by Linda Green
‘Yeah,’ replies Dad. ‘Big day. Seems like there’s going to be a lot of them this year.’
*
It feels wrong, being on the platform at Mytholmroyd station without Sadie. It feels wrong to even be out the house at seven thirty in the morning, let alone dressed up like some girl behind the make-up counter at Boots.
Lee said to make sure I was well turned out on my first day. I’d only really heard that term used about horses before. But I figured he meant for me to do my hair and make-up, rather than impersonate a show pony.
I feel a bit like a show pony, mind. I don’t usually do make-up at all before eleven, and certainly not this much. I did forget the lippy, probably because I’m not used to wearing it, but I’ll do it when I get to Leeds. I don’t want to be one of those women who does their make-up on the train.
A guy in a grey suit gives me a quick once-over as I walk down the platform. I am about to shout out, ‘What you looking at, arsehole?’ when I realise that it’s probably not very receptionist-like. To be honest, none of me is very receptionist-like. I may as well be acting a part in a play: stage make-up, wig, costume, learning to walk differently, talk differently, be someone else. All in a desperate attempt for audience approval.
On that level, I’m quite glad Sadie isn’t here. She’d be the heckler. She’d ask me what the fuck I’m playing at. I’ve no idea what I’d say in response.
The train pulls into the station and people shuffle towards the edge of the platform. I had forgotten about this jostling for position thing. I might not even be able to get a seat. A lot of people get on at Hebden Bridge at this time in the morning. The train doors open. I feel someone nudging me in the back from behind. I go cold inside. My brain races ahead, thinking of the journey to come, the bodies pushed against one another, people stumbling slightly when the train jolts. I start to use one of the techniques I was taught by the therapist. I need to bring myself back to centre. To not let myself get derailed. That’s the last thing I need on my first day in a new job.
I head towards a spare seat between an older woman and a middle-aged guy in a trench coat. I look at the woman and then down at her bag, which is on the empty seat. I wonder if she’s one of those people who makes you ask them to move it. But she sighs and gives me a look as she puts it on her lap instead, as if sympathising with the bag for the massive inconvenience.
I get my phone out. It’s what everyone does on a train when they haven’t got anyone to talk to. I click on Facebook, just on my main feed rather than my timeline. I’m aware that, for the first time in forever, I actually have something newsworthy to post: my engagement. I’m not going to do it though. I don’t think Lee would approve, for a start. And besides, there’s no way I’m going to let Sadie find out like that. However strained things are between us, no one deserves to find out on Facebook that their best friend is getting married.
I scroll down, looking for anything vaguely interesting or amusing. Mostly it’s just stupid selfies and posts full of OMGs about nothing that really matters. No one puts anything serious on Facebook. No one puts anything bad or sad on about their lives. It’s basically a bunch of people trying to look like they’re having a great time. Maybe Lee’s right – maybe it is for losers. I imagine it was better when it started, before everyone’s parents went on. That’s why I’m hoping Angela doesn’t try to look me up on Facebook. I won’t ever be able to say anything again if I accept a friend request from my future mother-in-law.
I go to a few film websites to pass the time. I always used to say they should have one screen at work just showing trailers. I’d sit there for hours. I remember watching the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trailer with Sadie. We said we were going to go to the first screening. We won’t be able to do that now. I wonder if Lee will take me. He doesn’t like Eddie Redmayne, though. So I guess not.
The train pulls into Leeds on time. I let everyone else get off first. I don’t fancy the stampede to get through the ticket gates. When the train is empty, I get my little mirror out and put on my new lipstick. I’m not overly keen on the colour, but I guess I’ll have to go with it now as I assume I won’t be considered ‘well turned out’ without it.
It feels weird, turning in the opposite direction than usual when I get out of the station. Lee did offer to walk into work with me on the first day, but I said no. I already feel a bit weird that I am going out with one of my bosses – walking in together like some loved-up couple who can’t be parted would be too much.
I wonder if he will introduce me to anyone as his fiancée. I’ve always hated that word, it sounds so old-fashioned. And now I am one, I think I hate it even more.
I take a deep breath as I round the corner and see the Eclipse PR sign. I can do this, I tell myself. I can be anyone I want to be. A second later my phone beeps, it is a message from Lee.
I hear the new receptionist is well fit. Enjoy your first day. Love you. X
It is all I need. I step inside the main door, a ready-made smile on my face. Even when I see the front desk and remember the pregnant woman standing behind it the last time I was there, I manage to hold myself together.
Lee comes down the stairs. ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘Don’t you look the part.’
‘Did I scrub up OK then?’
‘Better than OK. I think the rest of us will have to raise our game.’
‘If anyone asks, what shall I tell them? About us, I mean.’
‘Let’s keep things professional at work. They’ll all know soon enough.’
‘OK,’ I reply. I thought he would have told them all by now, actually. Maybe it’s for the best, though. I don’t want everyone to think I only got the job because I’m going out with him. I’m aware that they’ll probably think that anyway, once they find out, but it would be nice if they could get to know me a little bit first.
Lee goes back upstairs. I take my coat off and hang it on the stand. I pop my bag behind the front desk and switch my computer on. I need a password. I’d forgotten how much I hate the first day of anything. Carl comes downstairs. I wonder if Lee has at least told him about the engagement. I hide my ring in case not. I don’t want to be the one who blows it.
‘Hi, Jess, looking good. It’s great to have you with us.’ His eyes are wandering up and down my body as he says it. I wonder if Lee knows he does that or if he has never noticed.
‘If you can give me five minutes, I’ll pop back with your password, go through the ropes with you and give you a quick tour of the building.’
‘Sure,’ I say. He disappears back upstairs. The phone rings. It makes it to the third ring before I pluck up the courage to answer it.
‘Good morning, Eclipse PR, how may I help you?’
I try to put the image of Sadie pissing herself laughing out of my head as I listen to the caller. He asks to speak to Lee. He’s already told me what his extension is, so I put the call through. And then I stand there like some Barbie receptionist doll, wondering what the hell I’ve done.
PRIVATE MESSAGE
Joe Mount
14/09/2017 9:58pm
Jess, I want you to know that I’m sorry if I let you down. The police have been round today, asking lots of questions about Lee. That’s why I’m telling you this in a message instead of posting it for everyone to see. I didn’t believe them. I told them I thought someone was making mischief and they should leave well alone. But when they’d gone, when I was left on my own, thinking about what they’d said, I started to panic that they might have been right. What if I have made the biggest mistake of my life? What if I only saw what I wanted to see? And didn’t see the rest? People do that, don’t they? And I started going back through everything and thinking about what I might have missed and now I’m worried sick that I might be the one who got it wrong. That I didn’t do my job of protecting you. If I failed you, Jess, if I wasn’t there for you when you truly needed me,
please forgive me. I’m truly sorry.
Jess
Friday, 18 March 2016
I stop on the stairs and do a few deep breaths before I go into the kitchen. I need to hold it together when I see Dad. If I crack, he’ll want to know what’s wrong, and I can’t tell him. I can’t breathe a word of what I’ve just read. I’m still trying to get my head around it, to be honest. It’s the fact that the police are taking it seriously that has thrown me. Presumably, they know what they’re doing. They wouldn’t waste time investigating something unless they thought it was true, or at least might be. They wouldn’t go and speak to Dad unless they thought these allegations were genuine.
And yet, at the same time, I can’t reconcile the man they are investigating with the one I am engaged to. They are not the same person. They can’t be. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to fall for a guy who hits women. I’d see right through him. I don’t have time for arseholes like that, I never have done. All I can think is that, somewhere along the line, someone got it wrong. Maybe his ex-girlfriend said something about him snapping at her and they read too much into it and she then started saying other stuff that wasn’t true. And I know that Sadie was jealous of Lee to start with. It wouldn’t have taken much for her to jump to the wrong conclusion. People believe what they want to believe. Only now Dad thinks it might be true too.
‘Morning!’ I say as I go into the kitchen. Dad looks up from his coffee, immediately suspicious because I never say good morning. In fact, I don’t normally say anything in a bright and breezy voice before eight in the morning.
‘Morning, love. Are we all set for tonight then?’
He’s got the night off work. I’m taking him for a meal with Lee, hoping they do a bit of male bonding.
‘Yeah, I’ll come home after work and we’ll go over to the restaurant together. Lee’s going to meet us there.’
I walk over and kiss him on the cheek.
‘What’s that in aid of?’
‘Nothing. I just want you to remember I mean it. That’s all.’
*
Meeting Sadie for lunch is pretty much the last thing I want to do right now. She’d texted me on Monday, asking if I fancied meeting up this week, and I hadn’t had the heart to say no. Besides, I know I’ve got to tell her at some point. The last thing I’d want is for her to find out from someone else.
I walk into Pret. She’d said she didn’t want to go anywhere fancy. I see her clock me straight away, although she does a double take.
‘Hey,’ I say, going over to her. ‘How you doing?’
‘I’m good. Have you seen Jess Mount at all? She appears to have gone AWOL.’
‘Very funny.’
‘Well what’s with the get-up?’
‘I can hardly turn up for work in leggings and DMs, can I?’
‘Jeez, you’ll be carrying a designer Tote bag next.’
‘Nope. Still got my trusty backpack,’ I say, patting it. ‘There are some things that are non-negotiable.’
She continues staring at me incredulously.
‘What do you want then?’ I ask. ‘I’m buying.’
‘The whole works, in that case.’
‘Seriously.’
‘A warm wrap, a chocolate brownie and a hot chocolate, please. And I’ll get them next time.’
I nod, grab the same things for me, pay for them and go back to the table. I try to unload the tray solely with my right hand. Sadie could have a wedding ring and a veil on and I wouldn’t notice but she’s always been much more observant than me.
‘So, how’s the job going?’ she asks.
‘Yeah. It’s OK.’
‘Only OK?’
‘It’ll take a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’
‘Are they all up-their-own-arses PR types?’
‘I hope you’re not including Lee in that.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘They’re a bit straight. They don’t seem to have much of a laugh, but the job’s a piece of piss, to be honest. I just have to stand there and smile a lot. And no one expects you to crawl on the floor to pick up popcorn.’
‘I guess that’s something.’
‘Yeah. How’re things at work?’
‘Oh, you know. Same old, same old. How was the holiday?’
I wait until Sadie takes a big bite of her wrap before I reply. I want to have a few seconds of her being unable to speak before the onslaught begins.
‘Great, thanks. And I’ve got some news. I wanted to tell you face-to-face.’
I hold out my left hand. She looks at the ring and back at me. She stops chewing for a moment. When she resumes, she does it very slowly. I think I would have preferred the onslaught straight away instead of having to wait for it.
‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘I’m getting married.’
‘Yeah, at twenty-two, to some guy you’ve only known a couple of months.’
‘Jeez, you sound like my dad.’
‘Well, it’s not surprising, is it? I’d have thought everyone would say the same thing. Everyone who cares about you, anyway.’
‘I knew you’d be like this.’
‘Yeah, because you’re doing something stupid. You’re throwing your life away, Jess. And I’m not going to stand by and watch it happen without saying something.’
I put down my wrap. ‘Have you quite finished?’
‘I haven’t even started yet.’
I glance around, aware that other people are looking at us.
‘Look, I’m sorry for being happy. For getting a new boyfriend and a new job and leaving you in your old one.’
‘You think I’m jealous?’
‘Well, it sure looks like that from where I’m sitting.’
Sadie shakes her head. ‘How do I get through to you, Jess? I am not jealous. You pulled a good-looking guy and I was really pleased for you. But this’ – she gestures down towards the ring – ‘this is crazy. Look at you! You’ve changed so much in a few months, I don’t recognise you anymore. It’s like you’re just turning into whatever he wants you to be and you’re so far gone on him you can’t even see it.’
I look down, mainly to hide the tears welling in my eyes. ‘After all the stuff I’ve been through, something good has finally happened to me, and you react like I’ve lost it again.’
‘You can’t see sense because you’re so gone on Lee.’
‘Why do you hate him so much?’
‘I don’t hate him. I just want you to wake up to what’s happening.’
‘You have no idea what he’s like. He makes me feel like the most special person in the world. He loves me, Sadie. No one’s ever loved me like he does.’
She shakes her head. ‘If he really loved you, he wouldn’t ask you to change.’
‘He hasn’t.’
‘Oh right. And these new clothes and the new job and wearing fucking lipstick – they’re nothing to do with him are they?’
The tears come now, I’m unable to stop them. For a moment, Sadie looks as if she is going to reach out for my hand, but then she thinks better of it.
‘You’ve got to stop this,’ I say. ‘People are going to get hurt.’
‘What are you on about?’
‘If you can’t be happy for me, you’ve got to butt out of my life. Because if you carry on like this you’re going to end up spoiling things for everyone.’
‘Fine,’ she says, standing up, stuffing the food in her bag and picking up her hot chocolate. ‘It’ll be lunch on the go then. And consider me officially butted out.’
I fight back a fresh round of tears as I watch her go, and the realisation hits. It was me who drove her to do this. Me who made her so mad that she told the police my husband killed me.
*
Dad and I are sitting in the
one decent restaurant in Mytholmroyd (if you exclude the chippy, which is seriously good). I would have preferred to go to Leeds but it’s full of pissheads on a Friday night and I don’t want anything to spoil this for Dad. I want everything about it to be positive. He has put a suit on for the occasion. He looks pretty good, actually. Well, for someone of his age, anyway. One of the good things about Italian genes is that you can carry off a receding hairline.
‘So, did you catch up with Sadie today?’ Dad asks, as we sip the table water.
‘Yeah.’
‘Am I right in thinking she didn’t take it too well?’
‘Bit of an understatement.’
‘Come on, you’ve been best friends forever, Jess. It must be really tough for her.’
‘I’d be happy for her if it was the other way around.’
‘Would you? It would leave a massive hole in your life.’
‘Well, I certainly wouldn’t make her feel bad about it. She’s like this seething mass of resentment.’
‘She’ll come round.’
‘She doesn’t,’ I say, then catch myself. ‘I mean, she won’t. She’s really got it in for Lee.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she blames him for taking me away from her. If she ever says anything against Lee, remember that.’
Dad puts his glass down. ‘Why would she say anything against Lee?’
‘Just remember, that’s all I’m saying.’
Right on cue, the door opens and Lee walks in. I saw him only a few hours ago but I still get that feeling, like my insides are about to explode.
‘Hi,’ I say, standing up and smiling at him. He kisses me on the lips, just the right amount to be acceptable in front of family, but still enough to make me wish that Dad wasn’t there.
‘You’re looking as gorgeous as ever,’ he says, before turning to Dad. ‘Good to see you again, Joe.’
Dad stands up and offers his hand. ‘And you, Lee. Congratulations. You move quickly, I’ll say that for you.’
‘Thanks,’ replies Lee. ‘You’ve got a pretty amazing daughter. I wasn’t going to wait around until somebody else snapped her up.’