Jenny Colgan - Talking to Addison

His beautiful dark gaze was focused solely on his computer keyboard.

‘Because, you know, you might find … what you’re looking for … closer than you think.’

I couldn’t believe I was being such a tart. On the other hand, tart tactics were required when dealing with someone as shy as this. Plus of course I was pissed – that wonderful moral leveller.

I took his hand.

‘You know,’ I said, ‘you’re very attractive.’ Really, I like to take all my chat-up lines from Dynasty, circa 1986.

His hand lay in mine like a piece of wet melon. Not noticing, I leaned over and kissed his forehead. He smelled of that wonderful Banda paper you used to get in schools: fresh and dry and inky.

He wasn’t kissing back though. I realized this after say, thirty, maybe forty seconds. No reaction. Nada. Nothing. I kissed his head again. He didn’t even move.

‘So,’ I said tartily, ‘ehm, you know where I sleep …’

Sheesh. This was it. This was the pits. Robocop or the Natural History Museum. Even I hadn’t plumbed my own depths before.

Amazingly, he simply took my hand off his forehead and squeezed it. Less amazingly (given he was a sober person who’d just been come on to by a mad harpy), he then handed it back to me and returned to his keyboard. I stood there for about ten seconds more – just to prolong the humiliation, I suppose – then retreated backwards slowly, whilst he busied himself with some computer stuff which, as far as I could see, had nothing more to do with big-breasted Betty.

‘Oh God.’

‘You’ll get over it! You’ve got over worse stuff!’

‘Like what, exactly?’

‘What about that time you taught yourself to snowboard to impress big Eric and broke your ankle?’

Josh was failing to comfort me at the breakfast table. Not only this, but I had an interview today for a real live flower shop, which I had to do after the utter humiliation of basically prostrating myself in front of my flatmate. I wasn’t sure that counted as extenuating circumstances.

‘Anyway, I’ve done much worse things.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know … what about that time I got bitten by a dog?’

‘Ehm, you know what, Josh? I don’t think that really embarrassed the dog. So it does NOT compare.’

Kate of course had already gone to work, presumably clear-headed and ‘motivated’.

‘Yes, but I cried when I got my tetanus shot.’

‘You must have been about eight years old.’

‘Still embarrassing, though.’

‘And they gave you a cream cake at the end of it, which really means that it does not compare. Now, ask me a question about flowers.’

‘Ehm … what colour are tulips?’

‘OK, ask me a question about a flower you’ve actually met.’

‘I’ll have you know I took the church prize in our village for flower arranging three times in a row!’

‘You surprise me.’

‘They were very … manly arrangements. OK, how do you grow a sunflower?’

‘Stick it in any old shit and ignore it for months.’

We both paused for a minute.

‘That’s my life,’ we both said simultaneously.

I couldn’t believe a flower-shop interview could be so intense. There were three people in the tiny office at the back of the shop: an old bloke who might conceivably have been dead; a woman with very high hair, a monobosom and an imperious expression; and a sullen Indian girl with either a very large bogey or a bolt through her nose – it was hard to tell in the gloomy room.

‘Now, here at That Special Someone, we take our customer care extremely seriously,’ announced the big woman (I’d known she’d start the talking). ‘Can you give us a particular example of good customer care you’ve been involved with in your previous jobs?’

I fucking hate job interviews. They are crap. They ask you all these bloody questions, whereas really they only want to know what you smell like, and how much you’re prepared to say you agree with their bizarre views on racial hygiene.

‘Well,’ I began, modestly, ‘once, these schoolkids came into the shop; one of their little chums had been knocked down by a car – on the school-run, ironically enough – and they’d clubbed all their pocket money together to buy him a princess bouquet, but they didn’t have enough for the delivery charge. So, I took them to little Tommy myself.’

They were buying this. I couldn’t believe it! The big woman was practically wetting herself.

‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, it turned out that Tommy’s dad owned a major chain of conferencing suites, and we got the contract to do all of them after that.’

The bolt/bogey girl smirked worryingly, but the big lady was overwhelmed. Well, it wasn’t exactly a lie – I mean, if charitable situations like that ever presented themselves, I’d like to think I’d rise to the challenge. None had, that was all.

‘Well, that’s just wonderful. Perhaps you can bring a little bit of that magic to That Special Someone, don’t you think, Mr Haffillton?’

Mr Haffillton declined the chance to appear any less dead.

‘I thought so. So, Holly, what about your horticultural qualifications?’

What about them? They didn’t test you on telephone manner and Cellophane wrapping, the only two genuine skills required.

‘Yes … obviously, I’ve been gaining experience out of London’ – I took the bet they wouldn’t know where Harlesden was, and I was right – ‘but I’ll be back down the Chelsea Physic Garden right away, you bet!’

‘Not on our time, of course!’

‘Ha ha ha! Of course not.’

God, I wish I didn’t need this job, but Tash had given me a wedgie the other day and I’d had to hide and have a cry.

‘Chalitha! Wouldn’t you like to ask a question?’

Chalitha shrugged her black-clad shoulders petulantly.

‘Come on now, Chalitha! We’re all just one happy family here!’ Big Lady grimaced at me as if Chalitha had just made some enormous joke.

‘I dunno … What’s your favourite band?’

I judged the situation carefully.

‘The Sex Pistols.’

‘Cool.’ She nodded her head and turned to the old dead man. ‘She’ll be all right, uncle,’ she announced. Aha. She turned back to me.

‘The last girl liked Mariah Carey.’

Actually, the question clearly wasn’t any more or less stupid than any other job interview question, and certainly got to the heart of the matter.

‘I couldn’t have worked with her,’ I said confidently.

‘No, can you imagine? She’d have worn little miniskirts and warbled emotionally all day.’

‘I just spit,’ I said reassuringly, then burst into a fake laugh when I realized Big Lady was staring at me with raised eyebrows.

‘Ha! ha! Only kidding. Ehm, I think a happy work place is essential to provide the very premium in customer service, don’t you?’

She nodded sternly. ‘Yes. But this is a very efficient business. Naturally, we don’t put up with any hanky-panky.’

‘No, ma’am,’ I said.

She loved the ‘ma’am’ thing, I noted instantly.

‘Well, we’ll be letting you know,’ she said, rising imperiously to her feet.

‘Thank you very much, ma’am.’

I practically walked out backwards.

I hung around that night, desperate for the phone to ring before I had to head up the hill – possibly for the last time.

‘… Then I thought I’d say, “Tash, I’m sorry you didn’t get better womb nutrition and have no prospects, but just LEAVE ME ALONE!”’ I announced for Josh’s benefit.

‘And, for the boys, I thought I’d pity them too. Kind of like, “Isn’t it a shame you’re just so deeply ignorant?”’