The Last Word

‘Pushover is definitely not the word I’d use.’ Harry smirked as the lift door closed, and Tabby suddenly felt out of control again.

***

Tabby had certainly not felt like shoe shopping after that ordeal. Besides, all that talk about money had made her worry even more. And she was probably going to have to call her mother back some time. She wouldn’t survive if she withheld the monthly cheques like she did last year when Tabby had missed her birthday. To be fair, her mother was in LA, and Tabby didn’t want to get charged international rates just because her mother refused to use Skype, but whatever. The person with the purse is in control. And her mother’s purse was made by Prada and full of cash.

Instead, Tabby went home, changed into her baggy clothes, cleaned the house, hoovered, scrubbed and polished everything she could get her hands on. Then she went for a run. Then she had a shower. In between peeling potatoes and deciding whether or not she needed to flip her mattress, Rhi came home, and they spent a considerable amount of time not talking about the interview. They talked about the crazy people Rhi worked with at the library and watched the news just so they’d have things to moan about. When it got to nine p.m., even Rhi was agitated.

‘Turn on your bloody laptop, scaredy cat! I can’t deal with the pressure!’

In her inbox was an email from Harry Shulman, offering her a twelve-week contract, a decent salary and expenses. Goddamn charm boy, got everything he wanted.

‘Shouldn’t we be celebrating?’ Rhi asked, already halfway to the bottle of white wine in the fridge.

‘Guess so.’ Tabby sighed. Twelve weeks. In a small office with Harry criticising everything she wrote, then laughing his way out of it. Going from arrogant to interested in under a minute. It was going to be an exhausting twelve weeks.

Chapter Four (#u20d8b431-0405-5689-98e5-8f11d7ff7c21)

‘Start being more happy or I’m going to hit you,’ Chandra warned dryly, as they sat at the bar with oversized, overpriced cocktails. ‘I swear, if you turn out to be one of those people who moans and then doesn’t actually change anything, we’re not going to be friends any more.’

‘Way to go with the tough love, Chands.’ Tabby rolled her eyes, but nudged her friend. OK, she needed to cheer up. This was her celebration, a night out to, ‘Herald the return of the kickass reporter Tabby Riley,’ as Chandra had put it earlier, when she showed up at the flat, forced Tabby into a clean dress and painful shoes, and dragged her to Covent Garden.

‘I really do appreciate this, you know. I needed a night out,’ Tabby said, and instead thought about how what she really needed was her pyjamas, takeaway Chinese food and episodes of Come Dine With Me. Or something, anything, to stop her thinking about her very first ‘Concept Meeting’ with Harry on Monday.

‘Yes, yes you did. Is Her Majesty meeting us here, or is it a bit too posh for the Proletarian Princess?’ Chandra raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow and sipped at her Cosmopolitan.

‘Don’t call her that. She’ll meet us in the pub later.’

‘Pubs,’ Chandra scoffed, and looked down the bar to catch the eye of the cutest barman. ‘Two more here, darling!’

‘You will come to the pub?’ Tabby wheedled. ‘If this is meant to be my celebration I need you both there. If only to tell me to stop being a miserable cow.’

‘Fine.’ Chandra rolled her eyes, and used her dazzling white smile on the barman, who appeared unimpressed. When he was gone, Chandra sighed. ‘What is it with cocktail barmen? They think they’re so cute.’

‘It’s their job.’ Tabby shrugged, frowning at the black-shirted twenty-somethings who provided their alcohol. ‘They know they’re pretty and they think we’re pathetic.’

Chandra ate the cherry from her cocktail. ‘They probably have damaged egos, and we make them feel better, improving their sense of self-worth.’

Tabby laughed into her Daiquiri. ‘So what you’re saying is, you’re really doing them a service by imagining them naked?’

Chandra grinned. ‘Oh, absolutely, you know me, always willing to help a person in need.’

Tabby and Chandra had been friends since secondary school, drawn together by mutual crushes on television characters and the fact that they both had overbearing mothers. Chandra, being an Indian girl of twenty-six was evading almost daily calls from her mother about when she was going to settle down with a nice Indian boy. And Tabby was evading calls from her mother, just because she was her mother.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Tabby’s phone began to ring. The Darth Vader theme tune, muffled from inside her bag was still too loud to be ignored.

‘Don’t do it! It can only end badly!’

Tabby rolled her eyes, drank the remainder of her first drink, and a good half of her second one, then answered the phone. ‘Hi Mum! How are you?’ she chirped, while Chandra made a face.

‘Tabitha?’ Claudia Riley sounded surprised.

‘Yes, Mum. You called me. Did you not mean to?’

‘No darling, of course I meant to! You just sound rather frantic. You’re not on anti-depressants are you, because I saw this programme on television – ’

‘No. Why would I be on anti-depressants?’ She rolled her eyes at Chandra, who snorted into her drink.

‘Well, things aren’t exactly going well for you darling, are they? No man, no real career. Living with the lesbian in that dive. And you’re edging closer to thirty, aren’t you? Maybe you should think about getting a secretarial job. I could put it into Google for you.’

Tabby was tempted to punch herself for answering the phone. Actually, punching herself would not be enough. Banging her head against a wall, that was the ticket.

‘Actually Mum, I got offered a new job. A real writing job with a newspaper, decent money too.’ She tried not to make it sound like she had something to prove, but obviously, she did. Her mother paused for a moment, and Tabby took a second to imagine what it would be like if her mother was like other mothers, and just said, ‘Congratulations, love! I’m so proud!’ But that wasn’t Claudia’s style.

‘Well, it’s not a real job, though, is it? You know, your cousin’s working in PR, got her own office – ’

‘Erm, yes it is real. I do a job, I get paid – ’ I spend the money I’m paid on alcohol to blot out your opinion of the job ‘ – sounds real to me!’

She could hear her mother huff, and downed the rest of her drink in preparation for her inevitable response. She signalled to Chandra, ‘Two more.’

‘Look, I know you think I’m being mean, darling, but I’m not, I’m just – ’

‘Being honest, I know.’ Tabby reached over and had some of Chandra’s drink. She was getting more worked up. ‘And while we’re on the subject of honesty, Mum, how’s Liam doing? Still feeling good about dating a boy two years older than your daughter? Bet you’re head of the PTA, right?’

Claudia cleared her throat awkwardly.

Instead of thinking she may have finally won an argument, Tabby realised that something terrible was going to happen.

‘Actually, Liam and I are getting married.’

Tabby’s jaw dropped, and she let a ‘Fuck right off!’ escape before she could control herself.

‘Language, Tabitha! You clearly got your mouth from your father’s side of the family. His mother sounded like she was born on a building site. Anyway, it will be a beautiful wedding, we were thinking of spring, lots of flowers everywhere, a big ceremony, but tasteful.’

Tabby let her mother drone on about her monstrosity of a wedding. She’d never imagined Liam was going to be a permanent part of her mother’s life. She’d assumed it was more of a mid-life crisis relationship.

Liam had moved from Essex to North London, been at school two years above Tabby, and had slept with half of year ten by the time he had left. Liam got spray tans, and sold expensive houses, and had nothing to say except what the football scores were, and what the pros and cons of ale and lager were. That Liam was marrying her mother. He was going to be her stepfather. A twenty-eight-year-old stepfather. Sweet Jesus.

She tuned back in to hear her mother saying, ‘Look, I know you’re not very good at being happy for other people, especially when your own love life isn’t going anywhere, but – ’

‘Congratulations, Mum. I’m glad you’re happy,’ Tabby said in monotone. ‘Bye.’ She hung up, knowing she’d pay for it later. Her mother always remembered. She took a deep breath.

‘Mum’s marrying Liam,’ she said to Chandra, watching as her eyes bulged in horror. And while she almost wanted to cry or scream about it, watching her usually very dignified friend spit a mouthful of Cosmopolitan onto the shirt of the cute barman fixed the whole situation. She got a case of the giggles so continuous that she thought she might never stop.

So this is what hysteria feels like, she thought, as Chandra went bright red and asked for the bill.

‘We should get to that pub. I think multiple bottles of wine and portions of chips are the only thing that will solve this,’ Chandra said in a measured voice.

‘My mother’s nuptials from hell or your gag reflex?’ Tabby squealed and collapsed into a fit of giggles again.