I’m also, I notice as I glance in the mirror, in danger of sweating off my layer of Jolen bleach. Obviously there are more important concerns than that at the moment.
“But is that it, Bella?” The panic in Dev’s voice is mounting. “Has she actually stopped loving me? Because she didn’t say anything about that when she phoned last week to tell me she was calling off the wedding. She just kept going around and around in circles, saying all this peculiar stuff about how she didn’t deserve to be married.”
“Didn’t deserve it?”
“Yes! Married to anyone at all, I got the impression. She never said anything about it being specific to marrying me … Oh, God.” He lets out a sudden, extremely bitter laugh. “I’ve been taken in by the it’s not you, it’s me excuse, haven’t I?”
“No, Dev, no!” I say, nowhere near as convincingly as I’d like to.
But I’m distracted. I’m bothered by the reason Polly has given Dev for calling off the wedding.
I mean, I suppose it’s pretty obvious, now that I come to think of it, that she was never going to come right out and tell him she’d just stopped loving him. I’ve known people who are capable of that level of brutal honesty—my Evil Ex among them—and Polly just isn’t one of them. But still. Not deserving to be married is a weirdly specific reason to give. It’s absolutely not the bland, catch-all, it’s not you, it’s me line that Dev now thinks it is. The line that, I happen to know, Polly has been perfectly happy to trot out to her boyfriends in the past when she’s suddenly balked at the idea of settling down.
Actually, come to think of it, why didn’t she just tell him she was reluctant to settle down? Run with the “cold feet” thing that Dev, if our conversation at the airport is anything to go by, was already primed to accept? If you want to let someone down kindly, those are the kind of well-trodden paths you head down.
But Polly didn’t tell Dev she was getting cold feet. She didn’t say it’s not you, it’s me. She told him she didn’t deserve to be married.
“Bella? Are you still there? You’ve gone silent.”
“Yes, sorry, I’m still here. Look, honestly, Dev, I don’t think you’ve been taken in by any excuse. I think Polly is … I think she’s in a very strange place right now. And I don’t just mean Clapham!”
“Clapham?” Dev sounds confused by my joke. “Why would she be in Clapham? She’s staying with you, isn’t she?”
“No, Dev, she’s not staying with me. She’s moved into a flat. I assumed you knew.”
“How would I know, Bella? She won’t return a single one of my calls. She doesn’t reply to any of my texts. I’ve emailed and emailed again and again, but I get nothing back.” His voice rises. He’s sounding less and less like the calm Dr. Dev I know. “What in God’s name makes you think she’d have told me she was moving into her own flat? Setting up on her own, permanently. Starting to build a life without me …” He breaks off. There’s silence for a moment. Then he says, in a tone that’s calmer but so deeply weary that it exhausts me just to listen to it, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“You’re not. It’s fine. And if it helps at all, I don’t think she is setting up anything permanent. It’s just a rental. Some friend-of-a-friend’s place.”
“Oh? Do you know which friend?”
“Um, hang on … it might have been a Laura …”
“Not a Julia?”
“No. Definitely not a Julia. Why?”
“She’s this new friend of Polly’s. Well, I assume she’s a new friend. Polly was always pretty cagey about her. I wouldn’t even know she existed, actually, if it weren’t for the fact that she called Polly’s phone one day when Poll had dashed out for a bottle of milk. She got off the phone really fast when I answered it.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of a Julia. But then Polly has a tendency to be cagey about some of her close friends.” I feel myself bristle, years after it should really matter anymore, about the number of times Polly would clam up if I so much as asked a question about Grace—what she might like to eat when she came over, or whether she was enjoying a particular GCSE subject. Banal stuff, for God’s sake. I was hardly asking if she’d slept with her new boyfriend, or whether she was a week late with her period. “Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was a Laura. Maybe a Lauren. Either way, it’s just a temporary rental. I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
“That’s good. I don’t want the list of stuff I’m worrying about to get all that much longer.” He lets out a laugh that turns, halfway through, into a sigh. “Look, I should get going, Bella. I have tons of work to be getting on with.”
“Sure.” I should get going, too, let’s face it, before my Jolen bleach turns my upper lip orange. Even worse than Jamie’s turning up to find a Salvador Dalí look-alike would be his turning up to find some kind of mutant Bozo the Clown. “But I’m so glad you called, Dev. It was really great to talk to you. And I promise, I’ll do everything I possibly can to sort out this blip with you and Polly.”
He laughs again, sounding a tiny bit more like himself this time. “You’re calling it a blip?”
“Yes. A big blip, admittedly. But nothing that can’t be … de-blipped.”
“Oh, Bella. That’s what I’ve always loved about you. You make Moses demanding the parting of the Red Sea look a bit wishy-washy and in need of some willpower.”
Odd, then, that I feel like I wield absolutely no influence whatsoever over my boyfriend.
“Look, I’ll try to talk to Polly,” I tell him. “Find out anything I can about what’s really going on, OK?”
“I suppose if she’ll talk to anyone, she’ll talk to you,” he says. “Or Grace, I suppose. Maybe you could get her to try?”
“Oh, I’m sure I can get somewhere without needing Grace’s input! I’ll call you soon, Dev, as soon as I’ve had a proper chance to talk to Polly.”
“Thanks, Bells. You’re a good friend.”
“Don’t be silly. That’s what future sisters-in-law are for.”
I have a moment of panic, as I end the call and put my phone down, that maybe I’ve just given Dev far too much hope.
And then I have another moment of far, far worse panic when the (unlocked) bathroom door suddenly opens and Gorilla Man takes a step through it.
I still have a thick layer of white cream bleach above my upper lip.
I’m too shocked to yelp, and he’s too shocked—or appalled?—to speak.
We just stare at each other in a horrible freeze-frame for what feels like about three and a half years but which I suppose is only about three and a half seconds. Then he kind of croaks for air and backs out the door, shutting it firmly and deliberately behind him.
This, perhaps, is another reason why Catherine Zeta-Jones feels so strongly about the separate bathrooms.
I spend a moment or so contemplating suicide, but my razor-blade is too dull and I don’t think you get very far poisoning yourself with the dregs of a bottle of Aussie Three-Minute Miracle Conditioner. So there’s nothing for it but to wash off my Jolen, clamber into the shower, shampoo and condition my hair, pull on my dressing gown again and head out of the bathroom, hoping and praying that Gorilla Man has at least had the sense to sneak back to the living room while I make my Walk of Shame back to the bedroom.
He hasn’t. He’s standing right here, in the hallway, in what looks like the start of an orderly queue.
“Sorry ’bout that,” he mumbles, not quite looking me in the eye.
“It’s all right. My fault.” I’m not looking him in the eye either. “I forgot to lock it. I didn’t know you were even in. Or that you wanted to use the bathroom.”
“Sorry. Still,” he says, just as I start to shuffle sideways past him toward my bedroom, “it makes us even, at least.”
“What?”
“Well, you’ve seen me naked. I’ve seen you de-fuzzing.”
“I was not de-fuzzing!” How hairy, exactly, does he think I am? And anyway, who’s he to judge?
“That was bleach, as a matter of fact … Look, you just go ahead and use the bathroom. There should still be hot water, if it’s a shower you were after. Or maybe it’s something else you were planning to do …” Christ, woman, what’s wrong with you? Haven’t the last fifteen minutes been mortifying enough? Do you have to discuss the reason for his bathroom visit as well? “Well, anyway, um, good luck!” I say, which is the only thing that springs to mind right now.
I dart for the bedroom, shut the door, and consider bracing myself against it for a moment. Then I realize that this is probably unnecessary.
I mean, he’s not going to be angling for any more sneak peeks of me, for crying out loud. The vision of me in all my Jolen’d glory will probably haunt him for many months to come.
Grace
Thursday, November 26
I’m just trying to talk Hector into his pajamas—a task that requires the patience of Job, the grit of the Spartans, and the negotiating skills of the entire diplomatic corps of the United Nations—when Charlie calls on my mobile.
He must want to tell me he’ll be late (again) tonight.
“Hon? It’s me,” he barks at me the moment I pick up. “What are you doing?”
“Getting the boys into bed. Or rather, trying to get them into bed. Hector’s having a bit of a moment on the pajama front, but I think we’re—”
“I need you to do something important,” he interrupts in the tone of a man who doesn’t think putting his sons to bed, pajama-clad or otherwise, is of any importance in the slightest. “I’ve left a flash drive somewhere at home, and it has some documents on it that I need to send to New York. Can you find it and bring it into the office?”
“Now? But I’m …”
“Getting the boys into bed. Yes, you’ve said. But it’s too late for me to have a courier come and pick it up. And I need it urgently. You’ll have to get Kitty to come over and babysit for an hour.”
I sigh. There’s just no point in arguing. “All right. If it’s urgent, it’s urgent. Now, a flash drive … do you mean one of those little stick things?”
“No, Grace, I mean a flash drive. You may mean one of those little stick things. I left it on the kitchen table. Or maybe on the shelf by the front door. Look, you’ll just have to find it as fast as you can, then jump on the tube and bring it to me at the office, OK? Just ask the security guard to call up to me when you get here, and I’ll come down.”
“All right, but you need to give me time to get Kitty over here, if she’s even available …”
But I’m talking to dead air. He’s already gone.
Kitty, thank God, is not only available but also comes over from next door within three minutes of my calling her. She flaps away my promises of generous tips and settles down to read Mr Gum books to the boys while I run around like a headless chicken trying to find Charlie’s bloody stick thing. Sorry—his bloody flash drive. It appears, eventually, next to the coffee mug he left on the console table this morning, and I sling it into my handbag, pull my coat on, and head for the tube station.
I suppose, given that I’m going to Charlie’s office, that it’s a golden opportunity to do this … well, this thing I’d planned.
Back when I was an impoverished art student—actually, it was all the way back when I was a teenager that I first started doing this—I always used to save money on birthday, Christmas, and thank-you cards by making them for people. Drawing them for people, in fact. It’s honestly a lot less crappy than it sounds. I’d make them really personal, you see, with all kinds of little details or in-jokes that meant something to whomever I was giving it to. So for Polly, I’d always draw a card featuring her in a clinch with whichever indie rocker or movie star she was wildly in love with at the time. For my parents, cards picturing them brandishing rakes or pruning shears in whatever stately home garden they’d been to visit most recently. And everyone always loved them. Well, almost always. I did one for Bella, just once (on her engagement to her awful ex-fiancé, Christian), and because I was a bit stumped about the kind of thing either of them was really interested in, I just took the safe route and drew a little cartoon of both of them surrounded by all different kinds of wedding cake. I thought it was a nice little nod to Bella’s foodie-ism. Bella thought, I’m fairly sure, that I was calling her a big fat glutton.
Anyway, I haven’t done any cards this way for years, ever since I was drawing one to send to Charlie’s parents for Thanksgiving (them chasing a comedy turkey around their kitchen with the big electric carving knife we’d bought them the previous Christmas) and Charlie pulled a face and said, “Do you have some ethical objection against spending money at Hallmark, hon? I mean, we can afford to buy greeting cards, you know!”
Which is why I couldn’t really explain to you what made me sit down yesterday morning and start making one of my cards for Saad Amar.
I wanted to thank him for the lunch, you see, and every time I started composing a text message it just came out sounding really stilted and uptight. And after the mortification of earlier in the week, when I misconstrued ordinary friendliness for a terrifying sexual come-on, I don’t want him to think I’m any more uptight than he already does.
And … I don’t know. After our conversation at Locanda Locatelli, and him taking such a polite interest in my opinions about art, I suppose I’ve been thinking more about my long-dormant artistic skills than I have in a while. And maybe I might be just a little bit keen to show a powerful, successful man like Saad that I’m more than just a boring stay-at-home mother. That I’m not just a St. Martin’s Miranda.
Whatever the reason, anyway, I spent a very pleasant couple of hours yesterday morning sketching away with an ancient charcoal pencil I unearthed from the back of a desk drawer in the spare bedroom. And I’m really chuffed with the result. After a bit of a hunt on Google Image, I’ve managed to do a recognizable approximation of the Van Gogh picture Saad was so tragically beaten out for at auction. What I’ve drawn, in Van Gogh–esque swirly lines on the front of a blank folded card, is the lying-down cow, slurping from a Starbucks coffee cup and brandishing, in one hoof, a huge banana muffin. (This is meant to be a reference to our first, Starbucks-based, meeting; I hope to God that Saad understands the joke, otherwise he’ll just think I have an extremely poor understanding of Van Gogh and a really bonkers idea of what goes on in the average farmyard.)
Inside I’ve written, Dear Mr. Amar, Thanks for lunch on Monday. Best wishes, Grace Costello.
I know. And even this anodyne message took me ages, and several dry runs on scraps of paper. I’m not half as adept with words, it turns out, as I am with my charcoal pencil. But I wanted to keep it cool and impersonal.
As cool and impersonal as a cute, in-jokey homemade card can be, that is.
On second thought, maybe I won’t send it to him. I mean, now that I’m looking at it again, I realize how silly and over the top it looks. I mean, it was just a lunch, for God’s sake. I’ve already thanked him in person.
On the other hand, there’s a part of me—a new, reckless part of me—that wants to let him have the card. Wants to show off, perhaps, what a decent job I can still do on the drawing front. And then there’s my first impulse, the thing that made me sit down to start the card in the first place, my burning desire to let him know I’m more than just a (not very good) housewife.
On the other hand, I don’t want him to think that what I am is a crazy stalker.
On the other hand …
I’m still hotly locked in debate with myself when I reach the glass doors of MMA Capital’s smart Berkeley Square office building.
It’s a big, modern structure, home to several floors’ worth of different companies, as well as MMA. There must be a thousand people working here, at least. But as it’s well after normal work hours by now, the place has an emptied-out feel. A couple of workers pushing vacuum cleaners around the pale beige lobby floor. A security guard rather than a glam receptionist sitting at the long desk in front of the escalators. A f
ew suited-up men and even fewer women coming down the escalators, looking keen to get the evening commute out of the way and get home. Or even keener, perhaps, seeing as it’s a Thursday night, to get to the pub, or out to dinner with their friends. Even though it’s been years since I had a job—and not even a proper job, just badly paid holiday temp jobs to supplement my student loan—I fondly remember the buzz of Thursday nights. Half of the working population of London out and about, it seemed, especially on hot summer evenings or like now, in the run-up to Christmas. Everyone determined to have their hangover on the boss’s time on Friday, rather than ruin their precious Saturday mornings at home.
It makes me miss work. Even boring, creativity-sapping temp work.
I approach the guard, who is overweight and irritable-looking, and making me nervous before I’ve even opened my mouth. “Hi, sorry to bother you.” I venture a smile. He doesn’t. “Um, my husband works here, and he’s just asked me to bring him a computer stick thi … a flash drive. Could you possibly call up to his office and let him know I’m here?”
The guard picks up his phone. “Name?”
“Grace Costello.”
“His name.”
“Oh, sorry, yes. Charlie Costello. He works at MMA Capital.”
“Extension number?”
“God, sorry, I’ve no idea. I don’t disturb him at work very often …”
With much sighing and rolling of eyes, he eventually procures the right number, then bashes the digits into his phone with a heavy finger.
We wait for what must be ten or eleven rings.
The guard hangs up. “He’s not there.”
“Oh. But he must be. I mean, he’s waiting for me. He needs the flash drive urgently.”
The guard shrugs, with a none-of-my-concern look.
“Well, maybe he’s just gone to the loo or something. Could you try again in a minute?”
We wait a long, rather painful minute, at the end of which the guard picks up the phone and dials Charlie’s extension again. This time we wait for fifteen, sixteen rings. Still no answer.
There Goes the Bride Page 12