anything to Posh Mark about how I feel (or don’t feel). I thought he’d like it that way.
‘I’m…I’m…’ I’m not able to finish a sentence? I felt helpless. I didn’t want Posh Mark to go, but I couldn’t think of a reason why. Because I don’t want to start again? I wondered if I could say that. Probably not.
Slumping down on the couch and burying my head in my hands seems a better option than speaking. Despite a tiny voice in my head saying ‘you’re not actually surprised, are you?’, a much louder voice told me he was a lovely non-bastardo who had made me feel happy(ish) post-Rick, when I thought nothing would, ever again. And now I have to start all over. So I cried.
‘I’ll miss you,’ I croaked through my hands. And I will. He stroked the inside of my arms for hours when we watched DVDs and had perfectly muscley arms just built for spooning on a Sunday morning. (Does that sound shallow?)
‘I’ll miss you too, Sass. Rahlly. I feel ah-paw-leng doing this to you. I’ve had such a bloody good time with you, sahriously.’
I smiled into my hands. I love the way he pronounces appalling. So posh. And he pronounces my name with the longest-drawn-out ‘a’ sound you’ve ever heard. Saaaaarrrrhs.
‘Since the night we met. That hilarious pahty…Hugo made me take him out for a big night at Da Bouj, you know, in return for the outfit that you loved.’
Pause. The way he abbreviates Boujis to Da Bouj is irritating, but—
Outfit?
‘The 80s costume, you know. With the watermelon. From Girls Just Wanna Have Dancing, or whatever it was, yah? It was all his idea. Well, he saw someone else wear it at a party up in St Andrews once, basicallah. And you were dressed as The Breakfast Club.’
Well, if I needed distracting from the idea that I’m being broken up with for the sixth time in a row, then voilà.
For the rest of the night, through him saying goodbye, and me calling Bloomie and Kate to announce that dating someone who isn’t a bastardo won’t prevent you from being dumped, falling asleep in a haze of nicotine and mild hysteria, and waking every two hours for a self-pitying-but-not-really-heartbroken little weep, I thought about that sentence.
Did I actually fall in love, no, sorry, in LIKE with someone because he wore a funny costume that his friend saw someone else wear at some rah party in fucking Scotland? What the hell is wrong with me? And he didn’t even know that Sloane Peterson was in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Enough thinking. I pull back the duvet, scattering tissues and wrappers across the bed, and shuffle to the mirror. I don’t look that great, but I’ve certainly looked a lot worse.
I will try to look as ace as possible today, so that the world rewards me by doing something really ace for me. That’s sartorial karma, you see. I’m a firm believer in it.
Shampoo, condition, scrub with exfoliating gloves and body wash, brush teeth, shave armpits, then shave legs (one razor in each hand so each leg is done in about seven seconds—that’s an as-yet unpatented time-saving move I invented when I was 14). Towel, hairdryer once-over, moisturiser, deodorant, perfume.
Throughout my morning routine, my brain is on a loop titled ‘disbelief’. Because I just cannot believe it’s happened again. I picked the nicest guy I could fucking well find and it fucking well happened again.
Let’s start at the beginning.
Break-Up No.1: Arty Jonathan. I was 22, and had been living in London about a year. (No one ever dates in their first six months of living here; they’re too busy avoiding psycho flatmates, drinking in bad chain bars and getting the wrong District line tube.) I met Arty Jonathan at a workmate’s party one night in Café Kick in Shoreditch, which was cutting-edge-indie cool at that time, rather than yuppie-indie cool as it is now. Arty Jonathan was gorgeous in a shaven-headed, mockney kind of way. He teased and flirted and flattered me, and I became helplessly giggly in his presence. He said he was an ‘avant garde’ artist—which meant he’d secure deadlines for shows at a ‘space’ and then throw something together last minute out of whatever rubbish he found on the way there. Avant garde, I now know, is French for pretentious, and any mention of the phrase makes me want to laugh hysterically. He’d had various jobs over the previous few years (producing indie films that never got greenlit, managing bands that never got signed) and had lots of stories that made me laugh.
You’re right, of course: he was a talentless cockmonkey. I’d like to blame inexperience, or perhaps I’m just a bit thick, but he seemed interesting…I think I was probably looking for someone unlike every good public school boy I’d known at university. And his self-belief was stupendous. I’m a sucker for a confident man.
Looking back, I cringe at how green I was to be impressed by a dude like that. I was an art groupie for an artist who hadn’t really created anything. I’d sit quietly in the Bricklayer’s Arms in Hoxton, buying way more than my fair share of rounds, listening to Arty Jonathan and his friends gossip about Young British Artists that I’d never heard of and they didn’t actually know. We’d snog. He’d draw doodles for me. They made jokes about the establishment, some of which were very funny, even though I didn’t know what the establishment was yet. Then, after about two or three months of this, and just as I was starting to wonder why Arty Jonathan never did any of the things he talked about doing and notice that he recycled all his best lines and jokes, he ended it. He looked at his watch when we were walking towards the Barley Mow one Saturday lunchtime and said: ‘I have to go to King’s Cross. My girlfriend is arriving from Leeds in an hour. We’re going to Paris for the night.’
I was sledgehammer-stunned by this, rather than heartbroken. There is a difference. What hurt more was that he was a bit of a freeloader, and in fact, two days before he dumped me, he’d ‘borrowed’ £200 off me. He said his bankcard was broken. But clearly, he wanted the money to take his girlfriend to Paris. And I was too timid/stupid/polite to ask for it back. I just nodded and walked away as quickly as I could and never contacted him again. (I’ve never liked confrontation.) My friends from university started to move to London soon afterwards, so life improved immeasurably, and I tried to chalk it up to experience. At least it knocked some of the naivety out of me.
God, Arty Jonathan was a long time ago. And yet here I am. Single. Again.
What shall I wear today?
Unsurprisingly, given my newly single status, mild heartache and general blues, I feel like being an Urban Warrior today. I throw on blacker-than-black opaque tights, black boots, a black dress and a black motorcycle jacket with studs. Hair in a ballet bun, some scary black undereyeliner and a few careful minutes with my eyebrow pencil. (I’m obsessed with my eyebrows. They are my bête noire.)
Outer Self is thus prepared for the day. Check with Inner Self. Inner Self is not as prepared. Inner Self would like to curl up at home and watch Gossip Girl on the internet all day, despite fact that Outer Self is old enough to play a mother on Gossip Girl.
I eat a banana, standing up in the kitchen(ette), noting happily that my never-home flatmate/landlord Anna has left the dingy little 60s-era front room as pristine as ever. I’ve rented a room here for years. The shower is dreadful, the carpets are worn and the furniture hasn’t been changed since Anna’s parents lived
