The mood is high and excited, the arrival of Rose and Ruby giving us all a boost. We chat about babies and life and the café and new shows on Netflix, and it’s all delightful. I’m tired, but I’m glad I came.
Eventually, we hear the traditional ding-ding-ding for last orders, and Cal leaps to his feet. I’m guessing he’ll do what he usually does, and get double for everyone. Never willingly the first out of a pub, that man.
He’s standing up, and looking towards the bar, and I see his expression change. I see Zoe’s gaze follow his, and a ‘yikes’ look settle on her face, matched with wide eyes and a chewed lip. I see Cherie and Frank give each other significant looks, and Van staring from the bar to me in concern.
I have the horrible feeling I know what’s happening here, but I hope I’m wrong. I hope I’ll turn around and see something less scary, like a two-headed man-eating dragon, or the clown from It.
I take a deep breath, swivel in my chair, and see Matt lurking at the bar, looking exhausted and a bit sheepish. Standing by his side, exotic and totally out of place in a countryside pub in England, is Seb.
I realise that everyone is suddenly tense, looking from me to Seb to Finn, not quite knowing how to react. I glance at Finn, and see that he’s rigid and upright, his thigh hard against mine. I take his hand, and look into his eyes, and say: ‘I’m sorry. I had no idea he was coming.’
Finn shakes his head, as though dismissing it – as though everything is okay – but I can tell it’s not.
‘Don’t worry,’ he replies, patting my hand. ‘It was bound to happen sometime or another. And truth be told, I’m kind of relieved to get it out of the way. But … well, I’m a bit lost for words. He’s … he’s not exactly been hit with the ugly stick, has he?’
I feel so sorry for him, so hurt on his behalf. Because no, Seb hasn’t exactly been hit with the ugly stick. All around the pub I can see women and some men taking surreptitious peeks at him. He’s impossibly tall, dark and handsome, in a way that feels suddenly unfair. I feel like I should have warned Finn about it, but hey, that’s not an easy conversation to have, is it: ‘Oh, by the way, I should mention that my ex is a total Adonis.’
‘He’s nothing compared to you,’ I reply reassuringly, as Matt and Seb make their way towards us.
Matt, suddenly realising the awkwardness of the situation, gives Finn a look that is full of apology. It’s a look that says: ‘Mate, I have well and truly fucked up, and I didn’t think this through, and I’m knackered and didn’t have my head on straight.’
In return, Finn gives him a brief nod. It’s a nod that says: ‘It’s all right pal, I understand, and it’s no big deal.’
Amazing how well I speak Man, isn’t it? Or maybe I made that all up, who knows.
Cherie, bless her, breaks the tension by asking Matt how Laura and the babies are, and luckily that takes the focus temporarily away from us. It’s a relief – I don’t much like being the centre of attention, especially as the filling in a man sandwich. It’s strange and weird and feels like I’m about to navigate my way across a minefield.
Seb smiles at me while Matt replies, and it feels too intimate – like we’re connected somehow. Finn stands up, and offers his hand.
‘Hi,’ he says, his voice firm and confident, ‘I’m Finn. We’ve not officially met.’
Seb shakes his hand, and it takes a bit too long. Like neither of them wants to look less manly by stopping first.
‘Nice to meet you, Finn,’ he responds. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’
They stare at each other, neither of them doing anything overtly hostile, but neither of them exactly backing down either. We’re back to tense again, and this time it’s Cal who breaks the moment. ‘Drinks!’ he says loudly. ‘We all need more drinks! Seb, give me a hand at the bar, would you, mate?’
Seb obliges, and Matt very quickly says: ‘God, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t think. I should have guessed you’d be here, Finn. I … well, after I got kicked out of the ward, I took Lizzie and Nate home, and then I popped round to Hyacinth to tell Seb the news, and give him his boots back. I mentioned the pub, and he looked so … lonely, that I invited him along. I’ve put both my feet in it, haven’t I?’
‘Don’t worry,’ replies Finn, before I get the chance to say anything. ‘It’s all fine. You shouldn’t be worrying about us on a night like this. Just enjoy yourself.’
It’s the perfect thing to say under the circumstances, and he clearly has Matt fooled. Maybe it’s because I know Finn better, or maybe it’s because I’m sitting next to him and can feel the tension in his body, but I can tell it’s not fine.
Luckily, it’s enough for Matt, who moves on to take up a spot by the window with Edie. I see her ask him something, and he grins and gets out his phone, scrolling through the screen. Babies’ first photo shoot, I’m guessing.
‘Are you all right?’ I ask, trying to engage Finn’s eyes with mine and failing. Failing because his eyes are fixed on the bar, following Seb and Cal as they get the ales in.
Finn glances back at me, and nods abruptly.
‘Of course,’ he says. ‘It’s all fine.’
He’s basically repeated what he said to Matt, and I’m not buying it. I’m starting to feel a bit frustrated, with the situation, with myself. With the fact that Finn is clearly bottling up a whole lot of stuff right now.
‘Are you about to go all kick-ass on me and cause trouble?’ I ask, half-joking. ‘Because if you spill those pints, Cal won’t be happy.’
He manages a small smile, and shakes his head. There’s a look on his face I don’t quite recognise, and suddenly it’s easier to imagine him in his bad old days. The days of mayhem and berserking.
‘I promise I won’t,’ he answers. ‘But this is weird, and I feel even weirder. I know I shouldn’t react like this, but I don’t seem able to help it. I thought I was a more evolved creature, but it seems like my inner caveman wants to come out to play.’
‘Tell him he can’t,’ I reply quickly. ‘Tell him that I’m not a cave woman, and that any attempts to club your rival with a woolly mammoth bone and carry me back to your fire will be met with much anger.’
He nods and agrees, and I can see him make a real effort to relax. Luckily everyone else here is savvy enough to have restarted their various conversations, giving us a bit of space, and by the time Cal and Seb come back to the table in a relay of pint-glasses and wine and bags of crisps, a pleasant buzz of chatter has settled back down over us.
I’m hoping that Seb has the wisdom to go and sit on the other side of the table – ideally the other side of the pub – but of course, he doesn’t. Instead, he sits right next to me, so I’m stuck there between the two of them. Arse.
Seb holds his glass up – fizzy water in a pint – and says ‘cheers’. Zoe, next along from him, is the only one who joins in.
She sees the look on my face, and obviously decides we need help.
‘So,’ she says, ‘Seb. I believe you were stuck in the back of a van with a woman in labour this morning?’
‘I was,’ he nods. ‘And I have to say, Laura has a hell of a grip. I didn’t do much, and I’m glad it all turned out well.’
‘You did quite a lot, actually,’ I reply, wishing I didn’t feel the need to. ‘You kept her calm, which was probably the most important thing we could do for her right then. Thank you, because there was no way I could have driven and kept her calm at the same time.’
I see Finn’s nostrils flare slightly, but he stays quiet, looks serene. I’m guessing he doesn’t feel it, and this is a less than ideal situation – but we all need to take a deep breath and act like bloody grown-ups.
Seb looks pleased with what I’ve said, and gives me a little salute.
‘At your service, querida – at any time,’ he says, in an infuriatingly flirtatious way. Looks like he didn’t get the memo about being a grown-up.
‘How are you enjoying your visit to Budbury?’ asks Zoe, her voice several pitches higher tha
n usual as she picks up on the danger signs. ‘Must be a change from Barcelona.’
Seb answers her, but his eyes keep flashing back to me. To Finn.
‘Very different in some ways,’ he says, smiling. ‘But also beautiful, and not without its attractions.’
‘When will you be going back?’ asks Finn, his tone suggesting that perhaps right now might be a splendid idea.
He’s staring right at Seb, and this time there’s no disguising the fact that there is an alpha male showdown on the cards.
‘Not sure,’ Seb says, ‘it depends on how certain things go.’
He lays a hand on my thigh as he says this, and even I feel like punching him. I have a fleeting and satisfying image of Seb lying splattered on the table, covered in lager dregs and dry-roasted peanuts. I swipe his hand away, and say very clearly: ‘Knock it off, Seb.’
He tries to look innocent, raising his eyebrows in a ‘Who, me?’ kind of way, and I shake my head in a strange combination of disgust and a tiny bit of amusement.
His face breaks out into a grin, and he says: ‘I’m sorry – Finn, Auburn, I’m sorry. I try not to be an idiot, but somehow it seems to come naturally to me. Forgive me. This is as strange for me as it is for you, and I’ve forgotten my manners.’
That partially redeems him – and it’s certainly a level of self-awareness and honesty that I wouldn’t ever have got from him years ago, when he’d bluff his way through any situation rather than ever admit he was wrong.
‘Yes, it must be strange,’ replies Finn quietly. ‘Being here and seeing your ex-wife with another man.’
I glance at him – I’m starting to feel like I’m at a tennis match here – and see that there is no trace of amusement on his face. Seb’s apology doesn’t seem to have taken hold, or even registered.
Seb, not being blind, also realises this. The grin falls from his face, and he answers: ‘Wife. She’s still my wife, not my ex-wife.’
Zoe is also looking from one to the other, on tenterhooks as she waits to see what will happen next in the movie that is my life. Everyone else is being polite enough to ignore our side of the table, apart from Van, who is looking over with a touching big brotherly concern.
That’s the moment when I decide that enough is enough. This is all too much, and it’s making me desperate for a cigarette. That is never a good sign.
I stand up abruptly, catching the edge of the table and sloshing a bit of booze over its wooden surface.
‘Going to the ladies,’ I announce, with as much dignity as I can muster. I don’t give anybody the chance to reply, and instead stride off in the direction of the loos. I pass the tinkling fruit machines and the loud darts game and the locals on their stools, and make a decision halfway that I’m not going to the ladies. I’m going to leave.
I snake my way through the crowds, and out of the door, not realising until I’m in the fresh air that I’d been holding my breath. I lean back against the wall, and do some in-and-out puffs, and start to calm down. Every sinew in my body is tense and strung out, and my fingers are clenched into tight fists.
I start to stride off in the direction of the cottage, and then spot that Katie’s living room light is on. On the spur of the moment, I tap on her window gently, not wanting to disturb anyone if she is in fact asleep.
Within seconds the door is thrown open, and she stands in front of me, in a not exactly demure night gown. In fact it looks like something from a seventies sitcom, fluffy and lacy and very, very small. She looks first a tad disappointed, followed rapidly by embarrassed. I quickly realise what causes these responses, and burst out laughing. The laughter comes as a huge release, and I feel some of the stress flow out of me.
‘Expecting a game of Twister?’ I ask, grinning at her as she gestures me quickly to come inside. ‘Sorry to let you down. Van’s still in the pub.’
She makes a shushing gesture as we walk through into the lounge, obviously not wanting me to wake Saul up, and closes the living room door quietly behind me. She grabs a big, faded pink dressing gown and puts it on over her sex doll outfit, which probably comes as a relief to both of us.
I plonk down on the sofa, and she sits across from me on the chair, now firmly belted in to the dressing gown. Tinkerbell, her inappropriately named ginger tomcat, leaps all the way from the windowsill into my lap and curls up into a big fat ball. I stroke him absent-mindedly as she talks.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says quietly, smiling. ‘And yes, I was expecting a game of Twister. How’s things?’
‘If by “How’s things?” you mean, “Why did you turn up on my doorstep late at night?”, then the answer is … things are getting messy.’
‘Messy how? And do you want a cuppa? Or … a bottle of bourbon, maybe?’
‘Do you have a bottle of bourbon?’
‘No. I’m not that interesting. I just thought it sounded good.’
I laugh, and slip off my trainers, and put my feet up. It feels nice to be here, somewhere safe and easy and calm. Katie’s house always feels like this – a pleasant but wholesome world of kids’ toys and cartoons and plants she manages to keep alive. She’s the kind of mum that always has biscuits in, and irons duvet covers.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks,’ I say. ‘No cuppa required. I was just passing on my way home. I’m sure Van will fill you in on all this, but basically we had a bit of a clash of the titans in the pub.’
She looks understandably confused, and I explain what had happened.
‘Oh!’ she says, covering her surprised mouth with one dainty hand. ‘That sounds awful! How did it go?’
‘Well, I told them I was going to the ladies and came here instead, so that’s how it went … bit of a dick move on my part, now I come to think of it. But I couldn’t stand being stuck in the middle any more, and didn’t want to cause any kind of scene.
‘It was horrible, and also embarrassing. Tonight was supposed to be all about Matt and Laura and celebrating the babies. Not about me and my pathetic love life. Anyway, they were both annoying me so much, I knew it wasn’t going to lead anywhere good if I stayed.’
She nods, and ponders this, and asks: ‘Where do you think it might have led?’
‘Hard to say. Bloodshed. Murder. Awkward silences. Finn … well, Finn is wonderful. But he’s only human, and Seb was winding him up in a way that only Seb can, and it looked like it could turn nasty. So I thought I’d remove the cause of the conflict – me, in other words. They might even have noticed I’m gone by now, if they’re not too busy with their invisible penis-measuring contest.’
Katie giggles a bit at this, and tries to hide her amusement, obviously thinking this is a Serious Subject.
‘No, it’s okay to laugh,’ I say, firmly. ‘Because it is very silly. Silly and also a bit … unsettling. Having them both there was so strange. Of course, they were too busy sizing up the competition to think about how I felt, which is fair enough.’
‘And how did you feel? How do you feel? I know you and Finn are just starting out, but you seem so happy. And then Seb is … well, Seb is gorgeous, isn’t he? I feel disloyal saying that, but he is. And he also seems nice, and like he’s working hard on living a better life, and like he genuinely wants you back.’
Damn her. She’s gone and unleashed the beast – by putting into words some of what I’d been thinking.
‘Aaah, Katie, I don’t know. When Seb first got here, I was horrified, and I just wanted him to leave. I still want him to leave – but maybe not for exactly the same reasons.’
‘Go on,’ she says, making a wind-it-along gesture, ‘follow that thought. It might be important.’
I nod, and think, and talk, and possibly the talking and the thinking collide and I only understand some of what I’m thinking when I say it out loud. If that makes sense.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘when he arrived, I wanted him gone because he was the past. He was the past, and the past was bad, and Finn was the future, and I wanted the future to be good. Simple, right? But as
you say, he does seem to be working hard – and he is so different than when I first knew him. Not in every way, but he somehow seems to have got rid of the bad parts, and kept hold of the good ones.His sense of humour. His kindness. His way of making me feel like I’m the only woman in the entire world who exists to him.’
‘That’s an intoxicating mix,’ replies Katie understandingly. ‘Plus the gorgeousness. So … do you think you still have feelings for him?’
This, of course, is the question of the moment – and it’s not an easy one to answer honestly. Answering it dishonestly, much as I might want to, will be of no benefit to anyone, especially not me.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, feeling glum. ‘I definitely want him to leave – but I think maybe I want him to leave because I don’t feel safe with him here any more. I feel like, if he stays, he’ll chip away at me and my resolve, and there is a fraction of a chance that I’ll … fall for him again. And the logical part of me knows that wouldn’t be right. It’d end things with Finn, who is so good for me. And it’d start things with Seb, who isn’t good for me, and … God, I’m such a mess.’
I puff out a big breath of frustrated air, and hope she has some pearls of wisdom that will clear the whole thing up.
‘That’s hard,’ she says, which is sympathetic but not wise. ‘And tricky. And complicated. But … okay, then, imagine this. Imagine if Finn wasn’t around. Imagine if Tom had given that job at Briarwood to a middle-aged woman with warts and bad breath. Imagine you’d never met him, and Seb had come back into your life. This Seb, the current model – not the old Seb. What would you do then?’
It’s an interesting scenario. I try to overlook the logical flaw – that if it wasn’t for Finn, I might never have asked for a divorce, and Seb might not have come looking for me – and picture the scene.
If I was single. If I wasn’t with Finn. If I was available … crikey. It’s still complicated, because everything involving me and Seb is.
‘I’m not sure it would make any difference,’ I reply, after a few moments of trying very hard to work out how I feel. ‘I’d still be scared. I’d still be freaked out. Me and Seb … well, it was messy. And I’m not at a stage in my life where I want messy.’
A Wedding at the Comfort Food Cafe Page 19