opens it. ‘You shouldn’t have! Ah, really. You shouldn’t have . . .’ I know I’m a dork, but I made him a little amateur-découpage card with pictures I cut from magazines and discarded Christmas gift tags. There’s a moped, porridge, a Bloody Mary, a newspaper, and Don Draper from Mad Men, because I think Robert looks like him, and a plum pudding, and a reindeer on which I wrote ‘Fernie 2002’, and lots of stars.
‘It’s ugly, but festive, which I think is fitting given what our house looks like right now,’ I say.
Robert reads the poem I wrote inside.
‘For Robert, so tall and such a grouch, I always see you on the couch, Happy Christmas and New Year, I hope it’s filled with lots of cheer’. Wow. That’s . . .’
‘I know, brilliant,’ I say, laughing. ‘I was bored.’
‘Thank you, Abby. I feel so lucky. Did you make one for Dave, too?’ he asks.
‘No, just my friends. So tell me about your Christmas. Did Santa find you?’
‘Yes, and he brought me pyjamas with airplanes on – my mother doesn’t know that I sleep naked—’
‘And usually have a girl for added warmth,’ I interject. ‘—precisely, and my sisters gave me this rather smart coat. What about you, Abigail, my little Christmas fairy?’
‘These jeans, and this jumper, and some books, and some of that lemon bath oil from doctor whatever-it-is, and very warm gloves.’
‘Alice’s husband gave her gloves one year and it caused a fight that lasted till February.’
‘Schoolboy error. Never give a practical present to someone you sleep with.’
‘I’d like to amend that to “or a present that could in anyway insult the recipient, no matter who the recipient is”,’ says Robert. ‘Last year, my mother gave me a book called Online Dating For Dummies.’ I laugh so hard at this that I choke on my whisky.
‘Peter got me a blender once. Practical AND insulting.’
‘Louisa once got me a card saying she was taking me to Morocco as my present,’ says Robert. ‘And then she left me on New Year’s Eve so we never went. Which was how she’d always planned it, I guess.’
‘That’s not funny at all.’ I’m shocked.
‘I know.’ He sighs. No wonder he looks tired, I think. It’s the anniversary of his broken heart.
God, I’m dramatic these days.
‘Right, well, we’re not going to think about her today, the silly bitch. We’re going to have another drink and cheer the fuck up.’
By the time we’re halfway through the next whisky, the pub is filling up. I have my phone on the table, so I can surreptitiously ensure there’s no chance I can miss a call from Dave, but there’s been nothing so far. It’s 7 pm now. Five hours to go. I just need to be patient. He’ll turn up. In the meantime, Robert is doing impressions of his sisters, who always fight like harpies over Christmas.
‘I think it’s a chemical thing that happens to sisters,’ I say.
‘Alice is properly grown-up with two children, yet she chased Rosie around the house with a wooden spoon screaming “I know you are wearing my fucking knickers, take them fucking off”.’
‘I wonder when people actually turn properly grown-up,’ I say. ‘I don’t feel it.’
‘I don’t think anyone does. Alice says sometimes she sees her kids as really cool housemates with serious dependence issues. So, what do you want to do for your birthday tomorrow?’
‘Nothing is planned,’ I say, and am about to say ‘it depends on Dave’ but then I realise how pathetic that sounds, so instead I shrug. ‘I always feel like New Year’s Eve is the whole world celebrating my birthday a day early, anyway. Maybe we could all go to the pub in the afternoon and just relax. Sophie and Luke and Henry and Charlotte are in London, so . . .’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ nods Robert. ‘And Dave, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I nod. I glance quickly at my phone. Nope, nothing. I look up and meet Robert’s gaze, and before he can mind-read me, I stand up. ‘Right! I’m going to the bar.’
There are a couple of girls on a table near the bar, looking at the A-Z map of London.
‘Well, that can’t be right, that says St James there, but I thought that St James was a park down there,’ says one girl.
‘That’s definitely the Piccadilly Circus region, not St James,’ says the other. They’re American.
‘Hi there . . .’ I say. Oh God, why do I always try to talk to strangers after I’ve had a drink. Oh well. ‘Actually, St James is also a very small area just below Piccadilly, as well as a park, and Piccadilly is a long road between Hyde Park Corner and Piccadilly Circus. And that’s just a big ugly junction no one goes to if they can help it.’
‘Thank you!’ they chorus, looking up at me delightedly. They both have perfect teeth, like all Americans. (Damn them.)
‘You’re so nice!’ says the blonde. ‘I’m Taylor, this is Bree.’
I order my drinks, and we chat together for a minute. They quickly tell me, in the way of all ambitious new graduates, that they’ve just finished their degrees in journalism but couldn’t find jobs thanks to the economy, so are now travelling around the world and blogging about it.
‘We hope to get a book deal at the end, and we’ll parlay that into a career in journalism,’ says Taylor. ‘We have 3,000 followers on Twitter already and it’s only been a month. It’s called Travel By Proxy.’
They’re 21 and they’ve already got more ambition and career smarts than I do at 28-minus-one-day. When did everyone else figure everything out?
‘Can we take a photo of you?’ says Bree, brandishing a digital camera. ‘Will you be an interview subject?’
‘Uh, sure,’ I say. Man, I hate photos. ‘Do you want to interview a guy too? I feel bad leaving him by himself for too long . . .’
Bree and Taylor turn around, see Robert, and both of their jaws drop. I stifle the urge to laugh. Within seconds, they’ve picked up their coats, bags and drinks, and are heading over towards him.
‘I come bearing gifts!’ I beam at him, and make a ta-dah! motion with my hands at Bree and Taylor. They both immediately put on kittenish smiles and Bree pulls down her ponytail, running her fingers through her roots. Robert shoots me a lamb-to-the-slaughter look, before turning to the girls with a smile.
‘Hello, Bree. Hello, Taylor.’
‘Hello!’ says Bree. ‘Now! Let me introduce you to Travel By Proxy!’ She explains the concept again.
‘Abby, darling, you go first,’ says Robert.
I nod, sit up straight and try to look thoughtful.
‘What’s
