I’ll go out every once in a while, particularly around payday, but nights out aren’t what they used to be. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or everyone else is getting younger, but I see little benefit in standing in a crowded pub and having to elbow your way to the bar every time you want a drink. Pippa’s dragged me kicking and screaming to a few gigs, though not, unfortunately, at the O2. She favours underground caverns, where bands, most of whom she seems to have slept with, thrash about the stage and encourage their audience to do the same. I’m the one standing alone at the back, with hidden earphones blasting out Musical Theatre’s Greatest Hits.
Thank God for Seb, my best friend and a male version of me. I’d have married him years ago if I thought there was a single hair on his body that I could have turned straight, but, alas, I must make do with evenings locked in a soundproof karaoke booth, each of us competing for the best lines in Les Misérables. We met during what he refers to as my ‘hairdressing period’. Discontented with secretarial work, I’d booked myself on to a night course for hair and beauty. Obviously, I had visions of becoming a female Nicky Clarke, with a trendy salon in the middle of Mayfair, and celebrity clients having to book months in advance. Instead, I spent three months sweeping up other people’s hair, and developing eczema on my hands from the caustic shampoo. I used to have these half-baked ideas, and rush off to start making them happen, but I was forever deluded by grandeur. Like the time I enrolled on a home-making course at my local college. It was never my intention to learn how to make a pretty cushion or spend hours rubbing five layers of eggshell off an old chest of drawers. No, I was going to be the new Kelly Hoppen, and bypass all the graft and groundwork that learning a new skill entails. I was heading straight for New York, where I would be immediately commissioned to design a vast loft space for Chandler from Friends. Needless to say, the cushion never got finished and all the wallpaper samples and fabric swatches I’d acquired never saw the light of day again.
Seb has seen me through at least four career changes, and has been nothing short of overwhelmingly enthusiastic with each and every one, assuring me that I was ‘made for it’. Yet, as each phase came and went, and I’d be lamenting on the sofa at how useless I was, he’d convince me that I was never really cut out for it in the first place. But now, I’ve finally found my calling. It came a little later in life than I’d planned, but selling people is my thing. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at it.
‘So, he’s an IT analytical analyst?’ Seb reiterated suspiciously, as we sat in Soho Square, sharing a sandwich and a salad bowl from M&S the following day. ‘Whatever that may mean.’
I nodded enthusiastically, but inside, I was asking myself the same question. I placed real people in real jobs: retail assistants in shops, secretaries in offices, dental assistants in surgeries. The IT sector is a whole new ball game, a monster of an industry, and one that we at Faulkner’s leave to the experts.
‘Well, he sounds a right laugh-a-minute,’ Seb said, desperately trying to keep a straight face. ‘What did he do? Enthral you with his megabytes?’
I laughed. ‘He doesn’t look like you’d expect.’
‘So, he doesn’t wear glasses and have a centre parting?’
I shook my head, smiling.
‘And his name isn’t Eugene?’
‘No,’ I mumbled, through a mouthful of bread and roast beef. ‘He’s tall and dark, with really good teeth.’
‘Oh, your mum will be pleased.’
I swiped his shoulder with my hand. ‘And he’s got a really sexy voice. All deep and mysterious. Like Matthew McConaughey, but without the Texan bit.’
Seb raised his eyebrows quizzically. ‘Which would make him nothing like McConaughey.’
I persisted. ‘You know what I mean. And big hands . . . really big hands, and nicely manicured nails.’
‘What the hell were you doing looking at his hands?’ asked Seb, spluttering out his still lemonade. ‘You were only with him for fifteen minutes, and you’ve already managed to check his cuticles out?’
I shrugged my shoulders petulantly. ‘I’m just saying that he obviously takes care of himself, and I like that in a man. It’s important.’
Seb tutted. ‘This all sounds very well, but on a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that you’re going to see him again?’
‘Honestly? A one or two. Firstly, he looked like the type to have a girlfriend, and secondly, I think he had his beer goggles on.’
‘Was he drunk or just merry?’
‘Hard to tell. It was someone’s leaving do, and I think he said something about coming from a pub in the City, so they’d obviously been going for a while. Adam looked okay, a bit dishevelled maybe, but then I don’t know what he normally looks like. One or two of his mates were definitely well on their way, though – they could barely stand up.’
‘Oh, I bet the Grosvenor loved having them there,’ Seb said, laughing.
‘I think they were asked to leave at the same time as I came away,’ I said, grimacing. ‘The well-heeled guests were starting to arrive, and the bar looked more like something on the Magaluf strip than Park Lane.’
‘It’s not looking good, kid,’ said Seb.
I wrinkled my nose. ‘No. I think the likelihood of hearing from him again is pretty slim.’
‘Did you give him the look?’ he asked.
‘What look?’
‘You know the one. Your take-me-to-bed-or-lose-me-forever face?’ He fluttered his eyelashes and licked his lips in the most unsexy way, like a dog after a chocolate-drop treat. He’d once been told by a potential suitor of mine that I had ‘bedroom eyes’ and ‘engorged lips’, and I’d not heard the last of it. ‘Well, did you?’
‘Oh, shut up!’
‘What were you wearing?’ he asked.
I screwed my face up. ‘My black pencil skirt with a white blouse. Why?’
‘He’ll call you.’ He smiled. ‘If you’d been wearing that tent of a dress that you bought in the Whistles sale then I’d say you’ve got no chance, but in the pencil skirt? Moderate to high.’
I laughed and threw a limp lettuce leaf at him. Every woman should have a Seb. He gives brutally honest advice, which on some days can send me off kilter and have me reassessing my whole life, but today I’m able to take it, happy to have him evaluate the situation because he’s always darn well right.
‘So, how are you going to play it when he calls?’ he asked, retrieving the stray leaf from his beard and tossing it onto the grass.
‘If he calls,’ I stressed, ‘I’ll play it like I always do. Coy and demure.’
Seb laughed and fell onto his back, tickling his ribs for added effect. ‘You are to coy and demure, what I am to machismo.’
I was tempted to empty the rest of the salad bowl onto his head as he lay writhing on the ground, but I knew it was likely to end up in a full-on food fight. I had a packed diary that afternoon, and wanted to spare my silk shirt the onslaught of a balsamic-dressing attack. So I gave him a playful nudge with the tip of my patent court shoe instead.
‘Call yourself a friend?’ I said haughtily, as I stood up to leave.
‘Call me when he calls,’ Seb shouted out after me. He was still cackling as I walked away.
‘I’ll call you if he calls,’ I shouted back, as I reached the gates to the square.
I was in the middle of an appointment later that afternoon, when my mobile rang. My client, a Chinese businessman who, with the help of a translator, was looking for staff for his expanding company, signalled to me to take it. I smiled politely and shook my head, but the ‘No Caller ID’ displayed across the screen had piqued my interest. When it rang three more times, he looked at me imploringly, almost begging me to answer it.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, before backing out of the room. It had better be important.
‘Emily Havistock,’ I stated, as I swiped my iPhone.
‘Havistock?’ a voice repeated.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
‘No wonder they didn’t put your surname on your badge.’ He laughed.
A redness crept up my neck, its fingers flickering at my cheeks. ‘I’m afraid I’m in a meeting at the moment. May I call you back?’
‘I don’t remember you sounding this posh either. Or is this your phone voice?’
I remained silent, but smiled.
‘Okay, call me back,’ he said. ‘It’s Adam, by the way. Adam Banks.’
How many men did he think I gave my number to?
‘I’ll text you,’ he said. ‘Just in case my number doesn’t come up.’