by Anna Bell
She’s stopped pulling everything out and is now poking around it.
‘I know,’ I say, looking at the large box. ‘I thought I’d only left a couple of tops and the odd CD. I didn’t realise it was a whole box full of stuff. Do you think that’s why he dumped me?’
‘Yes, that was it. I’m sure one cardboard box worth of stuff was taking up far too much room in his three-bedroom town house. Either that or he took one look at this jumper and wondered if he was actually dating Gyles Brandreth.’
‘Hey,’ I say, grabbing it from Sian and clutching it protectively to my chest. ‘It’s a reindeer and they’re very in.’
‘Yeah, the ones which you buy in the shops are. This one looks like my blind nan made it. Did you knit it yourself?’
‘Might have done,’ I say sulkily. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into that. ‘It was a present for Joseph.’
It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. My gran had taught me to knit when I was little and I’d thought I’d been all right at it. The idea had hit me when I’d been watching Bridget Jones’s Diary and seen Colin Firth at the Christmas party wearing his reindeer jumper, and instead of cringing like Bridget, I’d thought how cute he looked. And Joseph looks a little Colin-Firth-like. They’ve got the same wavy hair and softly spoken, posh voice.
I thought he could wear it to the little pre-Christmas drinks party I was hosting, only he’d come straight from work and hadn’t had time to change into it. I hadn’t expected him to give it back, it was a gift.
I slip it on, breathing in the smell of aftershave that’s lingering on it, presumably from when I’d made him try it on. One arm is slightly longer than the other and, looking down at it, the nose is quite wonky. There’s more than a few dropped stitches that have created little holes in it. Oh, God. What was I thinking giving that to him? I must have truly been under his spell, believing anything is acceptable when you’re in love.
‘Suits you,’ says Sian, trying not to laugh at me.
I stick my tongue out at her. ‘Well, I won’t be making you one this Christmas then.’
‘I’m devastated. I’ll have to make do with my usual smellies. Ooh, is this some kind of headband?’
She pulls out something black and silky. She wrinkles her face as she stretches the elastic and turns it round, trying to figure out which way it goes.
‘Oh, God,’ I say. ‘Put it back! Put it back!’
But it’s too late. Her face changes from a look of curiosity to terror as she stretches the little silky number out into a knicker shape and realises what she’s holding.
‘Yuck,’ she says throwing them at my head. ‘What the hell are they?’
‘Nothing,’ I say tucking them safely under my jumper.
‘They certainly are nothing. Oh, God, are they crotchless pants? And I touched them. Ick!’
She jumps up and goes over to the sink to wash her hands.
I shift my bum cheeks uncomfortably on the floor. It’s bad enough that thanks to Joseph I own a pair, but now Sian knows I’ll never hear the end of it.
‘They are, aren’t they? You kinky little minx. I feel slightly responsible having lent you Fifty Shades,’ she says, walking back over and sitting down on the floor again.
‘Actually, Joseph bought them for me. In fact, maybe you should stop going through that box as he bought me other stuff too.’
Sian had put her hand back into the box, but she snaps it back out quickly.
‘I have to say I’m a bit surprised. I would have thought of him as the kind of man that has sex with his socks on and you in a long nightie.’
‘Oh, no,’ I say, my cheeks warming at the memories. I have to admit when I’d first met him I’d thought he’d be quite straight-laced in that department too, but it turned out he was into quite kinky lace. ‘Joseph liked me to wear things.’
‘What kind of things?’ asks Sian, her eyes widening.
I peek into the box to see what he’s put in there. I pull out a red suspender belt with matching fish-net stockings, followed by a see-through cami and a PVC French maid’s outfit.
‘Abi Martin!’ she shrieks. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you.’
I shrug, laughing. She’s right, it’s not really my kind of thing. I’d always wanted a boyfriend to buy me fancy lingerie and when I’d seen the first Agent Provocateur bag I’d been really excited, but then he’d pulled out underwear that didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Far from making me feel sexy it had actually made me feel a bit tacky.
‘What are you going to do with them?’ asks Sian. ‘You can’t keep them, surely?’
I look down at the sheer-fabric items. What do you do with naughty undies that your ex gave you? ‘I don’t know. It’s not like I could wear them for anyone else. They’d always make me think of Joseph.’
‘Throw them in the bin,’ says Sian, drinking more of her wine.
‘I can’t. What if we get back together?’
‘Abs,’ she says, sighing and rolling her eyes, ‘he’s given you your stuff back now. Surely that’s a pretty big sign that it’s over.’
‘No,’ I say, shaking my head. I can’t entertain the thought that we won’t get back together.
‘He was pretty specific when you broke up,’ she says, focusing on her wine glass and not looking me in the eye. ‘He said that he thought you were different people. It’s not like you’re going to wake up tomorrow having changed completely.’
‘But opposites attract, don’t they? The past year was the best of my life and we had so many amazing times, I can’t believe that they didn’t mean anything to him.’
I drain my glass and look over at my kitchen to see if I’ve got any bottles stacked in my wine rack, but it’s empty. It’s taken a bit of a beating over the last few weeks.
‘I’m sure they meant something, but he was probably looking at the long-term picture. He’s older than us, don’t forget.’
‘He’s only six years older than me.’
‘Still, he’s probably thinking of settling down.’
‘So am I. See, we don’t want different things after all. Maybe I just didn’t show him the real me.’
‘In a year?’
I sigh. ‘If I could just have another chance to show him what I’m really like.’
‘Oh, Abs,’ says Sian, as she notices the tear that’s escaped and run down my face. She puts her arm round my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. ‘You’ll get through this and find someone else, I promise you. Someone with better taste in underwear.’
I wipe the tear away from my face and try and stop the floodgates from opening. It took three weeks to close them the last time, I can’t go through that again.
Sian lets go of me and finishes her wine. ‘Have you got another bottle?’
‘No, it was the last one.’
‘How about I do a Co-op run? There’s no way I’m going to be discovering more of your boudoir secrets without more wine. Is there anything else you need?’
‘Maybe some Kettle Chips. Oh, and some chocolate fingers,’ I say. My diet went out the window when the box arrived.
‘How about something for dinner?’
As if on cue my stomach growls. ‘Oh, that might be a good idea.’
‘OK, I’ll grab us a pizza.’
She gets up and I hand her my keys so that she can let herself back in.
‘I’ll see you in a bit,’ she says as she walks out.
I pull the crotchless panties out from under my jumper and look at them. They really don’t leave any room for modesty.
I gather up the rest of the underwear and not knowing what to do with it, I shove it in the cupboard of my sideboard along with all my other junk. I can’t throw them out – just in case Joseph comes back to me. Make that when Joseph comes back to me. I’ve got to think positively about these things. Or as positively as I can about the prospect that I’m going to have to wear those crotchless panties again. They gave me a double wedgie.
I g
o back into my lounge and root through the last of the items in the box. There’s my Ed Sheeran CD, a Michael Bublé one and a few books I’d lent him. I take the books out and go over to my bookshelf to stack them neatly away when I realise there’s one that I don’t recognise. I turn it over to read the blurb on the back – it doesn’t seem familiar. The spine’s bent and it’s clearly been read. I flick through the pages, as if I’m trying to absorb the essence of Joseph, when a piece of paper falls out.
I unfold it to a reveal an A4 sheet of white paper, with a handwritten list.
I recognise the handwriting instantly as Joseph’s and I trace my fingers over the letters as I read it.
THINGS TO DO BEFORE I’M 40
1.Have tea at the Ritz
2.Learn a language
3.Go wine tasting at an actual vineyard
4.Do Paris in a day
5.Go to Glastonbury
6.Cycle round the Isle of Wight
7.Hike the UK’s Four Peaks
8.Learn to windsurf
9.Do a half marathon
10.Abseil down the Spinnaker Tower
I read through the list twice before it starts to sink in. I can picture Joseph sitting down at the antique desk in his study to write it. It’s written with a fountain pen in his perfectly neat handwriting.
I wonder when he wrote it? He’s thirty-six now, so he’s got plenty of time left to finish it, which is a good job too, as to my knowledge he hasn’t done any of these things.
I vaguely remember him buying trainers, with the ambition to start running, but I don’t think they ever made it out of the box.
If he’d told me about his bucket list, I could have helped him tick off the items. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship going to the Ritz, you know, if I had to. And whilst I know nothing about wines I do know that I like tasting them.
It just makes me even madder about our break-up. If these are things he wants to do in life, then I can’t understand why he thinks we’re really that different, as I would have happily done them with him.
OK, so I might think that windsurfing combines the worst elements of outdoor pursuits – strong winds, freezing cold sea and unflattering wetsuits – but Glasto looks awesome, or least it does when I watch it from the comfort of my home where I’m warm and dry. Even though I’m not known for my camping skills, I can’t imagine it would be that bad for a one-off. Just imagine how good my skin would be after a few days caked in mud.
The only one that fills me with absolute dread is the abseiling. We’re currently putting together a bid to do the Spinnaker Tower’s marketing materials, and I know for a fact after perusing their old ones, that it’s 560 feet high. That’s 559 feet higher up than I like to be. I’ve never made it past the bar on the ground level, so Joseph might have had to do that one on his own, but the rest of them I’d have attempted.
What if I tell him that I’ve found his list and that I’ll help him do it?
I shake my head. That wouldn’t work. I tried pretty hard when we broke up to convince him that he had made a mistake, but he was adamant that he’d made up his mind and he wouldn’t change it.
If only I could prove to him he was wrong. Make him see that I was the right woman for him.
I can feel my heart starting to beat quicker and thoughts begin to whizz round my mind as a plan starts to form.
I could do his bucket list!
I could complete the tasks and then put pictures and updates on Facebook in the hope that he sees them.
I read one to ten again and my spine tingles as I look at the abseiling. If I do that one last then maybe he’ll have already come running back, and I won’t have to go through with it.
‘I’m back,’ calls Sian.
I hurriedly fold up the piece of paper and throw it back into the box.
‘Everything OK?’ she asks.
‘Fine,’ I reply, trying to look as innocent as I can. I can’t tell her about my idea, she’ll only try and talk me out of it. She hasn’t exactly been enthusiastic when I’ve talked about trying to get Joseph back.
She’s about to open the bottle of wine she’s just bought, but I can’t let her do that. If she opens it, there’ll be nothing to stop her going near the box.
‘I’ve changed my mind,’ I say quickly. ‘I want to go out.’
‘You do?’ says Sian, putting down the corkscrew.
‘Uh-huh. If you’re still up for it.’
‘Of course I am. Blimey, what did you find in the box to make you change your tune?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, closing the flaps and pushing it into the corner. ‘I finished going through it and realised that you’re right – I can’t look at it all night.’
Sian pauses and stares at the box, and for a moment I think I’m busted.
‘OK, then,’ she says. ‘Let’s go get ready.’
I breathe a sigh of relief that the list is still my little secret. We walk towards my bedroom to get ready and it takes all my resolve not to reach into the box and sneak the list into my pocket. It’ll still be there when I get back.
My hands are practically shaking when I’m reunited with the white piece of paper three hours later.
How I made it through our night out without telling Sian about the list I’ll never know. She thought my sudden transformation was down to her getting me out to a bar rather than the discovery I’d made before we left.
The night at the bar was better than I thought it would be. I may have even enjoyed myself a teeny tiny bit, but I couldn’t wait to make it home as soon as it was acceptable so that I could get back to the box.
I slip the dodgy woollen reindeer jumper over my PJs and pick up the piece of paper as I climb into bed.
There’s something about reading the list in the dim light of the lamp that adds to the air of monumental importance that surrounds it. It’s as if I’ve found the Holy Grail; a blueprint to getting Joseph back.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything Sian was saying at the bar. She was trying to get me involved in her usual prowling for men, and whilst there were some good-looking guys, none of them held a candle to Joseph. It made me feel a bit funny watching the men downing drinks and ogling the girls in short skirts. It reminded me how refined and grown-up my ex-boyfriend was.
I don’t want a boy, I want a man. And not any old man – I want Joseph.
The more I think about it, the more I believe that this list is going to help make that happen.
Things to do before he’s forty. Is that what our break-up was about? Is he having a mid-life crisis? I think back over our relationship and maybe we had got into a bit of a rut. The timetabled nature of our nights together: Monday, Wednesday, Friday nights and alternate Saturdays pencilled into the diary. The rotation between his town house and my flat. The inevitable visit to the American-style diner for Sunday brunch if he’d stayed at mine or the trendy gastro-pub down his road if I’d stayed at his. Perhaps he’d got fed up with the predictable and there was me thinking that this had been the foundation of our stability.
I start to pull a hoop of loose wool on the jumper and a chunk of the arm starts to unravel – it’s as if it’s a metaphor for mine and Joseph’s relationship.
If only I’d mixed things up. Shown up unannounced on a Tuesday, wearing nothing but a mac and bedroom heels. Or taken him to the all-you-can-eat Thai buffet instead of the diner. But I didn’t. I hate to say it, but I liked the familiarity and the habitual way Joseph organised our lives. I knew exactly where I was, or at least I thought I did.
I look back at the piece of paper resting on my bed, its corners already wrinkled from where I’ve been handling it so much. Could I really do everything on it?
A niggle of doubt begins to creep in as I try and imagine myself gliding out to sea on a windsurfer, the thought of the howling wind and the wet sea spray is making goosebumps appear on my arms.
What if I do everything and Joseph doesn’t notice? I’ll have put myself through hell for nothing. I�
�ll still have lost the love of my life, and probably my sanity too.
I close my eyes and it’s his face that I see. I breathe in and I can smell his aftershave wafting off the jumper, and for once I’m glad that he used to drown himself in it as at least it’s still lingering on the wool after all this time.
I have to get him back, or at least attempt to.
I open my eyes. I can do this, I say out loud as I reread the list. I have to show him that there’s more to me than he thought.
I hug the piece of paper to my chest, and close my eyes to summon Joseph’s face once more. I can only hope I’ve found the key to how I’m going to get him back, because if this doesn’t work I’m all out of ideas.
Chapter Four
Four weeks, one day since Joseph and I broke up, but hopefully less than three months until we’re back together (if this list works out . . .).
My mouth is aching from having to force my smile into a more neutral facial expression. I don’t want Sian to get suspicious about my newfound happiness.
I’m still amazed that I managed to make it through our trip to the bar last night without mentioning the list, or even uttering Joseph’s name. I’m absolutely dying to tell her about my idea to complete a bucket list, and yet I’ve been biting my tongue, trying to leave it a respectable amount of time before I bring it up. I don’t want her to realise that my list is designed to get Joseph back, so I want to drop it casually into the conversation with my cover story that I’m doing it to get over him. Not only is she anti-romance and anti-Joseph, but she’s also got pretty strong feminist views and would never approve of me changing myself for a man.
‘So who are we meeting again?’ she asks as we climb out of her car and look out over the estuary towards Hayling Island.
‘My work colleague, Giles – who I think you met last Christmas – and his wife Laura and a few of his mates who I don’t know.’
Giles sent me a text message this morning in case I’d changed my mind about doing the cycle ride, and whilst I didn’t wake up having had a complete personality transplant or discovering that I actually owned a bike, I said I’d join them at the pub after. I roped Sian into coming with me, and instead of cycling our epic journey is going to entail about five minutes on the ferry.