by Rachel Marks
‘No, of course not. I mean …’
‘It’s OK. To be honest, I never thought it was going to work either. But maybe you were right. Maybe I just needed to remind her why she fell in love with me in the first place.’
‘That’s great,’ Mimi says, the positivity in her tone feeling somewhat forced.
‘Do you think I’m being stupid? That it’s all in my head?’
‘No. I mean, I’ve not met Kate, but if you think she’s starting to see things differently then I’m sure you’re right.’
‘I hope so. I mean, right now, she’s still marrying someone else next weekend. But I’m going to take your advice. I’m going to tell her I love her. I’m going to fight for her.’
‘Good for you.’ Despite her words, she sounds downbeat and I wonder if I’ve done something to piss her off.
‘It’s all thanks to you, you know? Without you, I would’ve still been drinking in the pub every night and lamenting everything I’ve lost.’
‘No problem. Just don’t tell my boss that though, or I’ll be in trouble for losing custom.’
I laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t.’
‘Right, well, I’m going to go and get some sleep. Let me know how it goes with Kate.’
‘I will. And Mimi?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you think I’m doing the right thing?’
She doesn’t answer straight away and there’s a ruffling, as if she is moving her phone from one ear to the other. ‘Of course. This is what we’ve been working towards, isn’t it? Our mission is almost complete.’
But as she says it, I realize that, in a strange way, I don’t want our joint quest to be up. Because Mimi has inadvertently become a highlight on an otherwise grey landscape, the piece of cake at a birthday party, and if our little plan does succeed and, by some miracle, I manage to win Kate back, I can’t imagine I’ll be seeing much of Mimi any more. And without her, the months ahead feel that bit less bright. In the same way that being around some people drags you down, Mimi pushes you up, like you’re sitting on someone’s shoulders and can suddenly see all these things you couldn’t see before.
‘We could still meet up one night this week if you want? How about some more culture? A poetry reading or something this time?’ I joke.
‘I’ve actually got a really busy week this week, but keep me posted on how it all goes.’
‘Oh, OK. Is everything all right?’
‘Yeah, of course. I’m just tired. Speak soon, yeah?’
And at this, she puts the phone down and I try to ignore the sense that something’s wrong, grab a pen and paper and start to plan what I’m going to say to Kate. When I’m about halfway through my speech, my phone vibrates with a message on WhatsApp. Noticing it’s from Kate, I feel my heart going crazy in my chest, hoping that maybe she’s going to tell me that she felt it too today, that she’s calling the wedding off, but then I open the message properly and see that it’s a photograph of the boys in their wedding suits, huge smiles on their faces. She’s followed it with a heart eyes emoji. And it feels like a gut punch. I know she didn’t send it to hurt me. That she just wants me to see how adorable our boys look. And they do. But I can’t help the sinking feeling in my chest. Does this mean that, despite everything – the almost-kiss, her reaction to me finding her the job, the look in her eyes when Finn talked about us being together as a family all the time – she really is going to marry Jerry after all?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
It’s Friday. The day before Kate’s wedding. And I still haven’t told her that I love her – that she should sack Jerry off and choose me. I nearly said it to her on the phone at the beginning of the week, but then she started talking about needing to get the boys new uniform and the moment was gone, lost in the detritus of our everyday lives. And since then, whenever I think of calling her, I start thinking about the picture of the boys in their wedding outfits and everything I have to say seems stupid, like she’ll just laugh at me. And it’s like this dense fog’s fallen over me, this odd lethargy that I can’t seem to shift.
And now I’m stuck at school doing Show and Tell, aka the very worst thing about primary school teaching. And there’s a fair amount of crap – reports, paperwork, parents’ evenings, accountability, planning, assessments. But Show and Tell is the worst, and by a very large margin.
Darcy holds up a sparkly gel keyring and the class stare at it, as if it’s a rare and precious jewel. The problem is she hasn’t quite got the concept of Show and Tell. It works best if you actually speak.
‘So what do you want to tell them about your keyring, Darcy?’
Nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of the question.
‘Was it a present?’
Perhaps a slight twitch of the head. It’s hard to tell.
‘What do you put the keyring on?’
Darcy stares at me, and I realize my error. Only ever ask yes or no questions.
‘Do you put it on your bookbag?’
Finally, a clear nod of the head.
‘Wonderful. Well, it’s lovely. You can sit down now, Darcy. Who’s next?’
I look down at the list of names who didn’t do it last week and, with a sense of trepidation, see that Harley is next.
‘Harley. Come on then. Your turn.’
Harley comes up to the front and pulls something out of his pocket. I recognize it immediately as the stone he just picked up off the playground. I know because I told him to leave it outside, but he clearly ignored me and smuggled it in. I quietly admire the sheer audacity he has to pull out his contraband for Show and Tell.
‘So what’s this, Harley?’
‘It’s my special stone. I found it on the beach,’ he lies. ‘I went with Mummy and it’s a magic stone and …’
Oh the irony, now I’m longing for the muteness of Darcy.
‘Fascinating, Harley. Thanks for bringing in your special stone.’
But then he holds it to his face in a gesture that actually makes my heart hurt a little bit. ‘I love it so much I’m going to sleep with it under my pillow.’
‘I’m glad you have found something so precious to you.’
Mrs Watson looks at me in disbelief. Even I’m surprised by the genuine compassion coming from my mouth.
‘And I’m going to read it a story,’ Harley continues.
‘I’m sure it will enjoy that.’
‘And I think it might like Coco Pops for breakfast.’
I put my hands gently on his shoulders and give him my warmest smile. ‘Sounds awesome, buddy. Now, who’s next?’
I expect him to just keep talking, ignoring me completely, but instead he sighs, and then sits down. After (painfully) working my way through the rest of the children on the list, wondering how the hell I’m going to get them to perform in our upcoming class assembly in front of the whole school in a month or so when most of them can barely stand up in front of the class and string two sentences together, it’s time for phonics.
‘Right, everyone get a whiteboard and a pen and come and sit down ready for our Jolly Phonics.’
It’s a clever marketing technique, I suppose, but there’s definitely nothing jolly about doing phonics with my class. In fact, sometimes, as I’m pretending to be an aeroplane whilst demonstrating the sound ‘n’ or rubbing my tummy to show them ‘m’, I feel a deep and dark depression falling across me like the shadow from an annoyingly persistent cloud on an otherwise sunny day.
By the time they’ve all got a pen and a whiteboard and agonized over the fact their pen is a bit pale or not of their desired colour, it’s nearly playtime, but like on Mastermind, I’ve started so I’ll finish. It is the only valuable thing I teach them all day so I don’t feel like I can skip it, as I do much of the rest of the curriculum.
‘OK. Let’s all have a go at writing the word “ dog ” – d, o, g.’ I sound it out slowly multiple times, aware that even with this assistance, most of them won’t get it. Then some of them start writing, others s
cribble on their shoes or legs, some just stare into space.
And suddenly, the fog lifts, and my head is bombarded with images … Kate in her wedding dress, the way we were both crying so much saying our vows that we collapsed into fits of giggles and had to force ourselves to continue. The same giggle, on our first date in McDonald’s – the pivotal moment when our friendship became something more and she agreed to make it official and be my girlfriend. The look in Kate’s eyes as she watched me cradling Gabe just after he’d been born – I still remember the feeling in my chest – first relief that Kate had survived what had turned out to be a very challenging labour – then fear, that I now had someone else to take care of, the feeling that I desperately didn’t want to mess up this beautiful, innocent little creature I’d been blessed with – and then overwhelming love, for my son and the woman who helped me to create him. The photograph of my mum at the front of the church on the day of the funeral … the images just keep coming.
I’m about to lose everything. It’s happening again. What am I doing sitting here when my wife is getting married to someone else tomorrow? My family is hanging on a rope and I’m about to let it go. They’re about to fall.
‘Mr Carlton? Mr Carlton?’ It takes me a moment to realize it’s Mrs Watson’s voice and I look up to a sea of whiteboards being held up in front of my face. I know I am supposed to be talking but I have no idea what to say. My mouth feels dry, my throat tight. I loosen my tie to allow more air in, but it doesn’t seem to help.
‘Mr Carlton, I’ve done it.’
‘Me too.’
‘And me.’
All at once, there’s a cacophony of voices and I feel like my head is about to explode. I push myself up out of my chair, steadying myself before stepping through the carpet of bodies.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Watson. Can you take over for a minute? I feel suddenly unwell.’
I don’t wait for her to respond, just storm out the door and down the corridor, charging through the doors until I reach the open air, which I suck in in a desperate attempt to fill my lungs and stop my racing heart.
*
I’m not sure the night before her wedding is the optimum time to tell my ex-wife that I’m still in love with her, to ask her to scrap the whole marrying another man thing and choose me, but right now, beggars can’t be choosers. It’s like a lightbulb’s gone on in my head, and now I can’t believe I’ve wasted all this time waiting for Kate to say she still loves me when, Mimi was right, I should have been brave enough to make the first move myself.
The hotel is clean but corporate. It’s not Kate. Not in the slightest. Just more ammunition for my gun. The receptionist tells me the room number (security’s clearly not great either) and I take the lift to the third floor. If I’m going to deliver the speech of my life, I do not want to do it sweating and out of breath from climbing too many stairs.
I walk along the corridor until I find Kate’s room. With a deep breath, I knock on the door and wait for Kate to open. She doesn’t. Instead, it’s one of her bridesmaids, Helen. She and her husband, Mike, were one of our shared ‘couple’ friends until we split up and they became one of Kate and Jerry’s couple friends. I should’ve expected it. Mike never did have a backbone.
‘Noah, what are you doing here?’
‘I need to speak with Kate quickly.’
‘Oh, please don’t tell me you’ve come here on some misguided supposedly romantic crusade to try to win her back?’
Yes, that’s exactly what I’ve come here for.
‘No, of course not. I just need to talk to her for a minute. It’s about the kids.’
The look of genuine concern on her face actually makes me feel a bit guilty for dismissing her as a hard-nosed traitor. ‘Are they OK?’
‘They’re fine. I mean, they’re safe. It’s nothing like that. Please can you just get Kate?’
The door opens wider and Kate appears, in a white dressing gown with a blue facemask caked on her skin and holding two slices of cucumber that must’ve been adorning her eyes.
‘What’s up, Noah?’
I give Helen a look that says time-for-you-to-go and, with a glance that says don’t-even-think-about-it, she takes the hint and goes back into the room.
‘Can we go somewhere and talk a minute?’
Kate gives me a bemused look. ‘Looking like this? I don’t think so. Whatever it is you need to say, you’re just going to have to say it here.’
It’s not quite how I imagined it, but it’s going to have to do. I close the door and sit down on the crappy dated carpet with my back leaning against the door. Kate does the same, putting her legs to the side of her and covering them with the bottom of her dressing gown.
Kate looks at me expectantly and suddenly all the words that I had rehearsed so clearly in my head abandon me and I’m left with only, ‘You look nice,’ which is a ridiculous thing to say when she looks like a Smurf.
‘No, I don’t. Come on, you did not come here to tell me that.’
I put my hands through my hair and lean my head back against the door. The strip lights on the ceiling give out a dull orange light. This is not how it was supposed to be. I wanted candles or fairy lights. Even the walls are painted a hideous green. I expect they were going for country house hotel, but it’s more like pea soup.
‘When did you stop loving me, Kate?’
She lets out a weary sigh.
‘I mean, did you just wake up one day and realize you were no longer in love with me or was it over time? Did you gradually just love me less and less until there was nothing?’
‘I didn’t stop loving you, Noah. I still love you now. I just couldn’t take being with you any more. I gave up on you, I guess. That’s the best way to describe it.’
I clamp my bottom lip between my teeth. ‘Right. Thanks.’
Kate turns her body towards me. ‘Are you really going to do that? Are you going to play the victim?’
She doesn’t let me answer the question. Instead, after the tiniest of breaths, she powers on.
‘Do you remember all those messages I would leave on your phone? God, I’d be embarrassed to hear them now, so weak and desperate, begging you to call me, to just let me know if you were alive or dead.’
It suddenly dawns on me that this isn’t exactly how I was expecting the conversation to pan out. That, in fact, I might have just opened a Pandora’s box of resentment that Kate has kindly kept buried all this time.
‘I wouldn’t have even minded you needing your little blowouts, your escapes, but you didn’t even tell me where you were going, when you were coming back, if you still wanted to be married to me or not.’
‘I always wanted to be married to you. I’m not the one that went back on our vows.’
I know, as the words fall from my mouth, that they are like putting a kid’s fancy dress costume near a flame.
‘Don’t you dare. I fought for us. I clung on for as long as I could. I worshipped you, Noah. I bloody worshipped you, but you broke me.’
At this, the tears come. Instinctively, I put my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer to me. To my surprise, she accepts my embrace.
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.’
After a few moments, she releases herself from me and sits up, trails running from her eyes down her blue face like melted wax crayons. ‘Do you think that I don’t wish I could’ve been enough for you? That I could’ve mended you? I tried so hard, but whatever I did you just seemed to get worse. I thought having the boys might help, but even that wasn’t enough.’
‘I didn’t need mending, Kate.’
‘But you did. You did, Noah. Even now, you’re still so furious with your mum but you won’t admit it because it makes you feel guilty, as if you’re being disrespectful, but you need to …’
‘I think I should go. I’m sorry for coming here. It was a mistake.’
I expect Kate to apologize. To say she’s overstepped the mark, but she doesn’t. In fac
t, she looks free, like I’ve finally given her the opportunity to be honest and she’s relieved by the release. ‘So why did you come here? To upset me the night before my wedding? Was that the reason you came?’
I shake my head. ‘I’ve never purposefully upset you. I came to tell you that …’ Why is it so bloody hard to just say it? ‘Honestly, I came to convince you that Jerry isn’t right for you. That he’s a knob and I’m much better.’ I laugh and am glad to see the hint of a smile on Kate’s face. ‘I’m hotter, better in bed, funnier, obviously, we have more in common, we have two beautiful boys together …’
The more I list, the more the disguise of humour washes away, and what I really feel springs to the forefront.
Kate pushes a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes. She’s had her hair cut into a shoulder-length bob for the wedding. It looks too neat, too ordered, and I feel a strange longing for her long, tousled surf-girl waves.
‘Jerry’s kind. He takes care of me. He loves those boys as if they were his own.’
‘He doesn’t even read.’ It might not seem like a big thing to some people, but I see it as a fundamental flaw in his character. OK, it’s not quite up there with ‘abusive’, but it’s close.
Kate laughs. ‘I know. I must admit that was the one thing that gave me pause for a while.’
I take advantage of her softening to press forward. ‘You said it yourself, he doesn’t know you like I know you.’
Kate shakes her head, as if having some kind of internal argument with herself. ‘But he’s trying to know me. He wants to know me. It takes time to build that stuff. It’s not fair to mark him down for that …’
‘I wouldn’t do the bad stuff any more, Kate,’ I say, noticing the desperation in my voice but not being able to disguise it. ‘I’m sorting myself out, stopping the drinking. I’m doing so much better …’
‘It’s too late.’
‘Remember all the good bits, the times we were so happy. We’d just have those bits. Think how amazing we could be.’
Kate starts fidgeting in a way that suggests she’s drawing the conversation to a close. ‘Soon, Noah, you are going to meet someone who you don’t feel the need to run away from, who makes you feel happy and safe and secure, and you’ll be glad this little plan to ruin my wedding didn’t come to fruition.’
