by Mandy Baggot
‘Are you out of your mind? He’s a millionaire! And he cheated on you. And made you come in here every day and deal with that. And that awful, creepy, brainless bint.’
Putting it like that, she could see why Heidi might think she was mad. But for the five years she and Charles had been married he had cared for her, before his eyes – and other body parts – had wandered. What saddened Beth the most about the relationship’s demise was the fact that love hadn’t grown. In fact, if it hadn’t been for her mum’s need for a knight in shining armour, they might never have even made it to the altar. Charles had given her, and her mum, everything they needed just because he had the means and because he wanted Beth in his bedroom as well as his boardroom. And Beth had accepted that because her mum needed her to and because, well, it would be OK. She liked Charles. He made her laugh. It hadn’t only been about the financials. Also, there had been lots of internet articles prior to their big day suggesting that a marriage with its foundations based round a strong friendship did exceptionally well…
‘Money doesn’t make the world go round,’ Beth sighed. Except it had for the five years she had been Mrs Mountbatten. She had made her mum’s world continue a little longer with money, until even the private healthcare hadn’t been enough to save her.
‘No one ever said that, you know,’ Heidi answered. ‘No one.’
‘Come on, Heidi. I thought, with your values, you might be the one person who would understand why I wouldn’t take anything away from the marriage.’
‘Because I don’t eat trans-fats and I go to the gym?’
‘No, because…’
‘I’m gay?’
‘No! Because you believe in… equality and… stuff.’
‘Don’t you believe in equality and stuff?!’ Heidi exclaimed. ‘Because, from where this lesbian is sitting, believing in equality is the whole crux of this issue.’
‘Yes. I mean, no. Not in this case. I mean…’ Beth let her voice tail off. She didn’t know what she meant. She just needed a break. Some time to not think about the collapse of this relationship. A true period of being on her own. Being Beth Martin again. Whoever Beth Martin was now, after so many years, a wedding, a funeral and now, a divorce party.
‘Listen,’ Heidi said, a little bit softer. ‘I know you’ve had a rough time of it, but please don’t let him carry on taking you for a ride now. He had the affair. He did the dirty.’
‘Did he really though?’ Beth asked as the music turned emotional Christina Perry.
‘What do you mean by that?’
Was her untying-of-the-knot party the time and place to go into detail about the guilt she felt for her part in using Charles to make sure her mum’s last days were comfortable? Heidi knew the circumstances, of course, but Beth had also told Heidi that she had loved Charles. She could admit to herself now that she hadn’t loved Charles. She had hoped she would one day. She had obviously really liked him a lot and he hadn’t asked any more of her. So, in reality, the loss she was feeling now was more to do with pride. He had looked elsewhere for someone who did love him… or at least appeared to. And if she didn’t love him, who was Beth to feel any bitterness? He had just moved on, probably because of her apathy.
‘You know what we need,’ Heidi stated suddenly, putting the bowl of snacks down in between them.
‘More champagne?’ Beth suggested.
‘Definitely, yes, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.’ Heidi smiled then, a little like someone who was just about to push you hard down a death slide at a water park. ‘We need a holiday.’
‘Yes, that would be nice,’ Beth agreed. ‘But obviously impossible right now.’
‘Why impossible?’ Heidi asked, turning a little on the sofa.
‘Because I should still be looking for a new job.’
‘Um, I thought you just told me you weren’t leaving.’
‘I… don’t know.’ It was so annoying that Kendra’s words had unsettled her. She shouldn’t even be thinking about acting on anything said by someone who’d watched every episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians.
‘And that’s the perfect starting point for a holiday. A refresh button on your life. It’ll give you a chance to decide what to do. It’ll get us both out of this place for a couple of weeks.’
‘A couple of weeks! I can’t go away for a couple of weeks. I’ve got so much on here!’
‘Delegate,’ Heidi said, swooping up her glass of wine from the side table next to the sofa. ‘To Kendra. That bitch has your husband, you may as well give her the paperwork to go with it.’
The last holiday Beth had was with Charles, two years ago now, before he started going away ‘solo’. Sex Of Loose Origins was how Beth had thought of it. Still, their last trip to Bali had been a disaster. Charles had spent most of the time on the phone to clients, ranting and raving, while she tried to make the most of their plush suite with a swim-up pool overlooking palms, blue sky and white sand. Then the storm had hit. A storm that had lasted for days and turned the five-star couple’s resort into something that could take top-billing on a series entitled Holidays From Hell: Badder than Bad.
‘Somewhere hot,’ Heidi said immediately, eyes wandering to mid-distance. ‘The climate and the local women.’
‘How long is it since you’ve had a date now?’ Beth asked. A sensible change of subject, because she couldn’t go away no matter how nice it was to dream about.
‘Almost two months,’ Heidi breathed. ‘My lady parts basically think I’ve sold them for transplant.’
‘Two months isn’t that long.’
‘It is when you’ve decided to change the way you search for a partner and it doesn’t seem to be working,’ Heidi sighed. ‘I’m over all this meaningless, one-night crap. And I’m done with all these wannabe lesbians I’m starting to find on dating apps.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘I’m sorry, but shaving your head, fangirling over Brendon Urie and getting a tattoo of the Pride flag doesn’t make you gay. Who you love comes from within, in my book.’
‘And you’re too scared to get a tattoo.’
‘I knew you’d say that!’ Heidi exclaimed. ‘Here I am, pouring my heart out about fake lesbians and love and you bring it all down to my fear of needles.’
‘And now we definitely need another drink.’ Beth stood up to fetch the bottle of wine on the table across the room, still housing the leftover snacks and the divorce cake. Heidi grabbed her arm.
‘Come on, Beth, a holiday. Two little weeks for us both to rewind… and unwind.’
Just the thought of a little sun on her face, warming her skin, the surf on her toes, no demands on her life from work or her ex-husband-at-work or the future Mrs Kendra Mountbatten…
‘What seems to be occurring in here?’ Charles’s voice boomed from the doorway of the room.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ Heidi spilt forth, knocking the bowl of parsnip, sweet potato and beetroot snacks to the floor as she rapidly got to her feet.
‘No, not Jesus, Heidi, just me, your boss,’ Charles greeted, all smiles. ‘Is it someone’s birthday?’
‘It’s mine!’ Tilly announced quickly, backing up to the cake and shielding it from view. Beth saw her mouth the words ‘so sorry’.
‘We were just getting back to work,’ Dave said, edging towards the door, Mike following his lead, orange Wotsit crumbs staining both their sets of fingers.
‘Actually,’ Beth said, looking at Charles. ‘It’s a divorce party.’ It appeared that the early afternoon alcohol had given her some liquid courage. She stood close to her ex-husband, taking him in anew as she lay down the challenge. Six-foot-tall, on the skinny side of slim, handsome in a clean-cut way, with his blond hair, blue eyes and Scandinavian air…
‘I see,’ Charles answered, his eyes matching hers.
What was he going to say next? Was he going to pull rank and order everyone back to business? Or was the kind, caring, funny Charles, Beth thought she could fall in love with once upon a time, going to join them in toastin
g the end of their relationship? Perhaps she should pre-empt his decision…
‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ Beth strode towards the table, picked up a fresh glass and poured what was left in one of the bottles into it. It barely made the halfway mark, but she walked back over to him, holding it out like a Pinot-Grigio-style olive branch.
Charles observed the two inches of wine first, then his eyes met Beth’s. Was that regret she could see? A miniscule, but not unnoticeable tremble on his lips? Was this confident, captain of industry weakening in a room with his employees over a glass of warm white wine?
‘I would love to join you,’ Charles answered, very hesitantly, not at all self-assured. ‘But I re-scheduled an appointment for five o’clock from the airport.’ He seemed to take a stabilising breath, then, ‘Tilly,’ he called, ‘when you’ve taken the dick off your head could I see you in my office?’
And, just like that, the party was over.
Three
Foot braced on the seat of a Danish cow horn dining chair – the set had been a gift from Charles to her mother shipped from who-knew-where – Beth tugged at the band of platinum on her ring finger. It was time. She had given it the appropriate amount of mourning and now it was all about moving on. The printer-ink dry on the decree absolute, today’s divorce party: there was no going back now. The only way was up… and off.
She squeezed her eyes shut, the metal tightening round her finger joint. Why wasn’t it coming away from her skin? She had lubricated it with Fairy Liquid, having run her hands under cold water for ten minutes, but still it wouldn’t budge. It had never been this tight. Not since Charles had slipped it on at the country hotel, surrounded by her mother, their friends and a muster of peacocks.
Beth remembered the first time she had met Charles Mountbatten. She’d passed the initial interview stage at Mountbatten Global and was at the next phase where they put all the successful candidates in a boardroom together, fired a lot of information at them and then tested them in an intense business-meeting-style face-off. Beth had felt at the time that it was like being lined up in front of a firing squad who were poised to try and shoot you down with annuity facts.
Charles had walked into the room unannounced and asked the newbies a question. Beth had known immediately that this tall, lean, powerful-looking man was the CEO. In between looking up alternative therapies, and any other treatment that could benefit her mum, she had searched for Charles Mountbatten on Google. Beth had really, really wanted the job. She needed to be the one paying all the bills, relieving the stress from her mum so she could focus entirely on her recovery.
Everyone else in the room that day had seemed completely flustered by the question. There had been a lot of power-jacket-flapping and shifting in chairs and clearing of throats accompanying glazed eyes and uncomfortable half-smiles. But Beth had known the answer because she had read a 2007 interview where Charles had told the finance magazine his slightly off-beat technique for sorting the wheat from the chaff.
Beth had raised her hand in the air, trying to impart total confidence and none of the desperation she was feeling…
‘Yes,’ Charles had said, his eyes dropping to her chest, presumably to look at her name badge. ‘Beth Martin… what do you think is the first thing you should do in the morning to ensure great business success?’ He’d looked absolutely interested in what she was going to say to him, his vivid blue eyes encouraging.
‘Wake up,’ Beth had answered, knowingly. ‘If you don’t wake up, then you’re literally dead in the game.’
The woman sat to her left had snorted, as if Beth was the epitome of pathetic. There were a few other noises, underplayed but definitely there, but Beth had held the CEO’s eyes, knowing she had got the answer correct and just hoping it was enough.
‘Well, Beth Martin,’ Charles had said. ‘Welcome to Mountbatten Global.’
Now, Beth cried out loud in both pain and determination, leg tensing, fingers gripping, but still the wedding ring stayed put. Did jewellers still have the means to remove rings these days? She really didn’t want a visit to the hospital. She gave it one more tug, then her foot fell off the chair at exactly the same time the doorbell rang.
‘Greece,’ Heidi announced as she barrelled through the door, one arm laden down with what looked like brochures, the other spilling with snacks, fingers tightly coiled round a litre bottle of wine.
‘Like olive oil?’ Beth asked, catching a packet of falling Kettle Chips – the balsamic vinegar ones Heidi knew she could eat a whole packet of.
‘Olives… ouzo… octopus. I can almost taste it all.’
Beth followed her friend into the sitting room, a bit confused. ‘I’m not sure how an octopus is going to get my wedding ring off.’
‘What?’ Heidi exclaimed, dumping the wine and the bulging carrier bag on the coffee table and turning to face Beth.
‘The grease… to get this thing off my finger.’
‘You haven’t taken it off yet?!’ Heidi grabbed at Beth’s hand, holding it up and inspecting it like it was a potential heirloom on Dickinson’s Real Deal.
‘It isn’t that I haven’t tried,’ Beth answered as Heidi gave it a pluck. ‘It’s stuck.’
‘Joe Wicks’s workout DVD,’ Heidi announced, dropping Beth’s hand. ‘I think it was more from pressing the “skip” button on the remote control but there are some rings I still can’t wear because they’re looser than Lisa Riley’s old clothes.’ Heidi brandished the brochures at Beth. ‘Now, Greece – G-R-E-E-C-E – the homeland of bronzed gods and goddesses, turquoise seas, cloudless skies and sand so hot it takes all the bad skin off without the need for a pre-holiday foot spa.’
‘You’re still thinking about a holiday,’ Beth said, picking crisps from the bag and heading to the kitchen for snack bowls. There was more than the balsamic flavour, there were tortilla chips and bacon rashers… no sign of an air-dried vegetable anywhere. This was most unlike Healthy Living Heidi.
‘I need one! I’m craving one! Just thinking about it is making me smell Piz Buin!’ Heidi followed her, brochures wafting in the air.
‘And you should go,’ Beth answered, opening a cupboard door. ‘It’s just not the right time for me.’
‘Is this the woman fresh out of her divorce party talking or someone I don’t know wearing a Beth Mountbatten body-suit?’
‘Martin,’ Beth said quickly. ‘It’s back to Beth Martin now.’ She opened bags of crisps.
‘Sorry,’ Heidi breathed. ‘But, come on! Greece!’ She waved a TUI Summer Sun in Beth’s face, featuring azure sea, golden sand and a contented couple in vacation garb looking suitably smug and holding hands. ‘Remember Corfu?’
Ever since Heidi had mentioned Greece, Corfu was all Beth had been able to think about. Ten years had gone by since the best holiday she had ever had. It had been the real Greece, eating pittas stuffed with gyros, drinking ouzo shots with breakfast, dancing until dawn and no strings attached… how carefree she had been at twenty-one. Back then she had had dreams and a whole world waiting for her to launch herself into it.
Heidi answered her own question. ‘We were badass, weren’t we?’
‘You were badass. I was just moderately naughty.’
‘And when you think about everything we did; doesn’t it give you goose bumps?’ Heidi shivered as Beth offered her a bowl of supermarket own-brand Frazzles. Beth watched her friend intently, wanting to know if she was really going to eat the bacon-flavoured snacks. Heidi’s fingers dipped into the bowl…
‘You snogged a man on that holiday,’ Beth reminded.
‘God!’ Heidi exclaimed at full volume, fingers retracting from the bowl faster than Adele fans clicking to get concert tickets. ‘What are you doing offering me these?! They’re like a million grams of fat per bag!’
‘You bought them,’ Beth reminded.
‘For you!’
‘Oh, so it’s OK for me to clog up my heart with a million grams of fat.’
‘Well, I figured
you were already halfway down that road.’
‘What? Now I’m thirty-one and divorced and destined to be visiting Cat’s Protection any day now? Is that what you mean?’
‘I never said that!’
‘You didn’t have to.’ Beth could actually feel her eyes tearing up. What was this – delayed shock at her single status? There had been many days when she had felt miserable and a little bit hopeless but now she just felt sad and… as though she were on a wobbly tightrope. What was she going to do? What did come next for her?
‘Fuck this,’ Heidi stated. ‘Give me the bacon snacks.’ She grabbed a handful of the maize shapes and shoved them into her mouth in one go. ‘That’s my punishment!’ Heidi said, speaking through her chewing, bits of rashers sticking to her teeth. ‘And my reminder, that kissing men is bad.’ She chewed some more, making a face that said she wasn’t really enjoying the experience. ‘I was at a crisis point. I don’t remember his name. Perhaps I should remember his name. What I do know is his flaccid tongue definitely helped tip me over the edge of my cliff of destiny.’
‘His name was Derek and he was from Pontefract,’ Beth said helpfully.
‘How do you remember that?’ Heidi asked, bacon bits still clinging to her lips.
‘He was the last man you ever got intimate with.’ Beth headed back to the living room, snack bowls in hand. ‘As your best friend it’s my duty to remember that for moments exactly like this.’
Heidi began pointing then, following Beth, one hand coddling the holiday brochures to her chest. ‘You had a guy on that holiday too! The DJ! What was his name? He was Greek… let me guess… um, hang on, weren’t they all called Spiros on Corfu?’
Beth swallowed as she put the bowls down on the coffee table. She remembered all too vividly the Greek Adonis who had come into her life for two weeks when she was twenty-one. Alex Hallas. And she had called him Lex. He had been everything a young, single female in the prime of her life could have wished for. Tall, tanned, oily pools for eyes and that quintessentially Greek dark hair, flopping over his forehead, the lush strands just touching those long, equally dark, thick eyelashes. It would be a lie to say she had thought of him often over the years, but she had thought of him. Now and then. When sex with Charles needed a little injection of the fantasy of someone else. Who needed the Channing Tatum visual when you had a Greek DJ you’d actually been there with… Beth flushed as she sat down on the sofa and tightly crossed her legs. No wonder Charles had found Kendra if she’d needed a memory of someone she had slept with when she was twenty-one to keep things fresh…