The ABCs of Love by Sarah Salway

concentrate on instead.
    Did I like David Cassidy or Donny Osmond? he asked, because in his experience, girls usually went for one or the other. Although, of course, he went on, his eyes still shut, if a girl was really cool, she’d go for Bryan Ferry. Kate had liked . . .
    By the time I turned to him, his eyes were wide open and he was watching me.
    It’s important to be able to talk about everything, I told him. But when I said who I’d liked when I was a teenager, he said he’d never heard of him.
    I wonder if that spot on the ceiling is damp. The people above have probably let their bathwater flow over. Sometimes they have no consideration. I keep watching it now every time John and I go to bed. I could swear it’s getting bigger.
    See also Youth
    positive thinking
    My mother was a great believer in the power of positive thinking. Her idea of a self-help book would be called Buck Up and Sort Yourself Out. I tend to agree with her, so why did I spend £8.99 at lunchtime on a book called
How to Keep Your Man
? I can’t stop thinking about Kate. Has she no self-respect?
    See also Happiness; Imposter Syndrome
    poverty
    John says we would be very poor if we lived together. I still haven’t told him about my inheritance. Instead, I tell him that I know what it is to be poor.
    After all, my father often told the tale about how when he was young, his family didn’t have enough money to buy him any clothes so he could never leave the house. But then when he was eighteen, they saved up enough money to get him a cap so he could look out of the window.
    Actually, I don’t think that story is true. But I do believe this one. My father’s family scraped up enough money to buy him one good coat for school. They were so proud the day he went off wearing it that they all stood in the road to watch him go. But at lunchtime he didn’t come back. Eventually, my grandmother went up to the school to find him, and he was in the changing rooms crying because someone had stolen his brand-new coat. There was only one coat left hanging up, but it was too big and very, very scruffy. Because she was so cross, my grandmother made my father wear it, and his own new coat was never found.
    John’s grandmother used to make clothes for the gentry. One day she had to make jackets for the local hunt. She used what material was left over to make winter coats for her children, including John’s mother. All the other children used to tease them, but the material would never wear out because it was of such good quality. It was hunting pink.
    I held John close after he told me that story. When I think of my father now, a picture of John comes into my mind. He’s in a very big pink coat, and he’s this little shrimp, all lost and white-faced, looking out.
    See also Fashion; Indecent Exposure; Objects
    promotion
    When you are happy, good things happen to you. It’s all a question of attitude.
    We were asked for suggestions as to how we could improve the atmosphere at work. John had just rung me up to tell me he loved me. I felt like I could rule the world.
    Why not turn the downstairs storeroom into a staff café? I wrote. Bring in plates of sandwiches every lunchtime, put jugs of fresh orange juice on the tables, have coffee machines so people can help themselves to fresh coffee. We can talk to one another about work, relax, forge a communal atmosphere, even invite clients there.
    Now everyone keeps coming up and telling me what a good idea it was. The chairman even stopped me on the stairs and asked how I was enjoying my job. Brian says I’m bound to get a promotion. I just need to keep up the good work.
    John hasn’t phoned me at all today. I have just spent an hour typing out
John call Verity. John call Verity,
over and over again. It’s an attempt at mind reading, but in reverse. A whole pile of work I’m supposed to be getting through is lying abandoned at the back of the desk. People are starting to get cross with me. Brian keeps