Page 44 of Alice Carver Manifests Her Perfect Life
My thoughts and reflections:
I’ve been living at Astrid and Aziz’s for over forty-eight hours and I’ve got to say, it feels like I’ve been here for ever. Aziz said the same thing. It is without doubt the best place I’ve lived (except our old house, obviously), and I feel such a sense of gratitude towards the Universe for having made this all happen. Because there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that I have the Universe to thank for this. (And, if the Universe does happen to be listening at this moment, just to be crystal clear,Doubt is for losers and you won’t find any of it in me! No blocks to the manifesting here!)
Astrid claims otherwise. She says it’s her and her alone I should be thanking. In fact, she’s pretty derisive about my New Year’s Day manifesting episode, to the point of actively mocking it, but then that’s Astrid. Relentlessly evidence-based (she was the one who sat me down and explained that both Santa and Mum used the same wrapping paper from Waitrose and that it was time I considered the empirical evidence and lived in the real world), she veers towards the dismissive and negative. And frankly, she’s harsh. I mean who tells their four-year-old sister Santa isn’t real on Christmas Eve? Astrid! That’s who! Which, incidentally, if we’re looking for ‘empiricalevidence’, is preciselyhowI know the Universe intervened on my behalf. Because Astrid, if left to her own devices, would never have thought to let me move in, no matter what problems I was experiencing. I know many sisters would, but not Astrid. Even when I’ve asked for something most people wouldn’t think twice about, such as staying the odd night, she’s been like a Conservative Home Office Minister’s immigration policy: suspicious and unrelenting.Okay, but ONE night and you’re out by midday so don’t try getting round me because I know all your little tricks. Give you an inch and you’ll take a mile. It’ll be, ‘Oh no, Astrid – it’s getting late – I may as well stay again’, and then before I know it, you’ll have squatter’s rights.
Once, even though it was one in the morning, sub-zero and snowing –actuallysnowing in Chiswick – she still made me leave and take a two-hour-long marathon of night buses. And I told her I had a mild temperature. She just handed me a couple of paracetamol and said how she wasn’t having me turn her into another ‘Wet Wanda’ (Wandawasa bit wet, which was why we’re no longer friends, but it was hardlymyfault if she wanted to keep paying rent on her Camden studio despite living with her boyfriend at his – if anything I was doinghera favour by staying there for that year, and watering the plant), and that she wasn’t a simpleton like Monty (fair enough) and then pretty much pushed me out the door. Astrid is the harshest person I know. She genuinely had her housemate evictedduringfinals for infringing the noise-after-hours element of their shared living arrangement (which Astrid had drawn up) and according to Arrie, the noise infringement was, actually, the housemate crying in the middle of the night due to exam stress combined with her boyfriend dumping her. That’s Astrid: sheshows no mercy. So inviting me to live with her was significant and uncharacteristic and clearly down to a higher power.
Of course, Astrid scoffed when I told her how I’d manifested this. ‘Come on, Alice. Even you can think a little more critically than that… ’
(Just another example of how little my family know me because I’m actually an extremely critical thinker; I never do a tube journey without thinking about the surprising number of badly dressed people you can find in every carriage.)
‘Did it cross your mind that I may have decided the night before to let you move in?’ maintained Astrid. ‘Can I just check: when you were manifesting up the perfect place to live, did you also manifest this tenancy and rent agreement?’
Astrid had drawn up an extremely detailed agreement which she showed me as soon as I turned up late afternoon on New Year’s Day, utterly exhausted after fourteen hours straight of cleaning Aunty Margaret’s flat. Incidentally, that’s another manifesting success because that flat looked pristine by the time I’d finished and clearly the new tenants are happy, otherwise Aunty Margaret would have been kicking up a fuss. Anyway, I didn’t bother reading Astrid’s agreement because I knew it would be extremely dull. But I did ask the basics and essentially it was almost too good to be true. Apart from having to pay rent and having to be out the house during the day anytime Aziz was working from home, or Astrid wanted the place to herself to study, there were no restrictions. I even double-checked: ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay in my room in the evenings, to give you and Az a bit of space or whatever?’
Aziz came into the room just as I was asking this and Astridtold me I should feel free to spend as much time as I wanted with her and Aziz – and that she and Aziz didn’t need any space at all. Aziz stared at Astrid for a second and then back at me and then at Astrid again. Then he asked if he’d missed something, and Astrid said, ‘Alice is moving in. Problem?’
But instead of saying no like I expected him to, Aziz didn’t look at Astrid; he didn’t look at anyone. He just stood there for a moment and then took his glasses off and started rubbing them on his jumper.
‘Az?’I said.‘Is it better if I don’t stay?’
Then he put his glasses back on and said, ‘Of course not, Alice; sorry, I was miles away,’ and gave me one of his lovely smiles and told me to make myself at home.
‘Astrid,’ I said, rising to her sarcasm about the manifesting, ‘maybe you need to ask yourself some questions instead of me. Like,whydid I decide to rent this room to Alice? Whatpromptedthat decision?’ I smiled gently at my scowling Doubting Thomas of a sister. ‘I think we both know, don’t we?’
‘Yes, I think we do,’ said Astrid. ‘I need to consider how how to cover the mortgage when I leave work.’
But even Mum admitted that it was quite odd behaviour on Astrid’s part. ‘I’d have thought she’d prefer a stranger, Alice, to you. Not just for the rent reliability but the company.’
And Arrie went one step further, saying it was ‘bloody weird’, and how ‘we all know that Astrid won’t let us use anything that’s hers, not even a bloody pen, so why is she letting you use her spare room? And you of all people, Alice.’
‘There’s a very simple explanation for all of this,’ I told them, ‘the Universe helped out!’
But, in typical Carver fashion, they ignored me.
Still, I can’t help thinking, as I recline on the beautiful oversized pale grey sofa in Astrid’s second sitting room, a chilled glass of white in hand,Made in Chelseaabout to start, that maybe it’s all working in my favour – after all, the less other people ask of the Universe, the more the Universe will be able to give me.
And now I’ve manifested literally THE perfect place to live, it’s time to crack on with my other manifestations.
Which I will do. AfterMIC.
And maybe after one more glass of wine, max, so I’m fresh as a daisy for the first day back in the office tomorrow.
I am grateful for:
Aziz and Astrid’s well-stocked wine fridge – this ‘lesser known yet delicious Friulano grape variety’ is going down super-well. Plus it’s biodiverse! So healthy. No sulphites apparently.
Date: Tuesday 3 JanuaryTime: 11.10pm
My thoughts and reflections:
I actually watched another episode ofMade in Chelseabecause I couldn’t take the cliff-hanger.
After that, I was going to spend some time manifesting, but opened my laptop first to have a quick skim through my work inbox (as dedicated employee) and oh my god – how many emails? It’s been Christmas! What these ‘emailers’ don’t get, is that by continuing to work when they shouldn’t be, they spoil it for everyone else. I initially ignored the emails out of principle – they could wait for tomorrow – and checked whether there was anything urgent on the Teams chat because that one’s harder to claim you haven’t seen. There wasn’t much – or much that was relevant now. Cara, Non-Fiction Publisher, sent a general one to everyone in our team earlier today saying she was looking forward to welcoming us back in tomorrow. Obviously a few fawners (Yaz, Nervous Jane) immediately replied because they have no lives. And Sweaty Liam from Facilities had uploaded a fourteen-page joke of a document about health and safety in the workplace, which we’ve all got to read by the end of the week. There were a few moans and people sayingdo we have to,but Cara intervened saying it wascompany policy. Anyway, I can play the game with the rest ofthem. I scanned through the health and safety document until I found a suitable sub-heading. Then I posted on Cara’s chat saying I was so looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow and that I’d personally found the health and safety document really helpful, and had particularly enjoyed the section on ‘monitor glare’.
Just as I was about to close my laptop, I scrolled up to the top email in my inbox and saw the name of the sender: Guy Carmichael. It gave me a momentary frisson of excitement that increased tenfold when I clocked the subject line:touching in. Had my manifesting already worked? I’d love some touching in. I opened up the email and read it. Guy Carmichael was letting me know (along with the entire division) that with the upcoming merger, it was obviously a difficult time for all, and he appreciated my (our) support and commitment to Carsons, and that his door was always open.
Well, that’s not true. His door is always closed. He’s just greasing me up for a firing.
