The One Before The One

She fumbles around near the sink, hands me my glasses, and I put them on. Only then does everything become clear. Well, almost clear, there’s still something obstructing my vision. Lexi has her hair wrapped in a Tesco bag, dribbles of purple dye running down her forehead, around her ears. My sparkling white, Italian designer bathroom basin – obscene amounts of money from a place on Lavender Hill – is splattered with purple dye. As is the wall. As is the towel around Lexi’s neck. As are, I discover, my glasses. Hence the dark spots in front of my eyes.

‘Um, the sink,’ I squeak, thinking, keep a lid on it, Caroline. Keep things in perspective.

‘The sink?’ says Lexi.

‘It’s covered in dye.’ I put a specific emphasis on the word ‘dye’.

‘Oh!’ She bites her nail. ‘Shit. But it’ll come off, right?’ She goes to rub at it with dye-covered fingers. ‘Er, Lex, don’t do that?’ I’m trying to sound calm, whilst suppressing the hysteria that’s bubbling within me.

‘If I just …’ She licks her fingers and goes at it again.

‘Stop!’ I mean it to come out normally but it shoots out of my mouth like a small, hard pellet. ‘NOW. Please. Lexi.’

‘All right, missus.’ She’s brightly rubbing at it with my flannel now. ‘Calm your boots. I’m just going to give it ever such a little …’

She wipes away a drip of dye that’s rolling down her forehead and then goes to pick up the flannel again, at which point I crack. I literally slide, cartoon style, across the bathroom floor in my towelling bedsocks, grabbing the side of the sink. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST LEAVE IT OKAY? JUST …’ I gather myself. ‘Leave it.’

She stops rubbing.

‘Oh, okay. Sorry,’ she says. Does she actually flinch? Something tells me this little arrangement may not pan out that well. Something tells me I have lived alone for far too long.

My sister turning up for the summer aside, I do occasionally worry what it says about my life that I look forward to coming to work on a Monday. The hating weekends thing crept up on me, really. For the fourteen years that Martin and I were together, weekends were okay. Well, they were much the same as anyone else’s – any other couple’s, that is.

Endless rounds of barbecues and visits to the almost in-laws; Sunday afternoons spent at the Tate Modern, even though neither of us really liked anything in there so we’d end up in the shop where I’d buy another Dali postcard and Martin would buy his mum her birthday present in advance – usually another Liberty-print oven glove.

Post break up, there were about three months where I revelled in my new-found freedom. When the novelty was over, however, and my concerned friends, who had rallied round went back to their neglected boyfriends, I began to dread weekends. Especially summer weekends. Bank holiday weekends are the work of the devil. The two in May, a torture device. Because what I envisaged about summer in London: Tooting Lido, picnics on Hampstead Heath, Shakespeare in Regent’s Park, didn’t hold that much appeal on my own and sometimes, although I hated to admit it, I would feel lonely. Panicky, even. And at times like that I’d start to think that maybe I’d made a huge mistake with Martin – well, actually, I still sometimes wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake with Martin. I kind of missed the ‘schedule’ after all. At least he was enthusiastic about doing stuff, even if it was Duxford Aerodrome. Also, Martin Squire is, quite simply, the nicest bloke in the world. Which is probably why he wasn’t the bloke for me.

I get out my mobile to call him. I miss ‘us’ most in the mornings, sitting here at Battersea Park station, the heady, oily smell of a London summer in the air, the sky already a brilliant blue. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the summers we sat here together, Martin giving me one of his early morning pep talks: ‘Caro, nobody’s dying, you’ve still got me. What’s the worst than can happen?’ he’d say. ‘You lose a client. You fail.’

I’d go into voluntary spasm at the thought.

The phone rings and rings, which is strange, because Martin always picks up. I leave a message.

‘Hello you, it’s me. Why aren’t you answering your phone? Wanted to know if you fancied coming to see an exhibition with me on Saturday? Thought I’d get you early. It’s by a German artist, some sort of conceptual thing – I saw it in Time Out. Might be crap but it would just be nice to see you. As ever. Also, you’ll never believe this, but guess who just rocked up on my doorstop last night, announcing she’s staying for the whole summer? My bloody sister! As you can imagine, I’m freaking out. I need a Martin pep talk. Oh yeah, and the exhibition. You’ll probably want to know—’

‘Where it is,’ I’m about to say, but then a cargo train approaches and by the time it’s passed, the space on the answer machine has been used up and there’s just a flat tone ringing.

Shona’s the only person in the office when I arrive. She’s on the phone and I know exactly, by her straight, tense back and clipped voice, who to. She presses ‘hold', gives a little shudder and puts her fingers to her head, mimicking a trigger. Shona’s not one for hiding how she feels about people, especially how she feels about Darryl Schumacher.

‘It’s Darryl Bum Smacker,’ she hisses. ‘Wants to discuss a date for the pitch for Minty Me – and to take me to dinner, obviously.’

‘Tell him I’m not here yet. Tell him I’ll call him back, okay?’

‘She’ll call you back,’ says Shona.

Then, more irate: ‘I said she’ll call you back!’

Even more irate: ‘I don’t think what I’m doing at the weekend is really that relevant to the oral hygiene market, do you, Darryl?’

She slams the phone down.

‘Cock,’ I hear her mutter under her breath before taking another call. God, I love Shona. I wish I could be more like Shona. Doesn’t suffer fools. Never gets stressed. Never puts her job before her principles – which is maybe why she’s still the sales’ team’s admin exec after seven years at the company. If we let her loose on selling anything we’d be in liquidation by now.

Darryl Schumacher is head buyer for Langley’s supermarkets, notorious for making women physically sick but also for driving the hardest bargain in the oral hygiene market. For weeks now, I’ve been chipping away at him, toeing that fine balance between what our boss calls skilful sales and ‘the sledgehammer effect’ (i.e., all punch and no result). I sell oral hygiene products to supermarkets for a living. I know it’s not saving the world, but I love my job and seem to be quite good at it. But then I guess, without blowing my own trumpet, that I’m pretty good at most things if I put my mind to it. ‘Caroline is a very capable young lady,’ teachers would write on my report. You know the sort: three As at A Level, First Class degree, head-hunted on the university Milk Round to join Skidmore Colt Davis’s graduate scheme – a geek, basically.

This is a crucial time with Schumacher. If he catches me off guard, I could lose the sale, but if I play my cards right, we’ll have Mini Minty Me breath freshener on the shelves of all branches of Langley’s by next week, meaning profit for the company and a stab at being nominated as Sales Person of the Year in August’s Institute of Sales Annual Awards – not that that’s a highlight or anything.

So now, when I’ve just walked into the office and I’m not on my guard, is not the time to deal with Schumacher. I’m distracted by Lexi’s arrival and I want to mail Toby.

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

From: caroline.steele@scd.co.uk

Subject: Teenage Mutant Sister invasion at 64 Coombe Gardens. Argh!

So, on Sunday I am knee-deep in admin [small, white lie but he doesn’t need to know this] when the doorbell goes. You will never guess who was there, announcing she’s staying for the summer?!

There’s a sudden pressure on my shoulders and then a familiar schoolboy giggle.

‘Writing love letters to me again? Give it a rest, will you? They’re clogging up my inbox.’

‘Jesus, Toby. You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

He laughs, chomping on a pastie. I’ve never known anyone eat as much as Toby Delaney, and still have a concave stomach.

‘I tend to have that effect on women,’ he says, sitting down at his desk.

There are bits of pastie all down his tie but even that, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to take away from his breathtaking attractiveness. In fact, it seems to add to it, which I find exhilarating and demoralising all at the same time. The less he tries, and he never does, the more delectable he seems to become.

I lean back on my chair, assuming an air of nonchalance. It’s something I’ve perfected after nearly a year of sitting opposite someone who it’s all I can do not to strip naked and eat.

‘So how was your weekend?’ I say.

‘Oh, you know … missed you,’ he mouths, chucking a pen in front of me.

‘Shut up, Delaney!’

‘I did!’ he says, clutching at his chest with mock hurt. ‘Anyway, pick up that pen, will you? I want to see your pants.’

I chuck the pen back at him

‘What about you?’ he says. ‘Good weekend Steeley? Or are you keeping it a secret?’

But then there’s the familiar ‘dong’ as his computer sparks into action. I wait for him to carry on the conversation but he’s too busy squinting at his screen.

‘Caroline still topping the sales targets,’ he reads, in a South African accent, mocking our boss’s email. ‘You bitch.’ He shakes his head. ‘You total spawny cow.’

I’m about to respond with some devastatingly witty comeback when a familiar figure looms over our desks.