After six bags of crisps, three bottles of wine and two hours of heated
debate, we were both incredibly drunk and also getting somewhere with
The List. And there wasn’t a trip to the post office to be seen.
‘’K, ’K, ’K, let’s go through it one last time.’ Matthew held up the last
napkin on the table that wasn’t already covered in discarded drafts of my todo
list. The definitive top ten things I needed to achieve before I could fully
declare myself single. I was still unclear as to why Emelie thought learning
to juggle would make me a more successful singleton, but still, they were
trying. Matthew cleared his throat and – with some ceremony – began.
‘Number one, makeover.’
‘Not a makeover,’ Emelie interrupted. ‘It’s like, a complete
transformation. We’re changing your hair, your clothes, your make-up;
we’re redecorating your flat. Everything.’
‘I do need a haircut,’ I admitted. And, more importantly, the living room
totally needed painting. If I just kept my mouth shut, there was a good
chance I was getting two free painter’s mates out of this list. Result.
‘What’s next?’
‘Exercise regime,’ declared Em to a chorus of groans, taking the pen
from Matthew and writing it down. I’d been trying to get this one off the
table since two bottles of wine ago. ‘No arguing. It’s important; you’re
skinny and shit now but you do not get off your ass unless someone makes
you and one day you’re going to wake up fat. Trust me, you’ll feel
amazing.’
‘Sitting on the sofa after a long day at work or dragging my arse down to
a horrible sweaty box filled with horrible sweaty people who judge me for
not being able to do the treadmill for more than ten minutes without falling
over and then charge me sixty quid a month for the pleasure?’ It was an
excuse I’d used on myself for many years. Unfortunately, it looked as
though I was much easier to convince than Emelie.
‘Then no gym but, dude, this is staying on the list.’ She threw her hands
out in front of her. ‘No arguing. That’s the rule. You can’t argue with the
list.’
‘Can’t argue with the list,’ Matthew concurred. ‘Which brings us to point
number three. Do something extreme.’
‘I think I’d just be happier …’ Pause to hiccup. ‘… if all the points of the
list were more specific. That one’s open to a lot of interpretation. And what
I consider too extreme might be totally normal to him.’ I pointed at
Matthew with my glass. Why did my arm seem so heavy all of a sudden?
‘Let’s not go there,’ he shook his head. ‘Let’s be honest, I have done
some truly terrible things with some truly terrible people.’
‘It means bungee jump or skydive or something.’ Em tried to pull the
subject back. ‘Not move to Australia or shave your head.’
Bungee jumping. Really? I was beginning to doubt the legitimacy of the
list.
‘I’m supposed to get over a lifelong fear of heights and do a bungee jump
within two weeks?’ I dropped my head onto the table. Ew. Sticky. ‘This is
hard.’
‘It’s not meant to be easy.’ Matthew pulled my head up by my ponytail.
‘It’s meant to teach you what you’re capable of.’
‘I thought it was meant to be fun?’
‘It will be fun,’ they chorused.
Me plus heights did not equal fun. It equalled the need for adult nappies
and therapy. I couldn’t even go on the rides at Alton Towers without being
drunk first. Which, incidentally, it turns out they frown upon. Nothing like
throwing up on Oblivion to find out you’re not allowed to bring alcohol into
an amusement park.
‘And you’ll be a billion times stronger for it afterwards,’ Em said.
‘Besides, you’re the one who said you wanted to get it all done by your
dad’s wedding, not us.’
My dad’s fourth wedding was coming up in two weeks and I needed a
date. There was no way I was going on my own so that my evil Aunt
Beverley could ask me where my boyfriend was then go on to tell me all
about my cousin’s three fabulous children. I was certain she was the one
who had told my grandmother on her deathbed that I was a lesbian. But I’d
applied that timeframe on the second draft of the list when it still included
‘wear high heels every day for a month’ and ‘learn to cook’, not when it
involved me risking my life for my friends’ amusement. Maybe it would be
easier just to rent a male prostitute for the wedding. Maybe we’d fall in
love. Maybe it would be a wonderful story to tell our children. Maybe I’d
catch something dreadful from him and I’d never be able to actually have
children. Hmm. Might just stick with the list.
‘Whatever, number four?’
‘That’s a perfect one actually,’ Emelie said. ‘Find a date for your dad’s
wedding. Let’s get you right back out there.’
I had sort of been planning on asking Photographer Dan to do the deed
but I let her add it to the list. It had taken an entire packet of Kettle Chips to
bargain her down from anonymous sex with a stranger to a date with no
required physical contact, so I was just going to shut up. It would still count
if it was Dan, wouldn’t it? It would still technically be a date to the
wedding.
‘Number five. Do something he wouldn’t approve of,’ Em declared.
‘And you can’t double up on activities so the bungee jump can’t count as
something he wouldn’t approve of. It has to be something totally different.’
‘I’m doubling the bungee jump up with number five, scare myself to
death.’ I pouted for a moment. Simon wasn’t a big rules and restrictions
kind of a boyfriend. If anything, he was too lazy to try to stop me doing
anything, and there wasn’t anything I’d ever wanted to do so badly that I’d
have tested that. Except …
‘I want to get a tattoo,’ I took the napkin and added it to the list. ‘Simon
hated tattoos. I worked with this model once and she had this gorgeous
cherry blossom thing up her back and ever since then I’d always wanted
one but I never got one in case he didn’t like it.’
‘See? This is such a good idea.’ Matthew raised his glass with more
success than Emelie before writing ‘tattoo’ on the napkin. ‘Congratulations,
you’re getting a tattoo.
‘Six,’ he shouted. We were so embarrassingly drunk for the middle of the
afternoon. Sod it: I’d had a very bad day. ‘Buy yourself something
obscenely expensive and selfish.’
‘Like a Vespa scooter you drive once?’ I asked as innocently as possible.
My hair felt heavy. I needed to stop drinking.
‘Exactly like a Vespa scooter you drive once. I don’t feel guilty. Think
about all the money you’re saving in birthday and Christmas presents. And
trips to see his shitty family. Wedding presents for his shitty friends. You’re
completely entitled to buy something that benefits no one but you in the
aftermath of a break-up.’
‘Can I buy myself something too?’ Em asked.
‘No,’ Matthew replied. ‘You’re already utterly selfish.’
‘Moving on,’ I said quickly. ‘What else?’
‘I still think you need to write the letter.’ Em was too drunk to care about
Matthew’s insults at this point. Thank god. ‘I know we took it off the last
draft but I think it’s a good idea. It’s closure.’
‘Fine,’ I waved my hands in defeat. ‘I’ll write the bloody letter.’ I really
didn’t want to do this one. Why spend a perfectly good evening stirring up
exactly what the rest of the list was trying to suppress? I was supposed to be
getting over Simon, not sobbing into a piece of Basildon Bond over how he
didn’t love me any more. But if it was on the list, it was happening. ‘But I
get to pick the next one. I want to travel.’
‘You can have that.’ Em stood up suddenly and not at all steadily. ‘I need
a wee.’
‘That’s nice,’ Matthew took back the pen as she climbed out from her
spot at the back of the table with all the grace of a drunken giraffe and
wandered off across to the bar. ‘You can have travel but you have to go
somewhere you’ve never been before. Where do you want to go?’
‘Can we have this as one of the slightly vague ones?’ Names upon names
of places tumbled through my mind. There were so many places. ‘I only
have two weeks after all. And I’m guessing Milton Keynes won’t count.’
‘You’ve got to use your passport,’ he replied. ‘That’s the only stipulation.
Got to get the stamp in your passport.’
Throwing myself out of a plane to my inevitable squishy death was one
thing but travelling somewhere that required a passport inside two weeks?
That was ridiculous. And sort of exciting …’ How am I supposed to
manage that?’ I challenged, hoping he had a viable suggestion that didn’t
involve us waking up drunk on a ferry to Norway.
‘I don’t know, can’t you get a job abroad or something?’ he shrugged.
‘Travelling isn’t hard.’
The truth was, I’d been passing up international jobs for so long that my
long-suffering and foul-mouthed agent, Veronica, had stopped putting me
forward for them. It wasn’t as if there was a lack of work or lack of demand
for my talents (no point being modest, I was drunk), but I hated to be away
from home when Simon was alone. Which seemed really quite stupid now.
Maybe I could put in a call. Couldn’t hurt.
‘I thought of one while I was in the lav,’ Em yelled with delight, and
threw herself across Matthew to get to her seat. ‘You need to buy a
vibrator.’
Despite how red my cheeks already were from All The Booze, I felt
myself colour up from head to toe. How did she know I didn’t have one
already?
‘How do you know she doesn’t have one already?’ Matthew asked. Part
of me was delighted that he’d read my mind, but part of me was just sort of
shocked he hadn’t passed out with shame. He must be more drunk than I
could tell.
‘Trust me,’ Em shook her head. ‘She doesn’t. You don’t, right?’
‘It’s not going on the list,’ I said. ‘It’s not. Going. On. The list.’
‘Then you pick one,’ she slumped back in her chair. ‘I’m out of ideas. Or
drunk. Or drunk and out of ideas.’
I knew she was still sulking about not getting rebound shag on there, but
there was no way I was writing that down. I wanted to show willing but I
didn’t want to have to drop my knickers for some random. In fact, I was
fairly certain that there was going to be no knicker-dropping for some time.
God, this was getting depressing. Maybe I should reassess my need for a
vibrator.
‘How about contact my first crush?’ I suggested. ‘That might be a fun
one. There was this boy I was totally in love with when I was fifteen and
then he moved away. That would be a learning experience, wouldn’t it?’
Em was still pouting but Matthew looked interested. ‘I like it,’ he
declared after a couple of sips of wine. ‘Sort of like coming full circle.
Show that there was life before knob-face and that there will be life after.’
‘I think it’s lame,’ Emelie said, but it was too late. It was on the list.
‘So,’ Matthew was counting on his fingers. ‘We have makeover, exercise,
bungee jump – or similar, tattoo, date for the wedding, buy something
obscene that isn’t a vibrator, write a letter to knob-face—’
‘Do we have to keep calling him that?’
‘Yes,’ they said simultaneously.
‘Buy something, travel somewhere you’ve never been before, hunt down
your first crush—’
‘And give him one.’
I spat a mouthful of wine across the table.
‘Emelie, you’re not helping.’ Matthew looked appalled. ‘And that’s
nine.’
‘It has to be ten,’ I said. ‘Can’t have nine.’
‘You are a mental OCD cow,’ he replied. ‘Fine. One more.’
We sat staring at each other around the table while my mind ticked over.
Learn to play the guitar. Appear on a reality show. Swim with dolphins.
Run the marathon. Date someone from each of the armed forces. Shag a
boy in a band. Get a pet. Volunteer for a charity. Wow, I really was getting
desperate. Before either Matthew or I could venture a suggestion, Emelie
broke the silence.
‘Break the law,’ her eyes glittered. ‘You have to break the law.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I didn’t even look up from my lovely, lovely wine.
‘I’m not going to break the bloody law.’
‘Actually …’ Matthew said quietly.
‘Oh shut up,’ I gave him the look. ‘I’m not breaking the law. I have never
broken the law. I don’t even go over the speed limit. You know this.’
‘Which is exactly why you’re going to do it,’ he said, adding it to the
bottom of the napkin. ‘Amazing.’
‘I can’t believe you’re going along with this.’ I rubbed my eyes in
disbelief. And to try and make them focus more clearly. ‘Seriously?
Matthew?’
‘We’re on the verge of an all-new Rachel Summers,’ he replied,
dramatically shaking the list to dry the not-even-slightly-wet ink. ‘Devilmay-
care law breaker and international playgirl, Rachel Summers.’
‘Don’t forget the tattoos,’ I reminded him. ‘If I’m going to be crossing
over to a life of crime, I’m going to need the prison tats.’
‘This is going to be so much fun.’ Emelie poked at the last surviving bag
of crisps. ‘So. Much. Fun.’
I took the napkin from Matthew and studied it carefully before slipping it
inside my bag. What was I signing up for?
‘For me or you?’
He looked at Em, who, with a little difficulty focusing, looked back.
‘Definitely us,’ he said, both of them nodding. ‘Definitely us.’
Once Emelie had finished drinking the last drops of wine directly out of the
bottle, we agreed that was a sign it was time to leave. Helping each other
out of our seats, I tried to stand as steadily as possible, walking in
something akin to a straight line out of the pub, blinking into the late
afternoon sunshine. I looked up at the sky, not quite understanding why it
wasn’t dark. I’d been up for ages. It had been some time since I’d been this
drunk in the day, but I had a horrible feeling that this was the beginning of
something, rather than a one-off. I also had a horrible feeling that I was
going to puke.
Against all odds, the three of us managed to stagger home in one piece
and collapsed on the sofa. Within five minutes, Em and Matthew had
passed out. I sat back in the middle of the sofa – Emelie snoring her head
off on my shoulder, Matthew curled up against the arm, his feet in my lap –
and stared into the mirror in front of me. Nothing had changed. The sofa
was still red, my grandmother’s mirror still hung over the fireplace and the
patch of damp in the corner of the room still needed taking care of. Nothing
had changed but everything was different.
Easing myself out of the drunken BFF sandwich, I tiptoed into the
kitchen to get some water. Glasses still in the cupboard, cold tap still not
really cold enough. I drank one glass straight down, filled another and
leaned against the kitchen counter. Everything had seemed OK in the pub.
We had my list to think about, fish fingers to eat and, most importantly,
wine to drink. But now I was home … now it was real. For some reason, I’d
half expected Simon just to be lying on the sofa watching Final Score and
eating Doritos like it was any other Saturday. But he wasn’t. The flat was
empty. Just like it would be from now on. Almost as soon as the thought
settled in my mind and the water had hit my stomach, I felt it coming right
back up.
Thank god the flat was small enough for me to make it into the bathroom
in time. There were very few things in life I disliked as much as throwing
up, which was one of the reasons I really didn’t drink that much. Bracing
myself against the sink, I washed my face and stared at my reflection in the
mirror, trying to convince myself that the hot tears streaming down my face
could be easily explained by the fact I’d just puked.
‘That’s it,’ I told myself quietly. I might be drunk at four on a Saturday
afternoon but I didn’t really want anyone to hear me talking to myself. ‘No
more tears.’
Granted, that was a statement that carried a lot more credibility on a
bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, but I had to make myself
believe it. I was not going to waste any more tears on someone who had left
me a note. I was not going to make myself sick over someone that thought
five years could be written off in fewer than four sentences. I was not going
to break my heart over someone who could break my heart and still think it
was OK to take my toothpaste at the same time. I was done. Heading back
into the living room, I curled up on the armchair and shook my head at
Drunk and Drunker. It had been a hard day for the both, clearly. Trying not
to wake them, I pulled the to-do list out of my bag and read it over again. I
would never do any of these things. Never in twenty-nine years would I
have considered any of them. I wasn’t the kind of girl who would do any of
these things but I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of girl would.
And I couldn’t help but be a little bit excited to find out.
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