Hot Mess_Bridget Jones for a new generation Read online

  Love you both and I’m very proud of you both.

  Best wishes,

  Dad

  75 HUES OF TONY

  A novel, by Alan Bernard Knight

  Once you’ve seen Tony Braxton, you can never forget his face. He has intense eyes that are like liquid coffee with no milk in it and an erotic nose. His mouth is that of a man who knows all the words in the whole dictionary but also knows to stay silent when his wife is having one of her difficult moods which she does actually have quite a lot even though Tony handles it really well. He may be almost sixty, but his physique is that of a much younger man who doesn’t worry about the gym very much but can hold some weight in his stomach area without looking like he’s let himself go even when his grown-up children say he’s let himself go. To sum up: he is very handsome and gets a lot of compliments on his calves. He uses the step machine in his living room while he’s watching the telly almost every day.

  Tony has been going through a difficult stage in his life recently. His wife, Anita, has been extra moody and has even talked about leaving him which is clearly a strange idea – just look at his calves! He’s been incredibly sensitive with Anita’s moods and has had two separate and very lengthy – at least fifteen minutes each – conversations with her last Wednesday and Friday during the advert breaks of The Chase to discuss why she would do such a thing. But alas, he has not been successful. Tony arrives home that Friday evening after a long day at work, ready for nut roast and chicken night to find Anita’s bags gone and a letter with Tony written on the front waiting for him by the landline telephone, which he still uses because he used to work for BT and he doesn’t want landlines to die out altogether.

  The letter from next to the landline is devastating. Anita wants a divorce and while she appreciates that he is the best man she could ever meet and he has always been very helpful around the house, unfortunately she no longer feels she deserves him and feels she should look for a lesser and probably much older man without an erotic nose to cook nut roast for. Tony is very, very upset. He is secure enough in his masculinity to have a little cry but first he remembers that he’s really quite hungry so he goes to look around the kitchen for food.

  Inside of the kitchen that he went into, he is surprised to find his neighbour, Wanda, waiting for him in a very casual way leaning on the kitchen counter. She is wearing a very fetching jumper that Tony recognises from the Boden catalogue that he recently read on the toilet. Wanda says hello and looks immediately down to Tony’s calves, which are on display because he’s wearing shorts because it’s been quite sunny even though it’s only February. He can tell she is impressed and he knows that either a compliment is coming now or else Wanda is about to tell him why she’s here.

  ‘You have such shapely calves, Tony,’ says Wanda. ‘And let me now tell you why I’m here.’

  He was right.

  ‘Anita told me she was leaving you, which is a strange idea, just look at your calves and your liquid coffee eyes. I thought “poor Tony” and rushed straight over to cook dinner for you. What would you like?’ Tony thinks about it for a good five minutes while Wanda makes it clear that she admires his very attractive thinking face. At last Tony makes his decision and tells Wanda his decision and it is that he would like nut roast and chicken for dinner. Luckily for them both, they have all the ingredients for this dinner because it is nut roast and chicken night, so Wanda immediately springs into action, moving around the kitchen like a beautiful Nigella Lawson, who Tony has often admired basting her chicken. Tony is hoping Wanda will also be like Mary Berry because Tony usually likes cheesecake to follow his nut roast on a Friday evening. Anyway, when it is finally ready, Tony and Wanda sit down to eat dinner together in front of the telly, and then Wanda says something that is set to change Tony’s life FOREVER even though he doesn’t yet know that.

  ‘Tony,’ says Wanda. ‘Would you like to come to my book club tomorrow?’

  Their eyes meet and Tony senses that his life is set to change FOREVER.

  END SCENE

  2

  10.10 a.m. Monday, 17 February

  Location: My actually-quite-nice office at design firm The Hales. It’s big and airy with glass walls. At one end of the open plan office there’s a big TV screen and sofas for, y’know, totes casual coffee breaks. There’s also a table football that literally no one has ever used but it helps gives the place a real media-twat vibe.

  I’ve been staring at an InDesign document on my computer screen for the last forty minutes, achieving new levels of nothingness. Every time I try to focus on work, I feel another awful, hot flush of humiliation about Friday night creep up my neck. When I woke up late on Saturday, still fully dressed, with eyes glued together from congealed make-up, I had a grand total of eight missed calls from Jennifer and four furious voicemails, all reminding me in very specific terms that I am a pathetic loser who ruins – quote – everything. My hangover was next level, and as I crawled to the loo to be sick, pieces of the night before came flooding back. The flashbacks kept coming throughout the day as Jen tried to ring me several more times and I kept ignoring her.

  I didn’t need to hear her tell me I had failed again. That I’m stupid. That I’ll be alone forever. That Martin is a perfectly good name.

  And I really didn’t need anyone else’s help with the looming self-hated.

  Oh fuck, Jackie’s coming over to my desk. Jackie is the office manager and sees herself as my ‘work mother’. She’s always telling people this, but the only real evidence of this familial relationship is our constant bickering, the way she tells me what to do even though she has nothing to do with my department, and the fact that we basically hate each other. Other than that, she’s a pretty standard human being: married, two teenage boys, thinks I’m broken because I’m single. Standard. She’s that co-worker everyone hates because she won’t stop looking at your computer screen when she’s near your desk. Reading your emails, scanning whatever you’re working on (for me that means Instagram stalking ex-boyfriends). You know those people, they’re dreadful.

  Right now, her excuse is to ask me something about how to enter a key code as if I know how – as if anyone does – and she’s scanning the document I’ve done nothing to. When I first started here three years ago, I found it so infuriating, I would actually try to awkwardly cover my screen or distract her by waving one hand as I talked. I tried leaving my desk, pointedly minimising all my open windows but nothing worked. So now we’re in a stand-off, where she keeps looking, and I find new and inventive ways to piss her off. Until recently, that mostly involved Google-imaging ‘funny looking cocks’ whenever I saw her approaching, but last week I stepped up my game and just wrote ‘Fuck off Jackie’ in a word doc in bright red, positioning it centre screen. She did not like that. I would say it’s weird I haven’t been sacked yet, but my boss is a very nice man. Very, very nice. And therefore, completely terrible at his job. He cannot stand any kind of confrontation, which I find very entertaining. After FuckOffJackieGate, he eventually called me into his office where he was sweating like I have never seen a person sweat. ‘How are you doing just a catch up, just a catch up,’ he said, dabbing at his face with his sleeve.

  ‘Yep, all fantastic, as ever, Derek,’ I replied, ducking the flying droplets.

  ‘Great great. Er . . . so . . . you’re happy with everything? Happy with how your work is going?’

  ‘Yes, Derek, very happy. Are you happy with my work?’

  ‘Oh goodness, yes! The clients love you and that last project you did was . . . very happy very happy, I mean . . . good. Um . . .’

  We sat there for a few minutes, silently, and I felt a little sorry for him – his neck was pooling and his shirt was gradually changing colour as the sweat spread across his chest – but I couldn’t bring myself to help him.

  ‘Anything else you need today, Derek?’

  ‘Um, no no . . . well . . . no no.’ I got up to leave and he panicked. ‘It’s just . . . er, Jackie . . . Jack
ie Jackie Jackie . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Jackie wasn’t sure if she . . . how are you getting on with Jackie?’ he tried so desperately.

  I gave him a thumbs up. ‘She’s in my top five people in this place, Derek.’

  ‘Oh! Good! Good! That’s . . . good. I’ll tell her we had this chat. It’s just . . . did you . . . you . . . Jackie said . . . Jackie Jackie Jackie.’

  I sighed. ‘Is this about the Word doc that said fuck off Jackie?’

  ‘Yes!’ His relief was palpable.

  I smiled. ‘I didn’t do it,’ I said sweetly, eyes wide and daring him to challenge me. Of course he didn’t, he just stared at me helplessly until I offered to return to my desk. He just nodded sadly, aware of his own failings. Poor guy.

  But that was a couple of weeks ago and Jackie, clearly past it, is standing over me at my desk.

  ‘How was your weekend?’ she asks, all innocent-eyed.

  Aha, now I see. The key code question was an excuse. We’ll get to the real reason for her hovering now.

  ‘It was great,’ I say, cautiously. ‘Thank you for asking, Jackie. How was yours?’

  ‘Oh, Colin took me for dinner to a wonderful restaurant on Valentine’s Day, but five minutes in, he had an allergic reaction to the salmon, so we ended up on the floor with an epi-pen, and then in A&E for the next seven hours. When we eventually got home it turned out the boys had wrecked the place so I spent the rest of the weekend cleaning and ordering new plant pots from Argos.’ She pauses dramatically. ‘But at least I wasn’t on my own on a day like Valentine’s. It must’ve been much, much worse for you. I can’t imagine having to be all alone, with no one – like you are. I’m so sorry, Eleanor.’ Her smile is syrupy. She is drunk with delight and faux sympathy, awkwardly apologising like someone has died. And certainly, my dignity is on its last legs.

  I breathe carefully, screaming inside as I return her smile and say casually, ‘Actually, Jackie, I had a really great weekend. I had so much sex, with so many different gigantic cocks, that I now have cystitis. Excuse me, won’t you? I have to go drink some cranberry juice and then piss more blood.’ I skip away as she scowls, muttering something about telling Derek.

  I’d love to see him try and have that conversation with me.

  In the office bathrooms – picture your primary school loo – I stare at my reflection. Even three days on, I am yellow with post-binge-drinking jaundice, and my dark eye bags are threatening to become dark whole-face bags. Sighing, I pull out my phone to check for messages. I don’t want to go back to my desk and I consider trying to do a poo just to kill an extra five minutes. But I know it won’t work. The only time my bowels are cooperative is during my period, when I will poop seventeen times a day. Sophie and I keep each other updated on our poo tally during periods. It gets pretty competitive but I always come out on top. It’s the one area of my life I get to win, even if it’s only once a month.

  The bathroom door slams open and Maddie is shrieking my name. ‘Did you tell Ursula that you had sex this weekend? Is it true – was it that date? – or were you just trying to upset her?’

  We call Jackie ‘Ursula’, after the evil sea witch with killer lipstick (it is a good shade, I’ll give her that) from The Little Mermaid. It’s because Ursula has so many tentacles in everything and is basically trying to rule the ocean/The Hales and King Triton/Derek is afraid of her. Plus, she wears these long, floaty black dresses and is obsessed with her garden. We haven’t yet found any evidence that she makes deals with mermaids and then turns them into shrivelled up brown, bug-eyed things, but WE ARE WORKING ON THAT.

  ‘Just trying to start an office war,’ I say, giving her a long hug. ‘And I can’t talk about the Friday date yet – it’s too humiliating. I’m in the denial stage.’

  ‘Oh, shame. I was excited to hear about it,’ says a crestfallen and slightly squeezed-too-hard Maddie. She loves hearing about my dating life. She’s been with her boyfriend, Ben, for thirteen years – literally since they were fifteen years-old – and is constantly afraid he’s going to propose. It’s got to the point now where she’s started refusing to go on holiday with him because she thinks he might get down on one knee on a beach somewhere. And once a week she rifles through his sock drawer to check for hidden rings that she insists she would throw away. She loves him – of course she does – but she’s also gripped by this fear of having met her ‘one’ so young. What if she’s missed out on other, sexier ones? Other possibilities, other romances, other penises. So ours is a friendship based totally on Maddie’s desperate need for single-people stories. She’s fairly explicit about the vicarious nature of this, and occasionally asks me would I mind please please please having sex with Aaron from the postroom so she can pretend she did it. ‘Let me know when you’re ready to tell me about it?’ she says pleadingly, and then pauses, before asking me for what must be the seven-millionth-no-exaggeration time. ‘Are you still definitely going next Friday?’

  Maddie doesn’t get out much for things like parties. She and Ben bought a dog, Alfred, six months ago who they treat like a needy desperate baby. Worse than a needy desperate baby. They read multiple parenting books in preparation and slept in shifts for months so Alfred the dog wouldn’t have to be alone. It’s been a very difficult period because apparently Ben’s into ‘attachment parenting’, while Maddie says that the dog should have a regular bedtime and sleep in his own room. Yes, the dog has his own room. It’s caused some tension, and Maddie keeps trying to tell me how damaging helicopter parenting can be for a dogchild. And I keep trying to tell her how damaging this conversation is for our friendship.

  I laugh. ‘Of course I am,’ I reply, squeezing her hand reassuringly. ‘Even if you weren’t making me, it’s pretty much a three-line whip, isn’t it? It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Derek put his foot down about anything.’

  The Friday in question is a work event (I say ‘event’ because I refuse to use the word ‘party’ after ‘work’). It’s the official launch of a national art competition and The Hales is one of about fifty sponsors. Which means there will be a hundred guests who think they’re being ‘fun’ because they’re not wearing a tie, and will pretend to be drunk so they’ve got an excuse to dance and flirt with each other. That’s despite the ‘drinks table’ – which will consist of seven bottles of Jacob’s Creek white wine – totally running out of alcohol by 7.02 p.m., at which point we will all drink from jugs of Robinson’s Summer Fruits squash and pretend we’re having the best night ever.

  I’m looking forward to it.

  Maddie and I stroll back to our desks together, and she tells me about Alfred’s latest behavioural problems and how his therapist is at his wit’s end. I nod supportively and slump back down at my desk. As Maddie wanders off, I sigh loudly and other sighs echo back at me from around the room. Everyone’s feeling the pressure over a new project we’ve been pitching for. Derek wants some sketch concepts outlined ASAP, but I seriously cannot be fucked. I want to shout that across the room but then I remember that they do technically pay me to be here. The Hales is a design company that produces children’s literature; books, magazines, posters, educational pamphlets, that kind of thing. The office is mostly made up of men over fifty – which you’re thinking seems creepy, but that’s just sexism and ageism. In reality, it’s creepy because they’re all creepy people.

  My job here is as an illustrator. In theory. But there rarely seems to be any illustrating involved. It’s all just meetings with clients to pretend I’m impressed by their terrible ideas (‘What about if this character is a pig?’ ‘Could we make this character’s nose look more like a pig’s nose?’ ‘Did you know pigs are smarter than humans?? I read it somewhere.’ I blame Peppa Pig for this bullshit).

  It’s mostly fine, but it’s not exactly my dream gig. I did an art degree – which is a real degree OK GRANDMA GLADYS? – and for years I thought about becoming an actual, real life artist. I did a lot of painting at home – big, colourful p
rofiles on huge canvases – before I moved into The Shithole, where my box room barely fits the squeaky single bed. But I won’t be stuck there for much longer. Once the old place is sold, I can find somewhere just for me. Maybe I’ll even have my own studio flat and I can paint the walls bright colours that everyone will complain hurt their eyes. I smile at the thought and then remind myself it’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

  I think again about asking Dad if I can move back in, and suddenly my phone rings – it’s him. If you’re thinking that’s a coincidence, it’s not really. It is coming up to eleven a.m., so of course this is the obvious time for a person to ring another person who they know works regular office hours.

  Dad retired early a year ago and it’s like he immediately forgot how work, y’know, works. He’s always baffled – BAFFLED – that I’m not able to chat at 3.40 p.m.on a Thursday afternoon about who’s trying to murder whom on Coronation Street this week. Usually I let it go to voicemail and ring him back at lunch but all this cock talk has got me in the mood to speak to my dad (that is a disgusting joke – don’t worry, I feel ashamed). I press answer and wander casually into reception, making eye contact with Ursula across the room, daring her to tell on me.

  ‘Hello Dad,’ I say warmly.