by Naomi Joy
‘No,’ Heather squawks, reaching across Anthony’s muscular torso to grab my arm, just as I’m reaching for a napkin to wipe my face. ‘She has to know!’
Her nails dig into my flesh, half-moons imprinted on my skin.
‘Emelia,’ Heather bellows, red wine stains on her front teeth. ‘You want to know the truth about Anthony, don’t you?’
The whole table has her attention now and erupts in laughter at my expense. What’s so funny?
‘Don’t worry, Emelia,’ Harry says jubilantly, thumping my back, his hand smacking me like a bear paw. ‘It’s not too late to back out!’ A trickle of champagne escapes from my nostril and I move fast to wipe it away.
‘Go on, Heather,’ encourages one of the three R’s. ‘She needs to hear it sometime.’
Heather licks her lips.
‘Anthony was quite the ladies’ man back at college, Emelia.’
‘Was?’ I hear Carla snort-whisper into Harry’s ear.
‘Oh really?’ I ask, shrinking with the revelation. I hadn’t pegged Anthony as such – the Anthony I know isn’t a womaniser. The Anthony I know is sensitive and caring, not brash and laddy like those types so often are.
‘Well, let’s see, there was Rebecca,’ Heather recounts, her eyes upward, recalling all the grisly details. ‘But when she found out about Cindy, she cut herself up in a bath and had to be hospitalised for a month.’
I wince at the insensitive way she refers to a young woman self-harming in response to her boyfriend being unfaithful. Why should Heather’s sympathy be with Anthony and not with Cindy? I swallow another sip, trying to control the rage, bubbles fizzing in my stomach.
‘Then, after Cindy – I can’t even remember what happened to her – there was Pamela, do you remember?’ she asks the table. ‘The one with the massive tits and tiny head?’ Heather guffaws at Pamela’s expense. ‘Then, after uni it was some combination of Holly and Dolly and Polly…’
Anthony sits next to her, revelling in it, cupping his face in his hands, laughing along with the story that everyone’s enjoying so much. I hate it, the whole boys will be boys thing, and I refuse to join in. I keep my face straight and my expression neutral.
‘And, as for their problems, my God!’ Heather wails. ‘There was always something with these girls. “Holly can’t take her exams because she’s depressed, Polly’s too anxious to come out tonight so we’re staying in, Dolly’s drunk herself into a stupor and needs to go to AA.” In fact, I think we’re all waiting to hear what your particular brand of difficult is going to be…’
The table hushes then. The rest of this evening’s guests – on board with Heather up until now – take a different fork. I exchange a hurried glance with Harry and Carla who I’ve told about my heart condition.
‘She’s a good eater, at least that’s something,’ slurs Heather, her tongue lashing from red gums.
‘Enough,’ commands Anthony, finally ending her tirade, stopping her in her tracks as she makes this thinly veiled barb at his ex, and, consequently, my waistline. The table falls quiet for a moment, something going unsaid, but, finally, the conversation moves on, away from Anthony and his past. I take the opportunity to press my serviette to my lips and whisper an apology, excusing myself. I can’t sit at this table any more pretending their words don’t hurt.
I walk away, hot, the smell of burnt lamb sticking to my hair, and I clench my jaw with frustration as I exit the dining hall, a few pairs of eyes following me as I go. It is a relief when I am alone. These people are awful. Trash. Crystals dressed as diamonds who will never accept me, no matter how hard I try. All I am to them is a future dinner-party anecdote that they’re already champing at the bit to tell. Emelia, yes! She really was the tip of the iceberg in terms of Anthony’s relationship choices: common, impoverished, paranoid, drunk. Quite simply the worst of the lot.
*
Anthony’s voice is quiet but he goes round the hotel suite closing cupboards far too forcefully, performing his night time rituals with a few more decibels than entirely necessary. We’re supposed to be in separate rooms, as per the tradition, but it can’t be good luck to sleep on an argument the night before your wedding either, so I’ve followed him back to his.
I trace his bangs and thuds into the en-suite where I find him rubbing his electric toothbrush in sloppy circles across his teeth.
‘Is everything OK?’ I venture. Now that I’ve had enough time to cool off, I want him to tell me that tonight didn’t matter, that this stupid rehearsal dinner with his stupid friends was irrelevant, meaningless and just, yes, stupid, but the whir of his toothbrush is the only sound between us and I can already tell I am not going to get what I want.
‘It’s just a bit embarrassing, darling,’ he says through the foam, ‘that, despite the fact that I had to spend the first half of the evening babysitting you, you still couldn’t find a way to get along with anyone tonight. Especially Heather, you know how sensitive she is.’
‘Are you serious?’ I ask.
‘She’s my best friend,’ he replies, spitting out. ‘I need you to find a way to get on with her.’
‘How am I supposed to get on with someone who’s clearly still in love with you?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, that was just a phase. We’ve sorted everything out.’
‘You might want to believe that, but it isn’t true. She spent all night humiliating me, Anthony, she’s trying to put a wedge between us. Why do you think she was delightedly telling all those stories about your ex-girlfriends?’
‘That was funny!’ he puffs. ‘You can’t be jealous that I was with other women before you, surely?’
I turn around, slightly exasperated, pacing the room.
‘I’m not, it’s the way she told them.’
‘Heather’s harmless,’ he replies, picking up on my meaning, his voice low, his toothbrush still vibrating on the side. ‘Now you’re the one being oversensitive.’
My breath catches in my throat because I know that I’m not, that I’m actually being unbelievably calm.
‘And why were you wearing your hair up this evening? You know I prefer it down.’
Really?
‘Heather, your friends, my hair. I can’t do anything right, can I?’
I look up at him, then down at the floor, trying to swallow the angry lump that has rushed to my throat.
He scrubs once more at his teeth then spits forcefully into the sink, a few drops of blood dripping from over-scrubbed gums. He stands and we stare at each other, teammates turned opponents, now at opposite ends of the pitch.
After a prolonged silence between us, he looks left towards the bathroom mirror, takes a sharp breath in, shrugs his shoulders then walks towards me, a different expression on his face.
‘Come here,’ he sighs, moving closer, wrapping my body into his smells of red wine and expensive cologne. ‘I’m sorry.’
I let him hold me – his scent taking me back to a wine tour we’d booked while away in Egypt. The wines had all been utterly revolting but we’d pretended, for a few at least, that we both knew a bit about the stuff. I’m getting a very sharp, very sour, very vinegary grape-taste from this one. By the third glass, which had smelled distinctly like window cleaner, I couldn’t handle any more and had spat it out fast and hard into the spittoon. ‘Very, um, overpowering,’ I’d explained to Anthony, and he’d agreed. ‘I thought you were enjoying them! I’m so glad you did that, they’re all disgusting, aren’t they?’ We’d spent the rest of the wine tour taking delicate sips and comparing the drinks to highly corrosive substances, much to the bemusement of those surrounding us.
I reason it out. Weddings are stressful. They test even the strongest of couples. That’s what we’re going through here, nothing more, nothing less. I need to take it with a pinch of salt. His friends are not the be all and end all of our relationship.
‘I’m sorry too,’ I say, but even as I’m apologising, his long fingers are crawling up the back of my head and teasing m
y ponytail out from its band.
My curls fall loose around my shoulders and my stomach drops.
I swallow my fears. He’s the man of my dreams. The only one I’ve met willing to overlook a life-limiting heart condition. I’m so lucky.
His voice is cold, quiet, a thin line of annoyance running through it when he speaks again.
‘Please, though, I’d like you to make an effort with Heather, she’s really important to me.’
He squeezes my arms once, then lets me go.
‘I love you,’ he says, the words hanging for a moment in the air, before tumbling down.
Blog Entry
18th October, 6.35 p.m.
I race from the taxi to the art gallery through blustery showers, each breath agonising against my ribs, still slow healing following my fall at the dig. I’d tried to put up my umbrella, but the wind had claimed and contorted it, and it swings by my side now, porcupine spikes exposed, batting rainwater on my trainers as I quick-march to reach her.
Heather.
I haven’t been out much since my visit to hospital, but Anthony invited me to come to this exhibition at the Tate – either because he’s still labouring under the illusion that Heather and I will one day be friends or, more likely, because he thought I wouldn’t be fit enough to accept – but I’m here. I’m out. For the second time in as many weeks. Things are looking up.
As I draw closer to the building’s industrial façade, I spot my reflection in the tall windows that run up the outside like glass ladders. I pause, disconcerted by the way my hair – which I’d swept and secured with a butterfly clip before I’d left the flat – has come loose, the clip hanging aimlessly at my jawline now, swinging with the unkempt strands round my shoulders, clumped together with drizzle. This, in addition to the bruised off-green of my cheekbone, gives my appearance a somewhat concerning air, but the way Heather’s looking at me – chin swallowed by her neck, lips pursed, eyes winced – is a definite over reaction.
‘Jesus,’ Heather scoffs as I pull level. ‘You look awful.’
‘Thanks,’ I reply sarcastically, taking shelter under the building’s veranda.
‘How are you?’ I ask, keen to get us off on the right track this evening, but Heather’s trademark wiry lashes are already angled back towards her phone and she doesn’t bother to respond.
‘Anthony’s running late,’ she announces, fingers running fast over her phone’s keyboard. I mumble an understanding but, when she doesn’t acknowledge it, decide not to say any more and wait in silence for my next instruction. I note her outfit as we stand in uncomfortable proximity – an uptight black mackintosh, tied tight with a double bow to her strong waist. Underneath, a pair of flared suit trousers flow down to striking stilettos that look more like weapons than footwear. My denim pinafore dress, mustard polo-neck and white trainers stand in stark contrast and, though it’s hardly surprising, I’m arrested once again by my failure to get it right, by my inability to blend in with Anthony and his smart and sophisticated friends.
‘Let’s go in,’ she says, after a while, tired of her enforced silence and, before I’ve had a chance to react, she’s off.
Bodies flit fast in the space between us, tourists pushing their way through the heavy glass entrance doors, shoving pushchairs and stuffed souvenir bags into the commotion within. I almost lose Heather’s buttercup up-do in the hubbub, the crowds inside jarring with the sterile white of the lobby. I look up: straight lines delineate the rooms on the higher floors, accessed by a wide, concrete staircase from this level that Heather’s trotting up now, skyscraper heels posing no obstacle. Shortly afterwards, we swap hospital white for an explosion of colour in the exhibition hall and I reach her just as she turns towards me to speak.
‘Anthony loves Mexican art,’ Heather says with glassy blue eyes, rolling left to right as she scans the room.
‘Does he?’ I ask, looking round, the walls bursting with bright reds and vibrant blues, sunshine yellows and vivid greens, beautiful women depicted with thick monobrows, some with decorated black skulls for faces. I think of the line drawing hanging above our bed – black and white – of the prehistoric tapestries that adorn our lounge – dull sepia – and wonder if Anthony’s Mexican art isn’t quite the love affair Heather thinks it is.
‘We both do,’ Heather replies, matter-of-fact, as though they’ve both dedicated their lives to the worthy cause of forgotten Mexican art and I’d simply been too stupid to realise. ‘The day of the dead was kind of our thing at college, we both adored it. In fact, the first present Anthony ever gave me was a Mexican art poster he’d found in a market.’
Heather continues before I have a chance to respond.
‘It was of a beautiful dead woman with a thick rose over her ear. She had blonde hair but the ends were red, dipped in blood. He told me I looked like her. Which was ridiculous, obviously, because she was so beautiful, but, anyway, she’s here tonight. I’m so excited to show him.’
She puts the emphasis on her final word: him. Not me. She definitely didn’t want to show me.
If it weren’t for the fact that Anthony still wants us to be friends, that he continues to turn a blind eye to Heather’s obsession with him, that he’s actively angry whenever I say a bad word against her, I’d have eschewed this invitation, and her, long ago. People like Heather aren’t worth the effort. She’s never going to like me. She’s never going to stop trying to convince Anthony to love her. Not while we’re still together, not whilst I’m still alive.
‘That’s very thoughtful,’ I manage to reply.
Her eyes narrow. ‘Anyway, what happened to your face?’
‘Oh, nothing, I just fell over.’ I touch my hand to my cheekbone automatically, still tender.
‘Was this at the dig site?’
I tap my foot against the tiled floor, not wanting to re-visit that day. ‘With the black death skeletons?’ she asks.
I nod.
‘I was reading about those,’ Heather continues. ‘Fascinating. Anthony always gets the best jobs.’
Heather works in the office side of archaeology. She sits behind a computer typing facts into the screen, but she’s rarely on site.
‘Anthony did say you’d been feeling particularly fragile recently.’
I don’t answer, not that it matters, and she continues anyway.
‘He said you’d gone into a kind of “self-imposed exile.”’ She mimes air quotes round the final three words, though I’m not sure why. ‘It’s why he wanted you here tonight. He’s trying to get you out more.’
My tone changes, I’m a little taken aback. ‘He said that?’
‘You’re not taking it out on him, are you?’ She crosses her arms, brow furrowed as though she’s my teacher.
‘What?’
‘Your illness.’
‘No, of course not,’ I fire back, knowing it’s not, strictly speaking, the truth. My annoyance with Heather ratchets up a level.
She sighs. ‘He’s doing his best to help you, you know, it’s not his fault you’re sickly.’
‘Does it have to be someone’s fault?’
Heather’s about to reply, a wicked grin on her face, when I feel a steady hand press against my back.
‘There you are!’ Heather screeches and I breathe out heavily, hoping Anthony didn’t hear me raise my voice to her.
‘How are my two favourite ladies?’ he asks. ‘It’s so nice to see you getting along.’
I swallow my relief whole.
‘Come with me!’ Heather exclaims, reaching for his hand, leading him straight to the portrait she’s been dying to show him.
I observe them from a few steps behind. Anthony’s suit and shiny brogues match Heather’s style perfectly, her mac folded neatly over her arm now to reveal a low cut top beneath, its V shaped neckline pulled tantalisingly over her thick collarbone and down to her modest bust. Heather has a swimmer’s physique: broad, rangy, strong. She stands the exact same height as Anthony in her stilettos which, if
I didn’t know better, would put down to coincidence. But I do know better. And I’d be willing to bet Heather goes to every shoe store armed with a measuring tape, the only heels she allows herself to buy the ones that fit into a tight ‘Anthony approved’ window.
I take in the picture Heather was so keen to remind Anthony about. First off, it looks nothing like her. The woman in the portrait before us is literally an embellished skeleton. Her lips are pillowy and deep red, her eyes outlined with black saucers, her hair thick and yellow, Rapunzel-like, tumbling down the picture frame, kept in place with a red rose that sits over her left ear. It reminds me slightly of the butterfly clip I’d tried to fashion to keep my hair in place for tonight. I’d be willing to bet if skull woman came to life, then had to negotiate a taxi ride through central London and a frantic dash through the driving rain, that, not only, would her rose fall by the wayside, but her extensive eye make-up would melt too, fast-dribbling down her face as she took her first steps into the real world.
‘I need to tell you something,’ Heather says to Anthony, her eyes locked on the picture in front as his swivel towards her. ‘I met someone.’
‘You did?’ he replies. ‘Wonderful, I’m pleased for you.’
My ears prick up.
‘I’d given up, I really had.’
‘Where did you meet?’ Anthony asks, slightly cooler.
‘Work. He’s a forensics guy. We had this case… Some of the remains were a lot newer than those they’d been buried with – and it turned out there’d been an entire family burned, killed, and buried in the same pit as the site. He works with the police, but he trained as a doctor.’
I watch Anthony shift from right foot to left. Anthony had once confided in me that he’d applied to medical school but that his grades weren’t quite good enough to get in. He’d switched to archaeology and anthropology instead – and, though he’s made the most of it, though he loves it now, the teenager in the back of his mind will be reminding him that Heather’s new guy scored the career trajectory he wished he’d had at one point.
