by Lindsey Kelk
Hello, stranger, his text said.
Hello yourself, I replied.
‘Well, that’s that,’ I whispered, taking a deep breath and watching a single grey tick appear next to the message, followed by a double grey tick. Message delivered.
Three years of stopping myself from contacting him, three years of having to sleep with my phone in the other room every time I came home drunk or went on a rubbish date or experienced even a flicker of yearning. All of it over in an instant. I looked up, expecting to see some flags fly out, a winged pig zooming past overhead, or to at least hear a distant fanfare, but there was nothing. Life-changing moments were supposed to come with a soul-stirring soundtrack, something to acknowledge their gravitas and importance, but all I had was a soundproofed studio-slash-cell, a half-eaten apple and a bag of Mini Cheddars.
‘The stuff dreams are made of,’ I muttered, yawning before I bit down on the apple. ‘Now let’s see if he bothers to reply.’
The clock on my wall announced the time as ten a.m.
A long night, followed by an even longer day.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘Having fun?’
‘Never had so much fun in my life.’
I clinked my glass of Pimm’s against the one in Adrian’s hand and nodded across his parents’ vast lawn.
‘Mr Carven told Dr Khan he didn’t want one of your dad’s sausages because they weren’t cooked all the way through,’ I said, discreetly pointing at the middle-aged gents, bickering around the barbecue like a bunch of schoolgirls.
‘And my dad heard him?’ Adrian asked, sipping his drink like so much tea. ‘He’ll have his guts for garters.’
‘They’re currently trying to decide which sausage to cut open to end the debate,’ I confirmed with a nod. ‘Mr Carven wants one from the outside of the grill but your dad wants one from the middle of the grill and Mr Khan is very concerned that if they wait much longer, all the sausages will be burnt and the experiment will be compromised.’
‘Aren’t you glad this is how you’re spending your first Saturday back?’ he said, resting his arm on my shoulders. ‘Is there anything more British than watching a load of old men fight over barbecued sausages?’
‘It is strangely compelling,’ I agreed as the men settled on a sausage and sliced it open. Adrian’s dad hooted with joyous conviction, brandishing the perfectly cooked sausage in his supposed friend’s face. I hadn’t seen anything quite like a British barbecue in a long time. I smiled, my stomach rumbling. Mostly I was just glad to be outside and able to see the sky. I’d stayed late at work all week and not only because my friends were all too busy to see me. I really, really wanted to do a good job and, since I knew absolutely nothing about gaming, it had been a steep learning curve.
‘Mum’s so happy you’re here,’ Adrian said, nodding over at his mother resplendent in her garden party florals. ‘But be warned, she’s definitely going to ask you if you’ve come back to make an honest man of me.’
‘How much to tell her I’m pregnant and it’s yours?’
He threw his head back and barked out my favourite laugh. ‘She’d have you up the registry office wearing her wedding dress before you’d even finished your sentence.’
At least once a year, one of Adrian’s parents would ask me, in person or – my favourite – by commenting on an unrelated post on my Facebook wall, why it was he and I had never got together. The truth of it was, we had kissed once. Both very drunk on alcopops, faces smushed together on the dance floor of the only local nightclub that didn’t check IDs closely enough to see that neither of us was eighteen. It was such a rousing success that I burst out laughing, Adrian’s penis disappeared back up inside him and neither of us had ever mentioned it again. I’d always assumed we must be related in some weird, 23andMe kind of a way, because, love him though I did, it really wouldn’t have mattered if he was the last man left on the face of the earth, I would rather have had sex with my own foot than make a go of it with Adrian Anderson.
‘Christ almighty, is that your mum?’ he gave me a nudge as my parents approached. ‘She looks well fit.’
‘Shut up before I remove your testicles with my house keys,’ I replied, my cheeks flushing the exact same shade as my mum’s strappy sundress. Everyone else at the Andersons’ party was wearing exactly what you’d expect: a bit of Jasper Conran here, a touch of M&S there, plenty of floaty and floral. But not my mother. The hem of her dress barely flirted with her knees, clung to her tiny waist and strained over her absolutely massive chest. I looked down at the round-neck, loose-fit watercolour-print Zara midi dress I’d bought on the way home from work the night before, feeling like a complete frump.
‘She looks fantastic,’ he said, waving them over. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her out of jeans before. What has she been doing?’
‘More like who she’s been doing,’ I grumbled. ‘Her and my dad are “getting to know each other” again, if you know what I mean.’
‘I don’t but I’m dead serious, your mum could get it,’ he whispered before throwing his arms open for a hug. ‘Mr Reynolds, Mrs Reynolds, so nice to see you. It’s been a dog’s age.’
‘Adrian, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s Gwen to you,’ Mum said, tittering as my friend kissed her hand and spun her around, making the handkerchief hem of her dress flare outwards.
Dad wasn’t nearly as impressed. Ever since we were little kids, he’d never been especially keen on Adrian and Adrian hadn’t really done anything to change his mind, whether he was kicking a football through his greenhouse or suggesting that the very expensive and beautiful steam shower Dad had designed for Adrian’s parents’ new bathroom was ‘cool in a sexy gas chamber kind of way’.
It was fair to say he didn’t help himself.
‘We must go and say hello to Simon and Sheila,’ Dad said, unwinding my mother from Adrian’s arms and casting a cool look in his direction. Adrian fended it off with a wink I was sure I’d be hearing about later. ‘Will you be wanting a lift later, Rosalind?’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Reynolds,’ Adrian answered before I could. ‘I’ll get her home safe and sound.’
Dad gave him another thunderous look and marched on, barbeque-bound, with my mother leading the way.
‘You make it worse every time,’ I said, suppressing a smile. ‘Although, maybe if we told my dad you’d got me pregnant, he’d let me move back into the house.’
‘If we told your dad I’d got you pregnant, we’d be moving him to the heart ward at the Royal Brompton and me to the cemetery,’ Adrian replied. ‘But whatever it is your mum’s doing, you should consider doing the same.’
‘I don’t think I’ll be doing what my mum’s doing any time soon, thank you,’ I muttered into my glass. The cursed image of sushi night flashed in front of me.
‘How’s the job going?’ Ade asked as I watched all the attending dads eye up my mother and all the attending wives glare at the dads. ‘What’s the latest?’
I pulled at the high collar of my dress, as my mum, surrounded by middle-aged men offering her sausages, hooted with laughter.
‘It’s interesting,’ I said diplomatically. I’d spent all week immersing myself in all things Snazzlechuff and I still had no idea what I was going to do. ‘As soon as I work out how to best display the talents of a near-mute fourteen-year-old, I’ll be killing it.’
‘Snazzlechuff,’ Adrian whispered, holding one hand aloft and squinting his eyes as though he were delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy. ‘It’s this generation’s “Rosebud”. I want it to be my dying word.’
‘You’re going the right way about it,’ I assured him. ‘Hey, isn’t that the bartender from Good Luck Bar?’ I pointed over to a tall man with black hair who was busy behind the bar. ‘What’s he doing here?’
‘That’s John,’ he confirmed. ‘He’s my anniversary present to Mum and Dad. Custom cocktails to get everyone so slaughtered, they don’t blame Dad’s barbecue skills when they’re throwing up tomo
rrow.’
‘You’re such a good son,’ I replied, wrinkling my nose at the platter of chicken legs that was currently marinating nicely in sunshine and salmonella. ‘And you’re buying me a pizza later.’
‘Agreed,’ he said, sinking his Pimm’s. ‘Shall we test-drive the cocktails?’
‘Let’s,’ I agreed, my desire to avoid John from Good Luck outweighed by my desire to get tipsy enough not to worry about my mum having a wardrobe malfunction. The delicate straps of her dress were doing work they were not built for.
Adrian leaned against the bar with a knowing smile on his face while we waited for John to finish rummaging with bottles at the back of the bar.
‘OK, I’ve waited long enough, out with it.’ Adrian reached across the bar and plucked a maraschino cherry from a little black pot while John’s back was turned. ‘What did you text back to Patrick?’
He popped the cherry in his mouth in one, gurning like a madman while he attempted to knot the stalk with his tongue.
‘There’s literally nothing sexy about that, you know,’ I told him. ‘You look like you’re having a seizure.’
‘You’d be amazed at how many times this has worked,’ he replied right as his eyes bugged out of his head and he coughed up the stalk, spitting it elegantly onto the lawn. ‘Answer the question. What’s going on?’
‘Sumi told you?’
‘Sumi told me,’ he confirmed. ‘No judgement.’
A likely story.
‘Maybe I didn’t text him,’ I said with an unconvincing shrug.
Adrian brayed with laughter.
‘Fine, yes, I messaged him back,’ I said, coiling my hair into a high ponytail to get it off my sticky neck. ‘But don’t look at me like that, it’s not that weird. Lots of people are friends with their exes.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Ade replied, nodding. ‘You want to be friends with Twat-Faced Wank Chops. OK, sure, definitely, that’s your plan, is it?’
‘Maybe,’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe not. It actually makes sense to me. Why waste my time, my incredibly valuable time, on dates with complete strangers who are most likely going to turn out to be utterly shit, when I could dig into my contacts and see if there’s anyone worth a second chance?’
Adrian shook his head, refusing to play along. ‘Ros, your contacts are where dates go to die. You only keep your exes’ numbers so you know not to answer when they call.’
‘Speak for yourself. I can think of a couple of people I went out with once or twice but the timing wasn’t right. Including Twat-fac— including Patrick,’ I said, beginning to feel flustered. ‘What if I messed up something good with him when I left? And why not skip all that awful getting-to-know-you stuff and pick up where I left off with someone who’s already seen me naked?’
I gave my head an aggressive toss to make my point and caught a passing pensioner in the eye with my ponytail. ‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry. Are you OK?’
‘I just had my cataracts done!’ he wailed as I grabbed a handful of napkins off the bar. Behind me, I heard a muted chuckle.
‘Have you thought about wrapping her in bubble wrap before you let her out the house?’
John the bartender leaned against the opposite side of the bar, he and Adrian both wearing the sort of bemused smile that made me feel extra punchy. I pressed my stack of napkins into the older man’s hand, apologizing profusely, as he swiped at his watering eye before a woman in a dusky-blue two-piece rushed up and whisked him away, giving me a filthy look as they went.
‘You look like you could use a proper drink,’ John said, eyeing our empty glasses. ‘Two anniversary specials?’
‘Two anniversary specials,’ Adrian confirmed. ‘And make them strong enough to loosen her tongue. I promised Sumi I’d get it out of you before they cut the cake.’
Ooh. Cake.
‘Fine, yes, I replied to his text to be polite.’ I kept my eyes on John as he mixed our drinks. There wasn’t nearly enough bottle-twirling for my liking, I’d seen Cocktail, I knew how this was supposed to be done. ‘I wasn’t brought up to be rude, Adrian.’
‘Is that right?’ John muttered under his breath.
Adrian grinned as I gave the bartender a double-take.
‘Here you go,’ he said loudly, sticking a steel straw into one of the drinks in front of him to taste his concoction. ‘Two Ruby Wedding Fizzes.’
‘It’s perfection,’ Adrian said, closing his eyes in rapture as he took a sip. ‘John, have I ever told you that I love you?’
‘Son?’
I turned to see Adrian’s less-than-woke dad staring at his only child with a look of intense concern on his face.
‘Not like that, Dad,’ he said, clapping the older man on the back. ‘Please don’t have a stroke during your own party.’
‘Although he could do a lot worse,’ John muttered not-quite-under his breath.
Mr Anderson blustered as I politely looked away, biting my lip to stop myself from laughing. ‘It wouldn’t matter to us, you know that,’ he waffled. ‘Your mother and I just want to see you settled and happy and—’
‘What’s up, Dad?’ Adrian asked, mercifully cutting him off mid-stream.
‘Your mother needs a hand getting the cake out the kitchen,’ he said, lowering his voice to explain further. ‘It’s, uh, quite heavy.’
‘It’s a triple-tier fruitcake,’ Adrian explained for our benefit. ‘She made it herself.’
I nodded, understanding all. Mrs Anderson’s fruitcakes were things of legend. I could have hollowed one out and lived in it and it definitely would have been more of a solid structure than my shed. ‘Do you need me to help as well?’ I offered.
‘I think two of us should be able to manage it,’ Mr Anderson said with an appreciative smile. ‘Lovely to see you back, Rosalind. We must have you over for dinner, I’d love to hear about America. Perhaps you could bring your boyfriend with you? If you’re seeing someone?’
‘Let’s go and get the cake,’ Adrian said with an exasperated sigh. ‘Come on.’
The two of them traipsed off into the house, Adrian slightly taller, his father slightly broader, but both of them cut from exactly the same cloth.
‘I know he won’t thank me for saying it but he’s so like his dad,’ John said as they disappeared into the house.
‘He won’t but he is,’ I agreed. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’
He leaned over the bar, arms resting in between a bevy of bottles. ‘And you won’t thank me for asking this but who did you text when you weren’t supposed to?’
I cast a glance over my shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
‘Bartender’s privilege,’ he said with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m entitled to ask about any and all gossip I hear during a shift and duty-bound never to repeat a word.’
It was a new one on me.
‘There’s an oath, is there?’ I asked, smiling.
‘I’m practically a doctor,’ he confirmed.
‘Or a lawyer,’ I suggested. ‘Or a priest.’
He paused and looked up at me, meeting my eyes just for a moment.
‘Maybe not a priest.’
I sipped my cocktail and tried not to think about what I’d seen in the gents toilets.
‘All right, let me guess, I’m good at this,’ John said as he pulled out a small knife to peel back the foil on another bottle of prosecco. ‘It’s an ex, clearly.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I didn’t hear all of it but I heard enough.’ John began mixing more drinks while he talked. ‘What’s interesting to me is that your friends clearly don’t think you should text him. Also, you told Sumi but not Adrian and you know those three, they tell each other everything.’
I fought off an indignant flush of outrage. They weren’t ‘those three’, we were ‘us four’. How dare this random bar boy group my friends into a trio when we were definitely, absolutely, always-had-been-always-would-be, a quartet?
‘Fine, it’s an ex,’ I admitted, tightening my ponytail.
‘But that was obvious, you’re not exactly psychic, are you?’
He smiled mildly as he poured what looked like a never-ending stream of gin into a cocktail shaker.
‘What’s the deal?’ John asked. ‘How come they don’t want you talking to him?’
‘We broke up when I moved to America for work,’ I told him, reluctant to go over the details of one of the worst times of my life with a man I knew nothing about other than that he worked in a bar, mixed a mean cocktail and was circumcised.
‘Bad break-up?’
‘Complicated break-up.’
‘He didn’t want you to go?’
I chewed on my bottom lip, unbidden tears burning the back of my eyes. Damn that Pimm’s on an empty stomach. ‘It wasn’t that. We’d only been together for a while but I suppose I thought it was more serious than it was.’
‘Oh,’ John said, rounding out the word and stretching it into oblivion. ‘I see.’
‘But who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed?’ I added. ‘He didn’t want to do long distance and I took it fairly badly, so my friends don’t like him. Standard ex stuff. That’s all there is to it.’
‘That’s the reason they don’t like him?’ John asked. ‘Because you left for a job in another country?’
I paused and took a drink.
‘It’s possible they didn’t all get on terribly well before that,’ I replied. ‘But, you know, your friends don’t always get on with your boyfriend. None of us are exactly in love with Creepy Dave.’
‘No, but I’ve never heard Adrian call him “Twat-Faced Wank Chops” either,’ he said. ‘Seems to me they don’t think he’s good enough for you.’
Oh good, I groaned inwardly. He was going to mansplain my own friends and their opinions on my break-up to me. His poor, beautiful, giant of a wife. Imagine having to put up with this all the time.
‘How long has it been since you texted him?’ John asked, fitting a pint glass into the top of his cocktail shaker. ‘One day, two days?’