Sophia Money-Coutts - The Wish List

‘Goodness, Florence, let’s not descend to vulgarities,’ replied Patricia, puckering her lips as if she’d just sucked a battery.

But I was building to a crescendo and enjoying myself: ‘—basically, we can do whatever the hell we like and we certainly don’t have to have a boyfriend just because other people say so.’

I leant back in my chair and glared defiantly at her, but Patricia was like a whack-a-mole you couldn’t kill.

‘Darling,’ she replied, cocking her head to one side. ‘Always so resistant. What if this lady can help you?’

‘I don’t need help!’ I replied, although I sounded squeakier than intended, so I swallowed and started again. ‘What I mean is that I’m happy as things are and I don’t need to see a mad old bat with a pack of tarot cards.’

‘It all sounds very above board. She has an office on Harley Street.’

‘Oh, Harley Street! That settles it. She’s got to be legit if she’s on Harley Street.’

‘Florence, come on, you’re being very silly about this. All I was offering was a session with someone who might be able to help you think about things in a different way.’ Patricia paused and reached for her wine glass. ‘Your father thinks it’s a good idea. He does so worry about you.’

I wasn’t sure what was more humiliating: being told to go and see a love coach or the thought of Dad discussing my relationship status with Patricia.

I dropped my head and muttered into my chest.

‘What’s that?’ asked Patricia.

‘Nothing,’ I replied, snapping my head up. ‘Fine, if you and Dad think it’s a good idea then I will go along for a session. One session, so long as we never have to talk about my relationship status in this family ever again. Deal?’

‘That’s the spirit,’ said my stepmother, one of her claws reaching across the table to pat my hand. ‘I’ll fix up an appointment. My treat. It’ll make your father so happy.’

‘I think it’s a good idea,’ added Mia. ‘Come on, Flo, surely you don’t want to be on your own for ever?’

‘She might be helpful,’ echoed Ruby, looking at me sympathetically. It was the way you’d look at someone who’d just been told they had a terminal disease and three days to live.

Hugo was still mopping steak juice with his finger.

God, my family.

‘Fine,’ I repeated, picking up another chip and jabbing it in the air at them like a knife. ‘But if I go, you all have to remember what I said tonight – we’re never ever discussing my love life as a group activity again.’

‘All right, all right, Germaine Greer,’ said Mia, ‘keep your hair on. Now, can we chat dates for wedding dress shopping? Since you two are bridesmaids, I want you in the same thing. I was thinking coral?’

So I was right about the bridesmaid dress being sick-coloured.

It was bright the next morning, the sun already warming the attic, so I got out of bed and stood in front of my full-length mirror, naked apart from my pants, to gauge how fat I was feeling. I knew I wasn’t really fat. Not fat fat. But I examined my stomach in the mirror every morning anyway. Bloated? Not bloated? I poked my belly with a finger and slumped so it bulged out beneath my tummy button, then straightened again. I cast my eyes down over my thighs (I wished they were smaller), upwards towards my chest (I wished it was bigger) and then ran a hand through my hair which hung in no discernible style to just below my shoulders. I had to straighten it every time I washed it, otherwise it frizzed out, making me look like a spaniel.

I showered and returned to my bedroom. From the hanging cupboard, I retrieved one of four pairs of identical navy trousers from Uniqlo. From my tops drawer, I took out and unfolded a navy T-shirt. I laid them on my bed and returned to my chest of drawers for a pair of ironed and folded black knickers, peeled from a neat row, plus a bra. I dressed, tied my hair up in its usual ponytail and made my bed.

‘Let’s go, pal,’ I said to Marmalade, scooping him up and counting the stairs in my head as we went down – two, four, six, eight, ten, two, four, six, eight, nine, ten, two, four, six, eight, ten.

I put two slices of bread in the toaster for breakfast: toast with honey, one cup of coffee. After that, I’d make lunch. This, too, was always the same: a cheese and tomato sandwich with butter and pickle, which had always gone pleasantly soggy by 1 p.m., and a piece of flapjack from a batch I made every Sunday afternoon.

I was bad with change. Didn’t like it. So I wore the same outfit and ate the same lunch every day because it made me feel safe. It was a form of control; if my daily life remained unvarying, constant, then nothing calamitous could go wrong. I liked uniform days which ended with me lying on the sofa, reading, while a cookery show played on TV. Ideally one with Mary Berry in it. I liked Mary because she was neat and orderly.

Occasionally I worried such a quiet, unambitious life meant I’d be alone for ever, never brave enough to fall in love or go abroad. The furthest I’d ever travelled was to my grandmother’s in France, which was ironic considering my parents were keen explorers who met in India. Mum had been an idealistic 23-year-old who taught English at a school in a Mumbai suburb, and lived in a small apartment nearby where she was woken in the morning by monkeys shrieking on her balcony. I’d always held on to the idea of those noisy monkeys, one of the only stories I could remember her telling me.

Dad was living in the city at the same time, a student writing his dissertation on dynastic Indian politics. This topic had apparently acted as an aphrodisiac on Mum, who’d met him one evening when he was invited over to dinner by her flatmate. That was that. They became inseparable, until the car crash in London eight years later. The crash that rocketed into our lives like a comet and changed everything. That was when I realized change was bad. So, the same clothes; the same lunch; every Monday, by and large, the same as the previous Monday, and the Monday before that. If life stayed the same, life was safe.

That morning, I ate my toast while listening to the radio – a Cabinet minister had been forced to apologize for making a joke about vegans – and ushered Marmalade into the garden.

Mia left for work first. She worked for a fashion PR company, quite senior now, and was responsible for telling women that they should wear crochet and tartan this season and that animal print was out. She’d given up on me because I refused to wear anything other than my self-imposed navy uniform to the shop. Ruby would generally lie in bed until midday, depending on whether she had a casting, then leave a trail of mugs and milky cereal bowls around the house which I put in the dishwasher every evening since, by then, she was always out.

I slid lunch into my rucksack, a waterproof navy job bought several years ago from Millets for its many compartments. It fitted my purse, my lip balm, my house keys, a spare hair tie, a packet of paracetamol, my phone, my sandwich, my flapjack and whatever book I was reading. I didn’t understand women who left the house with a handbag the size of a matchbox. How could they go about their day looking so self-assured when all they had on them was a debit card and a lipstick? What if they got a headache?

I reached under the hall table for my hideous work shoes, fastened them and set off on foot for the shop. A distance of exactly 2.6 miles, much of it along the Thames.

I walked to most places playing Consequences, another form of control. It had started when I was four, the year after Mum died. That was when I started totting up the number of classmates every morning to make sure they were all there. Only when I reached fourteen could I relax. Everyone present. Some days, it was only thirteen, which would make me anxious until Mrs Garber said it was all right, the absentee’s mother had called to say they had a stomach bug and they’d be back in tomorrow.