The Night That Changed Everything (20 page)

I don't see what happens next coming, though. Him leaning forward, bringing his face to mine. I can smell his aftershave, and the warmth of his body, despite the chill in the air and the fact we're not even touching. Yet.

But in the split second before we're about to connect, Ben pops into my head. He's leaning down, his lips closing in on the lips of the girl in the green dress.

‘I'm sorry.' I pull away, shaking my head. ‘I can't do this.'

‘It's OK,' says Adam, taking a step back and running a hand through his hair.

Jemma bursts out of the pub. ‘I can't find it and my sodding flatmate is on a sodding hen weekend until tomorrow.'

In that moment, fat, black clouds explode, drenching us all instantly.

‘Fuck my life,' yells Jemma into the rain.

‘You can stay at mine,' I tell her, trying not to look at Adam.

As soon as a taxi with its light on appears, Adam holds out his arm.

‘Here you go, girls,' he says when it pulls over.

‘Are you sure?' I ask.

He nods, opening the door. ‘See you Monday.'

‘See you Monday,' I repeat, grateful for Jemma's presence so we don't need to talk about what just happened.

Back at mine, I get out of my wet clothes and into my bathrobe, handing Jemma the one that Ben left behind.

‘You all right?' Jemma asks as she puts down the kebabs we made the taxi stop for so she can get changed. ‘You were quiet in the cab.'

I force a smile. ‘I'm fine. Drink?'

‘Aye, go on.' She pulls the robe around her and sits on the sofa, feet on the coffee table and kebab on her lap. ‘So, how're you coping without Ben?'

‘Fine,' I tell her, handing her a glass of red wine and a fork. It's the first time she's mentioned him this evening.

‘Fine?'

‘Yep.'

‘Yep?'

‘Sure.'

‘You really don't like talking about it, do you?'

‘I just don't think it helps to dwell on it.' I unwrap my lamb shish.

‘Too right!' Jemma sets her food aside and grabs my laptop from the coffee table, turning it on.

‘What're you doing?'

‘Signing you up for internet dating.'

‘No, you're not.'

‘What have you got to lose?'

‘I just don't see the appeal of dedicating precious time to hanging out with strangers.'

‘And what about Ben?' Jemma asks. ‘Do you really think he's sitting around crying into his whisky?' She nods towards the glass I left on the coffee table earlier.

‘Nope, I don't suppose he is,' I tell her through gritted teeth, thinking about the girl in the green dress.

‘Just take a look,' Jemma coaxes, tapping a few keys while I top up our drinks. ‘Here!' When I get back she swivels the screen towards me triumphantly. ‘Tell me you wouldn't?'

‘Pilot underscore Dan,' I read aloud, looking at the picture of a guy in sunglasses, sitting in what looks like a cockpit. ‘He's good-looking,' I admit.

‘Yes.' She bounces back down next to me excitedly. ‘So we're setting up your profile?'

‘Maybe another time,' I tell her, snapping the computer shut. I'm not ready to date Pilot underscore Dan, or snog Adam, or do anything with anyone else.

And I can't believe Ben is.

Monday, 1 December

I stand up at my desk.

‘I'm gonna shoot off,' I tell Russ and Tom.

I hook my arms into my jacket, conscious of Russ checking the clock on his screen.

‘It's not even three o'clock,' he says.

‘Richardson's in meetings for the rest of the day,' I say.

I'm cooking a roast for Jamie tonight – my way of thanking him for everything he's done for me this past month – so these few hours will give me a chance to get everything I need from the supermarket and prep the dinner.

‘But you still haven't told us what happened with Natalie on Friday. It's the code.'

‘What code?'

‘The man code.' Russ opens his arms like it's self-explanatory. ‘The same code that says you can sack off your friends, even if it's someone's birthday . . .' He clears his throat for emphasis here. ‘. . . if there's a chance of sex. The code absolves you, Ben, but it also – and this is crucial – it also requires you to tell us
everything
.'

‘I don't kiss and tell.'

Russ recoils, disgusted, but I'm out of there before he can protest further, wondering as I go whether the person who first said they don't kiss and tell also cried in a stranger's bed.

Jamie is on the phone when I get in so I unpack my ingredients, cursing when I realize I forgot dessert. When he finally hangs up I'm manoeuvring a hot lemon up a chicken's backside.

He watches me, perplexed.

‘You pierce the lemon and the juices help cook the chicken from the inside,' I explain. ‘That way it needs less time and stays moist.'

Jamie rubs his hands in anticipation.

‘Who was on the phone?' I ask.

‘Danielle.'

Her name hangs in the air.

‘How's she doing?'

Jamie pockets his hands as I shove the bird into the oven.

‘She can understand why Rebecca isn't talking to her, but
you
. . .'

‘It'd wreck Rebecca's head if she thought Danielle and I were hanging out after everything. I'm just trying to do the right thing.'

Jamie presses his fingers into his temples. ‘You're probably right; I just wish . . .' His sentence tapers out. ‘So have you heard from Natalie?'

I watch him trying to stifle his amusement.

‘Oh, get stuffed.'

‘I mean, I've had girls cry tears of
joy
in my bed before, but . . .'

I groan. ‘Talking of crying: do you remember my onion trick?'

‘Yep, you hold your breath.'

‘Good.' I pull out a chopping board. ‘You're making the gravy.'

‘I can't make gravy.'

‘It's got booze in – it's practically a cocktail.'

I talk him through softening the onions and adding the carrot and celery to let them sweat, suddenly enjoying myself. He's about to pour in the red wine when he stops and attends the chalkboard.

‘What now?' I say.

‘Your Facebook statuses. I've been meaning to mention it.'

‘I haven't been on it since last week – I don't want to break
the rules
.'

‘What was it now?' He rests a finger on the corner of his lips while he thinks. ‘Something like:
It's Thursday night and I'm bored
.'

‘What's wrong with that?'

‘Because what you write isn't the same as what people read. You write,
It's Thursday night and I'm bored
but what your friends read is:
I'm so lonely without Rebecca, I wish she'd take me back
.'

‘Bullshit.'

He ignores me and pinches a piece of chalk. ‘OK, so the following are prohibited: Facebook stalking, double texting, Damien Fucking Rice,' he wraps an invisible noose around his neck, ‘and cry-for-help statuses.'

‘And you're allowed to give me dead arms?'

‘But only when you look like a blobfish.'

‘You're going to miss me when I'm gone, I reckon.'

He smiles. ‘I think you might be right.'

It's weird to say it, because going back to the flat is what I want more than anything in the world, but I'd be sad not living with Jamie any more. It can put a strain on a relationship, can't it? Living together. You're in each other's hair, you discover all the other person's annoying habits. But if anything it's made us even stronger.

Probably best to keep this to myself.

‘How's work?' he says.

I open the oven to baste the chicken, then hoick myself on to the worktop and answer his question with a fed-up shrug.

‘Maybe I should just shut up and get on with it?' I say. ‘I mean, most people don't like their jobs, do they? And it's not like I ever have to take my work home. Unless you count the time Russ hid Tom's mouse mat in my bag.'

‘You should definitely shut up,' he says, slumping into the couch. ‘But just get on with it? No way. Look at all the shit I went through to do something I love. My parents still aren't over the fact their only son runs a bar.'

‘But what's wrong with running a bar?'

‘It's not something they can show off about at . . .' He strangulates his vowels. ‘. . . Cheshire Law Society get-togethers.' His chest jerks for a single, silent laugh. ‘The irony being, it was their careers that persuaded me I wanted the opposite.'

Jamie never really talks about his parents, and I feel honoured he's opening up now to help me sort
my
life out.

‘For them it's all about how much you earn, your status. They both hated being lawyers – hated it. And yet they worked long hours, didn't take holidays.' He stands up and takes in the view of the Thames from his window.

‘You remember my eleventh birthday?' he says. ‘I came round with my new mountain bike?'

‘Yeah.'

‘I didn't tell you at the time because I was embarrassed, but I never saw them the whole day. I just woke up to find it wrapped up in silver paper in the living room, and they weren't back from work when I got home from school, so I came to yours.'

I remember it. We hadn't been expecting him, and when Mum discovered it was his birthday she rushed out to buy a cake before Kwik Save closed. I never got a whiff of him being upset, but clearly it stuck with him all these years.

‘Basically, they put up with being miserable so they could retire comfortably at fifty.' His tone is matter-of-fact, not bitter. ‘But guess what? They're still miserable now. What's the point in making yourself miserable for a day that might never come?' His chest inflates as he takes a deep breath, and he holds it for a second before letting go. ‘That chicken smells fit, by the way.'

He comes over to examine the tray that I remove from the oven.

‘Rebecca is going to struggle to find another wife like you,' he says, and when I laugh he gives me a look I can't quite read.

‘What?' I say.

‘This is the first time I've been in your company for more than half an hour and haven't had to give you a dead arm. In fact,' he approaches the chalkboard again, ‘rule six: cook for Jamie.'

After dinner Jamie pops out to buy dessert.

While he's gone I attempt to recreate the finale to the 2011–12 season, the ultimate happy ending, at the foosball table. It's 2–2 at the Etihad, and we're into the dying seconds when an off-balance Balotelli somehow manages to poke the ball into QPR's penalty box. I'm just about to scream AGUERRRRRO, and declare Manchester City the champions, when the little plastic ball gets stuck under the striker's foot, and history has suddenly been rewritten.

I sit on the couch, staring at the framed posters of old liquor adverts that hang above the table. Rebecca gave them to Jamie for his birthday a couple of years ago, before our own history was rewritten.

Disregarding Jamie's rules, I switch on my laptop and go to her page, except . . .

Her picture has vanished, replaced by a white silhouette.

What the fuck?

I didn't know where else to go. The only thing I know is this isn't how it's going down, Rebecca deleting me from her life, not answering my calls or texts, acting like she doesn't have a choice in all of this. So I grabbed the small velvet box and came to the flat.

I'd planned to ask her to marry me at Beachy Head, but sometimes in life you have to adapt, like when the English quelled the Spanish Armada by altering their formation during battle. That's what I need to do now, change formation, adapt, because she'd have to listen to me, wouldn't she, if I went down on one knee?

My hand is trembling as I slot the key in the lock, ready to talk over her protests, but before the door is fully open I sense the flat is empty, and that I'm going to have to wait.

I wander around, reacquainting myself with the things we bought together just a couple of months ago. I sit on the bed, I run my fingertips across the walnut surface of the dining table, I stand in front of the couch. It feels like my life is on pause and I'm walking through it, everything static except me.

It took the delivery men an hour and a half to hoist the couch up the two flights of stairs, and my muscles ached from helping, but as soon as the men had gone Rebecca slammed the door shut and drew me on to the canvas upholstery. The motion of our bodies caused the couch to shift across the wooden floors so that by the time we collapsed, breathless and hazy, it was almost in the kitchen.

When I set off from Jamie's tonight I was expecting to find the dishwasher overflowing and to be tripped up by Rebecca shrapnel, but the place is spotless and it's a blow to my ego. The boxset we'd been watching before she kicked me out is folded neatly on the shelf, as though she's finished it without me.

I slump to the floor, back pressed against the cold radiator, and it's like someone is blowing up a balloon inside of me, filling me with emptiness. I check the time. Just gone eight. There is a text from Jamie asking where I am but I ignore it. I wonder where she is, how long she'll be. I don't know when exactly I become aware of a blue light flashing against the wall.

Eventually I stand and walk over to the source. It's coming from Rebecca's laptop. I pick it up with both hands as though to test its weight, and I'm conscious now of my heart working beneath my ribcage, pumping blood into my arteries, delivering oxygen around my body.

I've never so much as looked at the screen of her mobile when it beeped, and I wouldn't be contemplating what I'm contemplating now if Rebecca would talk to me, but what if I find something that helps me understand what's going on in her head? An email to a friend or something?