I check in with Lainey, who almost reaches through the phone to shake me by my shirt collar. Yes! Good idea, she confirms. It’ll give me something to talk about while building brand and buzz.
‘Hurry up and post a picture!’ she cries as I Facetime her around the ground floor. ‘It’s totally relatable, too. We’ve all been there with a paint roller. Who’d have thought we’d both be renovating at the same time? So exciting!’
‘Don’t remind me,’ I say, scratching at a dint in the wall. ‘I feel like I’ve bitten off way more than I can chew.’
‘Yeah, it feels like that, but small steps. Just think of it as one wall panel at a time. We’re just about ready to paint the entry. I’m so pumped. Oh! And I’ll have to come up and see this place now you’ve settled in. How are you placed for Saturday?’
‘Saturday—’
‘Oh! And wedding stuff. I need to show you some things.’
After reassuring her I’ll likely be stuck with a roller in hand, but that she’s welcome to help, we ring off and I’m left to my thoughts again, though there is the optimism of Lainey’s words carrying me around. This won’t be so hard. I hope.
There are nicks and divots in walls and paint chipped from corners. The lighting sits at an odd height, something I’m not sure I noticed in the milk-drunk baby love I had for the building. I’m not sure I can do a lot about it without growing about four feet taller, and the higher I look, the more it looks like Charlotte has escaped the farm and moved in with all her offspring. Some gallery. Oh, and I know why one room is aubergine purple, because with ten-foot ceilings, it’s going to be an absolute dick to paint over.
Not that I have a deep well of experience when it comes to painting walls, and don’t get me started on polishing floorboards. Even my attempts at canvas look like the local zoo threw a brush at Emily the Elephant and told her to go wild. My role at Webster had me cataloguing and studying art, liaising with artists and keeping records. Exhibition design and decorating was left to a separate team, where my involvement lasted only long enough to know they were hitting targets.
I’m certain I never even painted my London flat when I moved in. It’s not that I don’t know how to, it’s just that I’m wildly out of my depth, let alone the fact I have absolutely none of the tools I need to do it. But I know who does.
I snatch up my car keys and exponentially growing to-do list and head to Dad’s. Thankfully, my car starts first go. I was not looking forward to forking out for a new battery.
‘Hello, gorgeous girl.’ Fiona floats down the hall towards the front door. ‘Was wondering when I might see you again.’
‘You were?’ I pull the door open and step inside.
‘Sure.’ She spins on her heel and beckons me to the sunroom. ‘You know, after Sunday and all.’
“Urgh.’ I groan. ‘Don’t even go there.’
‘It’s just not gelling for you two, is it?’ she asks.
‘Nope,’ I pip quickly. ‘Can’t win ’em all though, can you?’
‘Certainly not,’ she says.
Silence filters in long enough for me to hope she doesn’t mention Christopher any further. I’m not sure I could stand someone else defending him, telling me he’d be so lovely if only I’d just give him five more minutes of my time. He really is very talented, a wonderful painter and generous friend. But she stays silent, her eyes twinkling like a naughty child. From experience, that means she’s bursting at the seams to say something, but she won’t.
‘Go on.’ I heave a sigh, giving her a look that says please make this as painless as possible.
‘Your father just wants you to see you settled and happy.’ The words explode into the room like a burst balloon. ‘And he thought you two would really hit it off. He is lovely, but I’m going to stop right now.’
‘But I am happy,’ I say with a small bewildered smile. ‘Slightly stressed, but otherwise decent. My career is at Cape Canaveral awaiting launch. Sure, my love life is a little bit London canal boat, but you know.’
‘Don’t knock those canal boats.’ Fiona waves a paintbrush. ‘Tried living on one of them for a while. Could never quite get the mechanics of painting, shagging and living in the same ten square foot of area.’
I laugh. ‘And all three at once would be a stretch.’
‘Ain’t that the truth.’ She turns her attention back to a piece of flatpack on the dining room floor. ‘Did try. Unsuccessfully, I might add. The shagging is quite okay if you get them under you, but the rest? Forget it.’
It’s not as if I’ve had the best luck with men to begin with. John notwithstanding, there was Jamie in my second year of university. Everything was jogging along nicely until I learned he’d found himself a new girlfriend at life drawing class – the model. Then there was Bret. If the odd spelling wasn’t enough to give him away, perhaps the recycled catchphrases and manbun should have been. He disappeared in a haze of beer and Ping-Pong balls while attending someone else’s Freshers’ week. That someone was Janett. She read classics and over-pronounced every syllable. They’re married now, with a minibus full of strawberry blonde cherubs.
I also wasn’t keen on adding to my small list of one-night stands. They were never as fulfilling as you imagine they’ll be in the downlights of a sweaty club with a gut full of gin. I’m getting older. If I went in for anything now, it would be something I knew was going to be solid and long lasting, and I was entirely sure Christopher didn’t fit that bill. Despite the built-in cheer squad.
‘All right. I’ll drop it,’ she says. ‘Anyway, what brings you out here today? I’m about to have lunch if you’d like to join me?’
‘No, thank you though.’ I wave a hand. ‘I’ve just finished breakfast. What I’d really love to do is raid the garden shed if that’s okay.’
‘Always.’ She unhooks the key from near the kitchen door. ‘Do you need a weed trimmer?’
‘No, actually. Well, not yet. I’m going to start painting, I think.’
‘Ah, the exciting parts.’ Her face crinkles into a serene smile. ‘Let’s go see what we’ve got.’
As we dig through dusty boxes looking for cobweb brushes, paint rollers and extension poles, I talk through my plans. It’s nice to have a sounding board who isn’t Lainey, my father or my brother because, while they’re 187 per cent supportive, I know Fiona is also practical.
‘I mean logic tells us to start at the top and work down,’ she says as she reaches into an old cupboard and thrusts a paint tray at me. ‘Fix up the ceiling and lights, then the walls. God knows you don’t want to do the floors and then get paint all over them.’
‘You know, even though I know that, I still feel like someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder and say, “Not like that, you fool.”’
‘It’s not inadequacy you’re feeling,’ she says. ‘I think it’s more an issue of expectation. You’ve got all these ideas of what you want to achieve and now all the movement has stopped, it’s going to feel like a bit of a crawl waiting for the end result.’