One Thing Led to Another (8 page)

‘What’s that tie you’re wearing?’ I say.

‘What tie?’

‘The one you’re wearing.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘What’s
right
with it?’

‘It’s a bog standard tie.’

‘Exactly.’

‘So, what’s it to you?’

‘Nothing, I’m just bringing your attention to it.’

‘Right,’ he says, flaring his nostrils.

‘Right,’ I say, stifling a giggle.

He walks to the door, opens it and stands there for a second.

‘What are you now, my girlfriend?’ he says eventually. I hear him chuckle to himself as he closes the door.

I’m on the bus, almost at work, when Vicky calls:

‘Hi’ she says.

‘Hi.’

‘It’s me.’

‘I know.’

She pauses. I know this is because she’s giving me a chance
to tell her something, she knows I’m being weird. You can’t hide anything from Vicky, she’ll sniff you out in seconds. I wish I could tell her. God, I’m dying to tell her, she’s my best friend! But I know Jim would never forgive me. Telling Gina was a
huge
mistake, I just had to tell someone and she happened to be there. The fact is that once Vicky – indeed anyone – knows, there will be months of nudging and winking and ‘so when are you getting married?’ and we certainly don’t need that to start right now.

‘Um, I’m just calling because it’s only eight days till my birthday – as you know – and I am trying to organize what theme to have.’

‘Right,’ I say.

Another pause.

‘Can I run through the options with you?’

‘Um yes, it’s just…’

‘Tess?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes I’m fine, I’m just on the bus that’s all. I can’t really talk.’

‘Oh right. You just sound weird that’s all.’

‘Do I?’

‘Yeah, like you’re not telling me something.’

I swallow hard.

‘No, it’s nothing. Honestly, nothing’s happened,’ I say, immediately regretting saying ‘nothing’s happened’ since she’ll now so know something has.

My flatmate’s just turned against me and I’m pregnant by my best friend, that’s all.

When I walk into reception, Jocelyn doesn’t say anything, she doesn’t even look at me. She just tears a Post-it note from the pad on her desk, her hair swinging, and hands it to me with a closed-off look of smug importance on her face.

It reads: Laurence rang. Can you meet him for lunch today? It would make his week if you could. Call him: 0771 6543 839.

And because I’m about to interview a woman who hijacked her lover’s honeymoon and not only that but got pregnant on it, I think what the hell, it’s just lunch with an ex. I get to my desk and I dial the number.

‘I was thirty-five weeks pregnant when Hamish tripped over a cricket bat on the stairs and broke his ankle. I don’t know who the nurses in A&E felt sorrier for, me or him. We had a toddler and a seven–year-old to look after and no day-time help in a hundred-mile radius. We must have looked comical in bed – him with his three pillows for his foot, me with my three for my bump. We had to laugh, or else we would definitely have cried.’

Siobhan, 48, London

We are outside the National Film Theatre.

He hands me two tickets…with British Airways written on them. You are joking, I think. Then I think, oh my God, he’s not, he’s actually gone and booked flights to Paris, without even consulting me.

‘I took a risk,’ says Laurence.

‘That’s not like you,’ I say and for a fleeting moment, I am aware of thinking there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do right now.

‘Ooh, sarky,’ he says, and gives a little laugh.

Then I look more closely and realize they’re tickets to the London Eye. ‘That’s lovely, that’s really sweet of you,’ I stutter,
‘but the queue’s bound to be massive and I only have three quarters of an hour…I’ve got to get back…‘

But he’s already pulling me by the arm, and I’m running, despite myself, along the riverside, giggling like a teenager.

‘Come on! Live a little, woman,’ Laurence shouts over his shoulder. ‘Jesus Christ, what is that magazine you now work on? Some sort of dictatorship?!’

Above us trains rumble over Hungerford Bridge and seagulls soar, screeching over the Thames. South Bank is swarming with tourists, loud groups of French school children with backpacks and neckerchiefs and attitude and fed-up teachers.

‘No,’ I shout. I’m laughing, gulping down huge balls of air. ‘It’s just, some of us do have a job, you know. We can’t all swan about all afternoon having three-hour lunches, pulling pints for a living!’

He swings round, takes a long drag on his cigarette, and blows the smoke high up into the blue sky. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he shouts, flailing his arms about. He looks so French when he does that. ‘I forgot you had your fancy job in the media these days, haven’t even got an hour to spare for your old friend?’

I wish I did, Laurence Cane. I wish I had five hours, five days, five weeks to spare with you. What is it about this man that can do this to me? Lead me into temptation. Get me right in the heart when I least expect it. Erase any good sense I have in one blink of those thick, black lashes?

But he does, and I’m here and he’s showing no signs of letting up, so I have no choice but to be dragged, almost tripping over myself until we are dwarfed beneath the London Eye and its adjoining queues of people, as if standing by a gigantic ship about to set sail.

The queue snakes around white railings two or three times and stretches at least twenty people back. Laurence clocks the concern on my face.

‘Chill out,’ he almost laughs, massaging my shoulder. My
body jolts and I realize that this is the first time he’s touched me – apart from the cave-man dragging me by the arm just now – in more than four years. It feels familiar and yet foreign, pleasurable and yet for some bizarre reason, even this makes me feel guilty. It’s the incongruity of it all that gets me. I’m a mother-to-be. I should be thinking about babies’ names and worrying about bonding, not standing in the sunshine of a lunchtime about to board a London tourist attraction with my ex.

Thankfully, Jocelyn had been too immersed in one of her ‘brief chats’ with her sister back home to grill me as I slipped out of the office. It must be brilliant to be Jocelyn: completely unapologetic, oblivious to the fact that calling Australia for an hour every day on the company’s money might just be a smidgen out of order. God bless her.

Me, I try to get away with stuff but I’ve never been much good at blagging, not really. I was alright with the stuff that didn’t matter – the minutiae of life, the exams, the money stuff, the charming my way out of fines and into clubs. But when it comes to relationships and to feelings, that little voice starts – my conscience. Tap-tapping away like an annoying neighbour. Like when I stepped out through the revolving doors of Giant Publishing this lunchtime and I looked behind to check nobody was watching, Like now, for instance, the guilt I feel, you’d think I was off to have smutty sex in a sleazy hotel not going for lunch! It’s turning my stomach to mush. But why do I feel guilty?

I can hear Vicky now. A right Yorkshire dressing down: ‘You did what? Met Laurence, who broke your heart? Who dumped you from the other side of the world, by email? Since when was that a good idea, you complete and utter numpty?’

And maybe she’s right – she usually is – maybe this is the worst idea of my life. I could have deleted that email and Laurence Cane from my life for ever. But something told me I couldn’t. Because otherwise I would never know, would I?

And that meeting the other morning; the fact he was staying across the road from me, the fact we were in the dry cleaners at the same time, with each other’s clothes. I’d had his shirt, Laurence’s shirt, hanging in my bedroom for a week!! If that’s not some kind of sign – and I’m not usually one for ‘signs’ – then I don’t know what is.

But anyway, I am telling myself, don’t get your knickers in a twist, because this is just a single revolution of the London Eye. And he’s got a girlfriend (major spanner in works). And you’re pregnant (industrial-sized sledge hammer in the works). So no matter how many ‘signs’ there are, this ain’t happenin’.

He lights another cigarette, the old Camel Lights. ‘Fuck it,’ he says, surveying the queue. ‘Come with me, I’ve got an idea.’

He grabs me by the hand and drags me, again, towards a sign that says, ‘Fast Track Ticket Holders’. There is a closed gate at the entrance. Oh God. Here we go. Pregnant Woman and Ex Arrested on Lunch-break…

I don’t really have time to think about it though, because before I know it, Laurence has vaulted over the railings and is urging me to do the same.

I think, you’re having a laugh, not a chance. I’m with child, I can’t go vaulting over railings! But because I’m with Laurence and because he has the devil in him, and because I’m extremely easily led, I do. I hitch up my skirt almost to my knickers, do a little skip and a jump towards the railing, grip the bar with my right hand and catapult myself over it. Nimble as you like.

‘Stop looking at my knickers!’ I shout.

‘I’m not looking at your knickers! Just get a move on will you woman!’

There’s a few people in front of us tutting and looking round, but I couldn’t give a toss. I’m too busy laughing and half collapsing and then we’re on, it’s our turn. A big white capsule draws up in front of us, the door slides open and we climb aboard the London Eye. The other half dozen people
in the capsule with us all sit on the wooden bench at the centre but Laurence and I gravitate towards the glass, where we stand, side by side, London unfolding before our eyes.

‘Wow. It’s gorgeous isn’t it?’ I say, watching the river glint and meander. To my right, the Houses of Parliament glisten like a golden wedding cake.

‘It’s one cool city,’ agrees Laurence, taking in the view. ‘Hey look over there, bring back memories or what?’

I follow the line of his finger which is pointing beyond the Houses of Parliament, to Battersea Power Station, its four white steeples sticking up, like an upside down cow.

‘How could I forget? I spent enough time there. In fact, I could count on two hands the number of times you came to Islington.’

‘Well you had a shit bed,’ he says.

‘That’s such a crap excuse!’ I protest.

‘You know how much I like my bed, though.’

‘You’re dead right there,’ I say. ‘Can’t argue with that.’

I have never known anyone sleep as much as Laurence. Borderline narcoleptic. No exaggeration.

‘They were cool times though, weren’t they?’ says Laurence. I am aware his weight has shifted slightly. I can feel the heaviness of him on my right shoulder.

‘Sure were,’ I say. ‘Pub lunches in the Latchmere, messy nights round Jez’s house, Frisbee in the park…’

We look at each other and crack up laughing.

‘Park fucking wardens!’ we say, simultaneously.

Someone sitting on the bench, obviously an English speaker, coughs significantly, but we don’t care.

‘What I can’t believe, is the fact we were naked. Two days before Christmas!’ laughs Laurence, throatily. He puts his hand on my back, firm and familiar. It momentarily takes my breath away. ‘That was a great Christmas though, wasn’t it? I still remember it.’

How could I forget it? I spent the whole of Christmas dinner at Laurence’s parents’ house, both hands stuck in glasses of iced water having – much to everyone’s amusement – completely misjudged the spiciness of the chillies for the ‘Algerian spiced meatballs’ starter, and cut them bare-handed.

It wasn’t the first time I’d humiliated myself in front of Laurence’s mother. After the kitchen table incident (as if that wasn’t bad enough) I stayed over in the blow-up-bed next to a snoring, beer-scented Gina, dreaming of Laurence in his bed next door. I thought I’d be able to sneak out the next day without having to show my shamed face. Not so. It turned out I’d left my trainers in the living room and had no choice but to go downstairs and get them the next morning and make excruciating small talk with Laurence’s mum as she sat watching Rick Stein’s bloody
Seafood Odyssey.

‘Oh, you’re watching Rick Stein,’ I said, stating the obvious like a total loser, picking up the trainers.

‘Yes, I quite like Rick Stein,’ said Joelle, not unpleasantly, but she didn’t say anything else.

‘He likes fish doesn’t he? A lot. Rick Stein?’ I said after a way-too-long pause to which she didn’t really answer. So then I said, ‘I like fish.’ I could
not
believe it.

‘That’s good,’ she said, with a smile that was half polite and half said ‘will you just fuck off’. ‘Fish is very good for you.’

‘Yes salmon’s my favourite,’ I said. ‘Then probably cod.’

After that cracking display of repartee I made a sharp exit expecting never to be back. But Laurence and I had clearly started as we meant to go on: he rang me the next weekend and demanded he come and visit me in Manchester, hurtling down from Leeds in his red Deux Chevaux to spend just twelve stolen hours together before he had to be back for a lecture, and after that we had non-stop sex for the next two and a half years. This time as an official item. I was enraptured, completely under his spell of cool Englishness and
Gallic sensuality. I treated him like an exotic pet. I showed him off, forgave his moods, lapped up his erratic affections mainly because when they did come, they were pure gold.

But it was most unlike me. Not least because I’d have never normally looked twice at someone like Laurence. Because boys like him – in my experience at least – never looked twice at girls like me. Men like Laurence – half French (French-Algerian to be exact), a bit moody, bit naughty, that mix of popular and slightly aloof – usually went for demure girls. Girls who never raised their voices, who had silky hair that fell out of ponytails and come to bed eyes. Girls with more sense than to fall head over heels with someone like him.

The timing could not have been worse – trust me to go falling in love three months before my Finals. The honeymoon period was intense and draining: he’d come to Manchester (or I’d go to Leeds), we’d spend twenty-four hours in bed only surfacing to eat then, come four p.m., we’d literally have to push each other away, I would push him into his car, he would push me onto the train, in order to have a hope in hell of doing any revision. I never told him, but I cried every time the train pulled away.

Laurence was passionate and unpredictable; he found me irresistible and sexy where boys at school had found me ‘cute and funny’. He said I was the funniest, coolest, most low maintenance girlfriend ever. And he was cool, damn it. I admit he was cool. He DJ’d, smoked Camel Lights and had road rage in French. And I loved him, truly, madly, deeply. I loved him in that way that sometimes it felt like we were one and the same person. And when I looked at his face and into those dark eyes, I saw a new, confident, sexy me.

And of course there was lots of sex, crazy-in-love sex. Hungry, lust-fuelled, we didn’t care where we did it and we didn’t care about getting caught. We’d have quickies at his parents’ house and blow jobs in lay-bys on the Pennine Way.
In the first few months following my graduation, I stayed in Manchester and got a job at a café in Castlefield. Laurence would come from Leeds to visit and we’d shag all night getting zero sleep. The next day I’d be serving cappuccinos with the biggest ache between my legs, and a dirty great smile all over my face. Everything and nothing felt like for ever back then. For the first time in my life, I was properly in love.

And it turned out I hadn’t offended Joelle at all. In fact she would make quips about ‘kitchen table gate’ which would make me blush and make her laugh her girlish laugh and I became part of the family; I was the daughter Joelle had never had. And I thought this was it, this was The One, and I would have bi-lingual children and marry into Bohemian Academia.

But I was wrong. And just as easily as Laurence had slinked into my life, about three years later he slinked out again, by email, when I was half way across the world.

‘How is your mum?’ I ask, eager to change the subject before Laurence remembers either the chilli fingers incident or the cod/salmon shame.

‘Great. Well, barking mad, still constantly disappointed in me, you know how it is…’

‘Ahh,’ I sigh, nostalgically. ‘I love your mum.’

‘She loves you,’ says Laurence, turning to look at me and holding me with that disarming gaze of his. ‘She’s never forgiven me for what happened.’

I look at the floor embarrassed. Below us, people scurry across Westminster Bridge getting smaller, like ants. I feel small too up here, suspended in mid-air, away from the world and reality.

‘Can I ask you something?’ says Laurence.

‘Sure,’ I say, ‘fire away.’

‘Why didn’t you reply to my email?’