Letters to a Love Rat

by Niamh Greene

  Love,

  Charlie

  P.S. I couldn’t help but notice that there were plastic bottles in the recycling, so I transferred them to the general waste bin where they belong.

  I put the letter down. I’ve already read it dozens of times. I’ve scrutinized every single word to try to decipher how I feel now that Charlie has finally contacted me. I should be ecstatic. I should be over the moon that my husband has come to his senses and wants to return home. But I don’t feel ecstatic. I don’t feel anything. I am completely numb.

  I close my eyes and try to see Charlie standing before me. Maybe if I can do that I’ll be able to feel something. Maybe then I’ll be overjoyed that my life is going back to how I knew it and everything will be normal again. I clench my eyes shut and try to concentrate. But it’s not Charlie’s face that appears from the darkness, it’s not his face I see: it’s David’s. Those huge brown eyes, floppy fringe and chipped tooth pop into my head before I can even think.

  I snap my eyes open. I can’t be thinking about David now. I have to concentrate on Charlie. My husband. But it’s hard when, for some bizarre reason, I can’t remember what he looks like. I know it must be my mind playing tricks on me, but I can’t see his face. I can’t remember the exact shade of his eyes. I can’t visualize how he walks or any of his mannerisms. I must know them all, but for the life of me I can’t recall even one. And that is freaking me out.

  Leaping up, I grab our wedding album from the shelf and shake the photos free so I can examine them. Dozens of pictures of Charlie and me looking happy and in love fall into my lap. I pick up one photo of us whirling giddily round the dance floor. Charlie’s face is wreathed in a huge smile and he’s gazing at me like I’m the only woman in the world for him. We look so graceful, as if we actually know what we’re doing. As if we’re perfect dance partners, the wind at our feet and the crowds cheering us on. I can remember that moment vividly now – I can almost feel Charlie’s arms firm against my back as he twirls me round, moving confidently and with ease, like he’s done it a million times before. At the time, I knew that he was loving every minute of it and I was trying hard to, even though a voice of doom kept hissing in my ear that I was sure to trip and end up flat on my face with my designer wedding dress round my ears. But from the photograph you can’t tell this – we looked the part. Practising our waltzing with Al had really paid off.

  That had all been Charlie’s idea. He wanted everything to go without a hitch on the big day. It was the one thing he and Al had actually agreed about. So when Al volunteered to teach us to dance like pros, Charlie jumped at the chance. I wasn’t so convinced. I would have preferred not to make such a big deal of the first-dance thing, and I told Al so when we met alone for coffee, without Charlie.

  ‘You have all the grace of an elephant, Molly,’ Al had said. ‘Someone has to make sure you don’t make a complete and utter fool of yourself.’

  ‘But can’t I just do what I always do?’ I’d asked.

  ‘What? You mean shuffle around a bit and look at the floor?’ Al looked horrified at the thought. ‘The eyes of everyone in that room will be on you, Molly. If you don’t practise you’ll be a laughing stock. Do you want to be a laughing stock?’

  ‘Um, no,’ I’d mumbled, feeling defensive.

  Surely my dancing wasn’t that bad? I mean, I wasn’t going to offend people, was I? Wouldn’t they be too busy admiring my beautiful dress to notice anything else anyway?

  But deep down inside I knew that, even though Al was being overly dramatic as usual, he had a point. We were having a big wedding and loads of people would be looking at me. I had to get it right. Like Al kept drumming into me, this wedding was a production and we couldn’t afford for any of it to be sloppy. People would expect us to twirl gracefully round the floor after the meal. We couldn’t disappoint them. But I was still reluctant. I hadn’t factored this into my endless list of things to do for the wedding and it was going to eat into more of my precious time. I had enough to do trying to deal with the musicians, florists and everything else. My head was spinning with all the balls I was trying to juggle at once. Learning to do the perfect waltz was way down on my list of priorities.

  ‘Do you really think we need to?’ I’d asked, hoping for some sort of reprieve.

  ‘Of course you need to!’ Al had insisted. ‘This moment will live for ever on DVD. FOR EVER. If you make a mess of it, you’ll never forget it, EVER. And neither will anyone else, believe me. People are still talking about Gary and Lucy’s wedding – for all the wrong reasons.’

  He’d looked at me meaningfully.

  Gary and Lucy’s wedding had been legendary. Gary had got really drunk on the champagne he’d been pouring down his neck since before the ceremony to calm his nerves, and during their first dance Lucy had had to practically drag him round the floor in a vice-like grip. Then he’d turned green and thrown up all over her one-off Swarovski-crystal-encrusted wedding dress. He’d had to be helped up to their bridal suite while Lucy sobbed hysterically in the ladies toilets and then got even drunker than Gary and made a pass at the DJ. The thought of something similar happening to us made my blood run cold.

  So I finally agreed that Al would teach Charlie and me some moves – moves guaranteed to have people wondering if we had Latin blood. Which is how, every Tuesday night for six weeks before the wedding, Charlie and I practised our first dance in Alastair’s living room.

  The first session was the worst. Even Charlie seemed a bit surprised by my two left feet. He had this really bemused expression on his face, as if he couldn’t believe that anyone could be such a bad dancer. He hadn’t a clue that I couldn’t really dance at all. But then I am very good at hiding it. When other people are bopping on the dance floor at nightclubs, I kind of sway about so you don’t really notice that I’m not actually moving my feet. Because it’s when I have to move my feet that the trouble starts.

  It began at a youth-club disco years ago, where I was shaking my stuff and thinking I was looking hot until I saw the boy of my dreams sniggering with his friends and I instinctively knew my Tiffany moves were the reason why. I’d been shaking my hair and spinning wildly to ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, sure I was dazzling him, when all the time he’d been laughing his head off at me. Then there was the night I got tipsy at my cousin’s wedding and Tanya convinced me to try a few Abba moves on the floor. I ended up being carted out of the wedding on a stretcher, with a suspected broken foot, then taken by ambulance to the ER, Tanya flirting with the medics all the way. It turned out I’d only sprained my ankle, but the doctor said it could have been much worse and I’d had a very lucky escape. Extended family members still bring it up every time I have the misfortune to bump into them. Apparently someone taped the entire thing and they’re still hoping it’ll get on Blunders on Camera.

  There was also the time work had a Saturday Night Fever disco for charity and I was roped into doing a John Travolta-style dance with everyone else. I tried just to do the pointing bit and keep my feet still, and I even thought I’d pulled it off until I saw the video on the company website a week later. I was still getting emails about it for months afterwards.

  So to say that I was nervous about the dancing is an understatement.

  Charlie, on the other hand, was a real dark horse. While I had been hiding my shameful secret from him, it turns out that he had a secret of his own: he was a natural mover. He had grace, he had rhythm, he even had good dance hair. Hair that moved gently as he swayed – unlike mine, which had a tendency to become uncontrollably frizzy if I was whirled around too much. Even Alastair was impressed with his poise.

  ‘Most straight men are useless on the dance floor,’ he whispered to me as we were taking a break, ‘but I have to admit, Charlie is almost good.’

  Coming from Al, this was a huge compliment. His standards are very high. He once won a ballroom-dancing competition, and he still takes his pink salsa suit out to stroke it every week.

  I was complet
ely mortified as I shuffled round the living room, bumping into Charlie and stamping all over his toes. I was never going to get the hang of it; it was completely pointless. But by lesson three, things had become a bit easier. I let Charlie take the lead and I relaxed into him, allowing him to guide me round. It was almost fun. I say ‘almost’ because I never let myself go entirely, just in case I started doing some Saturday Night Fever moves by mistake and made a holy show of myself all over again.

  Looking at the photos now, I try to remember the good times we had practising for that first waltz. I try to feel that special spark between us. We look really happy in almost every shot; there must have been something special between us. We look like the picture-perfect bride and groom. But I know we can’t have been – not really – not if everything fell apart so soon after we exchanged vows.

  I pick up the letter again. It’s there in black and white. Charlie misses me. He wants to come home. But he hasn’t explained why he left in the first place. He hasn’t apologized. He hasn’t said why he never answered any of my calls. He hasn’t begged for my forgiveness. I should be angry about that, I know. I should be furious that he walked out and now he wants to come back and pretend that nothing happened. That everything is fine. But I’m not angry. I’m far too calm. Maybe I’m in complete denial about everything. Maybe I should see a doctor. Or a shrink. Or maybe I should… have a drink. Just to focus my mind. Not to get so steaming drunk that I can blot everything out – that would be really immature. Just a small drink to help me loosen up and decide what to do.

  I’m not usually one to drink by myself. Unless I’m cooking – then I might have a little glass, just to set the mood, but that’s allowed. In fact, it’s almost expected. You chop and stir-fry things, you take a little sip of Pinot Noir. You stir-fry some more, you nibble on some crackers and cheese, just while the whole gourmet sensation you’re making is coming together. Then you have a second glass. It’s not as if I’m in the habit of drinking entire bottles of wine on my own on a regular basis. OK, so there was that time I drank a bottle and a half and Charlie found me snoring on the sofa when he came home from work, red wine drooling from my mouth and the stir-fry a soggy mess in the pan, but that was just the once. Maybe twice. But usually I wouldn’t dream of drinking alone. Drinking on your own is the first step towards serious alcoholism, and I’m not going down that road.

  An hour and a half later I feel a lot brighter. It’s amazing how the power of positive thinking can really change your frame of mind. OK, I may be a bit drunk. Just a teeny bit. I’m not staggering around the room or anything. Then again, that may be because I’m lying on the sofa. In a foetal position. But – and this is the really critical bit – the room isn’t moving when I close my eyes. So I am not officially drunk, just a bit tiddly, and that’s totally fine.

  I close my eyes just to check, and the room spins quite a lot. Maybe I’m a bit drunker than I thought. I try to remember how you’re supposed to work out if you’ve had too much alcohol. Count backwards as fast as you can? No, that’s the way to find out if you’re going senile early. Walking in a straight line – that’s the one. If I can walk in a straight line, I’m fine. I open one eye and look at the floor. Even trying to peel myself off the sofa seems like a huge effort. Trying to figure out if I can walk properly will probably send me over the edge.

  Then it strikes me. I know why I’m feeling so woozy: it’s because I haven’t eaten anything. That’s what’s making me so light-headed. Everyone knows you have to line your stomach or you’re asking for trouble, and I haven’t eaten much today – I was too busy at the Carla Ryan event. That’s bad. They’d never do that in a nice civilized European country like France or Italy. I should’ve had a few olives, maybe some baguette, just to soak up all the wine. Of course, that would require my having olives or baguette on the premises, and the chances of that are slim to none. But normally I wouldn’t dream of drinking without at least a full pack of crisps to keep me company. And salsa dip. God, I’m hungry. Maybe I have a bag of stale crisps somewhere. I’m thinking about where they could be when the phone rings.

  Instantly forgetting that I’m too drunk to stand, I leap off the sofa and stumble across the room to where my phone is vibrating and tinkling simultaneously on the window ledge. It’s Charlie, I just know it. He’s calling to explain everything. He’s already asked me if he can come back. Now he wants to beg for my forgiveness – he just forgot to write that part in the note. He’s going to explain it all to me, I’m going to remember how much I adore him and this nightmare is going to finish once and for all. The relief is enormous. I won’t be forced into making any life-changing decisions. I won’t have to think about whether the love between us was ever real, because this was all a horrible misunderstanding that we’ll both laugh about when we’re old and grey. At our golden wedding anniversary bash, surrounded by our hundreds of friends, family and well-wishers from all over the world, we’ll tell our grandchildren how Grandpa once played a trick on Granny by pretending to run out on her after a few weeks of marriage. He was such a joker, he kept it up for ages, but when he came back – oh, how we laughed. We laughed so hard we couldn’t stop. Then I’ll take out my false teeth and ask one of the grandkids to dip them into the punch the caterers have made, just to show what a great sense of humour I still have. It’ll be so funny.

  I grab the phone, but the number isn’t one I recognize. It’s not Charlie. Unless… unless he’s calling me from a public phone booth or a hotel somewhere. Unlikely, as he had a bit of a phobia about using public phones, but it’s not impossible. I snap it open, my fingers fumbling clumsily. This is as good a time as any to talk to him. Drinking has given me Dutch courage, so I may as well make good use of it.

  ‘Hello?’ I say breathlessly.

  ‘Is that Molly?’ a woman’s voice asks.

  ‘Yes.’ It’s not Charlie, not unless he’s had a sex change. I have no idea who it is.

  ‘Hi, Molly. I’m sorry to bother you at this late hour. This is Rita Hyde Hamilton.’

  My mind is blank.

  ‘Your wedding coordinator?’

  Now I remember. Rita works at the hotel where we had our wedding reception. She’s the lovely, super-organized person who helped us choose table settings and talked us through our menu choices. She was so helpful when we were making all the arrangements, and really patient when I couldn’t decide on the colour of the petals we wanted to scatter on the tables, and which gourmet chocolates to leave as gifts for the guests. It’s only a shame she was nowhere to be found on the day itself, when the soup was cold and the band turned up so late.

  ‘Hi, Rita,’ I say, trying to sound sober and as if I’m pleased to hear from her. She was always so kind, but the truth is I have no idea why she’s calling me.

  ‘Like I say, I’m sorry to call so late and interrupt you two lovebirds,’ she jokes, ‘but I just wanted to remind you that we’re expecting a cheque to settle your outstanding bill here at the hotel. If you could forward something to me in the post, I’d be really grateful. Those pesky accountants are breathing down my neck.’

  ‘Of course.’ I curse silently. ‘No problem.’

  This is really embarrassing. I was supposed to send her a cheque straight after we got back from honeymoon, but with everything that happened I forgot all about it.

  ‘Great!’ she says briskly, obviously embarrassed to have to remind me to pay for my own wedding. ‘So, how is married life anyway? You two are blissfully happy, no doubt!’

  ‘Of course!’ I say, the lie tripping off my tongue. ‘Things have never been better!’

  ‘I bet!’ she giggles. ‘All you newlyweds are the same, mooning over each other – you make me sick!’

  I laugh gaily along with her to show I get the joke before I make my excuses and hang up. If only she knew the truth. We’re not happy newlyweds mooning over each other; we’re a disaster zone. We barely made it through our honeymoon before Charlie scarpered into the night – or morning – I s
till don’t know when he left. I have no clue where he went or why, and have spent days trying to contact him while he ignores me completely. Now, just when my ex-boyfriend has turned up out of the blue and managed to completely confuse me, Charlie wants to come back, just like that. Like nothing ever happened. I slump back into the sofa and reach for the wine bottle. I feel like having another drink. I know it’s probably not a great idea, but maybe finishing off the second bottle of red might do the trick and help me forget about the mess that is my life. Because suddenly that’s all I want to do: forget.

  Julie’s Blog

  9.01 a.m.

  Feel sick. And hungover. Why did I drink so many cocktails last night? It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but now my head feels like it’s going to explode. I’ll kill UC One if she mentions Mr X’s birthday one more time. She’s already draped a Happy Birthday banner in the kitchenette to surprise him. She’s also bought blue balloons and plastic bugles, and has reminded us that a little birthday singalong might be ‘pleasant’. She’s even remembered to bring her harmonica to add to the ‘party atmosphere’. Thank God I remembered to pick up the cream cakes on the way in or she would have killed me.

  9.12 a.m.

  Flurry of emails from UCs about birthday celebrations for Mr X. UC Two has pointed out that the birthday banner is crooked. UC Three says she will eat the cakes but will under no circumstances blow a bugle. UC Four says he has consulted the HR manual and no one is legally obliged to partake in social activities that lie beyond the remit of their job specification: press-ganging people into social events is passive bullying and he will be staging a silent protest at his desk if anyone cares to join him. UC Five says he is happy to partake in the celebration, but only if he can have the jam doughnut and not the custard slice.

  9.16 a.m.

  UC One is so upset that people are not partaking enthusiastically that she has locked herself in the kitchenette with the banner, bugles and balloons. Can hear her sobbing from here.