by Shari Low
‘And you. I was so worried about coming up here with him because I don’t know anyone, but he said everyone would be lovely and they have been.’
‘Of course. All newcomers are very welcome,’ I said, with a smile that was intended to set her at ease. This was fine. It really was. So my ex had a girlfriend. I could deal with that. I could… With the help of a bucket of wine. I sent up a silent prayer that she didn’t encounter my mother. Ida’s reasons for living were firstly to find the fame and adulation that she didn’t achieve first time around, and secondly, to see Richard and I get back together, so she could revert to bragging about him. There was no telling what she would do if she met this Charlotte-shaped flaw in that plan, especially after a few glasses of champagne.
I tuned back in to what Charlotte was saying. ‘I know you, er, dated for a little while.’
Dated. For a little while. Is that the same as ‘lived together for two years’?
Dr Richard Campbell could bloody pay for that bucket of wine.
‘Ah, we did, but it was nothing. Really. We weren’t at all right for each other. I’m delighted that he’s met you. He looks happy.’ I’m not sure any of that – except the last bit – was true.
She gave me a hug. ‘Thank you. No wonder he dated you – you’re so nice.’
So nice. That was me. Liv – the nice single one with the bucket of wine.
She toddled off back to her beloved boyfriend and I deliberately avoided glancing at them throughout dinner.
‘What’s up with you?’ Sasha whispered at one point just before the speeches.
‘I can’t look over that way at Richard,’ I said, gesturing to the table on my right. ‘And I can’t look left, in case I catch Nate’s eye. So I’m only staring straight forward. Now I’m fairly sure Chloe’s Uncle Bob…’ I nodded at the rotund man at the table in front of me, ‘thinks I fancy him. Pass the wine.’
She topped up my glass.
‘How are you holding up?’ I asked her. It couldn’t be easy. Justin was already showing signs of overindulgence and throwing pleading glances in her direction. The only mercy was he’d apparently come on his own, with no new partner in tow. Unlike Dr Richard bloody Campbell. Not that I was jealous. Absolutely not.
‘I’m okay,’ she said, surprisingly sure. ‘I couldn’t give a toss. He’s already half-wasted, and it just reminds me of every event we went to since the day we met. I used to think his wild ways were entertaining and fun, now they’re just embarrassing and pathetic.’
‘Good,’ I said, relieved and, frankly, surprised at this new mature attitude. I’d been fully prepared to remove the butter knives from the table. ‘You know, I’ve got some pretty impressive friends,’ I told her, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. ‘Does this mean you’re going to stop making effigies of him and stabbing them with kebab skewers?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she answered, deadpan. ‘Have a bread roll.’
Despite the joke, I knew that she’d moved on and it impressed me. If she could look forward to a new future, I could too. No more going backwards. No more revisiting the past. Strong, brave, resolute.
Shame it only lasted for approximately four hours and another bottle of wine.
I was heading out to the lobby to ask reception if they had any blister plasters for my aching feet when I realised I was in the path of one Dr Richard Campbell, who was walking towards me looking exceptionally handsome. Damn him this time.
‘Hi you,’ he said, smiling that fricking adorable smile. ‘We haven’t had a chance to catch up.’
‘No, we haven’t. But I did meet Charlotte earlier. She’s lovely.’ If my teeth were slightly gritted, he didn’t seem to notice. I instructed myself to get a grip immediately and stop being pitiful. ‘Really lovely,’ I emphasised. No gritted teeth this time.
‘I meant to warn you about…’ he couldn’t quite finish the sentence, so he switched tack, ‘…but I didn’t think I’d make it today and then I managed to get away at the last minute and…’
‘Ah, there you are, handsome – I was wondering where you’d got to.’ Charlotte appeared out of nowhere and attached herself to him like a strip of Velcro.
‘Anyway, so… have a good night,’ he said, bringing the discussion to an abrupt close.
‘You too,’ I gushed. ‘Lovely to meet you again, Charlotte.’
It took me a good thirty seconds of resting my head in my hands while sitting on the loo to recover. On the way back, after stopping to check that, no, reception had neither blister plasters, an on-call chiropodist or – I was desperate – a roll of bubble wrap, I’d just about reached the doors back into the function suite when I heard, ‘Hey.’
Nate. Clearly this was a hang-out spot for my exes.
‘Hey,’ I replied, and I couldn’t help smiling. He was so handsome, with his wide shoulders and his chestnut hair, flecked with a tiny bit of grey now, flopping over his forehead. And I’d always been a sucker for a man in a kilt. Except Chloe’s Uncle Bob, whom I’d been dodging since the wedding dinner.
‘You’re avoiding me,’ he said, but it wasn’t a reproach, more a gentle statement of fact. Today was the first time we’d been in the same room for almost a year and I’d been studiously keeping out of his way all day.
‘I am,’ I replied, hoping the smile softened the words. ‘I’m still so sorry about you and Janet.’
A hint of sadness now. ‘It wasn’t right. To be honest, even if you and I hadn’t…’
‘Dear God, don’t say it out loud,’ I begged. ‘The mortification could kill me.’
If there was a silver lining, it was that the excruciating embarrassment was taking my mind off my blisters. He took a slightly different angle.
‘If we hadn’t met that night…’ he continued, with the emphasis on ‘met’ making me laugh. He was so easy to be with. And did I mention the kilt? ‘… I’d still have called it off. I’d known for a while it wasn’t what I wanted, but we got caught up in the whole wedding thing and I bottled out and convinced myself it was right. It wasn’t though.’
‘How did you know?’ I asked, genuinely interested.
‘Because I never felt about her the way I felt about you.’
That stunned. Or stung. I wasn’t sure which. For a few seconds I was speechless, until he carried on…
‘Look. I’m not saying I feel that way about you now. I know it’s over between us and I’m glad there are no bad feelings. This isn’t an attempt to get you back, I promise. I just mean that when we got married I was so sure, and I couldn’t wait to be your husband. I didn’t feel that this time. Just took me a while to realise.’
I exhaled, relieved that this wasn’t a build-up to a discussion about getting back together. We’d been there, done that, and got the divorce. Lesson learned. Even if I did miss him sometimes.
A grandfather clock in the corner struck eleven, and the lobby was filling with people wandering in and out of the wedding reception. I spotted Sasha and one of Connor’s groomsmen heading in the direction of the residents’ bar.
But back to Nate. I made another attempt to smooth things between us.
‘For what it’s worth, I’m genuinely sorry. And whoever ends up with you, Nate Jamieson, will be a lucky woman because you’re a good guy.’
‘You mean, apart from the fact that I slept with my ex-wife on my stag night, called off my wedding and broke my fiancée’s heart?’
It was wrong to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. ‘Yeah, but apart from all that, you’re a catch.’
We moved to the side of the corridor to let a group of Connor’s cousins past us.
‘My ego thanks you,’ he said, grinning. I realised we were close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.
That’s when it happened again. That little bubble of excitement, of danger, and of really enjoyable bendy stuff being right there in front of me. This was the first time I’d been physically turned on in months. Months! I mean, what kind of life is that for a thirty-four-year-old
woman?
But it was Nate. And I couldn’t go on making the same bloody mistakes. I was better than this. Hadn’t I made a vow only a few hours before to stop revisiting the past?
Did I mention he was wearing a kilt?
‘I’m glad we’re okay,’ I told him, truly meaning it.
Then it happened. Coming from inside the wedding suite, was the unmistakable sound of my mother, belting out the opening bars to ‘Pretty Woman’. Sasha and I had taken our eye off the ball and now it was too late. The only option was to hope Chloe was close enough to unplug the microphone.
‘Ida?’ Nate asked, grinning. She’d been his mother-in-law for many years and he’d always thought her spontaneous performances were hilarious. I stuck with ‘mortifying and completely bloody unnecessary’.
‘Indeed,’ I replied, eyes closed, head shaking.
‘Are you going to intervene?’ He was also familiar with my attempts to stop her hijacking every event by finding a stage and bursting into song.
‘Nope, it would be like standing in front of a runaway train – one that’s singing Roy Orbison’s greatest hits. So I’m going to ignore it and hope it stops. Actually, I’m just going to head upstairs to change my shoes. My feet are killing me.’
We hadn’t broken eye contact the whole time I was saying that. ‘Okay,’ he said. How could one tiny word be so loaded?
Don’t do it, Liv. Do. Not. Do. It.
‘Want to come keep me company while I change?’ I heard myself say.
Without breaking our gaze, he nodded slowly, sexily.
I did it.
Again.
Chapter Eight
A Late Night in Hospital
August 2006
The hospital ward was quieter than I’d expected it to be. I closed my eyes, trying to distract myself from what was happening.
Come on, Liv. You’ve got this. You’ve got it. Take a breath. Then another.
Over the years, I’d developed a coping mechanism for keeping my emotions under control when I was working. I was no use to a patient if I was crumbling or breaking my heart over the sadness of what was happening to them. When I was on the edge of losing it, I’d learned to channel my thoughts elsewhere, sometimes to a moment that I was planning for the future, sometimes to the past.
Tonight, I needed that detachment more than any other. I chose the past, drawing on every bit of focus I possessed to concentrate on the memory playing out in my mind.
Six months ago. Just after 9 p.m. in the evening. At the end of a busy shift. Sasha called just as I was heading to my car, looking for someone to vent to.
‘You’re never going to believe who I met tonight?’
‘Don’t make me guess. I’m so tired that if it’s not Ida or Nate, I’m all out of suggestions.’
‘Madeleine.’
Any particle of my being that had even a smidgeon of energy left, duly deflated. It was… I tried to count it up… almost three years since the split with Justin and the last thing Sasha needed was a reminder of it, because much as she adopted a Teflon veneer and claimed that she was over it, I knew that the memory was still red raw and prone to blistering.
‘Where? Why? And what happened?’
‘Frozen food aisle at Tesco. I know – not my most glamorous moment. But at least I was picking up a toffee pavlova. She was standing holding two pounds of frozen haddock.’
A bubble of laughter got caught in my throat. Only Sasha could tell a high-stress story and make it funny. ‘So what did you do?’
‘It went from daggers at dawn…’ I could imagine that, ‘…then I shot over a couple of caustic comments and asked if they were back together.’
‘Are they?’
‘Nope. She said he never forgave her for telling me and it ended their relationship.’
Strike one for the good guys.
‘And then what happened?’ I couldn’t bear to think. My money was on a violent encounter between a pavlova and a haddock that ended with two shamed faces being escorted from the premises.
‘We went for a cup of tea.’
‘No!’
‘We did. She suggested it and I thought, fuck it, why not. I wanted to know all the details. I kicked him out so soon after I found out he was shagging her that I always felt I didn’t know the whole story.’
‘So tell me everything. Actually, hold that thought. Before you tell me, let’s talk about what’s really important,’ I said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Did you buy the pavlova?’
That made her cackle. ‘I did.’
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes to help you dispose of it.’
I’d gone, I’d eaten, I’d listened, I’d scoffed some more, then I’d gasped in astonishment at the conclusion of the story.
‘So basically, he told her that he only stayed with me because he couldn’t afford to buy me out of the house…’ Sasha revealed.
‘But it was never his house! That was your house from the start, your parents’ house before that.’
‘I know. He told her a whole load of bollocks. He promised her that we slept in separate rooms and that as soon as he could afford it, he was going to buy me out, sell the place and then set up a happy little love nest with her.’
Even now, after everything I’d learnt about Justin, I still found it difficult to believe that this guy we’d known, loved and trusted could be so duplicitous.
‘But…’ she paused, and I could see that she was struggling to say something. ‘Madeleine still works with him – although, they don’t speak any longer – and she says he’s drinking himself into oblivion.’
So he still hadn’t kicked the booze. I felt a pang of sorrow. I’d treated far too many people whose lives had been wasted because they had been unable to control their alcohol addictions. I may be mighty pissed off with Justin, but I would still be there for him if he were in trouble. We were family. He was just, right now, being the brother who’d gone way off the rails and who was refusing to let us help him.
‘So what are you going to do?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t know that it’s my place to do anything.’
We left it there, but it was hours before either of us fell asleep. It was one of those nights that I wanted to speak to Nate, to ask him if Justin was okay and if there was anything we could do for him. I totally understood Sasha’s hurt and pain, but I still couldn’t completely shut the door on Justin. He was a sick man. He just didn’t realise it.
Next morning, I’d felt dreadful. Really, really dreadful. Vomiting, dizzy, exhausted. Chloe had popped up to my ward to return my box set of Quentin Tarantino DVDs, and couldn’t hide the startled expression when she saw me.
Under protest from the unwilling patient, she took my temperature, checked me out and fired a dozen questions about symptoms at me. I’d answered, then tried to brush her off.
‘I’m fine. It’s Sasha’s fault. She’s obviously trying to kill me one pavlova at a time.’
Even saying the word ‘pavlova’ made me retch.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Chloe had said, then disappeared, only to return five minutes later brandishing a pregnancy kit. This had to be a bad joke. It definitely wasn’t needed and who had one of those lying around anyway?
‘You just happened to have one…?’ I’d asked.
‘We’ve been trying. I bought it for me.’
‘Oh Chloe, that’s amazinnnnn….’ I had to make another dash to the loo.
When I’d crawled back out of the cubicle, I’d refused to take it. ‘I’m not pregnant! Nate used a condom. I’m not some naïve teenager, Chlo. I’m a fricking nurse, for God’s sake!’
‘I’m not saying you are, but condoms are not fool proof.’ She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know, but I was sure she was wrong. It was a ridiculous notion. Ludicrous. Even if there had been that tiny moment of exposure before we’d actually got to the ‘putting the condom on’ bit. It was a split second. I
mean, the chances were practically zero.
Practically.
Five minutes and a whole lot of coercion later, the second blue line told me what it thought of ‘practically’.
Fast forward to right now, back in the present, in a hospital ward, as a sharp pain on my right side made me groan.
Come on Liv, I told myself again. Stay with it. You’ve got this. You have.
Another memory. A week or so after the first one. I’d knocked on the door of the house Nate and I had lived in when we were married. I should have called to tell him I was on the way over, but I wasn’t sure that I’d have the courage to actually do it. His car was in the driveway, so he was home. Every instinct was telling me to run, but this wasn’t about me anymore. My stomach was churning as I heard his footsteps, then the lock turning and… Bugger, what if he wasn’t alone? What if he had someone there, a woman, a new girlfriend? He had every right to do that. That would be an awkward conversation. ‘Hi, hope you don’t mind if I have a quick chat to my ex-husband – I just want to let him know I’m having his baby.’
Where would I even start with that? This was going to shock the life out of him. It had taken me hours to regain the power of speech after that blue line had shown up, and days before I actually believed it. I’d fretted, I’d had sleepless nights, and there had been a few moments of outright panic, before chinks of excitement started to drown out the doubts. Now I was all in. I hoped Nate would be too, but I was prepared to go it alone if he wasn’t.
‘Hi,’ he’d said, unable to hide his surprise. He was in his standard uniform of grey cotton sports shorts and a varsity T-shirt. His hair was short again, now that the summer holidays were over and he was back at school. He’d be the teenage sixth-formers heart-throb, no doubt about it.
‘Hi,’ I’d croaked, because I seemed to have temporarily lost the power of my vocal cords. ‘Wondered…’ Cough. ‘If we could…’ Cough. ‘Have a chat.’
