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You Had Me at Hello

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by Mhairi McFarlane




  For Jenny

  Who I Found At University

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  So that’s it. Rachel and Ben’s story has been told.

  The Ultimate Celebrity Interview!

  The Gracious Hacienda Drinking Game

  Things We Don’t Need to See In Rom Coms Anymore

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  About Mischief

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Oh bloody hell, of all the luck …’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  I batted a particularly plucky and irrepressible wasp away from my Coke can. Ben was shielding his face with his hand in that way which only renders you more conspicuous.

  ‘Professor McDonald. You know, Egg McMuffin Head. I owed him an essay on Keats a week ago. Has he seen me?’

  I looked over. Across the afternoon-sun-dappled lawn, the professor had stopped in his tracks and was doing the full pointing-finger Lord Kitchener impression, even down to mouthing the word ‘YOU’.

  ‘Er. Yes.’

  Ben peered through a gap in his fingers at me.

  ‘Maybe yes or hell yes?’

  ‘Like a tweedy, portly, bald Scottish Scud missile has your exact coordinates and is ripping across the grass to take you out, yes.’

  ‘Right, OK, think, think …’ Ben muttered, looking up into the leaves of the tree we were sitting beneath.

  ‘Are you going to try to climb it? Because Professor McDonald looks the type to wait for the fire crews at dusk.’

  Ben’s eyes cast around at the detritus of lunch, and our bags on the ground, as if they contained an answer. I didn’t think an esteemed academic getting a face full of Karrimor rucksack was likely to help. His gaze came to rest on my right hand.

  ‘Can I borrow your ring?’

  ‘Sure. It’s not magical though.’ I twisted it off and handed it over.

  ‘Stand up?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Stand. Up.’

  I got to my feet, brushing the grass off my jeans. Ben balanced himself on one knee and held aloft a piece of gothicky silver jewellery I’d got for four quid at the student market. I started laughing.

  ‘Oh … you idiot …’

  Professor McDonald reached us.

  ‘Ben Morgan …!’

  ‘Sorry, sir, I’m just in the middle of something rather important here.’

  He turned back to me.

  ‘I know we’re twenty years old and the timing of this proposal might have been forced due to … external pressures. But, irrespective of this, you are amazing. I know I will never meet another woman I care about as much as you. This feeling just builds and builds …’

  Professor McDonald folded his arms, but incredibly, he was smiling. Unbelievable. The Ben chutzpah triumphed again.

  ‘Are you sure that feeling isn’t the revenge of the sweetcorn and tinned hotdog tortilla you and Kev made last night?’ I asked.

  ‘No! My God – you’ve taken me over. It’s my head, my heart, my gut …’

  ‘Careful now, lad, I wouldn’t go much further in the inventory,’ Professor McDonald said. ‘The weight of history is upon you. Think of the legacy. It’s got to inspire.’

  ‘Thanks, sir.’

  ‘You don’t need a wife, you need Imodium,’ I said.

  ‘I need you. What do you say? Marry me. A simple ceremony. Then you can move into my room. I’ve got an inflatable mattress and a stained towel you can fold up and use as a pillow. And Kev’s perfecting a patatas bravas recipe where you boil the potatoes in Heinz tomato soup.’

  ‘Lovely offer as it is, Ben. Sorry. No.’

  Ben turned towards Professor McDonald.

  ‘I’m going to need some compassionate leave.’

  1

  I get home slightly late, blown in the door by that special Manchester rain that manages to be both vertical and horizontal at the same time. I bring so much water into the house it feels as if the tide goes out and leaves me draped across the bottom of the stairs like a piece of seaweed.

  It’s a friendly, unassuming-looking place, I think. You could peg us as early thirty-something childless ‘professionals’ in a two-minute tour. Framed prints of Rhys’s musical heroes. Shabby chic with a bit more of the former than the latter. And dark blue gloss paint on the skirting boards that makes my mum sniff: ‘Looks a bit community centre project.’

  The house smells of dinner, spicy and warm, and yet there’s a definite chill in the air. I can sense Rhys is in a mood even before I set eyes on him. As I walk into the kitchen, something about the tension in his shoulders as he hovers over the stove makes it a certainty.

  ‘Evening, love,’ I say, pulling sodden hair out of my collar and unwinding my scarf. I’m shivering, but I have that weekend spring in my step. Everything’s a little easier to bear on a Friday. He grunts indistinctly, which could be a hello, but I don’t query it lest I be blamed for opening hostilities.

  ‘Did you get the tax disc?’ he asks.

  ‘Oh shit, I forgot.’

  Rhys whips round, knife dangling in his hand. It was a crime of passion, your honour. He hated tardiness when it came to DVLA paperwork.

  ‘I reminded you yesterday! It’s a day out now.’

  ‘Sorry, I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re not the one who has to drive the car illegally.’

  I’m also not the one who forgot to go last weekend, according to the reminder in his handwriting on the calendar. I don’t mention this. Objection: argumentative.

  ‘They tow them to the scrap yard, you know, even if they’re parked on the pavement. Zero tolerance. Don’t blame me when they crush it down to Noddy size and you’ve got to get buses.’ I have an image of myself in a blue nightcap with a bell on the end
of it.

  ‘Tomorrow morning. Don’t worry.’

  He turns back and continues hacking at a pepper that may or may not have my face on it. I remember that I have a sweetener and duck out to retrieve the bottle of red from the dripping Threshers bag.

  I pour two thumping glasses and say: ‘Cheers, Big Ears.’

  ‘Big Ears?’

  ‘Noddy. Never mind. How was your day?’

  ‘Same old.’

  Rhys works in graphic design for a marketing company. He hates it. He hates talking about it even more. He quite likes lurid tales from the front line of reporting on Manchester Crown Court trials, however.

  ‘Well today a man responded to the verdict of life sentence without parole with the immortal words: “This wrong-ass shit be whack.”’

  ‘Haha. And was it?’

  ‘Wrong-ass? No. He did kill a bunch of people.’

  ‘Can you put “wrong-ass shit” in the Manchester Evening News?’

  ‘Only with asterisks. I definitely had to euphemise the things his family were saying as “emotional shouts and cries from the public gallery”. The only word about the judge that wasn’t swearing was “old”.’

  Chuckling, Rhys carries his glass to the front room. I follow him.

  ‘I did some reception research about the music today,’ I say, sitting down. ‘Mum’s been on to me fretting that Margaret Drummond at cake club’s nephew had a DJ in a baseball cap who played “lewd and cacophonous things about humps and cracks” before the flower girls’ and page boys’ bedtimes.’

  ‘Sounds great. Can she get his number? Maybe lose the cap though.’

  ‘I thought we could have a live singer. There’s someone at work who hired this Elvis impersonator, Macclesfield Elvis. He sounds brilliant.’

  Rhys’s face darkens. ‘I don’t want some cheesy old fat fucker in Brylcreem singing “Love Me Tender”. We’re getting married at Manchester Town Hall, not the Little McWedding Chapel in Vegas.’

  I swallow this, even though it doesn’t go down easy. Forgive me for trying to make it fun.

  ‘Oh. OK. I thought it might be a laugh, you know, get everyone going. What were you thinking?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘Dunno.’

  His truculence, and a pointed look, tells me I might be missing something.

  ‘Unless … you want to play?’

  He pretends to consider this.

  ‘Yeah, ’spose we could. I’ll ask the lads.’

  Rhys’s band. Call them sub-Oasis and he’ll kill you. There are a lot of parkas and squabbles though. The thing we both know and never say is that he hoped his previous group, back in Sheffield, would take off, while this is a thirty-something hobby. I’ve always accepted sharing Rhys with his music. I just didn’t expect to have to on my wedding day.

  ‘You could do the first half an hour, maybe, and then the DJ can start after that.’

  Rhys makes a face.

  ‘I’m not getting everyone to rehearse and set up and then play for that long.’

  ‘All right, longer then, but it’s our wedding, not a gig.’

  I feel the storm clouds brewing and rolling, a thunderclap surely on its way. I know his temper, this type of argument, like the back of my hand.

  ‘I don’t want a DJ either,’ he adds.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’re always naff.’

  ‘You want to do all the music?’

  ‘We’ll do iPod compilations, Spotify, whatever. Put them on shuffle.’

  ‘OK.’

  I should let this go, try when he’s in a better mood, but I don’t.

  ‘We’ll have The Beatles and Abba and stuff for the older generation on there, though? They’re not going to get it if it’s all fuck-you-I-won’t-do-what-you-tell-me and blaring amps.’

  ‘“Dancing Queen”? No bloody way. Even if your cousin Alan wants to mince around to it.’ He purses his lips and makes a ‘flapping hands at nipple level’ Orville the Duck gesture that could be considered gratuitously provocative.

  ‘Why do you have to behave as if this is such a hassle?’

  ‘I thought you wanted to get married on our terms, in our way. We agreed.’

  ‘Yes, our terms. Not your terms,’ I say. ‘I want you to have a chance to talk to our friends and family. It’s a party, for everyone.’

  My eyes drifted to my engagement ring. Why were we getting married, again? A few months ago, we were tipsy on ouzo digestifs in a Greek restaurant, celebrating Rhys getting a decent bonus at work. It came up as one of the big things we could spend it on. We liked the idea of a bash, agreed it was probably ‘time’. There was no proposal, just Rhys topping up my glass and saying ‘Fuck it, why not, eh?’ and winking at me.

  It felt so secure, and right, and obvious a decision in that steamy, noisy dining room, that night. Watching the belly dancer dragging pensioners up to gyrate alongside her, laughing till our bellies hurt. I loved Rhys, and I suppose in my agreement was an acceptance of: well, who else am I going to marry? Yes, we lived with a grumbling undercurrent of dissatisfaction. But like the toad-speckles of mouldy damp in the far corner of the bathroom, it was going to be a lot of upheaval to fix, and we never quite got round to it.

  Though we’d waited long enough, I’d never really doubted we would formalise things. While Rhys still had the untamed hair and wore the eternal student uniform of grubby band t-shirts, distressed denim and All Stars, underneath it all, I knew he wanted the piece of paper before the kids. We called both sets of parents when we got home, ostensibly to share our joy, maybe also so we couldn’t go back on it when we’d sobered up. Not moonlight and sonatas but, as Rhys would say, life isn’t.

  Now I picture this day, supposedly the happiest day of our lives, full of compromises and swallowed irritation and Rhys being clubby and standoffish with his band mates, the way he was when I first met him, when being in his gang had been all my undeveloped heart muscle desired.

  ‘For how long is the band going to be the third person in this relationship? Are you going to be out at rehearsals when I’m home with a screaming baby?’

  Rhys pulls the wine glass from his lips.

  ‘Where’s that come from? What, I’ve got to be a different person, give up something I love, to be good enough for you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I just don’t think you playing should be getting in the way of us spending time together on our wedding day.’

  ‘Ha. We’ll have a lifetime together afterwards.’

  He says this as if it’s a sentence in Strangeways, with shower bumming, six a.m. exercise drills in the yard and smuggling coded messages to people on the outside. Won’t. Let. Me. Come. To. Pub …

  I take a deep breath, and feel a hard, heavy weight beneath my ribcage, a pain that I could try to dissolve with wine. It has worked in the past.

  ‘I’m not sure this wedding is a good idea.’

  It’s out. The nagging thought has bubbled up right through from subconscious to conscious and has continued onwards, leaving my mouth. I’m surprised I don’t want to take it back.

  Rhys shrugs.

  ‘I said to do a flit abroad. You wanted to do it here.’

  ‘No, I mean I don’t think getting married at the moment is a good idea.’

  ‘Well, it’s going to look pretty fucking weird if we call it off.’

  ‘That’s not a good enough reason to go through with it.’

  Give me a reason. Maybe I’m the one sending desperate messages in code. I realise that I’ve come to an understanding, woken up, and Rhys isn’t hearing the urgency. I’ve said the sort of thing we don’t say. Refusal to listen isn’t enough of a response.

  He gives an extravagant sigh, one full of unarticulated exhaustion at the terrible trials of living with me.

  ‘Whatever. You’ve been spoiling for a fight ever since you got home.’

  ‘No I haven’t!’

  ‘And now you’re going to sulk to try to force me into agreeing to some D
J who’ll play rubbish for you and your divvy friends when you’re pissed. Fine. Book it, do it all your way, I can’t be bothered to argue.’

  ‘Divvy?’

  Rhys takes a slug of wine, stands up.

  ‘I’m going to get on with dinner, then.’

  ‘Don’t you think the fact we can’t agree on this might be telling us something?’

  He sits again, heavily.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Rachel, don’t try to turn this into a drama, it’s been a long week. I haven’t got the energy for a tantrum.’

  I’m tired, too, but not from five days of work. I’m tired of the effort of pretending. We’re about to spend thousands of pounds on the pretence, in front of all of the people who know us best, and the prospect’s making me horribly queasy.

  The thing is, Rhys’s incomprehension is reasonable. His behaviour is business as usual. This is business as usual. It’s something in me that’s snapped. A piece of my machinery has finally worn out, the way a reliable appliance can keep running and running and then, one day, it doesn’t.

  ‘It’s not a good idea for us to get married, full stop,’ I say. ‘Because I’m not sure it’s even a good idea for us to be together. We’re not happy.’

  Rhys looks slightly stunned. Then his face closes, a mask of defiance again.

 

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