Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

by Jill Steeples

  ‘I’ll just clear these,’ said Ben, tackling the boxes and moving them onto the floor where they spilled out into the hallway. I helped with the removal job or else we might still have been there at dawn.

  ‘I’m only in the room next door,’ he said, giving me an awkward hug when we’d finally finished. ‘Just give me a shout if there’s anything you need.’

  I don’t think he means room service, I considered with a rueful smile. I sank down onto the bed with a sigh. If I wasn’t depressed before I arrived then I soon would be if I had to spend any length of time here. It wasn’t Ben’s fault; he’d been a complete star taking me in like this, but my shabby surroundings only seemed to highlight the neglect and loneliness I was feeling.

  I pulled off my jeans and T-shirt and slipped beneath the covers, knowing that I had as much chance of falling asleep as I did of getting married at the weekend.

  Weariness washed around my body, but my mind was still buzzing with the events of the day. When was their first time? How and when had it happened? Was it at the flat? I shuddered at the thought. Or was it at Ed’s place? And what the hell was I doing when my fiancé and my best friend were getting to know the intimacies of each other’s underwear?

  I couldn’t imagine it. Being with another man. There’d only ever been Ed, and Brian before him, and then that unfortunate one-night stand with Russell after my Halloween party. In my defence, his usual pasty demeanour had been transformed by a pair of fangs, some blood-red lips and a liberal application of hair gel, which had given him a dangerously glamorous air that only lasted for as long as the plastic cape, made from a black bin liner, that swept over his shoulders.

  But I’d been single then and that was fair game. Sophie and Ed were playing by their own dirty rules. For goodness’ sake, it was like me making a pass at Ben! It was totally off bounds.

  The sound of Sophie’s laughter tinkled around my head, tormenting me. Sophie laughed a lot. When she wasn’t grumping about wearing her bridesmaid dress, that is. Thinking about her laughing with Ed was almost worse than imagining the pair of them in bed together.

  Sophie was spontaneous and adventurous and glamorous. Not to mention treacherous! In fact, there were infinitesimal ‘ous’-ending adjectives that could be applied to Sophie.

  Maybe if I’d been a little bit more ‘ous’ like Sophie and a little less like … less like sensible, good old Anna, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess now.

  I tossed and turned in my bed, a restless energy pumping my veins. I wouldn’t be able to spend the night in this God-awful room. It was too easy to conjure up the feeling of Ed’s arms around me, the warmth of his embrace, his breath against my cheek, making my whole body tingle with frustrated anticipation. And sadness. I wondered if all those times he’d held me, he’d been thinking of Sophie instead, wishing he could be with her rather than with me.

  I swung my legs out of bed and undid my bra, dropping it to the floor, my nipples instantly responding to the chill in the air.

  I wandered over to the window and peered outside. There wasn’t a streetlight in sight. Just pitch-black nothingness. A bit like my mood.

  My hands reached out in the darkness for anything that would help guide me around the unfamiliar room. I found the old oak wardrobe and my leg brushed against the end of the bed before I almost tripped over one of those goddam boxes. The floorboards creaked as I made my way to the door. I turned the handle and found myself in the hallway.

  I took a deep breath.

  Spontaneous and adventurous and glamorous. How hard could it be?

  My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness, but I knew the next room had to be Ben’s. I could just make out the sound of the gentle rustling of a duvet coming from behind the door. Standing in my white M&S knickers and nothing else, I eased open the door and that’s when all holy hell broke loose.

  ‘Get out now or I’ll blow your fucking head off!’ Suddenly everything came into startling focus. Ben was standing on the bed, legs wide, brandishing a shotgun in my direction, fury blazing in his eyes.

  ‘Aarggghhhh!’ I screamed. And then I screamed some more, wrapping my arms around my tits, before thinking better of it and holding my arms up in the air.

  ‘Please don’t shoot me,’ I whimpered, fear holding my body rigid.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Anna! Jesus, Jesus, Anna. What the hell do you think you’re doing? You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were an intruder.’

  ‘No! No, I’m not an intruder,’ I said, feeling it necessary to explain. ‘I’m sorry. I just …’

  ‘Christ!’ Utter disbelief coloured his features. ‘And why haven’t you got any clothes on?’

  He was actually looking at me with horror in his eyes. I dropped my arms wrapping them around my chest, only now feeling self-conscious. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much beyond slipping into bed with him, desperate for the warmth and reassurance of another human body.

  I could never have imagined he would react so extremely. Not good extremely. But very bad extremely. Had he not seen a naked women before?

  ‘I, um …’

  Suddenly I had no idea what I was doing here. I saw relief escape his shoulders as he tended to his gun, before putting it back safely beneath the bed. With the weapon out of the way, it felt safe enough at least to let my gaze roam over his body. It was Ben, but not as I knew him. Certainly not as I remembered him, when I’d last seen his near naked body, which would have been as a teenager, when we had day trips out to the beach together. Then he was just a spotty adolescent boy, my mate, and now … well, he’d filled out a bit. He was a proper man, with all the proper men’s bits, although why that should have been a surprise to me, I don’t know.

  He had on a pair of short cotton black trunks that skimmed his thighs. He was lean and muscular, his shoulders wide, the faint hint of dark hair blazing a trail from his belly button down to his trunks. Mussed-up hair and dark sleepy eyes completed the ‘sex-god- just woken from good night’s sleep’ look.

  ‘Here, put this on,’ he said, picking up the polo shirt he’d been wearing earlier that day and flinging it my way, carefully avoiding looking at my nakedness. I snatched it up and did as I was told. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  Obviously a bad-tempered sex-god who didn’t take kindly to being woken up in the middle of the night.

  I ran my hand through my hair, wondering what possible excuse I could come up with and then, remembering I’d been trying for spontaneous, decided not to bother.

  ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t need the shirt.’ I held the polo shirt to one side, jutting a hip out in what I hoped was a vaguely provocative way. ‘I was thinking …’ Deep breath, Anna. ‘I was thinking … we could have sex together.’

  ‘Ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!’ He laughed just like that, as though I’d said something really stupid or funny. Which I hadn’t. ‘Sex? Oh, Anna, that’s funny!’

  ‘What’s so funny about it?’ His reaction was really rather insulting, I thought. ‘I was being spontaneous. I thought maybe you might want to have sex with me. Why would that be so ridiculous? Am I not attractive, is that it? Everybody else seems to be having sex all over the place. Why not me?’ I folded my arms crossly and turned away from him, feeling a heat rise in my cheeks. I felt silly and self-conscious.

  ‘Come here. ’ He opened his arms wide. ‘I’m flattered, Anna, really I am,’ he said, trying but failing to keep the smile from his face. ‘And you are very attractive. But I don’t think that would be a good idea, do you? You’d only be doing it to get at Ed and it would make you feel so much worse tomorrow morning.’

  He hugged me, our bare upper bodies touching and I rested my head on his chest. He smelt so good, my arms around his body felt so entirely natural, his bare body strong and firm beneath my hands and almost overwhelmingly enticing. My body’s reaction was immediate and intense. So wrong and yet so right too. At this moment I felt sure sleeping with him would make me feel a whole lot bett
er. Trust Ben to have his sensible head on tonight.

  ‘Jump into bed then,’ he said, indicating with a sweep of his head for me to join him.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, I’m clearly not going to be getting any sleep with you stalking around the house all night. Although you must promise to stay over your side of the bed. I don’t want you taking advantage of me.’ He was grinning as he climbed back into bed and I slipped in beside him. Instantly everything felt so much better. My legs gently touching his, I closed my eyes and was asleep in a moment.

  Chapter Four

  When I woke, it was just gone seven. Shame washed over me as I looked across at Ben’s empty place in the bed, feeling a pang of disappointment that he wasn’t there. He’d been right. Even without having seduced him I felt much worse this morning as all the events of yesterday crashed in on me. I wasn’t sure if my pounding head was down to the awful memories of the day that would surely rank as the worst of my life or the number of glasses of wine I’d drunk.

  I located my jeans in the guest room, pulled them on and wandered downstairs to find Ben.

  ‘Hey!’ He turned round from where he was standing at the stove and flashed me a big grin. ‘I was just doing you a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘Oh, lovely,’ I said, my nose twitching at the delicious smells wafting my way. For the first time ever, I felt self-conscious in his company, the memory of standing half-naked in front of him making me cringe with embarrassment. I dropped my gaze to the floor. ‘Look, Ben, I just wanted to apologise for last night. Really,’ I said, catching his eye, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Forget about it. I have.’ Clearly my spectacular entrance into his bedroom hadn’t been as memorable as I thought. ‘You’d had a tough day; it was perfectly understandable,’ he said, in the understatement of the year. He fell silent as he spread butter onto bread and then scooped the bacon out of the pan and onto the bread, squirting ketchup on the top. He handed me a plate and it felt like the loveliest thing anyone had ever done for me. I wasn’t sure Ed had ever fixed me breakfast in all the years we’d been together.

  ‘So how are you feeling today?’ He brought over mugs of tea and sat down at the table with me.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, not really meaning it, although I felt a resolve that hadn’t been there the day before. I didn’t think I could shed a tear now even if I wanted to. ‘I suppose I ought to get ready if I don’t want to be late.’

  ‘You’re not going in to work today?’

  I nodded. It was the last thing I wanted to do, especially after yesterday’s bombshell. I was supposed to have ticked off dozens of jobs on my to-do list, but I hadn’t managed any. Not that it mattered any more. My wedding to-do list was now clearly redundant. Now I didn’t know whether I should be ringing round and telling everybody the wedding was off. The thought that all my dreams and hard work could be undone in a couple of phone calls made me shudder.

  I wondered if the universe had been testing me, putting me through some elaborate pre-wedding initiation task. One which I’d clearly failed. If I hadn’t read that diary then I would never have known about Sophie and Ed and our wedding would have gone ahead as planned. Perhaps it was only a last-minute fling on Ed’s part and their relationship would have fizzled out once we’d married and I would have been none the wiser. Blissfully ignorant and happy.

  Only I wasn’t. Now I was very much in the know and miserable.

  ‘So have you decided what you’re going to do? Are you still set on going ahead with the wedding?’ He paused, his sandwich in mid-air.

  ‘I think so.’ I couldn’t meet Ben’s eye. Instead, I ran my tongue around the outside of the doorstop of a sandwich, mopping up the oozing ketchup. Did I even still want to marry Ed after what he’d done? The thought of cancelling the wedding was the worst thing I’d ever contemplated, but did I have any other choice? Maybe I needed to postpone it at least, to work out with Ed if we even had a relationship worth saving.

  Aargh. Frustration surged around my body. One minute I wanted to rush round to Ed’s place and commit serious bodily harm upon him, the next minute I wanted to forget I’d even read that stupid diary and pretend none of this had happened.

  I needed to buy myself some time. Get things straight in my own mind before I faced everyone else.

  ‘We’ve been together such a long time. We were so looking forward to being married. Well, I was,’ I said, wondering if Ed had ever felt the same. ‘I don’t see why I should throw my whole life away because of Sophie. If what you say is true, that it’s me Ed really loves, then maybe there is some way of coming back from this?’ I could hear the desperation in my own voice. ‘Maybe this was just a pre-wedding blip. Something he needed to get out of his system.’

  Ben shrugged, taking a sip from his tea, and I felt so grateful that he was there, allowing me to talk rubbish, nodding in all the right places, without making me feel worse than I already did.

  ‘You might be right.’ He looked at me closely, his gaze on my face unnerving. ‘Listen, can’t you call in sick? If I’m being honest you’re looking pretty rough.’

  I smiled wryly. Perhaps I could rely on Ben to give it to me straight after all. I smoothed my hair back off my face and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth in what I realised, too late, was a particularly feminine and endearing move. Ben had certainly seen me at my best these last couple of days. Something else I wish I could scrub out and pretend had never happened.

  ‘Thanks, Ben, but I ought to go. Hopefully it will take my mind off things.’

  ***

  Fat chance there was of that! It seemed like the whole world, or rather the entire workforce of Purcells, was conspiring against me by wanting to talk weddings, and my wedding in particular. Head down, I’d raced up the stairs to the accounts department floor, past Helen in credit control, past Sue and Bev in purchase ledger, past the entire sale ledger, trying to avoid eye contact with any of them, but I swear each and every one of them called out as I passed, ‘not long to go now, Anna!’

  And now that young lad Adam from the warehouse was standing in front of my desk with a soppy grin on his face.

  ‘So how’s the blooming bride?’

  ‘What?’ It came out much more tersely than I’d intended.

  He shifted uneasily on the spot.

  ‘How are you?’ His grin lost some of its previous sparkle. ‘Not long to go now, eh?’

  Why hadn’t I noticed before that everyone at work seemed to talk in trite little clichés?

  ‘What’s that then, Adam? Month end? Pay day? The end of the world?’ I knew which one was most apt for my new circumstances.

  ‘Er, no, I meant your wedding, it’s this Saturday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ah right, yes, silly me. How could I have forgotten? Ha ha, well, that’s hardly likely, is it, with everyone around here reminding me of the fact.’ I looked up at Adam’s crestfallen face and felt a momentary pang of guilt. I’d clearly just gained another label across my forehead. ‘Office bitch’ as well as ‘office bride-to-be’.

  Only I wasn’t the office bride-to-be now, I was the office laughing stock, even if the office weren’t yet aware of the fact. And if they weren’t aware of it now, they soon would be if I returned to work after the honeymoon without that magic ring on my finger, or even on Saturday for the lucky few who had been invited to witness the wedding crash of the year. Oh yes, I was definitely on the fast track to obtaining company notoriety. Maybe I should just climb up onto my desk right now and make the big announcement.

  Ladies and Gentlemen! Sorry to interrupt your early-morning internet browsing disguised as working, but my wedding, which seems to be the hottest gossip on the office floor, is officially off! Cue stunned faces and hushed whispers. So maybe we could all stop dissecting the finer details of my non-big day and move on to discussing someone else’s life. Yes?

  That customary prickle of shame ran across my skin again. I knew I’d never be able to return to work if th
e wedding didn’t go ahead, facing everyone’s sympathetic looks, hearing the furtive whispers. No, I just couldn’t do it. I’d have to run off and join the circus or something or find another job at least.

  I looked up at Adam who’d turned a fetching pink colour.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, grabbing the contents of my in-tray and straightening them in my hands, ‘it’s just that I’ve got lots to do here before I can even think about marrying the man of my dreams. Was there something in particular you wanted?’

  ‘Oh right, yes, of course. No, it was nothing. Nothing important. Just a chat. I’ll let you get on with … your, um, work then.’ He shuffled backwards in to the corridor looking like a man desperate for a means of escape.

  Huh, the man of my dreams! Had Ed ever been the man of my dreams? If you’d asked me before yesterday morning then I would have said a categorical yes. Now, he’d morphed into the man of my nightmares and I felt as though I didn’t know diddly-squat about anything.

  Mum thought Ed was God’s gift. In fact, I sometimes wondered if she didn’t get on better with Ed than I did! They chatted incessantly, bonded over obscure American TV thrillers and shared silly little jokes. Admittedly she’d put him through an extensive and arduous interview process for the position of ideal son-in-law, over several Sunday lunches, and he’d passed with flying colours. But what would she say when she found out that the golden boy was nothing more than a two-faced conman?

  He’d appeared to be all the things a mother would want in a potential son-in-law: he was kind and friendly, clean-cut and polite, with impeccable manners and good prospects. In fact, he possessed all the things a woman would want in a potential husband, but all those good traits had now been wiped clean away by the discovery that he was just another low-life, lying little toerag.

  I took a sip of my coffee, put down the wad of papers in my hand and clicked on my inbox. Ninety-six unread emails in one day. Yuk. I had no idea where to start, what my job was even or what I’d been doing when I’d left the office on Friday night, – full of hope, heading off for my last weekend as a single woman. Now it would be forever remembered as my last weekend as a happily engaged woman before the bolt of lightning struck, with the upcoming weekend looming like a toxic cloud over my head. Somehow I had to get through the next few days pretending everything was normal and that I was perfectly capable of carrying out my job, which at that moment seemed way beyond my reach.