonderful! What a fabulous, abstract idea to use a bra as a bracelet. You’re so creative!’

What the hell is Valentina Smith doing at Grandma’s house?