Then, with a collecting of handbag, a muttering of ‘why do back-to-back meetings fucking exist in this fucking world?’ and a kiss blown in my direction, Megan is out of the door. Leaving me with my half-eaten breakfast and too many thoughts to be having at this time of the morning.
The heatwave is hanging on and nobody in London can believe their luck. This morning BBC News threatened it could last the whole summer, but everyone’s still seeing it as a treat rather than a warning. I walk through the red-brick streets towards the Tube station, dodging a collection of teenage schoolgirls giggling in navy uniform, and smelling of sun-lotion mixed with vanilla perfume.
The Tube is too full to get onto. The doors clunk open to reveal a comedy sketch of commuters stuffed into the carriage, like that clowns crammed into a car trick. Despite this, people are still determined to force their sweaty bodies into the impossible situation. I stand back and watch the spectacle, and, somehow, space is found for most of them. The doors slide shut and the Tube rattles off, leaving just me and a few other stragglers waiting.
Do people really use me to feel better about their own lives?
Am I really that person?
When the next train whirrs in, it’s much emptier, and I feel smug at the tiny win against London. I even manage to get a seat, putting my blazer down so my bare skin doesn’t touch the gross cushion. The stench of one man opposite is so putrid that he could be used as smelling salts. Sweat’s already drenched his business shirt, and he’s eating a cereal bar so aggressively that crumbs of desiccated oats are spraying from his mouth like a whale’s blowhole. He finishes it with a chomp and dusts off his remaining mess like a rhino scent-marking a river with their own shit.
I hate you, I think, as I look at this man.
Once I get to Baker Street, I treat myself to a coffee, so I’ll be slightly late and won’t have to handle all the ‘how did it go’s?’ I stand outside Pret and watch everyone scurry to work in a haze of self-important Tasmanian Devil tornadoes. Simon once said ‘Pret coffee is shit’, when it literally all tastes the same to me.
‘Fuck you, Simon,’ I say out loud, taking a hearty swig. ‘It’s just fucking coffee, you tosser.’
This anger is new, the bitterness fresh out of the box. I have been many things in my life – frantic, desperate, obsessive, silly, motivated – but never cynical. Never angry. But it’s like I’ve only been pushing it down, letting it form pockets of hatred in my body like undetected tumours, and now they’ve all burst and the cancer of it is spreading rapidly.
I finish my perfectly-adequate coffee and check the time on my phone. It’s 9.34. I toss my cup into the rubbish bin next to the homeless man, fibbing when I say I don’t have any change, but feeling like I’m still a good person because at least I didn’t ignore him. I walk up the street to our office, punch in the entry code and climb the dingy steps. I take a breath and stand outside the door for one moment, composing myself. Something I’ve never done before. I draw the curtain shut on my personality and push through into the keyboard clacks and furrowed brows of Monday morning.
‘Hi April.’ Mike, our CEO, nods as I walk past and slide behind my desk, pushing aside all the unfinished crap I’d abandoned there Friday evening. Matt and Katy nod ‘hello’ too and I nod back. I never just nod back. Usually I bowl in, dramatically unveiling my latest drama in the swirl of my coat being taken off, and letting everyone in on the hilarious mess that is my life. Today, I just nod.
I switch on my computer, put my headphones on, and open up my emails. There’s the usual quicksand to wade through, sent by the people who check their inboxes over the weekend, to prove to us all how much harder they work. I roll my eyes and bash out my responses. We’re about to recruit a new batch of volunteer advisors, so I lose an hour to tweaking the wording of the advertisement.
At ten thirty, Katy waves her hand to distract me away. ‘Coffee?’ she mimes.
I shake my head, even though I’m desperate for more caffeine. She doesn’t mean ‘coffee’, however. She means standing in the kitchen and debriefing our lives. My life, mainly, since I usually have the most drama to tell. I’m bashing too hard on my keyboard and clicking the mouse button like it disrespected my mother. I feel like there’s a million tiny Bunsen burners in my veins, slowly bubbling my blood, and I’m not sure where this anger is coming from but it’s really demanding to be felt.
I wait until Katy sits back down with her drink before I go up and get my own. I close my eyes as I wait for the kettle to boil, focusing on my stomach going in and out with each breath to see if that helps dislodge all the putrid rage.
‘April, happy Monday,’ Matt says, joining me with an empty mug.
I flicker my eyes open and smile with closed lips. ‘Morning Matt.’
‘Good weekend?’ he asks. ‘More importantly, good date?’ The kettle clicks off and he pours the water into his cup even though I was here first and I was the one who put the kettle on.
I blink for a long time before opening my eyes again. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say, taking the kettle from him.
Matt almost pauses in mid-air. I don’t think he’s ever heard me say that combination of words together. I don’t offer further explanation either. I smile tersely again, tip some milk into my drink, hand him the bottle, and return to my seat. Apparently, no, you don’t have to share your life’s dramas. You don’t have to play the part of ‘poor little April why can’t she make it work’. You can just make coffee and go back to your desk, without vomiting up your vulnerability as a way of making people like you.
Matt and Katy’s side-looks make me angrier throughout the morning. In fact, everything makes me angrier. It’s like I’ve only just discovered the emotion. I always thought anger was something to suppress and squash down and make peace with. I think I knew, somehow, that if I tapped into that particular reservoir, it would be the undoing of me. But it’s now time to unleash it.
‘You all right, buddy?’ Matt’s head pops up from above my computer monitor, before my shift starts at eleven. He is clearly taking the tactic of pretending I’m not being difficult today. ‘I’m here if you need me.’
‘I’m fine, cheers,’ I tell the computer screen, still click-click-clacking, entering all the various passwords and security codes I need to get access to the inbox. I sense, rather than see, his head retreat back down again.
There are ten questions to get through this shift, which is quite a lot for midsummer. Swallowing my mouthful of coffee, I open the first question and read it under my breath.
Message received: 23:07
I’ve just moved to Birmingham for my job and I’m feeling really lonely. I’m too shy to go out and make friends and so just spend my time looking out of my flat window. I’m too proud to tell people how hard I’m finding it. How do I make friends?
I click into our shared folder and get out the ‘I’m lonely’ template, personalising it for this yet-another-victim of modern life. I fire it off, and open up the next one.
Message received: 01:23
am i pregnant? my period is late
This question is standard despite the fact it’s impossible to tell if someone is pregnant, a) without a test, and b) through a computer screen. I open the relevant template telling them to go to the doctor, while emotionally supporting them, and hit send.