‘Luck,’ he repeats. ‘That you were with Joel.’
‘Yes. Don’t you think?’
He doesn’t say anything. His forehead creases with a deep, exhausted-looking frown.
‘Olly?’
‘Yes, sorry. You’re right. It’s … lucky you were with him.’ He picks up his nearly empty espresso cup, and lifts it in a toast. ‘Here’s to sheer dumb luck. Or let’s call it Fate. It sounds better, right?’
‘Yes. Like the gods were on our side.’
‘For once,’ he says, softly.
Given that we’re meant to be making a toast, we should probably both drink from our coffee cups right now. But we don’t. We just look at each other, across the table, for a long moment.
‘And what a good thing,’ I force myself to say, before this moment goes on any longer and gets – I don’t know – out of hand, or anything, ‘Tash was with you. Having a doctor here, it must have made it a bit easier.’
‘Yeah, she’s been amazing, obviously.’ Olly bites his lip. ‘And Clara absolutely loves her, so it’s great that she can hold the fort until Nora makes it. Plus the doctors are actually telling her stuff, you know, rather than just assuming they have to tell us well, obviously the baby’s had a nasty boo-boo …’
‘Of course. But what a horrible end to your romantic evening, nevertheless.’
‘Oh, I think we’ll survive. We’ll have plenty more of them.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘In fact, about an hour before I got the call from my dad, we decided we’re going to get married.’
It’s a good thing I’m sitting down, because otherwise I’m pretty sure my legs would just have gone from under me.
I stare back at him.
‘Married?’
‘Yes.’ He ’s watching my face, intently ‘Sorry, I realize this is probably the least appropriate time on the planet to be announcing this.’
‘But … you mean … married, as in … walking down a church aisle?’
‘Oh, no, no, not at all.’
A tidal wave of relief washes over me – even though I still don’t actually understand what he’s saying – until he speaks again.
‘I mean, obviously we haven’t talked about that sort of detail yet, but I don’t think we’ll be doing anything as formal as a church wedding. We’ll keep it small and simple, I’d have thought. Tash will probably have a few ideas about exactly what she wants.’ He breaks the intent gaze he’s had fixed on me, and busies himself with his coffee cup instead. ‘Well, I’m sure she’ll have a few ideas about what she wants! You know Tash!’
I can’t reply.
‘But that’s what’s good about her, you know?’ He’s still busy with the cup. ‘I mean, just one of the many things that’s good about her. That she knows what she wants out of life, you know? She brings that out in me, you know?’
It’s the third time he’s asked me you know, so I feel obliged to actually put a response together.
‘Olly, come on. You run an incredibly successful restaurant! You’re not someone who needs help knowing what they want out of life!’
‘Yeah, OK, professionally I have it all sorted.’ He glances back at me for a fleeting moment. ‘But, you know, in my private life I tend to … sit back. Let it all pass me by. Until it’s too late.’
My heart is in my throat. ‘Olly …’
‘But not any more,’ he adds, firmly. ‘Tash needs a commitment from me – and I get that, you know? I understand why she wants that – and I’m not about to let things slip through my fingers just because …’ He stops, swipes a hand over his eyes, and keeps it there. ‘Shit, Libby. You know, I can’t believe I’m even sitting here talking about any of this, when we nearly lost Mum and Clara tonight. The shock, I suppose. Will you keep it under wraps? Until we’re sure everything’s OK?’
‘You mean …’ My voice barely comes out; my throat seems to have been lined, somehow, with sandpaper. ‘You mean not mention that you’re … engaged.’
‘Yes. Though even engaged sounds a bit wrong.’ He emits an awkward laugh. ‘I mean, I didn’t get down on one knee with a ring, or anything …’
‘That sounds—’
‘Romantic, right?’ he says. ‘I’m sort of regretting it already, if you must know.’
‘Well, then, you can just back out!’ Without thinking, I reach across the table, through the sandwiches and the wafers and the coffee cups, and put my hand on his. ‘Seriously, Olly, there wouldn’t be any shame in that. I mean, you said it yourself, it’s not even really a proper engagement, as such, and it’s only been a few hours … other people do way more embarrassing things all the time. I mean, Kim Kardashian got married for only seventy-two days, and Britney Spears—’
‘Urrgh, no, Lib, hang on!’ Olly looks more uncomfortable than ever. ‘That’s – oh, God – that’s not what I was saying.’
‘Oh!’
‘No, I only meant I was regretting doing it in such an unromantic way! That’s all.’ He squeezes my hand, all of a sudden, but in an involuntary sort of way, almost like a spasm. ‘Are you saying I shouldn’t do this?’
‘No, no.’ I pull my hand away as if his has suddenly turned into molten lava. I’m beyond mortified, now. He’s obviously furious with me – that sharp hand-squeeze he gave me just now is more than a hint of his anger – and I guess I can’t blame him. He’s just made his big announcement and here I am suggesting he backs out before they’ve even started. ‘I’m really, sorry, Ol. I shouldn’t have said … any of that.’
‘But do you think I’m making a mistake, or something?’ he demands. His cheeks are turning very pink, the way they do when he’s really annoyed about something. ‘I mean, you seem pretty anti, Lib, if I’m honest, and …’
‘No! Honestly, Olly, just forget I said any of that! You know, the Kim Kardashian crap, and everything …’ My phone has just started ringing in my bag again, so I could always get out of this horrible conversational alleyway by answering it … oh, no, hang on, it’s still just Cass. I’ll leave it, actually. I take a deep breath. ‘I’m just surprised, OK? It’s a lot to take in, and … look, even without everything that’s happened with Clara and your mum, it’s been a very, very strange evening. And you’ve just sprung this on me … and it seems quite sudden.’
‘Sudden? We’ve been together a year, Libby! I’m thirty-four. Tash is thirty-five. It’s time to make a proper commitment to each other. I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Just bob along together in a kind of ho-hum way, while around us everyone else throws themselves into marriage and kids as if their lives depend on it?’
‘No …’
‘It’s what people do, you know, Lib! Meet each other, fall in … in love. Spend the rest of their lives together.’
‘Yes. I know. I know that, Olly. And I’m … look, I’m really, really happy for you. Just ignore all the stupid stuff I’ve just said. Please. Please.’
There’s a short silence.
‘So,’ I go on, in a very small voice, trying to drag us back to something approaching companiability, ‘where will you live?’
‘Oh, God, Libby, I don’t know.’ He sounds irritable, now. He sighs. ‘Sorry. I don’t mean to snap. It’s been a weird night, like you said. And trust me, where we’ll live is honestly the least of my worries right now – you know, having nearly lost my mum and my niece, and all that – but I just feel bad for Tash that the night’s been forever tarnished by this stuff. She’s such a great person. She deserves more.’
‘Oh, Olly.’ I reach a hand, tentatively, back across the table, and touch his hand lightly again. ‘You’re right. She is a great person.’
Because she’s in there with Clara now, running point between the doctors and Olly’s family, in a way that I’d never manage to do. I can’t even get Clara to smile at me, for Christ’s sake. And she’s the sort of grown-up, properly sorted individual who doesn’t need any silly romance, any hearts and flowers, when she gets engaged to be married. That’s rare. It’s admirable.
And if you cancel out the slightly scary part of her that came round to my flat to warn me off Olly the other night – or even just reframe it as a strong woman staking her claim to her man – then I’ve got absolutely nothing I can possibly say against her. Nothing I can even think against her.
Besides, I think Fate has pretty much given me its absolutely final word on the subject right now, hasn’t it?
‘It’s lovely news,’ I say. ‘And it doesn’t matter how the evening went. You’ve got … well, a whole lifetime ahead together.’ I take a burning sip of coffee. ‘One evening is nothing.’
‘I suppose so. And, uh, it looks like things are going pretty well for you, too! This Joel guy—’
‘It’s early days.’
‘I mean, coming to the rescue with his helicopter, and all that … what an incredible bloke.’ He reaches for the wafer packet and fiddles with the opening. ‘Incredible.’
‘Well, I mean, you’ve only just met him …’
‘Yeah, but he’s been a real hero tonight. And he seems pretty shit-hot in all other areas of his life, too. From what Tash has been reading about him on her phone tonight.’
‘Oh. Of course. Google.’
‘Sorry.’ He looks embarrassed. ‘It was a long wait, before they let us in to see Clara. And we were just a bit confused about exactly who it was that Nora claimed was sending a helicopter to get her … do you need to get that?’
It’s my phone, ringing for a third time.
‘No, it’s just my sister …’
Anyway, Joel is making his way through the plastic tables to join us.
‘Charger duly located,’ he tells Olly, holding out a shiny portable charger. ‘It should give you a full charge. Any news on the patients, by the way?’
‘No, but I’d better get back and see what’s going on … Lib, would you mind picking up a coffee for Tash and a cup of tea for Dad? I’ll see you back in A&E reception, if that’s OK?’
‘No problem, Ol.’
‘Thanks. And thanks again, mate,’ he tells Joel, giving him a handshake and a slightly awkward, overly blokey clap on the back. ‘For everything.’
I watch him, for a moment, as he heads back towards the main doors that lead outside.
As he reaches the doors, he glances back towards us. I think he’s about to wave, but he just sort of … stares in our direction.
Then he turns away again, pushes the doors open and vanishes through them.
Which is when I look back up at Joel, slide my arms around his waist and reach up to kiss him.
And kiss him. And kiss him some more.
I feel, quite a lot, like a drowned woman who’s desperately trying to fight her way back to the land of the living, with the kiss of life.
My phone rings, again … Cass, again.
I don’t want to get into any of this right now.
I reach down and turn the ringer on to silent.
‘I know,’ murmurs Joel, as we pull apart for a moment. ‘I know. This has all been an awful shock for you …’
But he doesn’t know, of course, that this isn’t the real reason I’m holding on to him for dear life, and some sort of comfort.
And then I start kissing Joel again, as if my life depends on it.
*
It’s only when I’m almost back at my flat, at almost six in the morning, that I remember that I switched my phone off at all.
But by the time Nora arrived, and then I spent a couple of hours with her while she waited for Clara’s scan, and then I sat with her mum for a bit so that her dad could pop home for a shower and some fresh clothes, turning my ringer back on somehow got forgotten.
So I’m pretty alarmed, when I get my phone out of my bag, to see that there are a grand total of seventeen missed calls from Cass, between the hours of eleven-ish and three a.m., and almost as many WhatsApp messages.
And none of the WhatsApp messages are mindless snooping about last night’s sexathon.
OK, well, the smoke smell is really vile so I’m going to sleep at Mum’s.
This is the last of the messages that she sent me, at 3.07 a.m.
What smoke smell?
I scroll back to the start of the messages to see what the hell has been happening at my flat – Elvira’s flat – in my absence,
Oh my God, Libby, what the hell have you been spilling on your sofa?????
Why aren’t you answering your phone?????
Chucked a load of water over it but it’s not going out
Am outside now, Mum knocking on next-door’s door to see if they have fire extinguisher
Answer your fucking PHONE!!!!!!!!
Just so you know, it was Mum’s idea to light the bloody candle in the first place. And it was one of the ones YOU had lying around the flat, so you have to take some responsibility for this too. And still have no idea what the fuck was on the sofa. It went up like a bloody rocket. I could have been HORRIBLY BURNED
My heart is turning to ice as I put my key in the door with a shaking hand.
The sofa went up like a rocket? Set alight by one of Aunt Vanya’s candles?
Having been made extra-flammable, of course, by Aunt Vanya’s alcohol-laden holy water …
Snooty next-door neighbours did have fire extinguisher, Cass’s message from 11.32 p.m. reads. So we’ve put it out without needing to call fire brigade. Sofa’s pretty wrecked though. But probably done you a favour, right?
I reach the top of the stairs.
There, in the middle of the living room, is nothing but a charred shell where my magical Chesterfield used to be.
Six months later
Obviously, it’s all going to be incredibly romantic by the time it actually happens.
I mean, a winter wedding – practically a Christmas wedding, in fact – in the tiny chapel tucked away in the grounds of Joel’s stunning country house in Sussex … the forecast for the day after tomorrow, the Big Day, is for a cold, sunny day, with possibly even a light dusting of snow …
But right now, my stress levels are roughly at DEFCON 1. Or DEFCON 5. Whichever the really dangerous, scary DEFCON is, the one where the end of the world is quite literally nigh, that’s the one I’m talking about. And I never saw myself as capable of being any kind of Bridezilla. One of the whole points of having such a small wedding – just our immediate families and our closest friends, a grand total of twenty-seven people – was to try to keep typical wedding-faff to a bare minimum.
But somehow today, two days before the main event, and it just feels as if everything that can go wrong is going wrong.
And it’s all, of course, to do with my family. I currently have Mum raging at me on the landline, while Cass has been sending me one of her near-constant streams of WhatsApp messages since six thirty this morning.
‘I mean, all right, technically he’s your father, but I still don’t see why you’d even want him there on your wedding day,’ Mum is saying, for what feels like the millionth time in the course of this fifteen-minute phone call. ‘And as for inviting The New Wife …’
‘Mum, look, I’m just trying to do the right thing, OK? And you’ve been divorced for over twenty-five years. And remarried yourself since then! There’s not really any need to direct any aggression towards Phoebe. She was perfectly pleasant when I met her at her and Dad’s wedding, and she sends me friendly Christmas and birthday cards.’ (Which is more, way more, incidentally, than my dad ever did.)
‘Exactly!’ Mum shrieks. ‘Trying to wheedle her way into your affections, now that you’re marrying a billionaire!’
‘No,’ I say, firmly, as words like pot and kettle spring into my mind. ‘She’s done it since they were first married. And come on, Mum, it’s not like you’re going to have to interact with her in any major way! It’s going to be a brief ceremony, some photos with the drinks reception, and then dinner. I haven’t sat you anywhere near each other on the seating plan, so—’
‘I should hope not! I mean, what is she – thirty-five, thirty-six?
She’s going to make me look ancient! Completely upstage the mother of the bride!’
‘She’s in her late forties, Mum,’ I say, firmly, momentarily distracted as a text from Cass pings up on my iPhone.
Look, I haven’t spent the whole of the last month getting up at six fucking a.m. and hauling my arse to the gym just for you to say you’d rather I didn’t wear hot pants to your rehearsal dinner.
I start messaging her back: Cass, you can wear hot pants every single day for the rest of your life. Can you JUST PLEASE grant me this one request, the night before my wedding? Joel’s grandmother is going to be there, she’s ninety-one and survived Treblinka, so I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you—
‘Well, I think you’re being very insensitive, Libby,’ Mum says. ‘Have you thought about how this makes me feel?’
‘Look,’ I say, making a great effort to keep my temper, ‘has it occurred to you, Mum, that I thought long and hard before even inviting Dad in the first place, and—’
OK, comes a new message from Cass, before I’ve even sent my reply to her last one, am trying to be reasonable here. IF you are 100% PROMISING ME that you’re going to put me RIGHT NEXT to Joel’s best man tomorrow night, I will rethink hot pants and go plunge-front instead. After all, it’s a sit-down do, right?
I’m just wondering if it would make a truly terrible mess of one of the pristine walls in this gorgeous sitting room if I threw both my mobile and the landline, one after the other, smack against it, when the door opens and Joel sticks his head around.
‘Free?’ he mouths at me.
I nod, and get to my feet.
‘I have to go, Mum. Joel’s just landed.’
‘Oh!’ Mum’s tone changes, immediately, from the whine I was so familiar with for most of my life, to the bright, breezy, happy-to-accommodate voice she tends to use with me now, and always uses whenever Joel is present. Or mentioned. ‘Then you must go and look after him! Practise your wifely duties! After all,’ she trills, ‘it’s only forty-eight hours until it’s all signed and sealed!’
At which point, presumably, she can properly relax, knowing that – since there isn’t going to be any pre-nup – she’s still in with a chance of having the world’s most comfortable retirement. As long as, you know, I don’t go and do anything she’d regard as certifiably nuts, like not asking Joel for a single penny of his money, or anything.
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 22
