Katy Regan - The One Before The One

So that’s how I get roped into being one of the office’s three fire marshals – me, Heather and Toupee Dom from payroll. I spend the next hour learning how to use the fire extinguisher and sitting in a special chair used to evacuate disabled people from the office, whilst Toupee Dom almost knocks me out with his body odour. I try Lexi several times but, worryingly, get no answer until, finally, around lunchtime – just as I get stuck into my PowerPoint presentation, in particular a very well-executed pie-chart, detailing what’s currently driving the growth of oral hygiene goods in Asda – comes the shower scene noise from Psycho. I immediately grab my phone from the table, but it flips about in my hand like a live trout. There’s a text.

Am up town. This oldie just tried to flog uz xtc! I

WMPL!

C u l8r

DWBH. [smiley face] Ha ha. lol. Lex xxxxxx

What?

‘Am up town’ is all I can make out. So she’s in town, but where in town? Soho? Shoreditch? The arse-end of Hackney?

I immediately email Toby. He’s got a nineteen-year-old brother. He’ll know what she’s on about.

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

From: caroline.steele@scd.co.uk

This text from Lexi, do I need to worry?

Am up town. This oldie just tried to flog uz xtc! I WMPL!

C u l8r

DWBH. [smiley face]

Ha Ha. lol. Lex xxxxxx

Five seconds later, an email pings into my inbox.

Subject: translation services from down-wiv-the-kidz From: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

She’s been offered class A drugs by a geriatric. This made her wet herself laughing. She says, don’t worry, be happy!

To: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

Don’t worry? I am SO worrying. I don’t think I can hack this responsibility for another human being/space-sharing thing, you were right.

He emails back.

From: toby.delaney@scd.co.uk

Relax woman. It could be fun. I sure wish I had a seventeen-year-old lolling about my gaff all summer. Although, it has occurred to me, I don’t know whether it has you. Does the fact you’ve got your sister staying change the book club? Like, do we need to re-locate??!

I email back.

That, Mr Delaney, is the last thing on my mind.

When I get home from work, Lexi’s in the back garden, sunbathing. It’s only when she removes the copy of Time Out she is reading to talk to me in comedic deep voice (I am finding she rarely uses her normal one) that I realize she is topless.

‘Afternooooon. You’re early; good day at the office?’

‘Yeah, good, thanks.’ I don’t know where to look, so I take a sudden interest in the doorframe. ‘Very productive.’

‘Great.’ She smiles brightly. Her long legs are stretched out on the sun lounger. She’s wearing bright red lipstick and enormous square shades. ‘So, what do you think?’

‘About what?’

‘My tattoo, you chump!’ She sticks her right arm out in front of her.

I look in horror at the anchor (an anchor?) splat in the middle of her upper right arm. I can’t believe this. Dad will kill me. I have an overwhelming desire to head-butt the wall.

‘You got that done today?’

‘Yes, don’t you like it? It’s like the one Amy Winehouse has, kind of ironic, you know, sailor iconography?’

‘Who did it to you?’

‘A tattoo artist did it to me.’ She laughs. ‘A very sexy, Paolo Nutini lookalike tattoo artist, if you must know.’

Who the hell was Paulo Nutini?

‘Where?’

‘Camden Market. That place is awesome. I could have spent a fortune. And guess what? I got a job!’ She sits up on her elbows and I have to look away so it doesn’t look as if I’m leering at her bosom. ‘I met this guy called Wayne.’

‘Wayne?’ I grimace. ‘Unfortunate name.’

‘I know, but he had the most wickedest shop – well, it’s not his, it’s his mate’s, but he’s working on it part-time. We got chatting, coz he’s originally from Sheffield and his accent stood out. I said I’d just landed for the summer and he said he needed some help at weekends and occasionally during the week, so …’

‘Hang on. Who is this Wayne?’

‘He runs a shop in Camden Market, like I said. And he lives in Battersea!’

‘Where?’

‘On a boat, how special is that? Anyway, do you wanna see the stuff I bought?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I decide to come back to the Wayne thing later; this was all going way too fast. So then she’s up, padding across the garden, legs as skinny as a stork. She gets hold of my hand.

‘Come to my boudoir,’ she says, which sounds ridiculous in her thick Yorkshire accent, and I follow her, helpless. We go through the lounge.

‘Soz about the mess,’ she says, trampling all over the cushions she’s tossed on the floor earlier. ‘I was trying my new stuff on and was just about to start tidying up when you came home.

‘That’s okay!’ I lie, quickly replacing all the cushions on the sofa.

We get to the guest bedroom.

‘Okay, you stay there,’ she says, hands on my shoulders, pushing me against the wall. And then she goes inside and closes the door so I am left staring at it, suddenly feeling like a stranger in my own home. Five seconds later, music is on.

‘Ta-dar!’ She flings open the door.

‘Nice,’ I say. ‘What is it, exactly?’

‘It’s a playsuit, divvy. A vintage one.’

‘So when would you wear it?’

‘Anywhere, shopping?’

Not shopping with me you won’t!

‘Hanging out in cafés, in Battersea Park, maybe with some high-heeled sandals,’ she says, doing a funny pose like one of those vintage postcards of ladies in 1920's bathing suits.

‘And I got these …’ She shoves a pair of shoes in my face. ‘And this …’ she puts on a purple trilby. ‘Cool, or what? And there were loads of stalls and some right nutters selling stuff. There was this bloke, right, he came up to me and he was going, “marijuana”, but pronouncing it with a “J” which cracked me up. So he was like, “Do you wan-na, some maru-ju-ana?”’ She puts her hand on her hip and says it with a convincing Jamaican accent, which, despite myself, makes me laugh. A little. ‘Then he was like, “Do you wan-na some Es?” That’s when I texted you.’

Es? At Camden Market? Why was I never offered Es at Camden Market? Well, could be I’ve never been to Camden Market …

‘And, guess what? Jerome was there!’

‘Who on earth’s Jerome?’

‘A guy I met on the way here on the train – you know, the one who rang me yesterday?’

So that’s who she was going all coy with.

‘Anyway, he’s somethin’ spesh, he is. Such an inspiring person. He says he wants to photograph me. He says I have a very interesting look.’

‘Lexi,’ I groan. I get that feeling, like stop the train, I want to get off. ‘You can’t just meet up with randoms off the train and let them take your picture. This is London. A big, scary, dangerous city.’

I’ve been thinking all day about what Dad said on the phone, but it’s only later, when I’ve drunk the best part of half a bottle of wine, that I pluck up the courage to talk to her.

‘So, Lexi …’ She’s slumped on the sofa in the playsuit; laptop open, one eye on Facebook. ‘I think we need to chat.’

‘Wow, sounds serious. Are you about to dump me?’

‘No!’ Sometimes, Lexi strikes me as very sophisticated. Then she says things like that and she sounds about twelve.

I reach over and slowly close her laptop.

‘Look, you know you’re very welcome to stay …’ I start.

‘But,’ she says.

‘But?’

‘There’s a “but” in there, isn’t there?’