This is Not a Love Story

Chapter Seventeen

I spend the next three days going to the gym, bingeing Netflix and organising the apartment. I get twelve job rejection emails, each of them automated — ‘unfortunately your skill set was not deemed fitting with the current needs of our company’, or a variation on the same bland theme. On Saturday morning, my electronic cigarette arrived, way earlier than the email said it would. I spent an hour staring at it, willing myself to open the box, before shoving it in a drawer and rolling one with tobacco instead.

Apart from going to the gym, my contact with the outside world has been limited. I’ve muted the group chat; all Anna’s baby talk makes me feel like I’m going to vomit, such is my despair at the idea of god-parenthood and slipping back into my old obsessions. In fact, I’ve only used my phone to scroll endlessly through Instagram and Facebook, feeling sharp stabs of envy and dissatisfaction every time someone’s good news is shared. Emma Penton is back from Santorini and has just landed a job as Head of Marketing. My thumb is stiff and aching from constant scrolling, I’m eating everything in sight and having two naps a day out of a sheer unwillingness to partake in the day.

I don’t think I’d quite realised how much I wanted this job at Frederick’s. Not only for the money, or for something to do with my days, but also for the ego-boost — for knowing that someone could like me enough to give me a job. By Sunday night I am at my wits’ end. Had this been a standard nine-to-five position, I could have calmed myself down with the knowledge that everything closed down for the weekend. But this is retail; I was even offered the interview on a Sunday night, for god’s sake.

I’m staring at the wall, smoking endless cigarettes and chewing my fingernails to shreds when my phone pings.

It’s a notification from WordPress — someone has commented on my blog post from Saturday morning. My first one — all about my gym experience.

I’d written it happily, letting my hands move without thinking too much, before editing and re-reading countless times. It was good — I thought — and I’d managed to gain a few likes and about ten followers since I published. I click on the comment.

NRJogger: Who reads this drivel? Sounds like you need to get yourself a life and something more important to think about.

I blink. Even though I’m alone, I’m smacked by the heat of shame rising up my chest and to my face, my eyes filling with tears. I feel exposed and ridiculous.

Stupid, I tell myself. I’m so fucking stupid. How could I have thought that I could write and people would actually like it? What did I expect, that I’d put my fingers on the keyboard and become an international sensation overnight?

I feel sick at the thought that someone, somewhere on the planet, has read my words, smirking, thinking how ridiculous I am. I’ve put myself out there and I’ve been mocked, publicly, as a result. I suddenly want to delete all traces of myself on the internet, to completely disappear.

Slamming my phone onto the table, I stand up and start pacing the room.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I’m trying to swallow the wedge of embarrassment down, but it clags in my throat. I have never felt so ashamed in my entire life — not when Barney Dalton lifted up my skirt in primary school, or when I suddenly got my period in my boyfriend’s dad’s cream-leather BMW, or even when I faceplanted on a first date and then got stuck in the branches of a tree. It feels different, somehow — completely raw — because this is all I’ve ever thought I could do, and someone thinks I’m terrible at it.

How is everybody else so completely amazing at everything they’re doing? Head of Marketing, freelancer, world traveller. They don’t even seem to try and they’re smashing every goal. Is it even what they want? Because this is what I want. This is what I want and I can’t even do it. I bet everyone thinks I’m such a ridiculous failure.

I feel panic rising from my stomach, and I pull open the window to let the cold March air wash over my face. As I’m leaning out I notice Veronica, sitting on the windowsill, her leaves furled and brown.

This is all too much.

I sink down to the floor, tears suddenly dripping down my face. A sensation of absolute, concentrated shame and disappointment consumes me. How did I fuck up this badly? Being fired wasn’t so bad when I thought I could try my hand at something else, but Frederick’s don’t want me and the one thing — the one thing — I truly believed was my calling has fallen flat. I’ve lost my friendship circle to a clump of cells, and I’ll lose my apartment if I don’t find the money to pay next month’s rent. I’ve ticked virtually nothing off my list and am even further away from becoming Emma Penton than I was when I started. I can’t even keep a potted plant alive — the potted plant my own grandmother gave me — that I swore I would use as a measuring stick for my own success.

Well, the verdict’s pretty clear on that one, isn’t it?

I stay crouched on the floor for a few minutes, until my thighs start to tremble, and then I do what I do best in any given crisis: I grab a gigantic packet of vegan chocolate-chip cookies, bury myself under the duvet and stare at the wall some more.

What feels like days passes, and I watch the light move across the walls and then disappear, replaced by the navy of the evening and the orange glow of the streetlight outside. I haven’t moved an inch, except to insert biscuits mechanically into my mouth, but I’ve relived every fuck-up I have ever made, torturing myself with the cringe of shame squeezing my stomach every time. It doesn’t stop me eating, though.

I am vaguely aware of my phone ringing, and I listen to it for a while before shuffling slowly back into the living room and picking it up without looking.

‘Hello?’ I sniff.

‘Maggie? Are you poorly?’ It’s Mum.

‘No. I’m sleeping, can I call you tomorrow?’ I pull the phone from my face and hover my finger over the ‘end call’ button.

‘No, Maggie, wait.’ She sighs, and I put the phone back to my ear. ‘Now, I don’t want you to panic, but Nana’s had a fall.’

‘What?’ Fresh fear surges through me. Not Nana, please not Nana. I’ll move back in with my parents, never work again, never have any money, never have another boyfriend. Just please don’t let anything have happened to my nana.

‘She’s OK, she’s broken her hip but she’s OK.’ Mum sniffles a bit, and I realise she’s been crying. How selfish am I? So wrapped up in my own stupid problems, I didn’t even notice she was upset.

‘Where is she? Is she in hospital?’

‘Yes, she’ll be in for a while. She’s confused, but nothing life-threatening.’

‘She was confused when I last saw her. I think she’s confused a lot, recently.’ I well up again, imagining how scared she must be.

‘Yeah. I don’t think she’ll be safe to go back to the way she was living before.’ Mum’s voice breaks.

‘You can’t take away her independence!’ I cry. ‘You can’t take away her house!’

‘Nobody’s saying we’ll take away her house. But she may need some help, especially when she goes out. That pavement is deadly, it’s a good job she landed on the grass or it could have been a lot worse.’

‘She slipped on the pavement outside her house?’ I stand up straight. ‘Are you serious? I called the council over a week ago and they said they’d sort it the following Monday. They said they’d bloody sort it!’ I’m crying again.

‘Maggie, calm down. They obviously haven’t sorted it. That doesn’t change what’s happened, though, does it?’

‘No.’ I sink down onto the sofa, defeated. ‘Where is she? I’ll get a taxi.’

‘She’s at Stepping Hill. She’ll be in surgery soon though, love. Wait until the morning. Do you think you can get it off work?’

‘Yes, yeah, of course. Is someone with her, though? Is someone looking after her?’ I die a little inside at the idea of her alone and frightened in A there are too many fluffy white heads propped up on pillows. I scan each one before my eyes land on the bed in the far-left corner. At first I don’t think it’s her. Her face is purple and black, one of her eyes the size of a tennis ball and swollen shut. But then I see her yellow cardigan and a lump rises in my throat.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Mum has gone over to Nana’s bedside and is hugging her gently.

I’m still standing in the doorway, terrified. I can’t do it, I really can’t. I know as soon as she looks at me I’ll break down, and that will make things worse for her. It’ll make her upset, too.

Mum points over in my direction and Nana turns and sees me in the doorway. Her face breaks into a pained smile and she waves shakily. I take a deep breath. This isn’t about me and how I’m feeling, it’s about her. She needs to see familiar faces and people she loves.

‘Nana!’ I say brightly, striding over to her bed. ‘What’ve you done now, hey?’ I plant a kiss on her soft head.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m a silly bugger, aren’t I?’ She chuckles.

‘You are! What’re you like?’ I squeeze her cannulated hand. She is absolutely covered in scrapes and bruises, crawling down her neck and out from under the sleeves of her cardigan.

‘Now, Suzannah, let me tell you about the food here.’ She flutters around on the bed for the menu.

‘I’m Maggie, Nana.’ Fucking Suzannah.

‘Maggie? I know you’re Maggie!’ She tuts and smiles at me. I’ve got to hand it to her, she’s an absolute pro at making her own mistakes someone else’s problem. ‘Silly billy. Now, when I booked they said it was just bed and breakfast, but I’ve been getting three meals a day!’

I eye Mum; she’s staring at the floor and blinking rapidly. She’s not coping with this, and that makes me feel responsible. I have to handle this for the both of us. I read somewhere that the best thing to do with dementia patients is to go along with their beliefs of reality. Contradicting them causes distress.

‘Now I know you two, you’re sneaky little sausages. Did you upgrade my booking as a surprise?’ Nana grins.

‘How did you guess?!’ I force a laugh. ‘We wanted to surprise you. You’re too quick for us!’

She taps the side of her nose. ‘When you bring up six children you don’t miss a trick.’

I spend the next half an hour asking questions about Nana’s hotel stay. There are gardens here, apparently, and a grand piano. There’s bingo in the evenings and a tea dance on Sundays. Her and Gramps are planning on going to the next one. I well up a bit at that. I wonder if she’s regurgitating a memory of a previous holiday. It’s doubtless a happy recollection, and she lights up as she tells me all about it. What’s the point in forcing her into the truth?

Visiting hours are over, and we stand up to leave, causing some upset when Nana wonders why we won’t go for a walk down to the beach with her. Luckily she doesn’t have a window nearby, so we tell her it’s raining and that we’re going back up to our rooms to get changed.

As I hug her goodbye, she holds me close and whispers in my ear. ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m not as lonely in here.’