Page 122 of Falling for You

Now, I’m not one of those people who take Halloween as an excuse to dress up as a sexy witch or prowl around in a mask. I mean, sure, I can totally see the appeal. Who wouldn’t want to stomp around in a nightclub feeling like the fifth member of Little Mix for an evening? But for me, I can’t resist the chance to completely transform myself into something grotesque, and I’m not the only one. I (almost) make a living out of it.

I turn to the side and narrow my eyes in the reflection.

Mum taught me how to sew when I was a teenager. I found hovering behind her in Topshop excruciating, looking at the clothes that other girls my age wore. None of them felt quite right on my awkward teenage body. Honestly, I don’t know how the other girls had the confidence. So, I asked Mum if we could make my clothes ourselves. I did textiles at school, and it turned into a regular activity that Mum and I spent most of our Sundays doing. It’s even become a little business for us: the Stitching Witches. It doesn’t make enough for us to do it full-time, but it’s still fun.

It turns out I’m pretty damn good at it. People come to meyear after year requesting their costumes, and I have quite a following on social media now. It’s not just Halloween; I’ll make costumes throughout the year … as long as they’re looking for something slightly bizarre and over the top. If you’re looking for a sexy, Victoria’s Secret-style costume, I’m not your girl. If you want to convince people that you’ve dislocated your shoulder, which jerks out every time they touch you, hit me up.

In an ideal world, I’d spend my life making these costumes, and maybe one day it’ll happen. I mean, it could happen now, if I was content living in a shoebox for the rest of my life and stealing breadcrumbs off the birds in the park.

My costume this year is black, and ever-so-slightly furry. Not in a chic, Sarah Jessica Parker way, more how otters look when they slip out of the water. Sleek until you touch it.

At first, it looks like a giant cape. It scrunches around my neck with an elaborate black collar, covering my whole body. But when you pull a lever, the wings pop out and reveal what isunderneaththe cape, and you see the catsuit I’ve made. The bones of the bat’s body are embedded using thick plastic straws, and grotesque patches of fur sprout out randomly.

On the night, I’ll slick back my dark hair and wear red contact lenses, and then when everyone has had a few drinks and they’re least expecting it, I’ll pull the lever and BAM, my costume will be fully unveiled.

I pick up my phone and take a picture to send to my mum, my biggest fan. She replies almost immediately.

WOW! LOVE IT!

I smile.

Halloween is this weekend, and finally all my hard work will have paid off.

Mum is one of the only people who fully understands why I love Halloween so much. It’s the one time of year where you’re celebrated for being a bit weird and quirky, and I feel confident behind the mask of my costume. For once, I want people to look at me.

Even though I’m dressed like a bat or a witch, or even a rotting carcass … on Halloween I feel more like myself than any other night of the year.

And I don’t care if I’m thirty-two or ninety-two, I am never letting that sense of freedom go.

‘Excuse me, sorry … excuse me …’

Being five foot tall, carrying two laptops and a coffee in rush hour on the tube should be illegal. Actually, it should be a bush tucker trial. It’s an absolute bloody endurance test.

I pop myself into a free space, right in the corner of the carriage. The doors of the Northern line squeeze shut, forcing everyone to suck themselves in slightly, praying that the train actually moves and nobody will have to gracefully offer to step off and wait for the next train (spoiler: nobody ever offers; it’s more of an awkward stand-off where everyone avoids eye contact until the person closest to the door is gently shoved back onto the platform and nobody mentions it).

I am surrounded by a sea of navy blue and grey. Business folk galore. I first arrived in London with Penny and Tanya ready to take on the world, aged twenty-two, andfreshly equipped with my shiny new art degree. I’d had three years of being top of my class and everyone begging me to make their costumes for them for every themed night of our social calendars. I also had that impenetrable bravado that comes from three years of bobbing around in the university bubble, completely unaware that you’re about to be spat into the real world where not only are you not at the top of your class any more but nobody really cares that you were in the first place.

By this point in my life, I had an entire wardrobe filled with clothes that I’d made myself, with the odd piece that Mum had created. I don’t know where I thought I’d work, as none of my clothes were ‘fashionable’, but I knew it would be something to do with designing and making clothes. I knew it in my bones! I was so confident!

Until the three of us found a flat and I realised that, in order to live there, I’d need to fork out nine hundred pounds a month, before bills. Every month. My ‘successful’ business was making about five hundred pounds each month, which felt like an enormous success to us all as broke, desperate students. But as graduates trying to make it in London, it was laughable.

So, I tucked my elaborate tail between my legs and started trying to flog my soul to the corporate grind. But guess what? Nobody wanted me there, either. Once Penny had been snapped up at a university to do her PhD and work as a scientific researcher, and Tanya had taken a junior position in fashion PR, I desperately grabbed with both hands the first job I was offered and refused to let it go. I wasso terrified that I’d lose it and have to give up my life in London and move back to my hometown in the Cotswolds that I put my heart and soul into it, and it turned out, I’m actually good at it.

You’re looking at Annie Glover, Relocation Consultant. I know, right? Put that on a business card and smoke it.

I found the advert pinned up on the noticeboard at my local newsagent and, honestly, it felt like a sign from the universe. By this point, I’d been madly sending my CV into the abyss only to be ghosted with such force that it made me wonder whether I even existed. When I saw the ad, I literally ripped it off the noticeboard and ran away with it, in a mad panic that someone else might steal the only job I felt that I couldactually do.

It said this:

Looking for PA/receptionist for my consultancy. Call Pam.

That was it. No list of fancy benefits, no promise of a communal fruit bowl or dress-down Fridays (why do employers think this is what everyone wants? Who is spending their free time desperately searching for a place where they can finally wear their wacky tie out in public?).

I rang Pam immediately and found out that she lived in Battersea, where she was running her Relocation Consultancy. Which basically means that we help find homes, schools and whatever else a client might need when they are being relocated for work. For three years, it was just me and Pam, sharing a desk in her back room and mindlessly racing from one client meeting to the next to try and get the business off the ground.

But seven years later, we’re in a swanky Moorgate office with a team of six and our own desks. Along with a pay rise and fancy new job title, but the desks were the biggest deal for everyone. Nobody wants to share a desk with I’ll-eat-an-orange-on-the-phone-and-leave-the-peel-all-over-the-keyboard Kevin.

I now have my own list of clients and spend a lot of my time going out for lunches, showing them potential houses and schools and trying not to visibly wince when they inevitably turn their nose up at thegargantuanhome I’ve shown them because it’s too close to a bin on the street or something equally absurd.