The Good, the Bad and the Dumped

by Jenny Colgan

  Comment, Chris: Posy, babies are only small.

  ‘Leah? Where have you been? I really really really really need someone to go out and get drunk with.’

  ‘Eer? Uh. Mm. Hang on. Stop that!’

  ‘Leah! Is someone else there?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Ehm, well . . .’

  ‘TELL ME!’

  ‘Who’s that?’ came an off-phone voice. A familiar off-phone voice.

  ‘Ssh! It’s Posy! I mean, it’s, uhm, my friend Posy, nobody you know.’

  Posy held the phone away from her head, then brought it back.

  ‘Gavin? Is that you?! Leah, is Gavin there?’

  ‘Uhm . . . no?’

  ‘Tell her I’m not here,’ came the voice. Posy rolled her eyes.

  ‘Well done, Gavin. What’s he doing there? What what what?’

  Leah giggled. ‘Uh, Posy, is this urgent?’

  ‘It might be.’

  Posy heard nuzzling noises on the phone and sighed.

  ‘No. No, Leah, it’s not urgent.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Leah. Posy hung up, shaking her head.

  ‘Fleur?’

  Fleur tsked. ‘Oh, there you are. What is it? Are you still moping around?’

  ‘I have . . . uh, yes, I am. Anyway, I have something to tell you. It’s quite big news, though - we should probably meet.’

  ‘Neh, I’m busy.’

  ‘How are you busy?’

  ‘OK, I’m not busy. But if you’re just about to say, blah blah I love Matt I love Almaric blah blah blah I’m so sad, you can probably just do it over the phone and I can just say Mmhmm and do other stuff.’

  ‘That’s . . . is that what you do?’

  ‘And Leah.’

  ‘It’s not what Leah does.’

  ‘Mmhmm, you know she’s designed pretty much her entire first collection while on the phone to you?’

  ‘She has not.’

  ‘So does she always put you on speakerphone or not?’

  ‘Fine, world’s most annoying sister,’ said Posy. ‘Fine. Did you know this, then? Mum and Dad weren’t married.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Oh, yeah, that,’ said Fleur.

  ‘What do you mean, “Oh, yeah, that”?’ said Posy in consternation. ‘What do you mean? You knew?!’

  ‘Uh, well . . . Mum told me not to tell you.’

  ‘She did what? How did this happen?’

  ‘Well, every time I’ve tried to tell you, you’ve been haring off on some stupid boy goose chase and it’s been impossible to talk.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Posy. ‘Well, that is a good reason. If only modern science would invent some kind of technology that allowed people to communicate even while they weren’t face-to-face. ’

  ‘You should go see him, you know. They’re all right, Marian and Ray.’

  ‘Have you been seeing them a lot?’

  ‘On and off. They help with money from time to time.’

  ‘They would. Oh, Fleur, I wish you’d told me.’

  ‘Well, I was hardly thinking about it every single day, was I? I don’t spend every hour of every day going, Oh dear, I wonder how this might affect Posy.’

  ‘You don’t spend a single second of any year thinking of how things might affect me!’

  ‘Well, get over it,’ said Fleur. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘When Mum kept on going on about how crap marriage was and how it was pointless and how I shouldn’t get married . . . yes, it matters a bit.’

  Fleur sighed. ‘OK. I’m sorry. Can I still be your bridesmaid? ’

  ‘Are you even listening? Matt’s moved out! I’m never getting married! She’s won!’

  ‘OK.’

  There was a pause. ‘You know,’ said Fleur, ‘I wish you’d answer Mum’s calls and emails. She really misses you. I think she’s . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Mum is never sorry about anything. Ever. She never does anything wrong.’

  ‘I’m just saying,’ said Fleur. ‘I’m just saying, I think she’s sorry.’

  Posy wandered round the flat. It seemed bigger without all the size-eleven trainers cluttering it up. Bigger, not better. Empty. Like her. Cut off and adrift. Alone. She had to get out. She had to.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Posy is _____________.

  ‘Fleur, have you heard from Posy?’

  ‘Who is this? Why are you calling me so early?’

  ‘Fleur: one, it’s Leah, whom you’ve seen twice a week since you were nine; and two, it’s quarter past eleven in the morning.’

  ‘Fascist,’ said Fleur.

  ‘Anyway, forget about that now. Have you heard from Posy?’

  ‘Yes,’ sniffed Fleur. ‘Can you imagine anyone more self-absorbed? ’

  Leah could, but she didn’t mention it. ‘Oh, that’s a relief,’ she said. ‘Only Gav mentioned she hasn’t been into work for a couple of days and was a bit worried about her.’

  ‘Who’s Gav?’ said Fleur. Then it struck her. ‘Her boss? You call her boss “Gav”? How? Why?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Leah, cursing herself.

  ‘Are you sleeping with him?’

  ‘So when did you hear from her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fleur sleepily. ‘A few days ago, I suppose. She was, like, totally upset when she found out Mum and Dad weren’t married.’

  ‘Your parents weren’t married?’

  ‘Hey, big furry deal, OK?’

  ‘No, I know, but your mum goes on about marriage to Posy all the time. She took it really seriously.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Fleur.

  ‘When you say a few days, what do you mean? Tuesday?’

  ‘Uh . . . no, it was the weekend.’

  ‘How would you know?’ said Leah sarcastically, then realised it was pointless. Fleur never got sarcasm. ‘So it was five days ago? And you haven’t seen her since?’

  ‘I’m not her babysitter,’ said Fleur sulkily. ‘Anyway, I was going to call her. I’ve had the most unfair electricity bill—’

  Leah hung up, starting to get worried. It wasn’t at all like Posy not to turn up to work. Gav had been very sweet about it - but then he was very sweet, she couldn’t believe how lovely he was. She was trying not to think about it, but she loved his hunky Australian shoulders and his funny accent and . . . well, no, she had to focus. She’d called Posy’s number over and over again, to absolutely no avail. Posy hadn’t updated her Facebook page for ages, which was very very unlike her.

  Leah took a deep breath. Oh God, Posy. She was the worst person for getting into scrapes. On the other hand, if it hadn’t been for her, she’d never have met . . . She thought back fondly to the previous evening. Gavin had admired her hat without even asking why it was made of twigs, then, as they’d got into bed, held her head in his hands, kissed her softly on the forehead and said, ‘Leah, you are healing me.’ The thought was keeping her warm, even as she started to worry.

  ‘Hello? Dr Fairweather?’

  Posy’s mum sounded brusque and distracted. ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Leah, Posy’s friend.’

  ‘Ah. Have you seen her? She called, had the most ridiculous hysterics then wouldn’t pick up the phone to me. It’s the most absurdly passive-aggressive behaviour. So of course I’ve stopped ringing.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Leah. Her own mum was a midwife - sweet, kind and capable and they liked to go to antiques shops together on her days off. Sure, they’d had their run-ins when Leah had first started wearing ripped tights as trousers, but now they spoke to each other most days. She would never understand Posy and Dr Fairweather, had spent her childhood terrified of the woman.

  ‘So you have no idea where she is?’

  ‘Sulking somewhere, I expect. If you have children, Leah - and it’s not for everyone—’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Leah.

  ‘Remember,
they can be absolutely thankless. Utterly so.’

  ‘OK,’ said Leah. ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Jonquil, a tremble appearing in her voice. ‘Wait. Call me the second you know where she is, OK? And tell her . . . tell her . . .’ Her voice cracked. ‘Just tell her to call me, will you, Leah, darling? Will you do that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Leah, grudgingly.

  Right, thought Leah. Desperate times called for desperate measures. She was going to have to hack Posy’s Facebook account. See if there was anything in her mailbox that could give a clue as to what was up. This was where she had met all these men, she must be able to find them from here.

  She fired up her computer. Posy’s login was her name, she knew that. But her password? Posy was such a doofus, it was probaby just ‘Password’. She tried that. No. Password1? No.

  OK. So maybe she wasn’t such a doofus as all that. Leah looked at it again.

  Posy. No. Almaric. No. InsuranceHoldings. No. What was Matt’s car called again? Hmm. Matt. No. Pepe. No.

  Aha! Posy’s favourite band of all time? MortenHarket. No. Hmm, they’d never had a dog. She tried the names of everyone they knew, everything Posy had done. Pottery. Sports. Shetland. Wales. Elephant.

  What was it? Leah thought again and again through Posy’s life. Indecision? Saab? SevenForAllMankind? FacebookFriend? Daffodils? Grazia? Fishfingers? SexandtheCity? DirtyDancing? Robertdowneyjr? RobertDowneyJr? RobertDowneyJunior?

  What did Posy have? What did she like? What did she want? LotteryWin? Bentley? HollandPark? Size10? Mummy? Hampstead? Watermelon? Bananarama? Spa? Chips? SpaChips?

  SpaChips? Leah sighed. She’d tried calling Matt, of course, but she couldn’t get hold of him either. Their house phone was ringing off the hook and their message box was full, which implied that neither of them were there. She hadn’t been down to see; Matt would have answered if he’d been there in case she was a client. It was very mysterious.

  ProtectandPerfect? Gap? Marketing? ILoveMarketing? IHateMarketing? ThirtyTwo? Babies? Timewasting? Sesame-Street?

  Posy loved Sesame Street. Oh, this just wasn’t working at all. But if she could get in, Leah thought, she would surely find a clue as to where Posy had gone.

  Twiglets. Sanddunes. Yellow. Christmas. Kosher. Kosher-Christmas.

  Oh, Posy, thought Leah. What do you care about? Really? Truly? What do you want?

  She typed it in very slowly.

  T-R-U-E-L-O-V-E.

  Ping.

  You have fourteen new messages.

  Leah scanned through the emails - most of them circulars, nonsense, or from her. The unopened messages went back three days. Three days?? How could that be? For the first time, Leah started to feel worried. Posy was always on top of her email; she was a total addict. She’d even checked it up on the Shetlands. And it had been three days since she’d been in to work . . . where was she? Where could she be? She glanced at Posy’s status update. It simply said: Posy Fairweather is______. Normally this was the kind of thing people stuck in when they couldn’t be bothered. But in Posy’s case, did it mean something else? Something subliminal, a clue?

  Leah sat back, not sure what to think. She should start opening the mail, she supposed. Suddenly the computer made a little purring noise and she jumped. A small box opened in the lower right-hand side of the page. It was the instant messaging box jumping up.

  ‘Posy?’ it said. ‘Are you there?’

  It was Matt. He must have seen she was online. Oh my God, he thought she was Posy.

  - Hello? she typed tentatively.

  - Posy, thank God, where u been? Been worried sick.

  Leah couldn’t help herself. Just this once. Just so she knew, so Posy knew. Once and for all. With a horrible sense of foreboding she typed:

  - Did you miss me?

  Then she sat back, heart pounding.

  The reply was a little while in coming.

  - Uh, yeah. Where have you been?

  - Thinking. Where you?

  Leah wondered if Posy would already know where he was.

  - Look, it’s just . . . I’m staying with a friend.

  Leah’s eyes blinked in fury. He couldn’t have. How dare he? Didn’t he know how shattered she was?

  - YOU MOVED IN WITH THAT FLOOZY from the GYM???!

  - No, Roddy.

  - Well, sod that, it’s Leah, not Posy.

  - What???

  Leah shook her head and rang him on his mobile. He didn’t pick up.

  - Answer your phone!

  - I can’t, I’m in some kind of sugar warehouse, there’s no reception. Who is this?

  - It’s Leah. I’m looking for Posy.

  - Is she hiding in her computer?

  - This isn’t funny. Nobody’s seen her. Or heard from her.

  - That’s impossible. Posy never shuts up.

  - Not this time.

  There was a long break. Then Leah’s phone rang.

  ‘I’m hanging over the balcony.’

  ‘Of your luxury love pad?’

  Matt sighed. ‘No, in fact. Melissa asked me to move in with her and offered to back starting my own business.’

  ‘Did she now?’ said Leah.

  ‘I said no, Leah. For Christ’s sake. This is me.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Leah.

  ‘So . . . what about Posy?’

  Leah paused. ‘I think she was missing you so much,’ she said quietly.

  ‘She kept leaving,’ said Matt, his voice showing his pain.

  ‘Matt,’ she said. ‘Remember how you two met?’

  Matt didn’t even like using the computer much. Sitting down in front of a screen all day was a mugs’ game that made your thighs spread, in his experience. But he’d signed up to Facebook so he could see his friend’s wedding photos and had found it quite useful to keep abreast of his chums, though he certainly wasn’t going to spend his life thinking up witty status updates or quippy comments; he had far too much to do. So he was surprised one day, two years ago, when a message popped into his inbox from out of the blue.

  ‘Hello!’ it said. ‘Are you the Matt Farmer I know? Because I realised that a) I never returned that blue shirt you lent me and, b) I let a dog sleep on it once. However I was just cleaning out my wardrobes after a horrible break-up and considering setting everything on fire, so I thought I’d give you a chance to reclaim it. If you would like it. Posy. P.S.: if you are not the Matt Farmer I know I think you should have a lovely day.’

  It had made him smile and, for want of something better to do, he had clicked through on to her profile. A laughing girl with bouncing hair and dark eyes was grinning at the camera. She was single . . . in London . . . two years younger than him . . . had loads of friends on her profile. Posy Fairweather is wondering where she can get hold of a flame thrower.

  He had smiled and typed back:

  ‘Hello there. No, I’m not the one you know, I think it’s quite a common name. Are you sure you need to burn everything? Oxfam are quite helpful.’

  The reply shot back.

  ‘Have you never broken up with anyone? I don’t want happy reminders of him being spread to all corners of the world. Nope. Sorry. I promise you I am not normally a crazy person but I am making an exception for one day only and cathartically setting it all on fire.’

  ‘Has he got any cool stuff I could rescue first?’

  ‘Just me.’

  And, amazingly, they had started chatting. After a month or so, mention of the other chap (Posy had never ever mentioned his name) had died down, and he’d started to look forward to hearing what she was up to every day. Inevitably, it was soon mooted that they meet.

  ‘What would be worse?’ Posy had mused (he had kept all of her emails, reread them endlessly). ‘Meeting alone in a pub and then both of us having to run to the bathroom to be instantly sick, or meeting with lots of people and then have them staring at us all night and making unkind remarks behind our backs.’

  ‘That depends,’ he’d said, ‘
on whether you think I’m a rapist - dodgy to be on my own with - or a con man - dodgy to be around lots of your friends with.’

  ‘What about a rapey con man?’

  ‘They only like to meet in City bars.’

  He’d always been puzzled by the size of Posy’s LOL after that.

  It was summertime, gorgeous. They’d decided to meet on the South Bank in the end - ‘There are so many people,’ said Posy, ‘that when I see you and have to spew and vomit I can quickly hide behind a tree.’

  ‘Yes,’ Matt had agreed. ‘And when I find you really tedious and boring I can do free running to get me out of there.’

  ‘And if it’s really terrible I can just throw myself into the river.’

  ‘Or in front of a train.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ Leah had said to Posy. ‘The last nine people I met through online dating were awful. Don’t go.’

  ‘You’re just grumpy because they were all five-foot-four. You didn’t give them a chance.’

  ‘I couldn’t bend down low enough to hear them!’

  ‘Well, he’s a personal trainer. At least he’s going to be fit.’

  ‘Very small men can be fit!’

  ‘Stop being heightist.’

  ‘You say that when you get home tonight with a crook in your neck and you’ve had to take off your shoes and he’s spent all night telling you that good things come in small packages.’

  ‘You’re meant to be calming me down, not totally freaking me out.’

  ‘You’ve been talking to this guy online for two months.’

  ‘Uh huh?’

  ‘So when you find out he’s a tiny little small person, you’re going to be so super-disappointed.’

  But from the moment Posy had tentatively come down the steps off Waterloo Bridge, to see what she instantly knew was him (although he had hardly any pics on his page and a horribly cheesy one his gym had taken to put on their site), she hadn’t felt nervous at all. Or disappointed. He was standing there, in jeans and a stripy polo shirt. He looked completely normal. He didn’t look dark and dangerous, or big and hippyish, or passionately poetic. He just looked . . .