Harriet Evans - Happily Ever After

Karen shook her head. ‘My pleasure. You’d do the same for me.’ She drained her pint. ‘Another drink?’

‘My round,’ Elle said, standing up. ‘I’ll get these.’

She was tired, but she practically skipped to the bar. It was so nice to be able to get the drinks in, for once. It was so nice to be able to go to the Lav Tav, the Lavenham Tavern, their local, which was a proper gastropub, with nice food and floorboards, a log fire, and lovely rickety old tables and chairs. It didn’t do cashback – the Elephant and Castle, round the corner, was much dodgier but it always gave you cashback, no matter how perilous your finances. She’d been drinking a lot at the Elephant and Castle the last couple of months but that period was over, she hoped. No more men with scary dogs on bits of old chain or women with no teeth wearing their coats inside and sitting in silence. It was the Lav Tav for her from now on – lilies on the counter and David Gray on the stereo.

Standing at the bar, Elle inhaled with a sense of weary satisfaction. She was in the pub after a hard day’s work. It was a good feeling. She—

‘Eleanor? Wow!’ someone said in her ear. ‘I didn’t realise you lived round here!’

Elle turned. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Hi there!’

It was a girl she’d met at some point in the day. Elle stared at her blankly, and then she remembered her: buck teeth, short blonde hair, unfortunate sparkly grips in her hair and too keen. She was assistant to Handsome Jeremy, the saturnine marketing director; Elle remembered him , he’d smiled and said, flirtatiously, ‘How very lovely to have you here.’ This girl had been bobbing around next to him, and she’d kept saying, ‘Another girlie! Brill!’ Shit. What was her name?

‘I’m Elle,’ she said, hoping to buy time and prompt a response.

‘I know that!’ the girl said. ‘Durr! Can I get you a drink? Are you with some friends? I’m with my boyfriend Dave, shall we join you?’

‘Sure!’ said Elle. ‘Um – I’ll just get these.’

By the time she’d taken the drinks over, the girl and her boyfriend Dave had sat down at the table, and had introduced themselves to Karen and Cara and Alex, who were ignoring them and whispering in each other’s ear again.

‘So how long have you been at the company?’ Karen was asking.

‘I’ve been there a year,’ the girl said. ‘It’s a marvellous place! Miss Sassoon is amazing, last year she gave us all a five-pound Marks voucher for Christmas. When I phoned Mum to tell her, she was like, that’s what the Queen gives everyone at Buckingham Palace! Amazing.’

What the hell is your name? Elle smiled. ‘It seems like a nice place to work,’ she said.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said the girl. ‘It’s great. Dave says I go on about it all the time, don’t you, Dave!’ She nudged Dave, who said nothing and went back to staring into his pint. ‘So where do you live, Eleanor?’

‘Just round the corner, for now,’ said Elle. ‘But it’s only temporary, I need to find a place.’

‘Seriously? That’s so weird.’ The girl sucked on her straw. ‘My flatmate’s just moved to South Africa, it was all really sudden. Really sudden – like she went last week, only told me the week before that.’ She stuck her tongue out. ‘Dave said she was sick of me, but it wasn’t like that! Anyway, you should come and see it. The flat, I mean.’

‘Wow, that’s – where is it?’ said Elle. She didn’t want to commit, but then she caught Alex’s eye, and he gave her a cold look.

‘It’s at the top of Ladbroke Grove, above a cab company, right by the Sainsbury’s. You know that big sign appealing for witnesses for that assault? Right there. It’s actually really safe round there, that’s not a problem, honestly.’ She smiled her toothy smile. ‘Anyway, I’m looking for someone, and the rent’s like eighty quid a week each which is amazing, so—’

A shadow fell over the table. ‘All right, mate?’ Alex said, leaping up.

‘Hi, mate. Hi, everyone. Hi, Elle.’

‘Hi, Fred,’ Elle said, her heart thumping in her chest. ‘How’re you?’ she said nonchalantly, flicking her hair and sounding uninterested – this was something she’d picked up from observing Cara, who had men flocking round her like bees round honey.

Fred nodded. ‘Good, good. It’s nice to see you, Elle, how’s the first day been?’

‘Good,’ she said, pleased. The girl from work was grinning expectantly up at her. ‘Yeah, this is one of my new work colleagues,’ she said. ‘Um –’

Fred waited, as Karen stared at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Elle blurted out eventually. ‘I can’t remember your name. I’m really sorry. I – I met loads of people today.’

‘That’s OK. It’s Sam!’ Sam stood up. ‘Hiya! This is my boyfriend Dave. I’m Sam! What’s your name?’

Fred smiled at Elle. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘What’s my name?’

‘Er –’ Elle couldn’t believe it, but she had to think for a moment. ‘God. It’s Fred. I’m going mad.’

Fred sat down, next to Alex, who slapped him on the back, while Cara smoothed her short Afro back from her forehead, and took another sip from her drink. Karen smiled at Fred ingratiatingly, while Elle, thoroughly flustered now, stared at the ground, thinking she’d better go to bed early, and then remembering with a sinking heart that the bed that awaited her was orange and green seventies acrylic, and had fag butts stuck down its back. She was so tired all of a sudden, all she wanted to do was sleep, get into work and attack this job properly. Tomorrow is another day , as Scarlett O’Hara would say.

‘So –’ Sam leaned forward, speaking loudly into her ear. ‘Do you want to come and see the flat? I mean, I don’t want to pressure you or anything, but it’s pretty nice and cheap, and I’m going to be spending lots of time with Dave, obviously, so I won’t be around much, and it’s Ladbroke Grove, and you could move in right away, and we could go to work together and be like amigos, you know, look out for each other.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think it’s actually amazing, in fact, don’t you? The universe is telling us it’s supposed to happen, otherwise why would me and Dave come in here the same night you’re in here?’

There were several things Elle could have said to this speech, and if she’d been older and more jaded she might have done, but she was sick of sleeping on a manky sofa, and she wanted to put her books out and her CD player up.

‘I’d love to come and see it,’ she said, turning to Sam. ‘When’s good for you? Tomorrow?’

‘Yeah!’ said Sam, clapping her hands together. ‘Amazing!’ She clinked her glass against Elle’s. ‘You’ll love it. What a day! Just think, this morning we hadn’t even met!’

This morning seemed to be a thousand years ago. All the things that had happened. It felt as if, finally, she was on her way somewhere. Elle pulled discreetly at the armpits of her raspberry sweater. Amidst the maelstrom of new faces and facts she’d learned something concrete today, at least. Don’t wear tight-fitting, pale-coloured, wool-mix knits when you’re nervous.