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She explained that she’d been offered a job by Clem and Mel said, ‘That’s amazing!’ She was too happy about it, guilt making her act as though this was the opportunity of a lifetime. Because she knew she was abandoning Ada, as much as she positioned it as benign. They had made promises to each other in so many ways and now they ate the potato bake together, digging their forks into the baking dish. Ada poured them both a glass of Pinot Gris and then suggested they see what was on television and Mel said, ‘Like … real TV? Probably Strictly?’ and Ada said, ‘Good point, Netflix.’
They moved to the living room and Mel said, ‘Sorry to dump this on you while Sadie is away,’ and Ada said, ‘It’s fine, Mel, you’re allowed to move.’ Then she stood up and said that actually she might need to do some research on acts for the theatre in case she had to present to the owners or something and Mel asked if she needed help. But Ada told her to nurse her hangover with some trash TV, took the bottle of wine upstairs, closed her door and got into bed with it.
Sadie didn’t come back that night. Ada stayed in bed, half waiting for her and half feeling she’d never see her again. She was leaving for Brighton in the morning and in another life, she would be dancing to The Kooks while complaining there were no good bands from Brighton and Mel would try to convince her to pack boots in case it rained. She felt peculiarly teenage, like the child of divorce that she had never been, and she tried to explain it to Stuart but he was out with friends and responding sporadically. She said, ‘Don’t get too drunk! Train in the morning!’ and then felt fucking pathetic and he didn’t reply anyway because he was, almost certainly, getting too drunk. They shared that, she thought, her and Stuart, a need to be out, and she wondered if that’s what she should do, but she couldn’t, right then, even leave her bed.
Mel knocked on the door at ten to say good night and then she stood in the doorway for a little longer. Ada said, ‘I’m going to Brighton tomorrow to see Stuart,’ and Mel said, ‘That’s exciting! But do you need a train ticket?’ and Ada said, ‘No, I got it,’ then, ‘thank you,’ but she didn’t feel very grateful. She said, ‘I’m looking forward to having real time with Stuart, it’s been kind of hard to connect with him since I got back from Florida.’ Mel said, ‘Well, you don’t really know him, maybe he gets like this. It’s probably nothing to do with you,’ and Ada thought that was supposed to be comfort but she wasn’t sure.
Mel stood a little longer, it seemed she might stand there all night, and then she said, in the voice of someone who had rehearsed, ‘I know it’s going to be hard with me leaving. But I’m not doing this to you, I’m doing it for me.’ And Ada said, ‘That’s cute, did you write that with Will?’ then, ‘Sorry, I’m just upset about Sadie,’ because that was the safer confession to make. And Mel said, ‘We’ll be OK. I love you,’ and Ada said, ‘Love you,’ and Mel went to bed and Ada was really, really angry.
When Mel’s alarm went off in the morning Ada considered not making her tea and then felt like that would be some sort of irrevocable statement of intent, so she got out of bed and did it. But she rushed it so there was no chance of a hallway collision and she was back in her room with the door closed by the time Mel was moving around. She packed quietly, pairs of leggings and two colourful long-sleeved dresses that were only clean because they were too warm to take to Florida. When she got on the train later, she realised she was also already wearing leggings and a long-sleeved dress. This changing of her uniform was a clear sign that autumn had begun and she did not welcome it.
Ada hadn’t booked a seat on this train and the only one available in her carriage was at a table of four. The other three seats were occupied by teenagers who Ada assumed were skipping school and she decided to sit on her backpack near the door instead. The light through the window was watery and vague and Ada felt romantically matched to it. She had messaged Stuart to say she was getting on the train and he’d responded with a thumbs up so she was already prepared to be annoyed at his hangover when he arrived. But she knew that wasn’t the right energy for this trip so she tried to get it out now, alone on the floor of a rocking train.
When Ada had been younger, the popular mental health jargon had been that people needed to take responsibility for their own happiness. When she was home sick from school, she’d watch daytime TV, the American talk shows imported for whichever portion of the Australian audience was free at midday on a Wednesday. And there would be pop psychologists on, and experts in manifestation, and girl bosses before the term existed.
Instagram had repackaged this sentiment in pastels but it was the same. It told Ada now that she needed to protect her happiness but also that she wasn’t responsible for the happiness of other people and she had rolled over in her mind how anyone could be happy if they were only protecting their own. She was an independent young woman, that’s what older people always said to her. That she ‘knew her own mind!’ in an admiring tone, and her parents agreed with them. That Ada, there’s no stopping her once she sets her mind to something. She went after what she wanted, she didn’t take no for an answer, she was so modern, god so modern. Ada closed her eyes and leaned against the wall and listened to the screech of the train’s mechanics.
It was spitting when she got to Brighton. Ada found comfort in the screams of the seagulls that hit her as soon as she left the station and the air was grimy but carried a hint of freshness that she couldn’t find in London. She walked to Rob’s flat, ten minutes down the hill and as she did she could see the water in the distance, flat and slatey but still inviting. She and Stuart could go down there tomorrow and she’d put her feet in and she’d look right to the burnt-out pier and left to the pier that was still alive. She realised she wasn’t thinking about Mel and felt happy but then realised she was thinking about Sadie, somehow, and blamed the sea.
Ada reached Rob’s building and let herself into the flat with the key the neighbour had left in the letter box. The place overlooked one of the lanes, the colourful, counter-culture streets of Brighton that had long since been given over to cocktail bars and overpriced incense. He had a box-sized kitchen, partly blocked from the rest of the flat by a waist-height wall and a closet bathroom with no bath. But the main feature of the flat was his huge bed that butted against the chest he used for both storage and a table. It was clean and felt cozy, with the street noise below providing a cheerful background track, and Ada could almost believe that she was about to have a very romantic time.
Ada had told Stuart she had been to this flat once and she knew he’d drawn his own conclusions but in fact she and Rob had never had sex. She had been in Brighton last year for a gig and Rob was on the same bill. She had planned to get the last train home but had stayed drinking with the other acts and when she tried to leave Rob said, ‘No! Don’t run away! You can stay at my place!’ Ada had considered Rob, ten years older with bad teeth and a sweet smile, and agreed.
When they got back to the flat, she had expected him to get another drink but instead he made her a chamomile tea and they sat cross-legged on either side of the chest, sipping them and talking about their careers. Rob had gently encouraged her to find a regular gig because ‘it’s a tough old road waiting for something to come up’ and she had said that actually she was an actor, she only took these cabaret gigs for something to do. And Rob said he had hoped his comedy gigs would get him some acting jobs but apart from some bit parts in long-ago-cancelled sketch shows it had never really taken off.
‘But you’re a lovely girl, you’ve got something special about you,’ he had said to Ada, and then he yawned and said, ‘Best be getting to sleep if you’re heading back in the morning.’ And they had got to sleep, comfortably separate on the huge bed. The next morning Rob had walked her to the station, picking them up coffees on the way, and kissed her on the cheek goodbye. Ada had thought maybe she loved him for months after that but he never responded to her messages beyond an affectionate ‘hope you’re going well, lady’ and she gave him up.
Rob was doing well this year, she knew, on a tour of university towns supporting a much bigger comic, and she wondered if he was satisfied making nineteen-year-olds laugh at the age of thirty-eight. She hoped he was. She looked around his flat for a sign that someone else had been with him in here but there was only a wall calendar with show dates and some frozen vegetables to provide signs of life. His existence fit neatly into the bag he took on tour and maybe the guitar propped up against his wall and that was so beautiful that Ada thought she might cry. But she pulled it together and messaged Stuart instead. She said she couldn’t wait to see him and he said he’d got his train times confused, he wasn’t actually getting in until close to six.
This was almost more than Ada could bear. But she said OK, why didn’t she make something for dinner so they could stay in tonight, and Stuart sent a thumbs up again and she considered throwing her phone out the window onto the bumpy cobbled street. She went shopping instead.
Ada walked until she found a fancy looking wine shop and bought some craft IPAs and a French Pinot Noir and a white from Austria. The man in the shop asked her what she knew about Austrian wines and she said, ‘Only that I’m buying one!’, and so he answered questions she hadn’t asked while he packed her bottles. She carried the heavy, clinking bag over her right shoulder, her back sweating underneath her backpack which she’d emptied to fill with groceries.
Ada had passed a Tesco on her way to the flat but she searched on Google Maps for a Waitrose. She knew what Stuart would have to say about these class signifiers and figured they could fight about it later, then fuck. She remembered Stuart saying that he was a terrible vegetarian because he had no idea how to cook tofu and she started to make a shopping list.
The shopping list had tofu and udon noodles and ginger and garlic and fresh chillis. It had hoisin sauce and oyster sauce, but then she took the oyster sauce off because she was vegetarian and so was he. It had carrots and ‘greens’, she’d decide which ones when she got there, and sesame oil and vegetable oil in case Rob didn’t have any – she should have checked – and sesame seeds as well. Soy sauce, of course, and maybe some kind of sticky chilli thing too, she’d see what they had. Eggplants, miso paste, she’d make that too. Paper towels to dry the tofu. She filled her basket with these things, and then on a whim went to the frozen section and got vegetarian dumplings, the kind that Americans called potstickers and she’d never understood why until she cooked them herself and then it was very obvious. She got chocolate too, a box of Lindt balls, which seemed special.
The walk back to Rob’s was weighed down on all sides. She had moved the wine bottles to her backpack and both arms were carrying grocery bags. She’d got bags for life that she could leave here with a cute note for Rob to find. Something funny about baggage or maybe saying she’d give him five stars on Airbnb. It didn’t matter exactly.
By the time she got back to the flat she was much too hot and so she stripped down to just her dress, throwing her leggings and underwear and damp bra onto the floor. She wasn’t going back out tonight. She pushed at the window next to Rob’s bed and it would only open a little but the sounds of people walking below screamed into the room. She figured this must be how Rob could afford to live so centrally and decided on balance it was worth the noise when you didn’t want it for the noise when you did.
Ada looked at her phone, saw she had two hours until Stuart was due to arrive. She messaged him saying she was preparing a feast so he’d better be hungry then she realised he was probably on the train and remembered the patchy reception she’d had on the journey to Liverpool. She allowed herself to feel excited about seeing him, touching him, waking up with him. Feeding him and showering with him. Choosing something with him before they left, whatever they decided that was.
Ada told Stuart she was putting her phone aside to focus on cooking and sent him Rob’s address again and instructions from the station, ‘because I know boys famously can’t read maps, that’s the stereotype right?’ She saw that he had seen it, got the little blue ticks, and began. She usually listened to podcasts while she cooked but she wanted to create a mood for herself, she wanted sensuality. She lined up the playlist she had created for masturbation that was called Buzzing and that she’d showed Sadie one night, not even pretending to be embarrassed. Sadie had said, ‘I get it … and there’s good stuff on here!’ but when she’d tried to play it, Ada had said, ‘No no, not for you!’ and Sadie had laughed and said, ‘Fair enough, I respect the process.’
And Ada thought about that and then didn’t think about it as she gave her brain over to cooking, Jill Scott’s ‘Gettin’ In The Way’ carrying her along, her body heating instinctively while she searched for knives and pans. Rob’s kitchen was expensively supplied and Ada was shocked to discover that one whole under-bench cupboard was devoted to matching Le Creuset. It was blue-grey and she wondered when he had chosen it, how long he’d been collecting it. Perhaps he and an ex had bought the little espresso cups and then when she left he’d stuck with it, first out of nostalgia then defiance and then eventually because he just got used to it. Then she told herself maybe Rob liked to cook. What did she know?
Ada halved the eggplants, scored them in a criss-cross pattern, rubbed them with miso and sesame oil and spoonfuls from the jars of ginger and garlic she’d bought in case Rob didn’t have sharp knives (he had a full set, Rob, you wonder). She put them aside and started drying out her tofu, squeezing it between sheets of kitchen roll and wondering if eating vegetarian was still environmentally friendly if it took her a whole tree’s worth of paper to do so. Ada looked at her phone and saw that she had an hour before he arrived and the eggplant went into the oven and she chopped and chopped. The playlist switched to ‘Dance Yrself Clean’ and Ada glanced at it in time to see a message from Sadie.
FORTY
05/10/2017
Sadie Ali
