Emma Unsworth - Adults

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2020

Copyright © Emma Jane Unsworth 2020

Cover photograph © DEEPOL / PlainPicture

Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ © Paul Simon

Emma Jane Unsworth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008334598

Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2020 ISBN: 9780008334611

Version: 2019-11-27

To my mum, Lorraine.

Sail on, silvergirl

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue: Soho Square

A Few Months Earlier: Hello, World!

Art Said

I Walk

They Say

In the Wings

They Say

I Post

They Say

A Womb of One’s Own

Therapy Session #1 (Dramatic Monologue)

Like of Duty

Picture the Scene

I Said

The Patatas Bravas

Kelly had Said

Sober Sexts

Ablutions

My Bathroom Said

Tipping Point

My Mother Said

I Was Eighteen

Art Said

Someone Says

A Really Bad Sign

Mia Says

I Walk

Knockknock

One-Liners

I Say

The Outrage

Baby Elephant

Art Said

My Mother Says

How I Met Kelly

Art Said

Art Said

What Lasts?

Bad Stand-Up

Ghostess with the Mostest

I Woke Up Like This

The Mind Creates the Abyss

I Adored

Art Said

You

Terms of Endearment

If

Art’s Mother Said

Full Desperate

Miserable Pho

Breathing for One

Popular Problems

On the Bus

Tabs

Granma Said

All My Circus, All My Monkeys

Burnout

Therapy Session #2

App Idea

Look No Hands

Hi Hi Hi

Back at Home

Exhibits A and B

Good Famous People

My Mother

Still

Life

We’d Gone

‘Funny’

Outgrown

Art Said

Bodies of Work

Kelly Said

Fake News

Google Me

Social Caterpillar

Really Tho

Deals with Strangers

News Item

Nicolette Says

Half an Hour Later

Ass Fizz

That Night

It Happened to Happen

#Frotheh

My Mother Says

The Heart Crosses It

Manchild

Who Ya Gonna Call

Naked Ambition

Soho Square

Chief Emotions

She Says

Kelly Says

Genuine Question

Life Drawing

Relax

We Lie

Silent-Ish Night

Thanks

About the Author

Also by Emma Jane Unsworth

About the Publisher

I sit and wait for her, my feet swinging under the bench. She’ll come soon, and she’ll know where.

Adrenaline. I squeeze my own arms. Tap my toes. God, I hate waiting. Is that what I’ve been doing all these years? Waiting, for her? Maybe all those therapists were right. Maybe therapy isn’t just a bad stand-up show you don’t have the balls to take on the road.

I look around, at the other people chatting and posing and repositioning themselves, whiling away this cold Friday. It’s a few weeks before Christmas and the city is all lit up. People are smiling too much, drinking too much, wanting too much, wearing too much tinsel. Nothing points to the ephemeral nature of life quite like tinsel.

I look towards the north gate of the square and it’s then that I see her. Dishevelled, pulling on her coat. She scans the benches, spots me and freezes. I wave. She tilts her head to one side and bats her eyes, as though appealing to some ancient understanding between us; as though this has all been a scripted episode, some kind of brilliant shared joke. I stare at her emotionlessly. I am not playing. She stares back. It’s checkmate with the old queen.

She starts to walk over. I almost don’t recognise her with her clothes on. Which is a strange thing to say about your mother.

It is 10.05 a.m. and I am queuing at the breakfast counter of my co-working space in east London. The weather outside is autumnal but muggy and I have over-layered. I am damp at my armpits and wondering whether to nip out and buy a fresh T-shirt at lunch. I made dhal for dinner last night from a budget vegetarian cookbook I picked up in a charity shop, and let me tell you, it was astonishing. I am creating a social media post about a croissant that I am pretty sure will define me as a human.

I stare at my phone. I am happy enough with the photo. I have applied the Clarendon filter to accentuate the photo’s ridges and depths, making the light bits lighter and the darker bits darker. I added a white frame for art. The picture looks – as much as pastry can – transcendental. However, the text is proving troublesome. I’ve tweaked it so many times that I can’t work out whether it makes sense any more. This often happens. I ponder the words so long, thinking how they might be received, wondering if they could be better, that they lose all their original momentum. I get stage fright. The rest of the world has fallen away around this small square of existence. It’s like that bit in Alien 3 where Ripley says to the alien: You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else. I used to think it was about motherhood. Now I know it’s about social media.

I stare at the screen.

PASTRIES, WOO! #PASTRIES

Is this the absolute best depiction of my present experience?

I cross out the WOO, and the comma.

PASTRIES! #PASTRIES

I stare at it again. I try and recall the original inspiration; to be guided by that. It’s the least I can do. I interrogate myself. That’s what the mid-thirties should be about, after all: constant self-interrogation. Acquiring the courage to change what you can, and the therapist to accept what you can’t. What is it I really want to say about pastries? How do pastries truly make me feel ? Why is it important right now that I share this?

I delete the exclamation mark and stare at the remaining two words. They are the same word. The only difference is that one is hashtagged. Do they mean the same, or something different? Is there added value in the repetition? Is it worth leaving one un-hashtagged, so that the original sentiment exists, unfettered by digital accoutrements? It’s so important to get all this right. I want people to know instantly, at a glance, that this post is about pastries in their purest form. This is Platonic Pastry.