How Not to Fall in Love, Actually

by Catherine Bennetto

  ‘Oh my god! It’s Katy!’ I said, gripping Alex’s arm with clawed fingers.

  ‘Katy Perry?’ Alex accepted her pink-toned cocktail from the barman and swivelled her head. ‘Where?’

  ‘No!’ I ducked behind Alex as Katy turned her head. ‘It’s Katy, Joe’s fiancée Katy. Quick, hide me.’

  ‘Who’s Joe?’ Jemima said, sipping viscous clear liquid from a thin straw.

  ‘Emma’s lodger,’ Douglas offered, and at my look added, ‘and friend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jemima tracked my gaze. ‘Why do you need to hide from your lodger’s fiancée?’

  Alex leant forward, her evening on cocktails becoming evident. ‘Because Emma loves her lodger.’

  ‘I do not!’ I said.

  Jemima’s interest was displayed by the rising of her fawn-coloured eyebrows.

  ‘Which one is she?’ Alex said.

  ‘The blonde. The really pretty one in the middle of that big group over there.’

  Alex moved to get a better view. ‘They’re all really pretty.’

  ‘Don’t move, she might see me!’ I dipped my head behind Alex’s bare, tanned shoulder.

  ‘I thought you hadn’t actually met her,’ Alex said.

  ‘Oh,’ I straightened. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Then how do you know that’s her?’ Jemima said.

  ‘Oh . . . I just do,’ I said, taking on a shifty demeanour.

  Alex fixed me with a demanding stare.

  ‘I saw photos of her on his laptop,’ I mumbled. ‘But only because his computer was there, open. Right in front of me.’

  ‘You’re lying,’ Alex said.

  ‘OK, it was in his room and I was snooping but—’

  Alex tutted. Douglas shook his head.

  ‘That’s an encroachment on the tenant–landlord contract,’ Jemima said. ‘He can sue.’

  I turned back to Katy.

  ‘Are you sure that’s her, Emma?’ Douglas said, pushing up his glasses and blinking at the sight of Katy getting awfully close to a bearded guy with a fringe so gelled and sloping it looked like the roof of the Guggenheim. ‘Maybe, ah . . . maybe that’s not her?’

  ‘Oh, that beardy man is flirting with her,’ I said. ‘She’s touching his arm! She’s taking a sip of his drink! Douglas, go and stop her!’

  Douglas looked at me like I was being absurd. Jemima sipped and observed.

  ‘You’re obsessed,’ Alex said. ‘She’s just hanging out with some friends. I think this might be your issue.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ I said, turning to Alex.

  ‘I’m saying that—’

  ‘She’s kissing one of them,’ Jemima said tonelessly.

  Alex spun round. I peeped out from behind her. Katy had moved against a shadowy wall with the Guggenheim guy and was snogging the face off him.

  ‘What a slut.’ Alex shook her head.

  ‘Your lodger is probably single now,’ Jemima said. ‘Although if she’s his type I’d say you certainly aren’t.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘You have to tell him. You have to tell him immediately before he gets more emotionally involved with Katy,’ Alex said as the cab travelled the darkened edge of Wimbledon Common. I looked through the eerie trees and thought of headless horsemen and spiders and rapists.

  ‘She’s his fiancée. I think they might already be emotionally involved.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she said.

  I’d been vacillating between telling Joe and not telling Joe. Why would I not want to tell him? Because I didn’t want to hurt him. Because I didn’t want to admit I’d been through his computer. Because I didn’t want him to see the hope in my eyes as I told him, the hope that he may reject her and pick me. The lights were still on inside when the taxi pulled up. Joe was on the sofa, his legs stretched out and his feet on the coffee table, tinkering on his laptop. With his jeans rolled up and a cup of tea beside him, he was a picture of calm contentment.

  ‘How was your night?’ he asked, glancing up from his computer.

  ‘Great!’ Alex replied. ‘I’m going to make a herbal tea. Anyone?’

  Joe shook his head.

  ‘So how was lunch with Katy?’ I said, feigning casualness while I slipped into an armchair. Joe looked up from his screen, genuinely relaxed.

  ‘It was good.’ Recollection twinkled in his eyes. He went back to his computer.

  ‘Great.’ I glanced at Alex in the kitchen and made a what now? face. She indicated with mime, expressive eyebrows and jabbing hands what looked to be a diminutive Greek tragedy. I made an I don’t want to face, then added a why don’t you do it? one, and she made some elaborate arm and face physicality I couldn’t decipher. I shrugged.

  She jabbed a finger from me to him and mouthed just fucking do it! and I poked my tongue out at her.

  ‘Joe?’ I began.

  He looked up. He seemed so happy on the sofa with his toes twitching to some unheard rhythm. He looked at peace. I was going to ruin it. A blow like this could wound. I had to be tactful, sensitive and kind. I would approach it gently; make it a delicate, featherlight, wispy kind of blow.

  ‘I saw Katy kissing a guy with a beard and a fringe that did this.’ I mimed the Guggenheim course of the fringe.

  Alex buried her face in her hands. I guessed I wasn’t built for ‘wispy’.

  Joe blinked. ‘Katy had a networking event with some new clients,’ he replied simply.

  I thought about the men she was with and wondered what kind of clients they were and if they were in some kind of Beardy Man Business. A Business of Beards.

  ‘She was certainly “networking” when I saw her.’ I did the finger quote thing and immediately regretted it. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

  Joe blinked again. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ I said, making my voice gentle. ‘I saw her. We both did.’ I indicated towards Alex.

  Joe shifted to look at her and she nodded sadly. Joe looked back at me, his face pale and tense.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ he said again.

  ‘I’m not,’ I replied. ‘I’m really sorry.’

  ‘But . . .’ he shook his head in confusion. ‘You don’t even know what she looks like.’

  ‘I do, actually,’ I said, shame colouring my cheeks.

  ‘How?’

  I dropped my gaze to my fidgeting fingers. ‘I went through the photos on your laptop.’

  Joe snapped his computer shut and tossed it to the side. His face darkened.

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘It was just open; I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I just looked at the photos. Nothing else, I swear,’ I said in a hurried jumble.

  Joe stood. ‘I thought you had more respect for people’s privacy than that,’ he said, his gaze and voice hard.

  He stalked behind the sofa and faced the garden. His hands worked into angry little clenches.

  ‘Respecting privacy?’ I pushed myself out of the armchair and followed him, shooting a help me look to Alex, who made a palms-up how? gesture, tea bags dangling from one upturned hand.

  I stood behind Joe and tried to keep my tone light and non-accusatory. ‘You can’t really talk about “respecting people’s privacy” when you’ve been through all my diaries, now can you?’

  ‘That’s different,’ he spat, still facing the garden.

  ‘How, exactly?’

  ‘They’re just kids’ stuff. Stupid poems.’ He spun to face me. ‘I’m talking about a grown-up relationship here. Something you don’t seem to know much about.’

  I faltered. Joe had never uttered an unkind word. Not even the first time he spoke of Katy and the cheating. I took a steadying breath. Joe was hurting. He didn’t mean what he was saying and I needed to get the situation under control. I allowed myself a brief moment of self-congratulation. I really was being quite mature. How extraordinary.

  ‘Look, Joe, you’re getting angry at the wrong person.’ I kept my voice calm.
‘It’s not me who—’

  ‘I can’t believe I can’t trust you.’ He threw his hands up in the air. ‘How do I know you’re not lying about seeing Katy?’

  God. He was being so irrational.

  ‘Why would I lie about that?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said in a nasty voice. ‘Maybe you’re not happy so you don’t want anyone else to be. Maybe you’re jealous that I’m moving on and you’re not.’ He paced and threw his arms around like a madman. ‘Maybe . . .’

  Alex took the opportunity to slip out of the room, throwing me a sympathetic look as she went.

  ‘Joe—’

  ‘You know, you just wobble around doing your own thing, giving out advice like you are some kind of authority on the subject of relationships.’ He waddled back and forth, imitating me in an unflattering manner. If the atmosphere hadn’t been so fraught I might have giggled. ‘ “Get back together with her”, “Don’t get back with her”. “Katy’s a whore-bag”, “You need to move on”. You spout all this shit but you don’t even know what you’re talking about!’

  ‘Joe, I don’t understand why you’re so angry with me.’ My voice cracked.

  ‘Because you don’t even know her and you’re telling me all this “Katy was kissing someone else” crap. Why’re you telling me this?’ He stopped pacing and stared at me, his eyes passionate and wild.

  ‘Because . . . because you’re my friend and I – I don’t understand . . . Why do you care why I’m telling you?’

  ‘WHY DO YOU CARE?’ Joe’s booming voice startled me.

  I bit my lip to keep from crying.

  He stormed into the kitchen and grabbed his keys and phone out of the fruit bowl where I’d constantly asked him not to keep them. Dirty keys next to nectarines? It was unhygienic. When he walked back past me his eyes looked sad and his voice was quiet.

  ‘Why do you care? I’m just the “fucking lodger”, aren’t I?’

  He stamped out of the room and up the stairs. I stayed in the same position, paralysed by shock. A minute later he clomped back down the stairs and the front door slammed. Alex arrived in the living room where I was still standing.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she said, putting a tanned arm round my shoulders.

  I shook my head, tears spilling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Joe didn’t come home that night. I was sure because I hadn’t slept a wink. I tossed and turned and went to the bathroom and ate crackers dipped in a tub of recently delivered Ned and Sophie’s Chocolate Keep-It-Chipper (all proceeds go to anti-bullying) and tossed and turned and went back to the ice cream with a giant serving spoon. Then finally it was 5.30 a.m. (a barely acceptable time to say it was ‘tomorrow’) and therefore I could get up and start fretting that Joe really hadn’t come home. After I’d been up for a couple of hours and had nibbled my way through half a loaf of bread, Alex emerged from the bedroom with her backpack.

  ‘I’ve got to get the nine fifteen from St Pancras. How long will it take me to get there? What tubes do I get?’

  Alex was travelling to Leeds to break the news to Cal’s parents that they were already married and there would be no castle wedding. I gave her a brief reminder of the tube connections she’d known her whole life but had now forgotten, while making her a cup of tea. Weak, no milk.

  ‘When will you be back?’ I asked, handing over the tea in a yellow mug. Alex’s favourite colour was sunshine yellow. Like her temperament. She sipped the tea, flinching at the heat.

  ‘I’m just there for two nights. You going to be OK?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I said, my voice catching in my throat. ‘I’m fine. I just need a little afternoon nap. I didn’t sleep very well last night.’

  Alex gave me a knowing look. I met her stare with an attempt at obliviousness but was unable to sustain it. I dropped the charade.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said.

  ‘You need to tell him how you feel.’

  I widened my eyes and shook my head.

  ‘Then you need to get over it and just focus on having this baby.’ She looked at me with pity.

  Pity? I hated pity.

  ‘I think he knows how you feel and I think he’s feeling confused.’

  ‘So am I.’ I sat forlornly on a dining chair.

  ‘If you don’t know what you want then you need to let him go.’

  I picked at the edge of the table.

  Alex glanced at her watch. ‘Look, I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I’m up there. Let me know what happens when he comes back.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  ‘He will. His clothes are all here. And his laptop.’

  Practical as ever, Alex was. No confidence-rousing ‘he can’t live without you – he’ll be back to declare his love’. Just ‘he needs his stuff – he’ll be back’.

  The panic in my chest heightened. I wanted him to come back and I also didn’t. I didn’t want to have an awkward conversation about feelings. I just wanted everything back to the way it was. Alex left with promises to call and last-minute tube connection checks.

  And then I was alone. Again.

  I spent the rest of the day in a state of anxious anticipation. I tried to fool myself that I wasn’t waiting for Joe’s return by busying myself with acts of cleaning and sorting. While I was in Anglesey Charlie had delivered a gorgeous sleigh cot he’d had made out of sustainable wood. He and Joe had set it up in the corner of my room as a surprise. I fussed with the flannelette sheets and pastel blankets sitting folded on top of the natural fibre mattress, my mind racing over Joe’s possible whereabouts. Was he with Katy? Was she convincing him I was a deluded liar? Was he breaking up with her, and would he come flying back into the house, his grin back on, dimple in full ‘dimp’ and make a bowl of popcorn? Did he hate me? Was he justified if he did?

  Around dinnertime I heated a frozen pizza. Then at around ten o’clock, when I figured Joe would definitely need to come back home and get fresh clothes, I engaged myself with sorting the presents from the baby shower while keeping a hyper-alert ear on the front door. Not knowing the sex of the baby, I had been given white, green and lemon-yellow baby items. I objected to the lemon yellow. It made babies look like pupae. I made pointless little piles by colour. Then by age range. Then by item. Then grabbed the lot and shoved them back in an oversized Mothercare bag. I eventually conceded my front door vigil was a futile exercise and went to bed and fell asleep immediately.

  At 1.34 a.m. my eyes flew open and I was so startlingly awake I thought I must have been woken by something sinister. I lay in the dark listening for the sound of a Nazi postal rapist creeping down the hall with his electric shaver but heard nothing bar the gentle hum of midnight traffic. I’d had a restless few hours’ sleep with dreams involving love triangles with Joe and Katy and Alex telling me she had to go back to Vanuatu for cocktail hour while I was in labour. I got up for a wee and a snack. After squeezing out a pathetic dribble in the bathroom I waddled down the hall and felt a pang of sad longing as I passed the stairs to Joe’s room. I rubbed my back – it was sore from all the cleaning and sorting – and glared, uninspired, into the fridge. Nothing looked inviting so I moved to the pantry, but again nothing took my fancy. I shut the pantry door and went through the baking tins on the bench with increasing annoyance. Cakes and biscuits – all yuck. I slid a tin of shortbread across the bench and stood in the kitchen feeling irritable. How dare there be no food in the house that I wanted to eat! I headed back to bed but couldn’t get to sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable. My back pain seemed to come in small waves with ever so tiny differences in the pain level. Slightly higher for a few minutes, then less so for half an hour. Was I in labour? An hour later I had counted three definite waves of a dull twinge. Not overly painful, just an awareness of previously unconsidered muscles. When the waves became more definite I phoned Sinead.

  ‘’Lo,’ she grumbled in the exact kind of voice you’d expect to hear at 3.23 a.m.

  ‘How
do you know when you’re in labour?’

  ‘Hurts,’ she mumbled.

  ‘I’m not really in pain as such, but I am getting these wave things.’

  ‘W’ kind waves?’ She yawned.

  I explained what had been happening over the last hour or so, including the perplexing lack of interest in any food.

  ‘You’re in labour,’ Sinead said matter-of-factly. ‘Call the hospital. Then watch TV. It could be ages.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, surprised by how calm I was. Somewhere in my brain, where the default setting permanently loitered on ‘denial’, I didn’t really believe this baby would ever come. Even now, while I was quite possibly in labour, the reality of me holding an actual human for whom I was solely responsible didn’t seem to be remotely correct. I felt like I’d been playing a role: Pregnant Girl; Spurned Lover; Treacherous Best Friend. At some point the credits would roll on my charade and I’d be back at my desk taking mild abuse over the radio and having a fag with Sophie by the catering skip. I hung up on Sinead and sat on the edge of the bed, the phone in my lap. I put my hands round the large bump I now had trouble remembering ever being without.

  It was happening.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  I got out my plastic envelope containing my pregnancy notes and dialled the St George’s maternity ward number highlighted in neon orange. It had been taunting me with its tangerine shade of urgency ever since I’d had my first scan. The day I was to actually use it seemed an age away. I spoke to a lady who asked for my file number – not my name. It was very strange to ring someone at three thirty in the morning and have them answer the phone in an expectant voice, like it was a perfectly conventional hour of the day to be receiving a call. The midwife on the phone told me they were experiencing a very high volume of women in labour.