Sooo Not Looking For a Man: A witty, heart-warming and poignant, feel-good journey.

by CJ Morrow

  ‘Oh well…’ I toss my phone back into my handbag. ‘I won’t need to tell anyone what happened, will I? The whole bloody world knows now.’

  ‘There is that,’ Cat says, letting the words hang in the air.

  ‘Not much chance of us getting back together once he sees that…’

  ‘What?’ Cat snaps.

  ‘Well, after what I sang about him…’

  ‘You want to get back with him after what he did to you?’

  I can’t answer. I can’t say anything because the enormity of what has happened is only just starting to hit me. Me and Leeward, together for ten years and now it’s done, ruined in one day, over, finished, no going back.

  ‘He treated you like shit,’ Cat says.

  ‘No he didn’t,’ I say in a small voice.

  We pull onto Mum and Dad’s drive and Cat gets out and slams her door, before walking around the car and opening mine, she doesn’t speak as she waits for me to lumber out.

  The smell of Sunday dinner hits me like a warm wall as we go into Mum and Dad’s kitchen. My stomach rumbles its appreciation. Grimmy is already sitting at the dining table, waiting. I glance at the wall clock, it’s 12.30pm. Grimmy agrees to wait for her lunch until 1pm on a Sunday provided it’s a Sunday roast. So good of her.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then,’ Cat says without a hint of a smile.

  ‘Thank you.’ I smile at her. ‘For everything. For saving me this morning and sitting up there, and everything.’ I lean in and attempt to hug her, accidently slapping my now rock-hard, though still wet, cast against her in the process.

  ‘Okay, I’ll message you later.’ She calls a goodbye to Mum who’s checking something in the oven and leaves.

  ‘How did you get on?’ Mum asks, eyeing my cast.

  ‘It’s broken. Got to wait for a phone call later in the week for them to tell me what’s next.’

  ‘Ah. Do you need anything?’

  I shake my head. ‘Oh, Cat’s gone off with my bags.’

  ‘No, she brought them in, Dad’s just taken them up to your room.’

  My room. Oh God, my room. My childhood bedroom.

  ‘I’ll just go up and change my shoes.’

  I wrestle my feet into my trainers, quite a feat with only one hand. I would prefer to wear my slippers but they’re at home – no, not my home anymore – in the bedroom.

  I go to the toilet, again a trial with only one working hand as is washing and drying that hand. I stare at myself in the mirror; I look horrendous. Despite Cat’s valiant job at cleaning Susi’s paint job from my face there are still traces of mascara smeared around my eyes; I look panda-esque, but not in a cute way. But it’s the hair really, the blonde bird’s nest atop my head, engorged by extensions. I really don’t know what I’m going to do with it, it needs careful undoing and a good wash but really, how am I going to do that? I know Mum will help me but I don’t want to be a burden, I don’t want to be dependent on others for the simplest of things.

  I fish my phone out of my bag again and check for messages. None. I suppose people don’t know what to say. I go onto WhatsApp and check to see when Leeward was last active on it: twenty-minutes ago. Twenty-minutes ago and he hasn’t contacted me. Bastard. I go straight to Facebook and find the video again, some kind soul has posted it on my timeline, how generous. I add a comment that I hope everyone will see.

  Would be bride here. Just so you know, I’d had a lot to drink when I performed this as I was rather upset because my fiancé, the man I’d been with for ten years has been having an affair and I found out in the wedding car on the way to marry him. Needless to say, we didn’t get married. So, as you can see, I had justification for being upset. Sorry about the swearing, but ask yourself, how would you react? BTW the cheating liar’s name is Leeward Quinn.

  I tag him in the post, if I’m going to be shamed, so is he. It’s all his fault.

  Then, just to make sure, I post it on his timeline. He can suffer the same as me.

  ‘What’s the matter with your hair?’ Grimmy asks as we’re sat eating dinner, not that I’ve eaten very much, despite feeling hungry I don’t seem to be able to chew it and swallow it down.

  ‘Grimmy,’ Mum admonishes.

  ‘I was just asking why it’s like that. It looked very nice yesterday.’

  ‘Grammy,’ Dad says, frowning. It always sounds funny when Dad calls her Grammy, it’s a mash up of granny and mummy, which makes sense from his perspective. I suppose I’m just so used to calling her Grimmy.

  She shrugs and helps herself to the last of the gravy.

  I excuse myself before dessert is served, take a couple of painkillers and head up to my bedroom. I flop down onto the bed and pick up my phone. Several messages on Facebook, most kind, offering sympathy, agreeing with me about Leeward being a cheating liar, a few are from friends but most are from strangers.

  A WhatsApp pops up. It’s Leeward.

  Why did you post that on Facebook? Isn’t it bad enough you made such a fool of yourself without dragging me into it? There are several angry-face emojis following his words.

  No apology, no explanation from him, just an angry message, annoyed because I dragged him into it. I’m about to reply then have second thoughts. He can stew in it like I’ve had to. Ten minutes pass then he messages me again.

  Loads of arseholes are posting on my FB page. See what you’ve done!!! More angry-face emojis. I’m astonished as his nerve, the cheek of him.

  I don’t reply.

  I know you’ve seen my messages. I can see you’ve read them!!! Now he’s really annoyed with me. Ah, shame.

  I smile to myself. It’s a small revenge.

  Well??? He isn’t giving this up.

  You brought it all on yourself, I reply, adding several smiley faces.

  Bitch, he comes back instantly.

  I send several more smiley faces.

  He doesn’t reply again for another ten minutes and this time his message is cold and calculating.

  When you come round to collect your stuff, please post the key through the door after you’ve locked up.

  I’m too shocked to reply.

  I cry myself to sleep instead.

  When I wake up, snotty nosed and with a thumping headache, hours have passed. I check my phone but there are no more messages from Leeward. Nothing. But plenty more comments on Facebook, and most of them are on my side.

  I wonder where it all went wrong. When did he stop loving me? I think back over our years together, I thought we were happy. Maybe we’d settled into a rut after so long together but I thought it was a cosy, lovely rut. I still used to get a thrill when he came home from work after me and he’d walk through the door and smile his crooked smile, one eyebrow raised. I was so looking forward to being his wife.

  Where did it all go wrong? And when?

  ∞∞∞

  I’m watching TV alone downstairs, it’s just after midnight, Mum and Dad are in bed and Grimmy has gone back to her own home across the road. My phone pings. I grab it, then stop mid-air. Is it him? If it is, do I want to have another WhatsApp argument with him just before I go to bed? I hover over my phone for what seems a long time. Finally, I turn it over and read the message.

  It’s Cat asking if I want a lift to Leeward’s to pick up some more clothes. For a silly moment I think she’s been in touch with him, or he with her. But no, when I question, she just says she has some time tomorrow. She has a big car; I’ll be able to get most of my stuff in it. I accept.

  ∞∞∞

  ‘Do you think he’ll be there?’ Cat asks as we head off the next morning.

  ‘I don’t know, he’s usually at work at this time, but…’ What I don’t say, won’t say, is that we should be on our honeymoon now. New Zealand? I don’t even know where we were going. Will he have gone alone? Will he get a refund if not? Were we insured? Surely he bought holiday insurance. When we first got together, when we used to go on long weekends and even proper holidays, we had annual trav
el insurance, but there hasn’t been much point in recent years.

  ‘I hope he’s not there,’ Cat says.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Because I don’t know if I will be able to keep my mouth shut after what he’s done to you.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I imagine Cat tearing into Leeward. I almost hope he is there; she can be vicious and she’ll be far more rational than I am at the moment.

  He isn’t here. We let ourselves in and creep around the ground floor looking for him. The house is just as I left it on Saturday, before I found the evidence, before I learned the truth. Before my whole life turned to shit.

  Cat goes upstairs first, allegedly to use the loo, but I know she’s checking to see if he’s up there, maybe in bed, possibly not on his own. When she doesn’t react, I follow her up.

  ‘What do you want to take?’

  ‘Everything. All my clothes.’

  ‘O-k-a-y.’ Cat doesn’t sound too sure. ‘Is there room at Mum and Dad’s for all your clothes?’ She means it as a joke, but it’s a good point. I’ve already told Mum and Dad that I won’t be going back to Leeward, not that they were surprised.

  ‘They’ve offered to clear out the attic rooms for me.’

  ‘I see. Yeah. Right. That’s cool.’

  My brothers had the attic rooms, one each. They’re large and currently full of junk, suitcases and the like. There’s a small shower room and toilet up there too. The attic was converted when it became impractical for me and Cat to share a room and my brothers to share another. After the conversion my brothers, Sam and Mark, moved up there and Cat and I had our own rooms. My parents have suggested I use one room as a bedroom and the other as a lounge, that way I can have my friends round – I don’t have that many friends. It’s always been just me and Leeward.

  ‘They’ve said I can redecorate if I want.’

  ‘Oh, Lauren…’ Cat starts and I think she’s going to cry.

  ‘I know.’ I can’t cry anymore, I’m just so exhausted from it, I spent most of the night awake crying.

  ‘Mum and Dad are being really good about it, letting me move back in, at my age.’ I give a pathetic little shrug. ‘You’re all being good. Sam messaged me this morning, and Mark. And you, Cat, you’ve just been amazing. I do appreciate it, you giving me all your time. I really do.’

  Cat looks at me, her eyes narrowed, her mouth half open as though she’s about to say something profound. Then, apparently changing her mind, she clamps it shut. She turns and opens a wardrobe door instead.

  ‘I’ll get a suitcase,’ I say, heading off to the landing cupboard where we keep them on the top shelf. Only as I reach for the door do I realise I won’t be able to get them down with one hand. Not, I discover, that that will be a problem. ‘The bastard,’ I shout when I open the door. Cat comes running.

  ‘What? What’s he done?’

  ‘There should be four suitcases up there, we bought them years ago, you know, when we used to have holidays. Two large, two small, they matched. They’re gone.’ I turn and march back into the bedroom, yank open Leeward’s wardrobe doors. All his work clothes are still there, all those shirts I ironed, hanging in neat lines, but his new holiday shirts, short-sleeved and patterned, are gone. I start pulling open drawers, knowing instantly how many clothes he’s taken with him because I know only too well the contents of these drawers because it’s me who washes, irons and puts away his things every week. ‘He’s gone on my bloody honeymoon,’ I yell.

  ‘But why take all the suitcases?’ Cat asks, realising only after she’s spoken the words what the answer must be.

  Six

  I turn and tilt my head to one side. I smile at Cat even though smiling is last thing in the world I really want to do.

  ‘Because,’ I say, ‘He’s taken her on my bloody honeymoon, hasn’t he?’

  Cat goes back to the bedroom and flops down on the bed in shock. She shakes her head. ‘Surely not.’

  ‘What other explanation can there be? He doesn’t need four suitcases, does he?’

  ‘Well, maybe he thought he’d use the baggage allowance up. Since it was all paid for. He does like to get his money’s worth. Anyway, you don’t know he’s gone on your honeymoon.’ Cat really is clutching at straws.

  ‘He’s gone and he’s taken her. I’m telling you, he has.’ I flop down next to Cat and we sit in silence for a few minutes. Each of us lost in our own thoughts. I’m secretly hoping there’s a better explanation and he hasn’t gone off on my honeymoon, I’m trying to find some good in this, but I’m struggling.

  There’s a click of the front door and Cat and I jump up off the bed together. We listen, Cat alarmed and me grateful. I recognise the sound of a key in the front door. Leeward hasn’t gone anywhere. He’s still here. He hasn’t gone on my honeymoon with her, because if he had they would be long gone by now because the plane was leaving at dawn this morning.

  We wait, almost holding our breath while the door is opened and Leeward comes in, closing the door behind him. He must know we’re here because Cat’s car is on the drive. I tiptoe across to the window and look out. Yes! Leeward’s car is now parked behind Cat’s.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice calls up the stairs.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Cat mouths to me.

  It isn’t Leeward, the voice is darker and richer than Leeward’s.

  ‘Kenton,’ I hiss, before storming to the top of the stairs. ‘What are you doing here?’ I yell down at him.

  ‘Um, bringing Leeward’s car back,’ her offers, sounding pathetic.

  ‘Right.’ I stomp down the stairs as fast as my broken wrist, which throws me off balance, will allow. Cat is close behind me.

  ‘Bringing it back from where?’

  He shuffles a bit and looks over my shoulder at Cat.

  ‘Because he took them to the airport, didn’t you?’ Cat spits.

  Kenton is blushing, his face flushed with embarrassment beneath its usual dark olive colour – I’ve never seen him blush before.

  ‘Well?’ I’d fold my arms except one of them is tied around my neck, so I cross my good arm over it.

  ‘It was all arranged, before…’

  ‘Well, thanks for that, Kenton.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to have any part in it, but as I said, it was all arranged before. And he couldn’t get the money back, so he went.’

  ‘With her?’

  Kenton looks down at his shoes.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve told you already that I think he’s a bloody idiot to do that to you. I don’t agree with him and I can’t make excuses for him either, but he’s still my brother. Even if he is a fucking idiot.’ He turns his next question to Cat. ‘Would you desert Lauren if the situation was the other way around?’

  ‘It’s not though, is it? Because Lauren wouldn’t do that, would she, Kenton?’

  ‘Please, call me Ken.’

  ‘Oh shut up.’ Cat barges past Kenton and yanks open the front door. ‘I’ve got some IKEA bags in the car, I’ll bring them in to pack your stuff, Lauren.’ She marches out leaving the door open in her wake.

  ‘Look, I’m so, so sorry.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Who?’

  I stare at him now, narrowing my eyes. ‘Alfie?’

  ‘Nothing compared to you,’ he comes back too quickly, so smooth and well-practiced.

  ‘Huh, really.’ Cat is back, her arms full of crinkly, blue IKEA bags. She nudges Kenton out of the way and starts up the stairs. ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ she says, ‘We’re busy. Come on, Lauren.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ I ask, because I have to torment myself further.

  Kenton shrugs and looks away.

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know,’ Cat calls from halfway up the stairs.

  ‘New Zealand,’ his words are muttered into his chest as he keeps his head down.

  ‘Fab,’ I say, fighting back the tears that, so far since we’ve been here, have not manifested. I turn to go upstairs.<
br />
  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kenton offers again.

  ‘You keep saying that,’ Cat yells down at him. ‘Why don’t you fuck off out of here now, we’ve got work to do.’ Cat is mad, she must be, because she rarely swears. In fact, I think she’s sworn more in the last few days than she has in the last year.

  ‘Can I help?’

  It would be very useful if he could stay and help, because dragging those full bags back down the stairs and into the car is going to be all on Cat, and Kenton is a big, strong man.

  ‘No. Fuck off,’ Cat shouts while I say nothing. ‘And move that fucking car off the drive and out of my way too,’ she adds.

  ∞∞∞

  Two hours later and all my clothes are packed and in the car. Cat has a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead. She catches me staring as she swipes at it.

  ‘Won’t need to bother with the gym today,’ she says smiling. ‘That’s my workout done.’

  ‘I do appreciate it.’

  ‘I know you do. What are sisters for, eh?’

  ‘I suppose that’s what Kenton meant.’

  Cat narrows her eyes at me. ‘Don’t make excuses for those pair of shits.’ She takes my good hand. ‘Come on. Let’s see what else you want.’

  We wander through the house, I take a few things from the kitchen, things that I’ve bought myself or with Leeward. I have to admit that there isn’t much of me here; now I look with cynical eyes, this house is all Leeward. His taste, his style, right down to the black leather sofas, the black furniture, the darkest grey venetian blinds, so dark they might as well be black and the dark blackout curtains he insisted on. Even our bedding is dark grey striped, not the floral that I wanted.

  ‘This is his house,’ I muse. ‘There’s nothing of me here.’

  ‘Well, maybe, but you deserve a share. Is there anything else you want to take? Surely after all these years…’

  ‘No,’ I cut in, turning to leave. ‘Can you get the key off my key ring? He wants me to post it back through the letterbox after I’ve locked up.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Cat’s voice is super indignant. ‘You need to be able to come back if you want. You can’t just submit to his demands. Arrogant bastard.’