Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [38]
Despite her confidence in her looks, Lisa had to admit that Jack’s girlfriend had come as a bit of a shock. Lisa had blithely assumed that she was being pitted against an Irish girl, which would be a cake-walk. But she wasn’t too discouraged. Tearing Jack away from his passionate, exotic girlfriend was currently one of the least taxing aspects of her life.
Finding somewhere to live was much more of a challenge. All week, after work, she’d been viewing places, and nothing remotely suitable had come along yet. Tonight she was viewing an apartment in Christchurch, which didn’t look too bad. Though the rent was expensive, it was in a modern complex and it was walking distance from work. The downside was that it would mean sharing with someone, and it was a while since Lisa had shared with anyone, especially a woman. The owner of the flat was called Joanne.
‘It’s great living here because you can walk to work,’ Joanne enthused. ‘Which means you’ll save £1.10 each way on the bus-fare.’
Lisa nodded.
‘Which is £2.20 a day.’
Lisa nodded again.
‘Which is eleven pounds a week.’
Lisa’s nod was slightly reluctant this time.
‘Which adds up to forty-four pounds a month. Over five hundred pounds a year. Now, the rent. I need a month’s deposit, two months paid in advance, and a two-hundred-pound deposit in case you disappear leaving a large phone bill.’
‘But –’
‘And what usually happens is that you’d give me thirty pounds a week towards groceries. Milk, bread, butter, that kind of thing.’
‘I don’t drink milk –’
‘But for your tea!’
‘I don’t drink tea. Or eat bread. I never touch butter.’ Lisa put a hand on her slender hip and looked at Joanne’s rather larger one. ‘Besides, how many pints of milk can you buy for thirty pounds? You must take me for an idiot.’
Back on the street, Lisa felt wretched. She missed London so badly. She hated being here and having to go through this. She had a perfectly good flat of her own in Ladbroke Grove. She’d give anything to be there.
Yet another shock-wave of exhaustion and displacement hit. In London she was inextricably woven into the fabric of fashionable life, but she knew nobody here. And she didn’t want to. She found them all so irritating. No one turned up on time for anything in this lousy country and one person even had the cheek to say, ‘The man who made time made plenty of it.’ As a magazine person it was her prerogative to be late.
Desolately, she trailed back to her horrid little hotel, wishing Trix had been able to fix up a dinner with someone semi-famous for this evening.
She hated having free time, her ability to process it had atrophied. Though it hadn’t been that way for ever – she’d always grafted hard and been ambitious, but once upon a time there had been something more. Before the constant looking over her shoulder at the hordes of younger, smarter, tougher, more ambitious girls swarming up behind her had distilled her life to a focused treadmill.
She had a few more flats and houses to look at this weekend – the time would pass fast enough. And tomorrow she was showcasing a couple of hairdressers, getting her colour done in one and having her hair cut in another. The trick was to have a few that were cravenly obligated to you, so that if one couldn’t squeeze you in for an emergency blow-dry, another could.
She’d made a bargain with herself. She’d give herself a year to make a rip-roaring success of this joke of a magazine, then surely the powers that be in Randolph Media would recognize her contribution and reward it. Maybe…
After three speedy