Instead I found myself pacing up and down, waiting for the nervous energy that had carried me through the day to dissipate enough to allow me to rest. Not that pacing in my flat got you very far – twelve steps, fifteen if they were small, took me from the front door to the bed, and eight from the bed to the bathroom door. The place was tiny, poky even. I wasn’t naturally a tidy person, but I’d quickly realised that I’d need to clean up my act or risk drowning under a rising tide of my own stuff, so the room was neat, the bed made, most of my clothes folded tidily away in the chest of drawers.
I sat down on the bed next to Frazzle and took out my phone, flicking reflexively through to my astrology app.
It’s okay to admit that you’re a bird who’d be happier in a cage than flying free, it told me.
What? Surely no bird was happier caged?
Today offers challenges in work and creativity, it went on. But let’s be honest, it’s love you’re struggling with right now, Aquarius.
‘You don’t say,’ I told it. Frazzle looked curiously at me.
What would it be like, I wondered, having a man with me in this tiny space? Having someone’s warm body next to mine in the small double bed, someone cleaning his teeth while I had my morning shower? Although I knew the answer to that – it would mean my morning shower would be more of a morning trickle, the water pressure being what it was.
What would it be like to share routines and private jokes with someone who didn’t have four legs and stripy orange fur? What would it be like to hear someone say he loved me?
I flicked back to the app. Although I’d had it on my phone for months, I’d never fully investigated its functionality. The one-line daily readings it gave had been enough for me, up until now. I’d glanced at the push notification when it flashed up on my phone each day, laughed or tutted or wondered briefly what the hell that even meant, and moved on.
But now it was like the pesky thing was getting inside my head, and I wanted to get inside its head, too. But I was a grown-up. I knew, rationally, that my personality and my life’s path hadn’t been determined twenty-seven years ago when I’d entered the world, or nine months before that, when my mum and dad had— Yuck, I wasn’t going to think about that.
If I was going to accept Robbie’s challenge, though, I’d need to understand a bit more about how this whole astrology thing worked, and what the app could do to help me in my mission.
I clicked on the tab that said ‘Love’.
You’re fiercely independent, I read, and you think you can manage just fine on your own. And that’s true, up to a point. But no woman is an island, and sometimes you feel your soul crying out for its twin, its other half, your soulmate. But how do you find that person – and how on earth (or in the stars) are you supposed to know when you have?
Bloody good point, I thought.
Under that little chunk of text was a link that said ‘Find your love match in the stars’. I clicked it.
Cerebral and intellectual, you can come across as emotionally detached. But still waters run deep, and that’s never truer than in your case, water carrier. You have reservoirs of love and passion waiting to be tapped.
Okay, this was getting technical now. And me, cerebral? Come on. I was the woman who spent her days up to her elbows in mac and cheese and the last time I read a book was just before I dropped out of uni. And emotionally detached? That certainly hadn’t been the case earlier, when the sexy gym guy had seen my face fall as I realised it wasn’t me he fancied but Dani. Maybe that was those reservoirs the app was on about. I’d certainly cried enough to fill one – or maybe empty one that was already there inside me.
‘Okay, so air signs,’ I said to Frazzle, who’d finished his wash and curled up next to me, his head on my knee. ‘What do you reckon those are?’
I tapped another link.
Gemini, Libra and Aquarius are governed by the Air element, the app informed me. These most spiritual members of the zodiac are often blessed with highly attuned intuition, the ability to read others and even, in some cases, the skills to reach realms of the psyche beyond our own.
This sounded kind of familiar. I remembered going to see a tarot-card reader when I was sixteen, and she’d told me I was highly spiritual, too. She’d also told me I’d have four children before my thirtieth birthday, which would be giving it some considering I was already twenty-seven. Maybe there were triplets in my future.
‘That litter tray of yours isn’t going to clean itself, is it?’ I said to Frazzle. Putting my phone aside, I got up off the bed and went through my night-time routine, scooping out Frazzle’s poo and topping up his water bowl, washing my face and brushing my teeth, slathering on some of the night cream I’d bought because it was organic and on special offer, but which smelled faintly of boiled cabbage.
I put on my pyjamas and got into bed, and Frazz immediately wormed under the duvet to lie by my feet. But I wasn’t ready for sleep just yet, so I turned back to the app.
If air signs were right for me, what did wrong look like?
There was another link on the app that said ‘Seeking a challenge?’ I wasn’t; it was after midnight, I was in bed with my cat and I had to be up at six. But I clicked it anyway.
Love moves in mysterious ways, the app told me. And sometimes, in the stars as in life, opposites attract. These matches might seem unlikely on the surface, but they could send astrological sparks flying.
Pedantic, routine-loving Virgo might seem the worst possible partner for head-in-the-clouds Aquarius. But their stability and steadfastness could give you the security you crave.
At my feet, I felt Frazzle curl up into a tighter ball, and I heard him let out a loud snore. Clearly, he’d had quite enough excitement for one day.
But I’d made up my mind. I was going to get myself set up on a dating app, and I was going to find a Virgo. And if he was completely wrong for me, that wouldn’t be a problem. After all, I didn’t want to peak too soon.
Four
Today is a good day for decision-making. With the sun in Taurus, it’s time to take the bull by the horns. You might not be feeling confident, but that’s no excuse to set aside your dreams.
I actually beat Robbie to the kitchen the next day, and I’d made a batch of granola and got eight sourdough loaves shaped and proving before he arrived for work. Even though I’d been busy, I’d been glancing at my watch every couple of minutes, muttering, ‘Where the hell is that boy?’ – not because he was late, but because I was itching to talk to him.
‘Morning, morning,’ he carolled, breezing through the door at twenty past seven. ‘I was all tucked up in my bed – alone, I hasten to add – by ten last night. I feel bloody marvellous. Is this how married people feel, like, every morning?’
‘Doubt it,’ I said. ‘I reckon they toss and turn for ages wondering about the mortgage, or the baby wakes them up at four a.m., or maybe they don’t get to sleep until late because they’re out having fun or in having sex.’
‘Imagine,’ Robbie said. ‘Just for a moment. Imagine only having sex with one person again, ever. For the whole rest of your life.’