Valentine’s Day is everywhere this year, even more than usual. I can’t decide if it’s that confirmation bias thing, or if we’re just going full on Hallmark, but it feels like the entire city of London is festooned with pink ribbons and covered in love hearts, and to be perfectly honest with you, it’s a bit much. I’ve had a really shitty day, and I’m well and truly over all of it.
I pull my beanie hat down low over my head as I make my way up the station steps.
‘Bunch of flowers for the girlfriend, love?’ a woman outside Notting Hill Gate tube station asks. She’s standing with two huge buckets of red roses and thrusts one in my direction. I shake my head.
‘No thanks,’ I say.
‘Or boyfriend?’ she calls, hopefully.
‘Not that either,’ I mutter, waiting for the lights to change, looking across the road where there’s another stall drowning in a sea of red roses, teddy-bear-shaped balloons, bouquets of flowers, and ribbons tied to everything.
It was a genius idea of Becky’s to turn the house into a sort of anti-Valentine celebration with plenty of wine, pizza, and a horror movie or two. Thank God I don’t have to get up in the morning either. I’ve done a week of nights – again – and a weekend. Nobody told me nursing was going to be easy, but my God, I am so tired. And today was a really crappy day, too. We lost a patient, which happens, but this one came completely out of the blue. It’s a million times harder when you’re working on the paeds ward and it’s a child. I shake my head and try and wipe the faces of her parents out of my head. Valentine’s Day was always going to be synonymous with the most painful memory for them.
I stop at Tesco Express on the corner and pick up a bottle of red wine and some tubes of Pringles. All I want to do is get the 14th of February out of the way and forget Valentine’s Day exists.
This morning I’d sat on the tube on the way into work, staring mindlessly at the adverts opposite, avoiding the gaze of the woman sitting across from me, thinking about last year. It was hard not to reflect on how different life had been. I’d taken Alice for a surprise dinner to Clos Maggiore in Covent Garden, and we’d both known why. Yeah, it was more than a little bit clichéd and cheesy, but I thought that was what romance was supposed to be about. We’d passed forkfuls of food to each other, a waiter had lit a candle between us and smiled knowingly, and the whole evening had gone exactly as planned. We’d shared a crème brûlée – two spoons and one bowl – not fighting over the last mouthful but me politely telling her she could have it even though it was my favourite. God, if that wasn’t love, I don’t know what is. I’d kill for a crème brûlée normally.
Everything, Alice had said afterwards, had been perfect. And then I’d got down on one knee on a tiny side street sprinkled with a million fairy lights (I’d even chosen the location, scouting it out beforehand) and asked her to marry me. She’d said yes before I’d even got the ring out of the box. And then I’d kissed her and she’d called her parents as we walked home, waking them from an early night in their neat Georgian house in Surrey. They’d been delighted, and feigned surprise. And if I’d climbed into bed that night with a vague sense of unease, well, I’d told myself it was probably indigestion. The cracks were there, spreading invisibly. I think I’d just hoped if I tried hard enough I could make it all okay again.
It had only been a few weeks after the proposal that I told Alice I’d been offered a place. God, she’d been so disappointed in me. It was the first time I’d seen that side of her. She’d been humouring me all along, hoping I’d get a grip and stop having some sort of third-of-life crisis.
‘Can’t you just do voluntary work or donate some money to charity?’ she’d said, trying to brush it off.
‘I can’t – it’s not that simple,’ I’d replied.
‘You don’t have to make up for your dad dying by giving up your life and becoming a nurse,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice even. I remember spreading my hands out on the table, looking down at them, wondering if she just needed a chance to get her head around the idea and get used to it.
‘It’s not that. I want to do something that makes a difference. I want to work with people.’
‘Why don’t you train as a doctor then? At least that’s …’ She’d paused, and the words had hung, unspoken, in the air.
‘I don’t want to be a doctor, that’s why.’
‘But you’d get a half-decent salary, at least.’ She’d barely been able to disguise how cross she was.
But the idea had been nagging away at me since those long weeks we spent in the hospital with Dad. It wouldn’t leave me alone. I wanted to be a nurse. I was going to be a nurse. And if Alice couldn’t get her head round it now, well, she’d get there in the end.
Weeks had passed, and Alice hadn’t said anything about my plans; it’s clear now she was hoping it would all go away. Occasionally she’d throw me the odd barbed comment about playing nurses, but other than that she carried on as normal. It was a bit weird, when I look back on it.
When it was clear the idea wasn’t going away, particularly after I’d taken up the offer for the place on the course, she started throwing out every objection under the sun. A change in career would throw our perfectly ordered life into chaos, she’d said. She’d been making noises about having babies, and made it clear that there was no way that’d be happening if I was earning a nurse’s salary. We wouldn’t be able to carry on paying the rent on our pretty little place in Stoke Newington with me not earning. She became shrill and angry, yelling at me that I was putting her future in jeopardy just because I was having some sort of crisis. And the relationship that had seemed so solid had slowly but inexorably begun to show those tiny cracks, which soon turned into gaping huge chasms.
The one thing I know is that I didn’t blame Alice. In a way, I almost felt that I’d lured her into getting engaged under false pretences. She’d bought into a lifestyle as well as a relationship, and then I’d decided – on what seemed to her like a whim – to take that lifestyle away.
I turn the corner onto Albany Road, still lost in my thoughts.
‘Hi,’ Becky says when she pulls the door open back at the house.
I’ve had all this stuff going through my head and I need to have a shower, gather my thoughts, try and wipe it all away. God I hate Valentine’s Bloody Day.
I don’t know why I find myself upstairs in my room, rummaging through balled-up socks and crumpled boxers, reaching right to the back until my hand finds the small, solid box. There it is – a tangible reminder of the life I left behind. And when I look up at my face reflected in the mirror I realise I look knackered. Also, I really need to get a haircut. I rub my face with both hands, before giving a huge yawn. What I really need is to get a decent night’s sleep.
A couple of hours later, we’re all sprawled on the sofas, so stuffed with Domino’s pizza we can hardly move. Rob isn’t there, of course – Valentine’s Day being one of the big nights in the restaurant biz, with people like Alice and me last year keeping them in business.
‘My God,’ says Becky, rubbing her stomach as if she’s six months pregnant. ‘I swear I’m having a pizza baby.’
‘I’m never eating pizza again.’ Jess leans forward, taking a slice of Hawaiian from the cardboard box. ‘After this bit, I mean. This is my last hurrah.’
‘Pineapple on pizza is beyond disgusting,’ says Emma, looking at Becky for back-up.
Jess sits back and takes an extra big mouthful to prove that she’s wrong, making us all laugh. I watch as she curls her long legs underneath her, sitting tailor-style on the huge soft sofa cushions. And then – realising what I’m doing – I look away. She looks at the pizza, thoughtfully.
‘Pineapple’s the best bit.’
‘You are so disgusting,’ says Emma, walking across the room to get another bottle of red wine. ‘Drink, anyone?’
‘I’m with Jess. Team Pineapple forever.’
I take a piece of pizza in solidarity with Jess. Reaching across, she holds out her hand for a high five and then flashes me a beam of gratitude.
There’s a general groan of disgust from the other two. Jess gives me a sideways look and a cheeky, conspiratorial grin, before taking the hairband from her wrist and – as I’ve seen her do so many times before out of habit as we’ve been walking around London on our exploring trips – twists up her long, dark hair into a messy knot at the top of her head. I’d half expected to get back and find she wasn’t here this evening, after what happened yesterday.
I’d got home from a long shift at the hospital, and found Jess sitting at the kitchen table with a couple of friends. They’d been screaming with laughter over photographs on Tinder, with – incongruously – a pile of open Bride magazines spread all over the table.
Jess had looked from me, to the table, to and back, to meet my look of confusion.
‘Alex, this is my friend Gen I told you about, and this—’ she motioned to both of them, but I’d already recognised them from Jess’s descriptions ‘—this is Sophie.’
Sophie was blonde and very pretty, with her hair tied back from her face in a ponytail. I’m not sure how but she somehow managed to look as organised as Jess has told me she is. I think it was just because she seemed so neat. She looked like she’d never had a scruffy day in her life. Meanwhile, Gen was in a pair of rainbow-coloured trousers with a black vest top, and her wild red curls were pushed back from her face with a navy blue fisherman’s cap. The look shouldn’t have worked, but somehow it did. She looked exactly like you’d imagine someone in the theatre should look.
‘We’re trying to find a nice young chap for Jess,’ Gen said, looking at me with huge, very direct blue eyes. She had a mischievous look on her face, as if she knew something I didn’t. It made me feel slightly unnerved. I went to the fridge, opened a bottle of orange juice, and poured myself a glass.
I looked down at the wedding magazines and then at Jess, who rolled her eyes.
‘And you’re moving straight from choosing someone on Tinder to planning the wedding?’ I took a long drink of juice, then put the glass down on the kitchen counter.
‘I’m not planning on marrying anyone right now,’ Jess said, laughing. She gathered up the magazines and put them in a neat stack. ‘These are for Soph. She is getting married.’
‘And these two are terrified in case I’m going to force them to wear some sort of hideous meringue dress as bridesmaids,’ Sophie said.
‘Please, God, no,’ said Gen, raising her eyes heavenward.
‘He’s quite nice,’ Sophie said, leaning over Gen’s shoulder and looking at her phone screen. ‘Wonky nose, though.’
‘Oh my God, this is hideous.’ Jess hit the home button on the phone and the screen went blank.
I felt a bit weird. Maybe it was just the excess of female energy in the room or something, or the way Gen was looking at me as if she was sizing me up, but I didn’t like the idea of Jess on Tinder. There are loads of really dodgy characters out there.
The truth was there’s something inside me that feels slightly discomfited by the idea of Jess – London walking buddy, housemate, fan of midnight toast-and-Marmite snacks and chats over the kitchen table – dating anyone. I have absolutely no right to feel like that for about eight million reasons. One, because I’d made an executive decision at the beginning of this year that I wasn’t getting involved with anyone. And two, because of the whole Emma thing. Not that it’s a thing, but it’s basically my belt-and-braces guard against getting into a relationship with anyone else. I’m not the sort of person who’d mess around with more than one person at a time, even if it was all completely no strings attached. And it’s the perfect solution to avoid me getting caught up in a relationship and messing up my nursing course and my – already pretty screwed up – heart.
I knew all of that made me a hypocrite and an idiot, so what I needed was to duck out of this situation ASAP. ‘I’ll leave you three to it,’ I said, grabbing a can of Coke from the fridge so I wouldn’t have to come in and interrupt them again later.
But now here we are, at the end of our alternative Valentine’s evening. We’ve given up on the terrible horror film, which wasn’t even scary, and ended up watching a really freaky episode of The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, and chatting about ghost stories we’ve heard, trying to think of scarier and scarier ones until we’re all completely spooked.
‘I’m going to be too scared to fall asleep tonight, at this rate,’ Jess says, getting up from the sofa. ‘I’m going to bed before I completely terrify myself.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ I say, and stand up, picking up an empty pizza box. Jess stacks another two in my arms.
‘Can you put them outside?’ she says, pulling a face. ‘There’s no way I’m going out there in the dark now.’
‘The man in black might get you,’ says Emma, in a creepy voice.
‘I’ll do it, don’t worry,’ I say.
‘Phew.’ Jess mops her brow, then gives a wave from the sitting room door. ‘Right, night all.’
I turn and say goodnight, and Emma flicks a glance over her shoulder. It’s a split-second look, but I know what she’s thinking. However, I’m stuffed with pizza and I’ve had way more wine than I should have. She raises her eyebrows slightly, and I give a slight shake of my head. I like Emma – she doesn’t take life too seriously. She’s got a body to die for and she’s bloody hot in bed. And she knows what she wants. But the thing is, if I fuck this up I’ll be out of a house, and that matters more than anything else.
I head out to put the boxes in the recycling and the howl of foxes somewhere nearby makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
When I go upstairs, the bathroom door’s open, but the light’s still on, so I push it open carefully. Jess is standing there, hair knotted off her face in a bun, carefully putting toothpaste on her toothbrush.
‘Oh sorry, I’ll come back in a sec,’ I say.
Jess shakes her head. ‘It’s fine, I’m just brushing my teeth.’
She hands me the toothpaste and I pick up my brush, and somehow we’re standing there side by side – me in my trackies and T-shirt, her in a pair of mismatched PJs – brushing our teeth. She waggles her eyebrows at me in the mirror, making me laugh, which is harder than you’d think when you’ve got a toothbrush in your mouth.
‘Night then,’ I say, once we’ve finished, and she’s heading out to her bedroom. I contemplate a shower before bed, but decide I’ll have one in the morning. I lie under the covers, thinking that I’ve made the right move in not sleeping with Emma tonight. I find myself wondering about Jess lying in the room next to mine, hoping she’s not too freaked out by the ghost stories to sleep. I close my eyes and, exhausted after the impossibly long day I’ve had, I’m gone.