Ghosts

by Dolly Alderton

  “Do you want to have a cuddle with Aunty Nina?” Katherine said to Finlay in a sweet, high-pitched voice, before passing him over to me. He wriggled into my arms and his warm, calming weight made my feet feel fastened to the ground.

  “How have you found it this time?” Meera asked Katherine.

  She stroked her tummy. “Wonderful, actually. I adore being pregnant.”

  “God, you’re lucky. I hated it. I had to give up all my favourite things—wine, fags, caffeine, nice cheese.”

  “I don’t mind that at all,” Katherine said, adjusting her sunglasses. “I love giving my body a full detox. I don’t miss any of it.”

  Lola came over, holding three glasses of champagne. She passed one to me.

  “Oh my God, Andreas’s parents are here.”

  “What?” I said. “How do you know?”

  “Who’s Andreas?” Katherine asked.

  “A guy I’ve been dating.”

  “Are you dating now?” Meera asked.

  “No, not really.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “How do you know they’re his parents?”

  “Because I’ve obviously looked at every Facebook album he’s ever uploaded and I recognize them from there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. Oh my God, what are the chances? They must be friends with Lucy’s parents.” She knocked her head back and took a thirsty gulp.

  “Okay, don’t stress about it, they won’t recognize you, so you can just ignore them all day,” Meera said.

  “I don’t want to ignore them all day. I want to make friends with them.”

  “Why?” I asked despairingly.

  “Because, if I make friends with them, then next time they see Andreas they might say, ‘We met this charming girl at a wedding called Lola, she’s exactly the sort of person you should be with,’ and THEN he’ll realize what he’s missing.”

  “Can we please ban the phrase ‘what he’s missing,’ ” I said. “I’d like to issue a house-style guide for talking about being single, and ‘what he’s missing’ is strictly forbidden.”

  Katherine put her arm around Lola. “Darling, are you sure that’s a good idea?” she asked.

  “Yes, or—OR—I could befriend them and then post a photo of us together on Instagram? That would really give him the willies!”

  “You’ll look like a stalker,” said Meera.

  “No, but he doesn’t know that I know they’re his parents. As far as I know, they’re just a lovely couple in their sixties who I met at a wedding and who have invited me to stay at their house for the weekend this summer. Then he wouldn’t be able to ghost me, would he?!”

  “I think you should hold the baby,” I said, passing Finlay over to Lola. “He’s very soothing.”

  She positioned him on her hip and swayed from side to side. He gurgled and giggled.

  “You’re a natural,” Katherine said.

  Pathetically, I noticed that she hadn’t said that when I was holding Finlay. Performative, public baby-holding had become a competitive sport for childless women at events over the last five years. We all hoped for those three words to be passed over to us by an Adjudicator of Maternal Qualification like Katherine. You’re a natural.

  “Ladies!” Franny said as she bustled towards us and beckoned with her hand. “We’re doing a group photo for all married or engaged girls. So, Lola, Nina, you stay put, but you two, you’ll need to come with me.”

  “Are you fucking joking?” Lola said.

  “I know,” Meera said. “But I feel now is not the day to protest.”

  “We’ll look after the baby,” I said. Meera and Katherine walked towards the front of the house where a collection of women gathered.

  “DO WIDOWS COUNT?” a frail-looking great-aunt with a neat silver bob and a walking stick shouted.

  “Yes, as long as YOU HAVE A RING ON YOUR FINGER!” Franny shouted across the lawn as the great-aunt hobbled towards her hurriedly. “IF IT’S JUST A RINGLESS OR THEORETICAL PROPOSAL, YOU DON’T NEED TO COME JOIN US.”

  The grass where we stood was now covered only in suits and a handful of women who smiled sympathetically at one other—we had been marked. The photographer, scurrying back and forth across the line of women, asked them all to reach their ring-finger hands forward.

  “That’s it!” he shouted. “Now look happy, you’re all in love!”

  “Are we?!” Franny shouted, before waving at her husband and getting a cheap laugh from the crowd.

  “This is what they fought for,” I said. “All those women before us who were married off and locked up in a house with no voice or vote or money or freedom. This is what they wanted. For a group of professional women to all wave their engagement rings around like it’s a Nobel Prize.”

  “I think Franny might be a total cunt, you know,” Lola said.

  * * *

  —

  I was put on a table with Meera and Eddie, Mark and Katherine, Franny and her husband, Hugo, and Lola. Since Joe and I broke up, Lola and I were regularly grouped together as a counterfeit couple. Like all weddings, the drinking-on-the-grass portion of the day had gone on for an hour too long and everyone was a bit too drunk to be sitting down for dinner. Mark was pawing at the miniature bottle of damson gin party favour, trying to open it and drink it in one. Eddie’s face was pink with booze and excitement as he explained to the table why he thought there were so many eligible thirty-something women who were single.

  “It’s the Blair Bulge,” he asserted, leaning across the table to fill my glass with white wine. “I’m convinced of it.”

  “What’s the Blair Bulge?”

  “Women with degrees will only rarely marry men without them, but men are less fussy,” he explained. “Because Tony Blair made more people go to university, there are loads of university-educated women who struggle to find suitable long-term partners. This cohort is the Blair Bulge.”

  “So basically, we’ve become too smart for marriage.”

  “Precisely!” he said.

  “I mean, that’s sort of encouraging.”

  “Where’s Lola?” Katherine asked. The seat next to me was empty.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. I glanced around the marquee and saw her standing by the table plan, looking like a giant orange-flavoured ice lolly, laughing and talking to a couple in their sixties. “Oh God. I think she’s talking to Andreas’s parents.”

  “I’ve got a question for all you fellow old marrieds!” Franny piped up. “Sorry, Nina.”

  I shook my head. “Really, no offence taken,” I said.

  “I want to know what your love language is.”

  “What’s a love language?” Mark asked.

  “Oh, Mark, you must know about it! Katherine, do you know about it?”

  “Yes, I did the quiz online.”

  “So did I,” Meera said.

  “Right, so, listen carefully, boys,” Franny said. “There are five different ways of expressing love and every person’s is different. It was so useful for us to work out what our ones are, wasn’t it, darling?”

  “Yah,” Hugo barked, stuffing a bread roll in his mouth.

  “So, mine was ‘acts of service,’ which means someone doing considerate things for me, like running a bath or cooking dinner. Whereas Hugo’s is ‘affirmation,’ so he needs compliments and positive reinforcement.”

  “Mine was ‘affirmation’!” Meera said.

  “Mine was ‘quality time,’ ” said Katherine.

  I looked around the table; the three husbands were checking their phones or staring drunkenly into the middle distance. Was it only women who had the capacity to find their own relationships this fascinating? To make a project and personality from the man they loved? Lola sat down next to me and removed her neon cape.

  �
�Lola, what’s your love language?” Franny asked, her chin coyly resting in the palm of her hand.

  Lola shrugged. “I don’t know. Anal, probably.” Franny sat back in her chair, struggling to conceal her horror. “Right, so I’ve done some groundwork with Andreas’s parents. Such a nice couple. They know Lucy’s parents from when their kids were all at primary school together and they’ve remained friends. I said, ‘Oh, how many kids have you got?’ and they were like, ‘Two sons, Andreas and Tim,’ and I just smiled.”

  “Do you feel better?”

  “Of course not.”

  * * *

  —

  Throughout the three-course dinner, there was a roaming lounge singer with a mic, going from table to table crooning the Great American Songbook, a juggler and a palm reader. I’ve never understood why wedding receptions required this level of multi-sensory entertainment from beginning to end. Lola flagged down the passing palm reader as soon as she could, meaning I had to make conversation with Franny’s husband, Hugo, who worked as a press officer for the Conservative Party.

  “I’m fiscally conservative but socially liberal,” he said within the first two minutes of me asking him about his job. I wouldn’t be surprised if right-leaning thirty-somethings received a script in the post to prepare them for social situations.

  “I’m not sure if I believe that really exists,” I replied. “I know what you’re trying to say. But ‘I love the gays but don’t care about the poor’ can’t be described as liberal in any sense.”

  “I do care about the poor.” Katherine looked across the table at us. She hated anyone talking about politics. “I just think that politics can’t be governed by emotion, progression happens when effective economic systems are in place.”

  “You’re lucky,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “To feel unemotional about politics.” My eyes were distracted by Katherine, who picked up her glass and put it under the table, next to her chair, and nodded at Mark. He filled it with white wine. “That’s a luxury.”

  “It’s not a luxury, it’s a choice. Of rationality.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Franny asked, leaning across us.

  “We’re talking about Hugo’s job.”

  “Oh, isn’t it fascinating? I can’t hear enough about it. Makes me wonder what I’m doing with my life, singing useless arias. Have you told her about that new environmental scheme you’ve been developing?”

  “I’m not going to bore Nina with that,” he said.

  I smiled gratefully and turned to Lola, who was shovelling tempura prawns into her mouth while talking at Eddie.

  “I just wish there was, like, a baby overdraft, you know? I wish I could buy an extra ten years of time that I could dip into if I end up needing it. I don’t understand why the bank of life can’t give that to me. I’d happily pay interest every month until I’m fifty, just to ensure it’s there.” Eddie was nodding slowly, his tie now at half-mast. “I feel a bit tricked, to be honest. I’ve been told that I can buy anything I want. Or work for it. Or control it on an app. But I can’t buy love. I can’t get it on an app.”

  “I thought you could get it on an app?” Eddie slurred.

  Lola forked Eddie’s starter off his plate, shaking her head. She leant into him conspiratorially, holding the prawn slightly too close to his face. “Lies,” she hissed. I tried to remember what we all used to talk about at the first batch of weddings in our mid-twenties.

  The Father of the Bride speech came first, which included a long list of all Lucy’s various school sporting achievements and a full breakdown of her impressive GCSE results. The grand finale came when he revealed that his present to the couple was waiting on the driveway. The wedding guests dutifully migrated outside where a navy Audi sat, tied with a lilac bow. Joe and Lucy jumped up and down like they were winning contestants on a game show while the rest of us applauded.

  “I’ve just realized I haven’t got them a present,” Lola said as we made our way back into the marquee.

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Yes it does, I’ve never forgotten to get one before.”

  “Go on the gift list, I’m sure there’s something left you can buy.” She pulled her phone out of her orange clutch bag and went into her emails to find the link for the registry. “Not now, obviously.”

  “No, I need to do it now, how embarrassing.”

  The Best Man’s speech was given by Joe’s childhood friend who, regrettably, was in an improv sketch group in his spare time, which explained the numerous wigs and props that he used over the half-hour telling of a collection of rambling anti-anecdotes. When it was Joe’s turn to speak, he stood up as tall and proud as a Steiff bear on a collector’s display stand. I could tell he had been watching how much he drank because he spoke with formality and reverence, diligently thanking every family member, every bridesmaid, every usher and wedding supplier. He gave a loving tribute to his parents, whose marriage he said had been an inspiration to him. Then he turned to Lucy, who gazed up at his face adoringly.

  “On our first date,” he said, “I asked you where you wanted to be in two years’ time.” He turned to the audience for a knowing aside. “A little bit of a job interview question, sure.” He waited for the polite laugh. “And you said to me: ‘in love.’ ”

  I glanced over at Lola, who was scrolling through the online gift registry.

  “Nothing’s left but the salad spinner,” she whispered.

  “Shh,” I said.

  “I’d never in my life met someone so sure of what it is they not only wanted but what they deserved. I knew then, on our first date, that you were the only person I wanted to be with. You inspire me, you organize me”—another mischievous glance to the audience—“you help me strive to become the best man I can be. I once read that the definition of love is ‘being the guardian of another person’s solitude.’ Lucy, I promise that for the rest of my life—which is as long as I will love you—you will never, ever be alone.” Everyone clapped as Lucy used her napkin to wipe away tears from under her eyes. Joe bent down to her face, which he held, and they kissed.

  I had imagined this moment before, years ago, during our final break-up conversation. As I’d looked at Joe on our living-room floor, our faces inches away from each other, I had experienced terminal lucidity. For a few sudden seconds, I remembered what I saw when I’d first fallen in love with him. I knew someone would love him like I had, and that he would love again.

  “NOW LET’S DANCE, BITCHES!” he shouted suddenly, before dropping the mic on the table, which caused an almighty bang so loud all the guests flinched. The DJ fired up the twinkling intro of “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac. Joe and Lucy took to the dance floor and began a slick routine of twirling, dipping and lifting that had very obviously been choreographed in their living room weeks before, but was charming nonetheless. Everyone formed a circle around them and clapped in time to the music. At the chorus, Joe signalled for us to join them. We poured on to the dance floor and Lola merrily bopped over to Lucy and Joe in time with the music.

  “I GOT YOU THE SALAD SPINNER!” she shouted in their ears, producing her phone and showing them proof of purchase, before enveloping them in a group hug. “I HOPE YOU ARE VERY HAPPY!”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the DJ said into the mic, “I hear we’ve got someone at this wedding who is named after a Mr. George Michael so, George, this one’s for you.” The intro of “The Edge of Heaven” played. Joe was the other side of the dance floor, pointing at me with one hand, clicking theatrically with the other. I mimed casting a fishing line out and he immediately hooked his mouth with his own finger—I yanked the invisible rod towards me and he bounced forward in time with the music. We met each other in the middle and Joe picked me up, flinging me over his shoulder and spinning around. I stretched my arms out like a child pretending to be
a plane. Lucy danced over to us.

  “YOUR SONG!” she shouted. Joe put me down.

  “YEAH!” I replied. I leant in to speak in her ear. Her hair smelt of Elnett hairspray and jasmine perfume. “YOU REALLY DO LOOK SO BEAUTIFUL, LUCY.” She smiled and gave me a hug, which we held for longer than we would have done sober, and swayed in time to the music. Joe took us both by the hand and twirled us around—him the maypole, us the flailing ribbons. We picked up speed—he spun us both out to the side of him and when we reeled back in we collided, ricocheting off each other and falling on the floor. He bent down to help us up, and Lucy yanked his arms so he fell and lay prone on top of us. It was unexpected and ridiculous, to have found ourselves in this tangle. All three of us couldn’t stop laughing.

  Katherine’s baby boy was born in early April. The night of Olive’s birth, I had dreamt that Katherine was in labour. Her low cries of pain woke me up at exactly 4:12 a.m. and I knew her baby was here—I turned on my bedside light and wrote down the time on a piece of paper. The next day Mark texted me a photo of newborn Olive, black-eyed, rosy-lipped and puffy-cheeked, informing me that she had been born at four that morning. I gave Katherine the piece of paper—she put it in the back of a framed photo of Olive. This time, when I received the text from Mark telling me their six-pound son, Frederick Thomas, was born just after midday, I’d had no premonition he was here. It was like an invisible psychic string between us had been severed.

  I got the train out of London and went to their new house a week after his birth, taking pre-prepared trays of homemade lasagne for Mark and Katherine and brownies for Olive. When I arrived at the large house that was exactly as purpose-built as it looked in the pictures, I heard a familiar toddler racket seep out of the door. Mark answered—Olive was sitting on the floor behind him, crying.

  “Nina!” he said, giving me a hug. He had the sunken, small-featured face of someone on a handful of hours’ sleep. “It’s a bit of a madhouse here this morning.”

  “I like madhouses,” I said, moving into the hallway and crouching down to give Olive a hug.