are.’
Flushing with relief to have it over and done with, I look up the table to the whip-cracking guy. I’ve seen him before. He catches my eye and grins. I ignore him.
As we’re walking out of the room, I feel a tug on my hair and turn around. It’s the trader.
‘I just wanted to follow up on the leather and saddlery division of Louis Vuitton,’ he says, grinning. ‘So, demand for bridles and whips are up?’ I hear the traders behind him explode with stifled laughter.
All of a sudden, I don’t feel intimidated. Just irritated.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But if you’re looking for something kinky, try Ann Summers. It’s more your league.’
What a fucknuckle. At least I got through my presentation with only one mistake, I reflect, as I get in the lift. Today seemed easier than usual . . . a knock-on effect of the fake-it-till-you-feel-it I’m-so-confident attitude, I guess. Thanks, Robert.
When I get back to my desk, Alistair is comforting Charlotte. She’s – what? – crying.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, slightly redundantly.
She looks up, her face swollen and pink, hiccuping with sobs. Gosh. She’s never shown any emotion, in all the time I’ve known her.
‘Abigail, thank God you’re back,’ says Alistair, relieved.
‘Let’s get a coffee,’ I say. There is nothing worse than being upset in our office. People can smell the scandal, and walk past super-slowly to get a good look.
Charlotte nods and gets up to put on her poncho.
‘I need to talk to you today, too,’ says Alistair, as we go.
‘Yep, no problem,’ I say. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes, m’lady,’ he says, grinning and spinning in his chair. ‘Very much so.’
We walk to a tiny Italian coffee shop that I’m pretty sure has been here since the 1950s. One guy to make coffee, one guy to make sandwiches, and a linoleum counter at the window to sit and watch people go past. It makes me happy, somehow, to be here where they’ve been serving coffee for 60 years, rather than at a big Pret-A-Costabucks chain. And the coffee is amazing.
I order for us, and sit down. Charlotte hasn’t spoken a word. She has been crying so hard, and so silently, that she’s having trouble breathing.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ I say.
Charlotte starts to hiccup out the words: ‘Last night—’
‘Deep breaths,’ I say. ‘Just relax. Everything will be fine.’ Wow, cliché after cliché from me.
‘My boyfriend Phil broke up with me last night,’ she finally says.
‘Shit,’ I say, and without thinking about it, reach forward and give her a hug. I don’t think I’ve spontaneously hugged anyone except my family or very closest friends, possibly ever. It’s nice.
Charlotte starts to cry again and a large gob of spittle swings out of her mouth and splats on my trousers. Ew.
Over the next half an hour, between semi-hysterical tears from her and gentle questions punctuated with reminders to breathe from me, it emerges that after nine years together – from the age of 17 to 26 – she’s been with the same guy. And he’s just broken up with her, saying ‘I love you, but not enough’.
‘I don’t know what . . . to do, I don’t know what to do,’ she says, when she’s calmed down and cried out. ‘All through school and university and work, we were together, our parents play bridge, we were saving to buy a house, we share a car, we had a 10-year-plan that was going to end next year with us getting eng – eng – eng . . .’
‘Engaged?’ I suggest.
‘We have a budgie,’ she says, crying even harder. ‘My mother is so upset, I told her last night and she hung up on me, she’s already bought her outfit for the wedding—’
‘Shh,’ I say, stroking her shoulder in an – I hope – comforting way. This is so different to my break-up. I cried, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I think Peter did too. In fact, the only person who got really hysterical was his brother Joe. He came over as I was moving out of the house and called me a ‘stupid bitch’. God, that was a horrible day, I feel sick about it even now. Oh dear, must think about Charlotte.
‘Breaking up is awful,’ I say unoriginally.
‘I’ve never broken up! I’ve only ever had Phil!’ she says.
‘Do you have a friend you can stay with? Brother? Sister? Parents?’ I know nothing about her, I realise. I’ve simply never asked.
‘My parents – no, no way. But my brother lives in Stoke Newington,’ she says. ‘N16,’ she adds helpfully.
After she’s called her brother, cried some more, established that she can stay in his spare room, and had another coffee, it’s past 9 am.
‘I feel much better,’ she says. ‘Thank you so much, Abigail.’
‘You know, I broke up with someone in July,’ I say. ‘After seven years together. It’s awful, it really is horrible. But you’ll get through it. You will.’
‘Really?’ she says, turning her pale, reddened eyes on me.
‘Yes,’ I say, wondering if now would be an appropriate time to suggest a lash tint. Probably not. ‘Honestly, Charlotte, from now on, every day will get a little bit better and easier . . . You just have to hug yourself tightly and ride through the next few weeks.’
‘But I’ve never been single!’ she exclaims tearfully. ‘I have no idea how to date! None! I’m going to be one of those single women in bars! Desperate!’
‘No, you’re not,’ I say, ignoring the fact that she’s thinking exactly what I thought for years, and that Plum and I are now said single women in bars. But we are not desperate, I think firmly. Not. The d-word. ‘Being single is fun,’ I say. ‘You can do whatever you want, whenever you want, go to sleep early or stay up all night . . .’
Charlotte doesn’t look impressed.
‘You can go out and flirt,’ I say, as enthusiastically as I can. ‘Go on dates. I’ve got a date tonight, actually.’ With a man named Skinny Jeans. I mean Mark. ‘Kiss other men and, you know, all of that,’ I say. This too isn’t impressing her. Guess I won’t actually mention sex, then. ‘It’s so much fun, Charlotte. Honestly. You won’t know yourself in a few weeks.’
She looks at me blankly and wipes a last solitary tear from the corner of her eye.
‘Think about all the things that made him irritating,’ I say, trying another tack. ‘Like, lazy around the house? Bad dresser?’ I realise that Charlotte wouldn’t recognise a bad dresser if he stamped on her foot wearing Crocs and hurried on. ‘Messy drunk? Moody? Bad cook?’
‘Oh, he never cooks,’ she
