by Anna Bell
‘You’ll get there. You just need a little bit of practice somewhere with a few less obstacles,’ he says.
‘So you don’t think that I’m going to be able to ride around the Isle of Wight next week then?’
‘Not next week, and maybe not the week after. But you’ll get there.’
I sigh. This bucket list is getting harder and harder every day. Instead of getting closer to achieving anything I’m getting further away.
‘I tell you what, how about I take you out on a training ride? Get your confidence up,’ he says, as if he’s sensing my deflated mood.
‘That would be really great.’
‘It would have to be a Sunday though, if that’s OK?’ he says.
‘Yes, that’s great with me. I don’t suppose you can do this week, can you?’
I feel like I’ve got a bit of momentum and don’t want to lose it.
‘Oh, no, I can’t, sorry. I’m going to see Tammy race. But I can do the one after.’
I think back to her and her comments about cycling down mountains at the pub.
‘I’m sure she’d laugh if she knew that I couldn’t even cycle down a road,’ I say.
‘Not everyone’s a natural like her,’ he says, before wiping away a bit of dirt that’s found its way onto the bike’s frame with his sleeve. ‘It was like she was born on two wheels.’
‘What kind of racing does she do?’
‘She races road bikes.’
‘Right,’ I say, nodding. Still none the wiser.
‘You know, like they did in the Olympics round Surrey and into London? She did the women’s equivalent of the Tour de France last year.’
‘Cool.’
No wonder she looks so bloody skinny and super-fit. I can see how she and Ben are totally made for each other.
‘I better get going as my lunch break is almost over. But I’ll see you a week on Sunday?’ I say, thinking I’m out of my depth in this conversation.
‘Great. Shall I keep the bike until then?’
‘Yes, that would be great. Save me having to push it all the way home.’ I open my bag and pull out my wallet.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ says Ben. ‘You can sort it out next week if you meet me here.’
‘OK, are you sure?’ I say.
‘Yep, just in case you change your mind. Think of it as a cooling-off period.’
I smile. The old me definitely would have cooled off and changed her mind, but not the new Abi – the one who’s determined to win back Joseph.
‘I’ll see you next week, then. Thanks for everything.’
‘No problem, take it easy,’ he says.
I turn and walk out of the shop. I’m so pleased I made the effort to come and see Ben. I give him a wave as I walk past the window and he waves back.
With Ben helping me with the bike ride and the Ritz almost ticked off, maybe this crazy plan will work after all. Maybe I’ll have this bucket list done and Joseph back before I know it, and, more importantly, before he has time to find a new girlfriend.
Chapter Seven
Six weeks and four days until the Tower of Terror and the first item off my list is about to be completed . . .
I can’t quite believe it, but ten days after deciding to live out Joseph’s bucket list, I’m finally ticking something off. Sian and I are sitting down to afternoon tea in the Palm Court at the Ritz.
‘This is swanky,’ whispers Sian as she slips off her coat and hands it to the person seating us.
‘Isn’t it?’ I say.
It was hard to know what to expect before I arrived, but it’s certainly more opulent than I imagined it would be. I study the room as subtly as I can, but wherever I look, my mouth keeps dropping open in wonder. Birdcage chandeliers hang imposingly from the gilded ceiling and statues seem to leap out of the alcoves. And, as if the surroundings aren’t fancy enough, the tables are decked out with starched white linen with delicate chinaware laid on top. Once I sit down, I’m scared to move in case I knock something over. All in all, it oozes five-star sumptuousness.
After handing us menus the man tells us our waiter will be with us straightaway.
‘Oh, this sounds amazing,’ I say as I read what courses we’ve got coming up. Although the sandwiches all sound nice, it’s the scones and cakes I’m most looking forward to.
‘It really does. Good choice, Abi.’
Distracted by a cake stand full of the most exquisite-looking petits fours I’ve ever seen that’s being carried past our table, I’m about to say that I can’t take credit for it, with it being Joseph’s idea. Luckily I stop myself, remembering that Sian thinks this is one of my dreams.
‘I can’t believe I haven’t thought of doing it before,’ I say in all honesty. I mean, I might have needed Joseph to plant the idea in my mind, but it really is up my street. Tea and cake are two of my favourite things.
Our waiter comes over with a box of tea and asks us which we want. I order the Rose Congou and Sian the Russian Caravan, and after complimenting us on our selection he disappears.
‘That woman over there looks like that presenter off The One Show,’ says Sian, gasping.
I crane my neck, instantly seeing who Sian’s talking about. She does look like the woman off The One Show, but I don’t think it is her as I doubt she’d be taking selfies in quite such an obvious way. I think she’s just another tourist like us. Slightly disappointed, I snap my head back round again, trying to pretend that I come to fancy places like this all the time and I have no need to gawp at strangers or the surroundings.
Our waiter comes back over and delivers our individual tea pots, before another waiter arrives with our three-tiered sandwich-and-cake stand. I’m practically salivating as the waiter explains the fillings of the sandwiches and describes all the cakes. If I wasn’t in such a fancy-pants place I’d have been rude and dived straight in whilst he was talking.
‘Thank you,’ says Sian, as the waiter finishes.
We pause and smile up at him, and as he turns to go we’re both in there like a rocket. I desperately want to start on the scones, but I’ve paid fifty pounds for this so I’ve got to get my money’s worth and that means eating everything. I bite into a smoked-salmon sandwich and I can’t help closing my eyes – the meeting of the salmon and the lemon butter is delicious.
Taste buds satisfied with a mouthful of food, it’s time to get down to business; the all important prove-I-was-here photo.
I self-consciously pull the camera out of my handbag. I’d love to snap a quick selfie, but I’m always left with double chins and a ginormous face that would leave little room for Joseph to take in our surroundings. I’ll have to find someone else to take our photo. Perhaps I can ask a passing waiter. I try to catch one of their eyes as they go past, lifting my hand and whispering an excuse me. As usual when I try and get waiting staff’s attention, they don’t hear my meek, terribly polite, terribly apologetic voice.
‘What are you trying to do?’ asks Sian, stuffing a second sandwich finger into her mouth in one bite.
‘I want to get a photo of us here,’ I say feebly. I know we’ve got the whole of our afternoon tea slot to get our photo, but it’s the main reason we’re here. It’s not only to tick it off the list, but to flaunt it in Joseph’s face. I don’t think I’m going to be able to fully relax until it’s done.
Sian looks at me before looking back at the cake stand as if I’ve lost all sense of priorities.
‘I wanted a nice photo of us to pin on my mood board,’ I say, shrugging. ‘You know, to spur me on for the rest of the list.’
‘Excuse me,’ she says leaning over to the couple next to us. ‘Would you mind taking a photo of me and my friend?’
I shoot her an I-can’t-believe-you-just-did-that look.
The middle-aged woman looks at us and gives us a small smile.
‘Of course,’ she says, leaning in towards our table, ‘but only if you’ll take one of my husband and me with our camera after. We’ve been
dying to ask a waiter but didn’t dare.’
‘No problem,’ says Sian, pulling a face at me and reaching over to take my camera.
OK, perhaps she didn’t deserve my death stare, after all.
I smooth my hair down and push my shoulders back, before I hold up a tea cup and Sian theatrically puts a third sandwich finger into her mouth. The flash goes off and I get those multicoloured lights flickering in front of my eyes.
Sian reaches over and takes the couple’s camera and, as she gets them to pose, I review our photo and feel relieved that the shot is perfect. Perhaps not quite how I’d have framed it, but for once I don’t mind that we’re not centred as you can see a lot of the room behind us. There’s no doubting that we’re somewhere fancy.
Photo out of the way, I start to catch up on my sandwich allocation. We barely talk other than to ‘um and ooh’ through our food. We manage to decline an extra helping of sandwiches from our waiter – as delicious as they are, we’re saving room for cake.
I pick up a mini millefeuille and I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.
‘Can we do this every week?’ I ask.
‘I wish we could. It almost makes me want to learn to bake so I can do these myself,’ says Sian, examining her mini Bakewell tart intently.
‘I know. I watch those people on Bake Off and I can’t work out how they’re not the size of houses. I mean, if I could bake like that I’d be eating cakes for breakfast, lunch and tea.’
‘Me too. Perhaps it’s good for the waistline that I can only be arsed to bake a cake once in a blue moon.’
We finish the cakes we’ve got in our hands and peer curiously into the cake stand, trying to work out which to go for next. I select what looks like an orange iced ball, and Sian goes for some type of tiered sponge cake.
‘So Giles was asking if you were going to come along on the Snowdon trip.’
‘Me?’ she says, spraying a few crumbs of cake across the tablecloth. She immediately wipes them into her hand and sprinkles them onto her plate.
‘Yeah, it could be fun.’
‘Me, walk up a mountain? I don’t even have walking boots.’
‘Neither do I. We could go shopping for them together.’
I try to appeal to Sian’s passion for shoe shopping, but I doubt somehow that visiting outdoor shops is going to be as tempting as scouring our local Kurt Geiger outlet.
She raises an eyebrow at me and I realise I’ve got to try another approach.
‘It’ll be fun. We’re all staying in a bunkhouse at the bottom of the mountain and apparently there’s a log fire, and they’re all bringing lots of booze for the evening.’
I omit the part that I’ll probably have passed out in bed from exhaustion as soon as we walk through the door.
‘When is it?’ she asks.
‘The weekend of the tenth and eleventh of April.’
I don’t mention she’d have to take the Monday off work to travel back. Sian’s a local reporter and pretty much a workaholic. It’s difficult enough getting her to take time off at the weekend sometimes, and during the week it can be almost impossible. That’s why we’re here on a Tuesday, as they tend to be slow news days.
‘I think I might be covering the comedy festival, but I’ll check,’ she says.
‘Oh, is that that weekend?’
I feel momentarily torn between the hiking and the festival. Sian usually gives me her plus one tickets for events like that. They’re pretty much always VIP, meaning we can get up close and personal with the performers. I’m mentally weighing up being wet and muddy, climbing what might as well be Everest for all my mountaineering experience, versus hobnobbing with famous funny men. The scales are tipping in favour of the comedy, and I’m about to say bugger it, but I catch sight of a man who looks like Joseph and I’m reminded why I want to go to Wales in the first place.
‘I hope you can come,’ I say, mourning my potential loss of the free tickets if she can’t.
I dab the corner of my mouth with my napkin, before I go to stand up.
‘I’m going to pay a visit to the little girls’ room.’
‘See you in a minute,’ says Sian.
I watch as she takes another cake, and I take a mental snapshot of what’s left on the stand. Ever since an incident with a pack of chocolate fingers that went down very quickly when I was out of the room, I pay close attention to what food I’m leaving her with.
I’m trying to look subtly for the toilet, too scared to ask a waiter, when I spot another woman who looks like she knows where she’s going. I follow her into the pastel pink toilets and am reminded of a fondant fancy.
With cakes on the brain, I hurry through my visit, not wanting to leave Sian for any longer than necessary. I apply a quick coat of lip gloss and ruffle my hair to encourage a little bit of volume into it.
I take a moment before heading out the door to make sure that I’m not committing any heinous faux pas. Skirt not tucked into knickers – check. Tights pulled up sufficiently so as to not cause Nora Batty wrinkles – check. No toilet paper hanging from anywhere – check.
Confident that I’m good to go, I throw my hair back and walk out. I’m striding purposefully across the salon, noticing that Sian’s reaching into the cake stand again, when I catch sight of the man that looks like Joseph. I turn to look at him properly. My eyes must be playing tricks on me, but he really does look like him. In fact, the way he’s laughing and tipping his head back is uncanny. A waiter comes up to him and he rests his elbows on the table and folds his hands together. His signature move.
Oh, my God, it’s him! I come to an abrupt halt as a wave of panic hits me. Joseph is sitting a few metres away from where I’m standing.
As if sensing me he looks up, but despite having been desperate to see him for weeks, I’m too flustered to talk to him and I hurry back towards my table, crashing into someone as I go.
I realise that it’s a waiter – of course it is. And not only a waiter, but one carrying a silver tray of used teacups. He stumbles slightly and the cups rattle noisily on the tray. I watch in horror as he lunges like a juggler on a unicycle, trying to keep everything balanced. I close my eyes, bracing myself for the sound of smashing china, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the waiter coughs slightly before walking off back towards the kitchen. What a pro.
I feel hot with embarrassment at the scene I almost caused. I look over at Joseph to check if he’s seen the commotion and he’s looking straight at me. My muscles stiffen, waiting for the look of recognition, but he turns back to the woman he’s with and carries on his conversation.
I’m almost too shocked to move, but another waiter coming towards me with two cake stands is a good motivator. I might have avoided causing a scene like a Greek wedding a moment ago, but I’m not lucky enough to do it twice.
How did I not notice him sitting so close to me before? Damn my fear of looking round in case I looked like a tourist. But more to the point, what’s he doing here? His Facebook page gave me no indication that he was in the vicinity, not that I checked his page on my phone on the train on the way up or anything . . .
As I sit down, Sian places a scone on my plate without asking.
‘I got another round ordered whilst you were in the loo – without raisins, especially for you.’
I stare at the scone like my life depends on it, not fully appreciating Sian’s kind gesture. I’m not a particularly fussy eater but I hate raisins with a passion. I’m all for grapes, but there’s something about eating a fruit that’s been left out to shrivel and die that’s not right.
‘What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
I’m still not speaking and I’m not even preparing my scone.
‘Abi?’
‘Joseph’s here,’ I say in a whisper.
‘Joseph? What, your Joseph?’ says Sian, leaning into the table conspiratorially.
‘Yep,’ I say, sighing.
I can’t believe he’s here. I me
an, I know that we’re only here because of him, but of all the times for him to come.
‘Where?’ she says, looking round like a meerkat surveying the desert.
I put my hand up to the side of my face as if to shield me. ‘There. Look. Behind you, to the right.’
We’re treated to a view of the back of his head, and unfortunately for me, that means we’re facing his female companion, who I get to see in all her glory.
She, unlike me, looks like she belongs in the Ritz. Her brown hair is wrapped and pinned neatly on top of her head, with a grown-up fringe that frames her face perfectly. She’s dressed in a long-sleeved black dress overlaid with lace. Her ears sparkle from the diamond earrings dropping from her delicate earlobes and there’s a matching bracelet dangling off her wrist.
I look down at my electric-blue skater dress that I’d matched with tights and a black cardigan. I feel bright and showy rather than elegant and classy like her. I start to feel foolish for being here at all. Maybe it’s not enough to simply be here. Maybe I’m just not that type of woman.
‘Did he see you?’ says Sian, turning her head round to face me.
‘That’s the weird thing, I’m sure he looked right at me, but he didn’t even flinch. It’s not even like he was pretending not to have seen me, more like he didn’t.’
‘Maybe he didn’t recognise you with your new haircut.’
My hand instinctively goes up to my bob and I run my fingers through it.
‘Surely I can’t look that different?’
‘You do – it’s completely changed your look.’
My mind’s in a maelstrom as I try and work out if I’m going to be able to continue to sit here with Joseph so close to me.
‘Do you think I should go and speak to him? Thank him for bringing my box back?’
‘Ordinarily I’d say no, but it seems such a shame not to when you’re looking so good. I mean, how many times do you get to run into your ex after a break-up when you’re dressed to impress?’ says Sian, echoing what I’m thinking.
Only he’s with a woman. I stare absentmindedly at the cakes in front of me. My appetite has disappeared.
‘But look at his new girlfriend – she’s stunning and I don’t want to make an idiot of myself.’