Sign on, as usual. Have fortnightly banter with my friend there. I call her The Phantom Menace. Tell her about my impending…

Interview - a nice place with red telephone boxes everywhere.

Ballsed it up by letting slip how desperate for cash I am. I am, yes. He slips into second, stumbles into third. He waits weeks not hearing anything…

Get called to a media recruitment agency for an interview. It is one week later. My brain says something like “hooray!” Find out I was called only because they mixed up my CV with someone else with the same name. Like a glimpse into a parallel universe. My name. Me. But a me who went to the University of Westminster and studied Sports Science. I shudder and remember being a limp-wristed adolescent, always shoved shivering in goal. The agency put me on their temping books. I’d already applied twice. They put me forward for a publishing job. I instantly believe I won’t get it. I heard only today what I knew when they put me forward for it then.

I didn’t get it.

Days go on and I hear nothing about job. Any job. The concept of job. It eludes me.

I sign on. My fortnightly two minutes of human contact with the only person who treats me like a person in the building. But The Phantom Menace wasn’t there. I scribble my signature and hope she’s okay.

Email original interview checking to see if position has been filled.
He says the position has not been filled, and they’re still deliberating. Bu he remembers I said I needed cash. He knows someone who has cash.

I say yes. Yes, thank you. Thank you, please. Yes.

She calls soon after and I miss it.
I call back and I miss her.
She calls back.
Neither of us miss it.
She says come in this afternoon.
I say I can’t. I have an appointment. I can’t cancel it.
She says ‘oh’. ‘Oh’.
Then she says ‘come in tomorrow’. ‘Come in tomorrow.’
I say okay.
I hang up. I get a call. I call her back and say I don’t have an appointment anymore.
She says something like “hooray!”
I turn up in eight year old jeans and a T shirt, sweating and panting from dodging dawdling Piccadilly line pootlers and running up a gratuitously endless series of stairs. I turn up hating people.
She offers tea. I decline.
I am myself. I am an honest mix of resolute self-belief with a healthy balance of self-deprecation. I am sweaty, panting and hateful.
She offers coffee. I decline.
We talk. She smiles. She’s nice. I like her. I like the order of the room, I like the way she sits as she interviews (?) me. I like the way she swears. I like the view of Kensington outside her window.
I hate Kensington. I love the view.
She asks if I want a glass of water. I admit I hate textspeak. She nods.
She shows me what it’s all about, and I like it. She tells me what she should have taken out but didn’t. She tells me what it was and I laugh. I snort.
Kensington dims beyond the glass.

Soon I am running down the stairs. I hurry through Kensington. I want a cigarette. I need a cigarette. I call my flatmate and roll a cigarette. Then I call my dad. I’m walking up and down in front of the station dawdling in everyone’s way as they dodge me, pacing off the Piccadilly line. My head’s spinning with nicotine and a sense of adrenaline. I tell him everything that happened. I babble. I tell him exactly what happened.

I tell him I’ve been offered the job I’ve always wanted. I tell him I’m working for an author and a journalist. I tell him about the champagne booklaunch I’m going to. I tell him about her offer to introduce me to agents and publishers. I tell him about the pay. I start singing ‘what a difference a day makes’ and then start laughing as I remember out loud how much I hate Kensington, and then I laugh some more when I tell him I’ll be working from home.

It’s two days later now. The first day is over. Give or take a half hour break or two, I’ve been staring constantly at incoming emails and editing website posts from 10 in the morning till half eleven at night. And I love it.  Tomorrow I go to the job centre to meet my friend, The Phantom Menace, for possibly the last time. I hope she’s okay. I’m not remotely tired. I just want a cup of tea.

The pot is boiling.