How to Break Your Own Heart

by Maggie Alderson

22

  Sitting at the table in Kiki’s kitchen one morning, looking back through my diary, totting up how many days’ work I had done for a particularly demanding client, I realized with a lurch that it was now exactly six weeks since I’d left Ed.

  I was amazed. The time had flown by in a whirl of parties and dinners and work and weekends, but at the same time it also seemed strangely like a dream that I’d ever lived in Mount Street with him. Fifteen years of my life – nearly half of it – seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

  I had all my post forwarded to Kiki’s place from there, but my bank statements were now officially addressed to her flat, which had seemed a very significant move. When I asked her if it was OK to do that or whether she would rather I got a place of my own, she had looked horrified.

  ‘Aren’t you having a good time here?’ she had asked, grabbing both my hands in hers and looking earnestly up into my face. ‘Don’t go, Amelia! I love having you here.’

  So I stayed, but I found I missed Ed in all kinds of ways, particularly his quirky little remarks. We had all those years of ongoing jokes between us, and just one word from him in the right context could make me laugh until my face hurt. Then I’d remember it again at odd times and find I was laughing as I walked down the street, or queued to pay in the John Lewis food hall.

  I also missed the more serious conversations we had over dinner. He was obsessed with international affairs and read the paper every day – the way Kiki was supposed to – and was always incredibly well informed about what was going on in the world. Sometimes I used to think it was like having dinner with Jeremy Paxman, or John Humphrys – though Ed was more handsome and better dressed.

  It was also strange not going to all the restaurants I was so used to. I was really craving the crayfish salad at the Wolseley, but I did my very best to avoid that part of London, even shifting my hair appointments to the other branch of John Frieda, north of Oxford Circus.

  Anything between the area bound by Piccadilly, Park Lane, Oxford Street and Regent Street was out of bounds, because that was his patch. Bumping into him there would have been too awful, but even walking down the streets where I had lived since I was twenty-one was too much to bear. I had a personal relationship with every paving stone in Mayfair.

  I had forced myself to go over to the flat one morning when I knew he was still away in France so I could pick up some more stuff and had found it almost unbearably painful. Before my brain could stop them, my feet had walked me into his bedroom. I needed to feel near Ed.

  Mr Bun was sitting in his usual place on the pillow, and I sat down on the edge of the bed and picked him up. He was starting to look very old and faded, I realized, not having seen him for a while, which wasn’t really surprising, he was over thirty-five years old.

  Not for the first time, I wondered whether it was quite normal for a grown man to be so attached to a small bundle of plush and stuffing, but then I thought, at least it didn’t make any emotional demands in return. I sighed, gave the toy elephant a little hug and put him back.

  ‘Look after him for me,’ I said, my eyes filling with tears.

  Then I opened the wardrobe and stroked Ed’s lovely shirts, hanging in their perfectly laundered row. Clearly he was managing to stay on top of all that without me, I realized with a pang. I’d organized it for him for years and it made me feel a bit redundant that he could do it on his own after all. I knew his mother wouldn’t be helping him.

  I took out one of my favourites, a wide pink and white stripe from Turnbull & Asser which Ed considered his ‘lucky’ shirt. He always wore it when he had an important meeting, or when we were having a celebration. I buried my face into the soft cotton and for a moment I thought about taking it away with me, but forced myself to put it back in the wardrobe.

  I left the flat feeling absolutely shattered but, despite all that, I was still resolute I wasn’t ready to go back there yet. Dervla was still in residence, for one thing – she’d gone to France with him, but I knew she was coming back – and I suspected my absence would make her stay on longer than usual.

  But most of all, I wanted Ed to make an effort to bring me back. Since that last phone call when I’d first left, he’d made none. Any texts we’d exchanged had been purely pragmatic. He clearly thought all the blame for the situation lay with me, and I wanted to give him as much time as he needed to think that through. I needed him to take some responsibility for the problems that had developed between us.

  And I suppose, in my way, I was starting to realize that, when it came to something so important, I could be as stubborn as him.

  Really, I should have known better than to go to the Wolseley the following Tuesday night with Kiki and a gang of her sillier pals. We’d been to a private view at a gallery in Jermyn Street, so it did seem the obvious place and I could hardly protest to a group of people I hardly knew that it was currently off limits for me.

  And as we bundled out of the gallery at quarter to nine on an unusually warm London summer night, taking the risk of going to what had been one of Ed and my most regular haunts seemed more attractive than going home on my own, especially as I thought Ed was still in France. I found this particular group of Kiki’s friends almost too squeally to bear, but at that point in my life any distraction was better than none – or so I thought.

  I saw him the moment I walked in, installed on a banquette just opposite the entrance. He was sitting with Dervla, some pickled old chap with skin the colour of stewed tea – clearly her latest target – and Solitaire.

  That was the only name for her. She was wearing a plunging halterneck dress, had black hair right down to her bottom and looked exactly like Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die – always his favourite Bond girl, after Honor Blackman in Goldfinger and Ursula Andress in Dr No. The length of her hair making up for it not being blonde.

  As I froze, Kiki spotted them too, and at the same moment, Dervla saw me. Trust her to be checking out who was coming in. Ed was clearly too rapt in conversation with Solitaire to notice.

  ‘Shit,’ said Kiki. ‘It didn’t take him long. Who’s the drag queen?’

  In my shock, I couldn’t move my gaze away quickly enough, and Dervla and I locked eyes. But she didn’t wave at me, just tapped Ed on the arm – and gestured towards the entrance with her head.

  I was out of there before I could see his reaction. I ran out on to the street and jumped straight into a taxi which had just dropped someone off outside the restaurant. I heard Kiki calling out to me as I slammed the cab door, but I just ignored her and asked the taxi driver to take me to Holland Park – fast.

  I was practically hyperventilating, I was so shocked. I had dreaded running into Ed in any circumstances, but it had never occurred to me that I might see him with another woman. The minute the cab pulled off, the tears came with such force, I was almost frightened, but I couldn’t stop them.

  I could see the taxi driver looking at me nervously in his rear-view mirror.

  ‘Are you all right, love?’ he said, probably worried I was going to vomit all over his interior.

  I just put a hand up and shook my head, to indicate that I couldn’t speak, and then proceeded to howl all the way back to the flat. So this is what real grief feels like, I thought to myself, even while I was doing it. It hurt so much. I’d had no idea. It was like falling off a cliff.

  When I woke up the next morning my throat was raw from wailing, and when I stumbled to the bathroom mirror I looked like some kind of frog, my eyes were so swollen. Grief was not a pretty thing, I reflected, as I splashed cold water on my face, almost as unpleasant to look at as it was to experience.

  Still really wobbly, but feeling strangely detoxed, I checked my phone, half expecting there to be a message from Ed. There wasn’t, but there were several Kiki had sent the night before, telling me to come back to the Wolseley and face the drag queen out.

  ‘She’s a collagen car crash, darls,’ her message said. ‘Banana lips and Botox to the max. Zero clas
s. And she holds her cutlery like pencils. I bet Ed hates that.’

  I smiled weakly. Ed practically had to leave a restaurant if he saw someone eating with their knife and fork pincered between their thumbs and forefingers. It must have been their first date, I thought bitterly. She’d never get a second one doing that.

  Kiki appeared when I was in the kitchen staring vacantly out of the window at the garden and holding a cup of forgotten coffee.

  ‘Are you all right, Amelia?’ she said, giving me a hug. ‘No, you’re not, I can see that. But really, she was such a slapper. Did you get my messages?’

  ‘I got them this morning,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t really matter what she was like, it was just such a shock that she was female. I know he’s welcome to go out to dinner with whoever he likes, but I really hadn’t expected him to start seeing other women, so it was a terrible combined shock of seeing him for the first time since I left and her being there.’

  ‘Poor you,’ said Kiki, giving me another hug.

  It was a favourite saying of hers and one that I found surprisingly comforting. Sometimes that was all you needed to hear. Not an in-depth study of your situation followed by an ear-bashing of bossy advice, but just an acknowledgement that you had a right to feel sad at that moment.

  Kiki may have presented herself to the world as a frivolous fluffbunny in high heels and pink toenail varnish who thought a party was the answer to all problems, but I had come to understand that she was actually a lot more emotionally intelligent than most people I knew. In fact, the only person I knew with greater insight was Hermione.

  That morning, though, parties were, as usual, at the forefront of Kiki’s mind.

  ‘I know what you need,’ she said, as we sat down to have breakfast together in her garden. She’d hired Sonny to fix it up, and it was already looking wonderful, helped by the fact that her budget stretched to fully grown plants from Petersham Nurseries which looked as though they had already been there for years from the day they were put in.

  We were sitting at a lovely old metal garden table – also from Petersham – beneath an arbour of fully flowering jasmine, with the July sunshine streaming down around us.

  ‘What do I need, oh, wise woman?’ I asked.

  ‘A party,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ I said, not very enthusiastically. ‘Another drinks party?’

  ‘No, a dinner party, but we’ll make it a super fun one.’ She leaned towards me excitedly. ‘We’ll have a mystery-guest dinner – I’ll invite everyone and I won’t tell you who’s coming – and we’ll make it a games night. That’s always a good laugh.’

  I couldn’t see any harm in it.

  Kiki and I had great fun getting the dinner party organized, and she was absolutely right: it did take my mind off what had happened with Ed. I was doing all the cooking – not Kiki’s strong point – and I had a lot of sport while I planned the menu, trying to trick her into telling me who was coming.

  ‘Any vegans?’ I asked, as we sat at the dining table one rare night in, surrounded by cookery books. She shook her head. ‘Vegetarians?’

  ‘One,’ said Kiki. ‘But it eats fish.’

  ‘You’re not even telling me if it’s a male vegetarian or a female vegetarian?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Kiki. ‘No clues.’

  ‘Anyone kosher, or halal? Macrobiotic? Any dairy or wheat allergies? Anyone avoiding carbs?’

  ‘One fishetarian, that’s all I’m telling you.’

  ‘Any teetotallers?’ I asked, marking the page for Nigella’s gin and tonic jelly recipe. That was always a winner.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ said Kiki, laughing. ‘But I think there might be a couple of peppermint teas coming along.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, picking up my clipboard, which I had got out entirely to torture Kiki. ‘I’ll add that to my shopping list.’

  My curiosity about the guestlist – we were expecting six; that was all she would tell me – was piqued even more on the morning of the dinner, when four beautiful bouquets arrived for us, one after the other.

  ‘Ah,’ said Kiki, reading the cards and chuckling. ‘I have them all so well trained. So much better to send flowers on the morning, rather than turning up with them when the hostess is running around greeting people and getting drinks.’

  I grabbed the cards from her and found they were all signed with code names – unless Kiki really knew people called Shrek, Princess Fiona, Discount Diva, Dr Beat, Secret Squirrel and Amadeus, which wouldn’t have surprised me.

  By seven o’clock on the big night, I was actually feeling quite nervous. The food was all ready to go, Kiki had organized the drinks, and I’d had my hair done. I just wasn’t sure what to wear.

  I popped my head around the door of Planet Kiki. She was sitting at her dressing table in fuchsia-pink see-through knickers and nothing else, sticking on false eyelashes and singing along to Peggy Lee.

  ‘Is that all there is?’ warbled Kiki.

  ‘What are you wearing tonight?’ I asked her. ‘Apart from a smile and tart’s pants?’

  ‘That dress,’ said Kiki, pointing over her shoulder at the rail I’d had put on the outside of the wardrobe for her to air clothes before putting them away.

  My heart sank. The most exquisite dress was hanging there, made of gorgeous frothy primrose-yellow chiffon, strapless, with a black velvet bow tied under the bust.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, going over to admire it. ‘ That looks like some kind of baby-doll nightie Natalie Wood would have worn. It’s gorgeous. So you’re really going glam, then? I was going to wear my jeans.’

  ‘No jeans tonight,’ said Kiki, looking at me in the mirror with one open eye. ‘Why don’t you get properly dolled up for once?’

  ‘I don’t have anything glamorous,’ I said, feeling a bit wretched. ‘ That’s why I always wear my jeans, with different tops.’

  ‘I have noticed,’ she said, standing up and walking over to me, already wearing towering black velvet shoes. Christian Louboutins – I could tell now.

  ‘Actually, I think you should just wear what you have on,’ I said. ‘ That would make it a night to remember.’

  ‘Not such a bad idea,’ said Kiki, putting one hand behind her head and copping a glamour-model pose before reaching up for her dress and slipping it on with the insouciance with which I pulled on my jogging pants.

  She turned and looked at herself once in the big mirror, and that was it, Kiki was dressed.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘what are we going to put Amelia in?’

  She threw open her wardrobe doors, and I marvelled at the treasure within. Kiki had such beautiful clothes and, now she looked after them, it was like being on Harvey Nichols’ first floor, with the world’s best vintage shops thrown in.

  She rifled through the rails, pulling out various wisps of silk, lace and satin, but it was clear that nothing of hers was going to fit me. It wasn’t that I was fat, we were just built to completely different scales, and my shoulders would have burst out of Kiki’s tiny dresses.

  ‘Let’s go and look at your things,’ she said. ‘I should have ignored your protests and bought you that Lanvin dress in Dover Street when we had our shopping day.’

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘I’d forgotten – I bought one that looked very like it in Zara, ages ago. I’ve never worn it.’

  So I put on my backless black dress with the high heels Kiki had given me the night of her drinks party, and I was quite astonished at the result. The haircut really made all the difference. Then Kiki insisted on doing my make-up – much more than I normally wore – lent me a pair of long gold drop earrings, and the transformation was complete.

  I had never looked so good in my life, I thought as I stared at myself in Kiki’s huge mirror. And Ed would have hated every bit of it.

  The first guests to turn up were Oliver and Sonny.

  ‘Well, this is a surprise,’ I said, sarcastically to Kiki. ‘What a mystery this is turning out to be. Let me guess – Princess Fiona and Shrek?�
�

  She just giggled.

  The two of them were such a unit now, it was quite hilarious. Oliver had to be close to Sonny at all times, preferably touching him, if not actually sitting on him. Sonny just smiled his gentle smile and looked at him indulgently. It was like watching a daddy lion and a particularly cheeky cub.

  The only disappointing thing about their relationship, as far as I was concerned, was that Sonny had decided to move to London to live with Oliver and had resigned from being my gardener and Hermione’s. He’d found a replacement for us, who seemed nice enough, but it wasn’t the same.

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Oliver, when he saw me. ‘Well, don’t actually, but you do look amazing, Amelia. You look really sexy. It’s mostly the hair, of course. God, I’m good. I amaze myself sometimes.’

  ‘You look beautiful,’ said Sonny, giving me a hug that made me blush. ‘And so do you,’ he said to Kiki, moving over to hug her. I caught her eye and she fanned herself theatrically behind his back.

  We had often discussed it, but even now we knew Sonny was gay – not to mention in a serious relationship with one of our best friends – he could still reduce us both to quivering heaps of rampant hormones.

  ‘I’ve decided, Ollie,’ said Kiki, as we sat in the drawing room, drinking our first glass of champagne, waiting for the other mystery guests to arrive, ‘that as a service to society, you’re going to have to lend Sonny out to rescue failing marriages. He wouldn’t actually have to do the deed with anyone, he’d just stand near them for a bit and their sex lives would be magically restored.’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Oliver, putting both arms round Sonny’s neck. ‘He’s mine.’

  The next two guests to arrive were a bit more mysterious, because I hadn’t met them before. But I had heard so much about Dan and Connor – old friends of Kiki’s from New York – that the effect was somewhat diminished. She often made me read their emails because they were so funny, so I felt as though I already knew them. They accounted for Discount Diva and Dr Beat.

  But the mystery level really cranked up when Charles Dowdent arrived – the mystery being why anyone would want him at their dinner party.