Luke gave a small groan. ‘Sorry for giving you the long version. The short version is that Bridge was bonkers and I didn’t pull my weight enough. Bridge tried to buy her mansion one quid at a time, I preferred to dream about it in a pot-filled haze. I didn’t want to sell things, build things or write about them at a desk. I was, without putting too fine a point on it, a lazy, selfish arse.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Jack. Luke was anything but the past portrait he’d painted of himself. ‘What was that catalyst that changed you?’
‘Looking back, it’s pretty clear I was a singular piece of touchpaper waiting for the exact match. And that, my friend, was also supplied by Bridge’s vituperative gob.’
* * *
Oh, how to explain where it all went wrong, thought Bridge. ‘We didn’t believe in each other. I laughed at Luke for wanting to be a leading light in the food world. He laughed at me when I said I wanted to buy and sell property. I had big ideas for someone who had to pawn her engagement ring to pay the electricity bill.’
She remembered the woman in the pawn shop’s derisory tone when she offered her an insult of cash for it. ‘If I had a strong enough magnifier in my loupe to see the diamond you say is there, I might have given you a fiver extra.’
‘I wasn’t a very nice person when I was younger,’ Bridge went on. ‘I was screwed up and defensive and aggressive and I nagged Luke into the ground to get him to change. I can’t remember how many pieces of crockery I threw at the walls in exasperation, but the neighbours must have thought we had a Greek wedding in our flat every night. And then I announced I wanted a child by him and I fell to bits when I found out I couldn’t have them. Thank God, really. I’d have been a shit mother.’
‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Bridge. That must have been hard for you both. And I’m sure you wouldn’t have been a shit mother.’
‘It was my fault that we couldn’t have them anyway. You were so lucky you had the upbringing you did, Mary. I don’t even think I had a childhood.’
* * *
‘No job fitted or interested me. I hopped from one to the other like a dysfunctional frog between lily pads. I was happy enough living hand to mouth, but Bridge wanted everything: big car, big bank balance, big house, his and hers walk-in wardrobes, swimming pool, Koi carp…’ Luke explained to Jack. ‘She was working for a property auction place at the time, loving it, she was excited by it, aiming to end up running it. I thought she had no chance. Incidentally she didn’t end up only running it, but she ended up owning it.’ He pulled himself up into a sitting position because even the short version of this part of the story would run on a while.
‘Anyway, she saw a job advertised in Calvers Frozen Foods, in the product development department, told me if I didn’t apply she was leaving me. I thought I’d hate it, a fair assumption, me being king of the workshy, but I didn’t. They were a great bunch, it was a buzzing atmosphere and there were people there who had a real passion for putting ingredients together, constantly trying to make recipes better for Calvers. I started to enjoy going there every morning, even stayed behind later at nights, went in weekends sometimes. In fact, I was there so much, Bridge thought I was having an affair, which caused more rows. But the only affair I was having was with myself. I don’t know what happened to me there but I discovered something – a place I fitted. I was infected with enthusiasm. But it wasn’t enough. I wanted to work for myself and not anyone else, but I couldn’t think how. Then Bridge dragged me along to an office dinner event and all the people who had picked the vegetarian option were moaning how awful it was. Bridge said something to me on the lines of how much untapped potential there was in the vegetarian food market… and it was like a bomb going off in my head. I skived off the job the next day to go around supermarkets and buy bags and bags of vegetarian food that we couldn’t afford for essential research purposes. We were in so much debt at the time too, hence why she threw the broccoli at me and, along with it, the insult, Plant Boy.’
‘You’re lucky it was just broccoli.’
‘I’m not sure we had any crockery left at that point. Anyway, I turned from being the world’s laziest knob into a man possessed. I knew Plant Boy was going to be big, don’t ask me how but I had a feeling I couldn’t shake. And round about this time Bridge found out that she couldn’t have kids. She’d had an op in her teens that went wrong but she’d never known how much it had damaged her inside. She was absolutely desperate for a child and it broke her heart that she’d never be able to carry one.’
‘Did you think about adoption?’
‘Bridge didn’t want to go down that route. She needed the whole pregnancy thing from fertilised egg to giving birth; she wanted to bake the bun herself, make sure the baby was nourished and loved and safe from the off. I suppose it was because of her past, though I didn’t really understand that back then – insensitive twat that I was – but now I do. One of many things I’ve learned in the past few years…’ His voice tailed off, as if he was snagged in a net of regret. ‘I didn’t want kids, I didn’t want the responsibility. Bridge went for tests without telling me anything about it and when she got the results she had a full-on meltdown. I wasn’t there for her.’ He’d never quite forgiven his former selfish self for that.
‘And do you feel any different now you’re with your new partner?’ asked Jack.
‘Yes,’ said Luke. ‘It couldn’t be more different.’
Jack couldn’t see it, but he could feel the heat of Luke’s smile in the dark.
* * *
‘I couldn’t have children because I had a botched abortion when I was fourteen that totally knackered my insides.’
Mary’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, Bridge, that’s terrible. I don’t know what to say…’
‘Nothing you can say, Mary. Luke didn’t want kids anyway. Ironic really because I think he’d have made a fab father. He’d have stepped up to the mark, I know he would have. A child would have saved us. I know it’s the wrong reason for having one, before you say anything, but in a parallel universe somewhere is a happy Bridge with a child, still married to a Luke who decided to pull his finger out for his family and made Plant Boy happen from love, not hate. There was so much hate in our relationship towards the end. It was like the flipside of our coin, because we loved each other so much in the beginning. I’d have done anything for him. Anything.’
* * *
‘Plant Boy started off with just one product: broccoli burgers. I got them right. They were good, really good, and I was selling loads to vegetarian restaurants in the area, then countrywide,’ said Luke. ‘My pal was a journo and did a piece on how successful I was and how a supermarket giant had been in touch, total smoke and lies. Then the buyer of a supermarket giant read the story and really did get in touch because he wanted to get in first. I borrowed cash to rent the smallest factory on the planet with kitchens, hired workers. We couldn’t produce them fast enough. By then I was working on a fake fillet steak. I hired an ex-chef who’d been in prison and needed a break. What he didn’t know about food and nutrition wasn’t worth talking about.’
‘You still employ him?’ asked Jack. His father would have promoted women to executive positions before he’d have had an ex-con in his factory.
‘I do. And his wife, son and daughter,’ said Luke. ‘When Plant Boy got big, I moved all my best people over to Manchester with me. I have a shit-hot team, great products. But it was the name Plant Boy that spun the magic, the buyers loved it.’
Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s insane isn’t it?’
‘Tell me about it. Bridge was starting to do really well at the time too. She’d just made a stack of money from selling a plot of land she’d bought for peanuts.’
‘You could have been a power couple.’
‘We could have.’
‘What was the thing that finally split you up then?’
‘A lie,’ replied Luke.
* * *
‘What finally split us up?’
Bridge repeated Mary’s question back to her. ‘He slept with my best friend,’ she replied. ‘So I slept with his.’
* * *
‘Oh?’ A small sound but nevertheless one full of Jack’s curiosity.
‘At the time Bridge and I were on yet another break. I holed up with an old pal of mine, James. His wife Tina and Bridge got on in the beginning, they were like best mates but then Bridge pulled back, said she didn’t quite trust her, she got the feeling that Tina was a bit jealous of her.’
Luke left out the irrelevant detail that Bridge also thought Tina had a head shaped like a football.
‘I didn’t realise their marriage was in such bad shape until I stayed with them. They argued more than Bridge and I did, and that’s saying something. It was quite uncomfortable and awkward and I was actually packing to go and stay in a B and B when it happened.’
In the dark Jack heard Luke’s long outward breath as he waited to hear what it was.
‘I heard James storm out. Tina was crying hysterically, craving comfort, she wanted a hug…’
‘Ah.’ A picture was forming.
‘No, I didn’t in case you’re wondering,’ Luke answered the unsaid recrimination. ‘But she told me she didn’t love James, because she was in love with me, in fact she said she’d been in love with me for a long time and wanted us to be together. She said she’d seen the way I looked at her, she knew I felt the same and that’s why I’d walked out on Bridge and gone to her. I swear, Jack, I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. I felt like I’d run off from a frying pan and ended up in a vat of boiling oil. I backed right off as you can imagine, told her she’d got the wrong end of the stick; she went bananas, accused me of leading her on. I was out of the house with my bags in five minutes flat. And so she used me as a weapon at James, and she used James as a weapon at me. She told him I’d slept with her. He believed her. And he told Bridge.’
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I would never have done that.’
Jack winced. ‘Oh shit. That’s a mess. That’s a real mess.’
‘There’s worse. Bridge and James got their own back. A revenge fuck. A revenge fuck for a revenge fuck that never happened in the first place.’
Jack made a pained, strangled sound.
‘And that was the real end of us. Our marriage was no longer on life support, in intensive care; that yanked all the tubes out and pulled the plug. We were dead.’
It sounded like a horror story. It sounded like Jack’s parents’ marriage, so much heat and hate, intensity and fury, jealousy and bitterness. Something to be avoided at all costs. As soon as relationships got complicated and involved, Jack cut and run, sensing that inevitability of walking in his parents’ footsteps. It never occurred to him that it might not happen.
* * *
‘I was so hurt when James told me what Tina and Luke had done,’ said Bridge. ‘He used me to get back at his wife, I can see that. I was manipulated, stabbed in my sweet spot where all my greatest insecurities sat. Luke and I couldn’t recover from it. He swore to me that he hadn’t slept with her and I chose not to believe him and was just hell-bent on getting my revenge. I’ve wondered since if I did that because it gave me the perfect out from a marriage that had limped on way past the finish line. I couldn’t forgive adultery, and I knew Luke couldn’t either.’ She made a deep huff sound. ‘Do you know, Mary, I’ve studied what happened to us so much over the years that I could have done a PhD in it, and yet it still doesn’t make any sense. If we were then who we are now, we could have conquered the world.’
‘Tell me you didn’t stay friends with James and Tina.’
‘No I did not. And I punctured all four tyres on her BMW with a screwdriver late one night. At that point in my life I was made up of hurt and anger and tears and nothing else.’
* * *
‘Who left who first?’ asked Jack.
‘Moot point. Bridge will tell you she did. But I left the moment I discovered her suitcases packed at the bottom of the stairs. So I beat her to it as far as walking out of the house for the last time goes.’ He sighed heavily. ‘It mattered to my ego that I’d made the break first, when I was young and stupid. Now, I couldn’t care less about point-scoring.’
He realised that he sounded as if it had all happened decades ago and not a mere half of one. Those five years had seemed so much longer, he felt as though he’d collected a century’s worth of wisdom and sense and maturity in them.
‘It must have been a relief then for it to finally end,’ Jack surmised, thinking back to a sticky relationship he’d had years ago that had been a nightmare to get out of.
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but I missed her for ages and I really had to force myself not to pick up the phone. I did come to realise that I was addicted to that high-octane theatre, the kissing and making up that almost felt worth the dysfunction. It was like a drug, and when I was weaned off, I learnt that life was so much better and deliciously uncomplicated without it. I had plenty to keep me busy, of course, the business seemed to boom overnight. I had a couple of short-term relationships, nothing serious, just pleasant interludes. But on the weeks when I had the dog with me and it was just us, I found peace in my soul. Then I started seeing Carmen and the peace just got better.’
In the dark Luke made a long sound of regret. ‘Bridge and I were a car crash, but…’
He didn’t go on and Jack didn’t push. That ‘but’ was loaded with a lot of emotion. He wasn’t even sure if Luke himself knew what those emotions were.
* * *
‘My life began with Luke,’ said Bridge. ‘I don’t count anything that came before it. I might have given him the idea for Plant Boy, but he gave me stability and a home and joy that I’d never had before and more than that, made me believe I was someone worth loving.’ Bridge’s voice cracked. She coughed the strength back into it. ‘I cut my teeth on him and I hurt him.’
‘Are you really sure you’re ended?’ asked Mary. Whatever Bridge was saying to the contrary, there was an awful lot of feeling for Luke still there, thick in the voice that had started to break. ‘Is there no way back for you both?’
‘We’re happier without each other than we were with each other,’ Bridge said. Something she had told herself over and over until she had been forced to believe it. ‘Goodnight, Mary. Let’s try and get some sleep. I’ve bored you long enough.’
Christmas Day
The magic of Christmas day is silent
You don’t hear it, you feel it
You know it, you believe it
Chapter 22
At quarter past nine Luke knocked on Charlie and Robin’s door with a jaunty rat-a-tat-tat.
‘You up?’ he called.
‘We are. Just give us five minutes,’ replied Robin. ‘Charlie’s on the loo. He’s reading Persuasion.’
‘Oh, tell the world,’ Charlie shouted through the bathroom door.
‘It’s only Luke, not a Daily Mail reporter,’ Robin barked back at him. He took a tablet out of the orange-coloured bottle and was standing waiting like a sentry, hand extended, when Charlie exited the bathroom.
‘Is this the one that makes things taste of fish?’ asked Charlie.
‘Yes, but you have to take it,’ Robin insisted.
‘Well I’m not. It’s not an essential one is it? Not like the ones in the green bottle.’
‘No, it’s the orange.’
‘Robin, I don’t want to eat turkey and Christmas pudding and have that off-salmon flavour infiltrating my tastebuds.’
‘Charlie, it’s a pain relief.’
‘I know what it is but I’m not taking it. And you can’t force me. I’m not a suffragette for you to stuff it up my nose.’
Robin’s hands flew to his hips. ‘Whatever do you take me for, Charles Glaser?’
Charlie’s hand came out to rest on Robin’s arm, his voice was soft when he answered that. ‘Someone who cares deeply, that’s what I take you for. I know how much you wa
nt to make this… this stage easy for me, but I’m not taking that one in the orange bottle any more. It ruins my pleasure in eating. I can put up with a little pain if it means I can immerse myself in the full Christmas epicurean experience, otherwise I might as well have been hooked up to drips in a hospital.’ Charlie smiled. ‘No point in having the appetite of a shire horse and not being able to enjoy stuffing my face.’
Robin huffed with frustration, ‘It’s your funer—’ He sliced off the word, shook his head at his verbal blunder.
‘Yes, my dear Annie, it is my funeral. Eventually. Not yet. Don’t let my last meals be fishy-flavoured. Please.’
Robin, purse-lipped, put the tablet back into the bottle. He would guide but never bully. If Charlie felt strongly about something, then he had the right to run his own show, they’d agreed that from the off.
The one stipulation he had managed to adhere to was Charlie’s insistence, after his diagnosis, that they continue as normal wherever possible. Let them carry on with their merry bickering; and Robin had carte blanche to be his usual nagging self, so long as it all fitted within the parameters of normal, because this was what would help Charlie deal with it mentally more than anything. But normality was an eggshell veneer, a shimmering illusion, and Robin could feel the cracks in himself destroying it a little more each day.
The fishy-tablet had stopped working anyway, though Charlie hadn’t said anything, not wanting to cause concern. He’d been spitting it into his hand out of Robin’s sight for a few days now, so it was time for a little honesty, but not too much. He had begun to ache everywhere, a bone-deep nag that was becoming harder to disguise and made it more difficult for him to sleep properly. Except, it had to be said, for the last two nights here in the Figgy Hollow Inn. He’d slept solidly like a milk-drunk baby and the pain was a mere low murmur in the background. He felt, this Christmas morning after a solid, restful sleep, as close to feeling fresh as a daisy as it was possible for someone in his condition to feel.
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day Page 17