The Lonely Fajita by Abigail Mann

Author:Abigail Mann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2020-02-04T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The following Monday, I manage to get in and out of the bath in a record fifteen minutes, including the time it takes to fill it with three inches of water. Annie is up early, sweeping soggy blossom from the patio into a dustpan. I make her a cup of tea in her favourite china teacup and put it on an upturned terracotta pot in the greenhouse as I leave. I walk around the oval green, even though every fibre in my being wants to take a shortcut over it. I did that once last week and there was a Mexican wave of curtain-twitching.

George and Margaret are sitting on a bench in the early morning sunshine, and as I pass their gate, he smiles and waves at me with big, swooping arms. Margaret scowls. The sky is clear and blue, except for a criss-cross pattern of jet streams from planes heading into Gatwick airport. The dogs who trot on loosely held leads, the petals caught in the wind, the smell of sourdough as I pass the posh bakeries near the tube station – it’s all a beautiful distraction from what’s waiting for me at work.

During days on the underground when the noise of the wheels grinding around corners is too loud for my motivational Beyoncé playlist, I like to play a game called ‘Spot the Hipster’. It basically involves predicting which people in my carriage are going to get off when we arrive at Old Street. The biggest clues are: man buns, bum bags worn across the chest, and very severe fringes. But this morning I’m far too distracted. I’m tempted to avoid going into work altogether by just … not getting off the train.

Even though Annie struggles to understand what it is my job involves, I’ve had to accept that she (infuriatingly) made total sense when we spoke about what the ‘community dating’ campaign could mean for me. Last week, I described the secret photograph Suki had taken of the presentation (I left out the details of Mitchell and Rhea to save her from an early grave) and she doesn’t understand why I’m reluctant to lead a campaign that was my idea in the first place. She also gave a rousing speech, whilst gesticulating with some sticky baklava pinched between her fingers, about how women should own their own accomplishments, rather than let a bloke re-fabricate them as his own. She’s very modern for a pensioner. Obviously, she’s right, and whilst the petty side of me wants to remind her that she gave up a career for her husband, I know she’s telling the truth.

Even though I truly believe that I made a decent – if improvised – pitch, I would happily let someone take that away from me if it meant I could stay anonymous. What if the whole thing fails miserably and I end up blacklisted from ever working again, because I’m the one who stuck my neck out? I think about what I’d say to someone else in the same predicament as me – Maggie, for instance.

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