‘I suppose I’m just going to have to get on a plane and come over, aren’t I?’ He bent down and kissed me on top of the head. ‘Alex tells me there are some very interesting whiskey bars in New York, and I do want my grandson or daughter to know who I am.’
Huh? Grandson or daughter? And I knew giving them those keys was a bad idea. Alex was going to get a slap when he got home. If he came home.
‘Well, I don’t just want to be “that old man in the photo”.’ He opened the shed door and gave me a wink. ‘Although I suppose I haven’t got a lot of choice in the old man part.’
‘I guess not?’ I sat in silence and watched my dad stride off up the garden, back towards the house. Well, at least he approved of my choice of man. And he was pro-grandchildren. Even if I wasn’t. I was quietly wondering whether or not the brass band would have time to learn any of Alex’s songs when my phone trilled softly into life inside the pocket of my cardigan. A quick glance at the screen showed a UK number that seemed familiar but which I didn’t have stored. And I answered. Because I was stupid.
‘Hello?’
‘Angela?’
Of course I recognized it. I’d dialled it almost every day for ten years.
‘Mark.’
‘You’re still here, then?’ He sounded nervous. He should.
‘Yes?’ I took a deep breath and then puffed out my cheeks to stop myself from spurting out a torrent of abuse.
‘Right, well, I …’ He took a deep breath of his own. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Stuff.’ Excellent comeback, Angela. Just classic.
‘OK. I thought maybe you might want to get a coffee? Catch up a bit?’ It sounded like he was walking − his breath was coming harder than it needed to. I looked at my watch. Hmm − seven on a Monday? He’d be on his way to the tennis club. And I hated myself for knowing that. ‘I’ve got the day off, so maybe we could get lunch or something.’
‘Maybe.’ The word was out of my mouth before I could control it. ‘Coffee maybe.’
‘Brilliant.’ He sounded relieved, I could tell. Which begged the question why he was bothering in the first place. ‘I’ll pick you up at about eleven.’
He hung up before I could come to my senses and tell him to go fuck himself. Hard. With a cactus. I sat and stared at my phone, willing it to do something other than remind me it was my move on Words With Friends. So when it actually started ringing, I nearly shat myself.
‘Hello you,’ I answered immediately. It was Alex. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Hey,’ Alex crackled down the line. ‘How was today? Did you get a dress?’
‘I did, and it’s incredible,’ I confirmed, unsure how much I was allowed to tell him. ‘Did you write your vows?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘But your dad did ask if I wanted to get high with him in the garden.’
I looked over at the secret drawer and sighed.
‘I passed.’ From the sound of car horns, sirens and overwhelming background chatter, Alex was outside somewhere far away from me. The garden was quiet and calm and deserted. And it was making me tense. ‘Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, I’m gonna stay over at Steven’s place tonight. We’re on our way to some place in Shoreditch and he lives pretty close by. We’re meeting the label people then maybe we’ll see a show.’
‘Steven?’ I didn’t want to come across as though I was sulking. Even if I was. ‘He’s not with the label?’
‘He’s a friend,’ Alex sort of explained. ‘You want to come meet us?’
I did and I didn’t. I did because I wanted to kiss the taste of talking to Mark out of my mouth, and I didn’t because it would take me at least an hour to get over to Shoreditch. Also, I was a little miffed that Alex had cooler friends in my city than I did.
‘I’m going to pass.’ I weighed up the options of a bath and bed against getting dressed up, getting on a train, getting on the tube and talking to Shoreditch twats for the remainder of the evening. Williamsburg yes, East London no. I wasn’t nearly cool enough. ‘I’m sad I’m not meeting your friends, though.’
‘You’re so not an East London girl,’ Alex replied, demonstrating worryingly accurate telepathy. ‘And for that, I am glad. Anyway, I emailed Jenny and had her put him on the guest list for Saturday. You’ll meet him then. In your awesome dress.’
‘There isn’t a guest list for our wedding.’ Kind of a lie. ‘There isn’t going to be a bouncer.’ As far as I knew. ‘You can invite anyone you want, you know that.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ he said. ‘I’m gonna go − I’m almost at the bar. See you tomorrow?’
‘See you tomorrow,’ I agreed. ‘Have fun tonight.’
‘You too.’ He lowered his voice just a touch. ‘I love you.’
‘Love you too,’ I managed to squeak before he hung up. I stared at the wooden walls of the shed and pouted. ‘Fun is scheduled for Wednesday.’
While Alex was out enjoying himself, I sat in Dad’s shed until the sun disappeared altogether, trying not to think about agreeing to meet up with Mark or my impending career moment so I could concentrate on imagining how wonderful the wedding would be. The garden was big − more than big enough for the marquee Mum had described that would be set against the silver birch trees at the back of our lawn. The miniature herb garden would be perfect for photos, and Dad’s greenhouse was full of bright, beautiful flowers. I hoped I could convince him to let me open it up for cocktails.
I mentally dotted tables and chairs all across the lawn around a big, open dance floor lit by candles, fairy lights and the last light of the sunset, and saw Alex twirling me around, his tie loosened, my hair undone, everyone laughing. It wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t uptight. It would be lovely. If everything went right. And there was no way it wouldn’t with Jenny in charge. Remembering I needed to slot Dad’s brass band in there somewhere wiped the dopey smile off my face somewhat, but it couldn’t be that bad. It was just one compromise. It wasn’t like we were having clowns or ice sculptures of Scooby-Doo. And it might be fun. Or at least it would be over relatively quickly.
I added Jenny and Louisa to my imaginary wedding, trying to cosmic-order the perfect bridesmaids’ dresses. I had decided that if I could get them in the right dresses, everything else would work itself out. And if it came to it, I’d wear a pair of Primark flats and trash my credit card on Loubous for them both. There was nothing designer shoes couldn’t overcome. And as I knew from first-hand experience, they made a great weapon if necessity called.
My stomach rumbled at the thought of whatever Jenny was ordering from Mr Carluccio, which I assumed to be the Carluccio’s restaurant down the road and not an actual man. Although I’d be pretty happy either way. We’d talked about doing something more picky than a sit-down regular meal. This pleased me. It allowed for greater gluttony on my part. We’d also talked about a great big mountain of cupcakes instead of a wedding cake, but that hadn’t been approved quite so quickly. Louisa was worried Mrs Stevens wouldn’t know what we were talking about, and it was too late in the game to expect her to watch the entire box set of Sex and the City. As in there literally weren’t enough hours between now and the wedding for her to watch them all.
As well as allowing me to indulge in wedding fantasies, hiding in the shed meant I avoided going back into the house. I didn’t know what to say to Jenny, and I couldn’t cope with Mum and Dad cowering in terror in the kitchen. I’d sent Louisa a couple of texts, but she wasn’t replying. Brilliant. It was five days until my wedding and I had petrified parents, two bridesmaids who weren’t speaking to me and an errant fiancé who was probably being pawed to death by girls with asymmetrical haircuts and lots of ironic tattoos. Maybe I should have dragged my ass east.
Rather than sit and sulk, I decided to be productive. Or at least semi-productive. I crept back into the house, snuck upstairs, bypassing whatever hysteria was occurring in the kitchen, and skulked into my room to check over the Gloss presentation for Friday’s meeting. Delia had sent ove
r a few pages of updates and I wanted to be completely on top of my game. At that exact moment, the only game I felt on top of was Hungry, Hungry Hippos. I pulled out my phone roughly every fourteen seconds, tapping out the beginnings of texts to Louisa, to Alex, even to Mark. I didn’t want to go for a coffee with him. I didn’t want to see his face. But I did want him to see mine as long as mine looked really good. So good that he would spend every second of the rest of his life wondering what had made him make such a terrible, terrible mistake.
So we’d meet for coffee, I’d show him lots of pictures of Alex, and I’d look fabulous. It wasn’t that I wanted him to be unhappy, I just wanted to be happier. Considerably happier. In a big way.
There was nothing weird about that, was there?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘Mum?’
No reply.
‘Dad?’
Nada.
‘Jenny?’
Nothing. The house was completely empty. Tuesday morning was grey and dull, no hint of sunshine behind the heavy dark clouds. I told myself the weather was getting its nonsense out of the way before Saturday, when it would be blue skies and blue birds and lots of other lovely blue things, like − well, I’d think of something. Blue Nun, maybe. Even if it was a fair few hours off cocktail o’clock.
A note on the kitchen table explained that Dad had gone to rehearse with his band and Mum and Jenny were out. No details. No information of any kind. Just out. But Mum had scribbled a P.S. that there were some boxes of my things in the back bedroom cupboard that needed sorting out when I had a minute. Brilliant. Going through boxes of knackered four-year-old Primark T-shirts and that purple pair of BHS culottes I’d clung onto since 1997 was exactly what I felt like doing.
I’d had no word from Alex. Being the wonderfully trusting girlfriend that I was, I assumed he was hanging out at his friend’s house and not wallowing up to the eyeballs in English groupies, but I sent him a quick text anyway just to make sure he knew how much I loved him and to let him know I was going out for coffee with a friend. I just casually forgot to add the words ‘ex’ and ‘boy’ to that sentence. I’d tell him later. It wasn’t a text-appropriate conversation and besides, he trusted me like I trusted him.
It was pretty easy to convince myself that the two hours I spent primping before Mark’s arrival were hours well spent. It was good pre-wedding prep − essential conditioning and moisturizing that couldn’t be overlooked.
I went for a simple look − loose, softly waved hair and very delicate make-up, just enough to make me look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. The outfit was more trying. When Mark and I were together, I existed exclusively in jeans, T-shirts and knackered Converse so I didn’t want to show up in Alexander Wang glitter trousers and a leather corset, but I did want to show him how much I’d changed. Since the weather was threatening to be rubbish, I went for a little grey Paul & Joe Sister bird-print dress, a gift from Erin’s pre-baby wardrobe, and a pair of my mother’s black tights. Thank God she always kept spares. I added some ballet flats, the knackered old denim jacket I’d systematically destroyed through two years of sixth form and my equally knackered Marc Jacobs bag, which I had managed to destroy in under two years, looked in the mirror and declared myself ‘OK’. The dress was pretty but the jacket played it down. The bag was clearly designer but the battering it had taken told you I wasn’t precious. Or careful with my things. I just hoped it was OK enough to get me through.
The doorbell rang and I held myself back, trying to ignore my racing heartbeat.
‘This is closure,’ I told myself, pacing down the stairs step by step. ‘This is closure. This is screw-you-my-life-is-amazing closure.’
I opened the door to find Mark standing there on my doorstep just like we were sixteen and felt my stomach flip. Just not in the good way.
‘One minute.’ I held up a finger, slammed the door shut in his face and raced into the downstairs toilet to throw up. Well, there went breakfast. I was going to have no trouble getting into my dress on Saturday. I cleaned myself up, gargled with Dad’s disgusting Listerine and went back to the door. There really was no getting out of this now.
With an added, just-puked glow, I opened the door again, offering Mark what I hoped was a dazzling smile. ‘Sorry,’ I said, pushing him out of the way and locking the door behind me. ‘Forgot something. Shall we go?’
‘And so we decided to start our own magazine.’ I kept my eyes safely on the road ahead of me as we pulled up alongside Richmond Green in Mark’s Range Rover. The same Range Rover. I couldn’t look at the back seat, also known as the scene of the crime, and I couldn’t quite bring myself to look at Mark. Even I knew beating him to death wasn’t a good idea while he was at the wheel, despite what the devil on my shoulder was suggesting. ‘So that’s what we’re doing. It’s called Gloss. I’m going to be in charge of the website and work with the editorial team on the actual magazine too. It’s good. It’s going to be good.’
‘Sounds like you’ve been busy,’ Mark commented, reversing into a parking spot and turning off the engine. ‘I wish I had half as interesting a story for you.’
Up until the car stopped, it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been crowned King of England − I hadn’t let him get a word in edgeways. I’d always been a nervous talker, but this was ridiculous. Every second of silence seemed to turn back time. From the moment I’d got into the car, everything had started slipping away − New York seemed like just a memory. Alex? No one but a boy in a band I saw one time. Jenny? A figment of my overactive and extremely fashionable imagination. The whole thing made more sense as a fever dream I’d had after falling asleep listening to MTV and reading Grazia. Sitting in my old seat, in my old car. Mark was still wearing the same aftershave. It was all I could do not to rest my hand on his thigh, just like old times. I didn’t want to, it was just habit. A bad habit. How did people cope with break-ups without leaving the country? I tried to picture my apartment, my walk to the subway, the Manhattan skyline waiting outside the window, but it felt like I was looking at someone else’s photographs.
The only way to bring it to life was to keep talking, to force it to exist. Only the more I talked it up, the less realistic it seemed. Mark certainly seemed to be having trouble believing me. And why should he believe me? I was that lazy, dumpy girlfriend who sat on his sofa churning out sad little stories about mutated amphibian ninjas to scrape out a living. That Angela would never have done half the things I had done. At least, she would never have survived them.
‘Sit outside?’ Mark asked, snapping me out of my confusing pity party. ‘Pint?’
‘Yeah,’ I nodded, following him over to a picnic bench by the Cricketers. Once upon a time, it had been ‘our’ pub. I wondered if it was still his. He vanished inside the darkened bar and I pulled out my phone to check for messages. Nothing but a quick text from Louisa, reinforcing the feeling that I’d imagined every event of the past two years. I spun my engagement ring around my finger as I read the message − she was crying off any bridesmaiding for the day because Grace was sick. I wondered if she really was ill or if Lou was just sick of me and Jenny, but I’d promised myself I’d make it up to her at the hen do anyway. As soon as I worked out what I was making up for exactly.
Richmond was as calm and peaceful as it always was. I gazed out across the green and thanked the sun for trying to shine. It wasn’t quite all the way there, but, like me, it was giving it a go. I remembered all the summer Saturdays Louisa, Tim, Mark and I had spent on that lawn with a picnic basket. Well, first with bags of McDonald’s and bottles of cider and then with Tesco bags full of baguettes and brie and those mini bottles of prosecco, and then eventually a proper wicker basket, picnic blanket, real glasses and everything. Or at least, Louisa and Tim had bought us the set for Christmas before we broke up. I figured Mark and Katie were using it now. I was destined to remain a plastic bag person. I’d only break a real glass anyway.
‘Here you go.’ Mark appeared with a pint in each hand and t
wo bags of Kettle Chips hanging out of his mouth. ‘They didn’t have salt and vinegar.’
‘S’fine.’ I took the bag of Spicy Thai. ‘I’m used to it. They don’t have them in America.’
‘Fucking hell.’ Mark opened the Sea Salt and laughed. ‘How do you survive?’
‘I manage,’ I replied with narrow eyes. His overfamiliarity was irritating. ‘So, what have you been up to?’
‘Work mostly.’ He chomped on a crisp thoughtfully, blue eyes looking to the heavens for a better answer. ‘Banking’s not the best place to be right now. The hours are just as bad but the job security’s gone. Bonuses are down, perks are off the table completely. Do you know, I have to work until nine now before they pay for a car to get me home?’
‘That’s just terrible,’ I said, trying to look sympathetic. ‘You couldn’t just get the tube like a normal person?’
‘After nine? Back to Wimbledon?’ He looked as though I’d just proposed he walk barefoot across the Sahara. ‘I remember a time when you wouldn’t leave the house unless I promised to come and collect you in the car.’
‘Well, as the great Gary Barlow once said, everything changes,’ I retorted, sipping my pint. And it was disgusting. ‘I only really take the subway now. It’s just easier.’
‘I still can’t believe you’re living in New York,’ Mark said, smiling his easy smile and shaking his dark blond head. ‘Sounds like a lot has changed. For you.’
‘It has,’ I agreed, mentally preparing my speech. ‘It’s good—’
‘Never really been a big America fan,’ he said, cutting me off with a rap on the table. ‘Vegas maybe. LA’s all right. But New York’s not for me. I can’t see how anyone can stand it. Terrible place.’
‘How so?’ I asked coolly. Really? He was going to sit there and slag off my city?
‘It’s just so rush-rush-rush.’ He waved his arms around his head and gave a mock shiver. ‘Dirty taxis, overpriced restaurants, terrible beer. And the people? What a bunch of arseholes. They all think they know better.’