Monday to Friday Man (4 page)

I search the site for advice.
Sometimes lodgers’ emails are accidentally sent to a Junk or Spam folder
. . .

Ah! I dive straight into my Spam folder, but nothing. Maybe it’s the recession? Perhaps I should lower my rent? I check to see if that shabby apartment just over Hammersmith Bridge has gone yet with its plastic sofa and mouldy curtains. It didn’t look half as nice as my house
and
they were charging £100 more per month. It’s right on the main road, I mean, who’s going to . . .

I don’t believe it.

The doorbell rings.

My neighbour, Gloria, single all her life by choice, just turned sixty, retired from the aromatherapy world (she used to be a masseuse), bursts in, silver hair wild, wearing a baggy purple T-shirt with black leggings. Every Saturday morning we go to the gym together. She’s a lovely mix of nights out on the town with her friends, ‘on the batter’ as she calls it, and early nights in with a cup of hot chocolate listening to Radio Four.

She came into my life five years ago, when I had just brought Ruskin home to live with me. She knocked on my door to ask if I had a powercut. When I shone a torch in her face, she realized I was in the same situation, but she could also see I was anxious. I told her my puppy had disappeared.

We searched high and low. Was he locked in the downstairs loo? Had he slipped down the drainpipe? Was he under the sofa? He was nowhere! When Gloria found me lifting the lid off my teapot, she announced that I was officially mad.

She then beckoned me over, putting a finger to her lips. She had crouched down beside the sink. ‘Come here, darling,’ she whispered. Ruskin had slipped into the gap between the tumble drier and the washing machine. After gentle coaxing he came out, cobwebs stuck to his ears.

‘I’m not sure I can look after him,’ I said, my voice wobbling. Since I was a child I’d wanted a dog, begging Mum to let us have one, but she said she couldn’t cope with a puppy and Megan. ‘I’ll be the one who has to walk it,’ she’d said.

I promised myself that when I was older and had my own home, I’d get one. When I visited Battersea Dogs Home Ruskin was one of the first dogs I saw. He was fast asleep in his basket, curled up in the shape of a kidney bean. As I knelt down, he opened his eyes and walked towards me, placing a paw between the bars of the cage. The girl showing me round said he had never done that before and that’s when I knew he was my boy.

‘Maybe I’ve made a mistake,’ I confessed to Gloria that night. The sense of responsibility overwhelmed me.

Gloria handed him to me, a bundle of fur. ‘You’re his mother now. He needs you.’

‘Hi, treasure,’ she says now, strutting into my sitting room and throwing her swimming kit onto my sofa. Ruskin bolts over to say hello, wagging his tail as she scoops him into her arms. ‘Why aren’t you ready?’ she asks when she sees I’m still in my pyjamas.

‘Sorry, I’m just coming.’ I rush back to my desk. ‘Like your flip-flops,’ I mutter.

‘Aren’t they wonderful! They’re so comfy, tone my pins and . . . well, they do everything for me but pay my bills quite frankly. What are you doing, ducks?’

‘Changing my profile.’

Gloria pulls up a chair. ‘No luck yet?’

‘Not a squeak.’

‘They ought to be snapping this place up. You should at least be getting a few bites by now.’

‘They’re not fish,’ I laugh.

‘Budge over,’ she demands, ‘let me take a look.’

Gloria scans my advertisement. ‘It is the school holidays,’ I remind her. ‘London’s pretty dead in August.’

Gloria reads out the description of No. 21. ‘I live in Hammersmith, in a two-bedroom house on a quiet peaceful road.’ She pushes me aside, clicks the ‘edit your details’ button. ‘It’s time for some serious artistic licence, Gilly.’

I look at my watch. ‘What about our swimming?’ Gloria and I swim three times a week; we call ourselves the Olympians. We’re often overtaken in the slow lane but it doesn’t worry us.

‘Stick the kettle on,’ she says.

Gloria describes our street as a lively place with a great sense of community.

‘But they want somewhere quiet, don’t they?’

‘No! It’s no bleeding wonder you’ve had zero response. This ad’s as cold as a winter’s day in Siberia.’

‘Really? Is it?’ I reread it, and have to agree that I wouldn’t want to move in this very minute. It does sound pretty boring.

Gloria puckers her lips and gets stuck in now. ‘Oh, look! Have you checked this out?’ Gleefully she presses a button that takes us to a site that gives tips on what matters most to Monday to Fridayers.

‘Monday to Fridayers like to socialize,’ Gloria states. ‘You see! They want some fun.’ She then reads what I had written, ‘There are a couple of pubs within walking distance.’

‘There
are
a couple of pubs nearby,’ I say.

‘Oh, golly gosh. I can hardly contain my excitement.’

‘Go on then. Say there are
superb
pubs all within walking distance,’ I tell her. ‘And numerous coffee bars, delicatessens and shops,’ I say, enjoying this now, ‘and a beautiful park on my doorstep.’ Gloria and I have soon rewritten my advertisement, proudly alerting prospective Monday to Fridayers to the fact that I am only seconds away from the District Line and in prime position for all the motorways and airports. ‘Excellent transport links,’ Gloria types.

She glances at the next tip.
Some lodgers like to know a little about yourself so feel free to give as much information as you wish
.

She returns to my advertisement, reading off the screen, ‘I like swimming, films, writing and reading.’

‘Why not add that you play Bingo on a Wednesday night, charades on Thursday and you love to get about on your Freedom Pass. Listen, there’s only room for one perky pensioner on this street and that’s me.’

I laugh. ‘OK. Say I’m a messed up 34-year-old, who needs the cash.’

She twitches her mouth, deep in thought before tapping into the keyboard, ‘I’m thirty-two . . .’

‘Gloria! It’s not a dating site. None of the other ads say their age.’

‘Exactly. You are going to stand out, rise like a Phoenix. OK. You enjoy parties, dancing . . . What’s your favourite cocktail?’

‘A White Lady.’ Freshly squeezed lemon, gin and Cointreau. Ed and I used to make them all the time.

‘Delicious,’ she agrees, typing, when the whole ad disappears. ‘No!’ she wails. ‘I did nothing, just pressed that button,’ she defends herself as I move over and tap another key. All she’s done is shrink it, I reassure her.

As we reach the end of our advert there’s still something missing. ‘I love dogs!’ I exclaim. ‘I have to say pets. The nation loves dogs!’

‘That’s my girl,’ Gloria says in a way which makes me fear she’s about to ruffle my hair and squeeze my cheeks.

If you want, you can add a photograph to your advert (of the house, not you!)
. Gloria looks at my photograph. It’s a shot of my sitting room with the open fireplace, the African sculpture, the invitations on the mantelpiece (I still can’t get used to seeing only my name in the corner) the bookshelves crammed with novels and photographs of family and friends.

She gasps. ‘It’s your television, darling.’ I turn to face my old-fashioned TV, the screen the size of an ant. She’s right. There it is, sitting like a wart, putting off all potential Monday to Fridayers. Ed used to threaten to buy me a new one, but I was proud that I hadn’t sold my soul to the plasma screen.

Gloria says, ‘Get your coat on. We’ll take Sadie out.’

Sadie is her electric purple car. ‘I can’t justify buying a TV,’ I say, ‘not right now. My credit card needs a rest.’

‘Think of it as a loan.’ As we reach the front door she turns to me. ‘Before we go, I just want to say I’m glad you’re not moving.’

‘Oh, Gloria, so am I,’ I say, touched.

‘I mean, who’s going to water my plants and feed my Guinness when I’m away?’ Guinness is Gloria’s black-and-white cat.

‘And fix your computer?’ Gloria always summons me over during a technical emergency, and I’ve just set her up on wireless broadband. ‘I’d miss my fellow Olympian swimmer too. Let’s just hope after all our hard work I find the perfect Monday to Friday man.’

‘Gilly, by the time we’ve finished with your ad, the offers are going to come flooding through your letterbox,’ she promises.

5

Later that evening, after Gloria and I have bought and installed a high-tech television screen the size of a tennis court in my sitting room (vulgar – am disgusted with myself) I race in my car to my brother’s house in Richmond. I’m running late because I got delayed trying to change one of Gloria’s spotlight bulbs in her kitchen. I curse my luck when I get stuck in traffic. Nancy, Nick’s wife, has only one thing in common with my father. She’s a stickler for punctuality.

Nancy opens the door in an elegant navy wraparound dress, legs waxed and tanned, her fair hair tumbling down slender shoulders. I burst into the hallway with a bottle of wine and a couple of presents I bought for the children.

‘The kids are in bed. It’s too late to read to them,’ she says.

I always make up bedtime stories for them. ‘Can I just run up and kiss them goodnight?’

‘Go on.’ She smiles tightly. ‘Quick.’ As I brush past her, there’s a faint look of disapproval when she sees I haven’t changed for the evening. Nancy believes in changing for dinner – it’s important to add a new chapter to the day, she says.

‘Don’t worry,’ she says when I gesture to my jeans, ‘but what have you forgotten to do?’ she asks with a smile and gentle nudge that hides a whip.

‘Oh yes, sorry!’ I slip off my shoes before rushing upstairs to kiss Hannah and Matilda goodnight.

Minutes later I join Nancy in the kitchen, the table immaculately laid with pressed linen napkins and white bone china. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask, before adding that something smells delicious.

‘No no, you sit down.’ Nancy opens the fridge door, covered with photographs of the children and their artwork, and takes out a bottle of white wine. She pours us both a glass, telling me that the supper will be burnt if that brother of mine isn’t home soon. Nick is a lawyer. He specializes in divorce. ‘Is he always this late, Nancy?’ I ask with concern.

‘Always,’ she replies. ‘He lives in his bloody office.’

As Nancy fills me in on the dramas with Hannah’s music teacher (Hannah is seven, Matilda four) my mind wanders to Megan, my own sister, and how I wish she were with me tonight. I often think about her. Would she have been like Nick and my father, a career-driven successful lawyer, or would she have been more like me? When I hear a key unlock, Nancy stiffens, glancing at her watch. Nick rushes in, shaking off his jacket, loosening his tie and dumping his briefcase on the kitchen table, apologizing to me for being late. Nancy picks up his case and orders him to hang up his jacket. ‘You did get the milk, didn’t you?’

His face says he forgot. ‘Oh, Nicholas! We don’t have enough for the children’s breakfast now!’

Once he’s apologized she allows him to kiss her on the cheek.

‘It’s just a Delia recipe,’ Nancy smiles, as she serves perfect miniature onion tartlets for our starter. She then asks me how my love life is, as she always does. I try to deflect the question by praising the pastry, but Nancy doesn’t let me get away with it. You see, she loved Ed and misses his presence round the dinner table. Ed got the measure of Nancy instantly; he was perceptive about people, which is why he’s a good businessman. ‘She’s high maintenance,’ he’d said. ‘Insecure. Deep down that woman craves approval and recognition.’

Stop. Thinking. About. Him.

I tell Nancy that there’s no one special on the scene at the moment. I add that I think attractive single men must hide underground. Though I do wonder who that young man was in the hat, walking his dog this morning. There was something interesting about him.

‘Anyway,’ Nick says, helping me change the subject, ‘what else is going on?’

I am always shocked when I see my twin. Like me, he’s tall with dark-brown hair, but he’s aged in the last few years, and his pale skin reveals that he spends too much time at his computer.

‘Well, I’m advertising for a Monday to Friday man,’ I tell them.

‘A what man?’ Nancy asks.

I tell them both about the Monday to Friday scheme.

‘I think that’s very brave of the wife to let her husband loose in the week,’ Nancy comments. ‘I wouldn’t let you do it, Nicholas.’

Nick smiles at me.

‘Actually you live in the office, so it wouldn’t make any difference,’ she reflects.

When Nancy leaves the room to check up on the children, Nick leans towards me. ‘I think it’s a great idea,’ he advises with a wry smile. ‘At the rate she spends, we could do with letting out our spare room too.’

‘Wow, this looks amazing!’ I exclaim as Nancy places an exquisite slice of apricot flan in front of me with a neat scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side of the plate.

‘Just a Nigella,’ she says. ‘Now, Gilly, you need to start thinking about your birthday.’

‘November’s months away,’ I dismiss.

‘Nancy needs a project,’ Nick mutters quietly as she counts the months on her fingers. ‘It’s only three months,’ she calculates, ‘and if we’re going to hire a marquee . . .’

‘We’re not,’ I say, horrified by the thought. ‘Nick, what are you going to do?’

‘Nothing,’ he says.

‘Nothing?’ I say, surprised. He usually enjoys a party.

‘Maybe draw the curtains and hide under my duvet?’ he suggests.

‘Well that’s typical,’ Nancy complains. ‘I’m married to a misery guts. And you’re not much better either, Gilly,’ she adds, refusing to let me off the hook when she sees me giggle.

‘Sorry, Nancy, I probably will do something but . . .’

‘Listen Gilly, I know thirty-five is a difficult age, a
sensitive
age. Don’t get me wrong, I
so
felt that way too.’

‘It’s fine! I don’t feel weird about it.’

‘It must be hard being over thirty and single, especially in London,’ Nancy continues.

I pick up my glass of wine and take a large sip, before excusing myself and going to the loo.