Prior Engagements

by Sarah Goodwin

  Fifi opened the box like it was a carton of Faberge eggs and peered inside.

  “Oh, a little mouse, how darling.”

  I looked down at the toy, hermetically sealed in a plastic bag.

  “That’s a Womble.”

  Fifi smiled happily and took the Womble out of its bag to tuck it into her coat pocket.

  I sipped my coffee and nibbled my burger while Fifi popped her cardboard crown onto her head and ate her tiny portion of fries and mini-burger.

  I was just about to ask if she wanted to sample a whipped ice-cream pot, when a voice made me jump.

  “Annie?”

  I choked on a watery gherkin.

  Stephen (because it was Stephen, the commitment phobic, ex-love-of-my-life, former patron of my M&S knickers, heartless jilter extraordinaire) banged me on the back and the piece of pickle was propelled from my mouth and onto the sticky table. I looked at it silently, wondering how a half masticated gherkin had come to be the mirror of my emotional state. Why not a blown rose? A fly-spotted, moth-eaten wedding dress or a damp trail of old confetti outside the registry office? But no, it seemed a pickle was my lot.

  I stood up, feeling distinctly wobbly.

  “Stephen?”

  “God this is so weird!” he exclaimed, his bright blue eyes widened in amazement, “I was just talking about you the other day.”

  He looked nothing like he used to. Five years before he’d worn organic cotton t-shirts and drawstring trousers, and his hair had been a sandy, growing out bowl cut. Now it was shaggy and down to his shoulders, and he was obviously trying to grow a beard. He looked a little like the lead singer of Nickleback, if he’d caught mange and started wearing surfer shorts, a pink Meatrix t-shirt and a pair of black plastic sandals with diamante cherries on them.

  In university, Stephen had been a vegan and he’d become progressively more outspoken about it (he’d written a song called ‘Cornstarch is my friend’ and performed it at the SU). It said a lot that back then he’d been known as Will’s ‘weird friend’.

  “You were talking about me?” I said.

  “Yeah, I came back to Bath for a bit, you know, chill with my memories, and I hooked up with Stick. We’ve been talking about uni, the old gang.”

  Stick. Will’s one and only ex-girlfriend.

  I looked at him in disbelief. Was this normal? Was I completely out of line to find this insulting? That my would-be husband, (as in, would be, if he’d actually shown up to our wedding) was shacking up with a woman who I hated so much that I’d rather eat my own fingernails than borrow half-cup of her hempseed granola. And now he had the psychotic lack of shame to accost me in a Burger King after five years of silence, during which he had pointedly ignored the fact that I was in debt up to my eyes, and kept begging him for the five-thousand pounds he owed for our almost-wedding.

  All this, without even a hint of an apology, or an explanation.

  I opened my mouth to say, “how, after all this time, could you be so callous?”

  Unfortunately, my brain was not connected to my best intentions, or the moral high ground. My brain was like the rest of me – angry, and ready to say something about it.

  “What the fuck are you on?”

  Stephen flinched away from me and I stood up straighter, my hands on my hips.

  “Annie...”

  “No. Just...no. Shut up. You. Ran. Out. On. Our. Wedding. You do not get to show up half a decade later and chat.”

  “Annie, I’m really sorry about the wedding, I just...I didn’t want to bring it up in case you got upset.”

  “Upset? I was upset when it happened. I was upset when I got all those bills and you didn’t return any of my calls. Now I’m angry. And you never even told me why, you, who are so in touch with your feelings that you cried that time you thought you might have eaten ham.”

  He gasped as if mortally wounded.

  “Why are you even in a Burger King?” I thundered.

  For a moment he regained his voice. “I’m collecting materials for an inflammatory collage. We’re protesting next week...”

  I froze for an instant, then grabbed our tray of burger wrappers and sauce cups and shoved it against his chest, where his hands instinctively grabbed it.

  “There. Now go home, write a check for your half of our wedding and cut your hair because you look like a fucking homeless.”

  Stephen, who had turned visibly white, looked around the empty restaurant as if seeking help.

  Fifi shouted “here, here!” and banged her cup on the table like an angry lord. The teenaged counter assistant (now staunchly loyal to his tenner bestowing queen) glared and said, “you’d better listen to ‘er mate.”

  Stephen dropped the tray onto a nearby table. “Annie, you have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt you, I was lost after uni, and getting married was such a solid commitment. I needed it, so I sort of talked myself into it, and you deserved more than that,” he looked at me, genuinely apologetic. “that’s why, when Will told me not to go through with it, I had a change of heart and I knew it would be wrong to marry you. I only wish I’d decided before the day, or that I’d had the guts to tell you myself.”

  My anger and disbelief was like the Titanic. Now that it had gained speed it was difficult to change its course.

  “Will?” I said, trying to slot it all together in my head while a tiny captain frantically shouted things like ‘hard to starboard’ ‘thrust’ and ‘yaw’.

  “Yes,” said Stephen, nodding frantically.

  Fifi appeared at my side, sans crown. She touched my shoulder. “Annie, would you like us to leave now?”

  I shook my head weakly, “what do you mean Will ‘told’ you?”

  “He said he could see it wasn’t going to work out, and he said you deserved better, and that I should pull out before the wedding.”

  I couldn’t think. Will had told Stephen to break up with me?

  “When?”

  “Oh God...um...about a week before.”

  A week. One week. Will had waited until one week before my wedding to say something – and he hadn’t even said it to me. Instead he’d caused the most humiliating moment of my entire life.

  And he’d never told me, not one, single solitary word, to indicate that he’d had any part in it.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to call him a liar, but Stephen had never been a liar; a coward, an indecisive idiot and a bit of a twat, yes, but never a liar.

  Apparently that was Will’s forte.

  I shook my head, trying to dodge the relentless realisations that kept smacking me upside the head. Turning away from Stephen, and the goggling counter assistant, I fled out onto the street. Without consciously picking a direction, I found myself walking towards Pulteney bridge, completely ignoring the few people who ran past me.

  Fifi’s shoes clattered behind me and a moment later I felt my coat being draped over my shoulders.

  “Annie, you’re getting soaked.”

  It was only then that I realised that it was raining.

  The streets around us were practically deserted, everyone else had run for cover from the downpour. Fifi unfurled her umbrella, and it sprang up at the touch of a button, shielding us both.

  “Annie, don’t believe him. He’s an idiot. I told him to send you a check within the week, or I’d sue the atrocious hempen trousers off of him. After that, you’ll never have to have contact with him again.”

  “I’m never going to hear from Will again either,” I said, hearing my voice crack.

  “Nonsense. We’re going to track him down, even if it’s so you can call him a cad to his face.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Well, then, call him an arsehole if you feel it suits better.”

  We stood there for a moment while the rain threw itself down onto Fifi’s umbrella, making a huge amount of noise. Fifi put her arm out and hugged me to her, the fur of her coat tickled my face, and there were beads of water on it. I felt
reassured, if only slightly.

  “Come on,” Fifi said, releasing me, “we’re going to buck you up, have a nice hot dinner and then we’re going to Mission Impossible our way to the truth.”

  Fifi tucked me under her arm and walked me down the street. “Everything will seem alright, after a cup of tea and a biscuit,” she promised.

  For a beginner, she really did have the whole ‘step-mother’ thing down.

  Chapter Twenty

  Once we’d been back to the Royal Crescent for a quick mug of soup and a pot of tea (smuggled upstairs by Fifi on an enormous tray) we changed our clothes in our respective rooms, and I met Fifi in the front hall.

  She was wearing a sumptuous leather jacket over a designer button down, tight jeans and riding boots – all black. On her hands were vintage black silk gloves, and she’d put up her hair, and pinned a small black beret to it, with a small puff of netting that hung like mist over one of her eyes. She looked like a model displaying Jean Paul Gautier’s Criminalé collection.

  Conversely, I looked like a common or garden waitress in my black work trousers (which I’d only packed in case I needed semi-smart bottoms) black jumper and black ballet flats.

  Moping wasn’t going to get me anywhere, I needed action and I needed to get to the bottom of what had happened between me and Will. From start to finish.

  “Ready to go?” Fifi asked, selecting a large black brolly from the stand in the hall.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be, considering I’ve never broken into anything before.”

  “Really?” Fifi seemed genuinely surprised, “I thought you lived in Bristol?”

  I swiped her arm semi-seriously, and we let ourselves out of the house. The streets were almost dark, and it was darker still by the time we reached the café. At night the area around Raspberry Bs underwent a transformation, like many urban places, it changed from being a day lit bustle of coffee slurping patrons and shoppers to a shadowy street of short skirted, aftershave scented students, smoking and drinking. The cinema spilled out dazed looking crowds, and two of Bath’s many homeless people shared a can of something on the steps of a designer kitchen shop.

  I very nearly jumped out of my skin when Yvonne appeared at my elbow with a cheery, “S’up?”

  “Jesus you scared the crap out of me,” I hissed, “...what are you wearing?”

  It was a valid question, as Yvonne looked like an extra from a Liberty X video. She had her long dark hair in lots of tiny braids, scooped up tight in a high pony tail, and her outfit was a skin-tight catsuit made of some kind of PVC stuff.

  Fifi eyed the catsuit appreciatively. “That’s gorgeous, darling, wherever did you get it?”

  “eBay,” Yvonne shrugged, clearly proud of it, but trying to appear aloof, “I wore it when I worked at an alternative bar in Bristol.”

  I remembered that bar. The least said about it the better (I’ll leave it at – I’m fairly sure the toilets gave me cystitis and be done with it).

  The three of us turned to face the building (I felt a bit like a Charlie’s Angel, which was something I would not admit to anyone, ever).

  “So...how are we doing this?” I asked no one in particular.

  Yvonne tutted. “Newb. Around the back please ladies.”

  We trooped into the back alley, and Yvonne inspected the back door and window as I had done. We agreed that out best hope was the skylight, as most of the locks were on the outside. Yvonne climbed up on the bin, and I gave Fifi a boost before doing the same. Hunched around the skylight, we exchanged whispers.

  “Three padlocks, two deadbolts on the inside and two locked latches on the outside,” Yvonne muttered, “shit, what’s so worth the security?”

  “Probably keeping squatters out,” I said.

  Yvonne shook a padlock and sighed. “Really, my experience is less breaking and entering...”

  “More ripping off places you can actually get into?”

  Yvonne nodded. “By the way, if you want any clothes, or accessories, I took a bunch of new season BHS stuff for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because it makes me look like a mum Annie.”

  “No, not why are they for me, why did you take it all?”

  Yvonne sighed. “I got shit-canned by Neil.”

  Fifi was watching us like we were an episode of Hollyoaks (i.e. with morbid curiosity).

  “God, I’m sorry. Why?” I asked.

  “Because I called him a loud mouthed, insensitive prick. So...overall I’d say I got sacked for telling the truth,” she grinned, “it’s OK, I already found another job.”

  “Where?”

  “Ann Summers.”

  We both giggled. I couldn’t believe they’d taken her back, not after the last time (It’s not fit to be put about, unfortunately, Yvonne would kill me, for one. Also, it would put you off lube for life).

  A deafening crack made us both jump. During our whispered conversation, I’d stopped paying attention to what Fifi was doing. Now I watched in equal parts wonder and shock as she leaned slightly more heavily on the crowbar in her hands (clearly I’d missed a trick only worrying about her having a gun stowed in her coat), splintering the wooden frame that the locks were attached too.

  “When you ladies have finished your mother’s meeting – perhaps we can get this show on the road?” she said, levering the broken frame away from the roof. The glass of the skylight came loose and dropped onto the kitchen floor below.

  “Who the hell is she?” Yvonne whispered, her pretence at coolness abandoned.

  Fifi stood up, and braced her feet on either side of the hole she’d made.

  “Felicity Agnes Charlene Stephanie Foffaney, pleased to meet you,” she said, and dropped down into the café.

  Yvonne and I peered down after her.

  “Crazy bitch,” Yvonne said, and coming from her it was a compliment.

  “Come on then,” Fifi called up to us, “It’s dark down here, and it smells like burnt custard.”

  I snorted and let myself down into the café, dropping from a less dramatic height by lowering myself with my hands. My feet crunched glass, and I looked around me, quickly spotting Fifi in the kitchen doorway, where she’d found one of Will’s ‘EDF cut us off again’ candles and was flicking her lighter at the wick.

  Yvonne landed just behind me, her catsuit creaking and squeaking.

  “The folder was in a box just through there,” I said.

  “Great,” Yvonne looked around her, “do you mind if I take stuff?”

  “There isn’t much to take but...I suppose it’d be nice for it to go to you, rather than a skip.” (Though I’d seen Yvonne’s flat and there wasn’t much difference between the two. Although, skips probably had less poppers and Jammy Dodgers) She started going through cupboards, and Fifi and I went into the café proper.

  “You know, I’ve walked past here a hundred times or more, and I never came in,” Fifi mused, looking around her and scrutinising the walls, as if she was trying to picture it as it was, “if I had, we might have been friends.”

  “We are now though,” I said, then pointed to the hole in the floor, “the counter used to be there, and Will had this cactus on the till. He only bought it because it looked like a dick. He used to call it a ‘potted prick’ and he put hats on it for Christmas.” I looked around me, everywhere there were shadowy absences. “He’d just put this horrible picture up, right before he left. He found it in a skip. He had another one in his flat upstairs, someone had offered it to him on the street because they were moving house. Two meters across, leopards on the plains. He drew little moustaches and monocles on them, and put in pictures of food and stuff from magazines, like they were having a tea party. He was so good at things like that.”

  Fifi listened to me reminisce patiently, then she slid the box of folders over to me.

  “I hope you two work things out,” she said quietly, as I picked up the Hello Kitty folder and flipped through.

  I didn’t answer, m
ostly because I didn’t know what I hoped would come of this. There, right at the back under an angry note that said in bold red letters ‘send back rank cheese – demand refund back from cheese-bastard’ was a torn piece of paper that read ‘Water’ at the top. Underneath that, was a Bath address.

  “Got it,” I said, relief flooding through me, I’d half convinced myself that it would be a dead end.

  A siren hooted outside, then leapt into a full throated scream.

  Fifi looked at the door. “Oh dear, the rossers.”

  Yvonne appeared in the doorway, laden down with a collection of slatted spoons, a hand whisk and three checked tablecloths that I didn’t think Will had ever used.

  “Do one!” she yelped, and the three of us bolted back to the kitchen, clambering on the counter to crawl out of the skylight and make our speedy escape. Yvonne dropped most of her ill-gotten kitchen equipment, and Fifi lost her crowbar in the kafuffle.

  We ran down the street and into a grubby cobbled alley which featured a motorbike without wheels, a huge wheelie bin and a small heap of decomposing rubbish.

  “I think we got away with it,” I panted.

  Fifi looked back down the alley and up the street.

  “It was an ambulance,” she said, sounding more than a little put out, “it looks like they’re resuscitating someone outside that bordello.”

  I peered past her. “That’s a Wetherspoons.”

  It was then that I noticed Yvonne’s absence.

  “Yvonne?” I hissed, looking at Fifi in alarm, “Yvonne?” I called, slightly louder.

  “Maybe she ran the other way?” Fifi suggested

  We retraced our steps and went up the street towards the Irish pub and the high street beyond. Only the pubs and clubs were lit up now, and all the shops were shuttered over or had their blinds drawn down. No sign of Yvonne though.

  It started to rain again, and Fifi realised that she’d left her umbrella behind at the scene of the crime. We circled around through the tangled backstreets until my wet feet felt frozen solid and I started to get really worried. Where had Yvonne disappeared to? I’d tried calling her but either her phone was off or she’d lost it at the café.