The Serial Dieter Read online

Sunday 29th April

  The rest of the week flies by and it’s the day of my ‘move’. I’m not ready. I am but don’t feel it.

  I stare at the toaster, waiting for the cinnamon and raisin bagels to pop up, but more staring than waiting. Despite it being Sunday, Duncan’s nipped into work – something to do with the new trainee – and it feels as if we (Duncan and I, not him and his trainee) haven’t talked very much since we got home, his house, last night. I wanted to have breakfast together but fell asleep again and by the time I’d got up, he’d gone. He left a lovely note, with extra kisses, but it’s not the same.

  So Tigger D is a little late coming out of her shell this morning but surface she will. I’m keeping my PMA to the fore and seizing life. That lust that Izzy… er, no… I shake my head… Iggy Pop sings about.

  “Alexa, please play Lust for Life.”

  Alexa, Duncan’s Amazon Echo, blue rings and announces Lust for Life by Lana Del Rey on Amazon Music.

  Not what I was expecting but okay. Ooh, it’s very slow. Nice but no, too slow, too… not quite depressing but not what I need. Another time for sure.

  “Alexa stop.”

  And she stops. She’s my second, no third favourite female. I have to put my mum before her and Izzy, don’t I. But there’s my aunt Jan, so fourth.

  “Alexa, please play Lust for Life by Iggy Pop.”

  Lust for Life by Iggy Pop on Amazon Music.

  That’s more like it. It immediately gets me tapping my toes, my shoulders wiggling and before I know it, I’m bopping around the kitchen. I’ve forgotten all about the bagels and look over to the toaster only to see they popped up ages ago and have probably gone cold and hard. I shrug. Not the worst thing in the world. I pop them down for a few seconds to at least warm a little, even if it makes them harder, and bop while not letting them out of my sight.

  I tap the stop button when I feel they’re probably done enough and frown as two black rings appear. Fortunately they’re not scorched enough for the smoke alarm to crack into life but the bagels certainly don’t look particularly appetising. I shrug again and pull them out anyway. They’re not hot enough to burn my fingers so I can carry them across to the plate, which I’d normally bring to the toaster. It’s a fine art, this eating lark… as my readers are going to find out over the next month.

  Eek.

  Yes, I have to pack. I’ve already packed – I did that yesterday morning when Duncan was at work… the joy (not) of being the boss – but there are the last-minute things like laptops (mine and work’s), mobile (mine – no one other than William has a work mobile) and all the gazillions of cables that accompany them… okay three but I also want to take my Kindle, CD drive (because I have some audiobooks I’ve not transferred onto my laptop yet), then I have a spare USB plug for my step-counter watch because the lead for my Kindle is one unit, ditto the mobile and laptop cables.

  It’s very complicated living in the twenty-first… twenty-first? Yes, it’s only the twenty-first century. Not that the likes of Izzy would think so. She loves technology but that’s her job. I’d last five minutes as a technology columnist and probably four of those minutes would be trying to work out how to switch on whatever I was supposed to test and review!

  No, I’m being hard on myself. I’m very capable. Just ask Izzy and Duncan. He always says how proud he is of me but that’s more general rather than technology specific.

  So, packing. Be ready for when Duncan comes back. I hope he comes back.

  I look at the clock. It’s only just gone ten. I don’t have to leave until four. I decide to make the most of my time and power up my work laptop. I could use my own but I try to keep everything separate. I have nothing personal on my work laptop. William wouldn’t appreciate it. I can access my work emails on my phone if I need to, which I try not to, but no, I compartmentalise.

  With Google ready, I bring up my saved list of restaurants and pubs in Hemel Hempstead. I know Tring much better and given that I’m starting work on Monday… tomorrow… eek! I’ll at least be having lunch out somewhere then. Even if it’s not ‘out’ and it’s a van in the car park or canteen meal… I don’t know if they have a canteen. I’ve seen from Google maps that their building is smaller so they probably do the van thing with more snacky options in a vending machine or kitchen. But I can’t do snacks for the next month.

  And oh, I’m going to have to weigh myself… aren’t I? I’ve really not thought this through. I’m hoping I’ll be given more instructions. I should speak to William, or at least William via Izzy. But he didn’t seem too sure himself. No, I’ll wait. I’ll see what Hazel, the HR lady, and company tell me as I settle in and just go with the healthiest options of whatever there is on offer and start some kind of report. An interesting one though. It has to be interesting. Gulp.

  Chapter 10 – And I’m Off

  Duncan doesn’t get home until three… an injured cat making him late apparently. He’s normally a tough cookie when it comes to his patients but I can see his hands shaking when he hangs his jacket up in the hall. I don’t say anything but give him a hug. He sniffs, says he’s getting a cold, but I know better. That’s why I love him.

  Speaking of which, I won’t go into detail – sparing all our blushes – but we go straight to the bedroom and I’m pleased I’ve got all my stuff ready as we don’t come out until three fifty and then my mind isn’t on travelling, but travel I must so I gather my bags into the hall and double-check I have everything.

  I have a quick look around Duncan’s flat, which is a little pointless as I’d brought everything over from mine already packed but have convinced myself that I’d unpacked something while waiting. Of course I haven’t but I’m a little OCD like that. I’ll be back on Friday. As long as I have enough clothes, my work laptop, mobile phone and money… oh, and car keys, I’ll be fine.

  I’m only just on the M1 and I can feel my eyes drooping. I’ve fallen asleep before (on the M6 coming back from Manchester after a party at 3am in the middle of winter, a couple of decades ago, well before Duncan) and it was no fun so I turn up the music – Heart FM – the start of the Vodafone Big Top 40 with Marvin Humes. The songs will probably be quite fast so I should be okay.

  Way down at forty is what sounds like a love ballad for penguins. Marvin hasn’t said who it’s by but I can see why it’s at the bottom of the chart. I feel old to think it’s dreary but it’s not helping my drowsiness. I’m grateful that my entire journey is around forty-five minutes, which I roughly calculate – allowing time for adverts and some chat – will get me no more than eight tracks. So from number forty to thirty-two… no, thirty-three inclusive. Not necessarily a great forty-five minutes but hey, it’ll probably include songs I’ve never heard of as I’m not usually in my car, or near a radio – one that’s on anyway – at four on a Sunday afternoon. It makes a change.

  I’m not halfway to Milton Keynes, junction 14, when the traffic slows. That’s saying something given that much of the journey has been fifty mile an hour roadworks. They’re making the motorway ‘smart’ and I’ve encountered other ‘smart’ and my heart sinks. Someone, a boffin somewhere, has concluded that having everyone slow down to sixty, fifty or forty will make everyone’s journeys quicker because there won’t be so much slowing as speeding. Go figure.

  I get excited when we go over thirty but only a hundred feet or so later we’re crawling again. The electronic ‘50’ signs are teasing. The hard shoulder is open, mostly containing lorries, so we have four lanes at our disposal but it’s the ‘sheer weight of traffic’ as reports often call it. I’m London bound, albeit only to junction eight, as is the rest of the UK population it would seem. I don’t know how anyone could do this day in day out but this will be me for the next five weeks; work down south, travel back to the cheaper north for the weekends.

  I usually drive over the M1 at junction 15, bypassing Grange Park industrial estate on the outskirts of Northampton, and head down the A508 through pretty villages (Roade and Grafton Regis
amongst them) before hitting the A5 then another A-road whose number I’ve forgotten – or possibly never known despite it being on the signs I’m absentmindedly following, skirting around Leighton Buzzard, and smiling as I drive through Horton and pretend to be Jim Carrey in the animated movie where he hears a ‘who’. This time, however, I want to go through Hemel so it’s M1 all the way to the A414 then down the hill to the magic roundabout and Kodak.

  I use the word ‘want’ loosely. We’ve come to a halt and I look at the clock. It’s heading for five pm quicker than I am. I frown as I realise that doesn’t make any sense but my head’s so scrambled that it’s probably logical somewhere in the universe, like Arthur Dent’s comment about having tremendous difficulty with his lifestyle. Crazy as it sounds, I know the exact phrase but don’t want to say it, even in my head, in case there’s a Vogon ship captain in the ether who misinterprets it and sentences the Earth to destruction… not until I sort things out with Duncan anyway.

  Apparently there’s going to be a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy film… or whichever is the next instalment of the franchise. I love Douglas Adams’s humour but even can never remember the order they come in. Izzy knows it – her brother Mark is a huge fan. As with most things to do with her family, it’s come up in conversation at some point.

  Is it the one about fish? I don’t know but I’m a huge… no big, I don’t specifically follow what he’s doing so big… medium-sized Martin Freeman fan. I love the film he was in with Amanda Peet about serendipity, not the Kate Beckinsale serendipity with John whatshisname… Cusak. Oh no, that was Simon Pegg. Not with Kate but Amanda. And it was… I Love You, Man? No, that was American with… the guy with the nice smile. Man Up. That was it.

  I need the traffic to be moving as I’m thinking way too much but smile as I spot a lorry in the outside lane – which I don’t think should actually legally be in the outside lane – for Wetherspoons. I thought it was a government lorry with its huge green sign with white ‘Running Clean & Green’ heading but spotted the non-capitalised wetherspoon underneath it. wetherspoon singular, I note. Journalists, columnists, are like writers, we’re both of course, in that we’re grammar er… Nazis. I hate using that term these days but we are sticklers. Yes, sticklers, that’s better.

  So rather than put a picture of something delicious on the side, it’s green and white. Probably just as well as my stomach’s rumbling so at least I don’t have anything other than that reminding me I’m supposed to be at my mum’s having lovely smells wafting across her kitchen diner. This, the two-tone, albeit very planet-friendly (other than the fuel it emits) lorry, I’ve got it across from me for goodness knows…

  Ooh! We’re moving. Yay!

  Chapter 11 – Familiar Territory

  I finally reach my mum’s at ten past six. Not a happy bunny. Me nor my mum. I did warn her before I left that it wouldn’t be the usual forty-five minutes, though I’d convinced myself with the calculation of the Top 40 that it would be, and had left double that time. “No problem!” she’d chirped, though I know she dishes up on time when she’s cooking. Five thirty. Very early but she prefers a structured day. When she’s home. And who likes being late?

  We’re having lasagne and I can’t help smiling. Duncan and I had to reheat ours the other night because we got a little heated. I cough. I’m glad I’m only thinking these thoughts and–

  “Are you okay?” Mum asks.

  I realise I’ve been staring at an embroidered poppy and matching ladybird on the tablecloth. I look up and laugh at Mum’s apron. It’s a picture of a sexy body. A man’s sexy body. Needless to say it’s not my mum’s but my dad’s – the apron not the actual bod… I feel a little sad but remember when he’d opened it one Christmas and howled with laughter. And I mean howled. Tears and everything. That had set us off, not that it takes much with my mum. She’s the hyper version of me, and that’s saying something. I might be Tigger but she’s the Duracell bunny. When you’re not late.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Set for tomorrow?”

  A stone plummets in my stomach as I’m reminded of what lies ahead. I’ve done scant research and other than Wetherspoons with a capital W and ending s – I’m a rebel, I’ve got no real plan of action.

  I’m only hoping that the editor at Hemel knows more about this project than I do. William said he’s leaving it to me but I’m pretty sure there’ll be some kind of structure. If not then I’ll wing it. No I won’t. I’m not a wing-it kind of person. I admit I like to know where I’m going, what I’m doing. Izzy’s more a fly by the seat of your pants. A pantser? Whereas I’m more of a plotter, though you wouldn’t think it by what I’ve arranged already. Barely more than nada. Maybe I can be different here, spread my wings a little. For work, anyway.

  “Yes, thanks, Mum.”

  “It’ll be fine.” She knows me too well.

  Dinner was scrumptious. Mum’s had a couple of decades’ more practice at lasagne than me and for something so generic, you’d almost guess that our two versions weren’t even related. Melt in your mouth is an understatement. I wonder if it’s the type of mince she uses but I saw the packet and it’s not. The pasta’s supermarket own too, as is the cheese so it must have another ‘secret’ ingredient. It certainly wouldn’t be the vegetables in the sauce. Honey. Sometimes people add honey to things you wouldn’t expect. Is my mum that crazy? Yep.

  We spend the evening chatting and it’s lovely to catch up. Normally we speak a lot, text more often, FaceTime sometimes in between visits; me to her, rarely her to me, but it’s never enough to just ‘chat’.

  “Hottle wottle bottle?” she asks and I look up. As if I were to say no, she has it all done and it’s between her outstretched hands. It was quite a warm day but it’s got cooler. The heating goes off at eleven and with the blinds down, it feels positively arctic. Okay, slight exaggeration but it’s a welcome offer nonetheless.

  “Thanks, Mum.” I take the bottle from her. ‘Hottle wottle bottle’ was what my dad used to say. He’s the unspoken topic of many conversations. We go on but it’s not the same. I have to think nice thoughts. It’s been too long.

  Oh, we solved the Buddy problem. Duncan’s beagle. Off to Mark, Izzy’s brother, his wife Ellen and their fabulous daughter Lola… L O L A Lola. I can’t help it. Every time I hear the name I hum the Kinks song… Anyway, back at the ranch. I smile as I think of spaghetti westerns. My dad loved them. We’d slouch on the sofa when I was younger on rainy, the rainier the better, Sunday afternoons and watch them back to back. One movie after the other. Us back to back would be silly. One of us would be facing the wrong way.

  So yes, they’re going to have Buddy whenever Duncan needs him to. Mark thinks he’s fabulous… Duncan rather than Buddy, although Buddy’s a huge fan of Lola and vice versa but there doesn’t seem to be a lot that L O L A doesn’t like.

  She wants a dog but Mark and Ellen have said she’ll have to wait. They had horses for a while but I think they cost too much, as they do. We had an Irish Wolfhound when we were younger and he ate more than I did. Paddy, not named after my uncle Patrick, was a rescue. Too big probably, certainly nothing else ‘wrong’ with him. Lived to be twelve. Almost unheard of but it’s not long at all and not when you don’t know him until he’s five. Or six. So he could have been thirteen.

  It’s one less thing for Duncan to worry about. Buddy. Not that he would. He’s very level headed, way more than me. We’re alike in so many respects but in others we’re yang and yin. Or is it yin and yang? Whatever the opposite of chalk and cheese as our differences complement each other.

  So upstairs I go with my hottle wottle bottle and only mildly panic about tomorrow. What’s the worst that could happen?

  Chapter 12 – Settling In

  Monday 30th April

  I arrive nice and early. Too early it seems. There’s only the security guard on duty. I get on well with security guards, or used to, so it doesn’t faze me, and Phil seems lovely. Only a few inches
taller than me, he’s not what I’d expect from a security guard… until he opens his mouth.

  He should do voiceovers. He has a voice deeper than, oh I don’t know, the Grand Canyon. That’s deep, isn’t it? Treacle. Or is that rich? Sticky. And my brain’s back with Mike and his jam-splattered jumper. I shiver at the thought.

  “Are you cold, honey?” Phil asks and goes to switch on a heater. It’s not yet eight but almost May and certainly not arctic.

  I smile and say, “I’m good, thank you.” And he smiles. His teeth should also do adverts as they’re more pearly than pearls. I wonder about the phrase ‘pearly white’ because I thought pearls were cream and think perhaps it’s an East London cockney thing. Mike would know. His dad was a king. Not royalty or anything but occasionally dressed up in the black and white, cap and all, that the pearly kings, and queens, wear. I don’t suppose he did it for charity but he was tradition through and through.

  I want to ask Phil where he’s from but figure that “Where are you from?” is a little impersonal although having known him for less than twenty minutes doesn’t exactly make us bosom pals. So I settle for a more tactful, “Do I detect a hint of an accent?”

  Phil smiles wider. “You do, honey. Phoenix.”

  “Arizona?”

  “Uh huh.”

  As in the US, I want to add but fortunately stop myself because I feel foolish. Where else would it be?

  “Isn’t that Grand Canyon territory?” I ask and get another ‘uh huh’. Had Phil been one of Izzy’s dates she probably would have thought him dull but I think I’m going to like him. What am I talking about? He offered to put on a heater for me. He’s practically Romeo.

  That makes me think of Duncan and I get sad. Not because he makes me feel sad but I know I’m going to miss him. I’m looking forward to Friday already and hope the week will fly. It’s rather scary how much I have to do between now and then but I’ll get it done. If there’s one thing I’m good at it’s–