by Marina Ford
Frank rolled his eyes up to the heavens, impatiently. “Mate, he was one guy. There’ll be others. I’ll find you a cuter one if you just come back inside. Won’t we, love?” Here he turned to Gabriella, who smiled pityingly.
“You wouldn’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “I should go.”
“Come on!” Frank cried. “Forget him, and come with us. I swear, I’ll make it better if you try a little harder and play along.”
“No, thanks,” I said, trying to turn around.
He grabbed my arm. “Come on, ye ninny, forget him and—”
“I can’t forget him!” I snapped. “It’s impossible. He was the one.” Tears gathered in my eyes. This was highly embarrassing, and I was grateful for the drizzle.
Frank scoffed. “Bollocks to that. No such thing.”
“What about Gabriella?” I said, waving at her dramatically. “She’s your one, isn’t she?”
Frank laughed. “If you mean she’s the only woman who’d ever put up with me, you’re right.”
Gabriella folded her arms around herself and he, noticing, asked if she wanted to go back inside. She shook her head.
I rolled my eyes. “Well, whatever. He was it. And I had a window of opportunity and now he’ll marry Kieran and be with him forever, and I—” I clamped my mouth shut, since my voice had begun to crack.
Gabriella, seeming touched by this, sighed. “Joe . . .”
“He was the one, I know he was,” I said, staring down at my shoes. They could take everything from me. Fuck it, let them. But they couldn’t take that. I knew what I knew.
Frank tried to sound lighthearted. “You don’t know your arse from your elbow, and you’re supposed to know that? Come on, mate.”
I don’t know why I expected Frank to understand such a thing. Of course he would try to laugh it off.
“It’s a gut thing, all right?” I said. “Like, I knew Yvonne wasn’t the woman I was looking for. And I know Harry is the One.”
“Wasn’t he all high-strung and sarcastic?” Frank demanded. “And wasn’t he constantly pining after—what did you call him?—his troglodyte ex?”
I bit my lip. “He and I . . .” I began and then broke off. How could I explain it to him? This wasn’t a thing words could do. Songs could do it and colour and shape and texture, wild bursts of light and shade could do it. Not words.
“What do you want with that bloke anyway?” he asked. “You were too different; it was never going to work out! You’re not a conventional sort of man and he—”
“He made me feel calm inside,” I interrupted, mostly because I wanted him to stop talking. This did the trick, though. He shut up at last.
In the darkness of the night and the drizzle, with the streetlamp behind him, I could not make him out that well. He turned to Gabriella, who was faithfully standing by his side and, as if remembering what he’d said to me about her, his whole persona seemed to soften.
“Go inside, lass,” he said. “You’ll get drenched. I’ll grab us a cab.”
She looked to me, wavered, then gave me a quick squeeze and ran off back into the club. Frank and I stood in silence for a moment after she left.
“I know I’ll get over it eventually,” I continued. “He’s in love with Kieran—was from the beginning—and I suppose it’s precisely because I love him that I have to be happy that he finally gets what he always wanted. And I am. Or I will be. But I get to be a little miserable at the same time, don’t I?”
I expected Frank to laugh at me, but he was quiet, and then hung his head and said, “Yeah.”
“Or a lot miserable,” I said, my voice quivering.
He put his hand on my shoulder, pressed, and then let it slide down my arm. He took hold of my hand. After a moment, he said, “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“No, I’m sorry I tried to stop you being miserable. Mate, you’ve the right to be as miserable as you want. I mean truly bloody shoddy.”
I let go of his hand and threw my arms around him, and he, being Frank and not doing anything by half measures, hugged me tightly to him. We stood in this wet embrace for a while, until Gabriella and Chloe came out together, having got impatient with us.
We returned to Chloe’s and my flat soaked, since we hadn’t been able to find a cab and had instead rushed off for the Tube and got splashed by a passing car. So, cold and wet, we gathered in the kitchen, with towels around our shoulders (Frank and Gabriella together under my large bath towel) and our hands around mugs of hot cocoa, which Chloe had made.
That was when Gabriella officially declared the opening of the Broken Hearts Club.
For the record, we didn’t arrive by that name at once.
Gabriella said, “We should start a club. An—an association of the lonely and depressed?”
“Hand me the sleeping pills now, will you?” I muttered.
“The Lovers Of Never Ending Recovery Society,” Chloe said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
“The L.O.N.E.R.S.?” Gabriella frowned, working it out.
“Really, Chloe? Really?” I demanded.
“If I’m going to be part of a club,” Frank said, “it’s going to be called the Cobras. End of.”
“Are we forming a crime-fighting ninja clan?” I asked. “Besides, what’s the point of forming a club of broken hearts—”
“The Broken Hearts Club!” Gabriella cried, and Frank high-fived her.
“—when I’m the only one with a broken heart?” I finished.
“It’s so we have a space where we can complain about the things everybody else wants us to shut up about,” Frank said. “Like . . . I hate that I lost my leg. It’s fucking wank. I cannae tell you how I’m reminded of it almost every bloody day.”
I blinked, surprised. Gabriella kissed his cheek.
“Well,” Chloe said, “now I can’t say my thing, since that’s nothing to losing a leg.”
“It’s not a competition,” Gabriella said. “Say your thing.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “I suppose I never got over Carrie Fisher dying. She was a hero of mine and consequently ought to have been immortal.”
“I get that,” I said. “I hate that Terry Pratchett died.”
Frank raised his hand. “Freddie Mercury.”
He turned to Gabriella to ask for her pick, and she looked around as though tempted to say something, but then suddenly blushed and, shyly, shook her head. It made the loose, wet strands of her head fling back from her face and spray Frank who, in return, bear-hugged her. Chloe rolled her eyes and turned to me.
“What?” I said.
“It’s your turn now,” she said. “Spill it.”
“Spill it?” I laughed. “I already told you . . .”
“Bloody tell us again,” Frank said, with his arm still around his wife. “Anything you want.”
My heart felt heavy in my chest, and all I could think to say was, “He won’t call or text me. But he keeps doing these things for me . . . I don’t know what to make of it.”
“What things?” Gabriella asked.
“I mean, I don’t know it’s all him, but it can’t be anybody else,” I said. “I keep getting phone calls with job offers, and phone calls from journalists wanting to talk about my ‘process,’ and last week I got an email inviting me to join one of those snobby London clubs people go to to hobnob with other people who think they still live in the nineteenth century.”
They all looked at me, surprised.
“Considering what my usual work calls look like, it must be him. I can’t think who else. I want to call him and ask what this is supposed to mean, but I’m afraid he’d tell me.”
“What are you afraid he’ll tell you?” Gabriella asked, quietly.
I shrugged. “Maybe I’m afraid he won’t pick up. Or that he’s doing all this because he’s sorry for me.”
I sniffed and rubbed my nose with my sleeve.
“Maybe,” I said, after a pause, “it’s none of those th
ings. Maybe it’s worse than that and he’s just a decent bloke who wants to do something nice for me. And that’s . . .”
“Way worse,” Chloe said. “That’s brutal.” She shook her head, sighed, and then said, “Okay . . . I wasn’t going to say this because I thought it wisest not to mention him at all, but . . . I saw him the other day.”
My heart throbbed painfully. “What? Who? Harry?”
“He was coming out of a coffee shop with some moustachioed bloke, and I’d just found the cutest lamp in this antique shop next door. I was going to walk straight past him, you know, out of solidarity, but he was so excited to see me, you’d think I was his long-lost sister or something.”
“What—what did he say?”
She shrugged. “He wanted to know how you were, and if you were all right, and whether you were doing okay and . . . yeah, there was no getting away from him. Luckily, Mr. Moustache got impatient and dragged him away or else I’d still be standing there, repeating that you’re fine and I’m fine and everything’s fine . . .”
My heart lurched. “Did he say anything about wanting to talk to me?”
Chloe glanced at Frank, who looked away and rubbed Gabriella’s arm.
“Well, Mr. Moustache was right there,” Chloe said. “It’s not like Harry could tell me anything in private. And, you know, I’m not his biggest fan. I might have been staring hatefully at him the whole time; who’s to say?”
He could have asked. I blinked at her, barely able to breathe past the lump in my throat. The journalists, the invitations, the offers . . . they were just that. If he’d really wanted to see me, he could have asked Chloe or, in fact, asked me.
He could have asked, and he hadn’t.
A Week Before the Big Day
It is one week to the wedding. The calendar on our wall is full of ticks.
Harry made baked pasta—at least that’s what we call it, since it has no name, because Harry came up with it by himself one day, freestyling with leftovers. He plies me with wine, and I hope for news à la “let’s drop all this wedding preparation crap and elope.” I can see that he wants to tell me something by the intent look in his eyes as he pours the wine.
At last, when he puts the bottle down, he starts twisting the bracelet around his wrist in a nervous gesture, lost in thought.
I watch him, surprised, and then lift my glass and say, “Cheers?”
He looks up at me, blinks at last, and softens into a slight, crooked smile.
“Ah. Yes.”
We clink glasses, though his sloshes and nearly spills. He’s usually very graceful. I frown as he settles the glass back down.
“You all right?”
He lifts his eyes to meet mine. He clears his throat. “Don’t be cross.”
“If you want to cancel the elaborate wedding and do this my way, I’m not cross, I’m ecstatic!” I say.
He laughs nervously.
“No, it’s not that. We’re still doing this the hard way. But I have to go away for a couple of days.”
“What? Where? Why?”
He puts his hand on mine.
“It’s just for a couple of days. I have to meet a client; she lives in Malmö.”
“What?”
“It’s just for a couple of days, so I can sort her out, and that way I won’t have to think of work until we get back from Jamaica,” he tries to placate me.
“What about all the preparations?”
Despite his planning, the wedding still has lots of loose ends. Decisions have to be made. Emails need to be sent.
“You can deal with them, can’t you?” He smiles. “You’re such a great planner and executor of plans.”
“Well, now I know you’re taking the piss. Who knows what I might do if you leave this to me. I might shave my eyebrows or flash your grandparents this time!”
His smile broadens. “I’m certain you won’t. And if you do, it’s just part and parcel of being with you. I’ve learned to live with it.”
“When will you be back?”
“Before the wedding.” At my shocked expression he adds, “Well before the wedding. I promise. It’s an emergency, and if it weren’t important, you know I wouldn’t go. I’d have sent Maya or someone.”
There’s nothing I can say. I gulp my wine instead.
It’s not that I’m unwilling to help—it’s that Harry has managed everything so far and he’s the best person to tie up the loose ends.
Siobhan is in France, officially in search of the best champagne for our wedding. Unofficially, she’s on a piss-up tour of French vineries after the latest round of IVF treatments failed. I don’t know how to handle her in the state she’s in.
Harry’s mum has promised to make a cake for the wedding, and Harry’s the only one who can dissuade her from making it with shrimp or peppers or boiled turkey.
And then there’s the wedding planner. Her name is Arabella, and while I’m sure she’s a perfectly sweet person in her private life, in her professional life she’s the snootiest, haughtiest woman I’ve ever dealt with. Which is why I never deal with her—Harry does. Because Harry knows how to deal with pricks, since he does it all the time at work. Hell, he managed to survive ten years cooperating with Malcolm I-Thrive-On-Sun-Energy-Like-A-Fucking-Carnation Peppard!
Harry has to go, and I have to let him. I watch him pack, and listen to his many instructions, and try to stay calm.
“I put everything in an email for you,” he says, “and I updated your Google calendar, so you’ll get automatic reminders about deadlines. You’ll be fine.”
I nod, too quickly.
“Honey,” he says, putting a hand on my arm. “You’ll be fine.”
“Yes, of course. Pf, child’s play, this.”
The cab he ordered is already waiting for him downstairs. I offered to drive him to the airport, but he refused.
“Just try and relax,” he says, “and don’t do anything needlessly elaborate. Okay?”
I give him a thumbs-up. This is making me uneasy. Despite his outward appearance, I know this wedding has been wearing on him. He’s been sleeping less and losing his patience with people on the phone more.
Now, too, he’s got rings under his eyes because he didn’t sleep almost at all last night, and I know his phone rang at least twice between 11p.m. and 5 a.m., by which time he was already showered and dressed. Obviously this Malmö client of his is a stressful case. Not that I ever heard of this Malmö client before, but whatever. I mean, the company he works for is a much larger enterprise than what it used to be, and it sort of makes sense he’s suddenly so sought after internationally. Right?
What’s the use wondering why he is suddenly so popular, at all times of the night, with mysterious foreign clients?
I’m not suspicious. This is perfectly normal. Unprecedented, sure, but I trust Harry. He’s got to do what he’s got to do.
Like leaving the country a few days before the wedding.
Normal.
Totally unremarkable.
Totally cool.
I’m sure it’s only my paranoia, anyway. He’s been nervy and jumpy lately, but so have I. A wedding is serious, expensive business, after all. Anybody would feel the pressure. And Harry in particular because of his need to be in control of everything.
He kisses me goodbye, somewhat absentmindedly, and then rushes off, forgetting his bag. I have to run after him to give it to him before he drives off without it.
Should he have packed that heavily for a couple of days in Malmö?
“Okay,” Bonnie tells me, showing me the drawing of the planned wedding cake. “This . . . is it. What do you think?”
It’s heart-burstingly horrible. It looks like a three-tier strawberry, but, she tells me, “the green is made up of salad-leafs and the red of ketchup. The pips are caviar! Isn’t that sweet?”
“That,” I say, “is very . . . c-courageous.”
Harry and I have quarrelled three times over the wedding cake. Mostly because I’d like to
have an edible one, and because Harry thinks a cake isn’t as important as having our families actively involved in the wedding.
“Isn’t it though?” she says, sounding excited. “I mean, you don’t want to go all trivial, with chocolate or fruit cake or something like that, do you? We want to be original and bold!”
“Oh yes, bold,” I say, smiling. “That’s what you want from a wedding cake. Boldness. By the way, what’s underneath the, er, ketchup?”
“Oh, I’m glad you asked.” She turns a page over in her notebook. You can’t fault her for lack of enthusiasm. “Okay, so the bottom tier is coffee ice cream. I know what you’re thinking: won’t it melt? Well, yes, but I think we should present the cake on a bed of ice cubes, and possibly put a bowl underneath that so that when it melts it can drop into the bowl and we could put cones on the side and kids can just reach in and dip them in the ice cream!”
“Yes,” I say. “That sounds fantastic.”
“The second tier,” she continues, “will be strawberry jelly. You know, because strawberries, duh!”
“Duh!” I confirm.
“And then the third tier”—here she reaches out to touch my arm to ask me to brace myself, as though that’s necessary—“will be fruit. Nothing but fruit. I’ll shape them in the freezer. Of course when they melt they’ll fall down into the ice cream soup in the bowl, so it will be a sort of healthy, delicious ice-cream-fruit soup! With jelly! What do you think?”
“Oh, so many things,” I say. “What do you call this abomi— I mean, this delicacy?”
“It doesn’t have a name, silly.” She giggles. “I came up with it by myself. It took me ages, but I think the end result will be worth it. The sweetness of the ketchup really blends well with the sharpness of the fruit.”
I look at her carefully. She’s too old to be pregnant, surely. But at least she’s nice about this. Her husband, when I finally force myself to ask him about the cars, tells me to stop bothering him.
“If you’re going to be a nagging little housewife, Harry did right to leave,” he says, not even looking up from his newspaper.
“Okay, thank you,” I say.