The Way It Never Was

by Austin, Lucy

  On seeing me, he took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Looking nice Katie Kate,’ he said, making me blush.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘I’m going to be late for my train if I don’t hurry. You okay walking me to the station? Small steps mind.’ I had forgotten that it’s all very well looking the business, but wearing high heels on an occasional basis seriously impedes walking speed.

  ‘Who’s the lucky man then?’ Stan put my arm through his so I could lean into him and quicken up the pace.

  ‘Only Dan, he needs a plus-one for his work party,’ I replied. ‘It’s not exactly a hot date.’

  Stan then pressed the button at the traffic lights a few times. ‘I thought your brother had the choice of all the ladies.’

  I pressed the button again impatiently. ‘Well, I got the impression at my birthday dinner that he’s getting bored of it. You never know.’ Stan opened the door of the ticket office for me. ‘Then again, pigs might fly.’

  Standing on the station platform with me, Stan was blowing into his hands trying to warm them up so I instinctively took hold of them.

  ‘Perhaps Dan’s just got to find the right person,’ he suggested. For someone who’s apparently on the verge of proposing to his amazing girlfriend, he sounded so flat. And as much I wanted to ask the potentially loaded question, there was no time, so I let go of his hands and gave him a big hug, by way of compensating for being rubbish.

  ‘Thanks for the company. What would I do without you?’ I said, to which he grins and gives me a big kiss on the cheek. ‘You’ve got a bit of coffee above your lip. You look like Magnum P.I.’

  Outside the hotel, Dan looks up and sees me. ‘Looking good sis,’ he says, clearly surprised, as though I was going to turn up in a shell suit for the occasion. ‘You should dress up more often.’

  Just as I’m enjoying the feeling that comes from being told you look like a million dollars for a change, he snaps his fingers in front of me.

  ‘Anyway, pay attention! First things first, before we go in and you start sizing up potential girlfriends for me, I have news, good news on the girl front. I like someone.’

  He hesitates and I wonder if he’s going to tell me about the dating agency that I happen to spy an application form for at his flat.

  ‘How did you meet her?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, I met her through someone I know,’ comes the reply and I smile encouragingly. Sure, you did. Pulled her randomly in a bar more like!

  ‘Good luck with it,’ I say as I mean it. It’s just nice to see my brother a little softer round the edges and not playing the role of heartless lothario.

  A little while later, the evening is in full swing. There’s an auction going on, with prizes such as a fondue kit and a spa break on offer. There’s also a vasectomy up for grabs, described in the brochure as ‘a painless operation performed at a Knightsbridge clinic that will enable you to put those annoying contraception days behind you.’ Dan’s finance director then proceeds to watch in horror as his determined wife bids for his snip, sitting on the (exceedingly smug) table fifteen, who appear to have won everything going.

  Having just successfully bid for the very expensive spa break somewhere fancy, Dan is now talking very loudly to a very insipid looking blonde wearing a very low cut top and I inwardly groan. Not again! He then some sort of gesture to the belly and for a split second I think he’s talking to her about Liv. He can’t be. Having said yes to every top up and eaten my weight in fancy canapés, I walk over to him having this heart-to-heart and on closer inspection, I can now see the blonde would rather be somewhere else.

  ‘I met a nice girl the other day but I’m not sure if she’s interested,’ he says to her, before waggling his finger at her, almost taking her eye out in the process. ‘I’m not going to give up though!’ The girl looks bored, no doubt having wasted precious pulling minutes on a reformed slut who appears to be having an identity crisis. Waving his arms, Dan draws a heart in the air with his finger. ‘You know when you think you know and then you try and pretend it isn’t what it is only to then spend the rest of your life telling yourself that you did know but you are better off pretending you didn’t.’ He stops for a second and almost talks to himself reiterating what he just said, then visibly relaxes, pleased at his speech.

  ‘Dan,’ I interrupt. The girl sees her window of opportunity and walks off in relief.

  ‘You okay there sis, you still hungry? I saw you seriously chomping on the canapés.’

  I grin at him. ‘Yup, there’s not so much as a salad bar or mirror in sight. Dead posh-like.’ We stand there for a bit generally taking in the scene and making our usual scathing assessments of the outfits being worn, only for Dan to then point over to a crowd of people.

  ‘You can go over and say hello to that group you know?’ If by that he means he wants to go off and bore another girl without his sister standing there, I get the hint. ‘You know the bloke over there you know. It’s Jim.’

  I stop and glare at him. Ugh, why didn’t he tell me that one of my three mini relationships was here? In this day and age, where most of us count a text as the equivalent of a proper date, Jim and I effectively lasted six-months.

  ‘Dan, I’m honestly fine,’ I say, shuddering at the memory of my short-lived affair with his work mate. ‘I don’t really need to make small talk. He’s the one who told me he’d never eaten pasta before.’ Yes, as tempting as it is, I think I’ll leave an awkward conversation with Jim for another night.’

  ‘You’re hilarious sis,’ he chuckles and walks off.

  Finally, things are getting interesting at the party – the drink is kicking in and people are starting to behave badly. I’ve already overheard Dan’s secretary ask someone, who if I wasn’t mistaken was the CEO, to watch her purse as she was off for a dance. Clearly, on a night like this anything goes. Junior people speak to big wigs like shit, and married people get to snog single colleagues. Okay, so I may be predictably standing like a lemon at the side of the room, watching handsome boys in tuxedos and girls in identical slip dresses all laughing together as though they are in Beverly Hills 90210, but it’s not all bad – there is a free bar after all. I decide to adopt an air of cool holding a glass of champagne in my hand, ignoring the fact that everyone around me seems to have a sense of belonging. I pretend I am in a James Bond movie and that I’m just that little bit too cool for school – that is until I happen to spy someone I know all too well. Unfortunately, she clocks me immediately and waltzes on over with all the grace of an elephant.

  ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t Kate Harrington,’ booms Mabel Bunce, sounding like she’s read far too many Jackie Collins novels, wearing a dress so short I can practically see what she had for dinner.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks incredulously.

  ‘I’m with my brother.’ I reply, feeling a little indignant. ‘What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be organising some spreadsheets or doing a mail merge?’ I try and keep it light but it still manages to come out bitchy. Stop it Kate!

  ‘This party is sure better than your piss poor efforts at Jam Jam,’ snarls Mabel. At Jam Jam, I organised a party for our department in a mirrored basement of a big brasserie. Having organised it from start to finish, come the actual event, I was no longer in the party mood myself. No sooner had I sat down and taken a sip of champagne, people started to come to me with dilemmas such as, ‘I ordered the prawn cocktail but that doesn’t look like a prawn to me!’ – or ‘receptionist Sue has stolen the roast potatoes off my plate should I say anything?’ – or ‘I don’t like sitting opposite a mirror when I eat, do you think anyone will swap?’ By the time the lunch finished at ten o’clock that night I was beyond exhausted and ready to go, but felt obliged to stay until Barbara headed home. Unfortunately, she showed absolutely no signs of fatigue, so I had to watch her dance really badly on a table that she treated like a nightclub podium. There I sat, bored out of my brain until I spied a married Mabel Bunce and a
married Simon from Accounts snogging like teenagers, oblivious to the stares around them. Finally, things had got interesting! As much as I’m loathed to admit, Mabel is right. This party is much better.

  ‘My brother also works here too. He’s very senior you know,’ Mabel boasts. Looking me up and down, she mildly murmurs something about my dress, and then proceeds to tell me that she was handpicked to be Barbara’s EA and how her career is just going from strength to strength. Apparently, it took a couple of months to iron out all the mistakes I had made during my time. I try to tune her out as her spiteful attitude is almost displaced – certainly the limited time I had working with her doesn’t warrant it.

  I can’t help myself though. ‘Weren’t you senior to me Mabel? Are you sure it’s not a demotion?’ I find myself asking, to which she glares at me.

  ‘You had no proper filing system,’ she interrupts. ‘I was shocked! I’m not surprised you didn’t make a year.’ I could tell her that as far as I am concerned filing is a little like sorting through smalls on the washing line – you either have the patience or you don’t – so I just put everything in a giant box because that way it never disappeared and I didn’t waste valuable time. But I don’t. I don’t mention working at the Globe too – why should I? She is the last person I want to talk to about anything.

  The dance floor is now packed with people attempting to strut their stuff to a load of mega mixes. Dan is now performing the Macarena with wild abandon, flirting with another girl who has her manicured hand on his bottom. I then happen to notice someone who looks very familiar and the world goes dizzy for a minute.

  Joe.

  CHAPTER 22 - THE BOMBSHELL

  Joe from Australia is standing at the bar, balancing a spoon on his nose and looking like a bored teenager on a family car journey. When I daydreamt our reunion, it normally involved me sitting in a small cafe in Paris with dark glasses, surrounded by bilingual friends laughing about something, my red lips smoking on a cigarette – one of those exotic multicoloured kinds that come in a fancy pack. I then casually look over and see Joe through the window, his hands pressed up against the glass in anguish, rain pouring down on him. I look witheringly at him, as though to say ‘Get it together man, where is your dignity?’ before getting back to my friends. I didn’t have any contingency measures for what would happen if I saw him after too much fizz at an office party in central London.

  As though sensing someone staring at him, Joe looks around, focuses in and sees me, his expression changing to one of horror, mirroring my own. For what feels like minutes I stand there, rooted to the spot. I’ve got to get out of here – feet move!

  Mabel is twittering away at me, and then having spotted me looking over in Joe’s direction, points at him. ‘That’s my brother, he’s single. Not that I will introduce you. You as my sister-in-law, I don’t think so somehow!’ This is Joe’s sister. The ‘Queen of the Mail Merge’, obsessed with comic sans font is Joe’s sister!

  Somehow, I have the presence of mind to rush over to my brother who is now propping up the bar chatting to someone, chewing on a cocktail stick. ‘Dan I have to go!’ I yell in his ear. ‘You never told me Joe worked here.’ Dan looks so puzzled, set adrift in a sea of wine that I’m obliged to turn around and blatantly point out the man in question to demonstrate my point.

  ‘Oh yes! Joseph Walsh, he is a VP like me. The annoying dickhead I always complain about. You know him?’ he asks as I grab his arm a little more forcefully than intended.

  ‘It’s Joe,’ I squeak, prompting Dan to put down his glass in horror.

  ‘As in Joe Joe?’ he echoes and I slowly nod. ‘Joe the chump who has you sworn off men?’ Wind this up Dan, there’s no need to drag this out. ‘Watch out, he’s coming right over.’ I turn around but it’s too late. Joe is now standing there before me. ‘Oh hi Walsh. How are we this evening?’ Dan cheerfully says doing a fake chest bump handshake that goes on for a few seconds longer than it should. Then the supportive brother he is, he goes back to talking to the blonde next to him at the bar, leaving me to blindly navigate my way through this surreal situation alone.

  Unlike the movies, bumping into an ex-boyfriend is not a great experience when you are by yourself at a party, no matter how glamorous you look. In the enormity of the moment, I feel no other way to express myself than to acknowledge him as though he was an old local in a pub.

  ‘Alright?’ I say, knowing that I sound ridiculous. ‘How’s it going?’

  I then try to take him in without getting a rush of blood to the head. My old flame, who as it turns out, didn’t like me nearly half as much as I liked him, is not as I remember at all. He then pulls me in for an overfriendly hug, which I don’t return, keeping my hands down by my side as though I were a doll. If I’m not mistaken, I’m detecting the distinct whiff of body odour. It’s all coming back to me now. Joe didn’t do deodorant! He said he had a natural musk, unique to him.

  ‘You don’t seem very pleased to see me,’ he says, looking a bit put out. At first, I shrug by way of response as I’m finding it hard to articulate what exactly I want to say here, but then I find my voice. ‘I’m just a little surprised. It’s been a while,’ I say, thinking this is the understatement of the century. Two years to be precise!

  This is the man that until today I had tried to consign to history – no mean in the Internet age – in the hope that I would start thinking of him as one of the many threads that made up the tapestry of my life. But as I stand in front of him, all I can think of is that this is the man that used to look a lot better with a tan. I don’t know what to study first – the washboard stomach of old that now looks a little bloated, or that same blonde hair still tied back into a ponytail, as though adopting a lifetime signature style like Brian May from Queen.

  If Joe stopped being human a while ago in my head and spent his time sitting on a big fat cloud with a harp, boy oh boy has he fallen back down to earth with an almighty bang, fusing the dry ice machine in the process. Joe is nothing like I remember.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he asks, looking bewildered. ‘Hope you’re not stalking me!’

  Despite this being possibly the most irritating thing he could say, I somehow find it in me to laugh as though he said the funniest thing. ‘Am afraid not! No, that’s my brother,’ I say, making a gesture at Dan who has got to that time of the night where it feels normal to stick two straws up your nose and pretend you’re a walrus.

  Then Joe laughs that laugh again and for a second I’m no longer being shallow, I’m immediately transported back in time to when my insides turned over in affection for this man.

  ‘God, you’re Harrington’s sister. Why didn’t I put two and two together? You do look alike. You’re better looking than him, mind.’ I start to thaw out a little, remembering the charm of old that used to make my heart melt. Then he talks and doesn’t stop, rabbiting on at a hundred miles an hour.

  ‘I’ve only just got back from Oz. Built up my reputation over there,’ he says, stroking his ponytail. ‘Fastest promotion in company history you know. Got transferred to the UK office to shake things up a little.’ At the end of this long-winded anecdote, he touches my arm as though to emphasize the importance of what he’s just told me.

  What’s going on here? The boyish cockiness that I used to find endearing when he was out of work appears to be full-blown arrogance now he’s in it. The very touch of his hand on my arm makes me flinch in embarrassment – yes, the very same hand that used to dunk me under the water at Coogee Beach for a fraction of a second too long.

  ‘I made a lot of sacrifices to get there though,’ he stares into my eyes meaningfully and all I can think is that I somehow doubt this. This man has never done anything he didn’t want to do.

  ‘The last time I saw you was at the airport,’ I say, cutting the flirtation down to size. ‘Over two years ago, remember?’ I add. Remember Joe, the time you were more concerned with loading up your bag with the toiletries I couldn’t take through customs than actu
ally saying goodbye.

  If I have chosen to interpret all the grief and all the drama as a sign it was true love thwarted by circumstance, then right now I can see that I got it really wrong. So wrong! To think I used to have those dreams where Joe returned to make us ‘official’, only for me to then wake up with that awful sinking feeling that it wasn’t true. Liv has been right all along. Here we are without the communal living or the ninety-degree heat and he’s coming across like an arrogant jerk, strangely out of step with the environment he’s in. I’m not just utterly underwhelmed, I have absolutely no desire for further conversation – or to listen to another one of those sodding shaggy dog stories for that matter.

  As I work out how to extract myself from this reunion, Joe carries on talking away about himself and his incredible career, every now and again smiling at me and displaying those nicotine-stained molars – all forty-five of them, crammed into that mouth. ‘You look good Kate. Really good,’ he looks me up and down. For once, I’m delighted that I’m not looking like I popped out for milk and that my big lycra pants are doing their job. Luckily, I do happen to be looking my best tonight.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say and then we fall into another awkward silence.

  Faced with monosyllabic responses, even Joe, the man with the gift of the gab, is desperately thinking hard of something to say. I’ve noticed he’s moved on from petting his ponytail and is now twisting his leather and jade necklace, which is slightly at odds with the tuxedo. And then another wave of realisation hits me: I’ve never seen him with a top on before. I’ve never seen him in anything other than one outfit – shorts!

  As though reading my mind, he looks down at himself. ‘I’m not used to being smart. You know me, like to be casual,’ he says, and I glimpse the ‘Y.O.L.O’ tattoo on his wrist, an unsubtle nod to his travelling days. So awkward is the conversation, I’ve now decided to just nod and smile like the Queen does, without showing my teeth, all the while noticing that he’s talking up with intonations at the end of every sentence, like proper ex-pats do when they arrive back in the UK.