What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?

by Claire Allan

  So no, none of that was something that I wanted to share with Paddy, especially not a few months into a relationship when I wasn’t quite sure where we were headed.

  I saved those revelations until after proposal number two, when I decided to tell him how I was allergic to weddings. I told him how I had always detested the idea of a big wedding but how Ian had convinced me there was something wild and very romantic about eloping to Gretna Green. We were just out of college – feeling like we were standing on the edge of our futures. It was a strange time – there was so much we wanted to do and that we felt we could do. But I suppose I was a little scared of all the change. I had come into my own at university – it had been a time free of any real responsibility besides making it to lectures and getting my assignments in on time. The rest of the responsibilities centred around making it to the Union bar on time and spending time with Ian. We had become inseparable and obsessed with each other in the way you can only when you are nineteen and think you know everything. So, when he slipped the ring-pull off a can of Harp on my little finger (it wouldn’t fit on my ring finger) and said, on graduation night, that we should do something wild, I agreed.

  And I found myself, scared of changing and scared of staying the same, buying a cotton dress in M&S and sneaking away to get married without telling a soul.

  Chapter nineteen

  Kitty

  The part of me that wanted to phone Mark was overrun by the part of me that hated him and wanted to make him feel even a tenth of what I was feeling. I came to that conclusion at around 3.45a.m. when I couldn’t sleep and had wandered out to the garden to sit on the decking. It was a cool night and I wrapped my dressing-gown tight around me.

  Just a few weeks before, Mark and I had sat out here until the wee small hours, drinking andtalking. We’d had The Baby Conversation (which we always referred to in a deep, serious voice before laughing at each other).

  We would consider it in the following year, we decided. But I’d start taking folic acid there and then, just in case. If we decided to leave the condoms in the drawer now and again that would be okay. We felt, we decided, secure enough to take the next step in our relationship.

  My business was well established and had survived the worst of the recession so far. I’d brought in a few less exclusive lines which met pinched budgets, but I still gave every bride the star treatment. Mark had said work was going well – he was pretty sure he would survive any cull which might or might not come. I didn’t realise as he talked that I was the one who was going to be a victim of a cull in the very near future.

  Having kids had been one of those things we’d just kept putting off. Whenever we had The Baby Conversation we would both inevitably say we didn’t feel ready just yet. I didn’t feel old enough. I enjoyed my life. I suppose I kept waiting for that one morning when I would wake up and just know it was the right time. That time hadn’t come – but I was starting to become increasingly aware that I wasn’t getting any younger. The day I found a stray grey eyebrow-hair was the day I finally freaked out and the day we had the big conversation. It was hard to think it was just a few weeks ago.

  I had called Mark at work and, because he is a man, he didn’t seem to get why one stray eyebrow-hair would have turned me into a screaming harpy, but there I was, my normally cool and calm exterior all but gone, telling him that we absolutely and completely had to talk that evening.

  I had stormed about that day in very bad form, if I remember correctly. Rose had bought me an emergency Flake and a hot chocolate from Starbucks and I had glared at them. A stray grey hair was one thing.Middle-aged spread was another step further.

  “I think I want a baby,” I had said to Rose, as calmly as I would have said ‘I think I’ll have a tuna sandwich for lunch’.

  She didn’t miss a beat but carried on working at the sewing machine, just glancing up. “That’s nice,” she said. “A baby would be nice.”

  “How do you know you’re ready though?” I asked, thinking of the grey eyebrow-hair and the wrinkles which were starting to appear around my eyes. When I looked at myself in the mirror these days I was often shocked to see a proper grown-up staring back.

  “Oh, I don’t know, darling,” she said. “I only knew I was ready when your daddy asked me to marry him and I knew I was inheriting you and Ivy. And you were mostly reared. It’s a different set of circumstances. I’ve never had one of my own – never really felt the need. Do you feel the need?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe I’m just afraid that if I don’t I’ll miss out on something?”

  “Have you and Mark talked about it?”

  I nodded and told her about The Baby Conversation – how we had it first time after we were married and seemed to have it every six months or so – always granting a stay of execution to the stock of condoms in the drawer beside our bed. There was always a reason. The business was taking off. We had a holiday planned. We wanted to buy a bigger house. We were too tired. We had stuff we wanted to do. It was just so heart-stoppingly scary.

  “But we can’t keep putting it off forever,” I mused.

  “But don’t just do it because you think it is something you should be doing. That’s no reason to become a parent. I love you and your sister very much and I’m glad I had my parenting experience with the pair of you – but it wasn’t just something else I ticked off a list. When I first met your daddy, I had to think long and hard about whether or not I wanted to take on two teenagers who, from what he told me, were prone to teenage tantrums.”

  I grimaced and stuck my tongue out at her, remembering the first time we had met and how I had refused to acknowledge her presence in anyway.

  “But you are glad you did, though, aren’t you?”

  She smiled. “Of course I am – but there was a time when I wondered if I was wise . . . Look, pet, all I’m saying is, being a parent changes your life forever. So be sure your life is ready for a change – both you and Mark.”

  “You’re right,” I had said and that was how the conversation followed that evening.

  I had felt calmer when I got home. I had stopped and bought our favourite bottle of wine and cooked steak and garlic potatoes for tea, which we ate on the decking in not too uncomfortable silence. Mark hadn’t asked how I was when he walked through the door. I think perhaps he was afraid to, considering the fact I had screamed at him down the phone earlier and ominously demanded a talk. He had simply commented on the delicious cooking smells and thanked me for the wine while offering to pour me a glass. I nodded and smiled and for some reason I hadn’t launched right into the big talk either.

  In fact we had talked about home improvements and a holiday (Italy, we decided) first before the silence kicked in properly and we looked at each other, each waiting for the other to start.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” I started.

  “None of us are,” he said, sipping from his glass and topping mine up.

  “But remember that scene in When Harry Met Sally, when Sally tells Harry how Charlie Chaplin had babies in his seventies or something? It’s different for men.”

  “I don’t want to be changing nappies when I’m in my seventies,” Mark had smiled.

  “Do you have any feelings about doing it in your thirties?” I asked.

  He paused, a small smile creeping across his face as he looked at me: “I think I would like that.”

  So we had talked on – and planned that once we got the Italy trip over and done with – which we were dubbing our final fling – we would start on the baby-making proper.

  We never even booked the holiday. And we sure as hell didn’t get as far as the baby-making.

  Sitting on the decking now, in the very early morning, listening to the very rare car pass by and watching the first streaks of light start to rise in the sky, I wondered was that what broke us?

  When he had smiled as we talked about having a baby was he really thinking about his other woman? Was he already planning his escape route? Did h
e really forget those holiday brochures in work, or had he never really picked them up to begin with because he knew he would be leaving. When he was quiet – those few times I had noticed him staring into space and reckoned he was probably thinking of something very mundane like how Jeremy Clarkson is a twat – was he thinking of her? Was he thinking of leaving me? Was he wondering what clothes he would take with him? What he would write in his note? Where he would go and who he would go with?

  I wanted to know the answers, but at the same time I didn’t want to know. And that sympathy I felt when I had listened to his phone message – that sympathy which had made me want to run straight to him and tell him I loved him and no matter what we would be okay – well, that sympathy just disappeared into the shadows.

  When the sun rose, and I woke on the sofa in the living room looking out at the garden, things seemed a little clearer. I picked up the phone and first of all called Rose to tell her I would be a little late. I lied, which made me feel guilty, saying I was still feeling the after-effects of my migraine and needed a little space to myself and she didn’t question it.

  “Of course, pet,” she said. “You know, you shouldn’t take it all to heart. Your mother can be insensitive at times. And Ivy always was one to fly off the handle.”

  I hung up, feeling guilty that in the hours since Mark’s message had registered on my family-crisis radar – I hadn’t given a flying fig or even thought about my mother or Ivy.

  Then I took a deep breath and lifted the phone again and dialled another number, impatiently waiting for the man on the other end to answer. His voice sounded sleepy, but not so sleepy that he didn’t immediately wake up on hearing my voice.

  “I was hoping you’d call,” he said.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call last night. My head was turned. I just didn’t know what to think.”

  “You’ve called now,” he said pausing, waiting for me to make the next move.

  “Can we meet up?”

  “Of course we can. Starbucks in an hour?”

  “Please,” I said, hanging up and feeling myself shake. I’d grab something to eat. That would bring me round. Then I would go and have a shower.

  And then I would go and meet my husband’s best friend and ask him what the hell I should do about the husband who wanted to ‘explain’.

  James got it, I suppose. He knew what it was like to feel abandoned. Not that he had been in love with Mark. Not even slightly. But he had been his friend and he had been left without proper explanation too and he was just as confused about the whole situation as I was – albeit in a more dignified manner.

  I’m pretty sure he had never lay about the floor sobbing to sad songs and that he didn’t look at old photos of them together and wonder where it all went wrong.

  Then again, things would be different for James and Mark, wouldn’t they? I was pretty sure, now thatMark was back, that he and James would pick up exactly where they had left off, maybe after a cross word or two. James would probably call Mark the “c” word (you know, the bad one) and Mark would offer to buy him a pint and they would be back to their usual selves by last orders.

  But even though that thought made me feel quite jealous, and if the truth be told a wee bit sick at times, at that precise moment James was the only person who could truly empathise with what I was going through.

  I showered and dressed, grabbed my bag and keys and left.

  James was sitting at the back of the coffee shop, stirring his coffee with one of those little wooden sticks they give you. A second coffee, which I assumed was mine, sat opposite him. I sighed. I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him that coffee was not my thing and really I only ever went to Starbucks for the chocolate coin.

  He looked nervous. It was a warm morning but he was wearing a jumper and a heavy jacket and was hunched over the table. He looked tired as I watched him sit back and sip from hisdrink. Sitting down opposite him I noted the look in his eyes and realised I must be looking equally tired and nervous.

  “So has he been in touch then?” he said, pushing the second coffee towards me.

  He looked so nervous I decided to fake it and drink the coffee like it was my favourite thing ever – taking a short sip and putting it back down, lifting my own little wooden stick and stirring it.

  “I’ve not spoken with him, but he left a message.”

  “And you didn’t call him back?” James sounded surprised.

  “I didn’t – don’t – know what to say to him. I don’t know what I want to do at all. I don’t know whether to kill him or just beg him to come home.”

  James shrugged his shoulders.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked, thinking of the pint-and-bad-word-and-best-friends-by-closing scenario.

  “No. I did speak to him though. He is sorry.”

  “Sorry mightn’t be enough – not for me.” I felt the tears spring to my eyes and I was mortified. Glancing down I almost jumped out of my skin when I felt James’ hand on mine. Was it wrong to feel it comforting? Was it wrong for it to send a shiver of . . . something . . . through me? It could be that it was just the warmth and weight of his hand – a man’s hand – on mine, but I felt myself inhale sharply and look back at him.

  “I can’t imagine what you are going through,” he said. “To trust someone, to be in love with someone . . .”

  I allowed his words to wash over me – to soothe me. It wasn’t as if he was doing a Cara and telling me that Mark was a shithead. He wasn’t doing anIvy and telling me I had to pull myself together. He wasn’t doing a Daddy and looking personally wounded and haunted – as if all this was bringing back horrible memories for him. He wasn’t doing a Rose and telling me that if you love someone you should let them go, or that everything happens for a reason or that God never closes a door without opening a window. He was just holding my hand and sympathising and not trying to push me one way or another.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

  “Go with your gut. Kitty, you know that I love Mark as a brother, but go with your gut. Don’t let him hurt you again. Make sure you can trust him. You’re worth more than that.”

  I looked at him again and back to my hand where I realised his hand still rested – and it still felt okay. I looked at him and saw the words forming in his mouth. A tiny voice in my head screamed ‘Don’t!’ but the bigger part of me – the part that liked the warmth of his hand on mine willed him to say it.

  “If you were mine,” he said, “I would never have hurt you like this. I wouldn’t even look at another woman, never mind sleep with her. I’d never leave – never run away. I’d be proud to come home every night. I told Mark as much. I told him that he was a lucky bastard. I told him that before you were married, when the pre-wedding jitters kicked in. I told him you were amazing and I told him he was lucky to have you. Kitty, you know that, don’t you?”

  I looked at him, his eyes wide and sincere. As the words washed over me, as the compliments sank in, my heart sank with them.

  When he told Mark.

  When Mark had pre-wedding jitters.

  When James had to tell him to marry me.

  When Mark wasn’t sure.

  When he didn’t talk to me.

  When he didn’t let me know how he was feeling.

  Maybe it had all been a lie all along. I looked into James’ eyes again – and I realised that nothing made sense any more except for that one moment with him, there, and his hand over mine and him telling me I was amazing. I didn’t know what to believe about anything else in my life any more – but I knew I could believe that James thought I was amazing.

  And nothing else mattered.

  Chapter twenty

  Erin

  “Don’t be a Dramatic Drawers,” Paddy teased as I hit print and closed down my laptop.

  “Why not?” I huffed, pulling my hair back from my face and sighing.

  “Because it’s not that big of a deal.”

  “So walking in, sitting this article on Gr
ace’s desk and declaring: ‘Here’s your pound of flesh,’ would be OTT then?”

  He laughed, ruffled my hair and said that yes, it probably would be a bit of an overreaction.Paddy hadn’t been a bit bothered if I told the story of Ian and my missed marriage. He had laughed it off as no big deal.

  Seeing him react in such a light-hearted way made me wonder if I was completely mental – that the fact dredging up memories made me uneasy meant that I was faulty in some way.

  “It’s the past,” he said simply. “We are all about the future. So what if they want the story of the wedding that never was?”

  “But, well, it’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” I had said, thinking of our readership discovering how I was jilted at the altar – finding out I wasn’t getting married via a message from a rather flustered registrar who couldn’t quite look me in the eye.

  “Depends on how you write it,” he said, holding me close. “It could be the most humiliating moment of your life or it could be your luckiest escape. After all, if he hadn’t dumped you, you would never have allowed yourself to fall madly in love with me and we wouldn’t be getting married and spending all this lovely quality time together planning our own Big Day and our own future.”

  He was right, of course. But I felt like an extra layer of shame and privacy was being stripped away as I battered the keyboard on the laptop and wrote about Ian and how he broke my heart and made me vow never to trust anyone ever, ever, ever again.