I Heart London. Lindsey Kelk

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СКАЧАТЬ learned in twenty-eight years of life said go upstairs and go to sleep. So obviously I picked up my handbag, waited for my mum to come out of the loo and followed her out of the front door.

      ‘So I said to Janet, I’m not disputing the fact that you’ve been here since half nine,’ my mum said, carefully weighing the difference between two courgettes, narrowing her eyes and placing the bigger one in a little plastic bag. ‘I’m just saying I finished at three and I’ve got things to do. Why should I hang around late because she wants to leave early?’

      ‘You shouldn’t, love,’ Dad confirmed, passing her a bag of King Edwards for approval. ‘Do we need onions?’

      ‘Get one big one,’ she replied. ‘I might do a spag bol tomorrow. For the American girl.’

      It turned out my mother’s idea of an emotional family reunion was a quick turn around Waitrose. At midday on a Saturday.

      ‘I need to get some milk,’ I said, walking away from the trolley without proper approval. This was tantamount to going AWOL − my mother looked like she was ready to court martial me right up the arse.

      ‘I’ve got milk,’ she said, waving her list at me. ‘Why do you need more milk?’

      Twisting my engagement ring round and round and round, I shrugged. ‘I’m going to see if they’ve got any lactose-free stuff. Alex is lactose intolerant.’

      Both my mum and dad froze on the spot. My dad looked like he might cry.

      ‘It’s not catching,’ I said. ‘He just can’t digest milk easily.’

      Mum pressed a palm to her chest and visibly paled, while my dad hung his head, presumably seeing visions of feeble lactose-intolerant grandchildren failing to return the football he had just kicked to them.

      ‘The woman who did my colonic says I’m a bit intolerant too,’ I added, waiting for a reaction. But there was none. There was only silence. Picking the list out of my mum’s hand, I scanned it and popped it back between her thumb and forefinger. ‘So we make a good pair. I’ll get the stuff for the pasta.’

      ‘Angela,’ she said in her kindest, most pleading voice. ‘You didn’t really have a colonic did you?’

      Sometimes, I thought to myself, it’s kinder to lie.

      ‘Yes, I did, Mum,’ I replied. ‘In fact, I’ve had two.’

      And sometimes, I just couldn’t be bothered.

      If I wasn’t disorientated enough from the overwhelming jet lag that kept threatening to take my legs out from under me, roaming around Waitrose looking for tinned tomatoes and spaghetti just about pushed me over the edge. The only thing that kept me moving was the lure of the Mini Cheddars I’d promised myself. I moved through the aisles of the supermarket like they were full of treacle, my legs heavy and tired. Dodging trolleys and pushchairs and what seemed like dozens of sixteen-year-olds in green uniforms with cages full of Old El Paso fajita dinner kits, I was on autopilot. Maybe I wasn’t home after all. Maybe the plane had crashed and I was in purgatory. There couldn’t be any other explanation for the way I was feeling, the way nothing had changed in the slightest.

      Well, nothing had changed but me. I looked like shit. I stopped by one of the freezer cabinets to be quietly appalled at the price of Ben & Jerry’s and caught sight of my reflection. Transatlantic travel did no one any favours. Even following Jenny’s advice hadn’t helped me; sometimes you can drink two litres of water, spend the entire flight getting up and down to go to the loo, smother yourself in Beauty Flash Balm and still deplane looking like you’ve flown in directly from a two-week vacation with the crypt keeper. My skin looked crap, my hair was greasy, and whatever long-lasting, no-smudge mascara I had been wearing was either missing or smudged. Because cosmetics companies were liars. Why couldn’t we all just agree that bruise-like swipes of grey and black etched into the fine lines around your eyes were sexy? Why did we make life hard for ourselves? Maybe I could put it in Gloss as a trend. Maybe I could put it out of business before the first issue even got out.

      ‘Angela?’

      Oh no. I bit down hard on my dry, chapped lips and closed my eyes. Maybe if I didn’t open them again, the voice would go away.

      ‘Angela, is … is that you?’

      How could this be happening? I’d been in England for less than three hours, I hadn’t even had time to change my pants, and yet this − this − was happening? Holding my shopping out as my last defence, I turned round, offering absolutely everything I owned to every deity ever conceived if they would open up a hole in the ground for me to jump into.

      ‘It is you.’ Mark, my ex-fiancé, stood in front of me, smiling. ‘Wow.’

      No disappearing hole. Just an arsehole. Five foot ten of cheating scumbag shithead gurning like the total bell end he was, holding onto a trolley as though he was going to charge me with it. How come he got a weapon and I didn’t? I quickly looked around, trying to find something deadly. It was like The Hunger Games meets MasterChef.

      ‘Hi,’ I said. Thanks to my bushel of cheesy snacks I couldn’t even put a hand through my hair, couldn’t try to wipe away some of my errant eyeliner. ‘Well.’

      ‘Well.’ He rapped his fingers on the handle of his trolley, keeping it ever so slightly mobile. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’

      ‘Fancy,’ I replied. This was unfair in every way. I needed to have a very serious conversation with whoever was in charge about how incredibly shit my day had been going so far.

      ‘Um, so this isn’t New York?’ He had always had a talent for stating the obvious.

      Mark, like everything else I’d come across so far, hadn’t changed a bit. His hair was still ever so slightly too long, his jeans were still ever so slightly too big, and he looked almost as uncomfortable as he had the last time I’d laid eyes on him. At least he didn’t have a skinny blonde wrapped around his waist this time, so I suppose I should have been counting my blessings.

      ‘I heard you were still there.’

      ‘I am,’ I said quickly, shuffling my shopping in my arms. ‘I mean, not now, obviously. I’m back for Mum’s birthday.’

      ‘Of course,’ he nodded, every moment growing more awkward than the last. ‘I was supposed to be going this week, but the deal fell through and, well, you know how work is.’

      It pissed me off that I did know. It pissed me off that he still existed.

      ‘Yeah, I heard,’ I said. And immediately regretted saying it. He smirked a little and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

      ‘Jungle drums,’ he commented and tried a laugh. It didn’t take. When I didn’t respond in any way, shape or form, he gave me his most earnest expression and leaned over the handle of his trolley. He was winning. ‘It’s good to see you.’

      Unfortunately for Mark, I already knew he was a liar.

      ‘Hmm.’ It was all I could manage. I should have got changed. Here he was, all sparkly Saturday clean, and here I was in baggy jeans, a rumpled T-shirt and Converse. I wanted to run home, wash my hair, pull out my tightest dress and my highest heels and come back with my heaviest handbag, fill it with СКАЧАТЬ