Page 36 of The Spark

The summer of our first year, Jamie’s dad arranged work experience for him. It was in London, a top architectural firm, his contact a friend-of-a-friend. Jamie would stay in the Soho flat. The lodger had just moved out, so it was free for the summer (and also, I suspected, indefinitely).

I knew I couldn’t go with him. Mostly because of Jamie’s dad, but also because I had to earn some money. I already had a part-time job at a pub down the road – the decent one that had recently gone gastro – and my big plan for the summer was simply to increase my hours.

‘What are you going to do?’ Lara asked me one night. We were in her bedroom, listening to Bombay Bicycle Club, and she was French-plaiting my hair, because I could never do it neatly myself.

‘About what?’

‘Your career. Your future. What are you doing with your summer?’

‘I’m working at the pub.’

‘You should get proper work experience. Something you actually want to do. What about that company you designed those curtains for?’

Kelley Lane Interiors. Kelley had given us the brief herself, singling me out for praise after our final presentation, complimenting my creative use of pattern and texture. Her company’s Instagram was job porn for students, popping with pictures of incredible projects – swish hotel lobbies and Georgian manor-house kitchens and bathrooms-to-die-for in new-builds with panoramic coastal views. I salivated over photos of their offices, too – the manicured hands clutching coffee cups, the flatlays of fabric palettes, the swish 3D renderings on giant computer screens.

But I still wavered, overwhelmed by imposter syndrome. Jamie had always been my benchmark for ambition and drive, and whenever I compared myself to him, I felt as though I fell way short.

‘The pub’s easy money,’ I told Lara.

‘Neve. I’m going to say something to you now, and I need you to listen. Sit up.’

My plait was only half finished, but I sat up.

‘Easy money doesn’t exist. Not in the real world. Not after we graduate and our loans are gone. Are you going to work at the pub your whole life? How will you make ends meet?’

‘I’ll have Jamie.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You did not just say that.’

‘Not like that. I just mean, everything’s cheaper if there’s two of you.’

‘What if Jamie got run over by a bus tomorrow?’

I blinked at her. ‘Lara.’

‘I’m serious. You’ve got to look after yourself. You need to start thinking about how you’re going to make money and have a fulfilling life and dreams and ambitions of your own.’ She looked at me. I’d never seen her so stern the whole time I’d known her. ‘Your life can’t just be about Jamie. You know that, don’t you?’

It was the first time anyone had really said it to me. Not once had I wanted to picture my life without Jamie in it – partly because he’d always felt like family to me. The family I’d never had.

‘You don’t want to turn into your mum, do you?’

‘What? No. What?’

‘I mean, you don’t want a life that revolves around a man.’

I thought about my dad, who for the past few weeks had been in receipt of a series of increasingly hostile phone calls from my mother, each made from a different phone like she was a drugs baron on the run.

I felt a tingle of indignation. ‘I’m nothing like my mum.’

‘Then create your own life and your own dreams. A career you’re proud of. A home of your own. Don’t rely on Jamie for anything.’

I swallowed. ‘All right. I know. I won’t. You don’t need to tell me all this.’

‘Yes, I do. Do you want to know why?’

‘Go on,’ I said cautiously.

‘Because... you’re brilliant, Neve, and you deserve for the world to realise it, okay?’ She gestured for me to lie back down. ‘I just wish you would realise it too.’

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