The Waiting List (Strong Women Book 5)

by Sarah Till

  He paused in his stride and turned back.

  “Give me a reason. You're obviously preoccupied with your history. Why would I want to inflict that on myself?”

  I listened to the echo of words already said and repeated them.

  “I'm sorting myself out. I'm tired, I just need to get a grip. I'll be OK. I'm just trying to get over it. In fact I'm very nearly over it. It's been very stressful for me with my sister and everything. But it's nearly over, as we'll be seeing her tomorrow. Give me a chance.”

  I looked at him now. Actually, he was very good looking and I felt a sudden urge to kiss him. An urge detached from all my pain over Tim loving someone else and his lying. Detached from Caroline and Charlotte. A chance to escape. For a moment, I saw Liam as Tim saw me. Not hugely attractive, not filling the gap entirely, but an interesting proposition to work on. Less painful, less intense. Maybe a little fun to be had.

  He was still looking at me and I raised my eyebrows and nodded. Yet he walked away.

  “Bye, Clementine.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  So, here I was, living out my worst nightmare. Sitting in a bar on my own. Not any old bar, but the bar where most of my pseudo-friends hang out. Not real friends like Jenni, but the ones who like to hover round and just pick up sound bites of gossip to devour without a care. The waiter came over and looked at me expectantly.

  “Whiskey and soda, please.”

  He nodded and went away. I looked around the bar. There were a few couples, those who had met on their eight o'clock dates, still in their flirting mode. Two groups of men stood near the bar and what was obviously the beginnings of a hen party gathered by the door. Thankfully, there wasn't one single person I knew. The waiter came back with my drink.

  “There you are. Three pounds ninety, please.” I handed him the cash and he lingered. “Waiting for someone?”

  I sipped the drink and the liquid burned my throat.

  “Hmm. Actually no. I'm off in a minute.”

  He shrugged and walked away. The uncomfortable feeling I had increased the more the bar filled up. I shrank back in the booth and gave myself a time limit of one drink. I wondered if I was ultra-conspicuous, the slightly mad single woman who couldn't face staying in on a Friday night so goes out alone. It seemed to be the shape of the future for me. I surrendered the thought that Jenni would be joining me for our Friday night jaunts. Even if she did, our previous occupation of winding men up then letting them down would be redundant. She would inevitably talk about Johnny and her children and I would talk about Charlotte and my parents. Our lives had expanded and changed. The cogs had slowly clunked over and life had changed almost beyond recognition. So much that I was sitting alone in a bar drinking whiskey. On one hand, it felt sobering yet on the other I felt tipsy from the drink.

  I considered leaving as the music began to get louder. A couple moved into the booth Tim and I had occupied on our first date. They were laughing and ordered food. I remembered I hadn't had anything to eat and considered a takeaway. Standing to leave, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Not so fast, young lady.” It was Arthur Becks. He was looking particularly brash with his hair gelled almost upright and a ripped vest draped over his six-pack. Two admirers stationed themselves strategically opposite and stared at him. He smirked. “How's it going?”

  I half laughed. Everything I told him would go straight back to Tim.

  “Well, I was on a date but he left. Turned out I had too much baggage.”

  He pressed his hands together.

  “A big problem these days. Finding someone who's got nothing going on.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Take Tim, for instance. That was a non-starter really. Too soon. Much too soon.”

  I stared at him.

  “Well, I gave it a go.”

  “Yes. So I hear. Tried your hardest, according to Rosklyde. And who would have thought it? Your friend looked more like she was up for it. Still, they always say it's the quiet ones who're the worst.”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “Did you? What were they then? Anything you could extend to me? I'm having problems shagging anyone except my girlfriend. Anything you can help me with?” He leered at me across the table.

  Momentarily, I was struck dumb. Until right at that moment, I'd assumed that Tim had been completely serious about our relationship. Hadn't he meant it when he said he wanted to try? Hadn't he forced himself to forget about Caroline in order to see me? Didn't he say that he was loyal, that he just needed time? I was horrified. The realisation trickled through that he was using me as a stopgap until he could get her back. Someone to have sex with. Was that what all the lies were about? Arthur's grin burnt into me. I gathered myself.

  “So what? We've all got to get it somehow, haven't we?”

  “Yeah. Speaking of getting it, where's your sexy mate? The dancer? I wouldn't mind a bit of that.”

  I recoiled but stayed calm, waiting to make my escape.

  “Oh. You mean Jenni. She's moved in with her boyfriend.”

  Arthur sobered.

  “I thought you said she didn't date. Tim told me she was single.”

  I smiled tightly.

  “Oh, she does date. She just doesn't date you. She just doesn't fancy you. I'm a bit picky too. Don't really feel like playing hide the flake with you. Not my type. See you on the next tampon shoot, skinny boy.”

  He sat open-mouthed as I eased myself out of the booth. I had to get away quickly and almost ran to the door. I hailed a taxi and jumped in. The journey was almost traffic-free as everyone else was heading towards town to meet their friends. I was heading home alone. Back at home, I threw my bag on the sofa and wondered how I could have been so stupid. I'd been completely used. Tim had obviously recognised my needy search for the perfect man, the person on my list who ticked all my boxes and exploited it. Then, it seemed, he had spread the word about my mucky talents. Probably exaggerated what happened in his favour followed by the obligatory 'but she's history now'.

  I suddenly felt the need for revenge. I'd been used and wanted to get my own back. I pictured myself walking calmly up to Caroline’s door and banging hard. When she came out in her red bra, Tim standing behind her with his body glistening in the moonlight, I would tell her everything. That he had picked me up in a club when they were split up and tried to fuck me. Worse, he had told me he wanted a relationship with me all the time they had been trying to repair theirs. She would slap him and push him outside. The woman scorned. I toned it down a little, still visiting the house but waiting outside. Hiding in the bushes like I had done the night before, waiting until they had gone to bed and I saw the shadows on the curtains, then posting an anonymous note. Waiting in my car, perhaps all night until he emerged, head hanging, Caroline's eyes red from crying when she read the note.

  It was no use. I knew I had the potential to come between them and I certainly felt the urge, but what would it gain? Would Tim turn to me in his despair? Or would he just go and pick up another needy, attention-seeking thirty-something-year-old and pour out all his bitter, pent-up rage into her. Fast forwarding to the not so distant future, I would be faced with the two of them, standing right in front of me and I still didn't know what I would do. The high road would be to pretend I didn't know Tim. But I didn't feel like that at all. I would need time to think, time to recover the sparse dignity I had left.

  My mind turned to Liam. I knew I'd behaved badly, said too much, and ruined his evening. My house looked like a wedding reception, with all the flowers that had arrived that week evenly spaced around the rooms. Lenny would have been ecstatic at the uniformity of it. I took my phone and hesitated a little. Then I dialled. His answerphone kicked in immediately and I stuttered at first.

  “Liam, it...it's me. Clem. Clementine Clooney. From tonight.” Stupid again. It was only an hour and a half since he had left me sitting alone in a bar. “I just wanted to say that I was sorry for what happened tonight. I'm home now
, if you were worried. Probably not, but anyway I got home and looked at all the lovely flowers and how much thought you'd put into it and I feel really bad. All that stuff I said. Sorry. Anyway. Hope you're OK, having a nice night and all that. I'm not expecting a return call, by the way, I just wanted to apologise for dragging you out. Sorry. Anyway. Bye.”

  I pressed the disconnect button and wondered if I'd just made myself look even more stupid. I knew I was desperate not to look like I was using him, treating him as a stopgap until my next fix of Tim. Seconds later, my phone flashed up Liam’s name. I grabbed it quickly.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Clem. It's Liam. I got your message. Look, there's no need to apologise. I obviously misjudged the situation. It's partly my fault.”

  Partly?

  “Well, I feel fully responsible.” How could I explain without mentioning Tim? “My problem is that I'm just too giving. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. And when it all falls down I panic. I guess you went on a date with me just as it was all falling down.”

  He laughed and I relaxed a little.

  “Yes. I guess I did. Actually, I was just thinking about what you said about your sister. I still don't understand why you didn't just go straight to her house when you found out it might be her. I don't know what made me think about it, but it just sounds so... so...”

  “Weird?”

  “Not weird, just a bit strange.”

  I thought for a moment. It was strange that me and my mum had sat outside her house for more than an hour. That I'd also stalked her, and, to make it worse, hidden in her bushes.

  “It is strange. The problem is, we've been going through this for sixteen years. My parents have never really got any better at dealing with it and I've practically ignored it. They've got their routines, which are also a bit strange, and I won't go into, but now everything has changed for them. And for me. The possibility of her being back in our lives is a bit scary. We want to make sure it's her. We don't want to upset her daughter, and want to do things right. You know?”

  “Yes, I can see all that. But aren't they just excuses? If it was my sister who I hadn't seen for sixteen years, or worse, my daughter, I'd be banging on her door at the first opportunity.”

  “Hmm. You'd think so. But in some kind of weird way, they've got used to the uncertainty. They've got used to living in limbo. So, we've found her but we've got something else to speculate about. The moment we knock on that door, everything will change. She'll be back and everything will be certain again. It’s a big change for them. And for me.”

  Liam laughed.

  “Wow. That's deep, Clem.”

  “Yeah. Actually, we're going round there tomorrow.”

  “Good luck. And if you ever want to talk, you know where I am. Just as friends, right, as you don't need a relationship while you're dealing with this. But who knows in the future? Anyway good luck.”

  Good luck. I stared around the room at the flowers and the piles of pennies that were accumulating on the mantelpiece. I'd been picking up every coin I spotted on pavements for the past two weeks, often going out of my way to grab them. I knew I needed a rest.

  “Thanks, Liam. I appreciate it. Bye.”

  “Bye, Clem.”

  He was gone. The strange thing about Liam was that he was so easy to talk to, the words practically tumbled out of my mouth, things I didn’t really mean to say. Was it because I had no fear of embarrassing myself because I didn’t care what he thought of me? No. It was more than that. It was a kind of freedom. My mind rambled on with itself as my eyelids drooped. I knew I needed a rest and after tomorrow's reconciliation I promised myself that I would get one. For now, I fetched the list and got comfy on the sofa. I got a clean list and looked carefully at it. In the light of my new information about Tim and the loveliness of Liam, the list looked alien to me.

  This list was a photocopy of the list I'd amended for Tim. I took a pen and started to edit carefully. It seemed absurd now that I could spot the man I would marry at first sight. I crossed out the word reference to marriage at the top of the list and replaced it with 'would like to meet'. It sounded a little like a dating ad, but what the hell. I felt braver now and got pen happy. I crossed out all the appearance-related lines. It was obvious that I could be attracted to someone who was not tall, dark and handsome. After my chat with Liam, I was regretting my tardy arrival for our date, not looking my best. He was nice. More than nice. I really liked him. His smile was sexy and although he didn't fit into the template I'd set myself, way back in the days when Charlotte and I had made our wish jar, I did like him. No time for looking back now as I scribbled out all the problem areas on my list. The finished product was very different.

  Clementine Clooney – The man I would like to meet

  The man I would like to meet is called _________________ He will have:

  A sense of humour Must be faithful

  Reliable Loving

  Precise Generous

  A little bit dangerous

  Loves me

  NOW IT REALLY DID LOOK like a dating ad! I laughed a little to myself and felt a weight had lifted from my shoulders. Somehow, without my guidelines, I felt freer to look around and maybe consider someone I would have bypassed before. Who was blond. Jenni had been right. All the time she had teased me about the list, she had been trying to tell me I was deluded. She had found happiness with Johnny from accounts, someone I would never in a million years have considered as a partner for her. My hand went to my mobile phone to ring her and tell her the glad tidings, but I stopped myself. It was ten thirty now on a Friday night. In previous weeks, my and Jenni's evening would have only just begun, but tonight she would be snuggled up with Johnny and I was here alone on my sofa.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Being on my own again was a big thinking chasm. Combined with the drinking on an empty stomach, I began to feel maudlin. It seemed that I'd set up a natural barrier around myself when it came to Charlotte. I realised now that if I had to get rid of the list then I had to figure out how it had started. It was difficult to remember exactly when it had started. Charlotte and I used to play at weddings from a very early age and we would use tablecloths and pieces of net curtain to dress up. Mum had some lovely pearlized white stiletto heels and we took turns wearing them. It was strange because we had never actually seen her wear the shoes, and we wondered where she had got them from. We decided that they must have been her own wedding shoes and this prompted the question of why she let us play with them – surely she would have treasured her wedding outfit? When I was about thirteen, I'd asked her about her wedding dress. I'd seen pictures of it but when I looked in her wardrobe it wasn't there. I'd expected to find it wrapped in tissue paper, covered in a polythene bag. But it wasn't there. When I asked her where she kept it, I saw the emptiness in her eyes for the first time. I didn't know why and I still didn't. The next time I noticed the emptiness was after Charlotte had gone.

  We had dressed up as brides and paraded up and down the hallway. Well, to be more accurate, Charlotte had been the bride and I had been the bridesmaid. She had grabbed the white lacy tablecloth and draped it over her blonde curls. The laciest net curtains were wrapped around her so that a good amount trailed behind her. She always told me to arrange her wedding dress in a particular way, so she was fully covered in luxurious lace. I, on the other hand, pulled a pink tablecloth around me and tied it at the neck. Charlotte carried the pink fabric roses. I carried the washed-out plastic carnations. She clip-clopped up the tiled hallway in the oversized shoes wearing an angelic expression, ever-staring to the right and upwards. I followed her with a fixed frown, being careful not to step on her gown. Eventually, she would hand me the flowers and step forward to meet her new husband, looking at this now imaginary man with big doe eyes. She would smile and nod and we would make up a wedding ceremony and always look very solemn when we said 'Love, honour, and obey.'

  As we grew bigger and our curls grew longer and more blonde, we would spe
nd the time before the wedding putting our hair in intricate styles, threading Mum's beads through and sticking the plastic flowers here and there. By the time we were ten and eleven, we were almost the same size despite the eighteen months between us. We often were mistaken for twins. Until this point, I had never ever been the bride. Then, one day, after Charlotte had been the bride, we began to talk about the man she had married. He was called David. David had blond hair and blue eyes. He was tall, a sportsman, perhaps a tennis player. He loved Charlotte and would do anything for her. Charlotte fantasised that they had been on holiday and planned to have children. She knew every detail about David, down to the colour of his socks and the way he talked. Charlotte recited all the qualities David would have one by one and my frown grew with me concentration, as I knew what was coming. She would finish, look wistfully into the distance and say,

  “You next.”

  In previous conversations which were not about prospective husbands - maybe about what dress we liked or what makeup or who we liked best, Mum or Dad - Charlotte would give a full account of her preferences and I would hang on her every word. She would then turn her attention to me and I would be expected to reciprocate, item for item. If I lost the thread or began to miss an item, her attention would wander to something else, maybe the television or to Mum or Dad. I would be left alone and she would be gone. So, I'd been ready for her that day. Of course, I'd thought about boys, not in a sexual sense, but I'd played kiss-catch in the playground and I was aware of them. I'd watched Charlotte's wistful expression around boys and sensed her growing interest as the frequency of the weddings increased. She had mentioned that she liked boys with blond hair, a sort of warning shot. In our previous comparisons, I was required to choose the opposite of her preferences. She liked to be secure in her exclusive preference, and had made it clear that she would not tolerate me having the same things as her. So, I automatically chose the boys with dark hair and eyes.