After Hello

by Mhairi McFarlane

  The back and forth has become strained and we change the topic. My parents are enjoying Ben so much, they linger over the after-dinner drinks. By the time they leave, I’ve lost all desire to go back to that disagreement.

  However, he took Esther’s side over mine, a second time. Noted.

  9

  When Mindy first started planning her wedding, the dates looked positively futuristic. Stardate log, etc etc.

  Now, improbably, it’s upon us, and eight of us clamber out of the minivan at Manchester Airport, en route to two nights in a Portuguese villa.

  ‘We’ll check in and then find the Ye Olde English pub for four pints of wife-beater,’ says Mindy’s fifty-something colleague Trish, who despite Caroline being the official organiser, appears to be our organiser. ‘I’m a nervous flier.’

  ‘I’ve got journey juice too!’ says Mindy’s friend Emma, holding up a rattling M&S bag. ‘Much better than Kalms, Trish.’

  Caroline casts a wry look at me as we roll our trolley cases into the terminal and join the Ryanair queue.

  After standing in it for fifteen minutes, making polite hen-do chat with Mindy’s beautiful cousins Harshika and Ruksheen (despite Mindy’s warnings that Ruksheen is ‘pure filth,’ a claim which we do not wish to probe in any detail) a hideous wail goes up at the front desk and Caroline and I look at each other in alarm. Mindy has collapsed between Trish and her friend Kate.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Caroline says.

  ‘Her passport is out of date!’ Kate screams.

  ‘What?!’

  It’s passed to Caroline, and after a few moments of inspection she mutters: ‘Oh, fuck.’ She hands it to me. It’s there in black and white, Mindy has not legally been able to use it for over two months.

  ‘I forgot!’ Mindy sobs, still unable to stand without support. ‘I knew it was close and I totally forgot. When we said we wouldn’t do America … I’m so sorry, everyone.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, we’re fine, we’ll still go without you,’ I say, and Mindy half guffaws, half sobs.

  I give her a hug and Caroline has hushed words with her, before returning to my side and getting her phone out in businesslike fashion.

  After stabbing at it for a minute, while I text Ben with a ‘you’ll never guess what,’ she says: ‘Well, we’re definitely not going to Portugal tonight. An emergency passport means going to a passport office in Liverpool with new photos and the necessary forms, and that’s tomorrow morning earliest by now.’

  ‘Oh God, poor Mindy,’ I say.

  ‘What should we do?’

  Caroline chews her lip.

  ‘We can’t rearrange, it’s the wedding next weekend,’ I say.

  ‘Plus everyone’s accommodation and flights are non-refundable. Bit much to ask them to spend it twice.’

  We gaze at each other and intermittently shake our heads in disbelief. A hen do in ruins, thanks to one piece of admin.

  ‘Have you got Mindy a wedding present yet?’ she asks.

  ‘No, I was going to ask what you were doing, given she’s got no list.’

  Caroline says: ‘I’ve got an idea. What if we stay here?’

  ‘The airport?’ I say. ‘Like the Tom Hanks film?’

  ‘No, not the airport, you silly tart! Manchester. I know the manager at The Midland. There’s eight of us, that’s four doubles. We could ring her, see what we can get, give Mindy the best room and you and I lob in wedding-gift cash to offset the cost? Or am I presuming too much?’

  ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea.’

  ‘You’re too kind. It’s an only OK idea but it’s the best I have.’

  I fist bump with Caroline. ‘Let’s see if Mindy goes for it.’

  Once a wailing, heavily lamenting Mindy has been gently plied with a burger, we put our suggestion forward, and mercifully, having got over the first shock, she goes for it.

  For my part, I don’t think I’m going to miss sharing a villa with Trish too badly. She spends a lot of time discussing how many Slimming World ‘Syns’ we all consumed in the burger bar, then asks the driver of the minivan to plug her iPhone in and spends our journey back to the city bellowing Shania Twain’s ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’.

  Thank God for gin in a tin.

  10

  Caroline is an incredible human being. She sorted accommodation, put it on her plastic (with a large IOU from me and smaller IOUs from volunteers), got us into a Greek restaurant that night, arranged they’d have champagne, balloons and streamers on the table, and right now Mindy may be soused as a herring, but she undeniably looks very happy.

  ‘It’s not Portugal but I do have hummus,’ she says, holding a triangle of pitta bread aloft, and we toast her. ‘To hummus!’

  ‘I feel like Shirley Valentine,’ cackles Trish, making an unseemly grab at a waiter’s arse.

  The improvised crawl itinerary afterwards involves lots of Google Maps on phones held aloft, until finally Mindy bellows, ‘Cottonopolis! Follow Emma!’ and off we trot on clattery high heels to the Northern Quarter. Cottonopolis is one of those bars that is pure heaven in your mid twenties, and the fitting hedonistic reward for a week of hard work. After thirty, it’s a cruel sensory torture chamber.

  The wooden floor and obligatory exposed ventilation-pipe ceiling, combined with music belting out at eardrum-perforating pitch, mean conversations are relegated to bellowing VODKA TONIC THANKS! VODKA! TONIC! over Drake feat. Rihanna.

  Communication is reduced to grit-grinning, semaphoring vigorously and desperately wishing you were in a Wetherspoons. With everyone on the dancefloor and in lieu of conversation, I do some people watching as I swing and wiggle in the girl circle we’ve formed. There’s a girl in a backless top whose incredible rack must be being held entirely up by youthful firmness, and I try not to ogle and marvel. There’s four lads in short-sleeved shirts doing the hard-swig-from-beer-bottle wolf-pack looks round the room, having assembled for hunting purposes. Perhaps in spite of all the booze I’ve consumed, the couples all seem to me to be foolishly attractive, the kind of pairings that only exist in music videos, all biker jackets and ombre hair and pouting. I mean, there’s two in the corner that could be in, what did Rhys call it, the crap spanking film and … oh my God.

  At first I don’t believe it because I don’t want to. I keep staring in disbelief and the visual information is unequivocal: at a table in the corner sit Ben and Esther. They’re deep in conversation, alone, and look oblivious to everyone else.

  They’ve clearly been in here a little while as Ben’s most of the way through a pint, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair wetted with sweat at the tips. She’s propped her chin on palm, the other flicking her hair.

  I get a funny sense of flashback and realise this is Ben at university, how I remember him: always a different girl and the same ease in accepting their undivided attention. He leans over and says something directly into Esther’s ear, and she throws her head back and laughs, clutching her neck. This looks like a pre-coital scene, no doubt about it, any observer would say the same.

  I could be sick. I can’t look away and I can’t keep looking. What if I see them kiss?

  I slip my phone out of my pocket and check my texts. Still nothing. Well, now I know why he had no time or inclination to reply to my text.

  Mindy tugs at my sleeve.

  ‘RACHEL! IT’S SO LOUD IN HERE WE ARE THINKING OF MOVING ON IS THAT OK?’

  ‘Yes sure!’ I shout, glad that the alcohol is doing battle with the adrenaline in my bloodstream and some sort of composure is just about possible.

  ‘Just going to say hi to Ben,’ I say.

  ‘WHAT?!’ Mindy shouts, uncomprehending, which is fair enough because only sentences with standard format content are going to be comprehensible. I pat her shoulder by way of ‘never mind’ and turn round, walk over.

  I’m nearly on them when Ben looks up, though Esther spots me seconds before.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  Ben is utterly speechless, eyes
wide, a stunned reaction which further confirms to me that this is not innocent.

  ‘What the …! What are you doing here?’ he says, one hand on his head.

  ‘Didn’t you get my text?’ I hate doing this in front of Esther. He hasn’t stood up.

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Text!’ I scream, and I suspect I’d scream it even if the music wasn’t this loud.

  Ben frowns. ‘Oh, no,’ he half-shouts back, patting his pockets for his phone, ‘Sorry we’ve been out since work and not looked, I thought you’d be in the air right now.’

  I’d have landed hours ago. Actually.

  ‘… Criminal had a big win today, we’ve all been out celebrating.’

  He nods to Esther who still doesn’t have the decency to say hello, staring at me in brazen act of assessment. I feel naked.

  ‘It’s a real throng, yeah,’ I say, gesturing at the table, failing to keep my cool. Nevertheless, the volume probably drowns it out.

  I relate the Mindy passport drama in as few words as possible and Ben nods and looks over my shoulder and waves at them as they depart.

  ‘Bye then. Got henning to do.’

  I shoulder my bag and slip away very quickly, before Ben can give chase – not that there was any sign he was going to – my stomach roiling like a cauldron of hurt and cheap Sauvignon Blanc.

  11

  By the time we’re in the extremely pleasant surroundings of The Midland hotel’s circular bar, with me feeling extremely unpleasant, a mea culpa text has arrived.

  Sorry darling, I forgot my phone was off. Hope you’re having fun. Is Mindy OK? What a disaster. B xx

  Hah. DARLING. A weasel endearment, as he doesn’t usually use it. Screw you. Disaster, indeed. I switch my phone off and extract some savage satisfaction from the screen slowly turning black.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Caroline says, catching me frowning at my phone like it’s a turd in my palm.

  ‘I just saw Ben out alone with a female colleague of his. I say “saw”, I don’t know if I should say “caught”. They looked really close. I know she has a crush on him. And he knows this, too.’

  Is Ben messing around? Is it possible? It doesn’t seem possible but perhaps this is how everyone feels, discovering an affair. Denial is the first stage.

  Caroline frowns. ‘Odd, but. A drink after work doesn’t seem that bad?’

  ‘He was supposed to be playing pool with his friend Jim,’ I say.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And he’d turned his phone off, which he never does.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Also “after work” is stretched at this time. We’re well into witching hours.’

  ‘I’m not the least biased person you could ask about workplace extra maritals but I have all the time in the world for Ben. I’m going to say benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Oh yes, sorry.’

  Argh, I should’ve remembered Caroline’s ex-husband played away with a colleague. It’s enough to make me shut up: especially as I haven’t made sense of it myself yet.

  ‘Even if Ben was doing some flirting …?’

  I wince and Caroline says, ‘Look, even if he was …’ She pauses and pats my arm. ‘Look, don’t tell Mindy, she’ll start shrieking if you tell her about this …’

  We both glance over at Mindy, who last we overheard being encouraged by Trish and Ruksheen to have her foof hair waxed into the shape of a heart as a ‘romantic wedding night surprise’.

  ‘… But even if he was, it’s not the end of the world if he’s not going to go any further than that.’

  ‘I suppose. It’s just not what I thought we were going to be.’

  Not by a long way. At university, he was the Romeo who bounced from girl to girl and I was the faithful coupled-up one. Could it be that all these years later, that’s who we both are? Maybe it wasn’t our circumstances, it was our natures. Ben ended a marriage and took up with me. We never tested the strength of the love he professed, aged twenty-one. Maybe this is who he is. Sooner or later …

  ‘I don’t want to sound like a manual for 1940s housewives but you can’t expect things to be permanently rose-tinted,’ Caroline says. ‘Occasionally one of you will be stupid and another time it’ll be the other one and forgiveness – not of anything, I’m not saying you should turn into Tom Jones’s wife – is why long-term couples stay together. Not because they got the formula magically exactly right at the outset but because they clung on when they had cause to jump off.’

  I nod. I can’t believe I’m thinking about Ben in these disappointing terms.

  Caroline squeezes my arm.

  ‘I’m sure he’s not doing anything, Rach, honestly. Any idiot can see how devoted he is to you. Look at what you went through to be together. He’s not going to throw that away.’

  I nod and smile this time and pretend to be convinced, as it’s hardly fair to ruin Mindy’s hen for Caroline as well by moping.

  The thing is, as the shock recedes, I don’t think Ben is sleeping with Esther. I think they may be in the early stages of a too intense friendship that tips into him wanting to sleep with Esther. And then an inner voice whispers: And you’d know how that works, right?

  I smile and chat and run on screensaver mode, all the while feeling more and more sick inside. I think about Simon’s hatred of me. I think about Olivia’s righteous explosion. All this time, whatever disgust they’d directed at me, I was convinced they had it wrong. I wasn’t trying to take Ben away from his wife, I’d never have made a move on a married man. I didn’t hide the one-night stand detail from Olivia, Ben did. Hmmm. Ben lied to his wife by omission, look at that precedent.

  What if Esther is only making the same rationalisations? She’s already caused one argument between us. I know I did the same between Ben and Olivia, without intending to.

  Call me a cynic but I’d say the second argument between myself and Ben over this woman is a foregone conclusion. And again, Esther can tell herself it’s platonic, only going for drinks with him, despite the attraction, just like I did.

  You’re only guilty of having an imagination, so you hang around until the relationship dies of ‘natural causes’ and then you turn up at the funeral, dressed like the mistress who’s attending against the wishes of the family.

  Perhaps tonight I got a big dose of finding out how it felt to be on the receiving end of hurt I’ve inflicted myself.

  Mindy wobbles over, glassy- and starry-eyed.

  ‘How are my bridesmaids? You’ll be next!’ She gestures to me with her drink, spilling most of it on the floor at the same time.

  ‘Hah, doubt it,’ I say sourly, and add, ‘Ben’s said he doesn’t want to get married again,’ before Caroline thinks it’s a reaction to Cottonopolis.

  ‘Why not? You could ask him? Propose!’

  ‘Feminist way forward.’ Caroline nods.

  ‘Absolutely, it’s not that I wouldn’t. It’s that if wanting to do it isn’t mutual, I can’t see the point.’

  ‘Pfft,’ Mindy waves her hands. ‘You don’t think Ivor really wanted to do it until I made him want to, do you?’

  Though conversation moves on, my mind stays stuck on Ben, Esther and whether I really saw what I thought I saw. Rationally, I have nothing to worry about. Yet my instincts say DANGER in large red letters. I wonder whether Olivia once thought I had very slim odds, too.

  12

  Despite the rocky start, Caroline has done a credible salvage job on Mindy’s hen and we start to wonder if the ‘staycation’ wasn’t superior to two hurried nights trying to get our bearings in a foreign clime anyway.

  On the Saturday, Caroline organises a minivan and an M&S picnic trip to Lyme Park in Cheshire, which played Pemberley in the 1995 Pride & Prejudice and as such is very close to Mindy’s heart. It’s welcome green space and air, out of the city, even if I could’ve done without the bit where Trish tried to jump in the lake to try to recreate the wet-shirt scene for Instagram.

  In the evening, we go for a dressy din
ner at The Midland’s restaurant, Mr Cooper’s, a last-minute booking we achieve through string-pulling and taking a very late sitting.

  I turn my phone back on afterwards and find three texts from Ben.

  Hi. How’s it going?

  Are you giving me the silent treatment?

  I’ll take that silence as a yes.

  I don’t reply.

  According to the law that once over thirty, you can only manage one truly big night out of two on the sauce, Saturday is surprisingly civilised. The classiness of the surroundings means even Trish agrees to put the penis deely-boppers away.

  On Sunday morning, Mindy wheedles Caroline into going back to hers as apparently Withington is too far in her weakened condition (we all love hanging around at Caroline’s, her place is so great. No wonder she has no need for a man for company).

  ‘Want to join, Rach?’ she asks.

  I’m tempted but I decline, knowing delaying the inevitable confrontation with Ben will only make me fidgety. When I get home, I push my trolley case inside the door, feeling shaky. I feel I’m in the right but I also want to be very wrong. Problematic. Ben emerges from the front room and stares at me, pale and apprehensive.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hello,’ I say. I wanted my voice to sound breezy and normal. It does not.

  ‘Why have you ignored me all weekend?’

  I shrug. ‘Turned my phone off. You know how it is.’

  Ben shakes his head in dismay.

  ‘So that excuse works fine for you, but not me?’ I say, voice thin and tight.

  ‘Is this how we’re going to do this, Rachel?’ Ben says, and I don’t think the house has ever felt this quiet. Even the cats are holding their breath. ‘Whatever you think I’ve done wrong –’ my stomach lurches ‘– we can discuss this without being sarcastic and nasty to each other.’

  I shrug my shoulders. I doubt I can.

  ‘Talk in here?’ he holds the front room door open.

  ‘You’re not speaking to me because I was out with Esther?’ Ben says, once we’re inside. We don’t sit down because you can’t argue properly sitting down. I notice he looks as nervous as I feel. ‘I was meant to meet Jim, but he couldn’t make it. Then the criminal team had a good result and they asked me to come to the pub—’