Page 30 of Sleep

“I’m terribly sorry.” He didn’t sound it.

“So,” I continued, “Mark discovered Mabel working in some grotty drag club—that’s where we met. Pretty Princess in Soho. It’s still there, and I still know all the queens. It’s where I tend to get most of my clients from.”

“Clients?” Now he looked worried.

“I sew. I went from wedding frocks to drag frocks. Big flashy dresses, and I’m good at it. I also have a few select clients who are like me. Humans with male bodies who have clothes in need of alteration to fit them properly. I know what I’m doing, since I can’t afford all the tailored things for myself. I buy a lot of my clothes online, and then I have to completely take them apart so I can structure them to fit the body I’m in, create the illusion of curves that are not there.”

“That makes sense. I have my suits made to measure. It’s a very skilled profession.”

“Thank you. But it’s not profitable. I make no money from it.”

“A passion project.”

“Don’t. My dad calls it a stupid hobby. He keeps saying that I should pull myself together and start up properly and sew full-time. Like that would be a help.”

“You should.”

“Only, I don’t have the time or spoons to do it full-time, and where I am sharp as fuck in the restaurant trade—Mark’s fault because he’s scatty as anything and would have gone bankrupt within weeks if I didn’t hold his budget ransom—when it comes to making my frock-obsessed clients happy?” I shook my head. “They’re my friends, and I feel terrible taking a profit. Often I go into the red once a project is finished and delivered, and I struggle to demand payment, especially from performers who are underpaid and struggling.”

“Okay,” Jonny said, nodding as if he was taking it all in. I’d expected him to berate me for being such a terrible businessperson, because I was pretty hopeless. My dad told me every time we sat down to do my tax return. It was part of our regular marmalade argument.

“Have you got any formal training in tailoring?” he asked.

“I have a degree in mechanical engineering, another one in psychology, I’m a fucking certified trauma therapist, and I’m a fully trained Master of Wine, but I failed the final exam three times. There are only around four hundred qualified Masters of Wine in the world. Turns out I don’t have the palate. How soul-destroying do you think that was?”

“I can imagine.” Surprising. Again. “We have a Master of Wine contracted at my parents’ country club. She’s very sought after. Quite amazing to listen to.”

“You like wine.”

“I do like wine. I especially like the Shiraz you’ve been serving me. But again, my doctor keeps saying to ditch the wine. Completely.”

“What a spoilsport.”

“Indeed. So. You met Mark. Fell in love. He didn’t fall in love back.”

“That’s about the size of it, and it’s toxic. More than toxic. Unbalanced. I thought I was supporting everyone, being friends with my abusive, controlling ex-husband, and with my manipulative bastard best friend. I thought I was being the better person, who’d swallowed my past like the big bitter pill it was. I was even churning out lies in therapy, how I’d turned my life around through kindness and forgiveness. I had forgiven myself and others. Turns out that behind my back, I was being hoisted as a total weirdo with issues. I’ve been in therapy for years, and here I am. I bought a dress for a wedding that everyone was trying to figure out how to uninvite me to.”

“Ouch,” he said.

Ouch wasn’t even the start of it.

13. Jonathan

The conversation had flowed, which was unusual for someone like me, especially given—as Mabel noted, waving a cushion at me and trying to kick my leg—I was a rich kid from a privileged background and they were a rough, council house mess with a million fancy degrees who had failed at everything they’d ever put their hand to—their words.

I tried to point out how incredibly wrong that generalisation was and how they should stop putting themselves down, all while avoiding being hauled off the sofa. Cue more eye rolls and laughter from us both. I was surprised how much I’d laughed this evening, or how we’d ended comfortably splayed on my oversized sofa. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I’d fallen asleep with another person in my space, but I woke up sometime during the night to find them gone.

The horrific pain in my chest that caused was difficult to explain, and I had to sit there in the darkness for a while recovering. They’d turned off the lights, left me alone with only a faint whiff of them in the air to remind me that I hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.

A cup of decaf coffee and a lot of words in the company of another person, and here I was, gasping for breath, wondering if this was my final moment. The one where I went into cardiac arrest and my life switched off, my poor, abused body destined to ride out the rest of the winter rotting away on a strange grey sofa at the top of a building, the glittering lights of London the only witness as I blinked out of existence.

It was just panic speaking, I knew that. They’d only been gone for a moment, and I’d already descended into the doom and gloom of my nighttime frets.

I didn’t go back to sleep, instead getting myself in front of my screen, reading proposals, marking comments for Jenny, shooting off a string of emails to my sleeping staff.

I could still see Donovan…Mabel…Pickle—I wasn’t yet settled on what I should call them, other than something that felt right. Whatever I was going to call them, I could still see their outline in the sofa cushion and wondered if they’d left a strand of hair, something I could keep to remind me of what was no longer here.

My father had taught me all I knew about running a business. Well, it had been his company until I’d stepped in and taken over the helm. “Son,” he would say, “we have the right people in the right places doing our bidding. That is how we tie everything together and get results. As long as we have a plan, those people, and determination of steel.”

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