by Lindsey Kelk
‘That’ll change when Ming the Merciless is older,’ I said, hoping it was true. ‘She’s caught up now but she’s still Cass.’
‘She’ll be pregnant again by Christmas,’ Abi declared. ‘And I don’t want you to think I’m saying this to be a massive bitch, but if you and Adam don’t work it out, you’ll see what I mean. How often do you two go out with the two of them? Or go over for dinner? If you break up and she’s still married to his brother, how often do you think you’re going to see her? As often as I do now, which is to say, never.’
Things had been different ever since Cassie got together with Chris but the thought I’d lose her altogether if I broke up with Adam hadn’t even occurred to me. She was my Cass before she was Chris’s – surely he wouldn’t get my best friend in a break-up.
‘People pick sides, Liv.’ Abi walked around the bed and into the tiny bathroom. The deafening extractor fan whirred into life as she turned on the light. ‘They say they won’t but they always do. You don’t like telling her stuff now in case it gets back to Chris – imagine what it’ll be like if you and Adam aren’t together any more.She’ll know everything about his life and he’ll know everything about yours. How are you supposed to get over him if he’s always around, one friend removed?’
‘But we haven’t broken up,’ I said, hugging the pillow to me. ‘Technically.’
‘And I’m sure you won’t,’ she said with a half-hearted attempt at optimism as she closed the bathroom door. ‘Everything will be OK in the end.’
Abi was the most cynical woman in the world when it came to relationships; mine, hers, Jennifer Aniston’s – it didn’t matter, she never believed things were going to end well. Between her parents’ multiple divorces and suffering more shitty boyfriends than Taylor Swift, I didn’t exactly blame her for throwing out the fairy tale but it would have been nice if she could have lied a little bit more convincingly.
‘What is this?’ she asked, picking up my borrowed copy of Keeping the Love You Find from the bedside table.
‘Cass lent it me,’ I replied, cringing. ‘It’s actually not the worst one.’
‘I should burn it and help you both.’ She climbed across the bed and hopped under the covers. The shortest possible route, of course. ‘Still nothing?’
‘Nope.’ I shook my head and clobbered her around the head with a pillow. ‘And honestly, I don’t want to think about it right now.’
In my head, there were two ways this could go. The first involved Adam showing up at my door with an engagement ring, confessing to cold feet and a panic fling that never went further than a kiss, begging for my forgiveness which I gave unconditionally and then silently resented for the rest of my days. The second was a long drawn out parade of misery, where he casually swanned around the village with assorted beautiful women while I messaged boys on the internet with no intention of ever meeting up with them and our friends continued to play he said, she said, until our relationship withered away slowly and I died alone.
For some reason, my pride was still erring towards the second option.
‘I wouldn’t talk to him if he did call,’ I said loudly. The louder you were, the more certain you sounded. It was the same technique my granddad had always used to make himself understood when he travelled abroad. ‘Fuck him, Abi. He lied to my face. Well, my ear. You know what I mean. We said we wouldn’t see other people, so yeah. Fuck him.’
Abi looked worried, but she looked convinced as I got up to clean my teeth, vibrating with righteous anger.
One of the ceiling spotlights was out, lending the bathroom a more flattering light than usual but I was grateful, the overactive extractor fan, less so. I turned to the side and looked in the mirror, electric toothbrush in one hand, fist full of pyjama top in the other. I wasn’t in terrible shape – I wasn’t in Victoria’s Secret swimsuit catalogue condition either – but there wasn’t anything going on underneath my polka-dot flannel that would send a man running for the hills. I hadn’t been blessed with a massive rack like Abi, but I did have a semi-decent behind that could pass for the kind of arse that did a hundred squats every morning when it was squashed into a pair of black opaque tights.
And then there was my face. Big eyes, small nose, perfectly adequate mouth and nothing skin-wise that couldn’t be made decent with a bit of make-up and the right filter. And that was just the wrapping. I was a catch! Probably. I had a job, I liked a laugh. Admittedly I didn’t give two shits about football or beer and I couldn’t watch a porno without doubling over in hysterics but I was easy-going and kind and really good at the pub quiz. Who wouldn’t want a go on that?
There was, of course, one very obvious answer to that question, I thought, giving myself a filthy look and spitting my toothpaste into the sink. Adam Floyd. What did tall, dark and car key-less have that I didn’t? Other than six extra inches of leg, Kylie Jenner lips and my boyfriend? She didn’t know his MOT was due at the end of the month, she wouldn’t get the special fabric softener because the regular kind brought him out in a rash, and she certainly wouldn’t know that singing the theme tune to ThunderCats but changing the words to ‘Thunderpants’ was, as far as Adam was concerned, the funniest thing in the world. That stuff mattered, those were the things that made a relationship.
But what happened when those things became predictable and dull, and instead of your lovely girlfriend with her nice blonde hair and reliable old denim jacket, you started to crave a sexy brunette in black leather? I bet she had at least one tattoo and knew all the words to Nirvana songs and only drank black coffee and had never, ever, spent a Tuesday evening googling ‘what happened to the cast of Saved by the Bell?’ I looked into my own eyes and tried to pinpoint the exact moment things had changed. Was there ever such a thing for anyone? One of Cass’s books said falling in love was like falling asleep, that it happened slowly at first and then all at once. Was falling out of love the same? Had he really fallen out of love with me and I hadn’t noticed?
‘No good can come of these questions,’ I told myself, wishing I was getting into bed with Adam instead of Abi and wondering if I would ever get into bed with Adam ever again. With half a bottle of wine sloshing around inside my stomach, I slipped my toothbrush back on its charger and turned out the deafening fan and the buzzing bathroom light.
‘Are you reading my messages again?’ I asked, walking in on Abi holding my phone in her hand. ‘Because if you are, you should know I use “wanker” as a term of endearment. Like the kids.’
‘Just checking the time.’ She popped my phone back on the nightstand, face down, and pulled down the duvet, inviting me into my own bed. ‘How is it midnight already?’
‘It’s a mystery,’ I replied. My head found the pillow right away and my eyes closed, heavy and dry. ‘Goodnight, slagchops.’
‘Love you too,’ she whispered, turning her back towards me and burrowing down under the covers while I lay awake, staring at the ceiling.
Abi was already snoring when the quiet click of Daniel Craig’s claws pattered around the room. They halted for a quiet moment before a soft grunt sounded by my feet, turned a couple of times, then climbed up my legs and settled on my chest as I stared up at the ceiling. DC was a small cat and couldn’t have weighed more than six pounds soaking wet, so I knew the heavy, cold weight that pressed down on my heart was nothing to do with him. I rubbed him behind the ears, picked up my phone and pulled the sheets over my head. Without disturbing Abi or the cat, I opened my photos and went straight to our folder. Two hundred and forty-seven photos of Adam, of the two of us, of DC. Hundreds of photos of our little family that seemed to be all I had left. I flicked through for a minute, torturing myself with happy smiles and awkward kissing selfies before turning it off and sliding it under the bed. With the after-glare of the screen blinding me against the low light in my bedroom, I willed sleep to come and take me away as warm tears spilled out to soak my pillow.
This was the worst part, I reminded myself, everyone went through this bit so
oner or later – but even knowing that really didn’t seem to help.
19
When I woke up Thursday morning, Jane had already gone. She left a note on the kitchen table to say thanks and that she’d pick the car up later. My first reaction was to be relieved, mostly because I’d woken up, still wearing Liv’s wombat shirt and didn’t have the energy to take it off when I went downstairs to make a cup of tea. But as the kettle boiled almost instantly and I chucked a teabag in a cleanish mug, I realized I was also disappointed.
‘It’s not fair,’ I said out loud to the kitchen.
All right, yes, I should have talked to Liv when she called me in the pub. Why was everything suddenly so confusing? And why was I talking to myself? I missed Daniel Craig, he always understood. I wondered how he was getting on, stuck on his own at home with Liv. I bet he missed me too, that cat needed a man around the house.
Three months ago, everything had been certain. I was going to propose to Liv, she and Daniel were going to move in and we were going to live happily ever after. I’d even decorated his bedroom in secret but now I was a thirty-four-year-old man with a fish-themed back bedroom with an in-built kitty water fountain. It seemed like a good idea at the time, now it just made me look like I had a very extreme fetish. The giant litter tray did not help.
Now I didn’t have a clue what was going on. Yes, I’d had a momentary freak out but that didn’t mean Liv had to run off and have an existential crisis of her own and make everything worse. If anything happened with Jane and me, quite frankly, it would be her own fault. I brewed my tea, shook out the last dregs of my cornflakes and sat down at the kitchen table, chomping with great purpose. Women had to make everything so complicated. I remembered the first time I used Liv’s bathroom and spent fifteen minutes reading the back of every product in her shower and then smelling them all. I had had one bottle of shower gel and one bottle of shampoo – she must have had twenty things in there. Even having a shower had to be turned into a production. Admittedly, I had added a face scrub and two different moisturizers to my bathroom but that was her influence as well.
‘Women can’t leave things alone,’ I announced to the empty room, imagining Daniel Craig agreeing with me while patiently awaiting the leftover milk from my cereal bowl.
And Jane … I could not work her out. She seemed interested, she was definitely giving me signs, I was sure of it. Not that it mattered; I wanted to work things out with Liv. But Jane was so hot. I’d gone out with some really fit girls. Ana, the Colombian girl I’d travelled with in South America, had been improbably beautiful and Jen, my uni girlfriend, was a stunning redhead and then there was Liv, hardly someone you’d kick out of bed for eating biscuits. Still, there was something about Jane that I couldn’t put my finger on. She put me on edge, but in a good way. She was the present under the tree on Christmas Eve. You could see it, you were almost certain what was inside but you were still so excited about opening it the next morning, just in case it was nothing like how you imagined. And it wasn’t just that she was fit, there was a connection. Before Liv that was something I told myself to explain away the fact that I wanted to get someone into bed and never get out again but with Jane, there really was something there. We had so much in common, travelling, changing careers, annoying older brothers. And we were both tall. That had to count for something.
The phone rang while I was washing out what had been my last clean cereal bowl and I saw Tom’s name appear on the screen.
‘All right,’ I answered after wiping off my fingertips on the back of my shorts. ‘How are you?’
‘Good, mate, good,’ he replied. ‘I’m in the car, on my way up to a conference in Norwich. Thought I’d check in.’
‘There are so many days when I regret dropping out of law school,’ I mused, opening the back door and getting a face full of the clean, crisp September morning. Setting the phone to speaker, I peeled off Liv’s T-shirt, looked at it for a moment and then threw it in the washing machine, replacing it with my red hoodie that hung over the back of a kitchen chair. ‘Today is not one of them.’
‘It’s a glamorous business,’ he said with a laugh. ‘What’s going on in your neck of the woods?’
‘Not much.’ I crunched the first fallen leaves underfoot on my way up the garden to the workshop.
Tom had a beautiful house in London but his back garden amounted to a twelve by twelve square of concrete behind the kitchen, shared by a disposable barbecue, two chairs, a table and an assortment of cats, rats and god knows what else. One thing I loved about living out in the country was the space, the chance to breathe. My grandparents hadn’t done much with the house or the garden in their last few years but the sheer scope of it had given me so much to play with. I had a greenhouse, a patio, a little wild flower garden at the very back (because try as I might, I couldn’t keep anything alive on purpose) and a huge lush green lawn that just begged you to get outside whenever the sun was shining. While part of me still missed city life, the garden alone was a decent trade.
‘The wood for the bar’s arriving in ten minutes so I’m starting on the build this morning.’
‘And what does that entail exactly?’
‘They want it to have an older look, so I’ll sand it down a bit, stain it, age it, you know. You’ve got to rough it up a bit but you want to keep the top smooth for drinks and everything.’
‘You realize the only tools I’ve got in my house are a hand drill and one of those sets of screwdrivers you get in a Christmas cracker, don’t you?’
‘You’re a failure as a man,’ I told him. ‘There’s no hope for you.’
‘I already know that, Ad, I don’t need you to tell me. I came home the other night and Mads was changing the plug on the toaster. I didn’t have a fucking clue what she was doing, I’d have bought a new toaster.’
‘Are you coming to the christening on Sunday?’ I asked. ‘Chris said Maddie had been helping out.’
‘Maddie has not been “helping out”,’ Tom corrected. ‘Maddie has been working round the clock to find available Cirque du Soleil performers to perform a flash-mob-style performance to Circus by Britney Spears.’
‘I have been led to believe there is a circus theme,’ I replied gravely. ‘My brother is a monster.’
‘I’d like to disagree but my girlfriend was practically in tears all night last night because the elephant he wanted has got a cold and she was too afraid to tell him. She’s a professional events organizer, Adam, the woman deals with psychotic brides day in and day out – and she’s scared of your brother.’
‘I refer you to my last sentence,’ I replied. ‘He’s a monster.’
‘The last christening I went to didn’t even have drinks, it was just a cup of tea and a Fondant Fancy,’ Tom replied. ‘Who has an elephant? Do you know he wanted lions? He actually wanted her to find lions. For his child’s christening.’
I wanted to be surprised but I wasn’t. I could still remember the look on his face when I told him I couldn’t get Bradley Cooper to show up to his Las Vegas stag do and I was fairly certain he still hadn’t forgiven me, Bradley, or the state of Nevada.
‘So, things are sorted out with Liv?’ Tom’s voice was far too cheerful for this early in the morning. ‘Or are you still in the doghouse?’
‘Doghouse, hundred per cent,’ I said, settling down at my bench. ‘In fact, I’m not even allowed in the doghouse. I can see it, but I’m somewhere down the bottom of the garden, piss wet through in the mud.’
‘Did you apologize?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you say it like you meant it?’
‘I did mean it.’
‘At any point, did she say “I’m not going to tell you what’s wrong”?’ he asked. ‘Because that’s a sure sign you’re in deep shit.’
‘She told me she wanted a break,’ I replied. ‘And that was after I’d had the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech.’ I left out the phone call the night before, on the grounds of it being altogether t
oo depressing.
Tom made a noise I usually associated with car mechanics and on-call electricians.
‘I don’t like the sound of that. Sorry, mate.’
‘Yeah, well.’ I raked my hand through my hair, catching on the tangles I had not brushed out. I was out of Liv’s conditioner and I couldn’t bring myself to buy more. Not just because it was embarrassing, but because the smell of her hair wafting around my face all day was too much. ‘It’ll work itself out, won’t it?’
‘It will if you want it to,’ he replied. ‘You could always try talking to her again. It can’t hurt, can it?’
‘I suppose not.’
Tom made the noise again.
I had absolutely zero intention of trying to speak to Liv again after that phone call. She’d come round when she’d calmed down. After all, she was the one who had asked for time and space, I was only giving her what she wanted.
‘I hate making rash, sweeping statements but women don’t always say exactly what they mean,’ he said, a crackly voice down a crackly line. ‘Or at least, they’re not as black and white in what they say. Is there any chance she’s hoping you’re on your way round with a massive diamond ring to declare your intentions?’
‘Normally, I’d say no,’ I replied. She certainly didn’t sound like she was waiting for a ring on the phone. ‘But I’m at a complete loss right now. She’s not acting like herself at all.’
‘Then you’ve got to take her at her word,’ Tom said. ‘And hope for the best.’
Whatever that meant.
‘I’d better get off,’ I replied, keen to end this conversation and get started on the far more straightforward sanding portion of my day. That was a part that made sense. ‘Busy day – got to clear some space for a wood delivery.’
