Page 71 of Great Sexpectations
An incoming FaceTime call gets my attention.
‘Sonny?’ I answer.
‘Crap, you do look rough,’ my brother says.
In the call, Sonny is bedecked in a red velvet suit, hair slicked back.
‘Where’s Ruby?’
‘She’s in Berlin filming something. Back tomorrow.’
‘You look super swish.’
‘How many times have you chundered?’ he asks, worriedly.
I shrug. The fact is, I’m throwing a sickie tonight. It’s the evening of The Love Shack New Year’s Eve party, the night when my parents go for broke, hire out a hotel and give all our staff a big night out with dancing and bubbles. It’s something they’ve done since they started the business and it’s a tradition that’s lasted. However, I just can’t tonight. There is something inside me which is too sad, too tired to show my face and pretend everything is all right. That said, I’m glad my glum, unpolished look genuinely passes for illness so I don’t have to fake too much.
‘Well, shout if you want me to drop anything by. Soup, chocolate, medicine…’
Sonny gazes at me from the screen. He showed up to our family home on Boxing Day to find Nan and I not there, Mum still in bed and Dad still drunk from the night before. Since then, he’s tried his best to keep us all happy, mend the rift. It’ll just take time, Sonny.
‘You’ll be missed,’ he says.
‘Not really.’
‘Josie…’ he says, tones of mild anger in his voice.
‘You can’t be angry at me when I’m ill.’ I move a wine bottle out of view of the screen so he knows I’m not half-cut either.
‘Can I come round tomorrow? At least to wish you happy New Year?’
‘Maybe. Have fun tonight. There’s a bloke called Derek in distribution. Make sure he goes easy on the brandy. His wife and I had to carry him to a taxi last year. I think that’s why my left knee still clicks.’
He laughs. ‘Love you, JoJo.’
‘Have fun, kiddo.’
He hangs up. I’m serious about Derek, but also make sure the pregnant women know that there’s some non-alcoholic fizz for them, that someone pays the band in cash, tell everyone there are fireworks on the roof and make that announcement by 11.40 p.m. at least because people move slowly when they’re drunk. Planning the evening is always a labour of love and I think about the little green dress I have hanging in my wardrobe for it, the tag still dangling off it.
I get up off the sofa and try to navigate my drunken ass around Nan’s coffee table. There will be no little green dress. There will be hoodies and leggings and much TV. It’s stupid anyway. It’s just another day to mark the passing of time. I think back to a New Year’s I spent at university. A night where people got depressed and drunk about having no one to kiss as the clock struck twelve and so just latched on to the closest person in the room. Yes, that people was me. I snogged someone in my economics tutor group called Chris Black. His breath tasted smoky, acrid and he had hair like a kitchen sponge that needed replacing.
I sit out on Nan’s balcony, which I think might be the real reason she kept this flat. It has one of the best views of the London skyline, the sort that skyscrapers can only wish to replicate, and I’ve spent many a lovely evening out here with a mug of tea putting the world to rights with her, watching my beloved city fade into shadows. Tonight, the London skyline is so ready to see in the new year, and it almost pulses with energy. I don’t mind seeing it, I just can’t be a part of it.
The doorbell suddenly goes and I take a large sigh of relief. I will sit on this balcony with my biryani and some onion bhajis and my stomach will be happy. It doesn’t take much. I’ll watch a classic film and toast myself. I walk towards the door.
‘Deliveroo for Josie,’ the voice says, as I open it. ‘Surprise?’
Balls. I close the door quickly. That’s definitely a surprise. Nan has a small mirror by the front door and I glance at myself. Good lord, the horror. I try to pick the sleepy dust out of my eyes, shake my hair out. Damn. How? Why on earth is Cameron here?
I open the door again, peeking out. He half smiles, sparkling eyes peeking through the gap in the door. Urgh, it’s the duffel coat that does it every time, the dimples, the beanie.
‘This is for you, right? I didn’t just mug a delivery man at the end of the corridor?’
‘Nah, that’s me. How?’
I stand with the door half over me, knowing there is no way in the world I can make this hoodie look sexy. I look like a sad potato in fluffy sleep socks and I will hate whoever has directed Cameron to this place for an eternity.
‘I got a message from your nan.’
