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I hate boys.
Kate shot me a deadly look. I cringed at her. I’d only meant it as a laugh, but if she blew me out, I’d have to basically destroy myself with humbleness.
The other lads came over. They were a bit pissed, and up for ribbing someone they appeared to think was somewhat akin to a prostitute, but with an even kinder heart.
‘Do you have to, like, you know, rub ointment in, like Joanne Whalley-Kilmer in The Singing Detective?’ asked one of them, breathless.
‘Sometimes.’ I nodded sagely. ‘Usually when I’m on night shift.’
There was a collective groan.
‘Do, ahem, nurses still wear uniforms these days …?’ asked one of them, under the pretence of historical analysis.
‘Oh yes. At St Mungo’s our uniforms are white: it’s like a hangover from the days when it used to be run by’ – my pièce de résistance – ‘nuns.’
‘Ooh.’
‘What do you find most interesting in your field? I mean, aren’t you working a lot on prostate disease? Do you find this is becoming more of an environmental syndrome, or does it retain its genetic antecedence?’
Shite! This came from Finn, the one I’d noticed earlier, with the smeared glasses. Smart aleck bastard. A collective groan went up from the other boys. I wondered what a prostate was. I knew it was something to do with willies, but I didn’t know what.
‘Ehm … really, with the greenhouse effect it’s all getting pretty environmental,’ I stammered.
‘Really? Is that true? How fascinating! Where else do you see this type of phenomenon …?’
Annoyingly, the other boys were starting to turn their backs on me. They were obviously used to whoever this mega-nerd was, and sexy nurse was being replaced with scientist nurse. Boo. Kate was still throwing visual daggers in my direction.
‘Oh, all over the place,’ I said carelessly.
‘Really … oh, I know you’re off duty now, and I hate to bother you, but medicine is a real interest of mine and …’ He flushed. ‘Ahem … would you like to get together to discuss it sometime?’
‘Sure,’ I said. You really have to be a troll for me not to agree to go on a date with you. I’ve always figured it’s a law of averages. Of course, that probably explains a lot about my life.
‘OK! OK, brilliant,’ he said, clearly surprised and a bit overwhelmed. ‘Ehm … I know, what about the Natural History Museum?’
What? But you’re a rich City person. I mean, surely I deserved the Oxo Tower at least?
‘Next Saturday? Are you on duty?’
I reluctantly said no, I wasn’t on duty, which at least was the truth.
‘Great! I’ll meet you there at two! OK! Fantastic! Brilliant!’ Unable to stop thanking me, he retreated back to his group of Jameses, where I was disgusted to see him being slapped on the back by his friends. And I wasn’t too proud of myself, either.
Kate came over. ‘Well, you’ve certainly made an impression. Do they know you actually run a daisy hospital?’
‘I’m sorry, Kate. No one would have spoken to me otherwise. AND, hey, it worked! I got a date!’
‘Finn is not a date. He’s a walking CD-ROM.’
‘That doesn’t sound too bad to me. What does he do?’
‘He’s developing string theory for stock markets.’
‘Wow, I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like he must be RICH.’
‘No – wow, he must be DULL. Just a friendly warning … Oh, and he actually works for the University of London, doing a research project, so he’s not even rich.’
‘I’m going to the Natural History Museum with a student?’
‘And he’s going with a nurse.’
The ‘party’ didn’t last too long after that. Bizarrely, the pub shut at nine – it was probably run by the banks, making sure their bonus-slaves didn’t stay up too late enjoying their youth. So we found ourselves back round the kitchen table, slightly drunk, by ten o’clock, opening another bottle of wine. Kate was talking about how much shit she put up with at work, but I kept getting confused with all those Jameses, so I just nodded along generally.
Josh finally returned, a bit wobbly on his gin and tonics.
‘I got a date!’ I hollered, as soon as he walked in the room.
‘No!’ he said, clearly amazed.
‘Yeah, a full-on nerd date,’ said Kate, leaning into her glass of wine.
Josh sat down, his eyes shining.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how did he ask you?’
‘Well, he just said, “Would you like to go to the Natural History Museum …?”’
‘Under false pretences,’ said Kate.
‘And you said yes,’ said Josh, breathless with admiration.
‘Yup!’
‘He just said, “Would you like to go to the Natural History Museum”?’
‘Apparently they let you in half-price if you don’t know anything about science,’ added Kate.
‘And that’s all it takes to ask a girl out.’
‘That’s all it takes to ask me out,’ I said, before Kate pointed it out.
‘Wow,’ said Josh. ‘It’s that simple.’
‘It’s that simple.’
We all stared at our drinks.
‘Kate,’ said Josh, ‘would you like to go to the Natural History Museum?’
Kate’s head snapped up and she looked perturbed.
‘Are you asking me out on a date, or are you just testing?’ she said crisply.
‘Don’t be daft, this is practice. Do you think I can pull it off?’
‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘No, that would never work.’
‘Right. OK. Fine,’ said Josh.
‘It’s not a universal chat-up line,’ I said consolingly.
‘No, Holly is what’s technically known as easy,’ explained Kate.
‘OK,’ I said, rising somewhat unsteadily to my feet. ‘If you’re going to be horrible, I’m going to talk to my other friend around here, Addison.’
I lurched out of the kitchen, a tad unsteadily, and wandered across the landing, to the fast becoming familiar under-door blue glow.
I pushed the door ajar.
‘Addison!’ I said loudly, for the benefit of my ex-friends sitting in the kitchen. He did that gorgeous rigid back thing. God, I love that.
‘What are you doing?’
I leaned forward, peering over his shoulder. To my amazement, instead of indecipherable computer babble, on his monitor was a picture of a hugely breasted fat lady.
He coloured and immediately dived for the escape button, but it was too late.
‘Addison!’ I said again, shocked. In my slightly drunk frame of mind, I felt deeply insulted. After all, here I was, and he still felt the need to … well.
‘Addison,’ I said a third time. He still wasn’t meeting my eyes. ‘Do you know lots of women?’
His beautiful dark gaze was focused solely on his computer keyboard.
‘Because, you know, you might find … what you’re looking for … closer than you think.’
I couldn’t believe I was being such a tart. On the other hand, tart tactics were required when dealing with someone as shy as this. Plus of course I was pissed – that wonderful moral leveller.
I took his hand.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘you’re very attractive.’ Really, I like to take all my chat-up lines from Dynasty, circa 1986.
His hand lay in mine like a piece of wet melon. Not noticing, I leaned over and kissed his forehead. He smelled of that wonderful Banda paper you used to get in schools: fresh and dry and inky.
He wasn’t kissing back though. I realized this after say, thirty, maybe forty seconds. No reaction. Nada. Nothing. I kissed his head again. He didn’t even move.
‘So,’ I said tartily, ‘ehm, you know where I sleep …’
Sheesh. This was it. This was the pits. Robocop or the Natural History Museum. Even I hadn’t plumbed my own depths before.
Amazingly, he simply took my hand off his forehead and squeezed it. Less amazingly (given he was a sober person who’d just been come on to by a mad harpy), he then handed it back to me and returned to his keyboard. I stood there for about ten seconds more – just to prolong the humiliation, I suppose – then retreated backwards slowly, whilst he busied himself with some computer stuff which, as far as I could see, had nothing more to do with big-breasted Betty.
‘Oh God.’
‘You’ll get over it! You’ve got over worse stuff!’
‘Like what, exactly?’
‘What about that time you taught yourself to snowboard to impress big Eric and broke your ankle?’
Josh was failing to comfort me at the breakfast table. Not only this, but I had an interview today for a real live flower shop, which I had to do after the utter humiliation of basically prostrating myself in front of my flatmate. I wasn’t sure that counted as extenuating circumstances.
‘Anyway, I’ve done much worse things.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know … what about that time I got bitten by a dog?’
‘Ehm, you know what, Josh? I don’t think that really embarrassed the dog. So it does NOT compare.’
Kate of course had already gone to work, presumably clear-headed and ‘motivated’.
‘Yes, but I cried when I got my tetanus shot.’
‘You must have been about eight years old.’
‘Still embarrassing, though.’
‘And they gave you a cream cake at the end of it, which really means that it does not compare. Now, ask me a question about flowers.’
‘Ehm … what colour are tulips?’
‘OK, ask me a question about a flower you’ve actually met.’
‘I’ll have you know I took the church prize in our village for flower arranging three times in a row!’
‘You surprise me.’
‘They were very … manly arrangements. OK, how do you grow a sunflower?’
‘Stick it in any old shit and ignore it for months.’
We both paused for a minute.
‘That’s my life,’ we both said simultaneously.
I couldn’t believe a flower-shop interview could be so intense. There were three people in the tiny office at the back of the shop: an old bloke who might conceivably have been dead; a woman with very high hair, a monobosom and an imperious expression; and a sullen Indian girl with either a very large bogey or a bolt through her nose – it was hard to tell in the gloomy room.
‘Now, here at That Special Someone, we take our customer care extremely seriously,’ announced the big woman (I’d known she’d start the talking). ‘Can you give us a particular example of good customer care you’ve been involved with in your previous jobs?’
