Honeybee, page 5
‘Yeah, tea. I think I might puke. My head is banging. How come you’re so chipper?’
‘I feel fine. Great, actually. First day in the new office and I’m raring to go!’
I notice a bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter. Did we get into that when we got home? That’s probably why I feel like I’m going to die. The washing machine kicks into spin cycle and creates too much noise for us to keep talking in the kitchen. I can’t believe Flo’s already done laundry this morning. She walks past me into the living room and quickly throws a cushion onto the couch.
‘Sorry I didn’t give you my spare sheets, were you comfy enough?’
‘Yes, I managed. Are you sure you’re OK? It’s quite a big deal to start a new job, especially after what we drank yesterday.’
‘Totally fine. I mean, I’ve got the shakes a bit, but that could be nerves or the booze, who knows? Who cares? Shakes are shakes, right?’
‘Right.’ She’s being weird and hyper, which means she isn’t really ‘fine’.
‘How do I look?’ she asks. She’s wearing black trousers and a black shirt. She has showered and put on some basic make-up. Her hair is dry but the ends are still a little wet.
‘You look great, good luck. I hope it goes well.’
‘Thanks, me too. OK, byeeee.’
‘Byeeee.’
She leaves.
When her footsteps disappear, I take a deep breath. It feels good to be alone for a minute. I go into the living room, my head throbbing. I lie down on the sofa and pull a cushion out from under my legs so I can be perfectly flat. Maybe I’ll sleep again, just for an hour or so. Then I’ll get up and plan my life. As my eyes fall shut, I become aware of my upper thighs getting wet. I roll to the side and have a feel. The sofa is drenched, Flo must have spilt the glass of water there when we got back. I get up. I probably should do something constructive anyway. Like tidy my room and make my bed.
As I walk up the creaky stairs back to my room, the door to Flo’s bedroom opens. I haven’t even seen it yet, so I go inside. There is a large bed, maybe king size. The sheets are a paisley pattern and there are a couple of scatter cushions. It’s so weird that this is her brother’s bed. To this day Julian remains the most beautiful human I have ever touched, even if my memory of having sex with him creeps me out and makes me want to scrub myself with bleach.
There is a photo of Flo’s mum and her younger sister, Abi, next to the bed. Why have a photo of someone who drives you mad there? If I put a picture of Dad by my bed, I’d end up in therapy. It’s either really forgiving or tragically self-destructive to be reminded of how a parent let you down every time you wake up in the morning. Surely Guernsey itself is enough of a kick in the face?
There is a make-up bag on a chest of drawers. I look in, it’s very basic. Old brushes, a dried-out mascara, some cheap foundation, a bronzer, some tweezers and some nude lipstick. I wonder if Flo will personalise the room a bit. She arrived back in Guernsey with her life’s belongings stuffed in one suitcase. A bit like me. Is that all we have to show for ourselves? I need to buy things for my room, and I’m going to start with a full-length mirror.
I spot a calendar on Flo’s wall. She’s written ‘WORK’ on almost every weekday, as if she needs to be reminded to go. That’s the kind of thing I do when I’m drunk and determined to wake up the next day with a better grip on my life. She’s such a funny fish.
I leave Flo’s room and pick up the sheets she left outside mine. I make my bed, and already the room looks a little better. In the wardrobe there are ten wire hangers, so I get as many of my clothes on those as I can and fold the rest into drawers. I push the pink suitcase under the bed, open the skylight to let in some air, and lie down. I have an odd feeling of motivation, despite the hangover, and remember my laptop is downstairs. I’ll write something, maybe a book about my life. A young girl who lost her mother, then lost herself, only to find herself again by going back to where it all began. But what happens next? I don’t know yet. I have to get up and work on the plotline of my life. Everything is a story; everything can be written about. Aunty Jo was right, no one can take away the experiences I have. But I won’t get any inspiration lying on the bed in my bleak bedroom, will I? I have to get up, write something. I have to make my life happen.
Downstairs, I get my laptop out of my bag. It’s the one good thing I own. Even the bag is a shitty old tote I got for free from someone who was handing them out at the airport. One day I’m going to buy an expensive handbag. Not because I particularly care about bags or designers, but I reckon that’s a real rite of passage in a woman’s life, to go and blow an unnecessary amount of money on a handbag. That will be the day I’ll feel like I’ve made it.
Dad got me the laptop for my twenty-first birthday. It screams of guilt for not giving me his love, but I was so happy I didn’t care. A brand-new Mac, they cost nearly two grand. It’s brilliant and beautiful and I love it with all my heart. Falling onto the sofa, I rest it on my thighs and open it. Right, here we go. A job, a paragraph and a … DAMN IT! The sofa is soaking wet and now my bum is too.
I must just be imagining this, but it really smells of piss.
Part Two
Worker Bee
A letter arrives for Renée in Spain, November 1998. It’s from Flo in Nottingham.
Hey, I hope everything is OK in Spain and that you and Nell are getting on better. How are things with your dad?
I’m really stressing about money. Mum has said that she can’t keep giving me pocket money now I’m at uni. She said my rent is OK and she will pay that, but I need to earn my spending money. Why is she telling me this now, two months into term starting? I could have saved more over the summer. Ugh, she’s being really annoying again. I don’t know why I thought things could be different between us.
I have to get a job. A fucking job! My course already takes up so much time and there is all this coursework. And now I’m going to have to work on Saturdays and maybe Sundays too if I want to be able to eat anything other than Kwik Save pasta and tuna. There are some jobs going in the campus bar, but I don’t know if I can do that. It’s too … I dunno, I’d feel like everyone would be looking at me.
Someone in town gave me a flyer about selling photography sessions. I did a shift today, you can pick your hours. For every session you sell you get 2 quid. You have to sell so many to make decent money, but I came out with 20 yesterday. I hate it though, it’s a massive scam. I basically cold call people and say they have won a free session with a really great photographer and that the photo costs only 10 quid. But then what happens is they come for the photo and get handed a print that is deliberately horrible so then they want to buy the others. I’m trying not to think about it morally because it’s their fault for being so gullible, right?
I can’t get this thought out of my head, that life is just hard work now. No more long summers of kicking around Guernsey doing nothing, I’ll have to work forever. It’s scary Renée. I feel like I’ve been chucked into adulting, and I wasn’t ready. Mum said that’s what being a grown-up feels like all the time. She even said she still feels that way. I asked her if that’s why she keeps trying to marry rich men, so she doesn’t have to work any more. She hung up and we haven’t spoken since. At least my rent money went into my account yesterday, so that’s something.
How are you? Are you still working in that pub? Did your dad buy you the laptop you were hoping for, for writing? I’d love a laptop but I can’t afford it. I can’t afford anything. Sigh.
You still planning to come stay with me next month? I’d love that. I’ll have loads of work to do but we can do nice things. How do people still have fun around jobs? I’m knackered all the time.
Do you remember at Tudor Falls we’d joke around about the amazing careers we’d chase, the people we’d become? I’d be the hot-shot lawyer, you’d be the glamorous magazine editor in the big smoke. But what if that was just fantasy? And more than that, why do we have to BE a fancy professional in something? Why can’t we just be happy, you know?
Do you ever think about it Renée? The fact that we’re not kids any more, that any money we have is money we have to earn? Until we’re like, NINETY!
Urgh, love you.
Friends forever,
Flo x
4
Renée
‘Look, if he still works there who cares,’ says Aunty Jo. ‘He should help you get a job after the way he treated you. And if he’s horrible, I’ll put bees in his pants and let my little darlings go to town on his nuts, deal?’ She pulls up in the van and puts the handbrake on.
‘Deal,’ I say, gagging at the thought of Dean’s nuts. They hung really low and were extraordinarily hairy, if I remember right. Dean is an ex of mine who works at the Guernsey Globe. We broke up when I walked in on him having sex with another girl from my class.
‘What do I even say when I go in?’ I ask Aunty Jo, regretting this idea. Flo’s gone for her first day at Magic Marketing, and I enlisted Aunty Jo’s help. We drove here all fired up, hoping I can bag a job myself, but now the whole idea seems utterly ridiculous.
‘You say you want to work at the paper, are there any jobs going and can you have an application form. And then you come out with the form and we fill it in, lying about how much experience you have, and you get the job. Easy. Go on!’
‘OK. OK, I’ll just go in, and say that. They’d be lucky to have me, right?’
‘That’s the spirit. My God, is it just me or is it really hot in here?’ She turns the aircon up as high as it will go and sits back as the cold air spreads over her face. ‘Oh look, Renée, you’re dressed like a bee,’ she says, as I get out the van. I’m wearing a long mustard jumper with black skinny jeans and DM’s. Aunty Jo said people who work in media don’t wear smart clothes, so I look nice, but casual. Cool, I think. Like a writer. ‘How funny that we didn’t realise,’ she says. ‘My little worker bee, off to start her career. I could cry.’
She doesn’t cry, she makes a shooing motion with her hand, as if I am a bee and she wants me to get out of her van. ‘Go on, time to be brave. I’ll be right here hoping it snows.’
I look at my reflection in the glass of the door before I walk in. I look good, I am good. They would be lucky to have me. It doesn’t matter that I have no experience, this is just the beginning. And also, it’s the Guernsey Globe for fuck’s sake, hardly the Sunday Times. I push the door and go in.
‘Hello, I was wondering if there are any jobs going at the moment?’
A male receptionist stops typing and looks up at me.
‘Um … not that I know of.’ He continues to type. I find this really rude; isn’t the entire purpose of a receptionist to greet people politely? I might be his boss one day, and then he’ll wish he looked me in the eye. Nonetheless, this is the person I am faced with, so I need to pull out the big guns.
‘Is Dean here?’ I ask, confidently. Half hoping he says yes, half hoping he says no.
‘Dean? Yes, he’s always here. Who shall I say is looking for him?’
Damn it. Damn it. Urgh. Why did I do this?
‘Renée. Renée Sargent.’ I want to end that with, ‘You’d better remember the name, bitch.’ But I keep it classy. I wait patiently while he calls Dean’s phone.
‘He’s not at his desk, I’ll go and find him.’ He disappears into the office. I could run and pretend this never happened. What will I even say? Soon afterwards, Dean walks into reception looking very confused. He looks at me quizzically for around two seconds, but it feels like twenty minutes.
‘Oh,’ he says, as if he just found an answer in a crossword that’s been bothering him for hours. ‘Renée Sargent, of course. Wow, it’s been …’
‘About four years, I guess. Hi Dean, how are you?’ I say, trying to be a more grown-up version of the girl he cheated on.
‘I’m OK, yeah, good. Why um … why are you here?’
He looks really old. So much older than me, with some grey hair, which is weird. I don’t remember him being that much older than me, but he’s aged about ten years since I last saw him. And I swear he used to wear that exact same Led Zeppelin T-shirt.
‘I’ve just moved back to Guernsey and I’m looking for a job. You might remember I wanted to be a writer?’
He clearly does not recall my aspirational goals.
‘Well, I wondered if there’s a job I could have here?’
‘Um, right. A bit weird, you just turning up and asking for a job, but OK. Um, I’ve got to go out on a story now – they’re talking about dropping the speed limit on the coast roads, can you believe it?’
‘Wow, big news,’ I say, trying to sound interested in local journalism opportunities.
‘But I could meet you after work, go for a pint? Talk about what it is you want to do?’
‘OK, great. Yeah, that would be brilliant. Ship and Crown? Six p.m.?’
‘Cool, yeah. Good to see you, Renée. You’re looking really good. Bigger.’
‘Bigger?’
‘Older I mean, you look older.’
‘Well, I am. Four years older. As are you.’
We allow the strangeness of this reunion to settle in the air. The receptionist is looking at me with eyes that scream, ‘It’s so obvious you fucked.’
‘Great, I’ll see you then,’ I say, putting an end to this madness. I head back out to the van and get in.
‘Well, how did it go?’ Aunty Jo asks.
‘They’d be lucky to have me,’ I say, confidently. ‘Very lucky.’
At 5.55 p.m. I walk into the Ship and Crown. The man with the big belly is in his usual spot. There is a barmaid I don’t recognise. I order a vodka and Coke. Dean is sitting at a table at the far end of the room. He looks like a sad person drinking on his own. When he sees me, his face lights up.
‘I thought you’d changed your mind,’ he says. ‘Things have been coming back to me all afternoon. We were seeing each other for a while, if I remember rightly?’
‘A few months. You were also seeing Meg Lloyd, if you remember rightly.’
It takes him a second, then he remembers. Probably because there were multiple women besides me and Meg and he’s trying to work out who’s who.
‘Meg, yeah, I remember Meg. What happened to Meg?’
‘I don’t know. We didn’t really stay in touch, partly because I walked in on her being done from behind by my boyfriend.’
‘Fair enough. So, you been at uni?’
‘No, Spain. I’m back for a while, not sure how long. I want to write, and I thought maybe I could work at the Globe, get some experience.’
‘Right, and you thought you’d tap up an old flame to see if he could boost you up the career ladder?’
How humiliating. ‘Yes, basically.’
‘Well, I can’t help you, I’m afraid. The Globe is on its way out, I’ll be out of a job in six months.’
Damn it. An entirely pointless drink with an old flame I never wanted to rekindle. ‘You couldn’t have told me that this afternoon?’
‘That dipshit on reception doesn’t know. I couldn’t tell you there. And this meeting doesn’t have to be pointless.’ He drinks his lager, whilst raising his eyebrows. He slides a hand onto my leg. ‘You loved me licking you, if I remember rightly.’
Oh wow, oh God. This is horrible. What the hell did I think was going to happen? I pick up his hand and drop it on his leg.
‘That’s not why I’m here, Dean. I wanted to talk about a job at the Globe, and if that can’t happen that’s OK, but I’m not interested in anything else.’
‘I do know people. There’s talk of an independent magazine starting on the island. I could connect you with the team, but you don’t think I’d do it for free, do you?’
‘You mean you’ll introduce me to them if I have sex with you?’
‘Doesn’t need to be sex.’
‘How often does this approach work with women, just out of interest?’
‘I’ve done pretty well out of it.’ He looks proud of himself. He’s giving absolutely no hint of shame for being a sex pest. ‘Lots of wannabe journalists on the island.’
‘How old are you?’ I ask. He told me he was in his early twenties when he had a stream of sixth-formers in his bed just four years ago.
‘Thirty-three.’
Some sick shoots up my throat and pools in the back of my mouth.
‘Bye Dean. I hope that with losing this job you lose all access to women and that your dick falls off. Good luck.’ He doesn’t even stand up, like he’s had similar speeches thrown at him a few times. He shrugs his shoulders and drinks his drink.
What a creep. To think he once felt so mature and exciting. Maybe one thing about being a grown-up is being able to spot a pervert when you meet one. Teenage me didn’t have a clue. This is why parents are so protective; they can spot wrong’uns like Dean way before their kids do.
At least it’s a huge relief to realise so early in my career that I’m not willing to sleep with anyone to get to the top, especially with someone whose balls are probably down to his knees by now. The Guernsey Globe is not where I’m meant to be, I’m already above it. I’ll get another job that pays properly, save up, and get the hell to London to become a writer there.
I’ve got way more self-respect than Dean and his droopy bollocks ever will.
Flo
‘Flo, isn’t it?’ One of my new colleagues comes over to my desk. I stand up, which is weird.
‘Yes, can I help with anything, do you need some coffee? Is the printer out of paper?’
‘Nope, all good. I just wanted to say hi. I’m Phil, by the way. Welcome. It’s not a big office but if you need any help while you settle in, just let me know. I’m on line 239.’
‘239 sounds just fine,’ I say like a cowboy, hating myself.
‘Are you local?’ he asks, still talking to me, which is promising.
‘Yes, born and bred. But I’ve been away for a few years. Uni, then a little stint in London. I worked in the Magic Marketing offices there for a bit, actually. Back here for the foreseeable though. This island has claws, it always grabs you back.’
