Talking to Addison. Jenny Colgan

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      Kate’s head snapped up and she looked perturbed.

      ‘Are you asking me out on a date, or are you just testing?’ she said crisply.

      ‘Don’t be daft, this is practice. Do you think I can pull it off?’

      ‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘No, that would never work.’

      ‘Right. OK. Fine,’ said Josh.

      ‘It’s not a universal chat-up line,’ I said consolingly.

      ‘No, Holly is what’s technically known as easy,’ explained Kate.

      ‘OK,’ I said, rising somewhat unsteadily to my feet. ‘If you’re going to be horrible, I’m going to talk to my other friend around here, Addison.’

      I lurched out of the kitchen, a tad unsteadily, and wandered across the landing, to the fast becoming familiar under-door blue glow.

      I pushed the door ajar.

      ‘Addison!’ I said loudly, for the benefit of my ex-friends sitting in the kitchen. He did that gorgeous rigid back thing. God, I love that.

      ‘What are you doing?’

      I leaned forward, peering over his shoulder. To my amazement, instead of indecipherable computer babble, on his monitor was a picture of a hugely breasted fat lady.

      He coloured and immediately dived for the escape button, but it was too late.

      ‘Addison!’ I said again, shocked. In my slightly drunk frame of mind, I felt deeply insulted. After all, here I was, and he still felt the need to … well.

      ‘Addison,’ I said a third time. He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. ‘Do you know lots of women?’

      His beautiful dark gaze was focused solely on his computer keyboard.

      ‘Because, you know, you might find … what you’re looking for … closer than you think.’

      I couldn’t believe I was being such a tart. On the other hand, tart tactics were required when dealing with someone as shy as this. Plus of course I was pissed – that wonderful moral leveller.

      I took his hand.

      ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you’re very attractive.’ Really, I like to take all my chat-up lines from Dynasty, circa 1986.

      His hand lay in mine like a piece of wet melon. Not noticing, I leaned over and kissed his forehead. He smelled of that wonderful Banda paper you used to get in schools: fresh and dry and inky.

      He wasn’t kissing back though. I realized this after say, thirty, maybe forty seconds. No reaction. Nada. Nothing. I kissed his head again. He didn’t even move.

      ‘So,’ I said tartily, ‘ehm, you know where I sleep …’

      Sheesh. This was it. This was the pits. Robocop or the Natural History Museum. Even I hadn’t plumbed my own depths before.

      Amazingly, he simply took my hand off his forehead and squeezed it. Less amazingly (given he was a sober person who’d just been come on to by a mad harpy), he then handed it back to me and returned to his keyboard. I stood there for about ten seconds more – just to prolong the humiliation, I suppose – then retreated backwards slowly, whilst he busied himself with some computer stuff which, as far as I could see, had nothing more to do with big-breasted Betty.

      

      ‘Oh God.’

      ‘You’ll get over it! You’ve got over worse stuff!’

      ‘Like what, exactly?’

      ‘What about that time you taught yourself to snowboard to impress big Eric and broke your ankle?’

      Josh was failing to comfort me at the breakfast table. Not only this, but I had an interview today for a real live flower shop, which I had to do after the utter humiliation of basically prostrating myself in front of my flatmate. I wasn’t sure that counted as extenuating circumstances.

      ‘Anyway, I’ve done much worse things.’

      ‘Like what?’

      ‘I don’t know … what about that time I got bitten by a dog?’

      ‘Ehm, you know what, Josh? I don’t think that really embarrassed the dog. So it does NOT compare.’

      Kate of course had already gone to work, presumably clear-headed and ‘motivated’.

      ‘Yes, but I cried when I got my tetanus shot.’

      ‘You must have been about eight years old.’

      ‘Still embarrassing, though.’

      ‘And they gave you a cream cake at the end of it, which really means that it does not compare. Now, ask me a question about flowers.’

      ‘Ehm … what colour are tulips?’

      ‘OK, ask me a question about a flower you’ve actually met.’

      ‘I’ll have you know I took the church prize in our village for flower arranging three times in a row!’

      ‘You surprise me.’

      ‘They were very … manly arrangements. OK, how do you grow a sunflower?’

      ‘Stick it in any old shit and ignore it for months.’

      We both paused for a minute.

      ‘That’s my life,’ we both said simultaneously.

      

      I couldn’t believe a flower-shop interview could be so intense. There were three people in the tiny office at the back of the shop: an old bloke who might conceivably have been dead; a woman with very high hair, a monobosom and an imperious expression; and a sullen Indian girl with either a very large bogey or a bolt through her nose – it was hard to tell in the gloomy room.

      ‘Now, here at That Special Someone, we take our customer care extremely seriously,’ announced the big woman (I’d known she’d start the talking). ‘Can you give us a particular example of good customer care you’ve been involved with in your previous jobs?’

      I fucking hate job interviews. They are crap. They ask you all these bloody questions, whereas really they only want to know what you smell like, and how much you’re prepared to say you agree with their bizarre views on racial hygiene.

      ‘Well,’ I began, modestly, ‘once, these schoolkids came into the shop; one of their little chums had been knocked down by a car – on the school-run, ironically enough – and they’d clubbed all their pocket money together to buy him a princess bouquet, but they didn’t have enough for the delivery charge. So, I took them to little Tommy myself.’

      They were buying this. I couldn’t believe it! The big СКАЧАТЬ