Page 101 of Lessons in Life

One more dream squashed flat.

I finally made it to the multistorey and, too weary to take the stairs, tried to take the lift to the top floor where I’d managed to park the car. I say, tried: the door closed behind me, and then reopened, closed and reopened and closed once again. I pressed the relevant buttons and the lift trundled up to the first floor, wheezing and groaning as it went until it stopped. And remained stopped! Then, after a good minute, suddenly, without warning, descended back to where we’d started.

Fuck’s sake.

I turned back to the buttons, pressing every one in turn until the lift door suddenly opened, someone got in and, just as quickly, despite my yelling: ‘Don’t, don’t! Get out! I think it’s broken!’ the door clanged shut once more on the pair of us.

The woman’s head was down and she was crying, real shoulder-heaving sobs as she stood, not caring, it seemed, where she was, or where she was trying to get to.

She eventually lifted her head, obviously trying to work out what was going on; why we weren’t moving.

We stared at each other, realisation at who the other was almost immediate.

My heart appeared to stall.

‘You’re crying.’ She seemed surprised.

‘So are you,’ I sniffed.

‘Look…’ we both started.

‘I’m sorry…’ we tried again.

‘The lift’s broken,’ I said.

‘So’s my heart,’ she said.

‘Yourheart?’ I said. Actually, it came out as a sneer. I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘Whyyourheart?’

‘Why d’you think?’

‘I’ve really no idea. I’ve just seen you wrapped around Fabian in The Alchemist. Your heart appeared far from broken there!’

‘You were there?’ She stared. ‘Where?’

‘In the bar in The Alchemist. I’d sent Fabian a message to meet me there, but he never replied. And then I saw why he hadn’t replied… You know…’

‘He’s been without his phone all day,’ she interrupted. ‘Left on the kitchen table, he thought.’

‘I saw you together and realised he still… you know…’ I broke off, unable to speak further. We stared at each other for a good five seconds until eventually I blurted out, ‘Fabian never even told me about you. I’d no idea he’d been with you for so long. That, when I met him, you and he were…’ I air-quoted the words ‘…“on a break”. Sounds like a weekend in Blackpool.’

‘That’s strange.’ Alexandra gave a little sob. ‘He told me everything about you.’

‘To make you jealous? To make you come back to him?’

She stared. ‘I tried everything to get Fabian back. Even moving up to Yorkshire to be near him when he left London.’

‘Not to be near your twin sister, then?’

‘No! I followed him up here – can’t bear the bloody north to be honest: you all talk funny and say you’re having your tea instead of supper.’

‘Not all the time,’ I objected, put out at her rudeness about my beloved Yorkshire. ‘We can be quite posh when we want to be. We do eat “lunch” instead of “us dinner” these days.’ More air-quoting of words. I shook my head, to clear it. ‘So, just a second, are you saying, you and Fabian are not…?’

‘No, you’ve won, you’ve got him. He loves you. He said so.’

‘I wasn’t aware there was any competition going on,’ I lied.

‘No competition? Oh, don’t give me that. Listen, I’ve known everything about you since you first set your cap at him in the Old Bailey. Inveigled your way into his life, didn’t you? What he sees in you, I really can’t imagine. But there you go, there’s no accounting for taste…’ She pushed past me to reach the lift buttons, pressing each one in turn, her voice rising in panic once it appeared we were going nowhere. ‘I need to get out… I need to get out of here… I get claustrophobia…’

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