The One Before The One. Katy Regan

up at me, tasting the snot that streams from her nose with the tip of her tongue. This is what I resent most about the tube: the fact you pay a fortune to be subjected – totally out of your own control – to the most vile of human habits at 8 a.m. in the morning.

      I eventually get a seat and ask myself when I turned into such a wizened, grouchy old woman. I’m sure I used to be a sunny sort of a girl who took delight in the minutiae of life and gave selflessly to others. Or something.

      Perhaps it was just that I was happier back then. Or younger. In fact, perhaps happiness is actually just youth. It’s funny, isn’t it, how your experience of happiness changes as you get older? When I was young, happiness came in bursts of unadulterated joy, moments that stuck in my memory like diamonds in a rock-face: a walk onto the university campus on a sunny October Friday, knowing Martin was coming to visit in a matter of hours; running into the sea, drunk on Bacardi in just my knickers on a girl’s holiday to the Costa Brava. (Now I wouldn’t be seen dead in a bikini even if I drank my own weight in Bacardi.) Driving through the Yorkshire Dales in my clapped-out Polo with Pippa, my oldest friend from school, chain-smoking out of the window. Where was Pippa now? Last I heard, she was shacked up with some builder in Otley, a baby on the way, and what was I doing? Living in London, the great flat, the big job and shagging somebody else’s husband. Oh GOD. It made me feel sick just thinking about it.

      Yeah, these days, happiness to me is more like an unreliable weekend dad. You never know when it’s going to turn up, and even when it does, you never know how long till the next time.

      Mum used to say: ‘You wait till your thirties, Caroline! Your thirties are the happiest time in your life because you’ll know who you are and what you want.’

      Sometimes, I feel like that is the biggest piece of misinformation I’ve ever been fed. In fact sometimes, I get this feeling like is this it? Is my only stab at happiness over already?

      Perhaps that’s what Toby feels like when he talks about his marriage. And I can relate to that; this is why I understand him. Because if grown-up happiness means knowing anything for certain, I’m about as far from it as humanly possible.

      We grind to a halt at Green Park. I think about Lexi, tucked up in bed, no doubt brooding about life, about Clark, about our row last night. She’s probably sticking needles into a voodoo doll of me as we speak. Maybe this boyfriend trouble was why she dropped out of sixth form – I suspected as much the day she arrived. She probably thinks it’s the end of the world, too. It’s only when you get to thirty-two and look back that you realize it had only just begun.

       CHAPTER NINE

      ‘Meet Aaron. Aaron is twenty-eight and at the top of his game.’

      Rule number 1 of the perfect sales pitch: HUMANIZE. Especially when pitching to Darryl Schumacher. Darryl can’t resist the human touch. It makes him believe (wrongly, so wrongly), that he possesses it too.

      ‘Aaron is a successful insurance broker. He works in a swanky high-rise in the heart of Manchester.’

      (Cue picture of a swanky office block in Melbourne. Shona couldn’t find one in Manchester.)

      ‘He owns a wharf apartment in the city’s hip Canalside district, drives an Audi convertible, drinks Staropramen, Budvar, shops in Ted Baker, Diesel, Reiss.’

      Darryl fingers the length of his tie. Must get myself down to that Reiss, you can see him thinking, see what all the fuss is about.

      ‘Image to Aaron is everything and that’s because IMPRESS …’

      The word flashes fuscia pink on my laptop. Darryl’s piggy eyes widen.

      ‘… is Aaron’s middle name. By day, he needs to impress clients. By night …’

      Darryl taps his chewed biro on his notepad. ‘The laydeez …’

      ‘Quite,’ I say, suppressing the desire to be sick.

      I take a deep breath, turn my eyes to the screen.

      ‘Aaron is talking to people twenty-four-seven. The last thing he needs is to feel unconfident. But he is also a fast-living guy in his twenties. He works hard, plays hard, does everything to the max.’

      Darryl loosens his shirt. ‘To the max …’ According to what scale, exactly, I can hear him thinking.

      ‘He likes a double espresso to kick-start his morning, more than a few Marlboro Lights to relax him post-work. His post-lunch café crème cigar is as much a part of his image as his Armani cufflinks. In short …’

      Rule number 2 of the perfect sales pitch: Introduce humour. Especially when pitching to Darryl. Darryl likes to think he’s a very humorous man.

      ‘… without help, Aaron’s breath’s going to smell like a camel’s bottom.’

      The picture of the camel’s gigantic arse flashes up. For some reason, Shona had no problem sourcing that one.

      ‘Hahahahahah!’ Darryl throws his head back and guffaws. ‘Love it!’ A roll of neck fat spills over his shirt like a piecrust. ‘I can always trust you to provide the laughs, Miss Steele. A girl with a sense of humour. Rare in this game, very, rare indeed.’

      I shudder inside. Darryl carries on laughing. Then coughing, like he might cough up a blackened lung right there on the beige, static carpet.

      ‘So,’ I almost have to shout over the hacking, ‘this is where Mini Minty Me comes in.’ I pick up the tiny silver bottle from the table and hand it to Darryl.

      ‘It’s got all the benefits of the Minty Me mouthwash: kills 99.9 per cent of oral bacteria, prevents tartar, reduces plaque, but it comes in a slick little atomizer that Aaron can slip into his pocket along with his wallet. A mouthwash-cum-breath freshener, all in the size of a lighter. Revolutionary, Darryl, I’m sure you’ll agree.’ I flash my best QVC channel smile.

      Darryl is nodding, rubbing the stubble on his top lip, which is pale ginger and for some reason reminds me of my old guinea pig, Graham. Me having been the sort of child to call a guinea pig Graham.

      He holds the bottle up to the light. Paws it with his sausage fingers.

      ‘Is he single?’ he says.

      ‘I’m sorry?’

      ‘You don’t say if Aaron is single.’

      ‘No, he is not single!’ I am not sure I like where this is going.

      Darryl cocks his head to one side. ‘Oh?’

      ‘I mean, yes! Yes, of course he’s single. Single, but looking for The One.’

      ‘Ah, likely story. Good looking mover and shaker like Aaron? Come on …’ Darryl’s red-rimmed piggy eyes are looking straight at my chest. ‘Okay, how many women has he slept with this year?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      ‘Fifteen? Twenty?’

      ‘No! No way.’

      ‘Ten, twelve?’ urges Darryl.

      ‘Definitely not that many.’

      ‘How many then?’

      ‘Three.’

      ‘What? An Alpha Romeo like Aaron?

      ‘Okay, six maybe. Oh God, I don’t bloody well know. He’s not real, I made him up!’

      Darryl laughs again. I feel my cheeks burn.

      ‘Anyway, Darryl, Mr Schumacher,’ I say, closing my eyes.

      Don’t blow it now. You’re almost there, this sale is so in the bag …

      ‘Back to the product, a great product, which all your competitors without exception