Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

by Jill Steeples

  So, take that, Ed! I am an attractive, vibrant woman who has random good-looking young men admiring her in the street. Ha! You are welcome to Sophie and her two-faced ways, and one day, when I’ve got my new life and my new flat and I’ve got you totally and utterly out of my system, we’ll bump into each other in the street and you’ll have a moment, an uneasy moment, when you look back and think Did I really do the right thing? And already, I think, you know the answer to that one because I know I do.

  When I reached the bottom of the hill I turned left and, miraculously, I was beside the seaside. I took a big breath, savouring the salty deliciousness in my nostrils, feeling the breeze lifting my hair. It must have been fifteen years since I was last here on a day trip with my mum and dad, but instantly I felt the same sense of exhilaration at being on an adventure. I could see the pier stretching out into the distance and headed that way.

  People acted differently at the seaside. They smiled at you, made eye contact, invited you to share in their happiness as they walked along the front holding hands, eating ice creams and taking in the wonderful scenery. It was a reminder that there was happiness to be had outside the confines of my sad little life back in London. This was a different way of life, one I could definitely get used to, I thought later as I sat on a bench on the pier eating my own ice cream and feeling a snatch of something that wasn’t pure bloody misery. Something that filled me with a smidgeon of hope and for that I was entirely grateful.

  I would need to find somewhere to stay, but that didn’t look to be a problem. I’d passed loads of guest houses and hotels on the ways with vacancies. And money wasn’t an issue not with 10k burning a hole in my pocket. I looked up and saw a poster on the wrought-iron railings. Tonight – Live Music– at the Hollybush – The Breaknecks 8.00 p.m. So that was the rest of my day sorted. I would find somewhere to stay and then tonight I’d go out on the town.

  ***

  There were lots of lovely-looking small and reasonably priced places to stay in the back streets of Hollisea but in the end I plumped for the 5-star Grand View Hotel bang in the centre of the town. This wasn’t the time to be slumming it, not in my delicate state of my mind. No, what I needed was a bit of comfort and luxury. And the Grand View seemed to be the hotel best equipped to supply those in bucket loads. And they weren’t lying about the view either. It was magnificent. The floor-to-ceiling panoramic windows gave an endless vista of blue sea and blue sky. If the worse came to the worse and it poured with rain for the rest of the week, then I knew I’d be happy to be holed up in this room, watching the telly and partaking of the mini-bar.

  ‘Is there anything else you need, madam?’ asked the porter as he hovered by the door having expertly delivered my holdall to the suitcase rack. My scuffed and worn sports bag looked woefully out of place amongst the understated luxury of the hotel bedroom. I felt like explaining I had a matching set of posh luggage at home but it had been seconded for honeymoon duty, only I thought better of it.

  ‘Would it be possible to have a bottle of Prosecco?’ I said airily, as though this was a common enough request from me in such establishments.

  ‘Of course. I’ll get one sent up for you.’

  ‘Actually, make that a bottle of your finest champagne,’ I said, waving my hand in the air in a theatrical gesture. ‘I’m celebrating! I’m getting married this weekend.’

  ‘Really. Well, many congratulations, madam!’ he said with a genuine smile.

  ‘Yes, well, thank you,’ I said, grinning like an idiot, but feeling desperately sick to my stomach. I might be able to convince an unsuspecting porter that I was a blooming bride-to-be, but I was still no nearer to knowing if the wedding was actually going ahead.

  As soon as he’d gone, I ran the bath, depositing the entire contents of all three bottles of bath gel into the water, before making myself a cup of tea – which I needed much more than I needed a glass of champagne at the moment – and helping myself to both packets of Viennese Whirl biscuits. I undressed, wrapped the big white fluffy robe around me and slipped my feet into the towelling slippers, then I flicked on the telly. I didn’t want to be disturbed in the bath so I lay down on the bed, waiting for room service to arrive, listening to the seagulls swooping outside, their calling gently soporific.

  Ten minutes later when my champagne turned up resplendent in an ice bucket, I poured myself a glass of fizz – it would have been a shame to waste it – and took a very large sip. Then I refilled my glass and went and immersed myself in the bubbles. What a luxury. We didn’t have a bath at the flat, only a shower, so this was a rare and proper treat. I sighed, thinking about the flat that had been my home for most of my adult life. Whatever happened now, I’d never be able to go back and live there. Not with Sophie. A huge pang of sadness swept over me.

  No more drink-fuelled evenings watching soppy films and endless episodes of Come Dine with Me and Dinner Date. No dancing around the living room to Katy Perry as we acted out our own twenty- plus version of ‘Teenage Dream’. No late-night baking sessions of cupcakes or cookies to satiate our chocolate cravings.

  However much I didn’t want to think about it, I could just about imagine meeting another man one day – if I ever wanted to, that is, which at the moment looked wholly unlikely; but to find another bestie like Sophie, with all our shared history and experiences, it was never going to happen.

  I scrubbed my face with the flannel, washing away the tears.

  The thing was I still couldn’t really believe what I’d read in that diary. It’d been like reading about a stranger. I was half expecting someone to come running to my side to explain that it had all been a huge misunderstanding and that if I just came home again my old life would fall straight back into place. Only that was complete and utter fantasy, I knew. I’d seen from Ben’s guilt-flecked features that everything I’d imagined and more about Ed and Sophie had been only part of the truth.

  For all my other life disasters Sophie had been my go-to person. The one person in the world who I could totally offload on. Hell, I’d even bent her ear about Ed; his unreliable time-keeping, his annoying habit of clearing out his teeth with the edge of a business card and his undying devotion to the poker channel. She’d listened and laughed as I’d indulged in a bit of boyfriend bashing, but now I wondered if she’d secretly relished those conversations, knowing that she’d be sharing my little snippets later with Ed when they’d be able to laugh together over the stupid deluded girlfriend. I cringed thinking about the time I’d given her a blow-by-blow account of when we’d made love in his dad’s shed without leaving out any of the gory details. She hadn’t batted an eyelid.

  Still, the way I saw it, I had one of two options. I took another slug of champagne to get my thoughts absolutely straight in my mind as a new determination filled my water-soaked veins. Either I spent the rest of this week and the rest of my life drinking myself into a stupor, torturing myself with images of what Sophie and Ed might have got up to, trying to fathom out why they actually did it in the first place and only driving myself mad in the process or else I had to put the whole sorry episode to one side and start all over again.

  Now either that meant starting over with someone new, which I couldn’t even begin to imagine, or it meant being the bigger person, thinking about everything I had to lose and maybe, just maybe, learning how to forgive Ed.

  Which I couldn’t even begin to imagine either. No, whatever way I looked at it I could see no way out.

  Still, other people had much worse things to contend with. I’d only being dumped on by my fiancé, been screwed by my best friend and been made homeless. You had to look on the positive side. And didn’t they say that the best revenge was being happy, living well.

  Hell, if it bloody killed me, I was determined to live well and happy, if only to spite Ed and Sophie.

  ***

  For supper I decided to give the hotel’s rosette-starred restaurant a miss and opted for fish and chips from a kiosk on the seafront instead. With a
smothering of salt and vinegar and eaten from the polystyrene box, it tasted sublime. Much better than anything my local, or rather my ex-local, shop had dished up. It was a sad fact of life but my broken heart had given me a permanently ravenous hunger, but just as now wasn’t the time for slumming it, it also wasn’t the time for watching my calorie intake. I had my emotional well-being to think of and that meant keeping my blood sugar levels high. I found a bench to park my bum on and looked out to sea, munching on my supper, listening to the waves as they crashed into the rocks, watching as people meandered past in no hurry to get wherever it was they were going. When I’d finished I deposited my wrappings in the bin and that’s when I spotted the café on the other side of the road, The Rocky Road Café. The fine rain that had started less than five minutes ago was becoming more squally and my thin denim jacket was next to useless in protecting me from the elements. I picked up my bag, ran across the road and bundled through the door.

  ‘Hello, love, sit anywhere you like.’ The blonde curly-haired woman gestured around the near empty room. ‘As you can see we’re not very busy.’ She laughed and picked up a menu from a neighbouring table, handing it to me.

  ‘Could I just have a tea and maybe one of your rocky roads, please? They’re my absolute favourites.’

  ‘Ah, a kindred spirit!’ She lifted the dome of the plastic cake box and pulled out a chocolate marshmallow bar and popped it on a plate, placing it on the table in front of me. ‘So are you here on holiday, then?’

  ‘Um, not exactly. Well, it wasn’t planned or anything, if that’s what you mean. I just came on the spur of the moment. Just to get away for a few days. I’ve got to get back for my wedding at the weekend.’

  ‘Really?’ The woman’s face lit up expectantly. ‘Oh, how lovely. Let me have a look,’ she asked, lifting my left hand and inspecting my finger. We both looked at the empty space where a ring should have been. Instead, all you could see was the slight red imprint of where a ring might once have been.

  I gave her a sheepish shrug as she looked at me for an explanation.

  ‘Well, that’s one of the reasons I came away,’ I said, desperately avoiding her sympathetic gaze. I’d made a promise to myself to stop all the moping and the navel gazing and the crying, but I could feel those pesky tears forming under the watchful gaze of this woman who I didn’t know, but who was being far too kind for my liking. I looked her straight in the eye. ‘There was a bit of a last-minute hitch.’

  ‘Bob!’ she called out to the back kitchen. ‘Bring the tea through when it’s ready, would you? I’m going to take a bit of a break myself.’ She didn’t ask, she just pulled out a seat and sat down opposite me. ‘What’s your name, love?’

  ‘Anna. Yours?’

  ‘I’m Mandy. Bob’s my other half,’ she said, gesturing to the balding rotund guy who’d arrived at the table bearing a tray with a teapot and cups and saucers. ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she added, seeing my startled expression as I looked around the empty café. ‘We’re not busy and if we get a rush on, Bob can always take over, can’t you, love?’

  Bob nodded and gave a wry smile, looking as if he was used to acting under Mandy’s orders.

  ‘So, tell me to mind my own business if you think I’m intruding, but what sort of last-minute wedding hitch makes you ditch your engagement ring and come running away to Hollisea.’

  I took a sip of tea along with a deep breath.

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ I said, uncertain whether I wanted to rake over all the details. In some ways yesterday’s events were still so vivid in my head, too painful to think about; and yet in other ways it seemed like it had all happened a lifetime ago.

  ‘Well, I’m all ears if you want to offload. I’m a very good listener. You have to be in my line of work.’ She clasped her hands on the table in front of her, resting her chin on her fingers and waited.

  I sighed and looked into her eyes, which were twinkling at me, the brightest blue I’d ever seen. She had faded blonde hair that curled onto her shoulders and looked to be about forty-five, I reckoned. Attractive in a weary, washed-out way.

  ‘A last-minute wedding hitch of the “I’ve just found out my boyfriend has been playing away with my best friend” variety.’

  ‘Oh.’ She grasped my hand. ‘I thought it might be something along those lines. You poor thing. But you’re still going to marry him, after what he’s done to you?’

  I shrugged, dropping my gaze.

  ‘I honestly don’t know what to do. That’s the thing. It’s all come as a complete shock. One day I was happily organising my wedding, the next I didn’t even know if there was going to be a wedding. I still can’t quite believe it.’

  ‘No, I bet. What a horrible shock.’ Mandy shook her head sorrowfully. ‘And you say the wedding is this weekend? It doesn’t leave you a lot of time.’

  I gave a weak smile, that familiar feeling of panic overwhelming me again.

  ‘Well, no one can tell you what to do. All you can do is follow your heart, trust your own instinct. Have you got any idea what you might do? And what about that boyfriend of yours, what’s he got to say about all of this?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t actually spoken to him,’ I admitted sheepishly.

  ‘What? Why ever not?’

  ‘I’ve not been able to face him yet. I only found out about it yesterday. I read it in my flatmate’s diary. Don’t ask!’ I said, clocking Mandy’s horrified expression. ‘She’s my best friend, she was supposed to be my bridesmaid, but they’ve been having an affair these last few months.’

  ‘She doesn’t sound much like a friend to me. What a mess!’

  ‘It is. I haven’t told anyone, apart from Ben and you now.’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Oh, he’s a good friend of mine, I’ve known him years. He was going to be best man at the wedding. He came round just as I’d found out about the cheating. I had to tell him, although it turned out he actually already knew about it. I had mascara streaming down my face and was about to murder someone, so it wasn’t difficult for him to coax it out of me. It was a good job he turned up when he did or else I’m not sure what I would have done. He insisted I stay at his place last night.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good job you had him to speak to. I can understand exactly why you wanted to run away, but really you shouldn’t be here.’ She gestured around her with her hands. ‘You should be at home, amongst the people who know you, so you can work out what it is you’re going to do.’ She gave a gentle squeeze of my hand. ‘What does this Ben think you should do?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He didn’t really say.’ An image of Ben, a crumpled smile on his face, flitted into my mind, and for a moment I wished he was here with me, drinking tea, holding my hand, giving me the benefit of his warm, caressing gaze. Maybe Mandy was right. Maybe I should go home and face them all: Ed, Sophie, Ben and my parents. I knew I had to do it sometime, I just wasn’t sure I could face it yet.

  I looked across at Mandy and smiled. Although I’d only just met her I felt as though I’d known her for years, as if I could tell her anything. ‘I know Ben wanted me to stay with him until the weekend but I didn’t want to be a burden on him. I think it’s difficult because although he’s my friend, he’s Ed’s friend too. I suppose he must feel a bit torn. I didn’t want to put him in an awkward position.’ Although the standing near-naked in his bedroom while he aimed a shotgun at my head was pretty much as awkward as it gets.

  ‘Well, it’s not for me to say, but I think you’d be better off talking to that man of yours, hearing what he has to say and then deciding what the pair of you are going to do. If you’re even thinking about calling off the wedding, you want to be doing that sooner rather than later so that you can get some of your money back perhaps?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worried about that,’ I said spikily. ‘Ed can pick up the bill for the wedding. He earns enough. He’s the one who’s gone and kyboshed all the plans. No, it’s my mum I’m worried about. It will break her heart if it
doesn’t go ahead. She’s been looking forward to it for months. She’s got the new dress and hat and shoes, the works.’

  ‘You haven’t even told your mum, yet?’

  ‘No.’ I averted my gaze from her incredulous stare. ‘I tried to, but—’ Admittedly I hadn’t tried very hard. Looking longingly at my phone and hoping mum would pick up on my silent distress call was as close as I got.

  ‘Well, you must! Today! If you were my daughter I wouldn’t be caring about a silly dress and hat. I’d be more concerned about you and how you’re feeling. That’s the most important thing here.’

  ‘You haven’t met my mum,’ I said, giving her a wry smile.

  Mandy shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t, but I can’t believe that she wouldn’t want to know what you’re going through. And you can’t marry someone just to please your mother.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ I sighed. Mandy made everything sound so straightforward, but it wasn’t like that.

  ‘I was in a bad marriage for fifteen years,’ she confided. ‘My husband cheated on me so I know how that feels. When it first happens you try to kid yourself that it’s a one-off. I was even stupid enough to believe that I was to blame somehow. Maybe if I’d been a better wife, less bad-tempered, more understanding then perhaps he wouldn’t have felt the need to go elsewhere.’ She shook her head, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. ‘I look back now and wonder why I didn’t leave him sooner, but it’s difficult once you’re in a marriage. I wanted to stay, to try to make it work. But no woman deserves to be treated badly, made to feel second best. Especially not one as young and beautiful as you.’ I gulped and bit on my lip. She would set me off crying again if she carried on like this. ‘You deserve so much better than that. You’re the only one who can know if you want to make a go of it with this Ed, but make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons. Not to please someone else. I know you’re probably not thinking this far ahead yet, but there’ll be somebody else out there, someone more deserving of you, someone who will treat you like a princess.’