Hang on, my phone is ringing.
It’s a mobile number I don’t recognize.
I’d better answer, in case it’s someone I’ve forgotten from the wedding guest-list, calling to ask me some detail about the day. Joel’s trio of assistants were all set up to make the cancellation calls, early this morning, to the twenty-odd guests who weren’t at Aldingbourne to witness my rooftop theatrics last night, but it’s possible that one or two of them might have slipped through the net … actually, what am I saying? If Joel’s assistants were on the case, none of them will have slipped through the net. Still, I do owe some people an explanation, and the conversation isn’t going to get any less embarrassing the longer I leave it.
‘Hello?’ I say, answering the phone. ‘Libby speaking.’
‘Libby. It’s Tash. I can see you.’
I practically drop the phone in horror.
Does she know, already, about my evil plans to speak to Olly? Has she had me followed?
‘Relax!’ she goes on, in a faintly irritable tone. ‘I haven’t been stalking you. Nora told me you’d be getting into Victoria around now. I’m in Starbucks. Turn around, I’ll wave at you.’
I turn around, on shaky legs, and can indeed see that Tash is sitting just inside the doors of the station branch of Starbucks, a hundred yards away. She waves at me.
‘Come over here,’ she says. ‘I’ve already bought you a coffee. Cappuccino, right?’
‘Er … yes … a cappuccino … but, Tash—’
‘Just come over,’ she says, abruptly. And puts her phone down.
Well, I suppose this is another big-girl pants moment right here, right now.
When I reach her, half a minute later, she isn’t exactly smiling, but she isn’t looking massively hostile, either.
‘Hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I say.
I wonder if I ought to give her a quick hug, or a kiss on either cheek but, given the tenor of our last meeting, all those months ago at Elvira’s flat, I don’t know if that’s wise.
‘This is … um … thanks for the coffee.’
‘That’s OK. Sit down, and drink it.’ She reaches for a paper bag. ‘I bought a couple of muffins, too …’
‘Oh, that’s OK. I mean, I ate something on the train. But thanks, anyway, for … Tash, sorry, but … aren’t you meant to be in Durham right now? I mean, if your dad’s having the op today?’
‘He’s not. Having an op.’ She looks at me across the table; she looks tired, with faint rings beneath her eyes; but, other than this, she looks, of course, as fabulous and healthy as ever. ‘It’s not happening.’
‘Sorry – he’s not got a hernia?’
‘No. Well, yes, he has, as a matter of fact, but not one that needs an emergency operation. He’s booked in for routine surgery shortly before Easter.’
‘Right … um … then why did you tell Olly …?’
‘Well, he knows, now, that it wasn’t true. That it was sort of a test, I suppose.’
‘Sorry – you told Olly your dad was having an emergency op to see how he’d react to the news?’
‘No. I told him my dad was having an emergency op so that he’d have a reason not to come to your wedding. I wanted to see how quickly he took me up on it. And I got my answer.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Libby, look.’ She runs a distracted hand through her blonde hair. ‘I barely had to even finish my sentence and he was already telling me we shouldn’t come to the wedding. He was seizing the slightest excuse to avoid coming. Anything so that he didn’t have to see you walk down the aisle. You know, on account of the fact that he’s still in love with you.’
My hand freezes around my cardboard coffee cup.
‘Seriously, Libby,’ she goes on, with a short laugh, ‘I could probably have mentioned that my dad had an ingrowing toenail, or a slightly sore cuticle, and he’d still have been telling you we had to cancel. But, either way, I got the proof I wanted. Which is why, incidentally, I’ve just broken up with him.’
‘You’ve … what?’
‘Broken up with him. Last night. Well, come on, Libby!’ She laughs again, not unpleasantly. ‘What would you expect me to do? I’m not going to stay with someone who, deep down, wants to be with somebody else! I’m not going to be anyone’s second best! I’m way too good,’ she adds, matter-of-factly, ‘for that.’
‘Yes,’ I croak. ‘You are.’
‘Thank you. So anyway, I called Nora first thing this morning, just to let her know that Olly might need her support, and she told me your news. The wedding being off. Which, sorry about, by the way.’
‘No, it’s OK. It was … the right thing to do.’
‘Well, obviously it was the right thing to do,’ she says, brusquely. ‘You should no more be with Joel Perreira than I should be with Olly Walker. It’s all wrong. Right?’
‘Yes, it’s all wrong … but, Tash, I just … are you sure? Sure that Olly still feels that way about me?’
‘Oh, God, Libby!’ Tash takes an impatient swig of her own coffee. ‘Didn’t you just hear what I said? He couldn’t face watching you marry someone else! Isn’t that enough? I mean, I didn’t sit up with him late into the night holding his hand and drawing out every last morsel of the bloody truth about his feelings, no, but I hardly think that’s my job, is it?’
‘No. No, it’s not.’
‘And then there’s your bloody cheese thing.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Well, that’s how it all started. When he came to pick me up from the airport the other night. He was all starry-eyed and Love’s Young Dream, and going on and on about having found that cheese you and he keep searching the globe for … or maybe having found it … I honestly didn’t pay much attention to the details. It’s your thing. Yours and Olly’s thing. I mean,’ she adds, wryly, ‘if a girl can’t even compete with an ash-covered goat’s cheese, she knows she’s on a hiding to nothing. You and Olly are so obviously meant to be. And I’m not fool enough to stand in the way of Fate.’
OK, I’ve always found Tash about as warm and cuddly as a granite rock-face, but now I want to throw my arms around her and squeeze her tight.
‘Oh, God,’ she says, already shoving her chair backwards as I get up from mine and move towards her, ‘no, no. There’s no need for all that. There’s only one thing I actually want you to do, Libby, and it’s certainly not to smother me in gratitude. That isn’t why I’ve done this. All I want is for you to make this thing with Olly happen. Make it work. Because I’ve not set back all my own plans, trust me, for you two to faff about with each other and never get the deal done. All right?’
‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘All right.’
‘Oh,’ she adds, with a more genuine smile than I’ve ever seen her give me in all the time we’ve known each other, ‘and if you really want to show me any gratitude, you can introduce me to the gorgeous, available billionaire you’ve just unceremoniously ditched at the altar. I mean, after an appropriate interval, obviously.’
‘God, Tash, absolutely, I’ll—’
‘I’m joking,’ she says, though her tone of voice suggests that she wasn’t, in fact, joking at all, and that actually she’s already got the seeds of Another Plan sprouting in her mind.
Which is, to be fair, good for her. And actually, she and Joel would be a pretty damn perfect couple, now I think about it. His mother would certainly approve of a tall, blonde neonatologist spreading her largesse over the foundation, and Joel needn’t have any of his usual worries with women, about Tash being in it for his money – his status, yes, maybe, and definitely his irreproachable sperm, but certainly not his money …
‘Just sort your own life out, Libby, first, OK? You can get around to matchmaking somebody else when you’ve finally managed to do what you should have done almost twenty years ago.’ Tash gets to her feet. ‘All right,’ she says, reaching down to pick up a Longchamp holdall beside the table. ‘Well, I’ve got to get to Gatwick for a flight back to
Scotland. I’d wish you good luck, but I don’t actually think you’ll need it. So … I don’t know. Happy Christmas, I guess. And please, make him happy.’
Then, with a brisk, unsentimental wave, she’s off through Victoria Station, the milling crowds of pre-Christmas travellers parting before her as she strides, impressively, onwards.
Yes, obviously I should be in Holland Park right now, packing my worldly goods. Obviously I should be calling Bogdan and seeing where we’ve landed with his dad and the Colliers Wood flat.
But instead I’m here, at freezing cold Bermondsey Market, looking for the cheesemonger that Olly told me about.
Except that there appear to be at least four cheese concessions here, and the market is vast and appears to be on at least two different sites, and on the last Saturday before Christmas next week, it’s pretty packed with people. So finding the correct cheesemonger is proving more difficult than I thought. I queued for almost twenty minutes at the first one before I could manage to ask someone behind the counter to pop and ask the owner if he’s a friend of Olly Walker’s (no, was the answer, and I wasn’t popular for asking the question) and it looks as if I’m going to have to do the same at the second one, where I’ve already queued for five minutes, watching a very earnest woman being given subtly different Bries to taste by an even more earnest woman, and wondering if this was a good plan in the first place.
I just kind of wanted to turn up to Olly’s with the Mystery Cheese, that’s all. When I go round there later tonight. I haven’t really thought beyond that – Tash would not be impressed with my strategizing skills; nor Grace Kelly, for that matter – but part of me just feels that if we have the cheese there with us, the rest of That Conversation, after so many missed opportunities and un-seized moments will just … flow?
I don’t know.
I don’t know about anything any more, to be honest, apart from how slowly the hours are going to go until Olly gets off work this evening. I’m just trying to break the rest of the day down into manageable chunks, so that I don’t go out of my mind: first, locate correct cheesemonger. Second, (hopefully) buy Mystery Cheese. Third, go to Holland Park, pack as much as possible. Fourth, have shower. Fifth …
I can hear my phone ping with a message. I grab it out of my bag, half expecting to see a text from Tash asking, in capital letters, WHY ARE YOU FAFFING AROUND AT FOOD MARKET WHEN YOU SHOULD BE TALKING TO OLLY ALREADY???? I CAN SEE YOU, YOU KNOW!!!
But it’s not from Tash (although, I’ll be honest, I still wouldn’t put it absolutely past her to be lurking somewhere here at Bermondsey, keeping tabs on my progress), it’s a WhatsApp from Mum.
I suppose, it reads, ever-so-slightly snittily, you’ll be wanting to have Christmas with me and Cass, then?
I’m not quite sure what to reply to this – or, indeed, whether to reply at all – when a second message comes up.
You probably did right thing, it says. Even if he was a billionaire. Please never feel need to jump off roof again. Wouldn’t know what to do without you. Mum x
My eyes are suddenly so full of hot tears that I think I’d better leave my place in the cheese queue. Not that the women having their in-depth discussion about Brie would notice, but there’s quite a few people behind me by now, and I’d rather go around the corner, collect myself, and then come back and join the end of the queue without anyone staring.
‘Oh, God, sorry!’ I gulp, to the person I’ve just bumped into, on their way into the cheesemonger’s just as I’m on my way out. ‘I didn’t see you …’
‘Libby?’
Through the blur of tears, I can see, now, that it’s Olly.
OK, I may not have had a perfectly thought-out plan, but this definitely wasn’t part of it. I haven’t slept, I never took my makeup off last night, I’m still wearing the leggings I borrowed from Nora and the too-big sweater I borrowed from Mark, and my eyes are red from crying.
‘Olly,’ I say, in a voice that sounds absolutely nothing like my own. ‘I was just … I was here for the Mystery Cheese.’
‘Me too.’ He gazes down at me; he looks pretty short on sleep himself. ‘Hang on, though. Aren’t you supposed to be getting married in about two hours’ time?’
‘Yes. Or rather, no. Hasn’t Nora called you yet? Or your parents?’
‘No … though, Nora has been trying me, but I’ve not actually had the chance to get back to her yet. I don’t understand.’ He puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘Is the wedding off?’
‘Yes, it’s off. It’s really embarrassing. But it’s off. Everything’s off.’
‘And that’s what you’re crying about?’
‘No, I’m crying because I just got … well, a bizarrely nice message from my mum. I mean, I assumed she’d be furious about the wedding, but it looks like she gets it. Or, at least, even if she doesn’t get it, she’s prepared to accept that I’ve done the right thing.’ I blink back a couple more stray tears. ‘Sorry, Ol, but you know what my mum’s like. This is pretty much a first.’
‘I know.’ He squeezes the hand on my shoulder ever so slightly. ‘You’re freezing,’ he adds.
‘Yes. You too.’
‘Yeah, I am pretty cold. Shall we walk?’
‘But I was just queuing at this place, to ask them about—’
‘The Mystery Cheese? No, this isn’t the place that my mate runs. I was just popping in here because they do amazing sourdough bread, and then I was on my way over to my friend’s. It’s the other side of the market, across Old Jamaica Road … shall we head over there now?’
‘Yes.’ I wipe my remaining tears off my face with my coat sleeve. ‘Let’s do that.’
‘Great.’ Olly takes his hand off my shoulder, and we start walking in the opposite direction he’s just come from. ‘I have, um, a bit of news myself, actually, Libby. Me and Tash have … we’ve split up.’
‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Yes. We met up at Victoria this morning.’
I’m not sure, the moment I’ve said this, whether it was the right thing to say or not. Because now Olly is going to ask why Tash met me this morning, isn’t he? And I’m still no closer to formulating what I actually want to say than I was several hours ago.
But there’s never going to be a right thing to say, and there’s never going to be a right time to say it. After almost twenty years of us never managing to say anything to each other, let’s face it, it doesn’t matter what, where or how it’s said. It just needs to be out there.
I shove my hands into my coat pockets, so that I have something to do with them while I start saying whatever it is I’m going to say, rather than waving them around like some sort of lunatic … and feel something soft, scrunched up in a ball, inside one of them.
It’s Grace’s glove.
I wrap my hand tightly around it, for some of her strength, as I start talking.
‘Tash told me,’ I say, ‘why you’ve split up.’
Olly just blinks at me. He doesn’t say anything.
‘It’s why I’m here,’ I go on, my words starting to tumble out, now. ‘Trying to find the Mystery Cheese. I had this plan that I was going to turn up at your door late tonight, after you got home from work, and just … I don’t know … wordlessly present you with the cheese. And then you’d look at it, and look back up at me, and this expression of wonderment would begin to grow over your face, and then you’d draw me in through your front door, and … the cheese would have to have sort of melted into the background by this point, I guess. I mean, not literally melted, like an overripe Camembert, or anything, but just seamlessly disappeared somewhere, you know, the way these things happen in …’
And I stop. Because this just sounds ridiculous, now. I mean, I know only a moment ago I thought it didn’t matter what was said, that it was just important to Get It Out There. But that was before I managed to utter the phrase an overripe Camembert. I may not be Shakespeare, or Billy Wilder, but even I know that no grand declaration of true love has ever,
ever contained a reference to stinky cheese before now.
‘In the movies?’
I stare at Olly, who’s just spoken. ‘Sorry?’
‘You were just about to say, in the movies, right?’
‘Oh. Oh, yes. Yes, I was.’
There’s a moment of silence, while we carry on walking.
Then, quite suddenly, Olly stops. ‘Hang on a sec,’ he says.
And he pops through the open front of the unit we’ve just arrived at.
Leaving me standing outside, my mouth open wide from all the silly things I’ve just thoughtlessly blurted, and my entire body consumed by this agitated, uncomfortable, pricklish feeling, the way I imagine it feels if you don’t make it to Heaven and you don’t make it to Hell and you’re just left in whatever that celestial limbo is called, for the rest of your life.
Purgatory.
Epilogue
Three months later
‘Heaven.’
I look at Bogdan; or rather, I look at his reflection in the mirror.
‘Really?’ I ask.
‘Really truly. Heaven,’ he repeats. ‘Would not be saying this if was not true, Libby, am assuring you of that.’
‘OK!’ My face breaks out into a smile. A huge smile. ‘Well, then, if we’re happy with my hair, I can …’
‘Is just really beggaring question,’ Bogdan goes on, with the air of a man considering the really Big Things in life, ‘why you are not agreeing to me giving you proper fringe shape months before now. Is taking the years off you, Libby. Is making you look less haggard. Is finally giving you the bones of the cheeks. Is making you look …’ Touchingly, there’s a sudden tremor in his voice, and his places both his huge hands, gently, on top of my dressing-gown-clad shoulders. ‘… Is making you look beautiful, Libby,’ he finishes. ‘Is making you look like most beautiful bride in all of world.’
A Night In With Grace Kelly Page 31