generally a bit of a mess, but it was a clean, white-walled, cream-carpeted, orderly mess. A teetering stack of unread magazines here, a collection of credit card statements there. Vanessa’s room was disgusting. My room was more of a disappointment. In all the years I’d been here, I hadn’t got as far as putting up a single picture or photo on the wall – they all lived on my desk at work, my first home. There was a framed print of a Warhol I’d seen at the Tate Modern with Charlie sitting on the floor by my chest of drawers. He’d been coming over to hang it every Sunday for the last six months, but he’d never quite made it. And so on the floor it had stayed. My room looked like a corporate crash pad rather than somewhere a real person lived. It was where I crawled under the covers at midnight on a Wednesday after a client dinner and where I hung all of my smart separates, still in their bags from the dry-cleaner’s.
Staring at Vanessa’s overflowing wardrobe, I suddenly hated all of my clothes. It felt like everything I owned was black, blue or white, unless Amy had picked it, and then it was sequinned, short and generally unwearable. Even my jeans were ‘casual Friday’ appropriate. The toes on my Converse were bright white. My heels, aside from my Promotion Shoes, were all sensible. I hated everything. I hated myself.
Vanessa’s wardrobe was a tumble of colour and texture. I barely touched the door and the entire contents burst on to the floor, making a desperate bid for freedom. Red strapless dresses, printed palazzo pants, skintight liquid leggings, silk and satin and velvet and leather, all pooling around my feet and begging to be rescued. I stomped on a particularly ridiculous pair of leather hot pants I remembered seeing her swan around in and sulked. Her room was just so her. Two of her walls were painted deep red and the other two hot pink. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. It clashed, it was too bright, too bold and a little bit gross, but it looked amazing. Just like Vanessa. If Vanessa’s room was her, was my room me? Was my sad little white-walled, devoid-of-personality shell of a bedroom really me?
There was no discernible carpet under my feet, just a collage of dirty clothes, open mail and magazines. Dirty mug upon dirty mug upon dirty mug sat everywhere you looked, and half-empty takeaway boxes, plates and forks were balanced precariously on every available surface. No knives, though. Vanessa never used a knife and I found it infuriating. Even more infuriating was the lack of things available to break. The dirty pots looked like they were about to get up and crawl to the kitchen themselves so I wasn’t touching them, and I wasn’t rock and roll enough to put the telly through the window. The only other things I could see that were legitimately worth money and fuck-up-able were her dead ‘work’ BlackBerry and my old camera. I couldn’t bear to do it. I let out a little frustrated scream through my gritted teeth and punched a pillow, shaking from head to toe.
I was a rubbish woman scorned. Hell totally hath seen fury like me. I’d seen waitresses in Pizza Hut with more fury. I was a complete failure. Back in the living room, I heard the landline ring. There wasn’t a single person on earth I wanted to talk to. But of course I answered it anyway.
‘Hello?’ I steeled myself for the worst. Charlie. Vanessa. My mother.
‘Ohmygodareyouokay?’ garbled Amy.
‘What?’
‘Are. You. OK?’ she repeated. ‘I’ve been going mental up here. Why isn’t your phone on?’
‘I left my charger at my mum’s,’ I answered. ‘Amy, did you know that Charlie has been sleeping with Vanessa?’
‘Um, no?’
‘AMY.’
‘He’s such a cockwomble!’ she shouted down the line. ‘Don’t be angry. I only know because he said something about being in Wales and she said something about being in Wales and I asked him about being in Wales and he admitted it, but I didn’t tell you because he said it wasn’t really a thing and I didn’t want to upset you and—’
‘No, no, no!’ I banged the receiver against my forehead, trying to bash the reality of this into my brain. ‘You knew? And you didn’t say anything?’
‘Look at it from my point of view,’ Amy replied with a whine. ‘You were working, like, a billion hours a day on that pitch for those rank organic lollipops you made me eat loads of.’
I mentally pegged this as six months ago. Those lollipops were rank.
‘Plus you were sort of showing an interest in that bloke you met at Floridita and I didn’t want to distract you, and then by the time I’d got Charlie’s balls in a Vulcan death grip, he swore it was over, that it was only one time and that it was done but he didn’t want to upset you, and—’
‘Only one time?’ I interrupted.
‘Yes.’
‘Even though you knew they’d both been in Wales together. Having sex.’
What was that taste in my mouth? Oh yes, bile. That was bile.
‘Oh. Yeah. Well, I didn’t find out about that until ages after.’
‘Amy. I can’t believe it.’
‘I just couldn’t bear to tell you,’ she said softly. ‘He said it wasn’t anything. I knew it would break your heart, and I thought you were going to move out soon, and … Oh fuck. I fucked up. Fuck fuck fuck.’
It was confusing. I was mad at Amy. She knew about this and she hadn’t told me, but I was so mad at Vanessa and even more so at Charlie that all my reserves of rage were accounted for. After a few beats of silence I found my voice.
‘I slept with him.’
‘You did?’
I had no idea precisely where in the country Amy was, but I was fairly certain there were now some deaf Highland cattle up in Scotland. She could be awfully loud when she wanted to be.
‘Is that why you left? Are you in Gretna Green? Are you married already? Was it amazing? Tell me everything. I always knew this would happen if the two of you got together …’ She was on a roll – there was no way I’d be able to interrupt her successfully a third time. ‘I’ll just cease to exist. It’ll just be like, oh, ha ha ha, let’s have some wine and a dinner party, and, ooh, do you remember that funny little dark-haired girl who used to hang around? I wonder where she is now? Except you won’t even wonder because I’ll be dead and you won’t care.’
‘Are you done?’ I asked.
‘Are you married?’ She countered.
‘No.’ I replied.
‘Then, yes. Hang on, did you sleep with him before or after you found out about Vanessa?’
‘Before.’
‘Ohhh. Shit.’
‘Yeah.’
I held the phone to my ear and we shared a comfortable silence. There really wasn’t anything else to say.
‘Are you OK?’ Amy broke first. As always.
‘Not really.’ I wasn’t any more. I was too tired.
‘Are you mad?’ she asked.
‘I am mad,’ I confirmed.
‘With
