The Wedding Diary (Choc Lit) (19 page)

‘I’d have thought they would be like your friends in the UK?’

‘They were nothing like my friends!’ Maddy looked disgusted. ‘They were the most tedious, boring people I have ever met. All so grim and serious and earnest, and you should have seen their clothes. Charity cast-offs, stuff they’d found in skips – not an ounce of fashion sense between the lot of them.’

‘What about the local people, then? The ones you said needed the help of the developed world?’

‘I didn’t have much to do with them,’ said Maddy, wrinkling her nose and shuddering. ‘They live in the most awful places, Adam. Shanty towns and huts made out of rubbish, mosquitoes everywhere, no running water, or only in the gutters, anyway.’

She started stroking Adam’s arm. ‘So anyway, my darling, are you tired? You look exhausted. Gwennie said you’d gone to Italy. But she didn’t know you took some slapper who must have worn you out.’

‘Get dressed, Maddy,’ Adam said, ‘then leave.’

‘Oh, Adam, don’t be angry,’ wheedled Maddy. ‘I know I went away – I had to find myself, you see – but I thought about you all the time. I’m still in love with you.’

‘I don’t believe you. I don’t think you were ever in love with me.’

‘Of course I was, my darling. I might not have said the actual words. But surely lovers know these things?’

‘I want you to leave.’

‘But I don’t have anywhere to go,’ said Maddy, sticking out her lower lip and making Bambi eyes. ‘Where’s your sense of chivalry? Do you really mean to throw me out into the cold, dark night?’

‘It isn’t cold, it’s June,’ said Adam, as he found his phone. ‘Mads, you have five minutes. Get your clothes on, pack your stuff. I’ll call a cab for you.’

Cat wouldn’t answer calls or texts.

She wouldn’t answer e-mails.

When Adam called at Chapman’s yard first thing on Tuesday morning, delivering her luggage which she’d left behind in Camden Town, he found his way was barred by Tess, who told him Cat was out.

Did he have any business at the yard, she added, was there anything he wanted, tiles, spindles, chimneys?

‘No, thank you,’ he replied.

‘Then you mustn’t let me hold you up.’ She looked at him as if he were a slug she’d just discovered in a lettuce. ‘You can’t go through the office,’ she continued. ‘Go back through the yard, if you don’t mind. The gate is on your right.’

‘I need to have a word with Cat.’

‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

‘She’s here, then?’

‘She might be.’

‘I thought you told me she was out?’

‘She’s out to you,’ said Tess. ‘I think you ought to go away,’ she added. ‘There are laws, you know.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘This may come as a surprise to you, but stalking girls, harassing girls, molesting girls – they can have you for it. Lock you up and throw away the key.’

Adam realised he would have to wait.

Let Cat calm down, he told himself. Then try again next week – if he could hang on that long. If, in the meantime, he could stop himself from going mad.

He thought about the night on the Embankment, when he’d met that homeless man. What had he said?

‘You ’ave a bust-up with a lady, you need to give her time, and she’ll come round. That’s all they need, my son – a bit of time.’

He hoped the homeless man was right.

‘You’re not going to tell me any good stuff about what you did in Italy, then?’ demanded Tess as she sauntered back into the office. ‘Cat, are you still here?’

‘Yes, but keep your voice down,’ muttered Cat.

‘It’s all right, he’s gone.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past him to come back.’

Cat was hiding in the shrubbery, behind a huge asparagus fern which grew in an enormous Chinese pot.

Barry’s granny had donated it to Barry’s business. She said it gave the place a touch of class. Cat and Tess both hated it because they knew they would be carrion if they failed to keep the thing alive.

‘You should discuss what happened with a sympathetic listener, and I’m offering,’ said Tess. She flicked a rubber band across the room. ‘It’s the first rule of therapy, you know. I read about it in a magazine. When you talk, you purge yourself of all your bad emotions.’

‘Or give your mates a laugh at your expense.’

‘You vocalise your inner conflict,’ Tess said solemnly. ‘You cleanse your soul and find your way to peace. Anyway – this WAG, she said that doing it in hourly sessions with her therapist was the most amazing, brilliant thing.’

‘What happened, then?’

‘It sorted out her head – like, totally.’

‘I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,’ muttered Cat.

‘Why, what did you do? What did he do?’

‘I’m not entirely sure.’ Cat looked at Tess and sighed. ‘I sometimes wonder if I might have dreamed it, or some of it, at least.’

‘If you think you dreamed it, you could go and see this guy in Catford who’s a tantric disentangler.’

‘Who’s a what?’

‘He sorts the real stuff from the dreams.’

‘How does he do that?’

‘I think it’s something to do with smoke and chanting. He charges fifty quid plus VAT. So he’s not expensive, and for another tenner he’ll sort your chakras, too. Or you could see this shaman guy in Neasden who’ll analyse your aura, then get you to inhale all sorts of vapours to detoxify your mind. Or—’

‘What have you and Bex been up to while I’ve been away?’

‘We’re talking about you and Mr Spindle, Cat. What did you two do in Tuscany?’

‘We walked around. We drove around. We went to villas, palaces and beautiful old churches. We ate in lovely restaurants.’

‘Come on, Cat – I want more than the tweet.’

‘We climbed up half a dozen towers.’

‘Ah, towers – they’re significant,’ said Tess. ‘They’re like spindles, chimneys. Towers symbolise all sorts of stuff. If Mr Spindle took you up a lot of towers, it must mean he—’

‘Tess, I have a pile of work to do. Barry’s accountant’s coming round next week. Barry doesn’t have a clue about Excel, and so I’m going to have—’

‘I’m only guessing here, of course, but I’m assuming you had lots of sex?’

‘I don’t wish to discuss it.’

‘Cat, what did that scumbag do to you?’

‘Tess—’

‘You can tell me, honey,’ wheedled Tess, who had stopped flicking rubber bands. ‘This Adam bastard didn’t hurt you, did he? If he did, then Bex and I will sort him out. We’ll go and cut his bits off. Or we’ll get our brothers on the case. All you have to do is say the word.’

‘Adam didn’t hurt me,’ Cat insisted.

‘You’re sure?’ demanded Tess.

‘I’m sure,’ said Cat. ‘I had a lovely time.’

‘So why won’t you see him?’

‘I can’t tell you yet.’

‘Okay, tell me tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, I might.’ Cat tried again to change the subject. ‘How was your weekend?’

‘Well, we met these Scottish guys. They’d come down for a match or something and they were both seriously loaded, wallets full of Scottish funny money and they spent like there was no tomorrow.’

‘So you all had a fantastic time?’

‘Yeah, too right we did! Anyway, these guys were brothers. Or did they say cousins? They both had bright red hair, in any case. I’ve never really gone for redheads, but these blokes were seriously hot.

‘They said they would be going to Las Vegas in July. I’d love to go to Vegas. Lots of millionaires hang out in Vegas, so maybe I could even find myself a millionaire. Most Americans love British girls. They like our accents. I read about it in a magazine. They think we’re well cute—’

As Tess rattled on and on, Cat began to wish she had said nothing about Adam and going to Italy.

Tess came from a family of tough market traders who lived in Bethnal Green. One older brother had done time for grievous bodily harm, a younger one had just come out of prison, and Tess herself had qualifications in some martial art.

Bex was just as forceful, five-feet-two of Rottweiler belligerence and sassy disrespect. She treated men and dating like fussy children treated tubes of Smarties, picking out and gobbling up the orange ones and leaving all the purples, pinks and reds.

Cat thought it would be just as well if Adam didn’t show his face in Chapman’s yard again.

Maybe she should warn him?

But why she should be bothered about lying, cheating Adam Lawley’s safety, she really didn’t know.

She shook her head and sighed. What she did know was the thought of him, the touch of him, the lovely memories of how he’d made her feel in Italy were going to be difficult to shift.

Maddy had been difficult to shift.

Adam had called a cab, but Maddy had refused to take it, sitting on the stairs surrounded by her Topshop carriers and other bags and baggage and sobbing that she didn’t know what had happened to her sweet and lovely Adam. He used to be so good, so kind, so generous, and now he was so horrid, cruel and mean.

She’d been so distressed that in the end he had relented. ‘Mads, go back to bed,’ he’d said at last. ‘We’ll talk about it in the morning.’

‘You promise, Adam?’

‘Maddy, go to bed!’ He’d fixed himself a bowl of cereal, grabbed some cushions and a blanket and he’d spent the night – or what remained of it – sleepless on the sofa in the living room.

‘We’ve both moved on,’ he said to Maddy as they ate breakfast in the kitchen and listened to the Tuesday morning news.

‘One of us might have done,’ she wept. ‘Adam, I admit I got it wrong. When you asked me to marry you, I panicked. I said some awful things. But can’t we be friends?’

‘Maddy, it’s all over.’

‘Did you take that girl to Italy?’

‘I don’t wish to discuss it.’

‘What’s her name? I didn’t catch it.’

‘You don’t need to know.’

‘She looked surprised to find me in your bed. You didn’t tell her you’d asked me to marry you?’

‘It didn’t seem important.’

‘Do you mean I’m not important?’

‘As I told you, it’s all over.’

‘You’re the most important person in my life!’

‘You’ll find someone else to jerk around.’ Adam got up and put his breakfast dishes in the sink. ‘I have to go to work,’ he said. ‘You’ll need to find a place to stay.’

But when he got home again that evening, Maddy was still there. Jules had gone to Liverpool on business, but Gwennie was at home and looked at him uncomfortably, as if she were saying, is this okay?

He glanced down at his phone and saw that it was almost midnight.

‘You can stay tonight,’ he said to Maddy. ‘But first thing tomorrow morning I shall call another cab.’

Maddy looked at him and shrugged.

The following morning she collected up her stuff and left before he was awake, before the day was light.

It was like a tooth that needed filling.

If she didn’t poke at it or bite down really hard on it, it didn’t hurt too much. While she was busy doing boring stuff like spreadsheets or the payroll it didn’t hurt at all. When something jogged her memory, of course, or when she was trying to get to sleep, it hurt like hell.

But she was dealing with it. She was trying to stay angry rather than be sad, and she was sure that being angry helped.

Adam Lawley, he’d been just a blip, she told herself, a mad infatuation. You can deal with mad infatuations, she insisted. You don’t need to see him. You don’t need to think about him. He’s psychotic, anyway. He should be locked up.

As for the other scumbag – while she was in Italy, Jack had been round to the flat. He’d taken all his stuff. He’d also taken half a dozen tenners she’d left behind the radio in the kitchen.

But she didn’t care. She didn’t begrudge him sixty quid. She was just glad he’d gone away. She would have paid him twice as much to go away. She was so over him she could not believe how much she’d loved him.

She must have been bewitched.

She’d woken late on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday, but she got up early Thursday morning.

She had a shower and washed her hair and drank a mug of caffeine-free tisane and ate a bowl of whole-grain, fair-trade muesli. She wasn’t eating junk food any more, she had decided, as she’d washed her hair with additive-and-chloride-free shampoo. It was clearly scrambling her brain.

So there’d be no more chocolate, pecan and marshmallow muffins. She would detoxify her body, mind and soul. She would do it by herself. She wasn’t going to pay some guy in Neasden, anyway.

She put her breakfast dishes in the sink and then she had a chuck-out. After all, she thought – I might as well detoxify my living space.

Jack had taken all his clothes and all his shoes and half Cat’s DVDs. But he had left a lot of rubbish. Magazines with pouting models on their covers, cardboard sandwich boxes, all those bits of packaging from shirts, plastic bags and empty water bottles, lager cans and cigarette ends, pizza boxes and half-eaten pies.

As she was collecting up this litter, the postman rang the bell.

There was a squashy parcel from her mother which felt like something useful – a cute-puppy-motif shower cap or a kitten-patterned washbag, maybe – and a letter addressed to Jack at Cat’s, the first she’d ever known him to receive.

Adam picked up the last of Maddy’s non-recyclable rubbish – ice-cream tubs and yogurt pots and a broken pottery pig he’d cut his foot on when he’d trodden on the blasted thing – tied the plastic sack and put it out for dustbin day.

Gwennie met him coming up the stairs, carrying the morning post – junk mail, bills and flyers mostly. But there were a couple of cheques for him, together with a thick, cream envelope embossed with a heraldic crest.

It was probably some daft promotion, he decided. Or a scam to say he’d won a million quid, and if he’d send a cheque for twenty and an envelope addressed to him to this post office box in Birmingham, the lovely people at the other end would send the cash.

‘Adam, about the other day,’ said Gwennie.

‘Don’t you have to go and catch your bus?’ Gwennie had put her serious-talking face on, but he didn’t want to be interrogated now. ‘If you miss the 8.15 you’ll probably be late for work.’

‘I’m not due in until half nine today. Marek’s got a meeting.’ Gwennie looked at Adam with big, mournful eyes. ‘I thought you’d be so pleased to have her home again. You were both so very much in love and you were so miserable when she went away.’

‘We all move on,’ said Adam. ‘Gwennie, you watch too many vintage movies. Real life’s not like in those films, you know.’

‘Yes, Adam, I do know,’ said Gwennie sadly. ‘But that doesn’t stop me wishing real life wasn’t about going to the pub, and doing Jules’s washing because the lazy bastard can’t or won’t, and working in a job that bores me rigid, sorting people’s manky teeth and telling them to brush and floss more thoroughly in future, when I know damn well they bloody won’t.’

‘Why don’t you investigate that music therapy course?’ suggested Adam. ‘Do you play an instrument yourself?’

‘Yes, the piano and the classical guitar.’

‘You never said!’

‘I haven’t played since I left school. I’m very out of practice.’

‘You could soon polish up your skills. Listen, Gwennie, if you want to do it, go for it.’

‘I can’t afford to go for it,’ said Gwennie, pulling on her jacket and picking up her handbag. ‘I have rent to pay.’

‘I could help you with the rent.’ Adam looked earnestly at Gwennie, touched her lightly on the shoulder, made her meet his gaze. ‘Jules would help as well, if you told him it was what you’d really like to do. But we both know he’s a village idiot when it comes to intuition. So you’d have to tell him, spell it out.’

‘But he’d only mock and sneer,’ said Gwennie. ‘You know how he feels about alternative and complimentary therapies. Anything that isn’t science-based, anything that doesn’t feature downing lots of drugs made in some sterile factory – it’s all a load of rubbish according to the Gospel of Saint Jules.’

‘He wouldn’t mock and sneer,’ insisted Adam. ‘He’s not into candles and rebirthing, but I’m sure he must have heard of music therapy. We’ll talk about it later, shall we?’

‘Do you mean it, about helping me?’

‘Yes, of course I do.’

You know you’re not supposed to read another person’s letters, diaries, e-mails, texts, Cat told herself. It’s worse than stealing stuff from charity shops.

But in the end she couldn’t resist temptation. So she peeled open the self-seal envelope and then took out the single sheet inside. She saw it was a woman’s handwriting. Some girl he had been seeing while he was supposed to be with Cat, she thought, and sighed.

She didn’t want to read it, but of course she did.

She had the biggest shock.

It wasn’t from some girl, or even boy. It was from his mother, and she lived in Manchester – she’d written her address out carefully, in capitals. She’d underlined the postcode, like somebody who wasn’t very used to writing letters, and who was remembering what she’d been taught at school.

She’d written to tell him that she’d tried to get him on his mobile. But it was never on, so she was hoping he was still at this address?

She thought he ought to know his sister was at last engaged to Steve MacShane. Nana said it was about time, too. Harry was getting on for six, was growing up and asking awkward questions every day. He got on really well with Steve, who wanted to adopt him, and who behaved like he was Harry’s father, anyway.

They were hoping Jack could soon come up for a weekend. Then they could have a party. Jack was more than welcome to bring along that lady friend he’d mentioned once or twice. Cat was it, or maybe it was Bunny?

There was a photograph, as well. It was of a twenty-something woman who looked just like Jack – high cheekbones, big grey eyes, black corkscrew curls and everything – a thirty-something fair-haired man, and a good-looking, dark-haired little boy. She turned the picture over, saw somebody had written on the back –
Harry, Steve and Crystal in Majorca
.

So, thought Cat, Jack hadn’t been a foundling. He had not been left inside a bag at Waterloo, or brought up in an orphanage. He had a mum, a sister, a nana and a nephew, and they lived in Manchester.

What a lying, posturing, self-dramatising git.

She glared up at the ceiling.

She realised she was not upset, or bothered, or especially surprised. She wasn’t going to have a nervous breakdown, cry, ring counselling help-lines or do anything else which was a waste of precious energy and more precious time.

Jack and Adam Lawley – what a pair of devious, lying bastards. One who fantasised about himself, and one who got his kicks from asking girls to marry him.

Why had he come after Cat?

She decided Tess must have been right, that Adam was attracted to the fact that Cat was wounded. A tiger following a deer which was already crippled, he was a lazy predator, and she’d been easy prey.

Well, she wasn’t wounded any more. But it was a shame he was a head case, for sex with Adam had been wonderful. Adam could have given Casanova basic lessons in making girls feel special, cherished, loved.

Cat could not believe she’d cried for Jack. She wasn’t going to cry for Adam. God in heaven, she’d been such a fool, the sort of woman she despised. The sort who let men walk all over her and then looked sad and martyred.

How could any man respect a woman who behaved like that?

Jack and Adam – sewer rats, the pair of them, and that was dissing rats.

She chucked the stuff to be recycled in the colour-coded plastic boxes in the kitchen. She sealed Jack’s letter up again, wrote
not known at this address
and put it in her bag to post it on her way to work.

She stuffed the rest of his old rubbish in a big black sack, shoved it in the wheelie bin then went to catch the bus.

‘Men,’ she growled, when Tess was up to speed again and knew all about Cat’s long and interesting weekend in Italy. ‘But I’ve made my mind up, and from now on I’ll be like you and Bex. I’ll pick them up and use them, chew them up and spit them out.’

‘Attagirl,’ said Tess. ‘Ooh, new ring tone, eh?’ she added, as Cat’s phone began to jingle-jangle.

‘Yeah,’ said Cat, but she let the Valkyries ride on and continued scrolling through the e-mails on her desktop. ‘I thought it was time for something different, something with a bit of zip and zing to it, you know?’

‘So answer it?’

‘I know who it will be.’

‘Yes, he’s quite persistent, isn’t he, your Adam? Whatever else is wrong with him, you have to give him that.’

But when Cat glanced at her phone she saw it wasn’t Adam.

It was Fanny Gregory.

‘Omigod, that’s all I need,’ she said.

She thought she might be sick. She had been so preoccupied with not being preoccupied with Adam that she had forgotten about the other little problem in her life.

Fanny Gregory wouldn’t have forgotten. Fanny would be calling to talk about the money which Cat didn’t have.

But then she squared her shoulders, and she thought what are you – a strong, independent, modern woman or a little mouse? The new, kick-ass Cat – surely she could deal with Fanny Gregory, and there would be no messing?

So she snatched up the phone.

‘Yes?’ she snapped. ‘What is it?’

‘Good morning, angel,’ said Fanny genially. ‘We get to talk at last. Where have you been?’

‘Italy,’ said Cat, but then she cursed herself. She didn’t want to tell this awful woman anything, least of all about her personal and private life. Memo to myself, thought Cat – when I talk to Fanny, I must be on my guard.

‘Ah –
bella Italia
, how delightful,’ burbled Fanny. ‘So tell me, where exactly did you go?’

‘Lucca, it’s a town in Tuscany.’

‘Yes, I know, my sweet. I did geography at school, and it’s common knowledge among intelligent, cosmopolitan people, anyway. I’m so in love with Tuscany, aren’t you? The men are all adorable and the food’s divine. Did you go with someone nice, my angel?’

‘I went on my own.’

‘Oh yes, my love, of course you must have done. What a wicked waste, though, going jetting off to Italy alone. You always need to take a gorgeous man to Italy.’

‘Fan, I’m very busy—’

‘Darling girl, don’t be so curt with me. Manner maketh man, you know – and maketh woman, too. But we’ll let it pass. I need to let you know I’ve met with your fiancé. Or rather, ex-fiancé, isn’t he? Jack and I have sorted something out, and we’re both very happy with what we have arranged. So that leaves you. My princess, could you come into the office?’

‘I don’t want to see him.’

‘You won’t have to see him, sweetheart,’ Fanny said, and her voice became all soft and cooing, like a dove. ‘Jack is very busy, as it happens.’

‘Busy?’ echoed Cat. ‘Why, what’s he doing now?’

‘He has auditions everywhere, my sweet. I’m finding people just can’t get enough of lovely Jack. They’re beating down my door, to coin a very clichéd phrase. But that’s enough of him. I was also ringing about you.’

‘You want to talk about the money?’

‘Yes, the money. We must have a little chat.’ Cat heard Fanny tapping keys. ‘So let’s have a look. When I am free?’

‘Fanny, I do work!’

‘I know you work, my darling, you keep reminding me. You’re running eBay. Or is it Microsoft? But I need to see you. Of course, you’re miles from Oxford Street, the tube’s so slow, the buses are a joke, and I know you can’t afford a cab. But you do have lunch hours? So why not take a couple the same day? Ah now, here’s a window – next Wednesday, one o’clock.’

‘Yes, all right, I’ll try.’

‘You will do rather more than try, my angel,’ Fanny Gregory said silkily. ‘You will be here at one o’clock on Wednesday and you will be punctual – or else.’

‘Fanny, like I said—’

But Fanny had already disconnected.

‘She wants to see me,’ Cat told Tess. ‘I expect she’ll have the bailiffs there and she’ll make me sign my life away.’