The One Before The One. Katy Regan

…’

      I am suddenly aware of Lexi’s warm, minty breath in my ear. ‘What about that one there?’

      I shoot her a sideways glance.

      ‘What one?’

      ‘The tall one with the dark hair and glasses.’ She gestures in the direction of a man near the front of the crowd, peering intently at the installation – essentially, a napkin-sized square of turf surrounded by four camera lights, entitled: Otherness. The Other. An Objective Study of Displacement by Jergen Rindblatten. Lexi grimaced when I read from the leaflet: ‘I smell a bollock,’ she sniffed in that left-field way she has with words. ‘But we can go if you want.’

      I crane my neck to get a proper look at the man who is lanky, wearing a cardigan and looks about twelve.

      ‘Nose too small.’

      ‘What?’ Lexi frowns. ‘What do you mean, nose too small?’

      The woman in the green beret turns round again and purses her thin, crimson lips at us. Then, thankfully, Barnaby Speck moves on from talking about the grass and we are encouraged to disperse and look at Jergen Rindblatten’s accompanying sketches on the subject of ‘Otherness', which line the wall of the sun-flooded gallery.

      ‘Can’t do a small nose; it looks like it belongs on a doll and makes mine look even bigger.’ We stand, admiring a sketch entitled, Untitled. ‘Also, he looks about your age.’

      Lexi sighs and looks around. I study the drawing, which looks like a square to me but I’m sure it’s layered with meaning if you know how to interpret these things.

      Suddenly, Lexi gasps.

      ‘Ohmigod!’ She nudges me in the elbow. ‘I might actually have found my future husband.’

      I look to where she’s indicating, to see a lean, black guy, record bag draped across his broad chest, looking intently at the drawing next to us.

      ‘Good God, no, he’s wearing a gold chain.’

      ‘Yeah? And? He’s gorgeous! I’d ’ave him. He looks like Dizzee Rascal.’

      ‘Who the hell’s Dizzy Rasta?’

      ‘You know,’ says Lexi. ‘"Bonkers"!’

      ‘Bonkers?’

      ‘The song, “Bonkers”.’

      I roll my eyes at her. Who in their right mind would bring out a record called Bonkers for crying out loud. Then she starts singing:

      ‘Some people think I’m bonkers, some people think I’m mad. Some people think I’m crazy but there’s nothin’ crazy ’bout—’

      ‘Lexi!’ I grab her by her rapping arm. The tattooed arm. ‘Just concentrate on the art, will you?’

      We make our way around the gallery, which sits at the top of a spiral staircase in a tall, old pump house in the middle of Battersea Park. Outside, down below from where we’re standing, I can see two swans gliding on a lake, which glitters with hot, afternoon sun, and a young couple standing arm in arm on a wooden bridge.

      I turn my attention to another drawing, which depicts what looks like a mound of cow dung.

      Lexi moves in next to me, head cocked to the side, pretending to read the accompanying commentary.

      ‘Another hottie,’ she suddenly hisses into my ear. ‘Ten past two. Your ideal man.’

      ‘Soz,’ mumbles Lexi. We’re walking across the park towards the river now. ‘It just wasn’t my thing. When you said “art", I thought you meant proper art, like paintings, sculpture, something where they’d splattered paint on canvas and it meant “happiness” or “death” or something.’

      Half of me wants to protest. Half of me thinks: this was art, proper conceptual art, if you must know – not bloody Monet’s water lily paintings. You wouldn’t get this in Doncaster! Honestly, you try your best to show someone some real London culture and this is the thanks you get. I wasn’t sure Lex and I were really going to agree on much. However, I must admit that the other half of me did kind of agree – Otherness. The Other. An Objective Study of Displacement didn’t quite live up to my expectations, either, and, in fact, I’m wondering, if I took, say, a fork, bashed it about a bit and then wrote something about how this represented the domestic unrest I experienced as a child, I, too, could be an acclaimed artist with a ‘ground-breaking’ exhibition at the Pump House Gallery.

      Also, I think to myself as we walk across the park, dodging rounders’ teams and men in rugby shirts and cropped trousers attempting to light barbecues, we had to leave. I couldn’t have tolerated one minute more of Lexi’s ‘talent-spotting’.

      It’s all my fault. I should never have humoured her ‘Find Caroline a Boyfriend’ project, which was born last night, probably as a distraction from the Lexi Five Point Plan Project. (I wonder what Guru Wayne would make of that little manoeuvre.)

      I didn’t have the heart, when she was looking at sad dating sites where sad people gather to meet other sad people, to say, ‘Look, Lex, I don’t want a boyfriend, I really don’t. All that having to get your bikini line waxed and worrying if they’ll call. I just can’t be bothered.’

      We’re still walking across the park. Lexi won’t let the matchmaking thing lie. ‘He was your ideal type, though, wasn’t he?’ she says referring to the blond man in the gallery. ‘Tall, blond, handsome. He was well sexy, you should have given him your number.’

      ‘He was nice,’ I say, dodging a couple, their legs entwined on a picnic rug, ‘but like I say, I’m happy being single.’

      ‘If you say so. Although nobody’s really happy being single, let’s face it, not for long anyway. Wayne says single people suffer more depression than those who are attached, that it’s part of being human to want somebody.’

       Praise be to the God of Wayne! Maybe Wayne should write his own self-help book.

      ‘The most Carly’s gone without a boyfriend is twenty-five days and that was only—’

      ‘You’re single, aren’t you?’ I say, turning to her. It’s more of a question than a statement. Something boy-related is going on, I’m sure of that, but then something’s always going on in a teenager’s love life.

      We’ve stopped walking now, Lexi is looking at me.

      ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I s’pose I am. Well it’s a bit …’ She looks the other way, like she might be about to cry, and I have a sudden desire to hug her. Not that I did the whole messy teenage business of falling in and out of love, not even having a boyfriend until Martin at eighteen. But I recognize that if-you-prod-me-I-will-break look, so I smile.

      ‘It’s all right, Lex,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me.’

      I’m about to carry on walking when my eyes are drawn towards the men in the rugby shirts trying to light barbecues. One man in particular looks familiar. It’s the legs that do it. Stocky, with no ankles. Those are Martin’s legs.

      Just as this thought sinks in, he looks up from the BBQ he’s poking, gives an awkward smile, and starts to walk over.

      ‘Bloody bugger!’ I say, squinting at him.

      ‘Caroline,’ says Lexi. ‘Language, please!’

      Martin grins sheepishly and waves as he walks over, that same slightly lolloping walk of his. ‘Unavoidable appointment’? Likely story!

      ‘Hello, you.’ He’s standing right in front of us now, holding out his barbecue prongs like we should shake them or something. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here, Caro.’

      He’s had his hair cut since I last saw him three weeks ago, into a bizarre little quiff that doesn’t really suit him. However, he’s