Married By Christmas

by Bailey, Scarlett

  ‘Hello,’ she said pleasantly as she buttoned up her cream linen pyjamas and got into bed. ‘Hello there? Anyone in?’

  Tom smiled, albeit half-heartedly, and held out his right arm to her, which Anna gratefully scrambled into, resting her head against his chest and listening to the steady beat of his heart under his white T-shirt for a few moments.

  For a while they had always gone to bed naked, or started out with clothes on, which during the course of their progress to bed would be discarded across the flat. Later, when Tom had drifted off, Anna would get up, pick up the clothes, hang, fold and pop them in the laundry as required, seeing it as a triumph of nature over nurture that she was able to be spontaneous even to that extent. But recently – was it recently? – a few months ago perhaps, they had started going to bed in nightclothes. And one night they had gone to bed without even kissing each other goodnight. Anna, who, before Tom, had limited experience of relationships that lasted longer than the seven days it normally took her to do some poor man’s head in, wasn’t sure if this was a normal thing, this cooling-off period, this calming down of passion. She would have asked Liv, but Liv had made her swear, soon after she started seeing Tom, not to tell her about anything she and Tom got up to in the bedroom.

  ‘Why not?’ Anna asked her, bemused. ‘Finally, I have something to tell you and you don’t want to hear it, why?’

  ‘Because …’ Liv had squirmed, looking like a restless little girl. ‘Because it’s been two years since I’ve had a proper boyfriend and, happy as I am for you, one of the main reasons I like you is because you always had a worse sex life than me. Now you have somehow lucked into a really great one, I don’t need to further heighten my personal inadequacies by hearing about it!’

  ‘That’s not the main reason you like me!’ Anna protested. ‘We met when we were nine! The main reason you like me is because I do all your laundry and pair your socks. Oh please, Liv. Who am I going to ask about sex if not you?’

  ‘Um.’ Liv bit her lip, her dark eyes narrowing. ‘You could try Mum? Call her. She’s constantly trying to talk to me about sex. “How much sex have you had, Olivia?” “Are you having any sex, Olivia?” “Are you sure you aren’t gay, Olivia? You know we wouldn’t mind at all. Ask your brother, he’s completely gay and Daddy and I love him just as much, Olivia!” You know, all the things that mums are not supposed to ask their daughters unless they want to mentally damage them for life. Give Mum a call, she adores you. You are her favourite.’

  ‘I think I know why you haven’t had a boyfriend for two years,’ Anna had said, gently. ‘Not because you aren’t beautiful. With those massive brown eyes, and incredible skin and that kick-boxing-toned body of yours, you are stunning. And not because you seem to insist on wearing boys’ clothes, and no make-up and having a hairstyle that looks rather like you accidentally wandered into a lawnmower. It’s because you behave like every man you meet is your mate, the bloke you want to go for a pint with. You need some mystery, some allure, some waxing, some eyeliner and some …’

  ‘Deep seated psychological flaws?’ Liv countered with a smile. ‘It does seem to have worked for you. Being mental.’

  ‘I’m just saying, you don’t realise how gorgeous you are,’ Anna said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Liv had hugged her. ‘But you still can’t talk to me about you sex life. And that’s final.’

  And so Anna had gone on a journey of discovery with Tom without the aid of her best friend’s opinion, on which she usually relied on so heavily, even secretly making a list of sex things that she liked, and sex things that she thought Tom might like and doing her best to check them off every time they made love. Had the honeymoon period been too short, had Tom lost interest in her already? Had she lost interest in him? After all, if it wasn’t for his strangeness recently she would have been perfectly happy to curl up with her head on his chest and drift off to sleep and not mind at all that they hadn’t done anything on either of her lists in more than two weeks. Perhaps, Anna found herself wondering ever so quietly, almost in secret from herself, marrying a man with whom the fires of passion had already died out could be considered, in some quarters, a mistake, but she quickly hushed that particular thought and filed it away mentally in her secret but overstuffed drawer labelled ‘Now You Are Just Being Insane’.

  Things that had been going so well, and so right, couldn’t just suddenly go so wrong. Could they?

  ‘What’s up Tom?’ Anna asked him quietly, after several seconds of silence during which they both pretended to watch TV.

  ‘Up?’ Tom asked vaguely.

  ‘Today at the Manor, you seemed really uncomfortable. Have you got cold feet? If you tell me now that you’ve got cold feet, then perhaps I will need only ten years of therapy, prescription drugs and alcohol abuse to recover.’

  ‘Me?’ Tom hugged her a little closer. ‘Why would I have got cold feet? I’m marrying you, the singularly most perfect woman I have ever encountered in my life. The only woman in the world who irons her PJs before getting into bed and, most importantly of all, the woman that I love.’ He kissed the top of her head reassuringly, but Anna noticed the forefinger of his left hand tapping insistently under the covers.

  ‘Look,’ she said, sitting up away from him and pushing her mass of hair off her face. ‘If you’ve changed your mind about marrying me, I completely understand. I am a terrible pain the arse. I know that. And you, you are a catch, Tom. Six foot two, with that body and those arms, and that chest … You’ve got a good job, you’re kind and funny. You could marry any girl you wanted. So if you’ve changed your mind about me, even though it will kill me, and I will never recover and will live the rest of my life utterly heartbroken parading around in my spectacularly expensive wedding dress, which by the way cannot be returned as it’s already had one set of alterations, like some modern day Miss Havisham until I eventually wither away and die, I will understand.’

  Finally, Tom looked at her and the expression that Anna saw there didn’t do anything to reassure her. It was one of uncertainty and something else, something she couldn’t quite pin down. ‘I still want to marry you, Anna, nothing’s changed, I promise you.’ He clicked off the TV, leaving the room in soothing darkness. ‘Now come on, come here and give me a cuddle. I’ve got a six a.m. start in the morning and I need to get some sleep.’

  But something had changed, Anna thought anxiously, as she lay awake staring into the dark, as Tom’s breathing eventually relaxed and evened out. Tom had changed and for the life of her Anna couldn’t work out why.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Which is why we need to follow him,’ Anna told Liv the next morning, with some urgency.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Liv stared wide-eyed at her best friend. She was holding a colander rather defensively, Anna noticed, as if she might feel the need to whack her near-hysterical friend over the head with it. ‘Anna, what on earth are you talking about?’

  They were standing in the exquisitely appointed basement kitchen of an oligarch-owned Kensington mansion, where Liv was in the early stages of preparing a very seasonal dinner party for their clients in the last job that they had to do before closing up shop to make final preparations for the wedding. Anna didn’t often come on site: usually she’d be in the office, keeping on top of the finance and administration side of their partnership, as well as the marketing and PR. While Anna could cook – and cook well – her natural domain was the office, while Liv only really felt at home in the kitchen. Normally, she would arrive first to get a feel for the kitchen and then their small but loyal team of sous chefs would arrive some time later, a well-oiled Liv-trained machine of military precision, which had so far pleased all of their clients without fail, bearing in mind they had yet to cater Anna’s wedding. So Liv had been surprised to see her when Anna turned up barely an hour before preparations were due to begin in earnest, ranting on about following her boyfriend.

  ‘Aren’t you listening?’ Anna persisted. ‘Tom, he’s changed. He’s not
happy-go-lucky, “sure, whatever you say” Tom any more. There’s something really, really wrong, Liv. And I know you’ve noticed it too. I saw the way you were looking at him at the venue yesterday. It was like everything was perfect, everything was going to plan, right on schedule and then the one thing I didn’t think about, the one thing I didn’t make a contingency plan for has happened! Liv, I think he’s gone off me. I think he’s met someone else.’ Tears sprang into Anna’s eyes as she voiced her darkest fear. ‘Someone normal.’

  ‘No!’ Liv protested automatically. ‘No, not Tom. He just wouldn’t. He’d do a lot of very stupid things, but he wouldn’t ask you to marry him unless he really wanted to marry you, he wouldn’t. I know him too, remember, he’s besotted with you.’

  ‘You see, I knew it,’ Anna said, not really listening to Liv’s attempts at reassurance, she was so caught up in her anxiety. ‘I knew that it wouldn’t last, that it would all go wrong. I tried really, really hard to think of everything that might go wrong, but I never thought of this, Liv. I really thought he liked me, I let myself believe it. But what was I thinking? Why would Tom want me? I’m weird, and constantly anxious. I write lists about lists, I never let my hair down and just enjoy life … and I can’t dance.’ Anna looked miserably at her neat little feet, which were shod in expensive-looking brown suede boots. It was true. Although with her body Anna looked like she should have the lithe grace of a ballerina, combined with the heated rhythm of a South American salsa dancer, whenever she attempted to take to the floor it was like watching a car crash in slow motion. Even people who didn’t know her covered their eyes and looked away. And Anna had been pretty sure that at their last wedding dance tutorial, Ivan the Argentinian tango expert had been very, very drunk. ‘Liv, do you think he’s calling off the wedding because I am so terrible at dancing? I mean I made the teacher actually cry at our last lesson. He actually cried, Liv. In despair.’

  ‘OK,’ Liv said, putting down the colander and gripping Anna firmly by the shoulders. ‘First of all, Tom has not called off the wedding. All he’s done is be a bit moody.’

  ‘You see!’ Anna said, pointing at Liv accusingly. ‘See, you have noticed it too. And the thing is there is so much to do if I’m cancelling the wedding. I mean we need to stop that food order, before it’s too late, and, well, we can kiss goodbye to the deposit on the venue, and the dress, Liv – what am I going to do with the dress? It’s a Christmas wedding dress … Have you got a pen, I need to make a list.’

  ‘Shush!’ Liv said, putting her arms around Anna and doing her best to physically calm her. ‘Anna, come on, get a grip. This is me you are talking to, me. Your voice of sanity, remember? If I thought that something was really wrong, I’d tell you, wouldn’t I?’ Mutely, Anna nodded into her shoulder. ‘Look, I’m sure you are wrong about this. I’m sure you are,’ Liv said with a conviction that Anna could not know came just as much from her refusal to believe that Tom could do such a thing to Anna, or to her in a weird kind of way, because, well, she could stand him being in love with her best friend, but anyone else? Liv wasn’t at all sure she could stand that.

  ‘But he is being moody,’ Anna said, pulling back to look Liv in the eye. ‘And for Tom that’s massive, isn’t it? He never worries about things. For him to be moody, then something has to be really wrong.’

  ‘Look … I … He … The thing is …’ Liv tried, starting several reassuring sentences, but the truth of the matter was she agreed with Anna. Tom hadn’t been able to look Anna in the eye for days, which could be put down to pre-wedding jitters, but, more than that, he hadn’t been able to make eye contact with Liv either, not even one of his usual fond ‘what is she like?’ rolling glances that he occasionally sent Liv’s way when Anna wasn’t looking.

  ‘You think it too, don’t you?’ Anna said, always able to read Liv like she was an open book, with one marked exception.

  ‘No,’ Liv said firmly, tightening her grip and looking Anna in the eye. ‘No, I don’t. I think that whatever it is, it won’t be another woman. That’s just not Tom.’

  ‘But look at this!’ Anna dipped into her bag and showed Liv Tom’s archaic and battered Filofax, which he kept on because he was forever losing his phone in the back of taxis, and on the tube, and also because Anna enjoyed buying him pre-organised inserts for it, detailing things like family birthdays, holiday dates and most recently the times and places he had to be for the wedding.

  ‘You stole his diary?’ Liv gasped, her expression a mix of impressed and horrified. ‘You, Anna Carter – who never ever does anything wrong – stole your boyfriend’s diary!’

  ‘I didn’t steal it,’ Anna said, thumbing to today’s page. ‘He left it lying around, in his bag, which was under the stairs … behind his mountain bike. Anyway, look!’

  Liv took the bag, and read the entry that Anna was pointing to.

  ‘Martha, 2 p.m. PE KHS’.

  ‘Right,’ Liv said slowly. ‘So? It’ll be a meeting, something to do with work.’

  ‘So? What do you mean “so”? Who is Martha?’ Anna asked her. ‘Never in the whole time that we have been together has he ever mentioned a Martha, not once. And now suddenly he’s having a meeting with Martha. How many people called Martha work in football journalism? I’ll tell you how many, none. I know. I Googled it. Martha,’ she spat. ‘It’s a typical slut name, if ever I heard one.’

  Liv paused for a moment, taking a breath, resisting, only just, the impulse to slap the hysteria out of her friend. This was typical Anna, it always had been ever since Liv had first gotten to know her at school. Anna was like a swan: on the surface she appeared beautifully serene, calm and in control, but just underneath everything was working frantically away, trying to keep her life from clattering over a waterfall. Both the truth, and the tragedy, was that Anna did not need to be so afraid. Even when she and Liv had first met, and Anna was sharing a room at the children’s home with a girl who bullied and stole from her, the worst of her life was behind her, because what could be worse than being abandoned by your mother when you were a little girl? And since then she’d worked so hard, done so much to drag herself away from that precarious existence, excelling at school, and at university, at the expense of making a wide circle of friends, of meeting men, or being much like any other twenty-something, until she had a home, a business, a rock-solid best friend and fiancé all before thirty, and all bang on or ahead of schedule for her life list. And yet whatever Anna did to secure herself a future, it was never enough. It would never be enough to make her feel safe, and Liv was the only person in the world who really understood that.

  ‘Anna!’ Liv demanded her friend’s attention. ‘Remember the Regina Clarkson incident?’

  Anna nodded, chewing anxiously at her peach-coloured lips. ‘Right, well, if you were wrong about Regina Clarkson, then you can be wrong about Tom too. And besides, Google isn’t God you know, it doesn’t know everything. And seriously, I am fairly sure that in the history of the universe there has never been a slutty Martha.’

  ‘Well, there is now,’ Anna said, calming down a little. Although the Regina Clarkson incident had surely been one of the lowest points of her life, it was proof that she was sometimes spectacularly wrong about everything. ‘Look, I know I’m not famous for being intuitive, but I just know it in my heart that something is terribly wrong with Tom. And I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’ve always known that I could never be this lucky. And now I’ve got to prove it, otherwise I will literally explode. I’ve got to know, Liv. You know I can’t stand not knowing what is going to happen.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Liv said, making Anna look her in the eye, ‘but Tom isn’t your mum. He’s an amazing guy, I know he is. And whatever is going on, it won’t be the end of you and him. I know it won’t be.’

  ‘But I don’t,’ Anna said quietly. ‘And I need to. So will you come with me, to spy on him? Like any best friend of a woman who wants a relationship based on trust with her future husband would do. Please?’
>
  Liv sighed heavily. ‘Right, well, even if this Martha is his secret girlfriend, which she isn’t, how on earth do we find out what PE KHS means?’

  ‘Pizza Express near Kensington High Street,’ Anna told her quickly, reacting to Liv’s expression of surprise at her rapid decoding skills. ‘What? I made a list of all the possible and most likely combinations it could be in order and then made a few calls. Pizza Express was third on my list. I called to confirm the booking, and his name was right there.’

  ‘You are wasted in catering,’ Liv said. ‘When all this is over you need to start up another business as a private detective. Or a spy. MI5 would kill for you.’

  ‘The point is,’ Anna said, ‘I know where we have to follow him to because he’s taking his tart for a cheap lunch before shagging her in some motel room. Oh!’ Anna gasped, her imagination running away with her. ‘What if she’s a prostitute! What if Tom’s got a secret hooker habit? Or what if Martha is code name for Martin. What if he’s secretly gay! Oh my God, we haven’t sex in weeks; I think he’s secretly gay!’

  ‘Regina Clarkson!’ Liv shouted what had become their ‘safety phrase’ in her best psycho-chef voice. ‘Tom hasn’t got a secret hooker habit, gay or otherwise. This is Tom we’re talking about. He doesn’t have to pay for sex! He can have any girl he wants … not that he wants any girl but you, and even if girls constantly do throw themselves at him, he wouldn’t even look at one. I mean he told me, a couple of days ago in the pub, that night you stayed in to do the accounts, that even when they had all those glamour models at the footballer’s book launch, practically getting their chests out for him, he didn’t even …’ Liv took one look at the expression of horror on Anna’s face. ‘OK, fine then. Let’s go and spy on him.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that’s not entirely necessary,’ Liv said, folding her arms as Anna flattened herself against the wall outside Pizza Express, the collar of her raincoat turned up and her shades on, despite the distinctly overcast December day, which had an air of gloom that couldn’t even be lifted by the strings of brightly coloured lights that criss-crossed the busy street, packed with last-minute Christmas shoppers.