Life and Soul of the Party

by Mike Gayle

  Now I located the little tear strip on the Cellophane and screwed the whole lot into a tight ball. I opened the box and removed the contents. I was going to cast aside the instruction leaflet but had a change of heart as I took one of the plastic sticks out of its foil sheath. Just because I wasn’t a pregnancy-test novice didn’t make me an expert. Things might have changed in the world of pregnancy tests since the last time and I doubted I could stand the shock of any false test result brought about through my own lack of care.

  Reading through the instructions as carefully as I could given that my heart was racing so much, I tried to hold back the deluge of questions that threatened to overwhelm me. When would I get the chance to tell Chris? Would William react badly to the idea of having a brother or sister? How would I cope with motherhood the second time around? Would the pregnancy go as smoothly as before? Would labour be as difficult as William’s had been? Would I ever get the hang of breast-feeding?

  There were too many questions and too little time to deal with them all with my family sitting downstairs. I dropped the plastic stick back into the box, returned the box into its carrier bag, and tucked the lot right at the back of the cupboard underneath the sink, behind the bleach, the bathroom cleanser and a half-empty bottle of Milton’s sterilising liquid. I pressed the flush firmly, washed and dried my hands and tidied away the Cellophane at my feet. I would take the test later. Later, when I had more time.

  Cooper

  It was five minutes past seven and I was following the waiter to the private dining room at La Galleria. It looked as though I was the first to arrive and as I waited for the others I thought how much things had changed these past few months since splitting up with Laura.

  Drunk and dispirited after my failed attempt to throw away Laura’s engagement ring, I’d woken up late next morning to discover that Laura hadn’t been home. Her mobile was switched off and after phoning around her friends I eventually discovered that she was staying at Davina’s house, so I called there.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi, Davina, it’s me. Cooper, is Laura about at all?’

  Davina was really shifty. ‘Look . . . she’s . . . er . . . I don’t think she can come to the phone right now. Can I take a message?’

  This was ridiculous. I could hear the sound of Laura frantically whispering in her friend’s ear.

  ‘I’m not stupid, Davina. She’s right next to you, why don’t you just put her on?’

  ‘She won’t come to the phone.’ Davina seemed relieved she no longer had to lie to me. ‘She’s really upset with you right now, so maybe it’s best if you leave things for a while.’

  ‘Fine,’ I was barely able to conceal my fury that Laura had dragged one of her friends into the middle of our relationship, ‘get her to call me when she’s ready.’

  An hour later I was lying on the sofa watching TV and wondering what was going through Laura’s mind when my mobile rang. Laura.

  I got in first. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.’

  ‘There’s no need to be,’ she replied. ‘It was as much my fault as yours.’

  ‘Are you going to come home then?’

  ‘No. At least not right away. I’ve been trying to see if I could get the date of my flight moved forward.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  ‘I know, but I want to and anyway, it’s all done.’

  ‘So when do you go?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow! You can’t go tomorrow. You weren’t supposed to be going for another week.’

  ‘I’m going tomorrow. Coop. And I’m coming round to get my stuff some time this afternoon so it would be really great if you could just give me the space to get what I need and go.’

  ‘You mean you don’t want me to be here?’

  ‘I mean that I think it would be best for both of us if we didn’t have a big scene. What’s done is done. We’ve both got to move on.’

  She meant every word, so once I’d recovered from the call, I got myself invited round for Sunday lunch at Chris and Vicky’s, and by the time I got back home Laura’s rucksack had gone and there was a note waiting for me on the stairs. The note was short and to the point. It simply asked me to look after the rest of her stuff until she returned, but if that was going to be too much of a problem she would arrange for her dad to take it back to Bristol with him. There was nothing about me or how she felt or about how things had ended. I’m guessing she was feeling too angry to bother trying to condense her feelings so that they would fit on the back of the envelope for the electricity bill – an electricity bill which incidentally she hadn’t paid.

  I didn’t sleep much the first few nights after Laura’s departure from a combination of guilt and uneasiness about the way things had ended between us. I felt even worse that she’d had to leave without saying a proper goodbye to her friends and sent dozens of text messages to say so. I didn’t hear anything for a month — none of us did. Then out of the blue I received an email. The good news was that she was fine. She was in Mumbai and planning to work her way down the country towards Sri Lanka. She had spoken to lots of people, hadn’t made any friends, though sounded pretty optimistic. She apologised for the way things ended and for not replying to my texts.

  I replied immediately, updating her with everyone’s news and finishing off that I missed her (which was true) but even as I pressed send I was regretting it. I expected the reply to be an intricate dissection of our relationship but there was no mention of my parting line, just a few reminders about what to do with her post and a long account of the things that she had done the day before.

  After that we exchanged the odd email but it seemed that Laura saw us more as friends now than anything else. Our relationship, along with her life at home, had been left behind. There was a subtext to her email that now she was somewhere else I should be too. Bizarrely, this made me miss her all the more. Her life was filled with new experiences while mine was pitted with huge holes where she had been. She wasn’t there when I woke up in the morning. She wasn’t there when I got in from work. She wasn’t there for me to cook for during the early evening and she wasn’t there when I watched TV late at night. And yet everywhere I looked she was always there.

  The waiter opened the door and in walked Vicky in a stunning long black dress.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said warmly, kissing me on the cheek. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’ I gave her a wink and handed her the present I’d bought. ‘This is for you and him indoors. Be careful though, it’s fragile.’

  ‘Can I open it now?’

  ‘I shouldn’t bother,’ I replied. ‘Once you’ve seen one set of wine glasses you’ve pretty much seen them all.’

  Vicky laughed and Chris came over to say hello. Once we’d done the blokey pat-on-the-back-hug thing he went to say hello to Vicky’s family while I made my way to greet my mum and stepdad.

  ‘All right, Mum?’ I said kissing her on the cheek.

  ‘Looking well, David.’ I shook my stepfather’s hand. I sat down next to David and prepared to ask about his journey because he always liked telling travel horror stories when Mum interrupted us.

  ‘You can’t sit there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We’ve all got place settings.’ She pointed to the name cards on the table.

  ‘Where am I sitting then?’

  ‘Over there.’

  I walked over to my place and looked at the cards on either side. Vicky had sandwiched me between Melissa’s boyfriend Billy and some woman I’d never heard of called Naomi. My gut feeling told me that she was one of Vicky’s pre-school mums’ crowd and I envisioned a whole evening of being forced to listen to the ins and outs of her child’s development from foetus to terror toddler without a single opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

  I was reaching out to swap with Billy so that at least I could spend the evening talking to Melissa when Vicky slapped my hand and I turned to see her
standing with a woman I had never seen before. She had black hair, light-brown skin and was so well groomed that I couldn’t imagine for a moment that she was single.

  ‘Cooper, this is Naomi, one of my old work mates from St James’s. Naomi, this is my brother-in-law. Cooper.’

  ‘Hi,’ I said, instinctively glancing around the room for her partner. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘You too. Vicky’s told me so much about you.’

  There was something about the way that she said this that made everything fall into place.

  This girl didn’t have a partner.

  She was here alone.

  I glanced from Vicky to Naomi and back again and caught a flash of guilt in her eyes. It was the guilt of carrying a secret that affected someone else. And that someone was me. Naomi was here because Vicky had decided that I needed to move on. And the most obvious reason for her to have come to that conclusion was because she knew that Laura had already done some moving on of her own.

  Vicky

  Cooper’s face looked like thunder. As much as I knew it might not work, I still felt that easing my own brother-in-law back into the real world by setting him up with the prettiest single female I knew was the right thing to do — especially as the plan had only come about after Laura had sent an email detailing her exploits with a young Australian called Sean.

  ‘How have you been, Vick?’ asked Naomi, setting into her chair.

  ‘Fine, how are things with you? Are you busy?’

  ‘I’m decorating at the minute. Once Ray finally moved all of his stuff out I could see just how badly my place was in need of a good spruce up.’

  Cooper threw a loaded glance in my direction. I ignored it. ‘What can I get you to drink, Naomi? Red? White? Both are open.’

  ‘Red, please.’

  I looked enquiringly at Cooper. ‘White,’ he replied pointedly.

  I reached across to one of the open bottles of Merlot just as the waiter re-entered the room, this time leading in Melissa and her new boyfriend.

  I handed Cooper the Merlot with instructions to look after Naomi while I went over to say hello. Melissa greeted me with a huge hug and I noted that Billy was taller, more self assured and more good-looking than I remembered; he also had on a great suit.

  He noticed me staring. ‘Melissa chose it for me. I normally wouldn’t go anywhere near one unless it was for an interview but she’s got such great taste I could hardly say no.’

  ‘Well, you do look fantastic in it,’ I replied as I kissed him on the cheek. He smelt faintly of expensive aftershave.

  ‘This is for you and Chris as a token of mine and Billy’s esteem.’ Melissa handed me a large envelope which piqued my interest.

  ‘Can I open it now?’

  ‘No,’ protested Melissa. ‘Do it when I’m not here in case you hate it.’

  ‘Never in a million years. Let me go and put it with the other presents and I’ll be back with you in a second.’

  By the time I returned Chris had engaged Billy in conversation leaving Melissa free to talk to me. Part of me wanted to share the news that I might be pregnant right away but this was neither the time nor the place.

  ‘I’ve missed you, you know.’ I looped my arm around Melissa’s waist. ‘It feels like I haven’t seen you properly in ages.’

  ‘I know. We should go out next week for a bit of a social. Just the two of us. We could have a really nice dinner and get well and truly drunk. I could definitely do with a night like that after the day I’ve had.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Creepy Susie, she’s kicking me out.’

  Melissa proceeded to fill me in on her flatmate’s plans for domestic bliss.

  ‘And you said that right to her face?’ I asked incredulously as Melissa concluded her tale of woe.

  ‘I couldn’t believe the words were actually leaving my lips,’ she admitted. ‘It was like a scene from a film.’

  ‘Definitely what you’d call memorable dialogue.’

  ‘But in a film that would’ve been the end of the scene. The camera wouldn’t cut away with Susie looking horrified and me looking pleased with myself before moving on to the scene where I find a fabulous new pad. But since I wasn’t in a film I was left looking at Susie’s crestfallen face. It was horrible, Vick. Really horrible. Once I’d talked to Billy I calmed down a bit and I went back to apologise to her, but she wouldn’t let me in, so I had to talk to her through the door, which made me feel like an idiot. We then had a ridiculous shouty conversation where I apologised while she spilled her soul open for my benefit and told me about how she had issues about her self-esteem because her older sister was so much prettier and her younger sister was so much cleverer. Honestly, I looked at my watch at one point and she’d been rambling on for nearly an hour. It was like a bad version of Oprah. All that was missing was the whooping audience.’

  ‘So how did you leave it?’

  ‘I told her that I really valued her friendship and promised we’d keep in touch.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘I’d sooner have lunch with a serial killer than share a sandwich with Susie. This could only happen to me.’

  ‘You’re right. This kind of episode is definitely your niche. You should be pleased. It takes most people a lot longer than thirty-odd years to find their unique selling point,’ I teased. ‘Well, you know that whatever happens you’re always welcome to stay with me and Chris. I really mean that, you know.’

  ‘I know you do.’ Simultaneously we both looked over at Billy.

  ‘So things still going well with The Boy?’

  ‘Couldn’t be any better.’

  ‘And you’re all right about seeing Paul and Hannah tonight? They’re both definitely coming.’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine about it, honestly.’

  I glanced over at Billy again. ‘Looks like you’ve managed to bag yourself a good one this time.’

  Chris and Billy’s conversation seemed to have come to a conclusion so I led Melissa over to Billy and showed them where they were sitting. There was a lot of handshaking, kissing of cheeks and the beginnings of polite conversation and I relaxed, sure that we were in for the most amazing evening together celebrating mine and Chris’s anniversary. Then the waiter arrived at the door with Paul and a heavily pregnant Hannah in tow and all such feelings of warmth vanished in an instant.

  Melissa

  From the moment of Hannah and Paul’s entrance I felt as though everyone in the room was watching me like a hawk in order to gauge my reaction. As they came in and took off their coats I kept my head down to disguise my feelings, especially since I knew Billy would be studying my every expression, ready to pinpoint any look or gesture that might puncture his ego. I couldn’t win – I couldn’t look happy without being accused of pretending and I couldn’t look sad without seeming to be still in love with Paul. There wasn’t a thing I could do or say that wouldn’t be open to misinterpretation.

  Eventually I knew I had no choice but to face up to the inevitable. I looked over at Paul, held his gaze without flinching, and offered a brief smile. It was a small victory. I didn’t doubt for a minute that it would be a short-lived one but I still allowed myself a moment’s satisfaction. I had handled myself pretty well. And though the worst was over, as the waiters began to serve the first course my heart was thumping as if I’d just run a marathon. Under the guise of needing the loo I excused myself from the table and left the room.

  Hannah

  It was a little after eleven o’clock. The meal was over and the empty dessert dishes had long since been cleared away. I tried to take part in the conversation going on around me but my body was one huge ache. The baby had been unusually active all evening, regularly thumping my insides with various tiny body parts. I was worn out and I wanted to fall fast asleep as quickly as humanly possible. I looked over at Paul and mouthed: ‘I think it’s time to go,’ in his direction.

  Turning to Naomi, who had been my main partner in
conversation for the evening, I smiled apologetically and told her it was time that Paul and I went home.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘You must be worn out.’

  I shuffled to the edge of my chair and tried to stand up. Within seconds I was inundated with offers to help me to my feet, which made me feel vulnerable and ungainly but also strangely comforted. When I had just been Paul’s girlfriend I had felt like an actress auditioning for a bit part in his life. But things were different now. I no longer had anything to prove to his friends. My status amongst them was assured.

  ‘It really was lovely to meet you,’ said Naomi. ‘I’ll get your number off Vicky and give you a call about meeting up some time before the baby’s due.’

  ‘I haven’t really had much of a chat with you tonight,’ said Cooper. ‘Paul’s been monopolizing me.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome at ours anytime,’ I replied.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Melissa and her boyfriend approaching and I don’t know if it was hormones but I suddenly wanted to make peace with her.

  ‘I just wanted to come over and wish you all the best for the birth,’ she said warmly.

  ‘That’s really nice of you. I hope you’ll come and visit us when the baby’s here.’