Low Expectations (30 page)

‘Okay.'

I had relayed this un-pretty speech to his feet and now, looking into his eyes, am unable to read them. His shoes again capture my attention. Good, solid, brown leather workman's boots, worn-in and masculine. Comforting. Even his footwear is breaking my heart.

‘That's it, really …' I don't recognize the soft, broken whisper coming out of my mouth. ‘Except to say that I hope, I hope that whatever, however little you think of me, it isn't as little as that. I hope you might think of me fondly someday, unrelated to all this … horrible mess … because I think of you. Fondly. A lot.'

Gulping, I find the courage to look at his face again. I search for some sign, some micro-expression of sympathy or compassion that might relieve me from this hell of my own making. He just looks tired.

‘Thanks for letting me know. Go home, Georgie.'

It is the second time in less than two weeks that I have heard those words coming from a man, but the first time that it really hurts.

April 15th, London Fields

Birthdays are a weird time. Either you enforce a celebration of your own existence on your mates or you choose to be anti-social and go it alone. The latter option may seem eminently sensible when considering the pressure to have a Great Night but will lead to a spiral of depression if no one picks up on your secret desire for a surprise party. (They won't. This only ever happens in sitcoms.)

Birthdays are a barometer for how well you are succeeding in life combined with an annual reminder of how little time remains to catch up on your inevitable failures. When I was twelve, the thought of turning twenty-five was thrilling. At
that point I would no doubt have completed my transformation from Ugly Duckling to Glorious Swan and be travelling the world as an International Woman Of Mystery, collecting as many ex-husbands and diamonds as Elizabeth Taylor. Here I am, a quarter of a century old, a student with no fine jewellery to speak of, living in the same city I always have, without even one divorce under my belt. Yet, somehow, I am serene in the face of my future, strangely assured that things will be all right in the end.

Maybe it is because I am working towards a goal, my creative energies put to good use without the emotional distractions of a relationship. I am thinking of myself, doing what I want to do, caring for my future. The liberating thing about losing something you think you need is that you realize how little you really need at all. That want can be left unsatisfied yet you can still be at peace. That the bittersweet pleasure of life lies not in the having but in the trying. In the words of Churchill, you Keep Buggering On.

The past few weeks have been a maddening tussle between conflicting emotions as my final collection took shape. When things were going smoothly, I felt more zen than I ever have in my life, happily working until 3 a.m. Of course, when mistakes made at 3 a.m. required 6 a.m. unpicking sessions, I was stuck in an exhausted hell. Painful treks to obscure boroughs were necessary to source hardware that had not arrived on schedule and miscommunication with printers resulted in
off-tone dye-jobs. I made peace with the conclusion that to get the results that I really wanted in the time that remained, I had to do almost everything myself.

At times, I was left holding my face metaphorically (sometimes literally) in the manner of Munch's
Scream
. Averaging four hours' sleep a night, with everything taking twice as long as anticipated, the days passed in strained concentration broken up with many, many coffee and cigarette breaks. This led to a brand-new lightning-bolt stain on my front teeth (marking me for magical greatness?) as well as a tubercular cough. I somehow avoided a nervous breakdown. In fact, I felt weirdly invigorated.

Days before my final six looks were due, on the phone to my mother during one of my harried pauses, I outlined the fuck-ups that had already occurred and those I knew were to come. It was a moment of particularly shattered morale and Mum asked me a question that in times of stress and self-doubt, I had been asking myself.

‘Darling, if you hate it so much, why are you doing this for your career?'

‘I don't hate it. I'm just tired.'

‘You sound like you hate it.'

‘It's not that I hate the work, I love it, I just hate doing anything for sixteen hours a day,' I said, leaving out that I was averaging twenty hours a day due to my poor organization. Mum is not sympathetic to what she has dubbed for years
my ‘chronic unmanageability', though she spent her own youth partying with one crafty eye out for a husband. I add defensively, ‘Besides, I can't think of anything I would prefer doing. I just needed to vent to someone.'

‘Well, at least you have that Leo fellow as your boyfriend. You are so modest. I had no idea he was doing so well. Pin him down and then you won't have to bother working after your degree,' Mum said, sounding gleeful for the first time in what may have been years.

As I didn't want to prove her theory about my dire taste in men right, I had elected not to tell her about any change in my love life. I knew it would eventually come back to bite me in the arse. Why was she suddenly a struggling musician's greatest fan? Something was not right with this situation.

Mum misinterpreted the quiet on my end of the line as qualms about being a kept woman and added generously,

‘Or carry on working, if you really want to! Leo will be a great source for contacts now that he's on television and you'll have some financial and emotional support from someone other than me. That's all I've ever hoped for you.'

I had no idea what she was on about and had never heard her sound so pleased with me. Typically, when she is happy with my performance as her only child, it is a happiness based on omissions and white lies spun to avoid further lecturing. This time was to be no different; her pride misplaced in a
falsehood. I had to burst her bubble in case she was already designing wedding invitations.

‘What are you talking about? Leo was on telly? How do you even know what he looks like?'

‘Your generation isn't the only one gifted with the ability of online stalking, darling. You shut me out so often, at times it's the only way I can feel close to you. I've had a burner Facebook account for years. And what do you mean? He's on that new talent show,
Rock Rebel
or whatever it's called.'

‘Whaaaat?

‘You don't know?'

A judgemental silence bore down on me as I tried to think of a way to explain the situation without getting caught in my web of lies. I never suspected that Beardy would have enough success, or tabloid infamy, that my bourgeois mother would hear of him and approve of our now fictitious relationship.

‘Either you have not made him engage in a real relationship with you, Georgie, or the television production company is making him hide you for ratings.'

I tried not to laugh at this, still reeling from Beardy's blatant fame-whoring. Signing up for a reality contest, when I was with him, would have been the last thing I ever imagined him doing. He was far too pretentious, too willing to declare himself an ‘artist', too concerned with being ‘real', whatever the hell that even means. Clearly, the squiggle in a rectangle
band he joined didn't work out. Knowing now that he never wrote any of Tin Can Bang's repertoire, I guess it didn't take long before doing the rounds as a simple guitarist-for-hire made him hungry enough to sell out. On this
Rock Rebel
show, no less, which is exactly the sort of thing he used to deride.

‘He's doing super-well,' Mum said, adding with an edge, ‘Such a handsome boy.'

‘I broke up with him, Mum, months ago. I just didn't tell you because I thought you would be less concerned about me if you thought I had “pinned down a man”, to use your charming expression.'

I held my mobile an arm's length away from my ear but could still hear her shouting down the phone. After giving her two minutes to rant, I interrupted her protestations.

‘I don't want a man I have to pin down, I want a partnership of equals with someone who thinks I'm fantastic. Someone who I think is fantastic. I don't need some big swinging dick around to be happy. I am happy. Things will work out for me just fine.'

‘Georgie, you know I just want you to be happy and supported! But why did you have to end it just before his career took off? That's such bad timing. Maybe you should give him a friendly call to say hello—'

‘No, Mum, no. I didn't want to tell you this, but I found out after we'd broken up that he had sexually assaulted someone I know.'

A reflective pause ensued.

‘Well, we all have our flaws. Maybe he just has too much testosterone?'

As justifications went, it was a doozy. Unbelievable.

‘I'm hanging up now, Mum!'

‘Good luck with your deadline, darling! Give some thought to what I said!'

The thought of ever speaking to Beardy again made my stomach turn. I concentrated on the essentials, i.e. my final collection, and managed to hand in everything on time. It is now the Easter holidays. I don't know yet if I will make it into the final show, but I am satisfied that I did my best and have got a head start on the portfolio work that will make up the last term's project.

‘Georgie! It's been ages, how are you?' Sarah calls out.

‘Happy birthday, so sorry we're late!' Rose says.

They saunter across the park to where I am sitting on a picnic blanket with a cake and a bottle of wine. I have decided to keep the celebrations simple: food on a sunshiny day, followed by drinks with Julian and Theo and maybe a little dance somewhere afterwards.

‘Thank you! But what are you guys wearing, the theme is
Sunset Boulevard
! Crazy old diva women who refuse to let go of youth!' I squawk. Just because I am having a chilled birthday doesn't mean I can't take the opportunity to wear a costume.

They are wearing stylish, flattering outfits. The dress code
I had chosen: ‘We Didn't Need Dialogue. We Had Faces!' was apparently too vague a visual reference. I am wearing a floor-length, mega-shoulder-padded zebra-stripe dress with mad-art-teacher necklaces, cat-eye sunglasses and an orange turban. They are in tight jeans, Swedish Hasbeens and leather jackets.

‘I'm so sorry, Georgie! I'm staying at Tim's tonight and we're having dinner with the fam tomorrow, I can't turn up looking deranged,' Rose apologizes. In a weird twist of fate abetted by stalking, she ignored my pleading and managed to track down and seduce Tim, Alice's brother. I am pretty sure she has kept me on the D-low. I am her secret friend. It is like being seven years old all over again.

‘Turbans aren't deranged, they're fabulous!' I swish my head, unconcerned. ‘What's your excuse, Sarah?'

‘Dude, I am single and ready to mingle! Mad Old Woman is not the look I am going for. But I did bring you champagne!' She whips a bottle out of her bag. Excellent.

‘Amazing! Let's crack that baby open.'

‘You look great, Georgie, really healthy,' says Rose, handing me her gift.

‘Thanks! After my lifelong exercise hiatus I started running.'

Though I have been going four times a week for the past few months, the thing about exercise is you really need to diet alongside it to lose weight. I've toned up but if anything I am
a little bigger than before as my musculature has expanded. I feel fit, healthy and energetic. The breaks outside, away from the studio, have been essential for my mental state. I have even given some thought to giving up smoking. Just thought, mind.

‘Aww, Rose!
The Big Penis Book
from Taschen. Just what I have always wanted!' We flip through the pages as Sarah pours three glasses of champagne. ‘Good Lord, look at that!'

‘It's a bit objectifying, but to hell with it,' Rose says.

‘Oh, let them be objectified for once. The Male Gaze isn't so bad as long as there is a Female Gaze to counteract it. That's the annoying thing – men make no effort! Now that Alistair and I have broken up I really notice it. I walk around and think, “Look at you! I don't want to fuck any of you!” And yet men still get manage to get laid.'

‘I know what you mean. I definitely objectify men, I just have so little opportunity to do so that I forget how pleasurable it is,' I say, eyeing up a particularly extraordinary phallus.

‘Sarah! You can't really think objectification is the answer,' Rose protests, conveniently forgetting that her gift started this discussion.

‘Sure I do! We need something to get the juices going. No one ever came thinking, “Oh God! I – I respect your thoughtful … yet hard-line attitude to corporate tax evasion! So! Much! Right! Now!”' Sarah giggles uproariously. One of the things I
love about her is that she is never afraid to laugh at her own jokes.

‘Well, obviously no one ever comes thinking about taxes.'

‘You know what I mean – it doesn't need to be about love though, either. Taking pleasure in a body doesn't mean that it is degrading. With hindsight, I realize things with Alistair were all about sex. If I hadn't thought it meant more, maybe I would have made different decisions.'

I give Sarah a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder. The showdown with Henry was bitter and brutal. Sarah tried to make it work with Alistair afterwards, but too much heartache had tainted it. In the end, she decided what she really wanted was to be alone for a while.

‘It's fine, Georgie! I needed to go through that. It's still hard, sometimes, but I'm glad to be free.' Sarah flips the page of the book and raises an eyebrow, impressed. ‘But back to my argument. Look, you can't help taking pleasure in an image. If I were a man, I might be called misogynist. I mean, if I look at a delightfully turned out cake, I'll fantasize about consuming it, devour it ravenously and afterwards feel a bit disgusted with myself.'

‘Women are not cake!' Rose is getting upset.