Behaving Like Adults by Anna Maxted

realised I was smiling without effort. And,
and
. His hand was draped heavily on my shoulder, and I wasn’t bothered. This was a great relief to me. I’d felt funny for the last few days.
    The weekend had not been good. I’d missed Nick. The house felt wrong and angry without him. I was hungry, but there was nothing in the fridge, so I ate food you don’t normally eat unless there’s a famine – a can of refried beans, tinned sardines on pasta, a jar of pickled cucumbers. I didn’t feel capable of leaving the premises. When I wasn’t eating processed food, I lay in bed, too heavy of heart and limb to move, quaking at every noise. When the phone rang I jumped but I was too lethargic to answer it. It was all I could do to feed Emily. I sweated a lot but I didn’t wash. Maybe I should have.
    But we’re all allowed an off-weekend, aren’t we? We don’t have to be
constantly
jetting off to Prague or Barcelona for cultural mini-breaks, squeezing every last brisk minute out of our leisure time and making everyone else feel like sloths. By Monday morning I’d grown so still I could have merely stopped breathing. However. I’d pulled myself back from wherever I’d gone to and had a shower, applied make-up, driven to work. Simple actions that required as much effort as pulling a dead fat man uphill on a rope.
    So. I needed reassurance that I was fine, and here it was.
    Claudia extracted herself from the circle. ‘Hang on,’ she said to Nige. ‘You don’t mean that
hyper
cheap furniture ad.’
    â€˜Oh yes I do!’
    â€˜The one set in a sofa showroom?’
    â€˜That’s the one.’
    â€˜With dolly birds draping themselves over the bargain leather?’
    â€˜The very same.’
    â€˜And men wandering around with blowdried hair and taupe trousers?’
    â€˜Please God by me!’
    â€˜Nigel Wilkins, how very naff. I commend you on your lack of class.’
    I giggled. ‘What will you have to do at the audition, Nige?’
    â€˜Well.’ Nige dragged his chair into the centre of the room, sat down and crossed his legs. ‘It’s going to be deeply embarrassing. It’ll probably be in a warehouse on an industrial estate. I’ll be in there for two minutes, in front of a camera and a panel of people who’ll require me to make love to a sofa. Or rather,
act
as if I want to make love to the sofa. I’ll feel like the most enormous fool. Then I’ll have to act like I’m in love with the nest of tables. But dears, it’s money and it’s telly and I want it to be me!’
    â€˜You’ve got to practise then,’ I said.
    â€˜What!’ Nige couldn’t believe his luck. ‘Now?’
    Usually, I can’t wait to start work. I love the thrill of discovering who’s dropped onto the mat, and the kick I get when something they say clicks and I just
sense
who to match them with. I even like it when Nige opens what he terms ‘a communiqué from a desperado’ and bellows, ‘Pass me the tongs!’ But right then, I needed to encourage Nige’s good mood in the hope it would be catching. And that meant postponing toil.
    â€˜One quick rehearsal,’ I said, ‘then we should get on.’ Claudia nodded.
    â€˜Okay,’ said Nige. ‘I’ll have to warm up first though.’
    I’d forgotten this bit. I chewed my pen to keep from snickering. Nige tucked his chair under his desk, bounced to centre stage, rolled up and down his spine, shook out hisankles, breathed deep to open up his resonators, ensuring his vocal passage was free so he could connect with his centre (‘that’s your truth,’ he explained as Claw and I watched, rapt), tried to connect his diaphragm to the roots in his feet (‘for more truth’), allowed the sound to travel up through his spine (‘mmm aaaaaaaaah aaaeeeoooo’), took command of all the vowel