said, ‘this is the lovely Bella, one of my flatmates. We met when we temped together at a bleak call-centre after uni.’
Bella took Liv’s hand and shuddered. ‘Oh God, don’t remind me! “Good afternoon, may I speak with the named home-owner?”’ she said in her best admin nasal. ‘“Are you entirely happy with your current broadband provider?” Aaaahh! Kill me now!’ she yelled, curtailing her skit at the sight of Olivia’s muddled expression.
Meanwhile Lawrence had wandered in. Apparently in some kind of hunger trance, he walked towards the fridge, opened it and leaned in to study the contents.
‘And this is Lawrence,’ Holly said, sounding apologetic. ‘We’ll be eating soon, Lawrence.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ Lawrence said, shutting the fridge and turning to face Olivia. ‘Sorry to hear about your break-up and all.’
‘Oh, thanks, but as I was just saying to Hol, I’m fine about it, really. We’d definitely reached the end of the line,’ she said, blinking while running through a word-perfect speech about all the benefits of being single – and how her newfound free time meant she could now take up all the things she’d secretly been craving. Just as she was immersed in the virtues of learning your way round the stock market, Bella inserted a glass of wine into her hands a little too forcefully.
‘So Liv, tell me to shut up if you’d rather not go there, but what happened?’ Holly said. ‘Last I remember, you and Ross were really happy?’
Olivia inspected her nails. Sensing a girl chat brewing, Lawrence grabbed his bag of tobacco and retreated to the terrace.
Olivia sighed. ‘All right. I’ll talk about it – for five minutes, max – then we’ll move on to something more interesting!’ She took a large sip of wine. ‘So, as you may recall, Ross is something of a computer boffin. Sorry, was,’ she added a beat later, remembering with a jolt he belonged to her past tense now.
‘Geeks can be hot though,’ Bella said, ‘what did he do for a living?’
Olivia smirked. ‘If you really want to know, he was a “Backend Developer”.’
Bella snorted. ‘That’s never a real job title.’
‘I’m afraid it is. I think it means he does coding for websites. But don’t quote me.’
A mobile phone on the table began to flash and vibrate, and Olivia’s skin tone turned a few pantones lighter.
‘Is it he?’ Bella asked, leaning forwards. She picked up the mobile and examined the flashing photo. Then she looked at Olivia and grinned. ‘Wait, that’s your Ross?’
Olivia nodded.
‘Well, he can backend develop me, anytime…’
‘Bella!’ screeched Holly, elbowing her in the ribs.
Olivia gave a knowing smile. ‘He’s all yours,’ she said, retrieving the phone and cancelling the call. She put it back into her bag and for a nanosecond looked wistful.
‘You’re not going to talk to him?’ Holly asked.
Olivia shook her head; her eyes belying more grief than she perhaps wanted them to. ‘No. When it’s over, it’s over,’ she said as the phone made a loud beep from within her bag. ‘Stick a fork in it, I say.’
‘You’re not even going to see what that is? He’s probably left a voicemail?’ Holly said.
‘Nah.’
No surprises there, Holly reasoned, remembering how at university they’d always joked that Olivia must have been having a cheeky manicure the day God was dishing out the batches of needy female hormones. Which went some way to explaining why the last time Holly had seen her, Olivia had declared herself in the midst of a ‘friendship audit’. Although Holly had been spared this time around, Olivia’s plan had been to prune away anyone peripheral, Facebook or otherwise, that she hadn’t seen in a year. One by one, she had called up each unsuspecting friend for a fond farewell, in the hope that streamlining her social life would have a Zenifying effect. Now that Olivia was newly single, Holly couldn’t help wondering whether she might be regretting the mass cull.
‘So you were telling us what happened?’ Bella said.
Olivia rolled her eyes like a child being told she had to eat her peas before any pudding. ‘All right then. Just quickly. So, as you know, he was a bit of a computer nerd – which was sexy in the beginning. You know, he had a proper geek-chic thing going on. But then he went freelance, set up his own company, and it all changed. He started working from home a lot more, sleeping in and working late. Then one day he just stopped getting dressed at all – he’d just sit around festering, in these rancid jogging bottoms. Until eventually, you couldn’t tell where the pyjamas ended and the tracksuits began.’
‘Wow, that’s so strange,’ Holly said. ‘He was Mr Charisma at uni.’
‘I know,’ Olivia’s eyes moistened as she threw back the rest of her glass of wine. Then like Olivia Twist, she held out the empty receptacle in front of Holly, who immediately filled it up.
‘I remember,’ chimed in Holly, ‘he was that guy in Fresher’s week. The one every girl wanted to… you know, and every guy wanted to be.’
‘But it’s easy to be nostalgic about Old Ross – before he killed his personality off with a lethal concoction of daytime TV and JavaScript.’
‘So what did you do? How did it end?’ Bella tipped her head to one side, her empathy palpable.
‘Fairly predictable stuff. Me saying I thought he’d let himself go, that I just didn’t love him anymore, and we’d grown apart, blah blah… Him saying, “Shit, Olivia, I’m sorry. I wish I could just press Control Z.”’
‘No way,’ Holly said, while Bella’s brow furrowed.
‘That’s Apple Z, for the benefit of Mac Monks. As in, to undo?’ she added, and Bella’s brow un-furrowed. ‘Yes. So then I said, “Ross. I think we both know, it’s a case of Control Alt Delete now.”’
‘Well,’ Holly began, ‘it sounds like you’ve done the right thing. It must feel like such a massive shock to your system though, after seven years.’
‘It’s been brewing for a long time – it’s a relief to have finally done it.’
‘So where are you going to live now?’ Holly asked. ‘Do you want to come and stay with us?’
‘Oh thanks, but I’m staying with my parents in Hampstead for a bit; just while I get myself sorted with a new job down here. But chances are, I’ll only be allowed a week in the show home before I’ll have to be out again!’ Olivia smiled, then covered her ears as the incredibly loud smoke alarm began to go off.
Bella leapt up. ‘That’s dinner!’ She poked her head in the oven. At the sight of smoke she began turning off all the knobs and dials. Holly began prodding at the smoke alarm with a broom to make it stop. This was all done with complete composure, as though it was an everyday ritual.
‘So, everyone, dinner’s kind of a buffet type thing. Just
