Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

by Jill Steeples

  ‘I don’t know. He’s a bloody idiot, if you ask me.’ He made circular movements with his hand on my back, holding himself at a distance from my soggy warmth. ‘I don’t think it was planned or premeditated, if that’s any consolation. I think it just happened. A mistake, and then, well, I guess he just kept on repeating that mistake. You know what it’s like.’

  Was I hearing him right?

  ‘Actually, Ben, forgive me, but I don’t know what it’s like. I would never have done anything like that to him. He’s supposed to love me. You don’t do that to someone you love. Especially not with her best friend. Oh God. Don’t you see what this means? I’ve lost my fiancé, my best friend and my bloody home in one fell swoop. What will I do?’

  He shrugged, looking woefully out of his depth.

  ‘It didn’t mean anything to Ed. That’s what he told me. And I believe him on that score. But once he got himself involved with Sophie, I think it took on a life force of its own. It wasn’t easy for him to get out of it.’

  ‘Huh! Poor him! But that really isn’t my problem. As far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome to each other.’

  At the sound of the key in the front door, we both jumped in our seats, the fear I was feeling reflected in Ben’s startled expression.

  ‘Oh, shit, shit, shit.’ I leapt up off the sofa, doing an Irish jig on the spot. ‘I can’t see her. Not like this. I might cry or break down or … or murder her or something.’

  Ben’s eyebrow did a doubtful dance as he put a finger to my lips.

  ‘Just act normal,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll do all the talking. And, don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t actually murder her.’

  Act normal, act normal. What was normal behaviour when you’d just found out your best friend had been screwing your fiancé? I think murder had to be high up there.

  ‘Hi!’ Sophie wandered in through the front door looking as though she owned the place, which strictly speaking she did, but in the circumstances I thought it was a bit insensitive of her to look quite so damn smug about it. ‘Oh hi, Ben. What are you doing here?’ she said casually.

  I couldn’t have murdered her even if I’d wanted to, which I obviously did, but at that moment I found my whole body rooted to the spot. I’d completely lost the power of speech and was aware that my mouth had dropped open unflatteringly. It was like seeing Sophie for the first time. Only now she’d grown horns and fanged teeth.

  ‘We were just going through the honeymoon list, weren’t we, Anna?’ Ben nudged me in the ribs. ‘I need to make sure Ed gets on that plane with everything he needs for a fortnight in the sun. If he forgets his swimming cozzie then it’s down to me. Huge responsibility, eh?’

  We’d spent weeks poring over travel brochures comparing one exotic Caribbean island to another, the thought of those golden, sweeping beaches, the beach huts on stilts, the roasting-hot sun, sustaining us through the stresses of organising the wedding. Although strictly speaking, I’d been the one doing all the organising. Ed’s contribution was in a chief-executive, advisory and signing-off capacity only. Clearly he’d had other much more important matters on his mind.

  Whatever else happened, I knew, standing there, looking at Sophie as though she were a stranger, that there was absolutely no way I was cancelling that bloody honeymoon. I’d been looking forward to it for so long that if necessary I’d go on my own.

  ‘You okay?’ Sophie was trying, but failing, to make eye contact with me.

  ‘Fine thanks.’ It took all my will-power to raise my head and flash her my most insincere smile. ‘Just feeling a bit rough, that’s all.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve persuaded her to go to her mum’s for a few days,’ Ben added brightly. ‘She could probably do with a bit of pampering in the run-up to the big day.’

  ‘Oh right. That sounds like a good idea. Um … I hope you feel better soon then.’

  I bit on the inside of my lip, my gaze locking with Ben’s as we heard her wander upstairs. Had the atmosphere always been this awkward between us? Or only since Sophie had been sleeping with my fiancé? Had I been so wrapped up in my own smug soon-to-be-married bubble that I hadn’t even noticed that Sophie could barely talk to me, that her underlying resentment wafted through the air like the stench of gone-off vegetables?

  ‘Can we go?’ I said, desperate now to get out of the flat.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll take your bag.’ Ben ushered me into the hallway, calling up the stairs. ‘We’re off now, Sophie. We’ll catch up with you later in the week, yeah?’

  ‘Okay! Oh, Anna,’ she called, coming halfway down the steps, the lightest of smiles resting on her lips, ‘have you been in my bedroom?’

  ‘What?’ My heart froze. It felt as if my whole life stopped in that moment. My breath caught in the back of my throat.

  I looked her directly in the eye. If I had been standing behind her at that moment it would have been so easy to give her a shove, to hear the thump, thump, thump of her body falling down the stairs. An image of the diary, its pages ripped out, blood trailing the carpet, crumpled bodies on the floor, flashed into my mind. My pulse thumped so rapidly from every part of my body I felt certain they’d both hear it.

  ‘Oh yeah, I was looking for my earrings,’ I said, brazening it out.

  Sophie giggled, her relief echoing through the hall.

  ‘Oh sorry, babe,’ she said, not looking in the remotest part sorry. ‘I completely forgot. Here.’ She unscrewed them from her ears and handed them back to me.

  It took all my will-power not to fling them straight back at her.

  Chapter Three

  ‘Bitch. I hate her. Not content with stealing my man, she thinks it’s okay to help herself to my jewellery too. What else does she want? My clothes? My job? Does she want my whole fucking life? Is that what this is all about?’

  Ben clipped in his seatbelt and leant across and did the same to me, before pulling the Range Rover out into the street outside the flat.

  ‘I don’t know, Anna,’ he said, his voice heavy with regret and frustration.

  ‘I thought she was my best friend. I thought she was happy for me. God, all the time I’ve been with Ed, I’ve seen her through dozens of boyfriends, listening as she went on and on about how marvellous this latest one was, how this one might be the one. Then propping her up when it all went horribly wrong. Which it always did. She’s got rotten bloody taste in men,’ I said indignantly, the irony not lost of me. ‘Did she look at me and think, Oh, Anna’s got it right. Her life’s settled. I’ll just help myself to her boyfriend instead.

  ‘Don’t torture yourself with it, Anna. It’s not worth it. And you’ll only make yourself miserable imagining what’s gone on.’

  ‘Good advice, Ben. Good advice. I won’t think about it. That’ll be easy. I’ll just forget all about it, shall I? Pretend it hasn’t happened. Why didn’t I think of that? Drop me off here and I’ll run back home and get on with my wedding plans.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m not saying that. I just hate seeing you like this. It breaks my heart, really it does. I wish I could do something to make it all better, but I can’t. Speak to Ed. He’s the one who should be giving you all the answers.’

  ‘Humph!’ I stared out of the passenger-side window, tears blurring my view of the world outside, a world where people were going about their daily business as though a huge boulder hadn’t rolled into their lives today, crushing everything in sight. ‘I told you. I’m not sure I want to speak to Ed ever again.’

  I hated sniping at Ben; it wasn’t his fault I’d been cheated on. It wasn’t his fault my fiancé was a cheating, lying toerag. It wasn’t his fault the wedding of the century looked to be on the brink of being cancelled. It wasn’t his fault he was driving me away from the life I thought I’d been destined to see out, happily ever after, to a bleak and uncertain future.

  ‘Didn’t you think to tell me, Ben? As soon as you found out? I know you’re good friends and everything, but didn’t you think when Ed told you that juicy little
snippet about his love life, that you ought to mention it to me? To save me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I think if the boot had been on the other foot, I might have done that for you.’

  ‘I was going to, I promise you, but it was difficult. I was put in the worst possible position. I thought it would be better if Ed told you. I told him if he didn’t then I would.’

  ‘Oh right, and when was that going to happen, then? Before the wedding? After the wedding? On our twentieth wedding anniversary?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘He begged me not to tell you and he promised, on his life, that it was over between him and Sophie. I think he realised he’d made the biggest mistake of his life. I felt as though he deserved a second chance, that your relationship deserved a second chance,

  ‘It wasn’t your decision to make, though,’ I said furiously. ‘I should have been told what was going on. So that I could make up my own mind.’

  I didn’t know what was worse: that Ed and Sophie had been at in the first place or that Ben had been prepared to cover up their lies.

  ‘I know. I’ve not been able to stop thinking about it. That’s why I came to see you today. I couldn’t let you marry Ed without you knowing what’s been going on. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but if Ed wasn’t going to tell you, then I knew I needed to do it for myself. Only you got there first.’

  I turned my body away again, resting my head on the passenger-door window. Would it have made any difference if Ben had told me or if it had come from Ed instead? Either way it couldn’t have taken away the shock or pain of finding out that my whole life had been a massive lie.

  For the rest of the journey, we stayed in silence, locked in our own thoughts until Ben pulled the car into the driveway of the white-washed cottage that sat alone at the end of a twisting country lane. He sighed as he turned off the ignition. ‘Look, I’m sorry if you feel I’ve let you down. That wasn’t my intention at all. Come on,’ he said, laying a hand on my knee, ‘let’s go inside, I’ll make you that cup of tea.’

  ***

  ‘Look, you’re going to have to speak to him sometime. And the sooner the better if you don’t want him suspecting anything’s up. Why don’t you text him – let him know what you’re up to?’

  My phone had just vibrated for the umpteenth time that day, but I was doing a pretty good job of ignoring it. I liked the feeling of being removed from my own reality, of taking myself out of the game, but Ben had a point. The last thing I needed was Ed chasing after me. That was assuming he would chase after me. He might just kick back with a sigh of relief and think, Job done. Perhaps this was what he’d wanted all along. My heart twisted in pain.

  ‘There,’ I said, snatching up my phone and tapping furiously at the buttons. ‘Does that make you feel better?’ My message to Ed was short and to the point.

  Hey, going to Mum’s for a few days. See you Saturday!

  I hoped the exclamation mark would cover up the lack of kisses and the text would give me some much-needed distance for a day or two.

  We’d been sitting at Ben’s kitchen table for the last couple of hours, drinking cups of tea and eating biscuits, before moving on to the wine and crisps. My broken heart was obviously not going to lead to a new incarnation as a gloriously thin and wan supermodel-type creature. At this rate I’d be into the Rubenesque category soon, but what did I care? Fitting into my wedding dress was hardly a priority now.

  My mind was a complete fog and that wasn’t entirely down to the alcohol consumption. I felt all floaty and wafty, as though I’d been uprooted and transplanted into someone else’s life, vaguely recognising the other characters but having no idea how I was now supposed to relate to them.

  ‘This is a really lovely cottage,’ I said, looking around, suddenly realising I wanted nothing more than to drop my head on the kitchen table and fall asleep there. ‘Why have I never been here before?’

  Ben laughed.

  ‘I don’t know. You’d have been welcome, you know that. I’m sure I must have invited you.’

  I felt a pang of unease, thinking how we’d drifted apart these last few years. Ben was always there in the background, a definite fixture in my life, but one that had slipped into the shadowy sidelines. At one stage we’d been inseparable, spending every single weekend with the same crowd of people doing something or nothing, going to a pub or a club, getting out in the hills for a walk, making bacon sandwiches together. When was it that things had changed? Was it when I got together with Ed ?

  ‘I’ve been here three years now, but it’s pretty much in the same state as when I moved in. If I’d known you were coming I’d have blitzed the place. And made a cake.’

  He swept his arm across the table, brushing crumbs onto the floor, in a deft move. I suspected that it might be the full extent of Ben’s domestic skills. His dark brown eyes smiled at me warmly, a reminder if I needed one today that life was grossly unfair. Ben had impossibly long dark eyelashes; mine were fair and short and stumpy.

  ‘It’s a bit of a tip. I don’t have many visitors.’

  ‘It’s cosy,’ I said, only now noticing the overflowing piles of papers and magazines, the dirty cups and plates. ‘Is this where you do your painting?’

  ‘I have a studio out the back. I’ll show you in the morning, if you like.’

  I nodded, feeling a surge of gratitude for Ben’s easy, reassuring presence. I’d been quick to blame him for being part of the web of deceit, but what would I have done in his shoes? It was an impossible situation he’d been put in. None of this was his fault.

  ‘I’m sorry that you’ve been caught up in all this.’ I ran my fingernail along the groove in his table. ‘I won’t stay for long, I promise. A couple of days at the most and then I’ll be out of your way.’

  ‘You can stay as long as you like. As long as it takes.’

  I sighed, grabbing fistfuls of hair at my temples. Sitting chatting to Ben I could almost forget what had happened, for a moment, but then the shocking memory of those words written with such casual abandon in Sophie’s diary came back to hit me with a renewed vengeance.

  ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Anna.’ He sighed and mirrored my action with his hair. ‘I think only you can decide on that. But a good place to start would be to talk to Ed. Hear what he has to say.’

  The warmth and softness in Ben’s voice brought tears to my eyes again, and I wondered that I had any left to cry. Despair swept over me, my bones aching with tiredness.

  ‘Ed’s the master salesman, you know that. He’ll have all the answers, he always does. I don’t want to talk to him because I know already what he’s going to say. I don’t want to look into his eyes and hear his excuses. I think it might break my heart.’

  ‘I know. ’ Ben reached his hand across the table, taking hold of mine. ‘But he loves you. And you love him. You can get over this if you want to. All those hopes and plans you had for the future – you can still have those. You don’t have to throw everything away just because of a silly little mistake.’

  ‘Hardly a little mistake. They’ve been seeing each other for months, according to Sophie’s diary. He told her he adored her. That sounds pretty serious to me. And hardly forgivable. What I don’t understand is why he did it. If he wanted Sophie then why didn’t he just leave me to be with her?’

  Ben splayed his fingers on the table.

  ‘That’s not what he told me. He told me it was you he loved. You, he wanted to share his life with.’

  I shrugged my shoulders, unswayed by Ben’s words of comfort.

  ‘Honestly, I’m not sure Ed and I can come back from this. Even if we postpone the wedding, put if off for another day, how can we ever forget what’s happened? How could I look forward to my wedding day in the same way now? To spending my life with him. It’s all been ruined. It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life with Ed on one side of me and Sophie, my best friend and bridesmaid, on the other. If it was
n’t so bloody tragic it might be funny.

  ‘This is the sort of thing you might be unlucky to have happen to you when you’ve been married for years. Finding out your husband’s having an affair. Then you might be able to find a way to work through it; to come out the other side, but it’s not something that should ever happen before you actually get married. If he didn’t love me enough to stay loyal then can there be any future for us? Besides, I’m not sure that I’d want that now. I don’t know whether I want to be married to a man capable of that kind of deceit.’

  I took another glug of wine as Ben observed me thoughtfully, nodding his head in all the right places.

  ‘Can you ever imagine forgiving someone for doing that to you, Ben? Can you?’

  ‘I’m hardly the right person to ask. I don’t have much of a track record when it comes to successful relationships. But I’m guessing if you love someone enough you could probably forgive them anything, within reason. Enough at least to give them a second chance.’

  ‘You’re obviously more forgiving than I am. I’m not sure I want to give Ed a second chance.’ The act of saying the words aloud clarifying the fact in my own mind. ‘Or perhaps I don’t love him enough. Not enough to let him lie and cheat on me. One thing’s for sure: he didn’t love me enough.’

  ‘Come on.’ He stood up, looking as though he’d really had enough of my self-pitying wailing. ‘You need to get some rest. I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.’

  ***

  Ben’s guest bedroom had clearly not seen any guests in a long while. There was a single bed, or at least I think it was a bed beneath an impressive collection of cardboard boxes overflowing with stuff. To the side of the bed was an exercise bike, presumably in case I got the urge in the middle of the night, and a bare light bulb hanging forlornly in the centre of the room.

  ‘Lovely,’ I said, looking around and smiling as though I’d just been shown into the Presidential Suite of the Waldorf Astoria.