by Jenny Colgan
‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just wish we didn’t have to get up today.’
Graeme leaned over and kissed Issy on her lightly freckled nose. It all seemed to be going well. He was delighted she’d come back to him, if not that surprised. He was about to unleash the next stage in the campaign. By the time he came to getting her to give up the bakery, he was going to have a very grateful girlfriend indeed. And a lot of money, and more prestige at the firm. No wonder he was so cheerful.
‘I have a question for you,’ he said.
Issy smiled cheerfully. ‘Oh yes?’
‘Um … Well. Um.’ Issy looked up. Graeme was being uncharacteristically reticent. He was not, as a rule, one of life’s hemmers and hawers.
Graeme was putting it on, of course. He thought a show of shyness might go down well.
‘Well, I was thinking,’ he continued. ‘I mean, we seem to be getting on all right, don’t we?’
‘For the last five days, I suppose, yes,’ said Issy.
‘I was going to say, I really like having you here,’ said Graeme.
‘And I like being here,’ said Issy, a curious sensation – a mixture of happiness and nerves – stealing over her as she tried to fathom what he was getting at.
‘Well, I was going to say … and I’ve never asked anyone this before …’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you like to move in with me?’
Issy stared at Graeme in shock. Then she felt shocked that she was shocked. After all, it was absolutely everything she’d ever imagined. Everything she’d ever dreamed about – living with the man of her dreams, in his lovely flat, sharing his life, cooking, hanging out, chilling on the weekend, planning their future – here it was. She blinked.
‘What did you say?’ she asked again. This didn’t feel right. She should be ecstatic, bouncing with happiness. Why was her heart not leaping and pounding with joy? She was thirty-two years old and she loved Graeme, goddamnit, of course she did. Of course she did. And when she looked at him, his face was so excited; nervous too. She could see, as she very rarely could, what he must have looked like as a little boy.
Then she saw on his face again a slight puzzlement, as if he’d been expecting her (as indeed he was) to throw herself into his arms with sheer delight.
‘Um, I said,’ said Graeme, now stuttering slightly for real as he hadn’t got the anticipated reaction. ‘I said, would you like to come and live here? You could, I don’t know, sell the flat or rent it out or whatever …’
Issy realized she hadn’t even considered that. Her lovely flat! With its pink kitchen! OK, she didn’t spend much time there nowadays, but still. All the happy times she’d had with Helena; all the cosy evenings; the baking experiments that succeeded or otherwise; the times she’d spent poring over her relationship with Graeme and every tiny sign he gave out – she felt another pang, realizing that she’d missed doing exactly the same in return over Helena and Ashok, she’d been so immersed in the café – the pizza nights, the large bottle of pennies in the hallway that at one point Issy had thought she was going to have to break open in order to pay the Cupcake Café’s buildings insurance … all of those things. Gone for ever.
‘… or we could have a trial period …’
Graeme hadn’t been expecting this. He’d been expecting wild gratitude; excited plans; he’d anticipated having to tell her to slow down and stop measuring for curtains; not to think too much about marriage just yet; then being the joyful recipient of grateful sex, before explaining how he was also going to make her rich and release her from the shackles of her tiny shop, for which he was also expecting grateful sex. This look of consternation and air of distraction weren’t all what he had planned. He decided to play the hurt card.
‘Sorry,’ he said, making his eyes droopy and sad-looking. ‘Sorry, but … I might be wrong but I thought this was getting quite serious.’
Issy couldn’t bear to see him – her Graeme – looking sad. What was the matter with her? This was ridiculous. Here was Graeme, whom she loved; whom she’d dreamed of for so long; her heart-throb; her crush. He was offering her everything on a plate and here she was, being stupid and churlish; who on earth did she think she was? Issy rushed to his side and clung to him.
‘Sorry!’ she said. ‘Sorry! I was just – I was just so surprised I didn’t know what to think!’
Wait till you hear what else I’ve got up my sleeve, thought Graeme, pleased his tactics had worked. He returned her embrace gladly.
‘Can we … ? What about … ?’ attempted Issy.
Graeme stilled her mouth with a kiss. ‘I have to get to squash,’ he said. ‘Let’s talk through the details tomorrow,’ he added, smoothly, as if she was a prevaricating customer.
Pearl and Ben were laughing, Louis running ahead, as he picked her up from the bus stop. Pearl could see a tiny bit of Ben’s tightly coiled chest hair over the top of his shirt. Her mother had been haranguing her again, saying she’d move to her sister’s till Pearl had her man back, and that he couldn’t just drop in whenever he wanted … Was he going to be a man about it or not?
‘What would you think,’ she said, as casually as she was able, ‘about moving back in?’
Ben made a non-committal noise and immediately changed the subject, dropping her politely at her door with a peck on the cheek. It wasn’t quite what she’d been hoping for.
‘Mummy sad, Caline,’ announced Louis boldly at work.
‘Mummies do sometimes get sad, Louis,’ said Caroline, giving Pearl a sympathetic look that wasn’t terribly welcome, but better than nothing, Pearl supposed.
‘Doan be sad, Mummee! Mummee sad!’ Louis announced to Doti, who was coming in with the post.
‘Is she now?’ said Doti, crouching down so he was at Louis’s height. ‘Did you try giving her one of your special kisses?’
Louis nodded seriously then whispered, loudly, ‘Gave Louis kisses. But still sad!’
Doti shook his head. ‘Now that is a conundrum.’ He straightened up. ‘Maybe I could make Mummy happy and take her out for coffee some time.’
Pearl sniffed. ‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ she said, ‘I’m surrounded by coffee.’
‘I’ll go!’ said Caroline, then her hand flew to her mouth. ‘Uh, I mean, I’ll just be working quietly over here.’
They both ignored her.
‘Maybe a drink some time then?’
‘Maybe,’ said Pearl.
‘I knock off early.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Lunch?’ parried Doti. ‘Next Tuesday?’
Pearl affected to gaze out of the window. Issy, finally exasperated, popped her head up from down below.
‘She says yes!’ she hollered.
Issy went straight over to the flat after work. Helena was there, as was Ashok, whom Helena immediately dispatched to get coffee. Issy groaned. ‘No! No more coffee, please. Could you pick me up some Fanta? And some Hula Hoops?’
‘You are bad,’ said Helena, popping the kettle on. ‘So, how’s the new life with the old man? Fun?’
Issy threw her arms around her. ‘Thank you so much for the party,’ she said. ‘It was … it was amazing.’ I can’t thank you enough for doing it for me.’
‘You can actually,’ said Helena. ‘After the first four hundred times you thanked me on the night.’
‘OK, OK. But listen, guess what happened?’
Helena raised an extremely well-plucked eyebrow. She had been expecting something like this, and was worried Issy seemed so jittery. After all the trouble she’d gone to, to make sure Austin would be there, and then, of all things, Graeme turning up. She hoped Issy didn’t think she’d asked him. Although even a lunkhead like Graeme, Helena had to regretfully concede, was going to notice Issy’s good points sooner or later.
‘Go on then,’ she said.
‘Graeme’s asked me to move in with him!’
At this even Helena was surprised. Told her he loved her maybe; offered to let her mee
t his parents or be his official girlfriend. But living together was a big step; even when they’d been together a few months it had hardly seemed that serious, and Helena just didn’t see Graeme as the warm, naturally hospitable type. But then she’d thought Ashok was a shy, retiring sort rather than the most amazing man ever, so what did she know.
‘Well!’ she said, trying not to sound fake. ‘This is great!’
Helena also looked at her friend’s face. Her tone was upbeat but … was it real? Was she genuinely over the moon? Three months ago she would have been in paroxysms of joy, but now she seemed …
‘And you’re happy?’ said Helena, realizing with a wince that she sounded a little sharper than she’d intended to.
‘Um, shouldn’t I be?’ said Issy, fishing. ‘I mean, you know … it’s Graeme. Graeme. Who I’ve been mad about for ages and ages and ages and he’s asked me to move in with him.’
Helena paused to pour the tea. They both waited a long moment, fussing with cups and spoons, until Helena spoke up.
‘You know, you don’t have to. If you don’t feel like it. There’s plenty of time.’
‘But I do want to,’ said Issy, sounding agitated, as if she was trying to convince herself. ‘And there isn’t plenty of time, Lena, don’t pretend there is. I’m thirty-two. I’m not a child. I mean, everyone’s settling down, I must have looked at nine thousand baby photos the other night. And I want that, Lena. That’s what I want. A good man who loves me and wants to share my life and do all of that. I’m not a bad person to want that, am I?’
‘Of course not,’ said Helena. And it was true; that nice chap from the bank, well, he couldn’t be trusted to put his underpants on the right way round, never mind look after Issy, could he? And he already had a child to look after. Graeme was an earner, he was good-looking, he had no other baggage hanging over his head – by anyone’s standards he was a catch, of course he was.
And Issy was right, Helena had seen it happen a million times. Just because someone wasn’t absolutely perfect for you, you threw them over and expected someone better to come round the corner, but they didn’t always. Life just wasn’t like that. She knew too many friends and colleagues feeling marooned and terrified at forty, forty-one, and wishing with all their hearts they hadn’t thrown over Mr Nice but Not Quite Perfect when they were thirty-one. So he had taken a while to take Issy seriously – that didn’t make him a bad guy, did it?
‘It’s great,’ said Helena. ‘I’d propose a toast if I didn’t think you’d probably had enough booze this week.’
‘Stop nursing me.’
‘We had this woman in, younger than you, turned yellow, liver failure.’
‘Sharing a bottle of wine with Graeme is not liver failure.’
‘I’m just saying.’
But somehow it felt better to be back bickering. They finished their tea, though, in silence. Issy felt slightly embarrassed and a little crestfallen. She’d rather expected Helena to dive in with her usual alacrity, and say don’t be ridiculous, of course she couldn’t live with Graeme, she had to stay here and nothing would change and it would all be fine and there were a million fantastic guys and fantastic things waiting to happen, just around the corner. But Helena hadn’t said that. At all. Which meant that Issy was being a total idiot; of course this was the right thing to do. It was wonderful. And she was excited deep down, of course she was. It was natural to feel a little nervous, that was all.
Helena smiled at her, hopefully. ‘And, you know … well, just say no if this is all too sudden or anything like that, but, well …’
‘Spit it out,’ said Issy. It wasn’t like Helena to be nervous about anything.
‘Well,’ said Helena, ‘I might know someone who might like to rent your room.’
Issy raised her eyebrows.
‘Might he be a … doctor by any chance?’
Helena looked pink. ‘The doctors’ digs are horrendous, really awful. He was looking for a flat but your place is so nice and—’
Issy held up her hands. ‘You’ve been plotting this!!’
‘I haven’t, I swear.’ Helena was biting her lip to stop the grin from bubbling up.
‘And you think I would stand in the way of true love?’ said Issy.
‘Do you mean it?’ said Helena. ‘Oh my God! Oh my God! That’s brilliant! Oh my God! I’ll just phone him quickly! Ooh! Look at us!’ she announced. ‘The cohabitees! Oh my God!’
She kissed her erstwhile flatmate and rushed to the phone.
Issy couldn’t help contrasting how unbelievably thrilled Helena was with her own doubts. Almost imperceptibly, it felt like something was moving between them and their friendship; paper-thin, a crack that was opening up. She knew what this was like. When your friends had boyfriends, it was fine to discuss their plus points and shortcomings. But when the relationship became serious, then it was too late. Then you had to pretend they were totally perfect in every way in case they got married, and while it was nice to see your friends happy and everything, it did mean that the dynamic changed. And Issy was delighted to see Helena so happy, she was. But the dynamic had definitely changed. They were both moving on, that was all, she told herself.
They arranged to meet for drinks that night so Issy could pack up some of her stuff, and they went out and had a few glasses of hair of the dog and pretended it was just like the old days, but as one bottle turned into two, Helena put her cards down on the table.
‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why did you go back to him so fast?’
Issy looked up from where she’d been surreptitiously glancing at her phone – she’d texted to say she’d be a bit late, but hadn’t heard from him. She felt her face stiffen.
‘Well, because he’s great, and he’s available, and I really, really like him. You know that,’ she said.
‘But he picks you up and drops you whenever he feels like it. And coming back into your life like this … I mean, you don’t know what he’s up to.’
‘Why does he have to be up to anything?’ said Issy, feeling her face getting hot.
‘Well, you know, with my Ashok …’
‘Oh, yes, it’s fine with your Ashok, your perfect Ashok, oh, look at my gorgeous handsome doctor whom everybody loves and who adores me and I’m so in love, blah blah blah. But then when it’s Graeme you’re all snooty.’
‘I’m not snooty. I’m just saying, he’s put you through an awful lot of heartache and—’
‘And I’m not good enough to have someone love me the way Ashok loves you, is that what you’re saying? That it’s so unlikely that any man would want me that he has to have some sort of ulterior motive?’
Helena wasn’t used to seeing Issy so riled up.
‘I didn’t mean it like that …’
‘Really? That’s how it sounded. Or maybe you just think old Issy won’t answer back, is that it? That I’m completely spineless?’
‘No!’
‘Well, you got one thing right. I’m not completely spineless.’
And she got up and walked out of the bar.
Across town, Pearl was staring at Ben.
‘This isn’t fair,’ she said.
‘What?’ he said. Louis was happily playing with his trains at his feet. ‘I just came over to get your mother to stitch on a button.’
‘Hmm,’ said Pearl. The fact that Ben was sitting there shirtless, lit only by the newly acquired reading lamp her mother was using to pore over the sewing which Ben’s own mother could easily have done, or in fact Ben himself if he wasn’t so damn lazy … She knew his game.
‘Why don’t you two go out for a drink while I finish this,’ said Pearl’s mother, managing to smoke a cigarette and stitch a shirt at the same time, quite a feat. ‘Louis will be fine.’
‘Louis come have drink,’ said Louis, with one of his emphatic nods.
‘Bedtime,’ said Pearl, who would not have admitted it in a million years, but had been taken aback by Caroline’s shock that Louis normally went to bed at the same tim
e as she did and was trying to improve matters.
‘No no no no,’ said Louis. ‘No no no no. Fanks,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘No bed, fanks, Mummy.’
‘You go,’ said her mum. Louis looked like he might work himself up into a state if they hung about while he had to lie quietly in the corner. ‘I’ll see him off.’
‘I’ve got a T-shirt in my bag,’ said Ben. ‘Or I could just go like this.’
‘You can’t just go hot and cold on me all the time. And I have other options, you know!’
‘I know,’ said Ben. ‘Put that red dress on. The one that makes your hips sway.’
‘I will not,’ said Pearl. The last time she’d worn that dress out with Ben … well, she already had one extra mouth to feed.
He offered her his arm when they left the little flat. Pearl’s mother’s eyes were on them all the way, Louis vocalizing very loudly and clearly why he didn’t think his parents should be going out without him. Pearl didn’t take any notice.
‘What’s up, princess?’ said Graeme, as Issy got home. Issy looked at the ground.
‘Oh, girl stuff,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ said Graeme, who didn’t have the faintest idea what to do about girl stuff, and didn’t really care either. ‘Don’t worry about it. Come to bed for some boy stuff.’
‘OK,’ said Issy, although she hated to think of her friend going back to her house and the two of them having fallen out. Graeme stroked her dark curly hair.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Oh, and I thought … now we’re shacking up and everything … want to come and meet my mum some time?’