by Tom Ellen
‘I just don’t want you to say anything about it in front of Becky and Phil and everyone,’ Alice says. ‘Not until we’ve talked about it a bit more. I told Becks you’d only leave Wyndham’s if you found something a bit more … you know, lucrative. I mean, teaching’s OK, but it’s not exactly up there on the wow factor, is it? It’s more something you do when you can’t do anything else.’
My throat tightens as I picture Mum: the passion with which she used to talk about her job. She’d come home at the end of every term laden down with bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates, stacks of cards from parents and pupils alike – Thank you so much! Best Teacher Ever! Couldn’t have done it without you!
The cards kept coming long after the pupils had left school – decades after, sometimes. More than one ended with the simple statement: You changed my life.
Alice is looking at me, concern stamped firmly across her face. ‘I just think you should hang on at Wyndham’s a little bit longer, babe,’ she says. ‘I know it’s boring at the moment, and I know management consultancy is not fully your thing, but Dad’s positive that a better position will open up in the next six months or so.’
I remember Alice telling me her dad was a management consultant. And now, apparently, I am one too.
I need to get out of this flat. My head is fizzing and my stomach is churning and the Nurofen has done precisely sod all. I need to be outside. I need to be alone. I need to think seriously about what the hell is happening here.
‘What time is everyone coming again?’ I say, standing up.
‘Half eleven,’ Alice says. ‘Why?’
‘I just wanted to …’ I rack my brain for an excuse, and feel my phone through my pocket. ‘I was just gonna call Harv quickly. To say happy Christmas and stuff.’
She flinches. ‘Harvey? What, why? You haven’t spoken to him in years.’
I squeeze the bridge of my nose tightly. ‘What?’
‘Well, unless you’ve spoken to him more recently but haven’t told me about it. Have you spoken to him?’
There’s no time to think about this right now. I just need to get outside. ‘No, I’ve just been … thinking lately about getting back in touch with him,’ I stammer. ‘So I thought I’d give him a call today.’
‘Ben, are you kidding?’ Alice snaps. ‘You know how weird he was about me and you getting together. He told you that you should try and get back with Daphne after you broke up, for Christ’s sake! I thought we agreed it was probably best if you didn’t see him any more.’
Did I really agree to that? I look back at the black-and-white photo and see my own stupid face grimacing back at me. What have I turned into? Am I really the sort of person who’ll ditch his best mate just because his fiancée tells him to?
‘You’re confusing me now, Ben,’ Alice says. ‘And this is really not a good day for it.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ I start towards the kitchen door. ‘I still don’t feel great, to be honest. I think I might just nip out for a walk around the block, just to get some air.’
She sighs. ‘Right, well, don’t be too long. I still need your help with stuff.’
I bolt down the hallway, grabbing a jacket off the banister and heading straight for the front door. It feels like the walls are closing in around me. I can’t shake that image of my face in the photo, my mouth twisted painfully into a fake smile.
Once I’m outside in the freezing fresh air, I pull the iPhone 13 out of my pocket and scroll through the address book.
Before I can get to Harv, though, I find Daphne.
Chapter Forty-Two
It’s the same number.
I tap on the thumbnail-sized profile picture next to her name to enlarge it. My stomach drops when I realise it shows two people, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders in front of a beach sunset. I recognise Daff instantly from her curly black hair, but the photo has been taken from so far away that I can’t make out the man’s face under his sun hat.
It is definitely a man, though.
She’s with someone new. She might even be married to him.
Heart thumping, I go into my messages and scroll down to see that my last contact with her was in June 2022 – a year and a half ago. I’d sent a long, slightly desperate-sounding text full of questions – How are you? How’s the job going? Hope your mum and dad are well? – and Daff had replied with one short, simple sentence: Yeah, all OK, thanks – hope you are too.
Scrolling further back, I can see that I’d fired off two similar messages four and five months before the last one. Daphne hadn’t even replied to those.
I stare out at the unfamiliar street in front of me. My life has turned upside down. I’m now hiding away messages from Daff, hoping that Alice won’t find them.
Not that there’s anything to hide: Daphne clearly has no desire to see me or hear from me. The realisation hits me with a dull thud. There’s no second chance: I have lost her. I try to hold on to Harv’s advice about my inner optimist, but the words seem meaningless now. I can’t imagine my life without her in it.
My thumb hovers over her profile picture. I’m desperate to speak to her, to find out what happened between us – when and how and why we broke up. But the blurry face of that man beside her stops me from making the call. Am I really going to be able to cope with the answers to these questions?
I hear the front door open behind me. ‘Ben? Seriously? I said I needed you!’
Over the next two hours, I shadow Alice around the flat like a robot butler, assisting her clumsily with the icing of cakes, chilling of cava and plumping of cushions. In a weird way, it’s actually nice to be bossed about – to not have to think for myself – as it stops my brain constantly spinning back to Daphne. That said, as half eleven approaches, a new kind of panic starts to creep in.
It’s the idea of not knowing what’s coming. It felt exciting yesterday – in 2020 – before Daff found those messages, but now it just fills me with a clammy sense of dread. I have no idea who is about to arrive at our place, how I might know them, what I should say to them …
‘Ben?’
Alice snaps me out of this thought by glaring pointedly at the cushion I’m gently pummelling. ‘You’ve already done that one. Twice.’
‘Sorry.’
Chores finally completed, we head back up to the bedroom, where Alice suggests – fairly firmly – that I opt for a blue-and-pink gingham shirt and cream chinos: a combination that makes me look like a Tory MP on holiday.
Once this David Cameron cosplay has been approved, Alice shoos me out again so she can select her own outfit. Without her monitoring my every move, I can finally do what I’ve been dying to do ever since I woke up – snoop through the entire flat and try to piece together the last three years of my life.
If I wasn’t so utterly freaked out, it might almost be exciting. I feel like an amnesiac in a film: sneaking through the apartment digging for clues, reassembling the jigsaw of my past. Like Guy Pearce in Memento. Or a less attractive Goldie Hawn in Overboard.
The first thing that strikes me as I take a proper look around is the almost total lack of Christmas decorations. Mum and Daphne both went nuts with the tinsel dissemination at this time of year, and as a result I’ve spent nearly every December of my life in a house bursting with festive colour. Here, though – just like in Alice’s Paris flat – the only acknowledgement to the time of year is a smallish Christmas tree in the corner of the living room, decorated sparsely with a length of thick white tinsel that could easily double as a feather boa, and a few grapefruit-sized gold and silver baubles. The tree’s general vibe is expensive, stylish and somehow vaguely aloof. If this tree was a human being, it would be Anna Wintour.
The rest of the room resembles a page torn from a glossy design magazine: a minimalist blend of chrome and glass. There are two shallow grey sofas that look like they’ve been lifted from a Mad Men set, and a sleek coffee table with a book full of Banksy murals lying open on it.
The w
hole place has the feel of a trendy Soho hotel: nice for a cocktail or a posh dinner, but not the sort of place you’d actually want to live.
And yet … here I am.
I creep back upstairs, past the bathroom, where I think I catch a glimpse of matching his-and-hers towelling robes – but I’m too traumatised to actually go in and check. At the very back of the flat, I come across a cramped, cluttered box room that appears to be my office. Hidden among the vacuum-packed mountains of Alice’s clothes, there’s a little wooden desk with a laptop on it, which displays my email inbox. It’s a work account, and as I scroll through, I find nothing but incomprehensible management consultancy-themed messages, most of them branded with screaming red exclamation marks. I can feel my blood pressure rise just looking at them.
Is this really what I do now? How have I not had at least one heart attack?
I try reading one of the emails, but I understand roughly one word in six. In the desk drawer, though, I discover something else entirely. Underneath another sheaf of terrifying business papers, there’s a slim cardboard folder containing a brochure for a company called Those Who Can. Flicking through, I see that it’s advertising a year-long paid course to train as a secondary school teacher. There are forms inside it – pages and pages of complex forms – and by the look of it, I’m about three quarters of the way through filling them out.
Future Me is obviously serious about this – about teaching – and for the first time, I feel a glow of pride at what I’ve become, rather than the usual blend of shame and embarrassment.
My throat tightens as I catch a glimpse of one of my longer answers on the form: I’m attracted to teaching because of my mum, the paragraph begins. But before the memories of her can take hold, the doorbell sounds.
I slam the drawer shut as I see Alice whisk down the stairs in a long dark blue dress, and all of a sudden the hallway is filled with loud voices and the frantic plap of cheek-kissing.
‘Hello! Hello! Happy Christmas!’ I hear her cry merrily. And then, less merrily: ‘Ben! They’re here!’
I walk downstairs to see a stupidly good-looking couple beaming back at me. They look like something out of an IKEA advert. The man is in jeans and rolled-up shirt sleeves, salt-and-pepper stubble covering his Captain America jawline. The woman is all golden hair and gleaming teeth and a very un-December tan. She is also heavily pregnant.
‘Ben! Happy Christmas! How are you?’
She pulls me in and pecks me on both cheeks over the exercise ball of her stomach.
‘Oops – belly bump!’ she laughs. ‘Sorry, I can’t help it these days!’
‘Yeah, watch out, mate,’ the man grins. ‘The little bastard’s kicking like mad at the moment – you’re liable to get a boot to the chest if you go anywhere near her.’
The woman sticks her bottom lip out, mock angry. ‘Phil! Please don’t call our son a little bastard.’
‘Sorry, sorry …’ The man holds his hands up. ‘I meant big bastard – if he’s anything like his old man!’
They both bray with laughter at this, and I decide that either the standard of comedy has dropped significantly in 2023, or these people are absolutely dreadful.
‘Anyway, merry Christmas, fella,’ the man says, slapping me hard on the back. ‘Good to see you.’
Alice is standing with her hands on her hips, staring at the woman in awe.
‘Honestly, Becks, you’re glowing! Isn’t she glowing, Ben?’
‘Yes, you are,’ I say. ‘You’re glowing.’
Becks gives a satisfied squeal and flaps at our compliments with both hands. As she follows Alice through to the living room, the man – Phil – leans in to me and whispers, ‘This’ll be your life in a few months, buddy. Zero sex and constantly getting your ear chewed off about swollen ankles. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!’
He shoots me an unpleasant grin, and I’m reminded strongly of Jonno from Thump.
In the living room, we stand in a circle beside the Anna Wintour tree, which looks on disdainfully while Alice passes round a tray of vol-au-vents.
‘Oh God, you are brilliant, Ali,’ Becky says through a mouthful of pastry flakes. ‘Did you really make these?’
Alice flushes. ‘No, they’re er … they’re Waitrose, actually.’
‘Aw.’ Becky tilts her head and smiles. ‘Oh well. Still yummy!’
We all murmur in agreement, and I swear I see Alice’s left eye twitch slightly as she takes the tray back.
‘Drop of cava?’ she asks, holding up the bottle.
‘Bubbles?’ Phil smacks his palms together. ‘Fuck yes!’
Becky places a hand on her stomach. ‘Just water for me, Ali.’
‘Oh babe, really?’ Alice frowns. ‘They say you can have one little glass, don’t they?’
Becks smiles at her kindly: a primary school teacher correcting a pupil. ‘Yes, they do say that, but it just doesn’t feel very responsible, if you know what I mean? When you guys are expecting, you’ll understand.’
‘Sure,’ says Alice, through clenched teeth.
‘Well, you can fill me up,’ Phil chuckles. ‘If the missus is eating for two, then I’m drinking for two!’
This is rewarded with another gale of laughter, and I suddenly wish Harv was here so I had someone to telekinetically cringe with. But in this reality, I haven’t spoken to Harv in years. I’ve ditched my best friend for the world’s most irritating couple.
‘Well, cheers,’ Phil says, as we all clink glasses. ‘Christmas with mates instead of family is so the way forward.’
‘Mmm,’ Becky agrees. ‘A year off from listening to Phil’s granny rattle on about how much she hates everyone at her nursing home.’
Phil rolls his eyes. ‘The old bird can talk for England, it’s true.’
‘Are you guys seeing your folks at all?’ Becky asks Alice.
Alice nods. ‘We’re going up tomorrow.’
‘Oh, lovely.’ Becky pouts at me sadly. ‘Aw, you must miss your mum terribly at this time of year, Ben?’
‘Yes, I … Yeah.’ I scratch the back of my neck. ‘Christmas was always—’
‘So, how’s the wedding prep going?’ she asks, turning to Alice.
‘Good! So good!’ Alice trills. ‘I meant to tell you: we had a bit of luck with that string quartet. They’re available! Oceano Strings!’ She wrinkles her forehead. ‘I think maybe you guys were thinking about them for your wedding, weren’t you?’ She looks genuinely unsure, and despite everything, I can’t help marvelling at the performance. She’s definitely matured as an actor since The Carol Revisited.
Becky’s eyes are seething above her rictus grin. ‘Oh. Wow. Amazing! Yeah, we did consider them, but I think in the end we just felt a DJ was a bit less … showy. A bit more us. Didn’t we, Phil?’
‘Yeah,’ Phil agrees through a mouthful of vol-au-vent. ‘He was a bloody good DJ, too, wasn’t he?’
‘Amazing,’ says Alice.
‘You know he did Dermot O’Leary’s wedding?’
‘Yes! Becks mentioned that. A few times.’
I watch Alice closely as she continues this passive-aggressive rally against the woman who is supposedly her best friend. And all the time, I can’t help thinking: was she like this in Paris? Or at Marek’s wedding?
I’m positive she wasn’t like it at uni, when we both lived in scruffy hoodies and subsisted on roll-ups and sausage sandwiches. But having just relived Paris, I could definitely see glimpses of this new side of her: the snarkiness, the competitiveness, the fixation on work and money. But I guess, first time around – just like at the wedding – I was so totally, dumbly preoccupied by the fact that she seemed to fancy me. Everything else had just been background noise against all her arm touches and smiles.
Now, though, that attraction seems to have been replaced by irritation and frustration and boredom. She’s marrying me – she wants to start trying for a baby with me – but she doesn’t seem to actually like me.
It makes me long for Daphne
in a way that is physically painful. For her goofiness and her genuineness and her … Just her.
We all sit down on the Mad Men sofas – girls on one, boys on the other – and as Becks and Alice continue their game of fixed-grin verbal tennis, Phil asks me, ‘How’s work then, mate?’
‘It’s, erm …’ I think of the swarm of red exclamation marks in my inbox. ‘Stressful.’
Phil snorts loudly. ‘Fuck off. You’re shagging the boss’s daughter! You could take a dump in the boardroom and probably still be in line for a promotion.’ He reaches across me to top up his glass. ‘You know, I’ve got mates who’d kill to work at Wyndham’s. You should see their faces when I tell them you just breezed in there with sod-all experience.’ He clinks my glass with his. ‘Jammy bastard.’
I nod. ‘Yeah. I suppose I am.’
‘I’ve heard they’re a pretty mad bunch over there. Big sessions at lunchtime and all that. Is it a laugh? I bet it’s a fucking good laugh.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I say. ‘It’s a really great laugh.’
I can feel myself starting to sweat with anxiety now, because what am I going to do if he keeps probing? I have no idea what I even do at this Wyndham’s place, much less the names of my apparently mad and hilarious co-workers. If I can’t provide answers to the most basic questions about my job, it’s going to look more than a little odd. I’m going to have to feign some sort of recent head injury or something.
I feel an overpowering urge to get out of this room, but before I can think of an excuse, the doorbell sounds again and Alice jumps to her feet.
‘Ooh, that’ll be Marek and Dipal!’
Chapter Forty-Three
‘Marek?’ I say.
Alice frowns down at me. ‘Yes, Marek. What is wrong with you today?’
‘No, nothing. Sorry.’
She goes out to answer the door, and Phil thumps me on the back. ‘Wedding’s not for four months, and they’re already bickering like a married couple!’
