The Wish List (3 page)

Her fabulous lifestyle was unrecognisable from the world she’d left behind as a gawky teenager when she was spotted, aged seventeen, by a scout at the
Clothes Show Live
. But she
seemed to slot in effortlessly – and retained one obvious reminder that she’d never forgotten her roots.

‘Do you ever hear from Johnny these days, Marianne?’ asks Asha.

Cally glances at my sister to see if our friend has put her foot in it, but Marianne shrugs, only slightly awkward. ‘He’s still a Facebook friend. He’s doing well, from what I
hear.’

Marianne was twenty-two when she started dating Johnny Farndon, on whom I, Asha and Cally, especially Cally, had a crush while we were at school. Marianne had never actually spoken to Johnny in
those days, but she bumped into him while home at Christmas in 2003 and quickly discovered he’d lost none of the self-effacing charm that had made girls’ knees buckle when he was
sixteen.

He adored her from the start of their romance – it was obvious. Within months he’d left Liverpool and followed her to London, where, over the next few years, he became involved in
various bar and restaurant businesses. He was an unfeasibly young and dynamic entrepreneur, successful but modest too.

In case you can’t tell, I thought Johnny was great. Johnny
is
great.

The only person who can apparently no longer see it is Marianne. She left him for Brian, an aspiring television scriptwriter – who, while he’s in the process of aspiring, works
full-time in a car wash.

She and Brian had been friends for years in London before they became an item and moved to Edinburgh together. And, although he seems nice enough – he must be, because the move was to
enable him to be closer to his elderly mother – I remain confounded. The city is fantastic, but Marianne’s modelling work hasn’t been as easy to come by here as in London. And
I’ll never understand how she knowingly let someone like Johnny slip through her fingers.

‘Didn’t you say you had something to show us, Emma?’ Cally asks, sipping her drink.

‘I can’t believe I forgot.’ I open my bag and take out the A4 paper, unable to suppress a smile as I unfold it. ‘Anyone remember this? “Things to do before we are
30 – by Marianne Reiss, Emma Reiss, Asha Safaya and Cally Jordan”.’

Asha gasps. ‘I do!’

‘Me too . . . vaguely,’ says Marianne, clearly dredging the inner recesses of her brain. ‘We did it in your bedroom, didn’t we, Em? While you were revising.’

Cally and Asha both lived in our street in those days, which was why I was such close friends with them, despite my birthday – a few months after theirs – putting me in the year
below them. I distinctly remember enjoying the kudos of having friends in the year above – particularly as they didn’t mind me revising with them during their GCSEs.

‘I have no recollection of this whatsoever,’ says Cally, shaking her head vacantly. ‘How depressing. I never realised baby brain could be so acute.’

‘Read it out,’ Asha says with a grin. ‘Let’s see if we’ve managed them all.’

‘I suggest you lower your expectations,’ I say, clearing my throat. ‘Number one . . .’

‘I don’t know what’s more shocking,’ Cally says, as I pass the paper to Asha. ‘The fact that I’ve achieved only one – or that we thought Rutshire was a
real place.’

‘It’s an eclectic mix,’ Asha says, smiling. ‘I’ll give our fifteen-year-old selves that.’

‘What was behind some of these?’ I say, scrutinising the list.

‘An obsession with
Riders
,’ offers Cally. ‘That bit I
do
remember. We all read that book after I’d pinched it from my mum. It was pure filth –
absolutely brilliant.’

‘That’s where the cottage and the polo came from,’ adds Marianne. ‘But the one-night stand? That’s terrible!’

‘I added that,’ confesses Cally. ‘I’ll have been trying to guarantee I’d manage at least one of them. Which I did. More than once.’

‘“Learn to play the guitar” was because we loved the Stone Roses,’ I continue. ‘Getting good jobs . . . requires no explanation.’

‘What about the Northern Lights?’ asks Asha.

‘Emma and I had this lovely picture book about them when we were little,’ Marianne says. ‘Do you remember, Em?’

‘Yeah . . . it was about a girl who lived in Norway, wasn’t it?’ I reply. ‘We
loved
it.’

Asha frowns at the list. ‘Snog somebody famous . . . I remember that. We’d originally said: “Snog Leonardo DiCaprio, Kelly from the Stereophonics or Keanu Reeves.” But we
decided we weren’t being realistic, so opened it up to
anybody
famous.’

‘So, technically, snogging Ed Miliband would count,’ Marianne points out.

‘Yes. Why, have you?’ I ask.

‘Ed Miliband, no. Though I did have a smooch with the face of Abercrombie and Fitch once.’

‘No!’ say Cally and Asha in unison.

‘This was pre-Johnny, obviously,’ Marianne continues. ‘His breath smelled of peanuts.’

‘There are worse things,’ I say.

‘Not when you find one stuck in your teeth afterwards.’

The list launches a frenzy of reminiscing that takes us through half the bars in the Grassmarket and is disrupted only when Cally and I find ourselves being chatted up.

‘I need to tell you now,’ she says, clutching the lapels of her tall stranger, ‘I have absolutely no interest in having sex with you. Don’t get me wrong . . .
you’re not bad-looking. Although I’ve had several mojitos so that probably helps. It’s just that nobody goes near my lady bits these days. They’ve probably got rust
on.’

‘I see,’ he murmurs, shifting uncomfortably. ‘Shall I just leave when my friend gets back, then?’

‘I’m not saying that! We need someone to pair up with Emma here and your friend Barry—’

‘Larry.’

‘He’ll definitely do. Though admittedly Em’s always been fussier than me and—’

‘Actually,’ I interrupt, ‘I’m not in the market for this sort of thing either.’

‘Of course you are!’ Cally protests. ‘You’ve been moping about Rob for a month; it’s time to get your act together. You dumped him for a reason,
remember?’

‘Yes,’ I say solemnly, draining my drink.

‘Oh?’ Cally’s man perks up. ‘What was the reason?’

I’m about to tell him to mind his own business, when Cally steps in. ‘He asked her to marry him.’

Our admirers last about forty-seven seconds after that. Part of me thinks that’s a shame. Not because I was particularly enamoured with them. But I undoubtedly need something to take my
mind off Rob – a fact underlined when I glance at my phone in the taxi on the way to Marianne’s flat and discover a text he sent three hours ago.

‘Why does he have to be so bloody
nice
? And
perfect
? And
lovely
?’ I sigh. ‘I broke his heart. He should despise me. Yet he’s still sweet enough
to send texts like that – just to show me there are no hard feelings.’

‘He can’t be
perfect
or you wouldn’t have split up with him,’ argues Marianne.

‘He
is
,’ I insist. ‘Which is what makes this so worrying. I strongly suspect it’s
me
who’s got the problem.’

‘Subconsciously, perhaps you’re attracted to men who treat you badly,’ Asha suggests sympathetically. She’s obviously been reading
Vagenda
today. ‘Lots of
women are. You need to train yourself to fall in love with
good men
.’

Cally looks at her incredulously and shakes her head. For the past few months, she’s been firmly of the opinion that Asha isn’t qualified to determine what is
a good man
– a viewpoint she hasn’t been afraid to vocalise.

Toby, the man with whom Asha is hopelessly, irrevocably in love, has everything going for him. He’s intelligent, caring, has an amazing career as a paediatrician and constantly declares
his undying love for her.

Everything would be wonderful if it wasn’t for one matter: he’s married to someone else. He might have the marriage from hell – with constant rows, daily conflict and no
affection right from the beginning. But it
is
a marriage.

Asha met him after a bruised woman and her terrified and injured little girl arrived at the refuge and she drove them to the children’s hospital, where Toby was on duty.

Asha watched as he gently reassured her, even coaxing a smile as he treated her injuries, which fortunately turned out to be minor. Their paths crossed several times again through work, and it
wasn’t long before they found it impossible to stay apart.

‘Cally, it isn’t that Toby isn’t . . .
good
,’ Asha insists. Her words might be defiant but, as ever when she discusses this, shame burns unmistakably in her
eyes. ‘He’s just in an impossible situation.’

‘He’s
taken
, Asha,’ Cally replies firmly. ‘And he has two kids. He’s not yours. It’s as simple as that.’

Asha sighs. ‘You’re right. And it can’t go on. One way or another, it can’t go on.’

We’re silent for a moment after that – and as I reread the text from Rob, I experience a wave of clarity. I pull up his number and go to press Call.

‘What are you doing?’ asks Marianne.

‘I’m going to get back with Rob,’ I tell her.

‘It’s three in the morning!’ protests Cally as my sister grabs my arm, ends the call, and places the phone firmly back on my lap.

‘Emma, you weren’t in love with Rob. You were sure about that at the time,’ Marianne argues.

‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind. I mean, look at that list. I haven’t achieved a single item. Not one.’

‘What’s Rob got to do with the list?’ asks Cally.

‘Maybe I
did
find someone to marry – someone wonderful, worthy and gorgeous. But I chose to tell him he was getting too intense . . . I chose to boot him out of my life and
carry on as before.’

Marianne rolls her eyes.

‘Don’t you ever think you haven’t been
brave
enough in life?’ I put to them all. ‘Because I do. I mean, why
didn’t
I become an interior
designer? Why haven’t I slept under the stars? Why didn’t I move to the countryside?’

‘Hay fever?’ offers Cally.

Asha smiles. ‘Oh Emma, it’s just a silly list.’

‘I know,’ I concede. ‘And I’m not saying I feel a burning desire to do all of those things
specifically
. It’s more what they represent.’

They’re all too tired or too tipsy to respond. And I know when to shut up. So I simply stare at my phone screen and register that the date is Saturday 30 June. There are less than six
months until I turn thirty.

And I wonder if anything will have changed by then at all.

There are some jobs for which the Monday-morning blues are perfectly acceptable. If I was employed at a call centre, for example, facing a hard day of interrupting
Jeremy
Kyle
viewers to ask them to review their broadband package. Or if I worked in IT and had eight hours of hard toil ahead, suggesting that callers switch off their computer, then on again.

Anyone would understand if you were a bit on the grumpy side then.

But mine isn’t that sort of job. My job requires a disposition that never deviates from happy-pill cheeriness and that’s the case whether your house has burned down, your car has
been clamped or your cat has vomited in your new shoes.

I walk along Rodney Street with a warm morning breeze in my hair until I reach the door of Little Blue Bus Productions. It doesn’t look bad from outside. If you didn’t know any
better, you might be quite impressed. Rodney Street is one of the grandest roads in Liverpool, home to businesses ranging from financial planning institutions to upmarket cosmetic surgery
clinics.

Even when you open the distinctive dark-blue door into reception, you’d be forgiven for thinking this place was kind of swish. They’ve got an Illy coffee maker. A Conran sofa.
Abstract-looking canvases on the walls – stills from the show that made its name.

It’s only when I’ve said hi to Carolyn, the receptionist, and reached the room I call my office, four flights up, that things take a turn for the worse.

The once-plush carpet is now held together with bits of gungy masking tape. There is mouldy coffee in cups abandoned over the weekend, a damp patch on the ceiling and a creaky stationery
cupboard that nobody opens for fear of being flattened by a mountain of unfiled paper.

This room was once lovely, bright, conducive to creative thought. Now, like the business itself, it shows all the signs of neglect and chaos.

‘You will not believe what that interminable tosser has done to my storyline.’ My colleague Giles is staring with characteristic fury at his computer screen and I’m convinced
he’s trying to blow it up through the power of thought alone.

Despite being otherwise brilliant at his job, Giles has some way to go before he masters that disposition I mentioned. I like to think of him as misunderstood largely because I genuinely like
him – and the alternative is to think of him as the grumpiest bastard on the planet.