Always the Bridesmaid

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, hanging his coat on an actual coat rack.

  ‘Where are we?’ I scrubbed some of the smudged make-up from my face, swapping grey stains for red splotches, and combed my hair with my hands. ‘It didn’t feel like we were in the taxi for that long.’

  ‘We weren’t, we’re in Queen’s Park,’ he replied. ‘Sorry, did you want to go home?’

  ‘No,’ I said, my arms pressed closed to my sides. I was afraid to breathe too hard in case I broke something. He had a bowl on a side table and there wasn’t even anything in it. This was a grown-up’s house, and my scuffed knees and swollen face did not match the décor in the slightest. ‘Is this your house?’

  ‘Bit worrying that I’ve got the keys if it isn’t,’ he said. ‘Let’s get some ice on that eye − it looks bloody painful.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I said, following him closely. ‘It feels bloody painful.’

  Even though I could only see out of one eye, it was impossible not to notice how beautiful Tom’s house was. Clean, simple, classic and very, very expensive. I knew lawyers made a lot of money, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he could be rich.

  ‘Here, you take this.’ Tom handed me a clean tea towel full of ice cubes freshly dispensed from the ice machine in the front of his megafridge and directed me to a chair next to a great big reclaimed wooden table in the middle of his kitchen. ‘Hold it against your cheek, but don’t push it in or you’ll make it hurt more.’

  ‘Get punched in the face often, do you?’ I asked while he rattled around in a cupboard.

  ‘More often than I’d like,’ he replied. ‘But thankfully it’s been a while.’

  ‘Fight club?’

  ‘First rule of fight club −’ he went back to the cupboard for glasses and then back to the fridge for more ice − ‘we don’t talk about fight club. Now, I’ve got a couple of beers, some whisky, gin—’

  ‘Gin, please,’ I said quickly.

  He poured a generous measure of mother’s ruin into a tumbler and set it on the table in front of me, turning back to the fridge. ‘I’m sure I’ve got some tonic in here somewhere.’

  I put the empty glass back down on the table, dabbing at my mouth sheepishly.

  ‘Do people actually drink neat gin?’ he asked, looking somewhat alarmed.

  ‘No,’ I replied. His alarm was justified.

  ‘Would you like a more socially acceptable drink this time?’

  I pondered it for a moment and then shrugged. Why not.

  ‘Should my face still hurt?’ I asked once I was sipping my second drink, so as not to look quite so much like someone with a problem. ‘Because it’s really throbbing.’

  He swirled some whisky around in his glass and nodded. ‘I’d like to say keep drinking until it stops, but since we’re adults, I suppose I just have to say yes, it’s going to hurt for a while.’

  ‘Most of your face-punching happened in your younger days, then?’ My eyes flickered down to his mottled black and blue shirt. If you ask me, the Dalmatian spots of mascara added a little something.

  ‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘I had a temper when I was younger. I was in a boxing club for a while.’

  ‘So you really were in fight club,’ I said. ‘Not that we can talk about it.’

  ‘I packed it in when I went to law school the first time,’ he explained. ‘It’s quite difficult, training to become a lawyer when you’re coming to school with a thick lip every other week. Doesn’t go down very well.’

  ‘So you dropped out of law school to be a vigilante?’ I threw back the rest of my drink and hoped he would get the hint to pour me another. ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘I was the Batman of Richmond,’ Tom replied, pouring me another gin.

  As soon as he went to get more ice, I pulled my phone out of my handbag and fumbled it into life, but there was nothing from anyone. A new wave of disappointment flooded over me as Tom carefully placed two ice cubes into my drink, the tiniest drop splashing onto the screen of my phone as they settled.

  ‘There’s nothing I can say that won’t sound like a terrible cliché,’ he said, sitting back down beside me. ‘But in this instance, they would all be true.’

  ‘He’s an arsehole, he’s not worth it, I deserve so much better?’ I suggested, wrapping my fingers round the glass but not raising it to my lips. The first two I’d shotgunned were starting to hit home, and it was bad enough that I was sitting in this beautiful home looking like something Tom had dragged in off the streets; the last thing I wanted to do was to throw up in his House Beautiful show home.

  ‘He is an arsehole, he’s not worth it.’ Tom emptied his glass and poured himself another. Someone wasn’t quite so worried about his alcohol tolerance. ‘And you do deserve better.’

  ‘I’m not likely to get it, though, am I?’ I replied. ‘I never do.’

  Tom’s lips pressed together in a tight line again, an expression I’d seen on him before. It meant he was forcing himself not to say something, and I didn’t like it. If he’d said something about Will earlier, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  Well, I most likely would, but I might not have got decked.

  ‘Whatever you’re not saying, please just say it,’ I said. ‘You can’t possibly make feel any shittier than I do now.’

  ‘Whereabouts do you live?’ he asked. ‘I can give you a lift home if you want. The car’s outside.’

  To be fair, that wasn’t what I’d been expecting him to say. He was kicking me out? ‘Just down the road,’ I replied. ‘Back down the road where people get robbed and don’t live in mansions.’

  ‘This was my mum and dad’s house,’ he said. ‘Mum moved out to the country to live near her sister after my dad died, so it’s just me now.’

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound rude.’ I shook my head at myself. ‘It’s a beautiful home. And there must be lots of room for your bat cave.’

  ‘Loads,’ he replied. ‘And the fight club.’

  ‘We don’t talk about fight club.’ I slapped his hand on the table and he grinned. ‘Remember?’

  He had a lovely smile. You know who else had a lovely smile? Will, the lying, cheating shit who didn’t want me, and that was even worse than knowing that he was a lying, cheating shit, and, oh my God, what was wrong with me?

  ‘I’m sorry about your shirt,’ I said, glancing down at my own messed-up sleeves. Nothing got that mascara out, as my pillowcases would attest. ‘I’ll get it cleaned for you.’

  ‘Collateral damage,’ he shrugged. ‘Better make-up than blood.’

  ‘I think there might be a bit of that in there too,’ I said. ‘I’ll just buy you a new shirt. I feel like such an idiot.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot,’ Tom said, setting down his drink and coming over to where I was sitting, shaking. ‘I think you’re pretty great, actually.’

  ‘Funny,’ I replied. ‘Because I feel like an idiot.’

  ‘These things happen,’ he rationalized, wiping out three months of me being played for a fool with three words. ‘It’s not your fault.’

  ‘OK then,’ I said, all the fight fading out of me when I felt the weight of his hands on my shoulders. ‘I’m not an idiot, these things happen.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he nodded. ‘You’re not an idiot, but you are funny and interesting and clever, and I could listen to you talk about anything, all day long.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And I think you’re beautiful,’ he said, taking a stray strand of hair between his fingers and brushing it back, away from my bruised face.

  No one in all my years, not even Seb, has ever called me beautiful.

  ‘I’ve got a black eye,’ I pointed out. ‘My face is a mess.’

  ‘I know.’ Tom started to smile. ‘And it might be the most beautiful you’ve ever looked.’

  I put my hand to my hair, touching the strands he had just touched. ‘You’re just saying that to be nice.’

  He shook hi
s head. ‘I’m not that nice.’

  ‘You are quite nice,’ I argued. ‘You were going to come and pick me up from Bristol at one in the morning.’

  The big, bright, airy kitchen became very small as I spoke, and somehow, Tom grew even taller as I seemed to shrink. Oh no, I wasn’t shrinking, I was just falling over.

  ‘Shit, Maddie.’

  He caught me before I hit the floor, nursing me on his knees.

  ‘Do you want to lie down?’ he asked. I let go of my handbag and heard it make a soft thud on the kitchen floor as I gave something like a nod.

  My brain was telling my legs to move, but the message got lost on the way, possibly somewhere around my liver, and before I could protest, Tom scooped me up off the floor and carried me out of the kitchen and straight up the stairs. I wanted to make some sort of protest about how I was a grown woman who didn’t need to be carried, but since I couldn’t actually use my legs, I kept my mouth shut.

  ‘This is my room − the spare bed isn’t made,’ he said, kicking open one of several doors on the second floor and tipping me out of his arms onto a bed. I landed with all the grace I imagined he had come to expect from me, legs akimbo and trying not to throw up. ‘Do you want some water? I’ll get you some water.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, all politeness as I pulled my skirt back down over my knickers. ‘That would be lovely.’

  Thinking about it, I had hoped to end my night on a lawyer’s bed with my skirt up round my waist, but not like this.

  Oh, fuckknuckles.

  20

  Friday July 24th

  Today I feel: Like everything happens for a reason if that reason is I AM CURSED.

  Today I am thankful for: I don’t even know. Kittens?

  The idea was, I’d close my eyes for five minutes until Tom came back with the water, chug it down and then ask him to call me a cab. Of course, the plan didn’t quite come off. The next time I opened my eyes, or one of them at least, the clock on the bedside table blinked 8.30 at me: 8.30 Friday morning.

  ‘Shit.’

  Making words was an ambitious move, even single swear words. My tongue was a magic carpet away from passing for the Sahara desert, and my left eye was still completely swollen shut. For a brief, blissful second all I could feel was the physical pain of my messed-up face, but then, just like magic, the events of last night all came flooding back.

  The only thing worse than waking up with a black eye and a badger’s-arse mouth and the knowledge that you got smacked in the face in a bar by your boyfriend’s real girlfriend is having all those things happen in someone else’s house. I didn’t know where the bathroom was, I didn’t know where my handbag was, and, most disconcerting of all, I didn’t know where Tom was.

  After a few false starts, two walk-in wardrobes and a bathroom, I eventually found my way downstairs to the kitchen and, hallelujah, my handbag.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Through my one good eye I saw Tom, still wearing his stained shirt but without his trousers. His arms were folded and he looked incredibly sheepish. I threw half a packet of TicTacs in my mouth and waved.

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Like I’d been punched in the face,’ I replied, desperate to leave. ‘Can you please do me a huge favour? My phone’s dead, can you call me a taxi?’

  ‘I’ll drive you home,’ he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes and padding across the kitchen, keeping a wide berth, to switch on the kettle. ‘Tea?’

  ‘I don’t have time for tea,’ I snapped, panic rising. ‘I need to get to work. I’ve got twenty-five pink rabbits being delivered to my office before midday and God knows what will happen if I’m not there to sign for them.’

  ‘I don’t actually know what to say to that,’ he replied as the kettle began to whistle. ‘Let me have a cup of tea and then we’ll get you home.’

  If I hadn’t been utterly manic, I might have said something about the fact that he had one of those fast-boil kettles, but instead I rooted round in my make-up bag looking for something to help with my eye. Like concealer or a balaclava or the number of a plastic surgeon.

  ‘This is the worst day this could have happened,’ I replied, opening up my powder compact and immediately wishing I hadn’t. ‘I haven’t got time to go home, I haven’t got time to get changed. I cannot believe this is happening.’

  ‘There are still some of Marie’s old clothes in the spare room,’ he said, taking two mugs out of the cupboard. ‘I reckon they’ll fit.’

  ‘Marie’s clothes? Because that wouldn’t be incredibly weird,’ I poked at my purple cheekbone and subconsciously filed away the name of his former fiancé for future Internet stalking. ‘Please just call me a taxi.’

  ‘You can’t go to work looking like that,’ Tom said, waving in the general direction of my creased, blood-spattered, make-up-stained ensemble. Clearly he didn’t know I worked in East London; I could absolutely get away with this. ‘At least let me get you one of my T-shirts or something.’

  ‘I don’t want one of your T-shirts,’ I said, beginning to lose my temper. Why couldn’t he see the urgency of my situation? ‘I want to leave. I need to leave.’

  He dropped a teabag in each of the mugs. ‘Look, I know you’re angry about last night—’

  ‘Of course I’m angry,’ I replied. ‘I just found out my boyfriend has another girlfriend. That I’m the other woman, Tom, and if that wasn’t enough, because of you, I got punched in the face twenty-four hours before the most important day of my entire career.’

  ‘I’m very, very sorry,’ Tom said as I pressed my palm against my face. Jesus Christ getting angry was painful.

  ‘We apologize to each other a lot, don’t we?’ I said, blinking through the pain in my face. ‘It’s starting to feel like a very bad sixties sitcom.’

  ‘We do.’ He rubbed his hand over his face and frowned. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to meet me at that bar. It was a terrible idea, I knew it as soon as he walked in.’

  ‘It wasn’t your responsibility to tell me Will had a girlfriend. It’s not like we’re actually friends, is it? I work for you.’ I looked to the heavens to try to work out whose responsibility it was but was distracted for a moment by a lovely skylight. ‘I mean, it’s not as though you knew he was going to be at that bar with his actual girlfriend.’

  Saying the g-word made me want to be sick in my mouth. Then I looked up, saw the expression on Tom’s face, and was almost sick in my mouth.

  ‘You did know he was going to be there,’ I said slowly. ‘You knew they were both going to be there.’

  He didn’t reply. He just looked down at his enormous feet and stayed silent.

  ‘That’s why you wanted me to meet you there.’

  ‘The more I thought about it, the more I thought you ought to know,’ he said simply.

  ‘And you thought the best way to tell me was to drag me out to a pub where I could be publically humiliated?’ I asked. ‘After what Will did to you at the wedding?’

  ‘I didn’t know she was going to hit you,’ he replied, rubbing his nose and looking wounded.

  ‘I’m not talking about being hit,’ I said. My heart was pounding. ‘I meant being made to feel stupid and small and cheap and horrible. Didn’t that even cross your mind?’

  ‘No?’ he replied.

  ‘It had nothing to do with you.’ Oh yes, it was time to raise my voice, face ache or no. ‘And if you really felt it was your civic duty, a quiet word or an email might have been better.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have believed me!’ Tom banged an empty mug down on the kitchen counter. ‘And I would have sounded like a jealous dickhead.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ I shouted back. ‘Anything would have been better than this, Tom − anything. I’m so sick of people treating me like an idiot.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re an idiot,’ he said. ‘I would never treat you that way.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ I said, ‘because you did.’

  He di
dn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on his hands.

  ‘I’m not a joke.’ My hands were shaking, I was so angry. ‘It’s not OK for people to keep shitting on me. Why does no one take me seriously?’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to shit on you,’ Tom said, but I was not in the mood to be placated. ‘Truly.’

  ‘Why can’t anyone just wake up and think, oh, Maddie, she’s all right?’ I kicked backwards out of my chair, preparing for a dramatic exit. ‘Why am I not good enough for anyone as I am?’

  ‘I think you’re good enough,’ he said slowly, as though I was a horse that might bolt. ‘I think you’re brilliant.’

  ‘I’m not a pair of trousers!’ I yelled triumphantly, pleased with my own analogy.

  ‘You’ve lost me.’ Tom scratched his head, looking right at me for a second.

  ‘I’m not a pair of trousers,’ I said, reaching for my handbag and missing. Only having the use of one eye meant my perspective was off. ‘I’m not something you buy, thinking you can take them up a bit and take them in a bit and alter them until they’re perfect. I can’t be altered, I can’t be taken up. I am what I am.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘No,’ I replied, completely ignoring him. ‘My parents think I’m not ambitious enough, my sister thinks I’m pointless, my boss hates me, my big boss is making me jump through two months of hoops instead of just giving me the job I deserve when I’ve been there ten bloody years, Seb cheated on me, Will cheated on me, even my best friends take the piss. I don’t understand why people think it’s OK to treat me like this?’

  ‘It isn’t,’ he said. ‘And I really am sorry.’

  ‘Well you should be,’ I yelled, my fingers wedged between my eye socket and my cheekbone. ‘Because this is all your fault.’

  He stepped back, stung, as the kettle boiled into life.

  ‘Right.’ He poured boiling water into one of the mugs, then took the teabag out of the second mug and popped it back in the caddy. ‘I see. It’s my fault.’

  He carried on making a single cup of tea, pushing the other mug, my mug, across the kitchen counter. My victory wore off quickly. Suddenly we were locked in an uncomfortable silence, me breathing heavily and Tom piling sugar into a mug of tea that was not for me.